Naval/Maritime History 27th of August - Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 September 1782 - The Central Atlantic hurricane of 1782, was a hurricane that hit the fleet of British Admiral Thomas Graves as it sailed across the North Atlantic in September 1782. It is believed to have killed some 3,500 people.


The Central Atlantic hurricane of 1782, was a hurricane that hit the fleet of British Admiral Thomas Graves as it sailed across the North Atlantic in September 1782. It is believed to have killed some 3,500 people.

On 25 July Admiral Graves sailed a fleet from Bluefields, Jamaica, escorted by a naval force consisting of his flagship, the 74-gun HMS Ramillies, and the 74-gun ships HMS Canada and HMS Centaur, with the 36-gun frigate HMS Pallas. Graves was escorting a number of French ships captured by the British during operations off North and Central America. These were the 110-gun Ville de Paris, the 74-gun ships Glorieux and Hector and the 64-gun Ardent, all captured at the Battle of the Saintes by Sir George Brydges Rodney's fleet, and the 74-gun Caton, captured at the Battle of the Mona Passageby Sir Samuel Hood. Also with the fleet were a number of British merchant ships. Graves also had under his command the captured former-French 74-gun Jason, but she did not leave with the rest of the fleet, having stayed at Jamaica to complete her watering.


Sinking of the Ville de Paris

In the night of 5 September, Hector met the French frigates Aigle and Gloire; in the ensuing Action of 5 September 1782, Hector sustained severe damage, but was saved from capture by the rest of the convoy.

On 17 September 1782, the fleet under Admiral Graves was caught in a violent storm off the banks of Newfoundland. Ardent and Caton were forced to leave the fleet and make for a safe anchorage, Ardent returning to Jamaica and Caton making for Halifax in company with Pallas. Of the rest of the warships, only Canada and Jason survived to reach England. The French prizes Ville de Paris, Glorieux and Hector foundered, as did HMS Centaur. HMS Ramillies had to be abandoned, and was burnt. A number of the merchant fleet, including Dutton, British Queen, Withywood, Rodney, Ann, Minerva and Mentor also foundered. Altogether around 3,500 lives were lost from the various ships.


The French ship Glorieux was a second-rate 74-gun ship of the line in the French Navy. Built by Clairin Deslauriers at Rochefort and launched on 10 August 1756, she was rebuilt in 1777.


The view from Lady Juliana on the morning after the hurricane, featuring Glorieux along with HMS Centaurand HMS Ville de Paris

French service
On 30 August 1781, she was with the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse. According to French sources, the British sloop Loyalist and the frigate Guadeloupe were on picket duty in the Chesapeake when they encountered the French fleet. Guadeloupe escaped up the York River to York Town, where she would later be scuttled.[1] The English court martial records report that Loyalist was returning to the British fleet off the Jersey coast when she encountered the main French fleet. The French frigate Aigrette, with the 74-gun Glorieux in sight, was able to overtake Loyalist.[2] The French took her into service as Loyaliste in September, but then gave her to the Americans in November 1781.

The British captured Glorieux at the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782 despite the best efforts of Denis Decrès, and commissioned her into the Royal Navy as HMS Glorieux or HMS Glorious the following day. She was rated as a third rate.

Fate
She sailed with the fleet for England on 25 July 1782 but was lost later that year in a hurricane storm off Newfoundland on 16–17 September, along with the other captured French prize ships Ville de Paris, Hector and Caton. Glorieux was lost with all hands, including her captain, Thomas Cadogan, son of Charles Cadogan, 3rd Baron Cadogan.


HMS Ramillies was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 15 April 1763 at Chatham Dockyard.


Loss of HMS Ramillies, September 1782: before the storm breaks

In 1782 she was the flagship of a fleet under Admiral Thomas Graves off Newfoundland. Ramillies was badly damaged in a violent storm of 1782, and was finally abandoned and burned on 21 September 1782.


On 16–19 September, she was escorting a convoy from Jamaica when they were hit by the storm. Frantic efforts were made to save her. All anchors, cannon, and masts were shipped over the side. The hull was bound together with rope, officers and men manned the pumps for 24 hours a day for 3 days. However despite all the water continued to rise. The exhausted crew were rescued by nearby merchantmen, and the last man, Captain Sylverius Moriarty, set her on fire as he left.


’The Storm increas'd. Distressed situation of the Ramillies when Day broke with the Dutton Store Ship foundering'

Robert Dodd painted a series of four documenting the tragedy. "The demise of the Ramillies" comprises: A storm coming on (shown right), ’The Storm increas'd (shown left), The Ramillies Water Logg'd with her Admiral & Crew quitting the Wreck, and The Ramillies Destroyed. In 1795 a set of four coloured mezzotints were engraved and published by Jukes from his shop at No.10 Howland Street.


Ville de Paris was a large three-decker French ship of the line that became famous as the flagship of the Comte de Grasse during the American Revolutionary War.


French warship Ville de Paris in 1764.

Originally laid down in 1757 as the 90-gun Impétueux, she was funded by the City of Paris and renamed Ville de Paris in 1762 as a result of the don des vaisseaux, Duc de Choiseul’s campaign to raise funds for the navy from the cities and provinces of France.

She was completed in 1764 as a 90-gun first rate, just too late to serve in the Seven Years' War. She was one of the first three-deckers to be completed for the French navy since the 1720s. In 1778, on the French entry into the American Revolutionary War she was commissioned at Brest, joining the fleet as the flagship of the Comte de Guichen. In July she fought in the indecisive Battle of Ushant (1778).

At some point during the next two years, she had an additional 14 small guns mounted on her previously unarmed quarterdeck, making her a 104-gun ship.

In March 1781 she sailed for the West Indies as flagship of a fleet of 20 ships of the line under the Comte de Grasse. She then fought at the Battle of Fort Royal, and the Battle of the Chesapeake. In 1782, she fought in the Battle of St. Kitts as De Grasse's flagship.


The Battle of the Saintes, 12 April 1782: surrender of the Ville de Paris by Thomas Whitcombe, painted 1783, shows Hood's Barfleur, centre, attacking the French flagship Ville de Paris, right.

At the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782, the British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney defeated the French fleet under the Comte de Grasse, and captured Ville de Paris.

The ship did not live up to the motto of her namesake city, Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink), for she sank in September 1782 with other ships when the 1782 Central Atlantic hurricane hit the fleet off Newfoundland Admiral Graves was leading back to England. Ville de Paris sank with the loss of all hands but one.


The Hector was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, lead ship of her class.

Hector was launched on 23 July 1755, and commissioned under Captain Vilarzel d'Hélie.

In 1757, the departed Toulon on 18 March, arriving in Louisbourg on 15 June. Returning to Brest on 23 November with 5000 sick aboard, she spread the typhus to the town;[2] the ensuing epidemic caused 10 000 fatalities. She was then decommissioned and stayed in the reserve in Brest.

In July 1762, while cruising off Cap Français, she struck the bottom on a rock. The same spot had been the theatre of the wreck of French ship Dragon (1748) on 17 March of the same year. Between 1763 and 1777, she was decommissioned in Toulon. During the American War of Independence, she reactivated, sailing to the Delaware in July 1778. She arrived at Newport on 8 August 1778

On 14 August 1778, Hector and the 64-gun Vaillant captured the bombship HMS Thunder. The same day, she also captured the 16-gun HMS Senegal at Sandy Hook. Hector then took part in the Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779 and in the Siege of Savannah, before returning to Brest, arriving on 10 December 1779. She was decommissioned in Lorient on 21 December, before rearming and thaking part in the Battle of the Chesapeake on 5 September 1781.

During the Battle of the Saintes, from 9 to 12 April 1782, she battled HMS Canada and Alcide and was captured. He captain, Lavicomté, died in the action.

The British took her to Jamaica, where she was repaired and recommissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Hector.
She took part in the Action of 5 September 1782, where she was damaged by the frigates Aigle and Gloire.

Much damaged in this action and after suffering the 1782 Central Atlantic hurricane of 17 September, she sank on 4 October 1782. The privateer Hawke saved 200 of her crew.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glorieux
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ramillies_(1763)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Ville_de_Paris_(1764)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Hector_(1756)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1782_Central_Atlantic_hurricane

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 September 1814 - A squadron from the schooner USS Carolina attacks and raids the base of the pirate Jean Lafitte, at Barataria, La., capturing six schooners and other small craft while the pirates flee the attack.


Jean Lafitte (c. 1780 – c. 1823) was a French pirate and privateer in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He and his elder brother, Pierre, spelled their last name Laffite, but English-language documents of the time used "Lafitte". The latter has become the common spelling in the United States, including for places named after him.


Portrait said to be of Jean Lafitte

Lafitte is believed to have been born either in Basque-France or the French colony of Saint-Domingue. By 1805, he operated a warehouse in New Orleans to help disperse the goods smuggled by his brother Pierre Lafitte. After the United States government passed the Embargo Act of 1807, the Lafittes moved their operations to an island in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. By 1810, their new port was very successful; the Lafittes had a profitable smuggling operation and also started to engage in piracy.

Though Lafitte warned the other Baratarians of a possible military attack on their base of operations, a United States naval force successfully invaded in September 1814 and captured most of Lafitte's fleet. Later, in return for a legal pardon for the smugglers, Lafitte and his comrades helped General Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans from the British in the final battle of the War of 1812.

The Lafittes became spies for the Spanish during the Mexican War of Independence and moved to Galveston Island, Texas, where they developed a pirate colony they called Campeche. Lafitte continued attacking merchant ships as a pirate around Central American ports until he died circa 1823, trying to capture Spanish vessels. Speculation about his life and death continues among historians.


Barataria


This recent map shows Barataria Bay[lower right], near Grande Isle

The United States made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. In January 1808, the government began to enforce the Embargo Act of 1807, which barred American ships from docking at any foreign port and imposed an embargo on goods imported into the US. This was problematic for New Orleans merchants, who had relied heavily on trade with Caribbean colonies of other nations. The Lafitte brothers began to look for another port from which they could smuggle goods to local merchants.

They established themselves on the small and sparsely populated island of Barataria, in Barataria Bay. The bay was located beyond a narrow passage between the barrier islands of Grand Terre and Grande Isle. Barataria was far from the U.S. naval base, and ships could easily smuggle in goods without being noticed by customs officials. Workers would reload goods into smaller batches onto pirogues or barges for transport through the bayous to New Orleans.

Based in New Orleans, Pierre Lafitte served as a silent partner, looking after their interests in the city. Jean Lafitte spent the majority of his time in Barataria managing the daily hands-on business of outfitting privateers and arranging the smuggling of stolen goods. By 1810, the island had become a booming port. Seamen flocked to the island, working on the docks or at the warehouses until they were chosen as crew for one of the privateers.

Lafitte was unhappy with the time it took to transport goods from the port to the merchants; navigating the swamps could take a full week. In 1812, Lafitte and his men began holding auctions at the Temple, a prehistoric memorial earthwork mound halfway between Grande Terre and New Orleans.

Dissatisfied with their role as brokers, in October 1812 the Lafitte brothers purchased a schooner and hired a Captain Trey Cook to sail it. As the schooner did not have an official commission from a national government, its captain was considered a pirate operating illegally. In January 1813 they took their first prize, a Spanish hermaphrodite brig loaded with 77 slaves. Sale of the slaves and additional cargo generated $18,000 in profits and the brothers adapted the captured ship for use in piracy, naming it Dorada. Within weeks, Dorada captured a schooner loaded with over $9,000 in goods. The captured schooner was not considered useful for piracy so, after unloading its cargo, the Lafittes returned the ship to its former captain and crew. The Lafittes gained a reputation for treating captive crew members well, and often returned captured ships to their original crew.

The brothers soon acquired a third ship, La Diligent.[24] They outfitted it with 12 fourteen-pounder cannons. Dorada captured a fourth ship, a schooner they renamed Petit Milan. The brothers stripped down their original ship and used its guns to outfit the new one. They sailed three ships, which Davis described as likely "one of the largest privately owned corsair fleets operating on the coast, and the most versatile."[26] For several months, the Lafittes would send the ships directly to New Orleans with a legal cargo and would take on outgoing provisions in the city. The crew would create a manifest that listed not the provisions that had been purchased, but smuggled items stored at Barataria. Uninterested in exports from New Orleans, customs agents rarely checked the accuracy of the manifests. The ship would sail to the mouth of Bayou Lafourche, load the contraband goods, and sail "legally" back to New Orleans, with goods listed on a certified manifest.

American invasion


US Commodore Daniel Patterson commanded an offensive force against Lafitte and his men at Barataria, 1814

The US ordered an attack on Lafitte's colony. On September 13, 1814 Commodore Daniel Patterson set sail aboard the USS Carolina for Barataria. He was accompanied by six gunboats and a tender. The fleet anchored off Grande Terre and the gunboats attacked. By midmorning, 10 armed pirate ships formed a battle line in the bay. Within a short period, Lafitte's men abandoned their ships, set several on fire, and fled the area. When Patterson's men went ashore, they met no resistance. They took 80 people captive, but Lafitte escaped safely. The Americans took custody of six schooners, one felucca, and a brig, as well as 20 cannon and goods worth $500,000.

On September 23, Patterson and his fleet, including the eight captured ships, began the return trip to New Orleans. Widely publicized, the raid was hailed by the Niles' Weekly Register as "a major conquest for the United States". Lafitte was described as

a man who, for about two years past, has been famous for crimes that the civilized world wars against. ... [He] is supposed to have captured one hundred vessels of all nations, and certainly murdered the crews of all that he took, for no one has ever escaped him.​

Following the custom of the times, Patterson filed a legal claim for the profits from the confiscated ships and merchandise. An attorney representing Lafitte argued that the captured ships had flown the flag of Cartagena, an area at peace with the United States. One of Lafitte's men testified that the Baratarians had never intended to fight the US but had prepared their vessels to flee. The judge ruled that Patterson should get the customary share of profits from the goods that had already been sold, but he did not settle the ownership of the ships. They were held in port under custody of the United States marshal. Likely inspired by Lafitte's offer to help defend Louisiana, Governor Claiborne wrote the US Attorney General, Richard Rush requesting a pardon for the Baratarians, saying that for generations, smugglers were "esteemed honest ... [and] sympathy for these offenders is certainly more or less felt by many of the Louisianans". According to Ramsay, Claiborne next wrote to General Andrew Jackson, "implying Patterson had destroyed a potential first line of defense for Louisiana" by his capture of Lafitte and his ships. Jackson responded, "I ask you, Louisianans, can we place any confidence in the honor of men who have courted an alliance with pirates and robbers?"


USS Carolina (1812), a schooner, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the British colony that became the states of North Carolina and South Carolina. Her keel was laid down at Charleston, South Carolina. She was purchased by the Navy while still on the stocks, launched on 10 November 1812, and commissioned on 4 June 1813 with Lieutenant J. D. Henley in command.

Carolina set sail for New Orleans, Louisiana, and while making her passage, captured the British schooner Shark. Arriving at New Orleans 23 August 1814, she began an active career of patrol directed against possible British action as well as the pirates that infested the Caribbean Sea. On 16 September 1814, Carolina attacked and destroyed the stronghold of the notorious Jean Lafitte on the island of Barataria.

Carolina, with the others of the small naval force in the area, carried out the series of operations which gave General Andrew Jackson time to prepare the defense of New Orleans when the British threatened the city in December 1814. On 23 December, she dropped down the river to the British bivouac which she bombarded with so telling an effect as to make a material contribution to the eventual victory. As the British stiffened their efforts to destroy the naval force and to take the city, Carolina came under heavy fire from enemy artillery on 27 December. The heated shot set her afire, and her crew was forced to abandon her. Shortly after, she exploded.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Carolina_(1812)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Lafitte

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 September 1823 - Samuel Southard becomes the seventh Secretary of the Navy, serving until March 3, 1829. During his tenure, he enlarges the Navy, improves administration, purchases land for the first Naval Hospitals, begins construction of the first Navy dry docks, undertakes surveying U.S. coastal waters and promotes exploration in the Pacific Ocean.


Samuel Lewis Southard (June 9, 1787 – June 26, 1842) was a prominent U.S. statesman of the early 19th century, serving as a U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Navy, and the tenth governor of New Jersey.



