Naval/Maritime History 17th of April - Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1836 – Launch of French Néréide, a 52-gun frigate of the French Navy.


The Néréide was a 52-gun frigate of the French Navy. She took part in the Battle of Veracruz soon after her commissioning.



As a transport, she took part in the Crimean War.

She was eventually decommissioned in 1887, and struck in 1896.




Portrait of Artémise by François Roux

Artémise class (52-gun type, 1826 design by Jean-Baptiste Hubert):

Artémise, (launched 1828 at Lorient) – deleted 3 October 1840.
Andromède, (launched 5 April 1833 at Lorient) – deleted 24 October 1860.
Néréide, (launched 17 February 1836 at Lorient) – deleted 30 December 1887.
Gloire, (launched 1837 at Rochefort) – wrecked 10 August 1847 off Korea.
Cléopâtre, (launched 23 April 1838 at Saint-Servan) – deleted 31 December 1864.
Danaé, (launched 23 May 1838 at Saint-Servan) – fitted as steam frigate 1857 – deleted 18 January 1878.
Virginie, (launched 25 April 1842 at Rochefort) – deleted 13 May 1881.
Circé, (launched 15 October 1860 at Rochefort as a steam frigate) – deleted 22 July 1872.
Hermione, (launched 16 August 1860 at Brest as a steam frigate) – deleted 11 May 1877.
Junon, (launched 28 January 1861 at Brest as a steam frigate) – deleted 24 March 1872.
Flore, (launched 27 February 1869 at Rochefort as a steam frigate) – deleted 18 October 1886.





Diorama of Artémise carreening, on display at the Musée national de la Marine


Gloire leading the French line of battle at the Battle of Veracruz (detail of a painting by Horace Vernet).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Néréide_(1836)

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1855 – Launch of French Bretagne, a fast 130-gun three-decker of the French Navy, designed by engineer Jules Marielle.


The Bretagne was a fast 130-gun three-decker of the French Navy, designed by engineer Jules Marielle. Built as a new capital ship meant to improve upon the very successful Océan class while avoiding the weaknesses found on Valmy, she retained most of the Océan design but ended up incorporating the philosophy of "fast ship of the line" pioneered by Napoléon, with a rounded stern and a two-cylinder, 8-boiler steam engine allowing her a speed of 13.5 knots. The propeller could be retracted to streamline the hull when sailing under sail only.




She was launched in 1855 and was too late to take part in the Crimean War. She was decommissioned in 1865, becoming a schoolship for boys and sailors in Brest. Struck from the Navy lists in 1880, she was broken up the same year.

Design and construction
Bretagne was the offspring of an attempt to improve upon the Océan class by increasing the beam from 16.24 to 16.64 metres.

The 1849 budget initially allowed for construction of a new three-decker capital ship named Terrible in Brest, but the ship was cancelled in 1848 to slim down expenses. The 1850 budget then scheduled two ships, named Bretagne and Desaix (in honour of Louis Desaix), to be built in Brest and Cherbourg respectively; the order was placed on 15 March 1851. The mediocre performances of Valmy during her trials led to the Navy shedding the capital ship design of the Commission de Paris and start back from Sané's Océan design, with only incremental modifications. In late 1851, engineers De Gasté, responsible for Bretagne, and Forquenot, for Desaix, decided on a reduction of the tumblehome by 20 centimetres and on a slight increase of the beam — alterations thought safe, as the two last ships of the Océan design, Ville de Paris and Louis-XIV, had had their tumblehome reduced by 23 centimetres with no ill effect. An initial suggestion to fit the ships with 160 shp steam engines allowing for a speed of 4,5 knots was declined as to minimise departures from Sané's design.


Bretagne under construction in Brest arsenal. Engraving in L'Illustration.

Bretagne was laid down on 4 August 1851 and Desaix on 27 Octobre. On 17 June 1852, the Ministry of the Navy suspended construction and required that the ships be lengthened by 3.43 metres and that 540 shp steam engines be incorporated. Brest responded to the requirements in September 1852, but at the same point, Dupuy de Lôme's fast ship of the line Napoléon was completing her trials, exhibiting such outstanding performances that on 10 September 1852 the Ministry cancelled the Bretagne class and ordered existing sailing ships to be converted to steamers, using as many existing parts as possible. At this point, the keel, bow and aft of Bretagnehad been erected, amounting to the third of the 24 construction steps defined by regulations in ship construction; she was taken apart and rebuilt according to Marielle's plans, which had been approved in December 1852. At the same time, the order for the steam engine was placed. Desaix, whose keel was only beginning to be laid, was cancelled altogether and Arcole, second ship of the Algésiras type, the production series of the Napoléon design, was started instead.

Launching of Bretagne took place on 17 February 1855; in spite of a 2 °C, snow and strong wind, a large populace gathered to watch the operation.

The new design gave a length of 81 metres and a beam of 18.08; this made Bretagne 8 metres longer and 2 metres wider than Napoléon. With a draught of 8.35 metre, the ship had a volume of just under 20 000 m³. The engine, provided by the Indret workshop, occupied a 30-metre long compartment and was designed for 1200 shp but could develop up to 3327 shp in peak power from eight boilers, each with six furnaces. Though direct transmission by an axis, it moved a four-blade, 6.3-metre propeller which could be retracted into a vertical shaft, only 1.3 metre wide thanks to the geometry of the blades. The ship carried 590 tonnes of coal, giving her an autonomy of 14 days at 10 knots, and 6 days at her top speed of 14 knots. With three month worth of food for the 1200-man complement, and one month worth fresh water completed by a distillation device to desalinate seawater, she could stay at sea for 40 days.

The main battery of Bretagne used 36-pounder long guns, the heaviest available calibre, instead of the more modern 30-pounder long gun on which other ships standardised their armament. The aft of the ship was round and featured gun ports, like on Napoléon on her successors. Although she carried 130 guns of various calibres, Bretagne featured no less than 180 gun ports; this allowed the crew to reinforce the artillery on one arc if needed and time permitting, such as before a shore bombardment, and fire up to 80 guns on one target.

The figurehead figured the prophet Veleda, an important character in the folklore of Bretagne, with a sickle in hand and a wearing an oak leaf crown. The transom featured the coat of arms of Bretagne, carried by two geniī, and the name of the ship underneath. The ship was painted in black, with white stripes along the level of the gunports and copper-red paint underwater.



As completed, Bretagne proved much heavier than anticipated: designed to displace 6466 tonnes for an 8.20-metre draught, she actually displaced 6873, yielding a 9-metre draught that lowered the lower battery to only 1.45 above water, instead of the intended 1.75 metres.


Daguerreotype of Bretagne in Brest, circa 1860

The ultimate increase in French capital ship design, Bretagne increased the number of heavy guns on the lower battery to 18 on each side, from the 15 of the Bretagne of 1766 and 16 on the Océans. In the original design, half of these guns were 36-pounder long guns, as to maximise firepower at the price of standardisation on 30-pounder long guns that typically prevailed at the time, the other half being 60-pounder Paixhans guns. The middle deck fielded 18 30-pounder short guns and another 18 Paixhans guns of 60 pounds. The upper battery was armed with 38 30-pounder howitzers. Two 50-pounders and 18 30-pounder caronades complemented the armament on the deck. This gave Bretagne a broadside of 2924 pounds (1431 kilogrammes), compared to the 2400 of the original Océan design.

In 1869, after the ship became a school ship for the École Navale, this armament was replaced with 2 rifled 19 cm guns on the lower deck; 16 30-pounder guns, 4 riffled 16-centimetre guns of the 1864 pattern, 8 riffled 16-centimetre guns modified after the 1860 or the 1862 pattern, 2 muzzle-loading 16-centimetre riffled guns, and 2 14-centimetre guns on the middle battery; and 2 bronze 12-centimetre guns on the deck.

Operational history
Completed two years after her British homologue HMS Duke of Wellington, Bretagne became the most powerful warship in the world, but commissioned too late to effectively take part in the Crimean War, which was almost over after the fall of Kinburn in October 1855. Appointed flagship of the Toulon squadron in January 1856, she sailed to the Black Sea to serve during the last months of the conflict, which came to an end in July, and helped return the French expeditionary corps back to France. She was then part of the training squadron in Toulon, cruising between Sardinia and Spain.


Bretagne saluting Queen Victoria in Cherbourg. Painting by Léon Morel-Fatio.

Bretagne took part in the naval parade given in honour of Queen Victoria by Napoléon III in Cherbourg Roads on 5 August 1858. The French Emperor intended to prove to the British that the recent improvements to Cherbourg military harbour were not meant as a threat to Great Britain, and invited the British monarch, Prince Albert and a large British delegation to visit the installations, as a token of good faith. The visit was counter-productive, as the display of power of the French fleet, compounded by bouts of diplomatic clumsiness such as inaugurating an equestrian statue of Napoléon I, irritated and worried the British. After the British delegation departed in haste, Bretagne took the French Emperor and Empress aboard and ferried them to Brest for the next leg of their official tour.

Bretagne served as a troopship during the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859, and a few months later the led the bombing of Tétouan forts in Morocco, where a cannonball hit her hull. In 1860, she sailed to Napoli for the funeral of Prince Jérôme Napoléon. She then sailed to Gaeta in October, under Admiral Adelbert Lebarbier de Tinan, to oppose a Sardinian attack against Napolitan forces, leading to the Battle of Garigliano. She spend most of 1861 ferrying French troops deployed in Syria back to France, before returning to Toulon.

In 1865, Bretagne was transformed into a schoolship for boys and sailors, leading to the removal of her engine. In 1869, the artillery was replaced by an assortment of various types of guns for didactic purpose. The 30-gun corvette Galathée served as her tender. On 28 January 1880, Bretagne was struck for the Navy lists and renamed to Ville de Bordeaux, exchanging her name and equipment with Ville de Bordeaux, and was towed to Landévennec to be broken up.







https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Bretagne_(1855)

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1864 - USS Housatonic sank by torpedo
The H. L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.


USS Housatonic was a screw sloop-of-war of the United States Navy, gaining its namesake from the Housatonic River of New England.

Housatonic was launched on 20 November 1861, by the Boston Navy Yard at Charlestown, Massachusetts, sponsored by Miss Jane Coffin Colby and Miss Susan Paters Hudson; and commissioned there on 29 August 1862, with Commander William Rogers Taylor in command. Housatonic was one of four sister ships which included USS Adirondack, USS Ossipee, and USS Juniata. Housatonic is recognized as being the first ship sunk in combat by a submarine when she was attacked and sunk by H.L. Hunley in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.



The Sinking of USS Housatonic on 17 February 1864 during the American Civil War was an important turning point in naval warfare. The Confederate States Navy submarine, H.L. Hunley made her first and only attack on a Union Navy warship when she staged a clandestine night attack on the USS Housatonic in Charleston harbor. The Hunley approached just under the surface, avoiding detection until the last moments, then embedded and remotely detonated a spar torpedo that rapidly sank the 1,240 long tons (1,260 t) sloop-of-war with the loss of five Union sailors. The Hunley became renowned as the first submarine to successfully sink an enemy vessel in combat, and was the direct progenitor of what would eventually become international submarine warfare, although the victory was Pyrrhic and short-lived, since the submarine did not survive the attack and was lost with all eight Confederate crewmen.

Sinking
On the evening of 17 February 1864, the Hunley made her first mission against an enemy vessel during the American Civil War. Armed with a spar torpedo, mounted to a rod extending out from her bow, the Hunley's mission was to lift the blockade of Charleston, South Carolina by destroying the sloop-of-war USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor.


USS Housatonic

Housatonic was a 1,240 long tons (1,260 t) vessel with an armament of twelve large cannons, stationed at the entrance of Charleston Harbor roughly five miles off the coast. Housatonic was commanded by Captain Charles W. Pickering and had a crew of 150 men. The Hunley began her approach at about 8:45 pm, commanded by First Lieutenant George E. Dixon and crewed by seven volunteers.

Accounts differ about the initial approach; what is known is that the Hunley was spotted just before embedding her torpedo into Housatonic's hull. Official accounts say Housatonic was unable to fire a broadside at Hunley, and hit her with only small arms fire. The Hunleyattached her explosive to Housatonic's side before reversing and setting a course for home.

A few moments later the torpedo detonated and sank the sloop-of-war. First-hand reports say no explosion was heard by the crew of Housatonic, who immediately began climbing the rigging or entering life boats as the sloop began to sink. Within five minutes, Housatonic was partially underwater. Hunley thus achieved the first sinking of a warship in combat via submarine.


1864 painting of H. L. Hunley by Conrad Wise Chapman

Aftermath
Five men - two officers and three crewmen - went down with their ship while an unknown number of Union Navy sailors were injured. The survivors were later rescued by other elements of the Charleston blockading force. Hunley won her first victory, but was lost at sea the same night while returning home to Sullivan's Island.

