HMS Vindictive (1897)

HMS Vindictive was a British protected cruiser of the Arrogant class built at Chatham Dockyard. She was launched on 9 December 1897 and completed in 1899.

She served with the Mediterranean Squadron in 1901.

She was refitted in 1909-10 for service in the 3rd Division of the Home Fleet. In March 1912 she became a tender to the training establishment HMS Vernon. Obsolescent by the outbreak of World War I, in August 1914 she was assigned to the 9th Cruiser Squadron and captured the German merchantmen Schlesien and Slawentzitz on 7 August and 8 September respectively. In 1915 she was stationed on the southeast coast of South America. From 1916 to late 1917 she served in the White Sea.

Early in 1918 she was fitted out for the Zeebrugge Raid. Most of her guns were replaced by howitzers, flame-throwers and mortars. On 23 April 1918 she was in fierce action at Zeebrugge when she went alongside the Mole, and her upperworks were badly damaged by gunfire, her Captain, Alfred Carpenter was awarded a Victoria Cross for his actions during the raid. This event was famously painted by Charles de Lacy, the painting hangs in the Britannia Royal Naval College.

She was sunk as a blockship at Ostend during the Second Ostend Raid on 10 May 1918. The wreck was raised on 16 August 1920 and subsequently broken up. The bow section has been preserved in Ostend harbour serving as a memorial. One of Vindictive's 7.5-inch howitzers was acquired and preserved by the Imperial War Museum.

The Zeebrugge and Ostend Raids, with their associated crop of VCs, had given the ship late celebrity and her name was perpetuated by renaming the aircraft carrier HMS Cavendish, which was under construction, as HMS Vindictive (1918).