The son of Henry Southard and brother of Isaac Southard, he was born in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, attended the Brick Academy classical school and graduated from Princeton University in 1804. He is descended from one of the earliest settlers of New Amsterdam, Anthony Janszoon van Salee.

Early career
After teaching school in New Jersey, he worked for several years as a tutor in the Virginia home of John Taliaferro, his father's Congressional colleague. While living in Virginia, Southard studied law with Francis T. Brooke and Judge Williams, both of Fredericksburg. Upon being admitted to the bar, he returned to New Jersey, where he was appointed law reporter by the New Jersey Legislature in 1814. Elected to the New Jersey General Assembly in 1815, Southard was appointed to the New Jersey Supreme Court to succeed Mahlon Dickerson shortly thereafter, and in 1820 served as a presidential elector. He was elected to a seat in the United States Senate over James J. Wilson, and was appointed to the remainder of Wilson's term After Wilson resigned. Southard served in office from January 26, 1821 to March 3, 1823 when he resigned. During this time, he was a member of the committee that produced the Missouri Compromise.

Navy career
President James Monroe selected Senator Southard to be Secretary of the Navy in September 1823, and he remained in office under President John Quincy Adams. During these years, he also served briefly as ad interim Secretary of the Treasury (1825) and Secretary of War (1828). Southard proved to be one of the most effective of the Navy's early Secretaries. He endeavored to enlarge the Navy and improve its administration, purchased land for the first Naval Hospitals, began construction of the first Navy dry docks, undertook surveys of U.S. coastal waters and promoted exploration in the Pacific Ocean. Responding to actions by influential officers, including David Porter, he reinforced the American tradition of civilian control over the military establishment. Also on Southard's watch, the Navy grew by some 50% in personnel and expenditures and expanded its reach into waters that had not previously seen an American man-of-war.

Political life
In 1829, after leaving his Navy post, Samuel Southard became New Jersey Attorney General, following Theodore Frelinghuysen in that post. Elected Governorover Peter D. Vroom by a vote of 40 to 24 by the joint session of the Legislature in 1832, he re-entered the U.S. Senate in the following year. During the next decade, he was a leader of the Whig Party and a figure of national political importance. As President pro tempore of the Senate, he was first in the presidential line of succession from April 4, 1841 to May 31, 1842 after the death of William Henry Harrison and the accession of Vice President John Tyler to the presidency. Failing health forced his resignation from the Senate in 1842. Samuel Southard died in Fredericksburg, Virginia on June 26 of that year. He was interred in the Congressional Cemetery.

Societies
During the 1820s, Southard was a member of the prestigious society, Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, who counted among their members former presidents Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams and many prominent men of the day, including well-known representatives of the military, government service, medical and other professions.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_L._Southard

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 September 1841 – Launch of French Forte, a 60 gun Surveillante-class frigate, at Cherbourg


The Surveillante class was a type of sixty-gun frigate of the French Navy, designed in 1823 by Mathurin-François Boucher.

One of the main innovations with respect to previous design was the disappearance of the gangways, which provided a flush deck capable of harbouring a complete second battery. With the standardisation on the 30-pounder calibre for all naval ordnance that occurred in the 1820s, this design allowed for a frigate throwing a 900-pound broadside, thrice the firepower of the 40-gun Pallas class that constituted the majority of the frigate forces during the Empire, and comparable to that of a 74-gun.


Model showing characteristics and original painting scheme of Belle Poule.

By far the best-known ship of the class is Belle Poule, which achieved fame when she transported the ashes of Napoléon back to France in the so-called Retour des cendres; for this occasion, she was painted all black, a colour scheme that she retained later in her career, but which is uncharacteristic of the ships of this type.

• Surveillante

Launched: 29 September 1825
Fate: deleted 22 August 1844.

• Belle Gabrielle

Launched: 28 June 1828
Fate: renamed Indépendante 9 August 1830, deleted 24 October 1860.

• Melpomène

Launched: 28 July 1828
Fate: deleted 20 March 1845.

• Herminie

Launched: 25 August 1828
Fate: wrecked off Bermuda 3 December 1838.

• Belle Poule

Launched: 26 March 1834
Fate: deleted 19 March 1861.

• Sémillante

Launched: 6 February 1841
Fate: wrecked 16 February 1855 off Bonifacio.

• Andromaque

Launched: 8 March 1841
Fate: deleted 17 August 1869.

• Forte

Launched: 16 September 1841
Fate: deleted 23 October 1883.

• Pallas

Launched: 15 August 1860
Fate: hulked 23 October 1883


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillante-class_frigate

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 September 1888 - HMS Lily, an Arab-class composite gunvessel wrecked on the coast of Labrador


HMS Lily was an Arab-class composite gunvessel built for the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1874, saw service in Chinese and North American waters, and was wrecked on the coast of Labrador on 16 September 1888.



Design and construction
Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby, the Royal Navy's Chief Constructor, Lily was ordered from the Govan yard of Robert Napier and Sons in 1873 and laid down the same year as yard number 334. She was launched on 27 October 1874 and commissioned at Devonport in August 1875.

Her hull was built of iron frames and ribs, and planked in wood. This "composite" construction was both cheap and easy to repair and allowed the wooden planking to be coppered, reducing marine growth. On far-flung colonial stations, the benefits of both simple repair and reduced marine growth were particularly positive, due to a lack of substantial ship repair and careening facilities. For this reason, smaller vessels like the Arab class continued to use composite construction until long after larger vessels had transitioned to iron or steel construction.

Propulsion
Steam was provided at 60 pounds per square inch (410 kPa) by 3 boilers to a single 2-cylinder horizontal compound-expansion steam engine generating 829 indicated horsepower (618 kW). A single screw was provided, which could be hoisted clear of the water to improve the ship's hull lines when sailing. She achieved a trials speed of 10.7 knots (19.8 km/h; 12.3 mph) under power. A sailing rig was provided, with square rig on the fore and main masts, and fore-and-aft rigging only on the mizzen, giving her a "barque" rig.



Armament
A single 7-inch rifled muzzle-loading gun amidships and 2 6.3-inch 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns, one forward and one aft, and both fitted on traversing slides, constituted her main armament. Two machine guns and a light gun were also fitted.

Service
Lily served on the China station and was recommissioned at Hong Kong in 1879. By April 1886 she was serving on the North America and West Indies station.

Fate
Lily was wrecked off Point Amour Lighthouse, Labrador in thick fog on 16 September 1888. A capsized boat caused the death of seven of her ship's company.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Lily_(1874)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 September 1918 - HMS Glatton and her sister ship Gorgon were originally built as coastal defence ships for the Royal Norwegian Navy, as Bjørgvin and Nidaros respectively. She was requisitioned from Norway at the beginning of World War I, but was not completed until 1918 although she had been launched over three years earlier. On 16 September 1918, before she had even gone into action, she suffered a large fire in one of her 6-inch magazines, and had to be scuttled to prevent an explosion of her main magazines that would have devastated Dover. Her wreck was partially salvaged in 1926, and moved into a position in the northeastern end of the harbour where it would not obstruct traffic. It was subsequently buried by landfill underneath the current car ferry terminal.





Background
Bjørgvin was ordered by Norway in 1913 to supplement the older Eidsvold and Tordenskjold classes of coastal defence ships. She would have been known in Norway as P/S Bjørgvin; P/S stands for Panserskip ("armoured ship"), while Bjørgvin was the old name for the Norwegian city of Bergen. However, when World War I broke out, the Royal Navy requisitioned most warships under construction in Britain for foreign powers and refunded the two-thirds of Bjørgvin's £370,000 purchase price already paid by the Norwegians.

Construction and description
Bjørgvin was laid down by Armstrong Whitworth at Elswick on 26 May 1913 and launched on 8 August 1914. She was renamed Glatton after an earlier breastwork monitor of 1871. Her completion was greatly delayed by the modifications made by the British, which included modifying the boilers to use both oil and coal and conversion of 12 double-bottom tanks to carry the oil. This work began on 9 January 1915, but was suspended the following May, when it was estimated that only another 10–12 months of work remained, to allow for faster progress to be made on the large light cruisers Furious and Courageous that were building in Armstrong's Naval Yard downriver. In September 1917, work was resumed to a new design that added a large anti-torpedo bulge along about 75% of the hull's length, suppression of the torpedo tubes and 100-millimetre (3.9 in) guns planned by the Norwegians, and a large tripod mast was to be fitted behind the single funnel to carry the directors for both the 6-inch (152 mm) and 9.2-inch (234 mm) guns. Both of these guns had to be relined to use standard British ammunition and the mount for the 9.2-inch gun was modified to give a maximum elevation of 40° which gave the gun a maximum range of 39,000 yards (36,000 m). Addition of the bulges cost 2 knots (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) in speed, but prevented the extra weight resulting from all of these changes from deepening her draft. She was finally completed on 8 September 1918.


Glatton in drydock. Note the width of the torpedo bulge

Glatton displaced 5,746 long tons (5,838 t) at deep load as built, with a length of 310 ft (94 m), a beam of 73 feet 7 inches (22.4 m) at maximum, although her main hull only had a beam of 55 feet (16.8 m) and a draught of 16 feet 4 inches (5.0 m). She was powered by two vertical triple expansion steam engines, which developed a total of 4,000 indicated horsepower (3,000 kW) from four Yarrow watertube boilers and gave a maximum speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).

She was armed with two 9.2-inch guns arranged in two single-gun turrets, one each fore and aft. Her secondary armament consisted of four six-inch guns, also in single-gun turrets, two of which superfired over the 9.2-inch turrets. The other two were positioned on each side of the superstructure. One 3 in (76 mm) anti-aircraft gun was mounted on each center-line 6-inch turret. She also carried four 3-pounder and two 2-pounder guns on high-angle mounts.



Fate
After completion, Glatton sailed for Dover on 11 September 1918 to prepare for the offensive planned for later that month. At 6:15 on the evening of 16 September, Glatton's midships 6-inch magazine had a low-order explosion that ignited the cordite stored there. Flames shot through the roof of 'Q' turret, starboard midside, and started to spread aft. The ship's captain—Commander N. W. Diggle—ordered the forward magazines flooded, but the crew were unable to flood the rear magazines as the flames blocked access to the magazine flooding controls. The presence of the ammunition ship Gransha only 150 yards (140 m) away risked a massive explosion that would devastate Dover if Glatton's rear magazine exploded and set off Gransha's ammunition. Vice-Admiral Keyes—who had been walking with Commander Diggle when Glatton's magazine exploded—boarded the recently arrived destroyer Cossack once apprised of the danger. He ordered Cossack to torpedo Glatton in an attempt to flood the magazine before it detonated. Cossack's first 18-inch (460 mm) torpedo struck the anti-torpedo bulge amidships, but failed to explode because it had been fired too close to Glatton. Her second torpedo blew a hole in Glatton at 7:40, but the torpedo's 200-pound (91 kg) warhead was too small to penetrate through her bulge and Glatton remained afloat, still burning. Keyes transferred to the destroyer Myngs and ordered her to fire on Glatton with her 21-inch (530 mm) torpedoes at 8:15. They were aimed at the hole blown in Glatton's starboard side by Cossack's second torpedo and succeeded in causing Glatton to capsize until her masts and superstructure rested on the harbour bottom and dousing the fire.[4] Casualties were heavy: 60 men were killed outright and 124 were injured of whom 19 later died of their burns.

Inquiry
A Court of Enquiry held immediately afterwards found that the explosion had occurred in the midships 6-inch magazine situated between the boiler and engine rooms. The cause was more difficult to establish, but the Court did note that the stokers were in the habit of piling the red-hot clinker and ashes from the boilers against the bulkhead directly adjoining the magazine to cool down before they were sent up the ash ejector. The magazine was well insulated with 5 inches (13 cm) of cork, covered by wood planking .75 inches (1.9 cm) thick and provided with special cooling equipment so it was not likely that the cordite had spontaneously combusted. The magazine of Glatton's sister ship Gorgon was emptied and examined. The red lead paint on the bulkhead was blistered beneath the lagging and tests at the National Physical Laboratory demonstrated that it had been subject to temperatures of at least 400 °F (204 °C). Recorded temperatures inside the magazine did not exceed 83 °F (28 °C) and a test of red-hot ashes was inconclusive as the temperature in the lagging only reached 70 °F (21 °C) with occasional hot spots of 150 °F (66 °C). Other tests did reveal that the cork could give off flammable fumes under high heat and pressurized air. While not entirely satisfied with this conclusion it found in April 1919 that "The slow combustion of the cork lagging of the 6-inch midship magazine of the Glatton led to the ignition of the magazine and then to the ignition of the cordite in it and so caused the explosion."

As a precaution, Gorgon's lagging was stripped out and replaced with silicate wool, revealing the real cause. Part of the cork was missing and folded newspapers were found in the empty space which were left there by the dockyard workers during construction. Furthermore, a number of rivets were entirely missing which meant that 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) holes were present, which could have allowed the hot ashes to ignite the newspapers. The forced-draught pressure in the boiler room would have supplied air through the rivet holes, causing the cork to give off flammable gases, and eventually ignite the cordite charges.


Wreck of HMS Glatton in Dover harbour

Aftermath
Glatton remained in Dover Harbour, an obstruction to shipping, with her hull visible at low tide as the Harbour Board could not afford the £45,000 quoted on average by salvage companies. Finally they asked the Harbourmaster, Captain John Iron, if he could do it for less. He estimated it would cost about £5,000 if he was granted use of the salvage craft already at Dover. The Board accepted his offer and work began in May 1925. Some 12,000 short tons (11,000 t) of silt were removed from underneath Glatton and her mainmast and superstructure were blasted away from the wreck. Four lifting lighters, with a capacity of 1,000 long tons (1,000 t), were hired, but they would not suffice to lift a water-logged 5,000 long tons (5,100 t) ship. It was necessary to seal all of the holes on her topside and pump air into each compartment at a rate of 70,000 cubic feet (2,000 m3) per minute to restore her buoyancy. The first attempt to lift her began on 2 December 1925 and was successful in breaking the suction holding her to the bottom in combination with the rising tide. That was enough for the first try and the major lifting effort began the following day. Slowly she was moved, taking advantage of the tides, until on 16 March 1926 she was moved to a deep gully next to the western pier of the submarine harbour, close by the shore. The total cost was considerably more than originally estimated, but still far less than that quoted by the salvage companies, at no more than £12,000. There she remains, buried by landfill underneath the current car ferry terminal.

Memorial
A memorial was erected at St Mary's Church and Grange Road cemetery in Gillingham, Kent. It was used from 1867 until 1973 when the site was largely cleared of memorials to provide a community open space for the local population. Then Woodlands Road Cemetery was used and this is the site of HMS Glatton's Memorial with the graves of one officer and 56 men.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glatton_(1914)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 16 September


1588 - La Trinidad Valencera (42 guns). Venetian merchantman. Wrecked, 16 September 1588 at Glenagivney, Kinnagoe Bay Inishowen, County Donegal, Ireland.

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


1620 – Pilgrims set sail from England on the Mayflower.

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


1747 – Launch of French Dragon 64-gun Lys-class at Brest - wrecked 1762./ Lys class.
Designed and built by Jacques-Luc Coulomb.


1762 - HMS Humber (1748 - 44) wrecked on Hazeboro Sands

HMS Humber (1748) was a 44-gun fifth rate launched in 1748 and wrecked in 1762.


1776 sloop HMS Savage (1750 - 8) wrecked at Louisburg, Nova Scotia.


1785 – Launch of French Ferme, a 74-gun Temeraire-class ship of the line

Ferme was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. Offered to the Crown by the Ferme générale as a Don des vaisseaux, she was renamed at the Revolution. Her officers surrendered her to Spain in 1793 out of Royalist political convictions and she served in the Spanish Navy until 1818.



Built under supervision of engineer de la Motte, Ferme entered active service on 28 January 1786. In September 1790, she was sent to the Caribbean, where she recaptured the naval schooner Bigotte on 10 November 1791. The next week, she recaptured Îlet Ramiers, whose garrison had rebelled.

On 3 October 1792, she was renamed Phocion, but before the decree arrived, her officers had mutined against the First French Republic and were flying the Royalist white ensign. On 11 January 1793, they sailed her into Trinidad to surrender her to Spain.

