Best known for her role in the WWI Lajta Monitor currently has a dual role as the flagship of the HDF 1st Honvéd Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Warship Battalion and as a living museum.

The ship’s inauguration ceremony was held on the River Danube by the Parliament Building on 20th August. According to traditions Lajta Monitor was christened by the wife of the Minister of Defence, Szilvia Stiber. Ceremonial speeches were given by the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Hungary, Dr Csaba Hende and Lieutenant General Director of the Institute and Museum of Military History Dr József Holló.

Laita was launched at the Danube Flotilla in 1872. She fought on the River Sava and took part in the first occupation of Belgrade. On 3rd October 1914 she outfought the French batteries near Szabács but her turret was bumped and the soldiers serving there were all killed in action. In 1894 she was re-armed and re-engined. In 1914-1918 she fought WWI and then in 1919 during the Hungarian Soviet Republic she took part in the fights against the “Reds”. In 1920 after the Trianon treaty the ship was sold at an auction, disarmed and used for civil tasks. From 1922 on she worked as an elevator ship named Lajos József. Her career was broken for the second time after the 1946 nationalization. She was re-named FK-201 and used as a dredger. The vessel received a protected status by the Museum of Military History in 1993. The nearly 130-year-old ship has been revamped by the Institute and Museum of Military History with the help of European Union funding. Lajta Monitor Museum Ship, which is a unique technical monument of international importance well-known to historians researching warships, has been renovated by the “Zoltán Gőzös” charitable foundation commissioned by the Institute and Museum of Military History. Additional organisations participating in the reconstruction and the re-inauguration: Hungarian National Navigation Association, Europe Group of Companies, TIT Society for the History of Navigation, Modelling and the Preservation of Traditions and the Imperial and Royal Danube Flotilla Society for the Preservation of Traditions.

A monitor was a type of low body, heavily ironclad warship driven by steam engine, which was equipped with a rotating turret. The first monitor in the world, the USS MONITOR, was built in the United States in 1862. Since this warship design proved to work very well, it has spread all over the world: around 200 monitors were built until 1965, of which only 7 exist today, wholly or partially. One of them is our Lajta. It is unique in that this is the only representative of the version where the steering platform is located on top of the turret.

Since the 20th August ceremonial inauguration the ship has been open to the public.