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

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
13 March 1811 - Battle of Lissa (1811) - Part III - captured and destroyed ships


Corona was a 40-gun Pallas-class frigate of the Italian Navy. The French built her in Venice in 1807 for the Venetian Navy. The British captured Corona at the Battle of Lissa and took her into the Royal Navy as HMS Daedalus. She grounded and sank off Ceylon in 1813 while escorting a convoy.




Hortense, sister-ship of Corona

Italian Navy
Corona was initially built in Venice for the Venetian Navy of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, using French plans. She was at Venice in 1809.

Under Captain Nicolò Pasqualigo she served as part of the Franco-Italian squadron operating in the Adriatic in 1811 under Commodore Bernard Dubourdieu. On 22 October she entered the port of Lissa and there captured several vessels.

Corona was one of the ships that Dubourdieu lost at Lissa on 13 March 1811 during the battle that resulted in his death. Corona's captain was also wounded and taken prisoner in the battle: in all she lost some 200 men killed and wounded. Following her capture by Active, a fire destroyed much of Corona's upper works and killed members of her crew and five members of the British prize crew before they could extinguish it. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Lissa" to the still living survivors of the battle.

Royal Navy
Her captors took her to Malta and then to Britain where they renamed her Daedalus, Daedalus having just been broken up, and took her into the Royal Navy. She was laid up for a year while her battle damage was repaired. The British considered her weakly built and considered giving her 32-pounder carronades in her battery to reduce the weight of her armament. Instead, they gave her 24-pounder Gover short-barreled guns. In October 1812 she was finally readied for sea under Captain Murray Maxwell, fresh from his own victory in the Adriatic.

Daedalus sailed for the East Indies on 29 January 1813. On 1 July 1813 Daedalus was escorting a number of East Indiamen off Ceylon near Pointe de Galle. Maxwell set a course for Madras that was supposed to take her clear of all shoals. When he believed he was some eight miles off shore he changed course. At 8am on 2 July she grounded on a shoal. Although she hit gently, she had irreparably damaged her bottom. Maxwell and his crew attempted numerous remedies but could not save Daedalus and the Indiamen took off her crew. Within five minutes of Maxwell's departure Daedalus sank. The subsequent court martial ruled that the master, Arthur Webster, had failed to exercise due diligence in that he had failed to take constant depth soundings; the court ordered that he be severely reprimanded.



Favorite was the 44-gun Pallas-class frigate Favorita of the Navy of the Kingdom of Italy. The Italians exchanged her to the French Navy for the three brigs Cyclope, Écureuil and Mercure.



On 12 March 1811, Favorite, under Bernard Dubourdieu, led a frigate squadron to raid the British commerce raider base of the island of Lissa. The squadron encountered William Hoste's frigate squadron, leading to the Battle of Lissa.

In the ensuing fight, Favorite attempted to board the British flagship HMS Amphion, distancing herself from the rest of her squadron. As the two ships neared, Amphion discharged a howitzer full of bullets which rendered a large number of the French casualties. Dubourdieu himself was killed at 9:10. Favorite's first officer and second officers were killed as they attempted again to board Amphion. As she sailed around Amphion in an attempt to rake her and take her in a crossfire with the other French frigates, Favorite was outmanoeuvred and ran aground.

Her crew set her on fire, and she exploded as the battle was still ongoing. Led by colonel Gifflinga, the crew of Favorite captured a coastal boat at Port St George which they used to flee to Lessina.



Flore was a 44-gun Armide-class frigate of the French Navy.



Service history
In 1808, she was part of Ganteaume's squadron that cruised in the Mediterranean.

On 12 March 1811, she was part of Bernard Dubourdieu's squadron sailing to raid the British commerce raider base of the island of Lissa. The squadron encountered William Hoste's frigate squadron, leading to the Battle of Lissa.

In the ensuing fight, Flore was distanced by her flagship Favorite, which engaged the British flagship HMS Amphion, and ran aground. Flore and Bellona caught on and engaged Amphion in a crossfire. Amphion outmanoeuvred Flore and raked her for ten minutes, after which Flore struck her colours.

The battle still raging, the British failed to send a capture crew aboard, and Flore eventually joined the surviving Carolina and Danaé and fleeing to Ragusa.

Flore was wrecked in a tempest off Chioggia on 30 November 1811, with the loss of 75. Her commanding officer, Frigate CaptainLissilour, was acquitted by the court martial.