Ferme was incorporated into the Spanish Navy, where she served until 1808



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Ferme_(1785)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Téméraire-class_ship_of_the_line


1788 - Launch of HMS Royal George

HMS Royal George was a 100-gun first rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched from Chatham Dockyard on 16 September 1788. She was designed by Sir Edward Hunt, and Queen Charlotte was the only other ship built to her draught. She was the fifth ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name.


HMS Royal George on the right fitting out in the River Medway off what is now Sun Pier, with HMS Queen Charlotte under construction in the centre background. This is a view from Chatham Ness, today the southernmost point of the Medway City Estate

Royal George served as the flagship at the Battle of Groix and wore the flag of Admiral Alexander Hood at the Glorious First of June. In 1807 she served as the flagship of Admiral Sir John Duckworth during the Alexandria expedition of 1807.

She was broken up in 1822.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_George_(1788)



1813 Boats of HMS Swallow (1805 – 18 – Cruizer-class), Edward Reynolds Sibly, took French government transport Guerriere (4) close to Port d'Anzo (Anzio).

HMS Swallow was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop launched in December 1805, nine months late. She served the Royal Navy through the Napoleonic Wars, capturing numerous privateers. After the end of the wars she was broken up in 1815.

Swallow was involved in another notable action on 16 September 1813. Swallow observed a French brig and a xebec close inshore between herself and the port of D'Anzo. He sent in three boats which were able to bring out the brig Guerriere, of four guns. Guerrier was carrying 60 stands of small arms. The cutting out expedition cost Swallow two men killed and four wounded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Swallow_(1805)


1854 - Mare Island, Calif. becomes the first permanent U.S. naval installation on the west coast, with Cmdr. David G. Farragut as its first base commander.

Mare Island is a peninsula in the United States in the city of Vallejo, California, about 23 miles (37 km) northeast of San Francisco. The Napa Riverforms its eastern side as it enters the Carquinez Strait juncture with the east side of San Pablo Bay. Mare Island is considered a peninsula because no full body of water separates this or several other named "islands" from the mainland. Instead, a series of small sloughs cause seasonal water-flows among the so-called islands. Mare Island is the largest of these at about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) long and a mile wide.

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


1908 – SS Ocean Queen wrecked

Ocean Queen was a steam cargo ship built in 1908 by the William Gray & Co. of West Hartlepool for Jacob Christensen of Bergen. The ship was designed and built as a bulk carrier, but was wrecked on her maiden voyage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Ocean_Queen_(1908)

1922 - Cmdr. Halsey Powell in USS Edsall (DD 219) becomes the senior officer directing the evacuation of 250,000 Greek refugees from Turkey after war between Greece and Turkey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Edsall_(DD-219)


1944 - USS Barb (SS 220) sinks the Japanese 11,700-ton tanker, Azusa, and the 20,000-ton escort carrier, Unyo, 200 miles southeast of Hong Kong. Additionally, while off Yokosuka, Japan, USS Sea Devil (SS 400) sinks the Japanese submarine I-364.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Barb_(SS-220)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Un'yō


1955 – A Soviet Navy Zulu-class submarine becomes the first to launch a ballistic missile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu-class_submarine

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1625 - The Recovery of Ré Island

(French: Reprise de l'Île de Ré) was accomplished by the army of Louis XIII in September 1625, against the troops of the Protestant admiral Soubise and the Huguenot forces of La Rochelle, who had been occupying the Island of Ré since February 1625 as part of the Huguenot rebellions.

Background

Benjamin de Rohan, duc de Soubise.

The Protestants had been resisting the central Royal government with the 1620-1622 Protestant rebellion, leading to the Naval battle of Saint-Martin-de-Ré on 27 October 1622 between the naval forces of La Rochelle and a Royal fleet under Charles de Guise. An uneasy peace was made with the Treaty of Montpellier, but frustrations remained on both sides.

In February 1625, the Protestant Benjamin de Rohan, duc de Soubise led a Huguenot revolt against the French king Louis XIII, and, after publishing a manifesto, invaded and occupied the island of Ré. He seized Ré with 300 soldiers and 100 sailors. From there he sailed up the coast to Brittany where he led a successful attack on the royal fleet in the Battle of Blavet. Soubise then returned to Ré with 15 ships and soon occupied the Ile d'Oléron as well, thus taking control of the Atlantic coast from Nantes to Bordeaux. Through these deeds, he was recognized as the head of the reform, and named himself "Admiral of the Protestant Church". The French Navy, by contrast, was depleted, leaving the central government very vulnerable.

The Huguenot city of La Rochelle voted to join Soubise on 8 August 1625.

Encounter and capture of the island
Charles, Duke of Guise organized a landing in order to re-capture the islands, using 20 borrowed Dutch warships[6] as well as seven English ships[7] under the Duke of Montmorency.

Naval battle of Pertuis Breton
The Dutch fleet of 20 warships was supplied under the terms of the 1624 Franco-Dutch Treaty of Compiègne, and was under the command of Admiral Willem Haultain de Zoete. It would be withdrawn from French service in February 1626 after a resolution of the States-General in December 1625.[8]


Battle of Pertuis Breton in 1625, between Soubise and the Duc de Montmorency, with the explosion of the Dutch ship under Vice-Admiral Van Dorp. Pierre Ozanne.

The English king Charles I and Duke of Buckingham had negotiated with the French regent, Cardinal Richelieu, for English ships to aid Richelieu in his fight against the French Protestants (Huguenots), in return for French aid against the Spanish occupying the Electorate of the Palatinate (Mansfeld expedition of 1624-25), an agreement which led to great trouble with the English parliament, which was horrified by the help given to France against the Huguenots. Seven English ships were delivered by Captain Pennington after many misgivings, and were employed in the conflict, although they were essentially manned by French crews, as most of the English crews had refused to serve against their coreligionaries and had disembarked in Dieppe. The English ships duly saw action against La Rochelle, however.

On 16 July 1625, Soubise managed to blow up the Dutch ship under Vice-Admiral Philipps Van Dorp, with a loss of 300 Dutch sailors.


Soubise lost control of the island of Ré following the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré (1625).

Naval battle of Saint-Martin de Ré and landing

The fleet of La Rochelle led by Jean Guiton was defeated by Montmorency on 18 September 1625.

In September 1625, Montmorency led his large fleet out of Les Sables d'Olonne, and finally defeated the fleet of La Rochelle, commanded by Jean Guiton and Soubise, in front of Saint-Martin-de-Ré on 18 September 1625.

French Saint François (1625) - destroyed in action 17 September 1625
French Vierge 48-guns (purchased) – Captured by the Rochellais, blew up at Ile de Ré on 17 September 1625

Two elite regiments of royal troops under Toiras were landed on the island, defeating Soubise with his 3,000 men. The island of Ré was invested, forcing Soubise to flee to England with his few remaining ships. Montmorency thus managed to recover both Île de Ré and Ile d'Oléron.

Aftermath

The Fort de La Prée was built by Toiras in 1625 following the capture of the island.

After long negotiations, a peace agreement, the Treaty of Paris (1626) was finally signed between the city of La Rochelle and king Louis XIII on 5 February 1626, preserving religious freedom but imposing some guaranties against possible future upheavals: La Rochelle was prohibited from keeping a war fleet and had to destroy a fort in Tasdon. The contentious Fort Louis under Royal control near the western gate of the city was supposed to be destroyed "in reasonable time".

The French officer Toiras was named as Governor of the island, and he started to reinforce fortifications in view of future attacks, especially at the Fort de La Prée and Saint-Martin-de-Ré.

An English offensive to capture the island would again take place in 1627 to support the Siege of La Rochelle, leading to the second Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré led by the Duke of Buckingham against Toiras.

The conflict clearly showed the dependence of France on foreign navies. This led Richelieu to launch ambitious plans for a national fleet.

french ship construction
When Richelieu decided to renew the French Royal Navy in 1625, he began by ordering a number of warships to be built in Holland, as the French shipbuilding industry was not at that date capable of constructing them in sufficient quentity. However, in the interim, before these new ships could be built, he arranged to fill the gap by leasing or hiring a number of Dutch and English ships. In June 1625 he procured twenty Dutch warships, of which one was lost in action on 16 July and another on 17 September; the remaining eighteen ships were returned to the Dutch on 10 March 1626. In July 1625 he also hired the English Second rate warship Vanguard, and in August added six ships hired from the English East India Company; all these were returned to their owners on 26 May 1626. As these were never at any date owned by the French, they are excluded from the list below.

Vessels purchased in January 1625 at Blavet from the Order of the Milice Chrétienne; on 18 January all five were captured by Huguenot forces in a raid, but were retaken or destroyed by the King's forces later in 1625




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery_of_Ré_island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin,_Duke_of_Soubise

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1765 - Launch of HMS Canada, a 74 gun Canada-class Ship of the Line


HMS Canada was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 September 1765 at Woolwich Dockyard.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with sternboard outline, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for building 'Canada' (1765), a 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker, at Woolwich Dockyard. Signed by William Bately [Surveyor of the Navy, 1755-1765].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/80813.html#RWMlT3chCSeTQOR2.99

On 2 May 1781, Canada engaged and captured the Spanish ship Santa Leocadia, of 34 guns.
In 1782, Canada was under the command of William Cornwallis, when she took part in the Battle of St. Kitts. Later that year she participated in the Battle of the Saintes.
She took part in the Action of 6 November 1794 under Charles Powell Hamilton and managed to avoid capture.


HMS Captain, pictured, was from the same Canada class as HMS Canada
HMS Captain capturing the Spanish ships San Nicolas and San Josef at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797
An incident during the French Revolutionary War, 1793-1802. At the beginning of 1797, the British Admiral Sir John Jervis, with 11 sail of the line, lay in the Tagus, while a Spanish fleet of 27 sail of the line lay at Cartagena. The Spanish intended to join the French fleet at Brest, while Sir John's aim was to prevent this. He prepared to rendezvous with Rear-Admiral William Parker off Cape St Vincent. Admiral Don Jose de Cordova left Cartagena with the Spanish fleet on 1 February for Brest via Cadiz but was blown off course by the fierce Levanter wind. This pushed the Spanish out into the Atlantic until the wind swung north-west on the 13th, by which time they were close to the British fleet. At 2.30 am on the morning of the 14th Jervis learnt from a Portuguese frigate that the Spanish fleet was 35 miles to windward. When sighted, the Spanish were in two divisions, which the British passed between on the opposite tack, and then turned in succession to follow the weather division. It was then that Commodore Nelson made his famous decision. His ship, the 'Captain', 74 guns, was the third from last in the line and it was clear to him that, if he followed the line and turned in succession, he would never catch up with the enemy. He therefore turned out of line to cut off the Spanish and on a signal from Jervis was followed and supported by Captain Collingwood's 'Excellent', 74 guns, the last ship in the line. The painting shows the 'Captain', the Spanish ships 'San Nicolas', 80 guns and the 'San Josef', 112 guns, occupying the foreground, all in starboard-quarter view. To the left and nearest is the 'Captain', her fore-topmast over her starboard side and her port bow up against the 'San Nicolas's' starboard quarter. Aboard the 'San Nicolas', her pendant is shown coming down and a sailor on the poop is hauling down her ensign. Her mizzen mast is shot away and may be represented by the spar shown floating in the left foreground. Her bowsprit is caught up in the 'San Josef's' starboard main shrouds beyond and to the right. In both the left and right background are ships in action, in starboard-quarter view. The painting records the manoeuvre, which became known as 'Nelson's Patent Bridge for Boarding First-Rates'. Pocock placed considerable importance on accuracy and referred to annotated drawings and sketch plans in the production of his oil paintings. He was born and brought up in Bristol, went to sea at the age of 17 and rose to command several merchant ships. Although he only took up painting as a profession in his early forties, he became extremely successful, receiving commissions from naval commanders anxious to have accurate portrayals of actions and ships. By the age of 80, Pocock had recorded nearly forty years of maritime history, demonstrating a meticulous understanding of shipping and rigging with close attention to detail. Pocock devoted much of his later years to illustrating Nelson's sea battles. This was the last in the series of six paintings for a two-volume 'Life of Nelson', begun shortly after Nelson's death in 1805 by Clarke and McArthur, and published in 1809. The paintings were engraved by James Fittler and reproduced in the biography with lengthy explanatory texts. The painting is signed and dated 'NP 1808'.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/11979.html#WfyTM5EP3oIvIyJu.99

Napoleonic Wars
In 1807, Canada was in the Caribbean in a squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane. The squadron, which included HMS Prince George, HMS Northumberland, HMS Ramillies and HMS Cerberus, captured Telemaco, Carvalho and Master on 17 April 1807.

Following the concern in Britain that neutral Denmark was entering an alliance with Napoleon, in December 1807 Canada sailed in Cochrane's squadron in the expedition to occupy the Danish West Indies. The expedition captured the Danish islands of St Thomas on 22 December and Santa Cruz on 25 December. The Danes did not resist and the invasion was bloodless.

Fate
Canada became a prison ship from 1810, and was broken up in 1834.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with stern board decoration for Canada (1765), a 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/382823.html#dDxyjiDT2ByVisb4.99


The Canada class ships of the line were a series of four 74-gun third rates designed for the Royal Navy by William Bateley. The name ship of the class was launched in 1765.

Design
During this period in British naval architecture, the 74-gun third rates were divided into two distinct groupings: the 'large' and 'common' classes. The Canada class ships belonged to the latter grouping, carrying 18-pounder guns on their upper gun decks, as opposed to the 24-pounders of the large class.

Service
HMS Captain, made famous for Nelson's actions at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, belonged to this class of ships.


This depiction of the Battle of Cape St Vincent is compositionally very close to Nicholas Pocock's 1808 version (BHC0487) that he completed for reproduction in Clarke and McArthur's two-volume publication, ‘Life of Nelson’. However, differences in style and content are sufficient to suggest, firstly, that this painting is not by Pocock, and secondly, that it is not directly based on Pocock's version. Instead, both pictures appear to have a common source in the engraving produced by James Fittler after a drawing by Lieutenant Jahleel Brenton of the Royal Navy, which was published on 4 June 1798, the year following the battle. The engraving, though expanded to the left to include a more panoramic view of the fleets, has the same composition showing the broadside of the ‘Captain’ with the two Spanish ships, ‘San Nicolas’ and ‘San Josef’, just beyond to the right. Whereas Pocock's version shows the moment when the Spanish vessels were being boarded by the crew of the ‘Captain’ under Nelson's command, here the British flags placed above the Spanish ensigns indicate that the ‘San Nicolas’ and ‘San Josef’ have now been taken. Differences in the disposition of the ships in the background also indicate that a slightly later moment in the battle is being shown here. However, the closeness of this composition to both Fittler's engraving and Pocock's painting suggests that this picture was executed, like Pocock's, in the early years of the 19th century.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/11983.html#MdUuU5ufR8DS4HWk.99


A composite picture showing five of the ships in which Nelson served as a captain and flag officer from the start of the French Wars in 1793 to his death in 1805. The artist has depicted them drying sails in a calm at Spithead, Portsmouth, and despite the traditional title, two of them were not strictly flagships. The ship on the left in bow view is the 'Agamemnon', 64 guns. It was Nelson's favourite ship, which he commanded as a captain from 1793. Broadside on is the 'Vanguard', 74 guns, his flagship at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 flying a white ensign and his blue flag as Rear-Admiral of the Blue at the mizzen. Stern on is the 'Elephant', 74 guns, his temporary flagship at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. She is flying the blue ensign from the stern and Nelson's flag as Vice-Admiral of the Blue at her foremast. In the centre distance is the 'Captain', 74 guns, in which Nelson flew a commodore's broad pendant at the Battle of St Vincent, 1797. Dominating the right foreground is the 'Victory', 100 guns, shown in her original state, with open stern galleries, and not as she was at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. She is shown at anchor flying the flag of Vice-Admiral of the White, Nelson's Trafalgar rank, and firing a salute to starboard as an admiral's barge is rowed alongside, amidst other small craft. The painting is one of a series of six paintings created for a two-volume 'Life of Nelson', begun shortly after Nelson's death in 1805 by Clarke and McArthur and published in 1809. They were engraved by James Fittler and reproduced in the biography with lengthy explanatory texts. The artist placed considerable importance on accuracy, referring to his annotated drawings and sketch plans in the production of his oil paintings. Pocock was born and brought up in Bristol, went to sea at the age of 17 and rose to command several merchant ships. Although he only took up painting as a profession in his early forties, he became extremely successful, receiving commissions from naval commanders anxious to have accurate portrayals of actions and ships. By the age of 80, Pocock had recorded nearly 40 years of maritime history, demonstrating a meticulous understanding of shipping and rigging with close attention to detail.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/12588.html#JDUEOSB1qo4Cyuez.99

Ships

• HMS Canada

She took part in all the major actions of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars under a series of distinguished captains.