It was originally thought that the Hunley was sunk as the result of her own torpedo exploding, but some claim that she survived as long as an hour after destroying the Housatonic. Support for the argument of Hunley's brief survival is a report by the commander of Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island that prearranged signals from the sub were observed, and answered; he did not say what the signal was. Further support comes from the testimony of a lookout on the sunken Housatonic, who reported seeing a "blue light" from his perch in the sunken ship's rigging. There was also a post-war claim that two "blue lights" were the prearranged signal between the sub and Fort Moultrie. "Blue light" at the time of the Civil War was a pyrotechnic signal[5] in long use by the US Navy. Modern claims in published literature on the Hunley have repeatedly and mistakenly been that the "blue light" was a blue lantern, when in fact no blue lantern was found on the recovered Hunley,[7] and period dictionaries and military manuals confirm the 1864 use and meaning of "blue light."

This was the last time the Hunley was heard from, until her recovery from the waters off Charleston, SC. While returning to her naval station Hunley sank for unknown reasons. However, a team of historians managed to examine the submarine's remains, and theorized that a crewman on the Housatonic was able to fire a rifle round into one of the Hunley's viewing ports. A film entitled The Hunley was made about the story of H.L. Hunley and the sinking of the submarine H.L. Hunley.

New evidence announced by archaeologists in 2013 indicates that the Hunley was less than 20 feet (6.1 m) away from the point of detonation – much closer than previously realized – and thus the explosion probably damaged the submarine as well as its target, although it was impossible to tell at the time due to concretion covering the hull.[9][10] Later studies showed that the crew was probably instantly killed through blast injury caused by the close proximity of the torpedo.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunley_(submarine)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Housatonic_(1861)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunley_(submarine)

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1874 – Launch of The CS Faraday, a cable ship built for Siemens Brothers and launched in 1874.


The CS Faraday was a cable ship built for Siemens Brothers and launched in 1874.



Faraday was specially designed for ocean cable-laying by William Siemens in collaboration with his friend William Froude, the pioneer of hull design. Built with bows at each end she had twin screws positioned so that using one screw she could turn in her own length. The two funnels were located to either side to maximise clear deck space. To minimise rolling there were, at Froude's suggestion, enormous twin bilge keels. William's wife Anne launched the ship with the traditional smashing of a bottle of wine.



Faraday spent the next 50 years laying an estimated total of 50,000 nautical miles (93,000 km) of cable for Siemens Brothers, including several transatlantic cables under the supervision of Alexander Siemens. She was sold for scrap in 1924 but proved to be too difficult to break up and was resold to the Anglo-Algiers Coaling Company for use as a coal hulk, being renamed Analcoal. She was moved to Gibraltar in 1931 to store coal and then to become a Royal Navy storeship in Sierra Leone in 1941. She was towed to a South Wales breakers yard for scrap in 1950.

A successor ship, also called Faraday, was built by Siemens Brothers in 1923, but sunk in 1941 following German bombing.


The steam vessel Faraday (PAH0367)


The steam vessel Faraday. Vignettes of Landing Place, Coney Island, America; Cable Works, Charlton, England; Landing Place, Waterville, Ireland; Cable House, Cape Ann, Massachusetts; Landing a Shore End; and Cable House, Dover Bay, Nova Scotia (PAH0368)


The Faraday on the stocks for repair (PAH0369)



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CS_Faraday_(1874)
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/colle...el-311871;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=F

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1886 – Launch of HMS Anson, the last of six Admiral-class ironclad battleships built for the Royal Navy


HMS Anson was the last of six Admiral-class ironclad battleships built for the Royal Navy during the 1880s. The ship was completed, except for her armament, in 1887, but had to wait two years for her guns to be installed. She was assigned to the Channel Fleet in mid-1889 as a flagship for the fleet's second-in-command. Two years later, the passenger ship SS Utopia sank with the loss of 562 lives after colliding with Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar. In mid-1893, Anson was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet, subsequently returning home in 1900 when she was assigned to the Reserve Fleet. She recommissioned for the Home Fleet in early 1901. Anson was paid off three years later and then sold for scrap in 1909.



Design and description
The Admiral class was built in response to French ironclad battleships of the Hoche and Marceau classes. Anson and her sister ship, Camperdown, were enlarged and improved versions of the previous pair of Admirals, Rodney and Howe. The sisters had a length between perpendiculars of 330 feet (100.6 m), a beam of 68 feet 6 inches (20.9 m), and a draught of 27 feet 10 inches (8.5 m) at deep load. They displaced 10,600 long tons (10,800 t) at normal load, some 300 long tons (305 t) heavier than Howe and Rodney and 1,100 long tons (1,118 t) heavier than the first ship of the class, Collingwood.[2] The ships had a complement of 525–536 officers and ratings.



Propulsion
Anson was powered by two 3-cylinder inverted compound-expansion steam engines, each driving one propeller. The Humphreys engines produced a total of 7,500 indicated horsepower (5,600 kW) at normal draught and 11,500 ihp (8,600 kW) with forced draught, using steam provided by a dozen cylindrical boilers.[3] The sisters were designed to reach a speed of 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) at normal draught and Anson reached 17.4 knots (32.2 km/h; 20.0 mph) on her sea trials using forced draught. The ships carried a maximum of 1,200 long tons (1,219 t) of coal that gave 7,200 nmi(13,300 km; 8,300 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

Armament
Unlike Collingwood, the later four Admiral-class ships had a main armament of 30-calibre rifled breech-loading (BL) 13.5-inch (343 mm) Mk II guns, rather than the 12-inch (305 mm) guns in the earlier ship. The four guns were mounted in two twin-gun, pear-shaped barbettes, one forward and one aft of the superstructure. The barbettes were open, without hoods or gun shields, and the guns were fully exposed. The 1,250-pound (570 kg) shells fired by these guns were credited with the ability to penetrate 28 inches (711 mm) of wrought iron at 1,000 yards (910 m) using a charge of 630 pounds (290 kg) of smokeless brown cocoa (SBC). At maximum elevation, the guns had a range of around 11,950 yards (10,930 m) with SBC; later a charge of 187 pounds (85 kg) of cordite was substituted for the SBC which extended the range to about 12,620 yards (11,540 m). There were significant delays in the production of the heavy guns for this ship and her sisters, due to cracking in the innermost layer of the guns, that significantly delayed the delivery of these ships.

The secondary armament of the Admirals consisted of six 26-calibre BL 6-inch (152 mm) Mk IV guns on single mounts positioned on the upper deckamidships, three on each broadside. They fired 100-pound (45 kg) shells that were credited with the ability to penetrate 10.5 inches (267 mm) of wrought iron at 1000 yards. They had a range of 8,830 yards (8,070 m) at an elevation of +15° using prismatic black powder. Beginning around 1895 all of these guns were converted into quick-firing guns (QF) with a much faster rate of fire. Using cordite extended their range to 9,275 yards (8,481 m). For defence against torpedo boats the ships carried a dozen QF 6-pounder (2.2-inch (57 mm)) Hotchkiss guns and 10 QF 3-pdr (1.9-inch (47 mm)) Hotchkiss guns.

They also mounted five 14-inch (356 mm) above-water torpedo tubes, one in the bow and four on the broadside.

Armour
The armour scheme of Anson and Camperdown was virtually identical to that of Collingwood, although the thickness of the armour plate on the barbettes was increased as was the length of the waterlinearmour belt. To accommodate these changes without an increase in draught, these later two ships were lengthened by 5 feet (1.5 m), and had their beam increased by 6 inches over their earlier sisters. The compound armour belt extended across the middle of the ships between the rear of each barbette for a length of 150 feet (45.7 m). It had a total height of 7 feet 6 inches (2.3 m) deep of which 6 feet 6 inches (2.0 m) was below water and 1 foot (0.3 m) above at normal load; at deep load, their draught increased by another 6 inches. The upper 4 feet (1.2 m) of the belt armour was 18 inches (457 mm) thick and the plates tapered to 8 inches (203 mm) at the bottom edge. Lateral bulkheads at the ends of the belt connected it to the barbettes; they were 16 inches (406 mm) thick at main deck level and 7 inches (178 mm) below.

The barbettes ranged in thickness from 14 to 12 inches (356 to 305 mm) with the main ammunition hoists protected by armoured tubes with walls 12 inches thick. The conning towers also had walls of that thickness as well as roofs 2 inches (51 mm) thick. The deck of the central armoured citadel had a thickness of 3 inches (76 mm) and the lower deck was 2.5 inches (64 mm) thick from the ends of the belt to the bow and stern.

Construction and career


Sinking of the SS Utopia by a witness 1891


Wreck of Utopia in Gibraltar Harbour

Anson, named after Admiral and First Lord of the Admiralty, George Anson, 1st Baron Anson, was the sixth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. The ship was laid down at Pembroke Dockyard on 24 April 1883, launched on 17 February 1886 and was delivered at Portsmouth in March 1887, complete except for her main armament, at a cost of £662,582. She was finally commissioned on 28 May 1889 as the flagship of the second-in-command of the Channel Fleet. On 17 March 1891, the passenger steamer SS Utopia was accidentally blown onto the ram of the anchored Anson during a strong gale in the Bay of Gibraltar. 562 of Utopia's passengers and crew and two rescuers from the armoured cruiser Immortalité were killed in the accident. Anson did not report any injuries or damage.

In September 1893, Anson was transferred to the Mediterranean, where she served until January 1900, with a refit at Malta in 1896. She returned home and paid off at Devonport in January 1901, re-commissioning for the newly formed Home Fleet in March of the same year. She served as guard ship at Queensferry under CaptainWilliam Fisher in 1902, and took part in the fleet review held at Spithead on 16 August 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII. In May 1904, Anson finally paid off into reserve, where she remained until she was sold for scrap on 13 July 1909. The ship was sold for £21,200 and subsequently broken up at Upnor.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Anson_(1886)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral-class_ironclad

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1912 - Launch of SMS Prinzregent Luitpold, the fifth and final vessel of the Kaiser class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy.


SMS Prinzregent Luitpold was the fifth and final vessel of the Kaiser class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy. Prinzregent Luitpold's keel was laid in October 1910 at the Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel. She was launched on 17 February 1912 and was commissioned into the navy on 19 August 1913. The ship was equipped with ten 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns in five twin turrets, and had a top speed of 21.7 knots (40.2 km/h; 25.0 mph).



Prinzregent Luitpold was assigned to the III Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of her career; in December 1916, she was transferred to the IV Battle Squadron. Along with her four sister ships, Kaiser, Friedrich der Grosse, Kaiserin, and König Albert, Prinzregent Luitpold participated in all of the major fleet operations of World War I, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916. The ship was also involved in Operation Albion, an amphibious assault on the Russian-held islands in the Gulf of Riga, in late 1917.



After Germany's defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, Prinzregent Luitpold and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow. The ships were disarmed and reduced to skeleton crews while the Allied powers negotiated the final version of the Treaty of Versailles. On 21 June 1919, days before the treaty was signed, the commander of the interned fleet, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, ordered the fleet to be scuttled to ensure that the British would not be able to seize the ships. Prinzregent Luitpold was raised in July 1931 and subsequently broken up for scrap in 1933.


Construction


The shaded areas represent the portions of the ship protected by armor

Prinzregent Luitpold was 172.4 m (565 ft 7 in) long overall and displaced a maximum of 27,000 metric tons (26,570 long tons). She had a beam of 29 m (95 ft 2 in) and a draft of 9.1 m (29 ft 10 in) forward and 8.8 m (28 ft 10 in) aft. She had a crew of 41 officers and 1,043 enlisted men. Prinzregent Luitpold was powered by two sets of Parsons steam turbines, supplied with steam by 14 coal-fired boilers. Unlike her four sisters, the ship was intended to use a diesel engine on the center shaft, but this was not ready by the time work on the ship was completed. The engine was never installed, and so Prinzregent Luitpold was slightly slower than her sisters, which were equipped with a third turbine on the center shaft. The powerplant produced a top speed of 21.7 knots (40.2 km/h; 25.0 mph). She carried 3,600 metric tons (3,540 long tons) of coal, which enabled a maximum range of 7,900 nautical miles (14,630 km; 9,090 mi) at a cruising speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).

Prinzregent Luitpold was armed with a main battery of ten 30.5 cm SK L/50 guns in five twin turrets. The ship dispensed with the inefficient hexagonal turret arrangement of previous German battleships; instead, three of the five turrets were mounted on the centerline, one forward and two of them arranged in a superfiring pair aft. The other two turrets were placed en echelon amidships, such that both could fire on the broadside. The ship was also armed with fourteen 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns in casemates amidships, eight 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns in casemates and four 8.8 cm L/45 anti-aircraft guns. The ship's armament was rounded out by five 50 cm (20 in) torpedo tubes, all mounted in the hull; one was in the bow, and the other four were on the broadside.