A 1⁄48 shipyard model of Flore, originally part of the Trianon model collection, is on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris.

French frigate Corona (1807) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

French frigate Favorite (1810) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

French frigate Flore (1806) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
13 March 1869 – Launch of HMS Active, a Volage-class corvette built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s


HMS Active was a Volage-class corvette built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s. Launched in 1869, she entered service in 1873, and was the Commodore's ship on the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station. Her crew served ashore in both the Third Anglo-Ashanti and Zulu Wars. From 1885 to 1898, the ship was the flagship of the Training Squadron. Active was sold for scrap in 1906.






Description
Active was 270 feet (82.3 m) long between perpendiculars and had a beam of 42 feet 1 inch (12.8 m). Forward the ship had a draught of 16 feet 5 inches (5.0 m), but aft she drew 21 ft 5 in (6.5 m). Active displaced 3,078 long tons (3,127 t) and had a burthenof 2,322 tons. Her iron hull was covered by a 3-inch (76 mm) layer of oak that was sheathed with copper from the waterline down to prevent biofouling. Watertight transverse bulkheads subdivided the hull. Her crew consisted of 340 officers and enlisted men.

The ship had one 2-cylinder horizontal return connecting rod-steam engine made by Humphreys and Tennant driving a single 19-foot (5.8 m) propeller. Five rectangular boilers provided steam to the engine at a working pressure of 30 psi (207 kPa; 2 kgf/cm2). The engine produced a total of 4,130 indicated horsepower (3,080 kW) which gave Active a maximum speed of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). The ship carried 410 long tons (420 t) of coal, enough to steam 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km; 2,300 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

Active was ship rigged and had a sail area of 16,593 square feet (1,542 m2). The lower masts were made of iron, but the other masts were wood. The ship's best speed under sail alone was 12.5 knots (23.2 km/h; 14.4 mph). Her funnel was semi-retractable to reduce wind resistance and her propeller could be hoisted up into the stern of the ship to reduce drag while under sail.

The ship was initially armed with a mix of 7-inch and 64-pounder 64 cwt rifled muzzle-loading guns. The six 7-inch (178 mm) guns and two of the four 64-pounders were mounted on the broadside while the other two were mounted on the forecastle and poop deck as chase guns. In 1879, ten BL 6-inch 80-pounder breech-loading guns replaced all the broadside weapons. Two carriages for 14-inch (356 mm) torpedoes were added as well.


Scale: 1:48. A half block model of the starboard side of the 10-gun single-screw, steam corvette HMS Volage (1869), made entirely in wood and painted in realistic colours. The hull is painted to resemble oxidised coppering below the waterline, and black above. The hull has a clipper bow. Fittings include decorated trail boards, single row of portholes, stump bowsprit, foremast and mainmast, a stump funnel painted ochre, rudder, and stern gallery windows. The propeller and figurehead are currently missing. The model is displayed on a rectangular wooden backboard painted duck-egg blue with frame edges (left-hand edge currently missing). Handwritten on backboard ‘HMS Volage. Built by The Thames Iron Works - Shipbuilding, Engineering & Dry Dock Comp. Blackwall London for Her Britannic Majesty’. On plaque ‘272 Volage corvette - 1869. An iron-built unarmoured ship built at Blackwall served for many years in The Training Squadron. Sold in 1904. Original armament: - 67in and 4 6in M.L. Second armament 18 6in M.L. Final armament 10 6in B.L. and 2 6in M.L. Dimensions Length 270ft Beam 42ft Displacement 3320 Tons Speed 15 knots’.

Service
HMS Active was laid down in 1867 and launched on 13 March 1869. The ship was completed in March 1871 at a total cost of £126,156. Of this, £85,795 was spent on her hull and £40,361 on her machinery. Unlike her sister ship Volage, Active was placed in reserve after completion until 1873 when she was commissioned to serve as the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, Cape of Good Hope and West Coast of Africa Station, Commodore William Hewett. The ship participated in naval operations during the Third Anglo-Ashanti War of 1874 and some of her crew were landed to reinforce the forces ashore. Commodore Francis Sullivanreplaced Hewett in 1876 and he retained command until 1879 when the ship returned home to refit.

Zulu War
Between 19 November 1878 and 21 July 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War, 173 men of Active (along with men from Tenedos, Shah and Boadicea) served ashore as part of an 858-man naval brigade. The group from Active comprised 10 officers, 100 seamen, 5 idlers, 42 Marines, 14 Kroomen, and 2 medical attendants.[6] In addition to small arms, they were equipped with two 12-pounder breech-loading guns, 24-pounder rockets, and a Gatling gun. The 12-pounders were exchanged for two of the Army's 7-pounder mountain guns before entering Zululand.