Builder: Woolwich Dockyard
Ordered: 1 December 1759
Launched: 17 September 1765
Fate: Broken up, 1834

• HMS Majestic

She fought at the Battle of the Nile, where she engaged the French ships Tonnant and Heureux, helping to force their surrenders. She was captained by George Blagdon Westcott, who was killed in the battle

Builder: Adams & Barnard, Deptford
Ordered: 23 August 1781
Launched: 11 December 1785
Fate: Broken up, 1816

• HMS Orion

She took part in all the major actions of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars under a series of distinguished captains.

Builder: Barnard, Deptford
Ordered: 2 October 1782
Launched: 1 June 1787
Fate: Broken up, 1814

• HMS Captain

She served during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars before being placed in harbour service in 1799. An accident caused her to burn and founder in 1813. Later that year she was raised and broken up.

At the start of the French Revolutionary War, she was part of the Mediterranean fleet which occupied Toulon at the invitation of the Royalists in 1793 before being driven out by Revolutionary troops in an action where Napoleon Bonaparte made his name. During this operation Captain was deployed in the Raid on Genoa. In June 1796, Admiral Sir John Jervis transferred Captain Horatio Nelson from HMS Agamemnon into Captain. Jervis appointed Nelson commodore of a squadron that was first deployed off Livorno during Napoleon's march through northern Italy.

In September 1796, Gilbert Elliot, the British viceroy of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom, decided that it was necessary to clear out Capraja, which belonged to the Genoese and which served as a base for privateers. He sent Nelson, in Captain, together with the transport Gorgon, Vanneau, the cutter Rose, and troops of the 51st Regiment of Foot to accomplish this task in September. On their way, Minerva joined them. The troops landed on 18 September and the island surrendered immediately. Later that month Nelson oversaw the British withdrawal from Corsica.

In February 1797, Nelson had rejoined Jervis's fleet 25 miles west of Cape St. Vincent at the southwest tip of Portugal, just before it intercepted a Spanish fleet on 14 February. The Battle of Cape St Vincent made both Jervis's and Nelson's names. Jervis was made Earl St Vincent and Nelson was knighted for his initiative and daring.

Nelson had realised that the leading Spanish ships were escaping and wore Captain to break out of the line of battle to attack the much larger Spanish ships. Captain exchanged fire with the Spanish flagship, Santísima Trinidad, which mounted 136 guns on four decks. Later Captain closely engaged the 80-gun San Nicolas, when the Spanish ship was disabled by a broadside from Excellent and ran into another ship, the San Josef of 112-guns. With Captain hardly manoeuvrable, Nelson ran his ship alongside San Nicolas, which he boarded. Nelson was preparing to order his men to board San Josef next when she signalled her intent to surrender. The boarding of San Nicolas, which resulted in the taking of the two larger ships was later immortalised as 'Nelson's Patent Bridge for Boarding First Rates.'

Captain was the most severely damaged of the British ships as she was in the thick of the action for longer than any other ship. She returned to service following repairs and on 6 May 1799 sailed for the Mediterranean, where she joined Captain John Markham's squadron.

Builder: Batson, Limehouse
Ordered: 14 November 1782
Launched: 26 January 1787
Fate: Burned and broken up, 1813


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile for building Majestic (1785), Orion (1787), and Captain (1787), all 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker. Copies of this with the plans were sent to the respective Merchant Yards in July 1783 and June 1784.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/80495.html#jKio3ZdgMh6ib2eb.99


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Canada_(1765)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-class_ship_of_the_line
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Captain_(1787)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1797 - HMS Pelican (1795 - 18), Lt. Thomas White (Act.), destroyed French privateer Trompeur (12) off St. Domingo.


HMS Pelican (1795) was an 18-gun Albatros-class sloop launched in 1795 and sold in 1806.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with stern board outline, sheer lines with scroll figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed for building Albatross (1795) and Dispatch (1795). The plan was later used for Pelican (1795), Kite (1795) and Raven (1796) before being altered in April 1795 and used for Star (1795), Swallow (1795 and Sylph (1795). Signed by John Henslow [Surveyor of the Navy, 1784-1806] and William Rule [Surveyor of the Navy, 1793-1813].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/84116.html#CP1CIr2HyCIqPOH4.99


Plan showing the framing profile (disposition) for Albatross (1795); Dispatch (1795); Kite (1795); Raven (1796); Star (1795); Swallow (1795); Sylph (1795) and Pelican (1795), all 16-gun Brig Sloops. All were built of fir except Albatross and Dispatch, while Pelican was also built with oak and elm.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/84117.html#634fIxiJzEjz9Fcz.99



http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-338134;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=P

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1803 – Launch of French Suffren, a 74 gun Short Variant (Suffren-group) of the Temeraire class


The Suffren was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.

Suffren took part in Allemand's expedition of 1805 under Captain Amable Troude.
She operated in the Mediterranean until the end of the First Empire, and was decommissioned shortly thereafter.
Suffren was razeed in 1816, and used as a prison hulk on Toulon harbour.
She was eventually broken up in 1823.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sternboard outline, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for Algesiras (fl.1808), a Spanish 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker, surrendered to Spanish patriots at Cadiz on 14 June 1808. The plan illustrates the ship as taken off at Portsmouth Dockyard. Signed by Nicholas Diddams [Master Shipwright, Portsmouth Dockyard, 1803-1823].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/80454.html#c2G3HGrIhOwqgJ9Q.99


The Téméraire-class ships of the line were class of a hundred and twenty 74-gun ships of the line ordered between 1782 and 1813 for the French navy or its attached navies in dependent (French-occupied) territories. Although a few of these were cancelled, the type was and remains the most numerous class of capital ship ever built.

The class was designed by Jacques-Noël Sané in 1782 as a development of the Annibal and her near-sister Northumberland, both of which had been designed by him and built at Brest during the 1777-1780 period. Some dozen ships were ordered and built to this new design from 1782 to 1785, and then the same design was adopted as a standard for all subsequent 74s during the next three decades as part of the fleet expansion programme instituted by Jean-Charles de Borda in 1786.

The design was appreciated in Britain, which eagerly commissioned captured ships and even copied the design with the Pompée and America class.


Scale: 1:48. A contemporary half block model of the ‘Algesiras’ (1804), a French 74-gun two-decker third-rate ship of the line. Built in ‘bread and butter’ fashion, the half model is mounted on a painted backboard on which is inscribed ‘Algesiras’. Built in 1804 this two-decker measured 181 feet along the gun deck by 48 feet in the beam. The ‘Algesiras’ was captured at the Battle of Trafalgar by the ‘Tonnant’ but recaptured the next day. In 1808, she was seized by Spanish insurgents at Cadiz and a year later was at Portsmouth, where the lines were taken off to produce a draught from which this model is based. This is confirmed by the solid bulwarks fitted to the quarter- and poop decks on the model, a feature that was introduced to all ships in the early 19th century. The ‘Algesiras’ was eventually broken up at Cadiz in 1826.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66608.html#EOGdgGDrQ8XADrP5.99

Variants from basic design
While all the French 74-gun ships from the mid-1780s until the close of the Napoleonic Wars were to the Téméraire design, there were three variants of the basic design which Sané developed with the same hull form of Téméraire. In 1793 two ships were laid down at Brest to an enlarged design; in 1801 two ships were commenced at Lorient with a slightly shorter length than the standard design (with a third ship commenced at Brest but never completed); and in 1803 two ships were commenced at Toulon to a smaller version (many more ships to this 'small(er) model' were then built in the shipyards controlled by France in Italy and the Netherlands) - these are detailed separately below

Short Variant (Suffren group – 2 ships launched)
Two ships were begun in 1801 to a variation of the standard Téméraire design by Sané to meet the demands of Pierre-Alexandre Forfait. The length of these ships were reduced by 65 cm from the standard design. A third ship to this variant design begun at Brest was cancelled in 1804. After Forfait left the Ministry of the Marine in October 1801, no further vessels were ordered to this variant design.

• Suffren

Builder: Lorient shipyard
Begun: August 1801
Launched: 17 September 1803
Completed: October 1803
Fate: Condemned, 1815.

• Algésiras

Algésiras was a Téméraire class 74-gun French ship of the line built at Lorient in 1804, named after the Battle of Algeciras.
In 1805 she sailed to the West Indies with Aigle where they joined a French fleet under Vice-Admiral Villeneuve.
In October 1805 she took part in the Battle of Trafalgar, under Rear Admiral Charles Magon. She was engaged by HMS Tonnant at point-blank range, and Magon attempted a boarding, but the boarding party was annihilated by British fire which killed all but one of the party, who was made prisoner. Magon was killed. The fight went on for an hour with Tonnant's starboard guns duelling with the Algésiras, the port guns with Pluton, and the forward guns aimed at the San Juan Nepomuceno. Algésiras finally surrendered to Tonnant at around 14:30.
During the storm after the battle, her crew rose up against the British prize crew, and recaptured the ship. She sailed to Cádiz flying French colours.
On 14 June 1808 she was captured by the Spanish along with all the other French ships in Cadiz.


Le Vaisseau L' Algesiras (PAH0827)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/140774.html#eZ4qTqXhVXLiSfKX.99

Builder: Lorient shipyard
Begun: August 1801
Launched: 8 July 1804
Completed: September 1804
Fate: Captured by the British at Trafalgar in 1805, but retaken. Captured by Spain at Cadiz, June 1808.

• Pacificateur

Pacificateur was started at Brest in May 1801, under the supervision of engineer Antoine Geoffroy and after plans by Sané. In 1804, recurrent difficulties in bringing construction timber to Brest, compounded by a criminal fire at the arsenal in February, led Bonaparte to order all construction ceased there.

Builder: Brest shipyard
Begun: May 1801
Launched: Never launched
Completed: -Fate: Cancelled, February 1804.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Suffren_(1801)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Téméraire-class_ship_of_the_line
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-290472;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=A

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1807 - HMS Barbara (1806 - 10), Lt. Edward D'Arcy, captured by privateer General Ernouf (1805 - 14)


HMS Barbara was an Adonis class schooner of the Royal Navy and launched in 1806. A French privateer captured her in 1807 and she became the French privateer Pératy. The Royal Navy recaptured her in 1808. She was paid off in June 1814 and sold in February 1815.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with half stern board ourtline, sheer lines with some inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for the Lady Hammond (fl.1804), a single-masted Bermudan Sloop, and for building the Adonis Class consisting of Adonis (1806); Alban (1806); Alphea (1806); Bacchus (1806); Barbara (1806), later a two-masted Schooner; Cassandra (1806); Claudia (1806), Laura (1806); Olympia (1806); Sylvia (1806); Vesta (1806); Zenobia (1806), all 10-gun Cutters.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/86226.html#bVkLHEUfvjW0DM6W.99

Capture
Barbara was commissioned under the command of Lieutenant Edward A. D'Arcey.

On 14 September 1807 Barbara was returning to Demerara from Devils Island when she sighted a brig making for her. When the brig did not return the recognition signals D'Arcey sailed away, with the brig in chase. Next morning the brig resumed the chase. By mid-afternoon it was apparent that Barbara could not escape so D'Arcey turned to engage his pursuer. An engagement followed; after a well-contested action of half an hour the French were able to board and capture Barbara. The British lost four men killed and six wounded, two mortally.

The French brig was the privateer Général Ernouf, which was under the command of Captain Alexis Grassin. The French then took Barbara into Guadalupe, where her new owners gave her the name Pératy, intending to use her as a privateer.


Scale: 1:48. Plan hsowing the inboard profile, upper deck, and lower deck with platforms for the Adonis Class consisting of Adonis (1806); Alban (1806); Alphea (1806); Bacchus (1806); Barbara (1806); Cassandra (1806); Claudia (1806), Laura (1806); Olympia (1806); Sylvia (1806); Vesta (1806); Zenobia (1806), all 10-gun Cutters (or single-masted Sloops) to be built at Bermuda, similar to the Lady Hamond. The plan has modifications relating to how the magazines on Cutters were fitted at Plymouth in 1806. Copies were sent to Mr Shedden on 1 May 1804, and again on 6 September 1804 for these vessels.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/86227.html#FCXBOu5WLQVbWRWW.99

Recapture
In July 1808, the master of an American brig claimed the protection of a convoy from Jamaica, which the 64-gun HMS Veteran was escorting. The American traveled with the convoy for part of its journey, but 24 hours after leaving its protection, he betrayed the convoy's strength and course to the French.[7] The French privateer cutter Pératy, under the command of M. Maurison (or Moriseau[8]), took up position in the convoy's path, hoping to capture some of the ships. HMS Guerriere surprised and captured the privateer on 17 July after a chase lasting 24 hours. The privateer was found to be the former Barbara. The French prize crew had sailed Barbara on to Charlestown, where she had been refitted. As Pératy, she had sailed again on 10 July having been furnished with supplies and provisions for three months of raiding. Pératy was armed with twelve 18-pounder carronades and had a crew of 90 men.

A prize crew took Pératy to Halifax, where the Admiralty purchased her and took her back into service. Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren renamed her Somers, after Admiral Sir George Somers, but the Admiralty over-ruled the renaming and Somers's name reverted to Barbara.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with stern board outline, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for Laura (1806), a 10-gun single-masted Cutter as taken off at Plymouth Dockyard in 1806. Signed Joseph Tucker [Master Shipwright, Plymouth Dockyard, later Surveyor of the Navy, 1813-1831]. Note that the pencil names are of the other ships in the class, and the annotation has been added at a later date.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/86193.html#kKr4MWYYY1ldBlpy.99

British service
In 1809 Lieutenant George Duncan took command and sailed Barbara on the North American station. His replacement, in 1812, was Lieutenant William Douglas, who sailed her on the Downs station.

In March 1812 Lieutenant James Morgan assumed command. He spent the rest of the year cruising of the north-west coast of Ireland, and then off Boulogne. At daybreak on 11 February 1813, Barbara found herself some three miles from the Boulogne pier and near an anchored French lugger. Morgan sailed towards the lugger, which had 14 guns, with the aim of capturing her. The lugger immediately cut her cables and made to join six other luggers, each armed with eight to 14 guns. The French vessels opened fire, attempting to prevent Barbara's escape. Barbara returned fire and repulsed two attempts to board her. At 9:15 am, the French vessels, having sustained four men killed and 11 wounded, including two mortally, retreated. Barbara, though much shot up, had no casualties. The next day she drove a lugger ashore and destroyed it.

The next month Barbara joined Admiral George Hope's squadron and with it sailed to the Baltic. This marked the start of a busy period for her.

Barbara shared with Musquito in the capture of Neptune on 11 February 1813.

A month later, on 13 April, Barbara was at Aalborg where she cut out of the anchorage a ship of 400 tons, two galliots, and a sloop, loaded with grain for the Norwegian market. She escaped with these prizes though nine Danish gunboats pursued her, fortunately never quite getting within range of their guns.

Next she moved to the entrance of the Kattegat, where she spent several months skirmishing with Danish naval vessels and flying batteries on shore. On 18 June Barbara boarded and examined a licensed Danish merchantman while being fired on by three brigs of the Danish navy, and six gunboats.

Then on 3 July near Fladstrand Barbara engaged in an inconclusive engagement with the Danish praam Norge, which was supported by several other vessels. Norge, of 80 men, was armed with two 32-pounder guns and six 18-pounder carronades. The next day Barbara drove a sloop on shore near The Skaw. Later that month Barbara visited Flagstrand under a flag of truce and anchored near Norge. Her captain remarked that now that he had had the opportunity to see Barbara more closely he knew how to deal with her in the future. Morgan received permission to replace two of her 18-pounder carronades with two 6-pounder bow chasers.