Prinzregent Luitpold bombarding Ösel, October 1917



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Prinzregent_Luitpold
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser-class_battleship

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1915 - SMS Bremen ("His Majesty's Ship Bremen"), the lead ship of the seven-vessel Bremen class, sunk by russian mine field


SMS Bremen ("His Majesty's Ship Bremen") was the lead ship of the seven-vessel Bremen class, built by the Imperial German Navy. She was built by the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen, her namesake city. She was laid down in 1902, launched in July 1903, and commissioned into the High Seas Fleet in May 1904. Armed with a main battery of ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two 45 cm (18 in) torpedo tubes, Bremen was capable of a top speed of 22 knots(41 km/h; 25 mph).



Bremen served on the East American Station for the majority of her career, including the ten years before the outbreak of World War I. She returned to Germany in 1914 before the start of the war. At the onset of hostilities, she was attached to the fleet in the Baltic tasked with containing the Russians. In August 1915, she participated in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga, but did not see significant action during the battle. Four months later, on 17 December, she struck two Russian naval mines and sank, with the loss of 250 of her crew.



Construction
Main article: Bremen-class cruiser


10.5 cm gun on board Bremen

Bremen was ordered under the contract name "L"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Bremen#cite_note-provisional_names-2 and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in the ship's namesake city in 1902 and launched on 9 July 1903, after which fitting-out work commenced. She was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 19 May 1904.[1] The ship was 111.1 meters (365 ft) long overall and had a beam of 13.3 m (44 ft) and a draft of 5.53 m (18.1 ft) forward. She displaced 3,797 t (3,737 long tons; 4,185 short tons) at full combat load. Her propulsion system consisted of two triple-expansion engines, designed to give 10,000 indicated horsepower (7,500 kW) for a top speed of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph). The engines were powered by ten coal-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers. Bremen carried up to 860 tonnes (850 long tons) of coal, which gave her a range of 4,270 nautical miles (7,910 km; 4,910 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). She had a crew of 14 officers and 274–287 enlisted men.

The ship was armed with ten 10.5 cm SK L/40 guns in single mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, six were located amidships, three on either side, and two were placed side by side aft. The guns could engage targets out to 12,200 m (40,000 ft). They were supplied with 1,500 rounds of ammunition, for 150 shells per gun. She was also equipped with two 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes with five torpedoes. They were submerged in the hull on the broadside. The ship was protected by an armored deck that was up to 80 mm (3.1 in) thick. The conning tower had 100 mm (3.9 in) thick sides, and the guns were protected by 50 mm (2.0 in) thick shields.

Service history


Bremen in 1907

After her commissioning, Bremen served on the East American station, and she frequently visited the United States. In April 1907, she and the armored cruiserRoon sailed to the United States to participate in the Jamestown Exposition commemorating the anniversary of the arrival of colonists in Chesapeake Bay on 26 April. In addition to the German delegation, the international fleet consisted of warships from Great Britain, Japan, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, and several other nations.

Wilhelm Canaris, the future admiral and head of the Abwehr during World War II, served aboard the ship starting on 2 November 1907, his first assignment after graduating from the naval academy. Bremen conducted a tour of South America in late 1908, beginning in September with a call on Buenos Aires, followed by a stop in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The tour lasted through February 1909, and included stops in Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, and the Dutch Antilles. In March, Bremen returned to the northern Atlantic and visited American ports for the next three months.


Bremen in the United States in 1912

In September–October 1909, Bremen, joined the protected cruisers Victoria Louise and Hertha, and the light cruiser Dresden, which had traveled to the United States to represent Germany during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. In early 1912, Bremen was assigned to a goodwill cruise to the United States, along with the battlecruiser Moltke and the light cruiser Stettin. On 11 May 1912 the ships left Kiel and arrived off Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 30 May. There, they met the US Atlantic Fleet and were greeted by then-President William Howard Taft aboard the presidential yacht USS Mayflower. After touring the East Coast for two weeks, they returned to Kiel on 24 June.

Bremen remained abroad until 1914, when she returned to Germany. After the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, she was assigned to the fleet in the Baltic Sea.[3]While there, she participated in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. She was assigned to the second attack on the Gulf, which took place on 16 August. She and the cruisers Graudenz, Augsburg, and Pillau escorted the dreadnoughts Nassau and Posen while they attempted to force their way into the Gulf. The German flotilla penetrated the Russian defenses by 19 August and steamed into the Gulf, but withdrew shortly thereafter due to the threat of Allied submarines and mines. On 17 December 1915, Bremen and the torpedo boat V191 ran into a Russian minefield; Bremen struck a pair of mines off Windau and sank, as did V191. The majority of Bremen's crew died in the sinking, with 250 men killed.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Bremen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremen-class_cruiser

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1917 - SS Athos – torpedoed on 17 February 1917 by U-65, 180 nautical miles (330 km) south east of Malta. The ship sank in 14 minutes, killing 754 of the 1,950 aboard.


SS Athos was a French cargo-passenger ship of the Messageries Maritimes, launched in 1915, that was sunk in the Mediterranean by the German submarine SM U-65 during World War I.



Ship history
Construction of the ship started on 25 July 1914 in Dunkirk, but was halted when the city was bombed during the First Battle of Ypres. The ship was towed to Saint Nazaire, where it was completed as a troopship and not, as intended, as a passenger ship. Measuring 12,644 gross register tons, the ship was 156.48 metres (513 ft 5 in) long, with a beam of 18.84 metres (61 ft 10 in).[1] Her speed was 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph).



Her first voyage was to China, leaving on 28 November 1915. Her second was between 29 October and 26 December 1916 from Marseille to Yokohama and back.

At 12:27 on 17 February 1917, during her third voyage, Athos was torpedoed by the German submarine SM U-65 commanded by Hermann von Fischel, while 180 nautical miles (330 km; 210 mi) east by south of Malta. Aboard Athos were 1,950 people, including the crew, Chinese labourers, a large continent of Senegalese soldiers, and civilian passengers, including women and children. The ship sank in 14 minutes taking with her 754 people, including the captain and 11 crewmembers. The survivors were picked up by the escort ships Enseigne Henry and Mameluck, as well as the gunboat Moqueuse and the torpedo-boat Baliste.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Athos

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Eniwetok begins: The battle ends in an American victory on February 22.


The Battle of Eniwetok was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought between 17 February 1944 and 23 February 1944, on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The invasion of Eniwetok followed the American success in the Battle of Kwajalein to the southeast. Capture of Eniwetok would provide an airfield and harbor to support attacks on the Mariana Islands to the northwest. The operation was officially known as "Operation Catchpole", and was a three-phase operation involving the invasion of the three main islands in the Eniwetok Atoll.

Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance preceded the invasion with Operation Hailstone, a carrier strike against the Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands.[1]:67 This raid destroyed 39 warships and more than 200 planes.


Landing craft heading for Eniwetok Island on 19 February 1944


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Eniwetok

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 February 1944 – World War II: Operation Hailstone begins: U.S. naval air, surface, and submarine attack against Truk Lagoon, Japan's main base in the central Pacific, in support of the Eniwetok invasion.


Operation Hailstone (Japanese: トラック島空襲, translit. Torakku-tō Kūshū), lit. "the airstrike on Truk Island"), 17–18 February 1944, was a massive United States Navy air and surface attack on Truk Lagoon conducted as part of the American offensive drive against the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) through the Central Pacific Ocean during World War II.


Japanese ships burning off Dublon Island, Truk Lagoon, on the first day of air strikes conducted as part of Operation Hailstone

Prior to Operation Hailstone, the IJN had used Truk as an anchorage for its large Combined Fleet. The coral atoll surrounding Truk's islands created a safe harbor where the few points of ingress and egress had been fortified by the Japanese with shore batteries, antiaircraft guns, and airfields.

American estimates of Truk's defenses and its role as a stronghold of the Japanese Navy led newspapers and military men to call it the "Gibraltar of the Pacific", or to compare it with Pearl Harbor. Truk's location in the Caroline Islands also made it an excellent shipping hub for armaments and aircraftmoving from Japan's home islands down through the South Pacific Mandate and into the Japanese "Southern Resources Area".



By early 1944, Truk was increasingly unsustainable as a forward base of operations for the Japanese. To the west, American and Australian forces under General Douglas MacArthur had moved up through the Southwest Pacific, isolating or overrunning many Japanese strong points as part of Operation Cartwheel. The U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Army, under the command of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, had overrun the most important islands in the nearby Gilbert Islands and Marshall Islands, and then built numerous air bases there.

As a result, the Japanese Navy had to relocate the Combined Fleet's forward base to the Palau Islands, and eventually to Indonesia, and the Fleet had begun clearing its major warships out of Truk before the Hailstone attack struck.

Nevertheless, the Hailstone attack on Truk caught a good number of Japanese auxiliary ships and cargo ships in the harbor, as well as some warships. Between the air attacks and surface ship attacks over the two days of Operation Hailstone, the worst blow against the Japanese was about 250 warplanes destroyed. Also, about forty ships — two light cruisers, four destroyers, nine auxiliary ships, and about two dozen cargo vessels — were sunk.

Considerable damage was inflicted on the various island bases, including dockyards, communications centers, supply dumps, and its submarine base. Truk remained effectively isolated for the remainder of the war, cut off and surrounded by the American island hopping campaign in the Central Pacific, which also bypassed important Japanese garrisons and airfields in the Bismarck Archipelago, the Caroline Islands, the Marshalls, and the Palaus. Meanwhile, the Americans built new bases from scratch at places like the Admiralty Islands, Majuro, and Ulithi Atoll, and took over the major port at Guam.


Japanese ammunition ship Aikoku Maru exploding after a torpedo hit, 17 February 1944.


Akagi Maru – On 17 February 1944, during Operation Hailstorm, the armed merchant cruiser was bombed and damaged at Truk (07°50′N 151°25′E) by United States Navy aircraft and was consequently scuttled. A total of 512 passengers and 788 sailors were lost

Akagi Maru was one of three Akagi Maru-class armed merchantmen of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and was launched in 1936. Akagi Maru was used initially used as a refrigerated cargo/passenger ship between ports in Japan, Europe and South America. The ship took part in World War II in the Pacific Ocean and was sunk with great loss of life by air attack on 17 February 1944 in Chuuk Lagoon as a part of the Allied Operation Hailstone.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akagi_Maru


Aikoku Maru – On 17 February 1944, while loading troops and supplies at Truk in Operation Hailstone, the Japanese armed merchant cruiser Aikoku Maru was sunk by Allied aircraft. The first bomb exploded in the officer's wardroom causing a fire and was followed by three more hits. In a second attack she was hit by a torpedo which detonated the ammunition in her number one hold and the explosion sheared off the bow. Aikoku Maru sank in two minutes, killing 945 crew and passengers.

Aikoku Maru (愛国丸) was an armed merchant cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II. The ship entered service in 1940, the ship was later converted to an ammunition ship. She was destroyed in February 1944.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikoku_Maru_(1940)


Maikaze – On 17 February 1944, while evacuating convoys to Yokosuka from Truk following Operation Hailstone, the Japanese destroyer was sunk by gunfire from US cruisers 40 nautical miles (74 km) northwest of Truk. There were no survivors.

Maikaze (舞風, "Whirlwind" lit. "Dancing Wind") was one of 19 Kagerō-class destroyers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy during the 1930s.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_destroyer_Maikaze



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hailstone

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 17 February


1793 HMS Juno (32), Cptn. Samuel Hood, captures the French privateer Entreprenant in the Channel

HMS Juno was a Royal Navy 32-gun Amazon-class fifth rate. This frigate served during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Juno_(1780)


1794 British squadron under Commodore Robert Linzee captured Fornelli, Corsica.

Robert Linzee (1739 – 4 October 1804) was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Linzee entered the navy and was promoted to lieutenant during the Seven Years' War. He was advanced to his own commands shortly before the outbreak of the American War of Independence and served off the North American coast and in the Caribbean during that conflict. He saw important service against privateers as a frigate captain before advancing to command a ship of the line despite the loss of one of his ships. He saw action in several important battles, commanding a ship at the Battle of the Saintes and at the Battle of the Mona Passage. Left without a ship after the peace, he briefly commissioned a ship during the Spanish Armament, but paid her off after the crisis passed.



He was back in service after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, taking a ship out to the Mediterranean, and quickly being appointed a commodore with orders to assist the Corsican patriots against the French. Linzee commanded a small squadron in the area supporting Corsican and British efforts to dislodge the French. He later became a junior flag officer in the Mediterranean Fleet. He fought in two fleet actions in 1795, at Genoa and then at Hyères Islands. He returned to Britain shortly after Sir John Jervis took over command in the Mediterranean. He did not serve at sea again, though he continued to be promoted, rising to the rank of admiral of the blue before his death in 1804.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Linzee


1836 - The shipping company Rob. M. Sloman & CO. oHG took passengers to and from England but on 17 February 1836 the shipping company opened the first regular transatlantic service from Hamburg to New York with the bark Franklin and two other sailing packets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Miles_Sloman
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloman_Neptun_Schiffahrts_AG



1859 – Cochinchina Campaign: The French Navy captured the Citadel of Saigon, a fortress that was manned by 1,000 Nguyễn dynasty soldiers, en route to conquering Saigon and other regions of southern Viet Nam.