Attached to the No.1 Column commanded by Colonel Charles Pearson, they crossed the Tugela River from Natal into Zululand on 12 January 1879. On 22 January they saw action in the Battle of Inyezane, driving off an attacking force of Zulus with rockets, Martini-Henry rifles and the Gatling gun. The same day the British main force was defeated at the Battle of Isandlwana, and so Pearson's column advanced to Eshowe, where it was besieged for two months, until relieved on 3 April.[6] During the campaign, Active's crew suffered only one man killed, and nine wounded in action against the enemy, while nine died of disease during the siege, and one man drowned while crossing the Tugela. In 1881 the South Africa Medal was awarded to those members of Active's crew that had served there.

Training Squadron
Active was rearmed and refitted in 1879 and placed in reserve until she was selected in 1885 to be the commodore's flagship in the newly formed Training Squadron. Active was the last square-rigged naval ship to leave Portsmouth Harbour under sail. She was paid off in 1898 and was sold for scrap on 10 July 1906.

A memorial to the men of Active who lost their lives during the African campaigns can be found in Victoria Park, Portsmouth.


The Volage class was a group of two screw corvettes built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s. Both ships spent the bulk of their active service abroad. Volage spent most of her first commission assigned to the Detached or Flying Squadron circumnavigating the world and then carried a party of astronomers to the Kerguelen Islands to observe the Transit of Venus in 1874. The ship was then assigned as the senior officer's ship in South American waters until she was transferred to the Training Squadron during the 1880s.

Active served as the commodore's ship on the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station and her crew served ashore in both the Third Anglo-Ashanti and Zulu Wars. She was assigned to the Training Squadron in 1885 after a period in reserve. The sisters were paid off in 1898–99 and sold for scrap in 1904 and 1906, respectively.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Active_(1869)

Volage-class corvette - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Collections - National Maritime Museum

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
13 March 1895 – Launch of Emperador Carlos V, an armored cruiser of the Spanish Navy


Emperador Carlos V was an armored cruiser of the Spanish Navy which served in the Spanish fleet from 1898 to 1933.



Technical characteristics
Emperador Carlos V was built at the naval shipyard at Cadiz in Spain, the largest ship built in Spanish yards in this era. She was laid down in 1892, launched on 13 March 1895, and completed on 2 June 1898. She was the only member of her class. Her boilers and machinery were of Spanish construction, her armor German, her stern and stern post British, and her gun turrets, which were installed at Le Havre, France, in 1897, were French. She had three funnels and was weakly armored, relying mostly on her armored deck for protection. Her 11-inch (280-mm) main guns were mounted fore and aft in center-line hooded barbettes. One of her strengths was considered to be her great steaming range.


Right elevation and deck plan as depicted in Brassey's Naval Annual 1906

Operational history
Emperador Carlos V was brand new and not yet operational when the Spanish–American War broke out in April 1898, but she was rushed into service and assigned to the 2nd Squadron, commanded by Rear Admiral Manuel de Camara. This squadron was ordered to steam to the Philippines and defeat the U.S. Navy's Asiatic Squadron, which had controlled Philippine waters since defeating the Spanish squadron of Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasaron in the Battle of Manila Bay.

Camara's squadron—consisting of Emperador Carlos V, battleship Pelayo, auxiliary cruisers Patriota and Rapido, destroyersAudaz, Osado, and Prosepina, and transports Buenos Aires and Panay – sortied from Cadiz on 16 June 1898, passing Gibraltaron 17 June 1898.[5] It arrived at Port Said, Egypt, on 26 June 1898, and requested permission to transship coal, which the Egyptian government finally denied on 30 June 1898 out of concern for Egyptian neutrality. By the time Camara's squadron arrived at Suez on 5 July 1898, the squadron of Vice Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete had been annihilated in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, freeing up the U.S. Navy's heavy forces from the blockade of Santiago de Cuba. Fearful of the security of the Spanish coast, the Spanish Ministry of Marine recalled Camara's squadron on 7 July 1898, and Emperador Carlos V returned to Spain, where Camara's 2nd Squadron was dissolved on 25 July 1898. Emperador Carlos V spent the last month of the war in Spanish waters, and thus missed combat.