The next month, on 11 August, 26 of Barbara's men in her boats landed on Great Grasholm island. There they destroyed a signal station and a battery of two guns. The Danes did not resist and so there were no casualties on either side. That same day Barbara again engaged Norge and some other vessels in another inconclusive action. Although Barbara only suffered one man wounded, she was badly damaged and had to put into Hawk roads, Gotenburg. While her crew was repairing her she took on so much water that she sank. Morgan was able to refloat her a few days later. Barbara again visited Flagstrand under a flag of truce. There he encountered an officer from Norge who reported that the last encounter with Barbara had cost Norge three men killed and six wounded.

In the early evening of 6 October, Lieutenant Richard Banks of the gun-brig Forward received intelligence that a Danish privateer of one gun was sailing towards an anchorage about four miles from Wingo Sound near Goteborg that English merchantmen were wont to use. Forward was in company with Barbara so when Banks set out in a boat with six or seven men, Morgan joined him in a boat with an equal handful. The British found the Dane at about 9:15 pm. The Danish vessel was armed with a howitzer and had a crew of 25 men. The British succeeded in capturing the vessel, killing five Danes and wounding the captain, a lieutenant, in their attack; British losses consisted of two men killed and three wounded, including Morgan.

Three days later, Barbara was in company of the privateer Hawke, of Hastings. Two gigs from Hawke captured the Danish privateer Aalberg and recaptured her prize near Laeso despite fire from the guns of three Danish gunboats and ten privateers. The recaptured vessel was the Prussian bark Emma.

On 23 November Barbara captured the Danish brig Wenskabet. Four days later she captured Minerva. Sometime thereafter Barbara returned to Britain. In her nine months in the Baltic, she captured or destroyed 2,544 tons (bm) of shipping, and captured 136 seamen.

Fate
Barbara returned to Plymouth and was paid off in June 1814. (Morgan resigned his commission in July to return to Gotenburg to salvage what he could of his affairs following the bankruptcy of his prize agents there.) Barbara was offered for sale at Woolwich on 9 February 1815, and was sold on that day for £610.


Général Ernouf (1805–1808), was a Danish 16-gun brig, originally under the command of the notable French privateer captain Alexis Grassin. On 3 April 1806 she captured Ruckers, Soper, master, and sent her into Guadeloupe. On 9 August she captured Elizabeth, Murphy, master, as Elizabeth was sailing from Plymouth to Surinam, and sent her into Guadeloupe. On 10 October she captured the 10-gun schooner HMS Tobago. In 1807 she fought an inconclusive action with HMS Mosambique. On 15 September 1807 Général-Ernouf, under Grassin's command, captured the schooner HMS Barbara. A few days later Général-Ernouf captured the brig Elizabeth, of fourteen 6-pounder guns, a crew of 24 men, and a cargo of 176 Negros. In February 1808 or so, Général Ernouf captured Harriet (or Harrier) as Harriet was sailing from Africa to the West Indies, and possibly sent her into Cayenne. HMS Arethusa captured Général Ernouf on 29 November 1808.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Barbara_(1806)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Général_Ernouf

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1840 - Caiffa captured by HMS Castor (1832 – 36 – Castor-class), Cptn. Edward Collier, and HMS Pique (36), Cptn. Robert Boxer.


HMS Castor was a 36-gun fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy.

Castor was built at Chatham Dockyard and launched on 2 May 1832. She was one of a two ship class of frigates, built to an 1828 design by Sir Robert Seppings, and derived from the earlier Stag class. The Castor classhad a further 13 inches (33 cm) of beam to mount the heavier ordnance. Castor cost a total of £38,292, to be fitted for sea.







Her first captain was Lord John Hay, and by September 1832 Castor was at Lisbon.

On 27 August 1834 she collided with the Revenue Cutter Cameleon off South Foreland, Dover, sinking Cameleon with the loss of most of its crew. This incident led to the Court Martial of officers and crew of Castor on 6 September 1834 in Plymouth. The officers were acquitted but the lieutenant of the watch was dismissed from the service, it having been admitted and proven that a proper watch had not been kept.

She took part in the Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841), also known as the Second Syrian War, when the British Mediterranean Fleet under Admiral Sir Robert Stopford, supported the Ottoman Empire and took action to compel the Egyptians to withdraw from Beirut. During the Oriental Crisis of 1840 Castor was involved in the bombardment of St. Jean d’Acre on 3 November 1840. After cruising on the coast of Ireland she was sent out to the East Indies Station; before being decommissioned at Chatham in 1842.




Scale: 1:32. Stern models showing the port side of HMS Castor (1832) and the starboard side of the Danish ship Perlin (captured 1807) made entirely of wood with metal fittings. The model although secured by three wooden planks is actually two half sectional models, the port side represents the new proposed round stern for HMS Castor and is painted a brick red from the base to just above the waterline with the upperworks in black apart from a thick horizontal section along the gundeck which is finished in a creamy white colour. The gunports are painted red internally on the gundeck and a bottle green on the upper deck. The stern gallery consists of four sections of curved and flat glazed windows together with vertical mouldings and a smaller carved decoration picked out in white and gold. The forward edge of the quarter edge is an ornately carved full length female figure in flowing robes with a feather headdress, all of which is painted gold and varnished. Internally the model is finished with two decks made from single sheets of wood, scored with individual planks and stained and varnished. Below decks are a series of metal hanging knees supporting deck beams together with a number of meal rings for rigging hammocks. The solid bulwarks are painted a dark green and meet the deck with a rounded timber section of spirketting and a square section of gunwale capping, both of which are painted black. The bulwark has been pierced to take three guns. The starboard side represents Perlin, a Danish ship and illustrates the old fashioned square stern with the more traditional quarter gallery complete with three glazed windows and three across the stern. The hull is painted a creamy white from the base to just above the waterline, with the upperworks painted black apart from a thick horizontal band along the gundeck which is finished in a creamy white colour. It is pierced for two guns, the inside of the gunport is painted red on the gundeck and dark green on the upper deck gunport. There is also a gunport projecting through the stern, again finished in a dark green which carries on round thorugh the inside face of the bulwarks. Like the port side it is fitted with two layers of deck consisting of single sheets of wood, scored with individual planks, stained and varnished.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/68188.html#UKs6owPPcojPkEry.99

In 1845 Castor was on the China Station under the command of Captain Graham. Officers, seaman and Royal Marines of Castor participated in the siege of Ruapekapeka Pā from 27 December 1845 to 11 January 1846 during the Flagstaff War in New Zealand. Seven sailors were killed in the battle to take the fortified stronghold that was built by the Māori.


Scale: 1:16. A model of the circular stern of HMS Castor (1832) made entirely in wood and painted in realistic colours. The hull is painted black with a broad white stripe along the main gundeck which encompasses the stern gallery. Four gunports are depicted on the main gundeck with a further four on the poop. All the gunports are shown open with no lids, their inner faces painted red. The two stern quarter galleries have white painted details and three windows. There is provision for five windows at the stern, the inner faces painted red and a further four windows on the poop. The inboard hull is painted white and is devoid of detail apart from the provision of the entry ports for the two stern quarter galleries. There is a metal fixing for a rudder.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/68196.html#B41PimhYheJz7V2o.99

In 1852 Castor was on the Cape Station under the command of Commodore Wyvill. She came to the assistance of HM Troopship Birkenhead, when the Birkenhead was wrecked on 26 February 1852.

She was used as a training ship from January 1860, and was a Royal Naval Reserve training ship at North Shields from April 1862, having been reduced to 22 guns. She was sold at Sheerness on 25 August 1902 for breaking up at Castle & Sons breakers yard in Woolwich


Scale: 1:16. Waterline model depicting the proposed circular stern for HMS Castor (1832), a 36 gun frigate. Model inscribed "No 13. case. Cumbl'd room (7)"
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/68206.html#IKreWxMe3sspuoOg.99


HMS Pique was a wooden fifth-rate sailing frigate of the Royal Navy, designed by Sir William Symonds. She was launched on 21 July 1834 at Devonport. She was of 1633 tons and had 36 guns. She was broken up in 1910.



H.M. Ship Pique 36 Guns Sailing out of Portsmouth Harbour to Spithead, Septr 10th 1837 Print

Service history
Pique was the first of a new class of medium-sized frigates designed by Sir William Symonds, Chief Surveyor of the Navy. Following commissioning she formed part of an experimental squadron, which were groups of ships sent out in the 1830s and 1840s to test new techniques of ship design, armament, building and propulsion.

In September 1835 she ran ashore in the Strait of Belle Isle. She was refloated and crossed the Atlantic rudderless and taking on water. In October she arrived in Portsmouth for repairs where a large rock, which had plugged the hole in her hull, was removed. This stone remains on display in the Porter's Garden, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

Under the command of Captain Edward Boxer (3 August 1837 - August 1841), she sailed to North America, the West Indies and the Mediterranean, including operations on the coast of Syria, as part of the squadron led by HMS Cambridge, and including Zebra and Vesuvius.


Cannonballs lodged in the Acre city wall, being fired by Pique during a bombardment in 1840.

In 1840 Pique saw service in the bombardment of the city of Acre under the command of Admiral Robert Stopford. For the engagement, Pique was assigned to the far northern end of the line, north-northeast of the much larger HMS Waterloo and at a greater distance from the city than the rest of Stopford's fleet. Despite this unfavourable position, accurate gunnery enabled Pique to score several hits on the town. In 2012 renovation works along Acre's city wall uncovered three cannonballs fired by Pique during the battle, the shots having struck within three metres of each other and embedded in the wall at depths of up to 65 centimetres.

Between 1841 and 1846 Pique served on the North America and West Indies Station. With HMS Blake, in 1845 she acted as a cable ship for experiments in laying telegraph cable in Portsmouth Harbour. From 26 December 1853 she was commanded by Captain Frederick Nicolson on the Pacific Station, and participated in the 1854 Anglo-French squadron sent to the Russian War and Second Anglo-Chinese War). She was present at the Siege of Petropavlovsk.

From 1872 she was a receiving ship, and from 1882 rented as a hospital hulk to Plymouth Borough Council to quarantine sailors who fell victim to a cholera epidemic.

Pique was sold for scrap on 12 July 1910, raising £2,300



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Castor_(1832)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-300670;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=C
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Pique_(1834)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1864 - Launch of French Intrépide , a 90 gun Algesiras- class steamship of the line (sub-class of the Napoleon-class), renamed Borda


The Intrépide was a 90-gun Algésiras-class steam ship of the line of the French Navy.



Career
Under Captain Claude Gennet, Intrépide was used as a troopship to bring the expeditionary corps of the French intervention in Mexico back to France. She took part in the Siege of Sfax in 1881.

From 1883, she was a school ship of the École navale, and from 1887 she was hulked as barracks. Renamed Borda in 1890, she was used again by the École navale, and was eventually broken up in 1921.




The Algésiras class was a late type of 90-gun ships of the line used by the French navy. They were designed from the beginning to use a combination of sail and steam engine for propulsion.

After the breakthrough of the Napoléon, the Algésiras class was the improved designed which went into mass production.

• Algésiras

Launched: 1855

• Arcole

Launched: 1855

• Impérial
• Intrépide

Launched: 1864

• Redoutable

Launched: 1857




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Intrépide_(1864)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Borda_(1864)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_(Schiff,_1864)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoléon-class_ship_of_the_line
http://www.netmarine.net/bat/hydro/borda/ancien.htm

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1887 – Launch of SS Oceana, a P&O passenger liner and cargo vessel,


SS Oceana was a P&O passenger liner and cargo vessel, built in 1888 by Harland and Wolff of Belfast. Originally assigned to carry passengers and mail between London and Australia, she was later assigned to routes between London and British India. On 16 March 1912 the ship collided in the Strait of Dover with the Pisagua, a 2,850 GRT German-registered four-masted steel-hulled barque. As a result Oceana sank off Beachy Head on the East Sussex coast, with the loss of nine lives.


Arcadia, identical sister ship to Oceana



Construction
Commissioned by P&O from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, the 6,610 GRT vessel was floated out on 17 September 1887, and handed over from fitting out 26 February 1888. The 468.4-foot (142.8 m) ship had a beam of 52.0 feet (15.8 m), four masts, two funnels and a single propeller. Her three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine produced 7,000 indicated horsepower (5,200 kW), giving her a top speed of 16.5 knots (30.6 km/h). She had accommodation for 250 first class passengers and 159 second class.

Operations
Oceana made her maiden voyage from London on 19 March 1888, sailing to Melbourne and Sydney via Colombo (Ceylon). Her last voyage on this passage started on 12 May 1905, after which she was placed on the London to Bombay route.

Author Mark Twain traveled from Sydney to Ceylon aboard the Oceana in 1895 as part of his travels described in Following the Equator. He remarked of the ship:

This 'Oceana' is a stately big ship, luxuriously appointed. She has spacious promenade decks. Large rooms; a surpassingly comfortable ship. The officers' library is well selected; a ship's library is not usually that . . . . For meals, the bugle call, man-of-war fashion; a pleasant change from the terrible gong.

Sinking


Pisagua after the collision with Oceana

On 15 March 1912 Oceana finished loading for her next trip to Bombay in the Port of Tilbury, under the command of Captain Thomas H. Hyde, RNR. Aboard were 40 passengers and a complement of 210 crew.[4]She was also carrying £747,110 worth of gold and silver ingots: £3 million at 2010 values.

The next day she was proceeding west through the Strait of Dover at nearly full speed. The sea was calm although there was a strong headwind. In the opposite direction approached the Pisagua, a 2850-ton German-registered four-masted steel-hulled barque.[4][6] Commissioned, owned and operated by F. Laeisz of Hamburg, she was on her way from Mejillones, Chile to Hamburg with a cargo of nitrate, sailing under full sail at a speed of almost 20 knots (37 km/h).

The two ships sighted each other when they were about a 1⁄2 nautical mile (1 km) apart.[1] The captain of Pisagua burnt a warning flare, which was seen by the crew and senior officer on duty on the bridge of Oceana, who then gave the order to turn to port. The pilot from Tilbury and for the Strait of Dover, Mr Penny, who was board Oceana in the charthouse, came to the bridge and realized that this manoeuvre would not be enough to avert a collision. He called "hard to port", but before Oceana could get out of the course, Pisagua struck Oceana amidships, making a 40-foot (12 m) gash in her side. The collision was 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) off of Beachy Head.

The pilot ordered the immediate closure of all the watertight bulkhead doors on Oceana, whilst the captain ordered all crew and passengers to their boat stations to stand by to abandon ship. Sending out an immediate distress signal, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway passenger ferry Sussex attended the scene,[8] while two other paddle steamers and RMS Ruahine stood by. While awaiting rescue the crew tried to lower one of the lifeboats, but it crashed to the sea and capsized, resulting in the loss of seven passengers and two crew. TSS Sussex managed to remove the remaining 241 surviving passengers and crew.





Although listing, Oceana was taken in tow by the Newhaven tug Alert, stern first, at 08:00. But by 10:00 she had developed an adverse list, enough to raise her propeller out of the water. Captain Hyde and the crew who had stayed aboard to help the tow now abandoned ship to the Alert, and watched from the tug as she sank in less than 20 minutes. Oceana sank close to the seaside resort town of Eastbourne in shallow water, settling on the sea bed with her masts and the tops of her funnels showing out of the sea at low tide.

Pisagua drifted off leeward after the collision, but managed to survive with severe damage to the bow and foremast. Towed to Dover for immediate sea-going repairs, she was then towed to Hamburg where she was condemned. She was rebuilt as a whale factory ship and operated by Søren L. Christensen,. On 12 February 1913, Pisagua was stranded at Low Island, South Shetland Islands. Although insured for NOK 318,000, she was subsequently condemned and written off at a loss to her owners.



After the sinking, P&O sued Laeisz, claiming damages for the loss of Oceana. Judgement was given that Pisagua was not at fault, due to a combination of factors, including that Oceana was obliged to give way to Pisagua under the "steam gives way to sail" rule.

Bullion salvage
The day after the collision and ship's sinking, P&O agreed with the insurers' salvage team to send divers to recover the gold and silver ingots. Divers initially entered the Captain's cabin and opened his safe, to recover the keys to the ship's five strongrooms. This enabled them to open three of the five strongrooms, while the other two were opened with a lump hammer and cold chisel. The salvage operation lasted ten days. A notable history item of the day, the salvage operation was filmed by George Albert Smith of Brighton, using his new and innovative "Kinemacolor" system, the first successful colour motion picture process.