The Cochinchina Campaign (French: Campagne de Cochinchine; Spanish: Expedición franco-española a Cochinchina; Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Nam Kỳ; Filipino: Expedisiyong pranses-espanyol sa Cochinchina); is the common designation for a series of military operations between 1858 and 1862, launched by a joint naval expedition force on behalf of the French Empire and the Kingdom of Spain against the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty. Initially a limited punitive action against the persecution and execution of French (and to a lesser extent Spanish) catholic missionaries in Indochina, the ambitioned French emperor Napoleon III however, authorized the deployment of increasingly larger contingents, that subdued Annamese territory and established French military and economic dominance. The war concluded with the founding of the French colony of Cochinchina and inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial dominance in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.


Capture of Saigon by the French and Spanish expeditionary forces, by Antoine Léon Morel-Fatio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochinchina_Campaign
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel_of_Saigon


1867 – The first ship passes through the Suez Canal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal


1873 - USS Norwich, a wooden, screw steamer built at Norwich, Connecticut in 1861 lost

USS Norwich, a wooden, screw steamer built at Norwich, Connecticut in 1861, was purchased by the Union Navy at New York City 26 September 1861 from J. M. Huntington & Co.; and commissioned at the New York Navy Yard 28 December 1861, Lieutenant James M. Duncan in command.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Norwich_(1861)


1944 - USS Nicholas (DD 449) sinks the Japanese submarine I-11 in the Marshall Islands.

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 February 1637 – Eighty Years' War: The Battle off Lizard Point
Off the coast of Cornwall, England, a Spanish fleet intercepts an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by six warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them.

.
The Battle off Lizard Point was a naval action which took place on 18 February 1637 off the coast of Cornwall, England, during the Eighty Years' War. The Spanish admiral Miguel de Horna, commander of the Armada of Flanders, intercepted an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by six warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them, and returned safely to his base in Dunkirk.


Battle between Dutch and Spanish men-of-war. Oil on copper, Naval Museum of Madrid.

Background
In early 1636, the experienced Flemish admiral, Jacob Collaert, commander of the Armada of Flanders, the fleet of the Dunkirkers, was defeated by five warships of the Dutch blocking fleet under Captain Johan Evertsen. His galleon and another vessel were sunk after a prolonged engagement off the French coast, near Dieppe, and he was captured along with 200 of his men. After an exchange of prisoners he was freed, but died of an illness at A Coruña shortly after. The Navarrese Miguel de Horna replaced him. Horna also proved to be a skillful commander, as he destroyed three major enemy convoys in less than two years, winning the actions of the Lizard, Mardyck and the Channel.



Battle
Miguel de Horna sailed from Dunkirk on 18 February, in command of a squadron of five ships and two frigates, to attack the Dutch fishing fleet and trade routes. His captains were the Basque Antonio de Anciondo, the Flemish Marcus van Oben and Cornelis Meyne, and the Castilians Antonio Díaz and Salvador Rodríguez. After capturing a merchant ship while under fire from the coastal batteries of Calais, the Spanish squadron crossed the English Channel. An Anglo-Dutch convoy of 28 Dutch merchantmen and 16 English merchantmen, escorted by six Dutch warships, was sighted off Lizard Point, on the coast of Cornwall. The Spanish warships rapidly proceeded to attack, approaching the convoy under heavy fire from the escorting warships.

Soon after the convoy escort was engaged by the Spanish, the Dutch flagship was completely disabled by heavy cannon and musketry fire from Horna's flagship. Antonio Díaz's ship managed to board her and capture her flag, but the assault was ultimately repulsed. A second attempt from Horna's ship, which lasted half an hour, also failed, but with the help of a third Spanish ship under Cornelis Meyne, the Dutch flagship was finally captured. Although the merchants used their cannon to help the Dutch warships, three were nevertheless sunk. The remaining two surrendered and were captured. The convoy ships dispersed and tried to escape individually, taking advantage of the smoke of battle and the darkness of the night. However, 14 of them fell into Spanish hands and were taken to Dunkirk with the three captured warships.

Aftermath
Horna returned to Dunkirk escorting 17 prizes fully loaded with ammunitions and supplies.[6] He avoided the Dutch lieutenant-admiral, Philips van Dorp, who had been sent to intercept with 20 warships. Dorp attempted to blockade the Spanish fleet in the port, but Horna was able to continue his campaigns without difficulties. In July, he ambushed two Dutch Bordeaux convoys, carrying off 12 prizes loaded with, amongst other items, 125 valuable cavalry horses. The convoy coming from Venice to Amsterdam was also captured, as well as 14 ships of the Dutch East India Company and eight which carried gifts to Louis XIII of France.

In a later exploit, the Action of 18 February 1639, when he was attacked by a Dutch fleet of 17 ships, Horna managed to help a Spanish convoy escape, despite his numerical inferiority.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Lizard_Point

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 February 1639 - Action of 18 February 1639


The Action of 18 February 1639 was a naval battle of the Eighty Years' War fought off Dunkirk between a Dutch fleet under the command of Admiral Maarten Tromp and the Spanish Dunkirk Squadron under Miguel de Horna. Horna, who had orders to join with his ships Admiral Antonio de Oquendo's fleet at A Coruña, escorted at the same time a transport convoy carrying 2,000 Walloon soldiers to Spain, where they were needed. The attempt to exit Dunkirk was done in sight of the Dutch blockading squadron of Maarten Tromp. A 4-hour battle ensued and Horna was forced to retreat into Dunkirk leaving behind two of his galleons, whilst another ran aground. Despite his success in stopping the sortie, many of Tromp's ships suffered heavy damage, and the Dutch Admiral was forced to abandon the blockade. Therefore, De Horna, after repairing his squadron, was able to accomplish his mission.


The naval battle against the Spaniards near Dunkerque, 18 february 1639. Oil and ink on canvas by Willem van de Velde the Elder.



Background


Maarten Tromp after an engraving by Wenzel Hollar.

By 1639 the Spanish naval situation in the war against the Dutch Republic had worsened.[6] Most of the Armada del Mar Océano had been attached to the Armada de Pernambuco under don Fernando de Mascarenhas, and the Treasure fleets were blocked by Cornelis Jol's privateer ships of the Dutch West India Company at Havana and Veracruz. The French entrance in the war had cost Spain its northern fleet, destroyed by a larger French fleet under Henri d'Escoubleau de Sourdis at the Battle of Guetaria, where the Basque shipyards were disabled. Only 20 galleons commanded by Antonio de Oquendo were still on the warpath.

In January 1639 the Count-Duke of Olivares ordered a great fleet to be gathered at the Galician port of A Coruña with the aim of carrying troops and money to the Spanish Netherlands. Admiral Antonio de Oquendo was given the command of this fleet. As the French and Dutch armies had blocked the Spanish Road, Spain's main route by land, the reinforcements could only be sent by sea. Following the orders of Olivares, the Spanish Squadron of Dunkirk, under the Navarrese Admiral Miguel de Horna, prepared to join Oquendo at A Coruña. The recently recruited Walloon Tercio of the Baron of Molinguen, whose strength was about 2,000 men, was embarked aboard the Dunkirk Squadron in order to be transported to Spain to face an imminent French attack in the north of the country.

Once the States-General received news of these activities, Admiral Maarten Tromp was ordered to prevent the departure of the Dunkirkers in command of 12 warships, appearing off Dunkirk on 17 February. The Marquis of Fuentes, military governor of the town, categorically ordered Miguel de Horna to sail without delay, not fearing the Dutch squadron because of its smaller strength. The Spanish convoy, consisting of 12 galleons, 3 pinnaces and 5 transports, departed the port at dawn on 18 February via a southern outlet called Het Scheurtje (The Little Fisure). According to contemporary Spanish accounts, a large number of Horna's ships ran aground at Mardyck, and the Admiral found himself alone with only 6 galleons and 2 frigates.

Battle

Map of Fort-Mardyck in 1646, by Joan Blaeu.

At the same time that the Spanish squadron sailed out the Splinter off Mardyck at 8 PM with very little wind, Tromp's 12 vessels were anchored in the Dunkirk Roads. They set sail and ran westwards between the brakes and the Splinter, intercepting the Spanish squadron between Mardyck and Gravelines. As soon as both fleets came within firing range of each other, a furious battle began that lasted 4 hours. Tromp's flagship Amelia was damaged and the Dutch Admiral was forced twice to careen and plug its leaks.

As none of the winds was shifting westerly his vessels, Horna bore down towards the Fort of Mardyck in a smooth water searching the protection of its guns. Tromp followed him and engaged the vice-flagship of Dunkirk, which had lost the use of its steerage and had its rudder-head shot, being finally run aground upon the western tail of the Splinter, where its crew set it on fire after salvaging some of the provisions that it had aboard. The galleons under Captains Mény and Petit, of 34 guns each, were captured, and De Horna was forced to retire. The casualties suffered by his fleet were estimated by the Dutch to be 1,600 men killed or wounded, and reported as 400 from all causes in the Spanish accounts. About 250 prisoners were taken aboard the two captured galleons.

Aftermath
The Marquis of Fuentes was blamed for the failure but imprisoned De Horna and his Vice-Admiral Matthys Rombout after the action, although he soon restored them to their posts. In less than a month the squadron was repaired, re-equipped and re-manned and put to the sea again, and Horna set sail from Dunkirk on 12 March. The port was then no longer blockaded and the squadron reached A Coruña safely having captured some commercial vessels. Tromp, meanwhile, had been honored, as well as his captains, with gold chains and medals and fair words. Unlike the Spanish, however, he could not repair his ships, and when he set sail on 15 March, too late to stop De Horna, he did it only in command of 4 ships. De Horna, strategically if not tactically, had accomplished his mission., while Tromp's 2-year blockade of Dunkirk had failed to prevent the Spanish ships from continuing to undertake their activities. De Horna added seven galleons to Oquendo's fleet: San José, San Vicente, San Gedeón, Salvador, San Juan Evangelista, San Martín and San Carlos.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_18_February_1639

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 February 1653 - Start of 3 day Battle of Portland.
English fleet, under Robert Blake, was attacked by a Dutch fleet escorting a large convoy, under Lt.-Admiral Maarten Tromp. Figures are unclear but each fleet had 70-80 warships and whilst the British lost 1-3 warships the Dutch lost 8-12 and 40- 50 merchantmen.


The naval Battle of Portland, or Three Days' Battle took place during 18–20 February 1653 (28 February – 2 March 1653 (Gregorian calendar)),during the First Anglo-Dutch War, when the fleet of the Commonwealth of England under General at Sea Robert Blake was attacked by a fleet of the Dutch Republic under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp escorting merchant shipping through the English Channel. The battle failed to settle supremacy of the English Channel, although both sides claimed victory, and ultimate control over the Channel would only be decided at the Battle of the Gabbard which allowed the English to blockade the Dutch coast until the Battle of Scheveningen, where Admiral Maarten Tromp would meet his fate at the hands of an English musket ball. As such, it can be considered a slight setback for the English nation and another example of Dutch superiority regarding pure seamanship at the time. It also illustrated England's drive to control the seas, which would ultimately allow it to become the prime maritime power of the world.


Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp.

Background
The First Anglo-Dutch War was caused by friction between the two naval powers of the century, competing for strategic supremacy over the world's merchant routes. England and the United Provinces had always been 'natural allies' against the Habsburgs, as deemed by the Council of State under the rule of Charles I. It has been argued that had Charles I stayed in power the war between the two nations would have never sprung, as he would never have obtained the necessary funding from parliament. However, the rise of the English Parliament under Oliver Cromwell saw the deterioration of diplomacy between the two as the Dutch stadtholder financially supported the Royalists. During the English Civil War, the Dutch had taken advantage of the internal strife within their neighbours, and greatly expanded their maritime presence throughout the world's merchant harbors and routes, ultimately even challenging British dominance in its colonies, and the Dutch even boasted of driving all nations out of the sea. Nonetheless, Cromwell did not challenge the Dutch, still consolidating his power at home.


Battle of Portland

This changed when Parliamentary armies finally routed the Royalists at the Battle of Worcester, effectively ending the English Civil War. With Cromwell fully in power, the Parliament passed the Navigation Act of 1651, requiring all goods destined to English ports to be transported by English ships, which severed part of the Dutch ability to trade, since they were cut off from all of England's colonies in the Americas and elsewhere. Later that year the Parliament gave an order which allowed English privateers and warships to seize Dutch shipping and 'recover their losses' from Dutch vessels. Finally, the English Parliament began to enforce its sovereignty over the "British Seas", which granted the English Navy dominion from the North Sea to Cape Finisterre. The translation of Parliament's words into action came when English Admiral Sir George Ayscue claimed Barbados as part of the Commonwealth and seized 27 Dutch ships.