Wreck
In July 1912 the Royal Navy blew up the wreck as it posed a danger to shipping.

Oceana is today a popular wreck diving site. 15 nautical miles (28 km) east from Newhaven, at low tide the wreck lies in less than 24 metres (79 ft) of water, upright and standing 10 metres (33 ft) above the sea bed. Resting on an even keel on a gravel seabed, the bows are upright and mostly intact. Her superstructure has collapsed, but her sides are vertical and complete with portholes. Divers can see inside the engine room from above to see the four boilers and the 10-metre-high (33 ft) 7,000 indicated horsepower (5,200 kW) triple-expansion steam engine. Being close to the shore, the wreck attracts a large amount of sea life.

Divers have found single gold and silver ingots since, the last being recovered in 1996. The ship was carrying a memorial plaque to 800 men of the 1st Nottingham Regiment who had died in India from 1819 to 1838, mainly from local diseases. The plaque was recovered by divers Geoff and Jamie Smith from the Tunbridge Wells Sub-Aqua Club in August 2009, and after restoration and preservation presented to 2nd Battalion the Mercian Regiment in October 2009. It is currently displayed in the regimental museum in Nottingham Castle.



Pisagua was a four-masted barque which was built for F. Laeisz, Hamburg, Germany in 1892 and served for twenty years, surviving a collision with a steamship in 1912. She was repaired and sold to a Norwegian owner, only to be stranded in the South Shetland Islands the following year.


Jensen Hamburger Viermaster Pisagua 1893

Description
Pisagua was built by Joh. C. Tecklenborg, Geestemünde. She was yard number 115. Pisagua was 113.00 metres (370 ft 9 in) long overall, with a beam of 13.58 metres (44 ft 7 in) and a depth of 7.94 metres (26 ft 1 in). She had four masts and was rigged as a barque, with royal sails over double top and topgallant sails. Her air draught was 52.50 metres (172 ft 3 in). Her sail area was 3,500 square metres (38,000 sq ft). Pisagua was a sister ship to Placilla, which was launched seven months earlier than she was. Pisagua was assigned the Code Letters RJPT

History
Pisagua was launched on 23 September 1892. In that year she sailed to Valparaiso, Chile. Her voyage from Lizard Point to Valparaiso taking 71 days. In 1893 she made the voyage from Iquique, Chile to Lizard Point in 74 days. She sailed between Germany and Chile until 1896 when she made the voyage from Lizard Point to Calcutta, India in 99 days. In 1897, she sailed from Calcutta to Boston, United States in 111 days. She then sailed from Philadelphia to Hiogo, Japan in 131 days, the voyage from there to Iquique took 72 days.

In 1901, Pisagua sailed from Lizard Point to Port Pirie, Australia in 79 days, and from there to Taltal, Chile in a further 32 days. In 1904, she was again employed on the route to Chile, sailing from Elbmündung, Germany to Valparaiso in 87 days. Further voyages were made to Chile in 1907 and 1908.


Pisagua after the collision with Oceana

On 12 March 1912, Pisagua was involved in a collision with the P&O steamship Oceana off Beachy Head, East Sussex. Pisagua hit Oceana amidships, creating a 40 feet (12 m) long gash in her side. Nine lives were lost when one of Oceana's lifeboats capsized, but the other 241 passengers and crew were rescued.[5] Oceana sank but Pisagua survived with severe damage to the bow and foremast.

P&O sued Laeisz, claiming damages for the loss of Oceana. Judgement was given that Pisagua was not at fault, due to a combination of factors, including that the obligation was on Oceana to give way to Pisagua under the "steam gives way to sail" rule.

Pisagua was towed to Dover, Kent for repairs. Pisagua was then towed to Hamburg where she was condemned. In October 1912, she was sold to A/S Ørnen, Sandefjord, Norway for £5,000. Pisagua was rebuilt as a whale factory.[3] She was operated by Søren L. Christensen. On 12 February 1913, Pisagua was stranded at Low Island, South Shetland Islands. Although she was insured for NOK 318,000, her owners made a loss of NOK 54,713 on the ship.

Captains
The captains of Pisagua were:

• J Früdden (1892–93)
• C E F J Bahlke (1893-1901)
• Hinrich Nissen (1901–03)
• H A Dehnhardt (1904–08)
• J Frömcke (1909)
• R Dahm (1910–12)
• Larsen (1912–13)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Oceana_(1887)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisagua_(ship)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1894 – Battle of the Yalu River, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War.


The Battle of the Yalu River (simplified Chinese: 黄海海战; traditional Chinese: 黃海海戰; pinyin: Huáng Hǎi Hǎizhàn; Japanese:Kōkai-kaisen (黄海海戦, "Naval Battle of the Yellow Sea")) was the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War, and took place on 17 September 1894, the day after the Japanese victory at the land Battle of Pyongyang. It involved ships from the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Chinese Beiyang Fleet. The battle is also known by a variety of names: Battle of Haiyang Island, Battle of Dadonggou, Battle of the Yellow Sea and Battle of Yalu, after the geographic location of the battle, which was in the Yellow Sea off the mouth of the Yalu River and not in the river itself. There is also no agreement among contemporary sources on the exact numbers and composition of each fleet.


Japanese print depicting Matsushima (left) attacking Chinese warships, Shunsai Toshimasa (ja), 1894


Battle of the Yellow Sea by Korechika

Initial contact and engagement
Late in the morning the two fleets approached each other, in contrasting formations. The Chinese had intended to form a line with the ships side-by-side, but due to confusion in signals and the differing speeds of the ships, they were in a wedge formation, with the two battleships at the fore and the other vessels trailing behind on both flanks. The Japanese were in column formation with the flying squadron in front, followed by the main squadron.

When the enemy was well in sight Admiral Sukeyuki Ito ordered the flying squadron to attack the Beiyang Fleet's right flank. The Chinese opened fire at a range of 5,000 metres (5,500 yd), which was far too great to cause any damage. The Japanese, meanwhile, held their fire for another twenty minutes as they headed diagonally across the Beiyang Fleet at twice the speed. On the signal of Admiral Ito, the Japanese squadrons divided. The flying squadron under Tsuboi increased speed from 8 to 14 knots (15 to 26 km/h; 9.2 to 16.1 mph) and headed for the very centre of the Chinese formation; the tactic held the puzzled enemy in position. Turning slightly to port, the flying squadron then moved around the right flank of the Chinese formation to strike at the weakest units there. Holding fire until they were in effective range, the cruisers battered Chaoyong and Yangwei. The flying squadron then moved northward to engage Chinese reinforcements coming from the Yalu river.


British illustration of Dingyuan and Zhenyuan under fire from the Japanese cruisers

The main squadron of the Japanese fleet initially followed the same course as the flying squadron towards the Chinese left but completed the turn all the way round to circle behind the Chinese fleet. As the flying squadron again turned south, the Beiyang Fleet was caught between the two Japanese squadrons. Dingyuan and Zhenyuanresisted the heaviest bombardment as a result of their armour; however, the quick firing Japanese guns decimated crews on their decks.

The Flying Squadron meanwhile re-engaged, sinking the cruiser Zhiyuan that had attempted to ram one of the Japanese cruisers, then set off in pursuit of one of several ships on the Chinese left which were deserting their fleet and had fled toward the shallow waters to the north. The squadron successfully hunted down and destroyed the cruiser Jingyuan, but in doing so inadvertently allowed the other Chinese vessels to escape. By this time the main Japanese squadron under Admiral Itō was circling what remained of the Chinese force, the major Japanese ships fired their heavy and quick-firing guns that swept the decks of the Chinese ships and smashed their superstructures. Many of the Japanese ships, however, also received major damage. The Yoshino was hit and the Akagi and Saikyō Maru were put out of action. Hiei also sustained serious damage as a result of her inferior speed, her captain decided not to try to follow the Flying Squadron on its sweep around the Chinese fleet, but instead to pass directly through the Chinese line. This maneuver made the Hiei an easy target and sustained a number of serious hits before the ship moved out of range. The damage to the Matsushima, however, was the most severe; where the lack of armor was made apparent when she was struck by two 12-inch shells that tore open the deck and ignited ready ammunition causing nearly one hundred casualties and forcing Admiral Itō to transfer his flag to the Hashidate.


The Japanese warship Saikyōmaru at the Battle of the Yalu River, Hasegawa Chikuyō, 1894

By sunset the Beiyang fleet was near the point of total collapse, most of the fleet had fled or had been sunk and the two largest ships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan were nearly out of ammunition.

Several different explanations have been put forward as to why the Beiyang Fleet did not change their formation to react to the Japanese tactics more effectively. Per Royal Navy Lieutenant William Ferdinand Tyler, stationed on Dingyuan, Admiral Ding ordered his ships to change course in such a way that would have exposed his ship, the flagship, but put the rest of the squadron in a good position to fire on the Japanese fleet. However, Dingyuan's captain deliberately did not acknowledge this order or pass it on to the rest of the fleet. Instead, he ordered Dingyuan to fire its main guns before the Japanese were in range. There is a long-repeated legend that firing the main battery directly forward resulted in the destruction of the flying bridge, but it was a mistranslation of Philo T. McGiffin's memoir, which says that he and Ding were "catapulted" by the shockwave. Now historians agree it was Japanese gunfire that destroyed the flying bridge, leaving Admiral Ding with his legs crushed under the wreckage and thus out of combat for the remainder of the battle. Most of his staff officers on the bridge were likewise injured or killed. The situation was worsened when the Japanese destroyed Dingyuan's foremast, making it impossible for the flagship to signal the rest of the fleet. The Chinese fleet, with some foresight, had anticipated something like this happening and formed into three pairs of mutually supporting vessels to carry the fight on.

According to an account from James Allan, an officer aboard the U.S.-flagged supply ship Columbia, who witnessed the battle, rumors abounded that Admiral Ding deferred command to Major Constantin von Hannecken. He opined that it was not surprising that the Chinese had suffered such losses if an army officer was directing a naval fleet.

The Chinese fleet opened fire on the Japanese fleet as they passed from port to starboard, across the bows of the Chinese vessels. They failed to score any significantly damaging hits on the Japanese with their 12-inch (305 mm) and 8.2-inch (208 mm) guns. At about 2,700 metres (3,000 yd) (the Chinese had been steadily closing the range), the Japanese concentrated their fire on the right flank of the Chinese line, with devastating barrages poured into Chaoyong and Yangwei. Both those vessels burst into flames, because of their heavily varnished and polished wooden surfaces. Burning fiercely, both tried to save themselves by beaching.

As the Japanese ships opened fire, Jiyuan turned and fled, followed by Guangjia. Jiyuan was hit only once, while Guangjia became lost, ran aground, and was scuttled a few days later by its own crew. Some sources also say Jiyuan collided with Yangwei, causing her sinking.

The Japanese had intended to swing the flying division around the right flank of the Chinese line in an encirclement, but the timely arrival of the Kuang Ping and Pingyuan, along with the torpedo boats Fu Lung (built at Schichau) and Choi Ti (a Yarrow-built vessel), diverted this maneuver.

The Japanese fast cruisers veered to port and were then dispatched by Admiral Itoh to go to the assistance of Hiei, Saikyō Maru and Akagi, which had been unable to keep up with the main line, and had then been engaged by the left-hand vessels of the Chinese line when Saikyō Maru tried to finish off the beached Yangwei.

At 15:20, the severely crippled and burning Zhiyuan tried to ram Naniwa (Chinese source says Yoshino) but failed. She sank along with her captain, Deng Shichang.

The Japanese fleet's more reliable, better-maintained ordnance and overwhelming superiority in rapid-firing guns gave it tactical advantage over the Beiyang Fleet, which fought with limited stocks, consisting of older foreign ammunition and shoddy domestic products. Japanese shells set four Chinese vessels ablaze, destroying three. However, firefighting was well organized on the Chinese vessels. For example, Laiyuan burned severely, yet kept firing. Dingyuan stayed afloat and had casualties of 14 dead and 25 wounded. A total of about 850 Chinese sailors were lost in the battle with 500 wounded.

The Chinese severely damaged four Japanese warships and lightly damaged two others. Japanese losses were roughly 180 killed, and 200 wounded. The Japanese flagship Matsushima suffered the worst single-ship loss, with more than 100 dead or wounded after being hit by a heavy Chinese round. Hiei was severely damaged and retired from the conflict; Akagi suffered from heavy fire, with great loss of life. Saikyō Maru, the converted liner, urged on by Admiral Kabayama Sukenori despite its lack of offensive armament, had been hit by four 12-inch (305 mm) shells and was left sailing virtually out of control as a result.


Dingyuan/Ting Yuen photographed in 1884 in Germany, waiting for delivery


Zhenyuan in Japanese service as Chin'en.

Order of battle
Japan
Flying Squadron:

• Yoshino (4150 t, 20 knots (37 km/h), 4-6, 8-4.7) (Kawara Yōichi, RA Tsuboi Kōzō)
• Takachiho (3650t, 15 knots (28 km/h), 2-10.2, 6-6) (Nomura Tadashi)
• Naniwa (3650 t, 16 knots (30 km/h), 2-10.2, 6-6) (Tōgō Heihachirō)
• Akitsushima (3150 t, 16 knots (30 km/h), 4-6, 6-4.7) (Kamimura Hikonojō)

Main Fleet:

• Matsushima (4277 t, 14 knots (26 km/h), 1-12.6, 12-4.7) (Omoto and Dewa Shigetō, VA Itō Sukeyuki) – Damaged
• Chiyoda (2450 t, 19kts, 10-4.7) (Uchida Masatoshi)
• Itsukushima (4277t, 14 knots (26 km/h), 1-12.6, 11-4.7) (Arima Shin'ichi)
• Hashidate (as Itsukushima) (Hidaka Sōnojō)
• Fusō (3718t, 11 knots (20 km/h), 4-9.4, 2-6) (Arai)
• Hiei (2200t, 9 knots (17 km/h), 9-6) (Sakurai Kikunojō) – Damaged

Others:

• Akagi (615t, 8 knots (15 km/h), 2-4.7) (Sakamoto Hachirota)
• Saikyō Maru (merchantman, 2913, 10 knots (19 km/h), small guns) (Kanō Yunoshin)

China (Beiyang Fleet)
Left Wing, left to right

• Jiyuan (2,355t, 15 knots (28 km/h), 2-8.3, 1-5.9, 10MG, 4TT) (Fang Pai-chien) - Fled at start perhaps then collided with Chaoyung
• Kwan Chia (1,290t, 16 knots (29.6 km/h), 1-4.7, 4-5, 8MG) (Wu Ching-jung) - Fled at start, ran aground, scuttled
• Zhiyuen (2,300t, 18 knots (33 km/h), 3-8.3, 2-5.9, 16MG, 4TT) (Teng Shih-chang) - Sunk
• Dingyuan (flag, 7,355t, 15 knots (28 km/h), 4-12.2, 2-5.9, 12MG,3TT) (Ding Ruchang & Liu Pu-chan)

Right Wing, left to right

• Zhenyuan (7,430t, 15 knots (28 km/h), 4-12.2, 2-5.9, 12MG, 3TT) (Lin Tai-tseng & McGiffin, Philo) - Left group to join flag. Damaged
• Laiyuan (2,830t, 15 knots (28 km/h), 2-8.3, 2-5.9, 16MG, 4TT) (Chiu Pao-jen) - Aft on fire, damaged
• Jingyuan, 1887 (2,850t, 15 knots (28 km/h), 2-8.3, 2-5.9. 8MG, 4TT) (Lin Yung-sheng) - Caught fire, sank
• Jingyuen, 1886 (2,300t, 18 knots (33 km/h), 3-8.3, 2-5.9, 16MG, 4TT) (Yeh Tus-kuei) - Stayed back to avoid shelling
• Chaoyong (1,350t, 16 knots (30 km/h), 2-10, 4-4.7, 6MG) (Huang Chien-hsun) - Quickly caught fire, sank or beached
• Yangwei (1,350t, 16 knots (30 km/h), 2-10, 4-4.7, 6MG) (Lin Li-chung) - Quickly caught fire, beached, wreck torpedoed next day

Joined Halfway, front to rear, moved to the right flank

• Pingyuan (2,100t, 12 knots (22 km/h), 1-12.2, 2-6, 8MG, 4TT) (Li Ho-lien)
• Guangbing (1,000t, 16 knots (30 km/h), 3-4.7, 8MG, 4TT) (Chen Pi-kuang)
• Fulong (torpedo-boat, 128t, 15 knots (28 km/h), MGs, 3TT) (Choy)
• Zuo 1 (torpedo-boat, 69t, 16 knots (30 km/h), MGs, 3TT) (?)