Robert Blake, General at Sea, 1599–1657 by Henry Perronet Briggs, painted 1829.

The Dutch response was divided; the moderate States of Holland tried to appease the English; but when the negotiations failed and the Navigation Acts were adopted the ferocious Orangist faction became more powerful, and the States General passed a resolution which would allow the Dutch war fleet, to be tripled in size, to protect Dutch interest over the areas in question. This fleet was put under the command of Admiral Maarten Tromp, who had defeated the sixth and final Spanish Armada at the Battle of the Downs, 31 October 1639. That same year, the Dutch signed a treaty with Denmark with the intent to hurt English shipping. War finally broke out after a confrontation between admirals Robert Blake and Maarten Tromp, May 1652, at the Battle of Dover.

Minor skirmishes followed at the Battle of Plymouth, the Battle of Elba, and the Battle of Kentish Knock. The two fleets met for the first time in a major battle at the Battle of Dungeness, November 1652. The battle turned out to be a heavy English defeat, forcing the English to rethink their naval strategy, led by Admiral Sir Henry Vane and an Admiralty Committee, including developing a tactic that would mark naval warfare for the following century. Taking a page out of the Dutch book the English reorganised each fleet into squadrons for greater tactical control. In fact, the tactic, renamed the line-of-battle tactic, would remain key to English/British naval strategy until the end of the Second World War. The two fleets would meet again off Portland.


The inscription in German above the scene gives the title "The Terrible and Bloody Battle between the Dutch and the English which occurred on the 20th February 1654". The inscription in German below, flanked by portraits of Admiral Tromp (left) and Frances Plack (right) includes an account of the Battle of Portland, inaccurately naming the Dutch commanders and apparently confusing General Robert Blake with Sir Francis Blake, spelt "Francs Plack", who was related to the general through the marriage of his nephew, also called Robert Blake (see Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, under 'Blake of Twisel Castle, Co. Durham'). Blake's flagship, the Triumph, 62 guns, is shown port quarter, or stern view, in the centre foreground, with the figure 'I' above. When he commanded the Dutch Fleet at the Battle of Portland in February 1653, Tromp had been at sea since the battle off Dungeness (see Cambridge Modern Histories Vol. IV p.475) which took place in November 1652. An order by Tromp, written 'on board the ship Brederode this 6th of December 1652' (published by the Naval Records Society in The First Dutch War Vol III p.77) identifies the ship represented here in the centre of the picture under 'A' and described in the inscription as the ship of Admiral Tromp.

Battle
During the first days of February 1653, Tromp escorted a convoy of merchant ships through the Channel and put them safely into the Atlantic Ocean. He set to return to his home port, but first anchored off La Rochelle to repair and resupply his ships and waited for expected merchantmen coming from the Atlantic. He attempted to set sail on 20 February with 152 merchantmen, but was held back for three days by high winds and rough seas. On 24 February Tromp finally set sail, entering the area off Portland four days later where he spotted Blake's fleet attempting to cut them off. Immediately, Tromp set the signal for a general attack and began the offensive with the wind in his favor as he had the weather gauge.


An illustration of the battle

Tromp's flagship, Brederode, met Blake's flagship, Triumph, immediately, sending a broadside at mere metres distance. Turning around, without having received a response from English gunners, he put a second broadside in Triumph's other side, and finally then delivered a third after turning around again. Blake subsequently veered away and decided to fight at long range. Dutch Commodore De Ruyter was able to attack the English rear and engaged the largest English vessel in the fleet, Prosperity, ending in a boarding attempt which was repulsed by the crew of the British vessel the first time around. A second boarding attempt forced the Prosperity to surrender thereafter, however. An attempt to reclaim the ship surrounded De Ruyter, but after an intense fight the Dutch commodore was able to fight his way out. The battle continued for the day with heavy fire exchanged by both sides. Later on 28 February Blake sent a squadron of frigates to intercept and claim the Dutch merchantmen off the coast of La Rochelle. Tromp quickly responded by sending his own captains to intercept the English. Nonetheless, night brought a close to the day's battle.

The following day the English were the first to begin the engagement, with the wind in their favor. The initiative of the English fleet was not gone from the previous day, but five attempts failed to break the Dutch line. The day also saw 12 Dutch merchantmen caught by Blake's frigates after attempting to make a run for it, against Tromp's explicit orders. After the second day most of the Dutch warships were out of powder and shot, and there was none to resupply with.

The third day ended just the same, with a failure to break the Dutch line. Several Dutch captains attempted to flee after completely running out of ammunition but Tromp ended their flight with a few shots across their ships. The battle ended for the day when Blake drew off, after forcing the Dutch to fight to the point where they only had around half an hour worth of shot left. Blake's reasoning for the disengagement has been attributed to the fact that he received a wound to the thigh that day.

On the fourth day the English again attempted to resume action, but they found the sea empty of Dutch warships. Tromp had guided the remainder of his fleet along the coastline, escaping certain defeat the next day, leaving eight warships and a number of merchantmen behind. Although both sides claimed victory after the battle, the fact remains that it was Tromp who left the field, not Blake, and in the end, it was Blake who was able to commandeer 20 to 40 Dutch merchantmen and at least eight Dutch warships back to his homeport.


A panel painting showing a battle of the First Dutch War, 1653, probably viewed from the Dutch perspective. Hostilities came about between England and the Netherlands because of the ever increasing conflict of trade interests between the two powers. There were several battles during 1653 but it has not been possible to establish which is being shown in this painting. The battle occupies the whole of the picture space. In the centre of the painting a Dutch ship can be seen with lions, probably of the United Provinces on her stern. She is engaging with an English ship visible through the gun smoke to the left. In the centre behind this ship is a confusion of English and Dutch shipping engaged in fighting. In the foreground on the right are the tops of masts and flags, all that is left of an English ship that has sunk. There is another English ship shown on the far right of the painting. Other debris is shown on the surface of the water, and there is a small ship’s boat moving through the waves to collect survivors. The painting dates from about 1660 and is signed ‘P.C’.

Aftermath
The Battle of Portland restored English dominance over the English Channel. While Dutch propaganda tried to paint the battle as a Dutch victory or a "glorious defeat" and the populace publicly rejoiced at the heroism shown, Admiral Tromp and the other flag officers knew better, all coming home in an extremely dark mood. They concluded that the adoption of line tactics by the English would make it impossible for the Dutch to compensate inferior firepower with better seamanship and they urged the States-General to finally start building real heavy warships instead of replacing losses by recruiting armed merchants. In a desperate attempt to at least keep the North Sea open, an under-equipped Dutch fleet engaged the English again at the Battle of the Gabbard.



Brederode was a ship of the line of the Maas Admiralty, part of the navy of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the flagship of the Dutch fleet in the First Anglo-Dutch War. Throughout her career, she carried from 49 to 59 guns. She was named after Johan Wolfert van Brederode, the brother-in-law of stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange.


Brederode off Hellevoetsluis by Simon de Vlieger

Construction
Brederode was, in Maas feet, about 132 ft (40 m) long by about 32 ft (9.8 m) wide by approximately 13.5 ft (4.1 m) deep. The English dimensions were very close to those figures. The published dimensions are in Maas feet of 308 mm, divided into 12 inches (300 mm).

Brederode was initially armed with 49 guns, increasing to 54 from 1652. These comprised four 36-pounders, twelve 24-pounders, and eight 18-pounders on the lower deck, twenty 12-pounders on the upper deck, and ten to twelve 6-pounders on the forecastle, quarterdeck, and poop deck. All of her guns were bronze-cast except four of the 12-pounders which were Swedish-made and cast in iron.

Crew numbers varied considerably over Bredereode's sailing career. In September 1652 her complement was 175 sailors, rising to 260 in June 1653 before falling back to 113 in 1656. Between 40 and 75 soldiers were also accommodated aboard.



Ship history
Launched at Rotterdam in 1644, and a design of shipwright Jan Salomonszoon van den Tempel, she was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Witte Corneliszoon de With from May 1645 until 1647 when she was assigned to Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp. The same year however, she again became De With's flagship for his expedition to Dutch Brazil. De With delegated actual command of the vessel to Lieutenant Jan Janszoon Quack, who remained in that role after the expedition returned to Holland in 1647. Only in 1652 would Tromp sail for the first time with his flag on Brederode, during an attack against royalist privateers operating from the Scilly Islands.

In the First Anglo-Dutch War Brederode was present under Tromp's command at the Battle of Goodwin Sands on 29 May 1652. After Tromp's failure to bring the English to battle off the Shetland Islands in July, Tromp was relieved and Michiel de Ruyter took over command. When De Ruyter was subordinated to De With in September, Brederode's crew refused to let the latter come on board to take command, so he had to content himself with Prins Willem. Without Tromp, Brederode fought at the Battle of the Kentish Knock on 8 October 1652.


The Battle of the Gabbard, 12 June 1653 by Heerman Witmont, shows the Dutch flagship Brederode (foreground left) in action.

With Tromp back in command, Brederode fought at the Battle of Dungeness on 10 December 1652 where she came close to being captured, but was instrumental in that victory over the English. She fought again on 18 February 1653 at the Battle of Portland and on 12 June 1653 at the Battle of the Gabbard, where she fought an exhausting but inconclusive duel with William Penn's flagship James. On that day, the first day of the battle, Tromp's men boarded the English ship but were beaten back; boarded in turn by the English, Tromp was only able to dislodge the boarders by blowing up Brederode's deck. On 13 June the English were joined by a squadron under Admiral Robert Blake and the Dutch were scattered in defeat.

Brederode fought in the last major engagement of the war, the Battle of Scheveningen on 26 July 1653, when Tromp was killed. The acting flag captain (later Admiral) Egbert Bartholomeusz Kortenaer kept Tromp's standard raised after his death to keep up morale.

In the Northern Wars the United Provinces sent an expeditionary force to support Denmark in the war against Charles X of Sweden. In the Battle of the Sound on 8 November 1658 the Dutch fleet, commanded by Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam, defeated a Swedish fleet and relieved the siege of Copenhagen. Van Wassenaer's flagship was Eendracht; De With commanded the van in Brederode; attacking the enemy without proper knowledge of the shoals he grounded his ship (after damaging Leoparden so much that this enemy vessel subsequently was lost by fire) and was surrounded; after many hours of fighting, Brederode was boarded by Wismar and De With mortally wounded. The partially burnt wreck was deemed unsalvagable.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Portland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_ship_Brederode_(1644)

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 February 1740 - Birth of Jacques-Noël Sané , a French naval engineer


Jacques-Noël Sané (18 February 1740, Brest – 22 August 1831, Paris) was a French naval engineer. He was the conceptor of standardised designs for ships of the line and frigates fielded by the French Navy in the 1780s, which served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars and in some cases remained in service into the 1860s. Captured ships of his design were commissioned in the Royal Navy and even copied.

His achievements earned Sané the nickname of "naval Vauban"


Lithograph portrait of Jacques-Nöel Sané by Julien Léopold Boilly.

Biography
Born in Brest in a family of sailors, Sané became a student engineer in 1758 and joined the naval construction academy in Paris in 1765, graduating On 1 October 1766 as an assistant engineer. In 1767, he worked under Ollivier the Elder on naval ships, and with Antoine Choquet de Lindu on merchant ships. In 1769, he embarked on the fluyt Seine, bound for Martinique with four scows and a dredger of his design.



Promoted to engineer in 1774, he designed the Annibal class 74-gun, comprising Annibal and Northumberland. He then worked on several 12-pounder frigates. During the War of American Independence, Navy minister Sartine, his successor Castries, and engineer Borda requested standard plans to standardise the production of 18-pounder frigates (equivalent to the British Fifth-rate), 74-gun ships of the line (equivalent to the British Third-rate), 80-gun two-deckers (without equivalent: similar to a Third-rate, but longer than a Second-rate and with comparable firepower), and 118-gun three-deckers (equivalent to the British First-rate). Sané won three successive competitions:

• in 1782, his Téméraire class was selected for the 74-guns
• in 1785, his Océan class was selected for the 118-guns
• his Tonnant class was later selected for the 80-guns

In 1784, Sané had his only child, Amélie Fanny Gabrielle; she would later marry Captain Delarue de la Gréardière, and die in December décembre 1812.

On 18 June 1787, Sané joined the Académie de Marine. In April 1779, he arrived in Saint-Malo for the construction of Hébé-class Vénus, a 12-pounder 38-gun frigate. He furthermore drew the plans of the frigates Aigle, Cléopâtre, Thisbé and Dryade. In 1789, he was promoted to sub-director of naval constructions.

In 1793, as director of Brest Harbour, he decided to raze the older ships Brutus, Pluton and Argonaute. He was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1796, and naval construction inspector on 7 July 1798, responsible for the coast of the Atlantic and of the English Channel; his duty comprised inspection of the harbours and selection of timbers from the forests in the Pyrenees.

In 1800, Sané was made General inspector for naval engineering, an office he would retain until 1817. In 1807, Sané designed a type of corvette that remained in service until the end of the sailing navy. The same year, Napoléon required a collection of accurate ship models to document the French Navy; Denis Decrès tasked Sané with the project, known as the Trianon model collection, for which 13 models were specially created and 6 others collected and upgraded.

His plans for 18-pounder frigates were adopted in 1810; the same year, he was made a Baron of Empire.

Under the Restauration, Sané was awarded the Order of Saint Michael. In 1820, aged 80, he was made president of the Commission de Paris, although he never involved himself in the upcoming steamship revolution. The first steamer of the French Navy, Sphinx, entered service in 1829.

Sané died in Paris on 22 August 1831, aged 91.

Work
Sané was responsible for

• 9 118-gun ships of the line of the Océan class
• 5 110-gun ships of the Commerce de Paris class
• 27 80-guns of the Tonnant and Bucentaure classes
• 107 74-guns of the Annibal and Téméraire classes, between 1783 and as late as 1841
• 65 18-pounder frigates of the Hébé, Virginie, Hortense and Pallas classes, built between 1781 and 1814.

Legacy

Bust by Louis-Joseph Daumas, on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris.

Three ships of the French Navy have been named Sané after Jacques-Noël Sané. The class of 2004 of the École nationale supérieure de techniques avancées Bretagne was named in his honour.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-Noël_Sané

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 February 1756 - Launch of HMS Royal George


HMS Royal George was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Woolwich Dockyard and launched on 18 February 1756. The largest warship in the world at the time of launching, she saw service during the Seven Years' War including being Admiral Sir Edward Hawke's flagship at the Battle of Quiberon Bay and later taking part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent. She sank undergoing routine maintenance work whilst anchored off Portsmouth on 29 August 1782 with the loss of more than 800 lives, one of the most serious maritime losses to occur in British waters.


HMS Royal George, right, shown fictitiously at the launch of HMS Cambridge in 1755 by John Cleveley the Elder (1757)

Several attempts were made to raise the vessel, both for salvage and because she was a major hazard to navigation. In 1782, Charles Spalding recovered six iron 12-pounder guns and nine brass 12-pounders using a diving bell of his design. From 1834—1836, Charles and John Deane recovered more guns using the surface-air supplied diving helmet which they had invented, and in 1839 Major-General Charles Pasley, at the time a colonel of the Royal Engineers, commenced operations to break up the wreck using barrels of gunpowder.

Pasley's team recovered more guns and other items between 1839 and 1842. In 1840, the remaining structure of the wreck was destroyed by the Royal Engineers in an explosion that shattered windows as far away as Portsmouth and Gosport.



Service
Ordered on 29 August 1746, she was laid down at Woolwich Dockyard in 1746 as Royal Anne, and built to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment. She was renamed Royal George during building and launched on 18 February 1756. At the time of her launch in 1756, she was the largest warship in the world at more than 2,000 tons, and is considered the "eighteenth-century equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction". She served in the Seven Years' War, commissioning under her first commander, Captain Richard Dorrill in October 1755, and after being completed, joined the Western Squadron or Channel Fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Hawke in May 1756. Dorrill was succeeded by Captain John Campbell in July 1756, who was in turn succeeded by Captain Matthew Buckle in early 1757. Royal George was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Edward Boscawen at this time, and flew his flag in the Raid on Rochefort in September that year. Captain Piercy Brett took command in 1758, during which time Royal George became the flagship of Admiral Lord George Anson. Brett was succeeded by Captain Alexander Hood in November 1758, though Royal George's former captain, Richard Dorrill, was back in command the following year, until being invalided out of the ship in June. Dorrill's replacement was another former captain, John Campbell, who commanded her in the blockade of the French fleet at Brest. She became Sir Edward Hawke's flagship in early November of that year, when his previous flagship, Ramillies, went into dock for repairs. Hawke commanded the fleet from Royal George at the Battle of Quiberon Bay on 20 November 1759, where she sank the French ship Superbe.

Royal George was commanded by Captain William Bennett from March 1760, and she was present at the fleet review at Spithead in July that year. John Campbell returned to command his old ship in August 1760, though Bennett was captain again by December. Royal George joined Admiral Charles Hardy’s fleet in the Autumn of 1762, and was then paid off on 18 December that year. She was laid up at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War, undergoing a large repair at Plymouth between 1765 and 1768. The outbreak of the American War of Independence generated a need for more ships and Royal George was fitted at Portsmouth for service in the Channel between May 1778 and April 1779.

She recommissioned under her first new commander, Captain Thomas Hallum, in July 1778, with command passing to Captain John Colpoys in November that year. Royal George was at this time the flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Harland, with the Western Squadron. Harland struck his flag, and in his place Vice-Admiral George Darby briefly raised his in June 1779, though from August 1779 until December 1781 she was the flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir John Lockhart Ross. Meanwhile, Captain Colpoys was replaced by Captain John Bourmaster in December 1779, and she joined Admiral Sir George Rodney's fleet in their mission to relieve Gibraltar. Under Bourmaster, and flying Ross's flag, Royal George took part in the attack on the Caracas convoy on 8 January 1780, and the Battle of Cape St. Vincent on 16 January 1780, before going on to successfully relieve Gibraltar three days later.

Royal George returned to Britain with the rest of the fleet, and had her hull coppered in April 1780. She returned to service that summer, serving with the Channel Fleet under Admiral Francis Geary, and then George Darby from the Autumn. Both captain and admiral changed in late 1781, Bourmaster being replaced by Captain Henry Cromwell, and Ross striking his flag for Royal George to become the flagship of Rear-Admiral Richard Kempenfelt. She served as part of Samuel Barrington's squadron from April 1782, with Cromwell replaced by Captain Martin Waghorn in May. Royal George then joined the fleet under Richard Howe.

Loss

Sinking of Royal George


A contemporary illustration of Royal George resting at the bottom of the Solent with her masts sticking up from the surface


1783 medallion commemorating the sinking of Royal George


Sinking of Royal George


Loss of the Royal George (painting by John Christian Schetky)


Memorial at Ryde, Isle of Wight, commemorating the loss


Salvage of Royal George


A section of the ship's 24-inch anchor cable, recovered from the wreck and now in the Science Museum store at Blythe House

On 28 August 1782 Royal George was preparing to sail with Admiral Howe's fleet to relieve Gibraltar. The ships were anchored at Spithead to take on supplies. Most of her complement were aboard ship, as were a large number of workmen to speed the repairs. There were also an estimated 200–300 relatives visiting the officers and men, 100–200 "ladies from the Point [at Portsmouth], who, though seeking neither husbands or fathers, yet visit our newly arrived ships of war", and a number of merchants and traders come to sell their wares to the seamen. The reason most of her complement were aboard was because of fear of desertion: all shore leave had been canceled. Accordingly every crew member then assigned to the vessel was aboard it when it sank, except for a detachment of sixty marines sent ashore that morning. The exact number of the total crew on board is unknown, but is estimated to be around 1,200.



Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sternboard outline with some decoration detail, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for Royal George (1756), a 100-gun First Rate, three-decker. The plan possibly shows her as she was launched in February 1756, or after she had undergone a large repair at Plymouth Dockyard between 1765 and 1768. Reverse: Scale: 1:96. Plan showing the poop deck, quarterdeck and forecastle, upper deck, middle deck, lower deck, and orlop deck with platforms for Royal George (1756).

At seven o'clock on the morning of 29 August work on the hull was carried out and Royal George was heeled over by rolling the ship's starboard guns into the centreline of the ship. This caused the ship to tilt over in the water to port. Further, the loading of a large number of casks of rum on the now-low port side created additional and, it turned out, unstable weight. The ship was heeled over too far, passing her centre of gravity. Realising that the ship was settling in the water, the ship's carpenter informed the lieutenant of the watch, Monin Hollingbery, and asked him to beat the drum to signal to the men to right the ship. The officer refused. As the situation worsened, the carpenter implored the officer a second time. A second time he was refused. The carpenter then took his concern directly to the ship's captain, who agreed with him and gave the order to move the guns back into position. By this time, however, the ship had already taken on too much water through its port-side gun ports, and the drum was never sounded. The ship tilted heavily to port, causing a sudden inrush of water and a burst of air out the starboard side. The barge along the port side which had been unloading the rum was caught in the masts as the ship turned, briefly delaying the sinking, but losing most of her crew. Royal George quickly filled up with water and sank, taking with her around 900 people, including up to 300 women and 60 children who were visiting the ship in harbour. 255 people were saved, including eleven women and one child. Some escaped by running up the rigging, while others were picked up by boats from other vessels. Kempenfelt was writing in his cabin when the ship sank; the cabin doors had jammed because of the ship's heeling and he perished. Waghorn was injured and thrown into the water, but he was rescued. The carpenter survived the sinking, but died less than a day later, never having regained consciousness. Hollingbery also survived.

Many of the victims were washed ashore at Ryde, Isle of Wight where they were buried in a mass grave that stretched along the beach. This land was reclaimed in the development of a Victorian esplanade and is now occupied by the streets and properties of Ryde Esplanade and The Strand. In April 2009, Isle of Wight Council placed a new memorial plaque in the newly restored Ashley Gardens on Ryde Esplanade in memory of Royal George. It is a copy of the original plaque unveiled in 1965 by Earl Mountbatten of Burma, which was moved in 2006 to the Royal George Memorial Garden, also on the Esplanade.

A court-martial failed to correctly attribute blame for the tragedy and acquitted the officers and crew (many of whom had perished), blaming the accident on the "general state of decay of her timbers" and suggesting that the most likely cause of the sinking was that part of the frame of the ship gave way under the stress of the heel. The officer of the watch at the time of the sinking was, in fact, most responsible. Naval historian Nicholas Tracy stated that this officer had allowed water to accumulate on the gundeck. The resulting free surface effect eventually compromised the ship's stability. Tracy concluded that an "alert officer of the watch would have prevented the tragedy ..."

A fund was established by Lloyd's House to help the widows and children of the sailors lost in the sinking, which was the start of what eventually became the Lloyd's Patriotic Fund. The accident was commemorated in verse by the poet William Cowper:

Salvage attempts
Initial attempts


Stern of Royal George: 1779 painting of a model at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

Several attempts were made to raise the vessel, both for salvage and because she was a major hazard to navigation, lying in a busy harbour at a depth of only 65 ft (20 m).

In 1782, Charles Spalding recovered six iron 12-pounder guns and nine brass 12-pounders using a diving bell of his design.



Deane brothers (1834)
No further work was carried out on the wreck until 1834, when Charles Anthony Deane and his brother John, using the first air-pumped diving helmet which they themselves had invented, began work. From 1834—1836 they recovered 7 iron 42-pounders, 18 brass 24-pounders and 3 brass 12-pounders for which he received salvage from the Board of Ordnance. The remaining guns were buried under mud and the timbers of the wreck and were unable to be recovered.

It was during this operation that local fishermen asked the divers to investigate something on the seabed that their nets kept snagging. A dive by John Deane 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) north east of Royal George revealed timbers and guns from Mary Rose, the first time that its resting place had been located for several centuries.

Pasley (1839)
In 1839 Major-General Charles Pasley, at the time a colonel of the Royal Engineers, commenced operations. Pasley had previously destroyed some old wrecks in the Thames to clear a channel using gunpowder charges; his plan was to break up the wreck of Royal George in a similar way and then salvage as much as possible using divers. The charges used were made from oak barrels filled with gunpowder and covered with lead. They were initially detonated using chemical fuses, but this was later changed to an electrical system using a resistance-heated platinum wire to detonate the gunpowder.

Pasley's operation set many diving milestones, including the first recorded use of the buddy system in diving, when he ordered that his divers operate in pairs. In addition, a Corporal Jones made the first emergency swimming ascent after his air line became tangled and he had to cut it free. A less fortunate milestone was the first medical account of a diver squeeze suffered by a Private Williams: the early diving helmets used had no non-return valves; this meant that if a hose became severed, the high-pressure air around the diver's head rapidly evacuated the helmet causing tremendous negative pressure that caused extreme and sometimes life-threatening effects. At the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in 1842, Sir John Richardson described the diving apparatus and treatment of diver Roderick Cameron following an injury that occurred on 14 October 1841 during the salvage operations.