Matsushima, flagship of the Japanese Navy in the Sino-Japanese War.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Yalu_River_(1894)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeschlacht_am_Yalu

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1894 – Death of Deng Shichang, Chinese captain (b. 1849)


Deng Shichang (4 October 1849 – 17 September 1894), courtesy name Zhengqing, posthumous name Zhuangjie, was a Chinese military officer who lived in the late Qing dynasty. He is best known for his service in the Beiyang Fleet during the First Sino-Japanese War as the captain of the protected cruiser Zhiyuan. He participated in the Battle of the Yalu River on 17 September 1894 against the Imperial Japanese Navy. After the Zhiyuan was sunk in battle, he refused to be rescued and eventually drowned at sea. He was posthumously awarded the position of taizi shaobao (Tutor to the Crown Prince) by the Qing government and honoured as a hero in the Shrine of Loyalty in Beijing.



Service in the Beiyang Fleet
In 1880, Deng was transferred to the Beiyang Fleet and sent to Britain to receive and escort the cruiser Yangwei back to China. Upon his return, he was appointed as the guandai (Captain) of the Yangwei. In 1887, he was sent to Britain again to receive the protected cruiser Zhiyuan, and was subsequently appointed as its guandai. He was also promoted to the position of a fujiang (副將; two ranks below tidu) in the central administration of the Beiyang Fleet. At the time, Deng was the only guandai in the Beiyang Fleet who was not educated or trained outside of China. In 1891, when Li Hongzhang, the Viceroy of the Capital Province, inspected the Beiyang Fleet, he was so impressed with how Deng trained his sailors that he awarded Deng the honorary title of a baturu.


Zhiyuan around 1894

Battle of the Yalu River
Main article: Battle of the Yalu River (1894)
The Battle of the Yalu River broke out on 17 September 1894, as a naval battle of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, which was fought between the Qing Empire of China and the Empire of Japan. Early in the battle, Deng moved aggressively against the Japanese command vessel Sei-Kyo Maru, inflicting considerable damage on it, and coming under counterattack by the Japanese flying squadron led by Admiral Tsuboi Kōzō (Yoshino, Takachiho, Akitsushima, and Naniwa). The Japanese cruisers circled the Zhiyuan, firing at a more rapid pace and scoring more hits than the poorly trained Chinese gunners with their obsolete cannons. Deng ordered the Zhiyuan to close on the Naniwa and attempt to ram it, but was hit in the bow by a shell fired from either the Naniwa or Takachiho at 1550 hours, which caused a massive explosion, after which the Zhiyuan rapidly sank. Some 245 officers and crewmen went down with the cruiser.

Deng refused to be rescued and eventually drowned at sea with his pet dog.

Posthumous honours
At a meeting after the battle, the top brass of the Beiyang Fleet expressed strong disapproval of Deng's decision to die in battle, stating that although Deng's action was heroic, it nonetheless resulted in the loss of not only the cruiser but also its captain. They were worried that other captains might try to emulate Deng and be only too willing to give up their lives easily, hence they produced a legal instrument, the Naval Constitution on Punishing Evil and Encouraging Goodness (海軍懲勸章程), to pardon the sailors who lost their ships in battle. Li Hongzhang also shared the same view as the Beiyang Fleet's top brass – that Deng's decision to reject rescue and drown was not praiseworthy – and ordered other military leaders to not follow Deng as an example.


The crew of Zhiyuan around the time of the Sino-Japanese War, ca. 1894.

In spite of such negative views, Deng's death stirred up strong nationalist sentiments throughout China. The Guangxu Emperor, while wiping away tears, wrote about Deng, "On this day, the people shed tears but your act of courage has raised the navy's morale." The Qing government also awarded Deng the posthumous name "Zhuangjie" (literally "courageous and chaste") and posthumous appointment of taizi shaobao (太子少保; Tutor to the Crown Prince), and honoured him as a hero in the Shrine of Loyalty (昭忠祠) in Beijing. Deng's mother was presented with a 1.5 kilogramme plaque made of gold and inscribed with the words "Excellent Upbringing of a Child", while Deng's family were given 100,000 taels of silver as pension. Deng's family used the money to build a Deng Family Shrine in Deng's hometown. The shrine was not damaged by the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War because of the respect and admiration they had for Deng.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Shichang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cruiser_Zhiyuan

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1895 - The battleship USS Maine is commissioned.
Her active career was spent operating along the U.S. East Coast and in the Caribbean. In January 1898, Maine was sent to Havana, Cuba, to protect U.S. interests during a time of local insurrection and civil disturbance. Three weeks later, on Feb. 15, 1898, the battleship was sunk by a massive explosion that killed a great majority of her crew.


USS Maine entering Havana Harbor on 25 January 1898, where the ship would explode three weeks later. On the right is the old Morro Castle fortress.

USS Maine (ACR-1) was an American naval ship that sank in Havana Harbor during the Cuban revolt against Spain, an event that became a major political issue in the United States.

Commissioned in 1895, this was the first United States Navy ship to be named after the state of Maine.[a][1] Originally classified as an armored cruiser, she was built in response to the Riachuelo and the increase of naval forces in Latin America. Maine and her near-sister ship Texas reflected the latest European naval developments, with the layout of her main armament resembling that of the British ironclad Inflexible and comparable Italian ships. Her two gun turrets were staggered en échelon, rather than on the centerline, with the fore gun sponsoned out on the starboard side of the ship and the aft gun on the port side,[2] with cutaways in the superstructure to allow both to fire ahead, astern or across her deck. She dispensed with full masts thanks to the increased reliability of steam engines by the time of her construction.

Despite these advances, Maine was out of date by the time she entered service, due to her protracted construction period and changes in the role of ships of her type, naval tactics and technology. It took nine years to complete, and nearly three years for the armor plating alone. The general use of steel in warship construction precluded the use of ramming without danger to the attacking vessel. The potential for blast damage from firing end on or cross-deck discouraged en échelon gun placement. The changing role of the armored cruiser from a small, heavily armored substitute for the battleship to a fast, lightly armored commerce raider also hastened her obsolescence. Despite these disadvantages, Maine was seen as an advance in American warship design.



Maine is best known for her loss in Havana Harbor on the evening of 15 February 1898. Sent to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain, she exploded suddenly, without warning, and sank quickly, killing nearly three quarters of her crew. The cause and responsibility for her sinking remained unclear after a board of inquiry investigated. Nevertheless, popular opinion in the U.S., fanned by inflammatory articles printed in the "yellow press" by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, blamed Spain. The phrase, "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!", became a rallying cry for action, which came with the Spanish–American War later that year. While the sinking of Maine was not a direct cause for action, it served as a catalyst, accelerating the approach to a diplomatic impasse between the U.S. and Spain.



The cause of Maine's sinking remains a subject of speculation. In 1898, an investigation of the explosion was carried out by a naval board appointed under the McKinley Administration. The consensus of the board was that Maine was destroyed by an external explosion from a mine. However, the validity of this investigation has been challenged. George W. Melville, a chief engineer in the Navy, proposed that a more likely cause for the sinking was from a magazine explosion within the vessel. The Navy's leading ordnance expert, Philip R. Alger, took this theory further by suggesting that the magazines were ignited by a spontaneous fire in a coal bunker. The coal used in Maine was bituminous coal, which is known for releasing firedamp, a gas that is prone to spontaneous explosions. There is stronger evidence that the explosion of Maine was caused by an internal coal fire which ignited the magazines. This was a likely cause of the explosion, rather than the initial hypothesis of a mine. The ship lay at the bottom of the harbor until 1911. A cofferdam was then built around the wreck. The hull was patched up until the ship was afloat, then towed to sea and sunk. The Maine now lies on the sea-bed 3,600 feet (1,100 m) below the surface.



Launching and delay


Launching of Maine in 1890

Maine was launched on 18 November 1889, sponsored by Alice Tracey Wilmerding, the granddaughter of Navy Secretary Benjamin F. Tracy. Not long afterwards, a reporter wrote for Marine Engineer and Naval Architect magazine, "it cannot be denied that the navy of the United States is making rapid strides towards taking a credible position among the navies of the world, and the launch of the new armoured battleship Maine from the Brooklyn Navy Yard ... has added a most powerful unit to the United States fleet of turret ships." In his 1890 annual report to congress, the Secretary of the Navy wrote, "the Maine ... stands in a class by herself" and expected the ship to be commissioned by July 1892.

A three-year delay ensued, while the shipyard waited for nickel steel plates for Maine's armor. Bethlehem Steel Company had promised the navy 300 tons per month by December 1889 and had ordered heavy castings and forging presses from the British firm of Armstrong Whitworth in 1886 to fulfil its contract. This equipment did not arrive until 1889, pushing back Bethlehem's timetable. In response, Navy Secretary Benjamin Tracy secured a second contractor, the newly expanded Homestead mill of Carnegie, Phipps & Company. In November 1890, Tracy and Andrew Carnegie signed a contract for Homestead to supply 6000 tons of nickel steel. However, Homestead was, what author Paul Krause calls, "the last union stronghold in the steel mills of the Pittsburgh district." The mill had already weathered one strike in 1882 and a lockout in 1889 in an effort to break the union there. Less than two years later, came the Homestead Strike of 1892, one of the largest, most serious disputes in U.S. labor history.

A photo of the christening shows Mrs. Wilmerding striking the bow near the plimsoll line depth of 13 which lead to many comments (much later of course) that the ship was "unlucky" from the launching.

Operations


Crew of USS Maine

Maine was commissioned on 17 September 1895, under the command of Captain Arent S. Crowninshield.[44] On 5 November 1895, Maine steamed to Sandy Hook Bay, New Jersey. She anchored there two days, then proceeded to Newport, Rhode Island, for fitting out and test firing of her torpedoes. After a trip, later that month, to Portland, Maine, she reported to the North Atlantic Squadron for operations, training manoeuvres and fleet exercises. Mainespent her active career with the North Atlantic Squadron, operating from Norfolk, Virginia along the East Coast of the United States and the Caribbean. On 10 April 1897, Captain Charles Dwight Sigsbee relieved Captain Crowninshield as commander of Maine.

Crew
The ship's crew consisted of 355: 26 officers, 290 sailors, and 39 marines. Of these, there were 261 fatalities:

• Two officers and 251 sailors and marines either killed by the explosion or drowned
• Seven others were rescued but soon died of their injuries
• One officer later died of "cerebral affection" (shock)

Of the 94 survivors, 16 were uninjured.

Sinking


Wreckage of USS Maine, 1898


Telegram sent by Captain James Forsythe, commanding, Naval Station Key West, forwarding word from Charles Sigsbee, Captain, USS Maineof the sinking of his ship


Cover of Collier's Weekly for March 19, 1898: "Memorial Service at Grave of Maine's Dead, Havana, March 4"


American cartoon, published in 1898: "Remember the Maine! And Don't Forget the Starving Cubans!"

In January 1898, Maine was sent from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban War of Independence. Three weeks later, at 21:40, on 15 February, an explosion on board Maine occurred in the Havana Harbor (coordinates: 23°08′07″N 82°20′38″W). Later investigations revealed that more than 5 long tons (5.1 t) of powder charges for the vessel's six- and ten-inch guns had detonated, obliterating the forward third of the ship. The remaining wreckage rapidly settled to the bottom of the harbor. Most of Maine's crew were sleeping or resting in the enlisted quarters, in the forward part of the ship, when the explosion occurred. In total, 260 men lost their lives as a result of the explosion or shortly thereafter, and six more died later from injuries. Captain Sigsbee and most of the officers survived, because their quarters were in the aft portion of the ship. Altogether there were 89 survivors, 18 of whom were officers. On 21 March, the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry, in Key West, declared that a naval mine caused the explosion.

The New York Journal and New York World, owned respectively by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, gave Maine intense press coverage, but employed tactics that would later be labeled "yellow journalism." Both papers exaggerated and distorted any information they could obtain, sometimes even fabricating news when none that fit their agenda was available. For a week following the sinking, the Journal devoted a daily average of eight and a half pages of news, editorials and pictures to the event. Its editors sent a full team of reporters and artists to Havana, including Frederic Remington, and Hearst announced a reward of $50,000 "for the conviction of the criminals who sent 258 American sailors to their deaths." The World, while overall not as lurid or shrill in tone as the Journal, nevertheless indulged in similar theatrics, insisting continually that Maine had been bombed or mined. Privately, Pulitzer believed that "nobody outside a lunatic asylum" really believed that Spain sanctioned Maine's destruction. Nevertheless, this did not stop the World from insisting that the only "atonement" Spain could offer the U.S. for the loss of ship and life, was the granting of complete Cuban independence. Nor did it stop the paper from accusing Spain of "treachery, willingness, or laxness" for failing to ensure the safety of Havana Harbor. The American public, already agitated over reported Spanish atrocities in Cuba, was driven to increased hysteria.

Maine's destruction did not result in an immediate declaration of war with Spain. However, the event created an atmosphere that virtually precluded a peaceful solution. The Spanish–American War began in April 1898, two months after the sinking. Advocates of the war used the rallying cry, "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!" The episode focused national attention on the crisis in Cuba, but was not cited by the William McKinleyadministration as a casus belli, though it was cited by some already inclined to go to war with Spain over perceived atrocities and loss of control in Cuba




"This is the latest picture of the wreck and show how the forward part of the boat is folded back.
That is the mass of wreckage in the centre of the picture belongs and connect with the
little pile of wreckage which is seen in right of picture." (Inscription on back)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1)

These following images reside on the Library of Congress server,
USS Maine (Marines)

General: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/lc_maine.html
Launch: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/lc_maine_launch.html
Details: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/lc_maine_det.html
Crew: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/lc_maine_crew.html
Marines: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/lc_maine_mar.html
Salvage: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/lc_maine_salv.html

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1939 – World War II: German submarine U-29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous.

HMS Courageous was the lead ship of the Courageous-class cruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by First Sea Lord John Fisher, the ship was very lightly armoured and armed with only a few heavy guns. Courageous was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later.

Courageous was decommissioned after the war, then rebuilt as an aircraft carrier during the mid-1920s. She could carry 48 aircraft compared to the 36 carried by her half-sister Furious on approximately the same displacement. After recommissioning she spent most of her career operating off Great Britain and Ireland. She briefly became a training carrier, but reverted to her normal role a few months before the start of the Second World War in September 1939. Courageous was torpedoed and sunk in the opening weeks of the war, going down with more than 500 of her crew.

Origin and construction
During the First World War, Admiral Fisher was prevented from ordering an improved version of the preceding Renown-class battlecruisers by a wartime restriction that banned construction of ships larger than light cruisers in 1915. To obtain ships suitable for the doctrinal roles of battlecruisers, such as scouting for fleets and hunting enemy raiders, he settled on ships with the minimal armour of a light cruiser and the armament of a battlecruiser. He justified their existence by claiming he needed fast, shallow-draught ships for his Baltic Project, a plan to invade Germany via its Baltic coast.


HMS COURAGEOUS shortly after completion, in her original configuration as a large cruiser.

Courageous had an overall length of 786 feet 9 inches (239.8 m), a beam of 81 feet (24.7 m), and a draught of 25 feet 10 inches (7.9 m) at deep load. She displaced 19,180 long tons (19,490 t) at load and 22,560 long tons (22,922 t) at deep load. Courageous and her sisters were the first large warships in the Royal Navy to have geared steam turbines. To save design time, the installation used in the light cruiser Champion, the first cruiser in the navy with geared turbines, was simply replicated for four turbine sets. The Parsons turbines were powered by eighteen Yarrow small-tube boilers. They were designed to produce a total of 90,000 shaft horsepower (67 MW) at a working pressure of 235 psi (1,620 kPa; 17 kgf/cm2). The ship reached an estimated 30.8 knots (57.0 km/h; 35.4 mph) during sea trials.