Pasley recovered 12 more guns in 1839, 11 more in 1840, and 6 in 1841. In 1842 he recovered only one iron 12-pounder because he ordered the divers to concentrate on removing the hull timbers rather than search for guns. Other items recovered, in 1840, included the surgeon's brass instruments, silk garments of satin weave 'of which the silk was perfect', and pieces of leather; but no woollen clothing. By 1843 the whole of the keel and the bottom timbers had been raised and the site was declared clear.

Destruction
In 1840, the broken wreckage was destroyed by the Royal Engineers in a huge controlled explosion that shattered windows as far away as Portsmouth and Gosport.

Surviving timbers and guns
A 24-pounder from the ship is part of the Royal Armouries collection and is on display at Southsea Castle.

Several of the salvaged bronze cannon were melted down to form part of Nelson's Column in London's Trafalgar Square. The Corinthian capital is made of bronze elements, cast at the Woolwich Arsenal foundry. The bronze pieces, some weighing as much as 900 pounds (410 kg) are fixed to the column by the means of three large belts of metal lying in grooves in the stone.

Recovered materials were used to make a variety of souvenirs. In the 1850s, timber from the ship was used to make the billiard table by J. Thurston & Co. for the North Wing of Burghley House. Wood salvaged from the Royal George was also used to make the coffin for the famous menagerie owner George Wombwell who died in 1850




Scale: 1:48. A contemporary half full hull and half skeleton model of the Royal George (1756), a first rate, 100-gun three-decker ship of the line, built in the Georgian style. The model is partially decked and has the name Royal George painted on the counter of the stern. The starboard hull shows plank on frame while the port side is unplanked to show the internal construction and layout, including numerous fittings such as galley stoves, capstans and cabin furnishings.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_George_(1756)
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/colle...el-344794;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=R

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 February 1766 – A mutiny by captive Malagasy begins at sea on the slave ship Meermin, leading to the ship's destruction on Cape Agulhas in present-day South Africa and the recapture of the instigators.


The Meermin slave mutiny took place in February 1766 and lasted for three weeks. Meermin was one of the Dutch East India Company's fleet of slave ships. Her final voyage was cut short by the mutiny of her cargo of Malagasy people, who had been sold to Dutch East India Company officials on Madagascar to be used as company slaves in its Cape Colony in southern Africa. During the mutiny half the ship's crew and almost 30 Malagasy lost their lives.


An 18th-century Dutch hoeker



Meermin set sail from Madagascar on 20 January 1766, heading to the Cape Colony. Two days into the trip, Johann Godfried Krause, the ship's chief merchant, persuaded the captain, Gerrit Cristoffel Muller, to release the Malagasy slaves from their shackles and thus avoid attrition by death and disease in their overcrowded living conditions. The Malagasy were put to working the ship and entertaining the crew. In mid-February, Krause ordered the Malagasy to clean some Madagascan weapons, which they subsequently used to seize the ship in an attempt to regain their freedom; Krause was among the first of the crew to be killed, and Muller was stabbed three times but survived.

The crew negotiated a truce, under the terms of which the Malagasy undertook to spare the lives of the surviving crew members. In exchange it was agreed that Meermin would return to Madagascar, where the Malagasy would be released. But gambling on the Malagasy's ignorance of navigation, the wounded Muller instead ordered his crew to head for the coast of southern Africa. After making landfall at Struisbaai, in the Cape Colony, which the Malagasy were assured was their homeland, 50–70 of them went ashore. Their intention was to signal to the others still on board Meermin if it was safe for them to follow, but the shore party soon found themselves confronted by a militia of farmers formed in response to Meermin's arrival; the farmers had understood that as the ship was flying no flags, it was in distress.


Conditions for slaves on a slave ship

Meermin's crew, now led by Krause's assistant Olof Leij, managed to communicate with the militia on shore by means of messages in bottles, and persuaded them to light the signal fires for which the Malagasy still on board were waiting. On seeing the fires, the Malagasy cut the ship's anchor cable and allowed the ship to drift towards the shore, after which she ran aground on an offshore sandbank. The Malagasy could then see the militia on the shore preparing to come to the ship's assistance, and realised that their situation was hopeless; they surrendered and were once again shackled. Captain Muller, ship's mate Daniel Carel Gulik and Krause's assistant Olof Leij were tried in the Dutch East India Company's Council of Justice; all three were fired from the Company, while Muller and Gulik were also stripped of their rank and wages. The slaves were not tried, but the two surviving leaders of the mutiny, named in Dutch East India Company records as Massavana and Koesaaij, were sent to Robben Island for observation, where Massavana died three years later; Koesaaij survived there for another 20 years. In 2004 an ongoing search was begun for Meermin's remains.


Three-masted hoeker: Groenewegen, 1789


Meermin (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈmeːrmɪn] (listen)) was an 18th-century Dutch cargo ship of the hoeker type, one of many built and owned by the Dutch East India Company. She was laid down in 1759 and fitted out as a slave ship before her maiden voyage in 1761, and her career was cut short by a mutiny of her cargo of Malagasy people. They had been sold to Dutch East India Company officials on Madagascar, to be used as company slaves in its Cape Colony in southern Africa. Half her crew and almost 30 Malagasy lost their lives in the mutiny; the mutineers deliberately allowed the ship to drift aground off Struisbaai, now in South Africa, in March 1766, and she broke up in situ. As of 2013, archaeologists are searching for the Meermin's remains.

Construction and use
Meermin was laid down in 1759 in a shipyard belonging to the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, abbreviated to "VOC") in the port of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Meermin was a 480-ton Dutch hoeker, square rigged with three masts.

The hoeker originated in the 15th century as a type of fishing vessel with one or two masts in response to the growing Dutch trade in herring, and was known in English as a hoy. Equipped with guns, hoekers were employed as defensive escorts for fishing fleets, or Buisconvoyers, in the Second Anglo-Dutch War of the 1660s. They came to be used more widely in trade with the Dutch East Indies via the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa, as their rounded sterns proved to be more resistant to warping and springing than square sterns, which were prone to "catastrophic leaking when exposed to strong sun." Larger than most hoekers, the Meermin was unusual for her type in that she was built of oak and had a beakhead, a feature not normally present in smaller merchant vessels.

Meermin was built for use as a slave ship in the VOC's African trade; between 1658 and 1799 the VOC acquired and transported 63,000 slaves to its Cape Colony, now part of South Africa. The ship began her maiden voyage at Texel, an island off the coast of what is now the Netherlands, on 21 January 1761, with a crew of 62 under the command of Captain Hendrik Worms; she arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on 15 June. Although fitted out as a slave ship, vessels such as the Meermin routinely carried other goods when not transporting slaves.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meermin_slave_mutiny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meermin_(VOC_ship)

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 February 1779 – Launch of Batavier, a Dutch 56-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the navy of the Admiralty of Amsterdam


Batavier was a Dutch 56-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the navy of the Admiralty of Amsterdam (one of five provincial navies of the United Provinces of the Netherlands). In 1795 she became part of the Batavian Navy, and on 30 August 1799 was captured by the Royal Navy, who retained her in various subsidiary roles until she was broken up in 1823.



Dutch career and capture
The order to construct the ship was given by the Admiralty of Amsterdam. The ship was laid down on 8 September 1777, launched on 18 February 1779 and commissioned in 1780. On 5 August 1781, Batavier took part in the Battle of Dogger Bank under Captain Wolter Jan Gerrit Bentinck. Bataviersailed in the middle of the Dutch line, between the ships Admiraal de Ruyter and Argo. She was attacked by three British ships, and became unmanageable after a fire broke out. Neither the British nor the Dutch were victorious in the battle, and afterwards Batavier was towed to Texel. Bentinck later died wounds he received in the battle.

In 1795, following the French occupation of the Netherlands, the ship was commissioned in the Batavian Navy.

On 11 October 1797 Batavier took part in the Battle of Camperdown under Captain Jan Jacob Souter. Early in the battle, the ship was under heavy fire, but soon she drifted off, and she eventually left the scene and fled to Texel.

On 30 August 1799 the ship was surrendered to the British fleet under Vice-Admiral Andrew Mitchell during the Vlieter Incident, even though Batavier was the only ship of the Dutch fleet where no mutiny had broken out.


Batavier (E) during the Battle of Dogger Bank on 5 August 1781.

Royal Navy career
Batavier was sailed to Britain and underwent refitting at Chatham Dockyard between 14 July 1800 and 15 July 1801 for use as a floating battery. She was officially established in February 1801. She was commissioned in June 1801 under Captain William Robert Broughton for service in the English Channel. Broughton was succeeded in April 1803 by Captain Patrick Tonyn, and in August 1804 she was laid up at Chatham. She was moved to Woolwich Dockyard in April 1809, where she functioned as a hospital ship under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Dorsett Birchall. This service lasted until January 1817, after which she was moved to Blackwall to receive distressed seamen. Her final service was to be fitted out at Woolwich as a prison ship. She was based at Sheerness from September 1817, and was finally broken up there in March 1823.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_ship_Batavier_(1779)

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 February 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: Sir Ralph Abercromby and a fleet of 18 British warships invade Trinidad.


On February 18, 1797, a fleet of 18 warships under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby invaded and took the Island of Trinidad. Within a few days the last Spanish Governor, Don José María Chacón surrendered the island to Abercromby.


The Capture of Trinidad, 17 February 1797 by Nicholas Pocock

Effected as a result of the signing of the treaty of San Ildefonso in 1796 by the governments of Spain and France and by virtue of which both nations became allies, turning Spain automatically into enemy of Great Britain. In retaliation, this latter country sent a fleet to the Caribbean with the intention of invading the islands of Trinidad and Puerto Rico, obtaining the surrender of the first, but being repelled in the second.



Background
Spain, previously an ally of Great Britain, had been defeated in the War of the Pyrenees against France in 1795 and forced to sign the Peace of Basel. An alliance convention between France and Spain was signed the following year in 1796. British forces in the Caribbean in 1796 had already taken French colonies such as Saint Lucia and later Dutch colonies in South America; Demerara and Essequibo. With the Spanish now at war with Great Britain, the general Ralph Abercromby thought it was right to necessarily render Spain's colonies an immediate object of attack. His first target was the Spanish island of Trinidad which being close proximity to Tobago which had been captured early in the war. The island had been Spanish since the third voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1498 and since 1777 was a province of the Captaincy General of Venezuela.

Landing
On the 12th of February, an expedition, composed of four sail of the line, two sloops and a bomb-vessel, under the command of Rear-Admiral Henry Harvey, in Prince of Wales, having on board his ship Lieutenant-general Sir Ralph Abercromby, as the commanding officer of the troops to be employed, quit Port-Royal, Martinique. On the 14th the rear-admiral arrived at the port of rendezvous, the island of Carriacou, and was there joined by another sail of the line, the 74-gun third-rate (Invincible), two frigates, three sloops, and several transports, containing the troops destined for the attack.

On the 15th the squadron and transports again set sail, running between the islands of Carriacou and Grenada. On the morning of the next day the whole flotilla arrived off Trinidad and steered for the Gulf of Paria. Just as the British squadron had passed through the Great Bocas channel, a Spanish squadron was discovered at anchor in Chaguaramus Bay, consisting of the following four sail of the line and one frigate: San Vincente (Captain Don Geronimo Mendoza; 84 guns), Gallardo (Captain Don Gabriel Sororido; 74 guns), Arrogante (Captain Don Raphael Benasa; 74 guns), San Damaso(Captain Don Tores Jordan; 74 guns), and Santa Cecilia (Captain Don Manuel Urtesabel; 36 guns), all under the command of Rear-Admiral Don Sebastian Ruiz de Apodaca.

The apparent strength of the battery on Gaspar Grande island, which, mounting 20 cannon and two mortars, commanded and might have disputed, the entrance to the enemy's anchorage, caused Hardy to order the transports, under the protection of Arethusa, Thorn, and Zebra, to anchor a little further up the gulf, at the distance of about five miles from the town of Port-d'Espagne, while Alarm, Favourite, and Victorieuse kept under sail between the transports and Port-d'Espagne, to prevent any vessels escaping from the latter. In the mean time, the rear-admiral, with his four sail of the line, anchored, in order of battle, within random-shot of the Spanish batteries and line-of-battle ships, to be prepared in case the ships, having all their sails set and appearing to be ready for sea, should attempt during the night to escape.

The British began to observe flames bursting out from one of the Spanish ships. In a short time three others were on fire and all four continued to burn with great fury until daylight. The Spanish had set the ships on fire as most the marines and seamen were ashore. The San-Damaso escaped the conflagration and, without any resistance, was brought off by the boats of the British squadron. The Spaniards meanwhile, had abandoned Gaspar Grande and soon after daylight a detachment of the 14th Regiment of Foot occupied the island. In the course of the day the remainder of the troops landed about three miles from Port of Spain, without the slightest opposition, and on the same evening, quietly entered the town itself. This led to the Spanish governor José María Chacón offering to capitulate; on the following day, the island of Trinidad surrendered to the British arms, without an effort at defence and without any casualties. Abercromby made sir Thomas Picton governor of Trinidad as a British crown colony, with a French-speaking population and Spanish laws.