The ship's normal design load was 750 long tons (762 t) of fuel oil, but she could carry a maximum of 3,160 long tons (3,211 t). At full capacity, she could steam for an estimated 6,000 nautical miles (11,110 km; 6,900 mi) at a speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph).

Courageous carried four BL 15-inch Mk I guns in two hydraulically powered twin gun turrets, designated 'A' and 'Y' from front to rear. Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen BL 4-inch Mk IX guns mounted in six manually powered mounts. The mount placed three breeches too close together, causing the 23 loaders to get in one another's way, and preventing the intended high rate of fire. A pair of QF 3-inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns were fitted abreast the mainmast on Courageous. She mounted two submerged tubes for 21-inch torpedoes and carried 10 torpedoes for them.


Conversion
The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 severely limited capital ship tonnage, and the Royal Navy was forced to scrap many of its older battleships and battlecruisers. The treaty allowed the conversion of existing ships totalling up to 66,000 long tons (67,059 t) into aircraft carriers, and the Courageous class's combination of a large hull and high speed made these ships ideal candidates. The conversion of Courageous began on 29 June 1924 at Devonport. Her fifteen-inch turrets were placed into storage and reused during the Second World War for HMS Vanguard, the Royal Navy's last battleship. The conversion into an aircraft carrier cost £2,025,800.


Courageous as an aircraft carrier in 1935

The ship's new design improved on her half-sister HMS Furious, which lacked an island and a conventional funnel. All superstructure, guns, torpedo tubes, and fittings down to the main deck were removed. A two-storey hangar was built on top of the remaining hull; each level was 16 feet (4.9 m) high and 550 feet (167.6 m) long. The upper hangar level opened onto a short flying-off deck, below and forward of the main flight deck. The flying-off deck improved launch and recovery cycle flexibility until new fighters requiring longer takeoff rolls made the lower deck obsolete in the 1930s. Two 46-by-48-foot (14.0 m × 14.6 m) lifts were installed fore and aft in the flight deck. An island with the bridge, flying control station and funnel was added on the starboard side, since islands had been found not to contribute significantly to turbulence. By 1939 the ship could carry 34,500 imperial gallons (157,000 l; 41,400 US gal) of petrol for her aircraft.

Courageous received a dual-purpose armament of sixteen QF 4.7-inch Mk VIII guns in single HA Mark XII mounts. Each side of the lower flight deck had a mount, and two were on the quarterdeck. The remaining twelve mounts were distributed along the sides of the ship. During refits in the mid-1930s, Courageous received three quadruple Mk VII mounts for 40-millimetre (1.6 in) 2-pounder "pom-pom" anti-aircraft guns, two of which were transferred from the battleship Royal Sovereign. Each side of the flying-off deck had a mount, forward of the 4.7-inch guns, and one was behind the island on the flight deck. She also received four water-cooled .50-calibre Mk III anti-aircraft machine guns in a single quadruple mounting. This was placed in a sponson on the port side aft.

The reconstruction was completed on 21 February 1928, and the ship spent the next several months on trials and training before she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet to be based at Malta, in which she served from May 1928 to June 1930. In August 1929, the 1929 Palestine riots broke out, and Courageous was ordered to respond. When she arrived off Palestine, her air wing was disembarked to carry out operations to help to suppress the disorder. The ship was relieved from the Mediterranean by Glorious and refitted from June to August 1930. She was assigned to the Atlantic and Home Fleets from 12 August 1930 to December 1938, aside from a temporary attachment to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1936. In the early 1930s, traverse arresting gear was installed and she received two hydraulic aircraft catapults on the upper flight deck before March 1934. Courageous was refitted again between October 1935 and June 1936 with her pom-pom mounts. She was present at the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 20 May 1937 for King George VI. The ship became a training carrier in December 1938 when Ark Royal joined the Home Fleet. She was relieved of that duty by her half-sister Furious in May 1939. Courageous participated in the Portland Fleet Review on 9 August 1939

Air group

Fairey Flycatcher

Blackburn Skua

Courageous could carry up to 48 aircraft; following completion of her trials and embarking stores and personnel, she sailed for Spithead on 14 May 1928. The following day, a Blackburn Dart of 463 Flight made the ship's first deck landing. The Dart was followed by the Fairey Flycatchers of 404 and 407 Flights, the Fairey IIIFs of 445 and 446 Flights and the Darts of 463 and 464 Flight. The ship sailed for Malta on 2 June to join the Mediterranean Fleet.

From 1933 to the end of 1938 Courageous carried No. 800 Squadron, which flew a mixture of nine Hawker Nimrod and three Hawker Osprey fighters. 810, 820 and 821 Squadrons were embarked for reconnaissance and anti-ship attack missions during the same period. They flew the Blackburn Baffin, the Blackburn Shark, the Blackburn Ripon and the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers as well as Fairey Seal reconnaissance aircraft. As a deck landing training carrier, in early 1939 Courageous embarked the Blackburn Skua and Gloster Sea Gladiator fighters of 801 Squadron and the Swordfish torpedo bombers of 811 Squadron, although both of these squadrons were disembarked when the ship was relieved of her training duties in May.

Second World War and sinking


Courageous sinking after being torpedoed by U-29



Courageous served with the Home Fleet at the start of World War II with 811 and 822 Squadrons aboard, each squadron equipped with a dozen Fairey Swordfish. In the early days of the war, hunter-killer groups were formed around the fleet's aircraft carriers to find and destroy U-boats. On 31 August 1939 she went to her war station at Portland and embarked the two squadrons of Swordfish. Courageous departed Plymouth on the evening of 3 September 1939 for an anti-submarine patrol in the Western Approaches, escorted by four destroyers. On the evening of 17 September 1939, she was on one such patrol off the coast of Ireland. Two of her four escorting destroyers had been sent to help a merchant ship under attack and all her aircraft had returned from patrols. During this time, Courageous was stalked for over two hours by U-29, commanded by Captain-Lieutenant Otto Schuhart. The carrier then turned into the wind to launch her aircraft. This put the ship right across the bow of the submarine, which fired three torpedoes. Two of the torpedoes struck the ship on her port side before any aircraft took off, knocking out all electrical power, and she capsized and sank in 20 minutes with the loss of 519 of her crew, including her captain. The survivors were rescued by the Dutch ocean liner Veendam and the British freighter Collingworth. The two escorting destroyers counterattacked U-29 for four hours, but the submarine escaped.

An earlier unsuccessful attack on Ark Royal by U-39 on 14 September, followed by the sinking of Courageous three days later, prompted the Royal Navy to withdraw its carriers from anti-submarine patrols. Courageous was the first British warship to be sunk by German forces. (The submarine Oxley had been sunk a week earlier by "Friendly fire" from the British submarine Triton.) The commander of the German submarine force, Commodore Karl Dönitz, regarded the sinking of Courageous as "a wonderful success" and it led to widespread jubilation in the Kriegsmarine (German navy). Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, commander of the Kriegsmarine, directed that Schuhart be awarded the Iron Cross First Class and that all other members of the crew receive the Iron Cross Second Class


German submarine U-29 was a Type VIIA U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II.

She was laid down on 2 January 1936, launched on 29 August and commissioned on 10 November. During her career U-29 was involved in seven war patrols under the command of Kapitänleutnant Otto Schuhart.


U-33, a typical Type VIIA boat



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Courageous_(50)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Courageous_(1916)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-29_(1936)
http://www.uboataces.com/battle-courageous.shtml
http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/C-Ships/courageous1917.html

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 September 1949 – The Canadian steamship SS Noronic burns in Toronto Harbour with the loss of over 118 lives.


SS Noronic was a passenger ship that was destroyed by fire in Toronto Harbour in September 1949 with the loss of at least 118 lives

Construction
SS Noronic was launched June 2, 1913, in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada. She was built by the Western Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company for the Northern Navigation Company, an operating division of Canada Steamship Lines (CSL), to perform passenger and package freight service on the Great Lakes. She had five decks, was 362 feet (110 m) in length, and measured 6,095 gross register tons. At maximum capacity, she could hold 600 passengers and 200 crew. One of the largest and most beautiful passenger ships in Canada at the time, she was nicknamed “The Queen of the Lakes."


SS Noronic lying at Maple Leaf Dock in Port Colborne, Ontario 1931.

Passenger decks were labelled A, B, C, and D, and none had direct gangplank access to the dock. The only exits were located on the lowest deck, E deck. There were two gangplanks on the port side and two on the starboard side, and only two were operational at a time.



The Noronic had two fleetmate ships, Huronic (1902) and Hamonic. The Hamonic burned in 1945 with one fatalitc and Huronic was retired and scrapped in 1950.

Fire
On September 14, 1949, the Noronic embarked on a seven-day pleasure cruise of Lake Ontario from Detroit, Michigan. The Noronic departed from Detroit and picked up additional passengers at Cleveland. She was scheduled to travel to Prescott, Ontario and the Thousand Islands before returning via Toronto and Detroit to Sarnia, where she would have remained over the winter. She was carrying 524 passengers, all but 20 of whom were American, and 171 crew members, all Canadian. The captain on the voyage was Capt. William Taylor.

The Noronic docked for the night at Pier 9 in Toronto Harbour at 7 pm on Friday, September 16.

At 2:30 a.m., passenger Don Church noticed smoke in the aft part of the starboard corridor on C-deck. Church followed the smell of smoke to a small room off the port corridor, just forward of a women’s washroom. Finding that the smoke was coming from a locked linen closet, Church notified bellboy Earnest O’Neil of the fire. Without sounding the alarm, O’Neil ran to the steward’s office on D-deck to retrieve the keys to the closet. Once the closet was opened, the fire exploded into the hallway; it spread quickly, fuelled by the lemon-oil-polished wood panelling on the walls

Church, O’Neil, another bellboy, and another passenger attempted to fight the blaze with fire extinguishers, but were forced to retreat almost immediately by the spreading flames. To his dismay, O’Neil found the ship’s fire hoses to be out of order. Church rushed to his stateroom on D-deck, and he, his wife, and children fled the ship.

O’Neil ran to the officers’ quarters and notified Captain Taylor. First Mate Gerry Wood then sounded the ship’s whistle to raise the alarm. It was 2:38 a.m., only eight minutes after the fire began, but already half of the ship’s decks were on fire.



Twenty-seven-year-old Donald Williamson was the first rescuer on the scene. After working a late shift at the Goodyear Tire plant, the former lake freighter deckhand wanted to see Noronic, which he knew was in port. He arrived to the sound of the ship’s distress whistle, as the fire was quickly growing and people were frantically jumping into the lake. Spotting a large painters’ raft nearby, he untied it and pushed it into a position near the ship’s port bow. As people leapt from the burning ship, he pulled them from the water to the safety of the raft.

Responding to a "routine" box call, Constables Ronald Anderson and Warren Shaddock turned their "accident" car onto Queen's Quay in time to see the ship erupt in flames as high as the mast. Their cruiser was immediately surrounded by survivors, many in shock, some on fire. A passenger alerted Anderson to those in the water and those on the decks, some in flames.

Anderson stripped his uniform off, jumped into the frigid, oily water, and began to assist Williamson on the raft. Detective Cyril Cole later joined them, swimming with survivors and bodies to the dock where other police officers hauled the injured up by rope to Shaddock and others who were administering first aid.[citation needed] Fireboats joined the rescue operation, plucking others who jumped into the water from the ship. Among those officers was Jack Marks, who went on to become Toronto's Police Chief.

Crew members had to smash portholes to drag some passengers out of their cabins. Moments before the whistle sounded, the pier’s night watchman noticed the flames coming from the ship and called the Toronto Fire Department. A pumper truck, a hose wagon, a high-pressure truck, an aerial truck, a rescue squad, the deputy chief and a fireboat were dispatched to the scene. Ambulances and police were also dispatched. The first fire truck arrived at the pier at 2:41 a.m.


Passengers escape by rope

By this time, the entire ship was consumed in flames. Only 15 crew members had been on the ship when the fire broke out, and they failed to make a sweep of the upper four decks to wake passengers; those who did wake up were awakened by screaming and running in the corridors. Most of the ship’s stairwells were on fire, and few passengers were able to reach E-deck to escape down the gangplanks. Some passengers climbed down ropes to the pier.

The scene was later described as one of great panic, with people jumping from the upper decks engulfed in flames, some falling to their deaths onto the pier below. Others were trampled to death in the mad rush of terrified passengers in the corridors. Still others suffocated or were burned alive, unable to exit their cabins. The screams of the dying were said to be audible even over the sounds of whistles and sirens.

The first rescue ladder was extended to B-deck. It was immediately rushed by passengers, causing the ladder to snap in two. The passengers were sent tumbling into the harbour, where they were rescued by a waiting fireboat. Other ladders extended to C-deck held firm throughout the rescue.

After about 20 minutes, the metal hull was white hot, and the decks began to buckle and collapse onto each other. After an hour of fighting the blaze, the Noronic was so full of water from fire hoses that it listed severely toward the pier, causing firefighters to retreat. The ship then righted itself, and firefighters returned to their original positions. By the end, more than 1.7 million gallons (6.4 million litres) of water had been poured on the ship from 37 hoses.

The fire was extinguished by 5:00 a.m., and the wreckage was allowed to cool for two hours before the recovery of bodies began. Searchers found a gruesome scene inside the burned-out hull. Firefighters reported finding charred, embracing skeletons in the corridors. Some deceased passengers were found still in their beds. Many skeletons were almost completely incinerated. Glass had melted from every window, and even steel fittings had warped and twisted from the heat.

Every stairwell had been completely destroyed, save for one near the bow.



Aftermath
The death toll from the Noronic disaster was never precisely determined. Estimates ranges anywhere from 118 to 139 deaths. Most died from either suffocation or burns. Some died from being trampled or from leaping off the upper decks onto the pier. Only one person drowned. To the anger of many, 118 of those killed were passengers. (One crewmember, Louisa Dustin, later died of her injuries; she was the only Canadian victim.)

A Federal inquiry was formed by the House of Commons of Canada to investigate the accident. The fire was determined to have started in the linen closet on C-deck, but the cause was never discovered. It was deemed likely that a cigarette was carelessly dropped by a member of the laundry staff.


The burned-out hull of the Noronic

The high death toll was blamed largely on the ineptitude and cowardice of the crew. Too few crew members were on duty at the time of the fire, and none attempted to wake the passengers. Also, many crew members fled the ship at the first alarm, and no member of the crew ever called the fire department. Passengers had never been informed of evacuation routes or procedures.

The design and construction of the 36-year-old ship were also found to be at fault. The interiors had been lined with oiled wood instead of fireproof material. Exits were only located on one deck instead of all five. None of the ship’s fire hoses were in working order.

Captain Taylor was hailed as a hero in the weeks after the fire. He was among the last of the crew to leave the Noronic. During the fire, he broke windows, pulling trapped passengers from their rooms.[5]:148–50 He was even said to have carried an unconscious woman from a smoke-filled passageway and lowered her by rope to rescuers on the pier below.[citation needed] The Canadian Department of Transportation inquiry into the disaster blamed both Canada Steamship Lines and Captain Taylor for failing to take adequate precautions against fire, and ordered Taylor's master's certificate suspended for one year. A witness made an accusation that Taylor had been under the influence of alcohol when the ship caught fire; Taylor denied this, and other witnesses testified that Taylor was behaving normally.



The ship, which settled to the bottom in shallow water, was partially taken apart at the scene. The upper decks were cut away, and the hull was re-floated on November 29, 1949. It was towed to Hamilton, Ontario, where it was scrapped.

Company officials suspected arson. Comparisons were later made to the fire aboard the CSL passenger ship Quebec, on which the fire was proven to have been deliberately set in a linen closet on August 14, 1950. In that year, the Noronic's near sister ship, the smaller Huronic, was retired and scrapped. By 1967, CSL phased out its remaining passenger ships from the fleet due to new international regulations relating to ships containing wood and other flammable materials.

Local Funeral Home Bates And Dodds at 931 Queen Street West assisted with recovery of many of those who perished

Damage suits for the Noronic were settled for just over $2 million.

The Noronic's whistle is now displayed in a nautical museum on Toronto's Waterfront.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Noronic
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noronic_(Schiff)
http://gtmaa.com/2015/09/noronic-disaster/