Aftermath

1897 medallion commemorating the centenary of the capture of Trinidad

On 17 April 1797, Sir Abercromby fleet invaded the island of Puerto Rico with a force of 6,000-13,000 men, which included German soldiers and Royal Marines and 60 to 64 ships. Fierce fighting continued for the next days. Both sides suffered heavy losses. On Sunday, April 30 the British ceased their attack and began their retreat from San Juan. The next year the British invasion force shared in the allocation of £40,000 for the proceeds of the ships taken at Trinidad and the property found on the island. The governor Picton held the island with a garrison he considered inadequate against the threats of internal unrest and of reconquest by the Spanish. He ensured order by vigorous action, viewed variously as rough-and-ready justice or as arbitrary brutality. During the peace negotiations many of the British inhabitants petitioned against the return of the island to Spain; this together with Picton's and Abercromby's representations, ensured the retention of Trinidad as a British possession.The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between the France and the United Kingdom. It was signed on 25 March 1802 by Joseph Bonaparte and Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace." The consequent peace lasted only one year (18 May 1803) and was the only period of general peace in Europe between 1793 and 1814. The conquest and formal ceding of Trinidad in 1802 led to an influx of settlers from England or the British colonies of the Eastern Caribbean. The sparse settlement and slow rate of population increase during Spanish rule and even after British rule made Trinidad one of the less populated colonies of the West Indies with the least developed plantation infrastructure.

The King of Spain Charles IV set up a "Council of War" to look into the surrender. By Royal Decree, the ex governor of Trinidad Jose Maria Chacon and Rear Admiral Sebastián Ruiz de Apodaca (who had scuttled his small fleet) were banished for life from the "Royal Domain." Apodaca's case was reconsidered and he was reinstated in 1809, but Chacón died in exile in Portugal.


Sir Ralph Abercromby KB (sometimes spelt Abercrombie) (7 October 1734 – 28 March 1801) was a Scottish soldier and politician. He rose to the rank of lieutenant-general in the British Army, was noted for his services during the Napoleonic Wars, and served as Commander-in-Chief, Ireland.



He twice served as MP for Clackmannanshire, and he was appointed Governor of Trinidad.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Trinidad_(1797)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Abercromby

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 February 1800 - The Battle of the Malta Convoy was a naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars fought on 18 February 1800 during the Siege of Malta.
HMS Alexander (74), Lt. William Harrington (Acting), and HMS Success (32), Cptn. Shuldham Peard, captured Genereux (74) off Malta.


The Battle of the Malta Convoy was a naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars fought on 18 February 1800 during the Siege of Malta. The French garrison at the city of Valletta in Malta had been under siege for eighteen months, blockaded on the landward side by a combined force of British, Portuguese and irregular Maltese forces and from the sea by a Royal Navy squadron under the overall command of Lord Nelson from his base at Palermo on Sicily. In February 1800, the Neapolitan government replaced the Portuguese troops with their own forces and the soldiers were convoyed to Malta by Nelson and Lord Keith, arriving on 17 February. The French garrison was by early 1800 suffering from severe food shortages, and in a desperate effort to retain the garrison's effectiveness a convoy was arranged at Toulon, carrying food, armaments and reinforcements for Valletta under Contre-amiral Jean-Baptiste Perrée. On 17 February, the French convoy approached Malta from the southeast, hoping to pass along the shoreline and evade the British blockade squadron.



On 18 February 1800 lookouts on the British ship HMS Alexander sighted the French and gave chase, followed by the rest of Nelson's squadron while Keith remained off Valletta. Although most of the French ships outdistanced the British pursuit, one transport was overhauled and forced to surrender, while Perrée's flagship Généreux was intercepted by the much smaller frigate HMS Success. In the opening exchange of fire, Success was badly damaged but Perrée was mortally wounded. The delay caused by the engagement allowed the main body of the British squadron to catch up the French ship and, badly outnumbered, Généreux surrendered. Perrée died shortly after receiving his wound, and none of the supplies reached Malta, which held out for another seven months against increasing odds before surrendering on 4 September 1800.

Background
In May 1798, during the French Revolutionary Wars, a French expeditionary force sailed from Toulon under General Napoleon Bonaparte. Crossing the Mediterranean, the force captured Malta in early June and continued southeastwards, making landfall in Egypt on 31 June. Landing near Alexandria, Bonaparte captured the city and advanced inland, completing the first stage of a projected campaign in Asia. The French fleet, under the command of Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers was directed to anchor in Aboukir Bay, 20 mi (32 km) northeast of Alexandria and support the army ashore. On 1 August 1798, the anchored fleet was surprised and attacked by a British fleet under Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson. In the ensuing Battle of the Nile, eleven of the thirteen French ships of the line, and two of the four frigates were captured or destroyed. Brueys was killed, and the survivors of the French fleet struggled out of the bay on 2 August, splitting up near Crete. Généreux sailed north to Corfu, encountering and capturing the British fourth rate ship HMS Leander en route. The other ships, Guillaume Tell and two frigates under Contre-amirals Pierre-Charles Villeneuve and Denis Decrès, sailed westwards to Malta, arriving just as the island came under siege.

On Malta, the dissolution of the Roman Catholic Church under French rule had been extremely unpopular among the native Maltese population. During an auction of church property on 2 September 1798, an armed uprising had begun that had forced the French garrison, commanded by General Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois, to retreat into the capital Valletta by the end of the month. The garrison, which numbered approximately 3,000 men, had limited food stocks, and efforts to bring supplies in by sea were restricted by a squadron of British and Portuguese ships stationed off the harbour. The blockade was under the command of Nelson, now Lord Nelson, based in Palermo on Sicily, and directly managed by Captain Alexander Ball on the ship of the line HMS Alexander. During 1799 a number of factors, including inadequate food production on Malta, lack of resources and troops caused by commitments elsewhere in the Mediterranean and the appearance of a French fleet under Admiral Etienne Eustache Bruix in the Western Mediterranean all contributed to lapses in the blockade. However, despite the trickle of supplies that reached the garrison, Vaubois' troops were beginning to suffer the effects of starvation and disease. Late in the year Ball went ashore assist the Maltese troops conducting the siege and was replaced in command of Alexander by his first lieutenant, William Harrington.

In January 1800, recognising that Valletta was in danger of surrendering if it could not be resupplied, the French Navy prepared a convoy at Toulon, consisting of Généreux, under Captain Cyprien Renaudin, the 20-gun corvettes Badine, Fauvette and 16-gun Sans Pareille and two or three transport ships. The force was under the command of Contre-amiral Jean-Baptiste Perrée, recently exchanged under parole after being captured off Acre the previous year, and was instructed to approach Valletta along the Maltese coast from the southwest with the intention of passing between the blockade squadron and the shore and entering Malta before the British could discover and intercept them. The convoy sailed on 7 February. In addition to the supplies, the convoy carried nearly 3,000 French soldiers to reinforce the garrison, an unnecessary measure that would completely counteract the replenishment of the garrison's food stocks.

While the French planned their reinforcement, the Royal Navy was preparing to replace the 500 Portuguese marines stationed on Malta with 1,200 Neapolitan troops supplied by King Ferdinand. Nelson, who had recently been neglecting his blockade duties in favour of the politics of the Neapolitan court and in particular Emma, Lady Hamilton, the wife of the British ambassador Sir William Hamilton, was instructed to accompany the Neapolitan convoy. The reinforcement effort was led by Vice-Admiral Lord Keith, Nelson's superior and overall Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, in his flagship HMS Queen Charlotte.

Battle
Keith's convoy arrived off Malta in the first week of February 1800 and disembarked the Neapolitan troops at Marsa Sirocco. While stationed off Valletta on 17 February, Keith received word from the frigate HMS Success that a French convoy was approaching the island from the direction of Sicily. Success, commanded by Captain Shuldham Peard, had been ordered to watch the waters off Trapani. After discovering the French ships, which were Perrée's convoy from Toulon, Peard shadowed their approach to Malta. On receiving the message, Keith issued rapid orders for HMS Lion to cover the channel between Malta and the offshore island of Gozo while Nelson's flagship HMS Foudroyant, HMS Audacious and HMS Northumberland joined Alexander off the southeastern coast of Malta. Keith himself remained off Valletta in Queen Charlotte, observing the squadron in the harbour.

At daylight on 18 February, lookouts on Alexander sighted the French convoy sailing along the Maltese coast towards Valletta and gave chase, with Nelson's three ships visible to seawards. At 08:00 the transport Ville de Marseille was overhauled, and surrendered to Lieutenant Harrington's ship, but the other smaller vessels hauled up at 13:30 and made out to sea, led by Badine. Généreux was unable to follow as to do so would bring the French ship into action with Alexander, and instead bore up, holding position. This station prevented Alexander from easily coming into action, but gave Captain Peard on Success an opportunity to close with the French ship, bringing his small vessel across the ship of the line's bow and opening a heavy fire. Peard was able to get off several broadsides against Perrée's ship before the French officers managed to turn their vessel to fire on the frigate, inflicting severe damage to Peard's rigging and masts. By this stage however, Perrée was no longer in command: a shot from the first broadside had thrown splinters into his left eye, temporarily blinding him. Remaining on deck, he called to his crew "Ce n'est rien, mes amis, continuons notre besogne" ("It is nothing, my friends, continue with your work") and gave orders for the ship to be turned, when a cannonball from the second broadside from Success tore his right leg off at the thigh. Perrée collapsed unconscious on the deck.

Although Success was badly damaged and drifting, the delay had allowed Nelson's flagship Foudroyant under Captain Sir Edward Berry and Northumberland under Captain George Martin to come up to Généreux by 16:30. Foudroyant fired two shots at the French warship, at which point the demoralised French officers fired a single broadside at the approaching British ships and then surrendered, at 5:30. The remaining French ships had escaped seawards and eventually reached Toulon, while the British squadron consolidated their prizes and returned to Keith off Toulon. British losses in the engagement were one man killed and nine wounded, all on Success, while French losses were confined to Perrée alone, who died of his wounds in the evening. Perrée's death was met by a mixed response in the British squadron: some regretted his death as "a gallant and capable man", while others considered him "lucky to have redeemed his honour" for violating his parole after being captured the previous year.

Aftermath
The French surrender was taken by Sir Edward Berry, who had last been aboard the ship as a prisoner of war following the capture of Leander in 1798. Nelson in particular was pleased with the capture of Généreux, one of the two French ships of the line to have escaped the Battle of the Nile two years earlier. The French ship was only lightly damaged, and was sent to Menorca for repairs under Lieutenant Lord Cochrane and his brother Midshipman Archibald Cochrane from Queen Charlotte. During the passage, the ship was caught in a severe storm, and it was only though the leadership and personal example set by the brothers that the ship survived to reach Port Mahon. The ship was taken into British service shortly afterwards as HMS Genereux. Nelson was credited with the victory by Keith, although Nelson himself praised Harrington and Peard for their efforts in discovering the French convoy and bringing it to battle. The presence of the British squadron off Malta at the time of the arrival of the French convoy was largely due to luck, a factor that Ball attributed to Nelson in a letter written to Emma Hamilton shortly after the battle:

Although pleased with the result of the engagement, Lord Keith issued strict instructions that Nelson was to remain in active command of the blockade and on no account to return to Palermo. If he had to go to port in Sicily, then he was to use Syracuse instead. Keith then sailed to Livorno, where his flagship was destroyed in a sudden fire that killed over 700 of the crew, although Keith himself was not on board at the time. By early March, Nelson had tired of the blockade and in defiance of Keith's instructions returned to Palermo again, leaving Captain Thomas Troubridge of HMS Culloden in command of the blockade squadron. In March, while Nelson was absent at Palermo, the ship of the line Guillaume Tell, the last survivor of the Nile, attempted to break out of Malta but was chased down and defeated by a British squadron led by Berry in Foudroyant. Although Nelson briefly returned in April, both of the Hamiltons were aboard his ship and most of his time was spent at Marsa Sirocco in the company of Emma, with whom he was now romantically attached.

Captain Renaudin, of Généreux, and Joseph Allemand, of Ville de Marseille, were both honourably acquitted during the automatic court-martial for the loss of their ships. The French Navy made no further efforts to reach Malta, and all subsequent efforts by French warships to break out the port were met by the blockade, only one frigate breaking through and reaching France. Without the supplies carried on Perrée's convoy, starvation and disease spread throughout the garrison and by the end of August 1800, French soldiers were dying at a rate of 100 a day. On 4 September, Vaubois finally capitulated, turning the island over to the British, who retained it for the next 164 years.


Genereux (1785) 74 (1785) – ex-French, captured 18 February 1800, prison ship 1805, broken up 1816

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Malta_Convoy_(1800)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Généreux_(1785)