After the war, Emperador Carlos V conducted cruises to show the flag, attending naval reviews in foreign countries, most notably including the coronation of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom in 1902.

In 1914 she was present at the United States occupation of Veracruz.

She was decommissioned in 1922, stricken in 1932, and scrapped in 1933

Spanish cruiser Emperador Carlos V - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
13 March 1943 - RMS Empress of Canada – the British troopship Empress of Canada, en route from Durban, South Africa to Takoradi carrying Italian prisoners of war along with Polish and Greek refugees, was torpedoed and sunk by the Leonardo da Vinci about 400 nautical miles (740 km) south of Cape Palmas off the coast of Africa.
Of about 1,800 people aboard 392 were killed. Nearly half of the deaths reported were Italian prisoners.


RMS Empress of Canada was an ocean liner built in 1920 for the Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP) by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland. This ship—the first of two CP vessels to be named Empress of Canada—regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Far East until 1939.



History
In 1920, Canadian Pacific Steamships ordered a new ship to be built by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan near Glasgow in Scotland. This Empress was a 21,517 ton, 653-foot ocean liner. The ship was launched 18 August 1920 with a notable speech by the general manager of the Canadian Pacific Ocean Services, Ltd., Sir Thomas Fisher, noted the approximately $6,800,000 price compared to a pre-war cost of about $2,200,000 and cost of operation that had risen at least 350 per cent had forced first class fares from $76 to $202 (based on a $4 to the pound sterling) and predicted dire consequences for shipping and the British Empire. A world tour, planned for the spring of 1921, was cancelled due to labor disturbances making on-schedule completion doubtful.

She undertook her maiden voyage on 5 May 1922. Based at the port of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the first Empress of Canada was intended to provide service to Japan, Hong Kong, and China. She was at the time the largest vessel ever engaged in transpacific service. Her sister ships included Empress of France and Empress of Britain.

Great Kantō earthquake
On 24 September 1923, Empress of Canada arrived at Tokyo harbor—just three days after the devastating Great Kantō earthquake struck the city. She found that the Canadian ocean liner RMS Empress of Australia had been converted to a command post from which the British consul was directing relief work, and the Empress of Canada transported refugees – 587 Europeans, 31 Japanese, and 362 Chinese – to Kobe, Japan.

On 13 October 1929, Empress of Canada ran aground off Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Ninety-six passengers were taken off by tender and landed at Victoria, British Columbia. She was refloated on 15 October and towed to Esquimalt, British Columbia, for drydocking.

World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she was converted for use as a troopship. She was one of the ships in the first Australian/New Zealand convoy, designated US.1 for secrecy, destined for North Africa and at that time not yet fully converted for full troop capacity with few ships of the convoy carrying more than 25% more than their normal passenger load. Empress of Canada departed Wellington 6 January 1940 with the New Zealand elements, joined the Australian ships and arrived in Aden on 8 February from where the convoy split with all ships heading for Suez.


SS Empress of Canada's ballroom was cleared for sleeping as ANZAC troops are transported from the Antipodes to the war zones in the Northern Hemisphere. This image was captured at sea in January 1940 near Fremantle, Western Australia.

She continued to transport ANZAC troops from New Zealand and from Australia to the war zones in Europe until sunk. The return voyage from Europe was not less dangerous than the trip north had been. On 13 March 1943, while en route from Durban, South Africa to Takoradi carrying Italian prisoners of war along with Polish and Greek refugees, the SS Empress of Canada was torpedoed at midnight and sunk by the Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci approximately 400 miles (640 km) south of Cape Palmas off the coast of Africa. Of the approximate 1800 people on board, 392 died. Nearly half of the fatalities reported were Italian prisoners. British rescuers saved 800 of those aboard.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Empress_of_Canada_(1920)

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 13 March


1669 – Launch of French Paris 72/80 guns (designed and built by Jean Serrin, launched 13 March 1669 at Toulon) – renamed Royale Thérèse in June 1671 and broken up in 1692


1739 - Launch of spanish Bizarra (Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe) 50 (launched 13 March 1739 at Havana) - Sold 23 March 1759 at Havana


1767 – Launch of French Indiscrète, (launched 13 March 1767 at Indret) – deleted 1785.

Boudeuse class (34-gun design by Jean-Hyacinthe Raffeau, with 28 x 12-pounder and 6 x 6-pounder guns).
Boudeuse, (launched 25 March 1766 at Indret) – deleted 1800.
Indiscrète, (launched 13 March 1767 at Indret) – deleted 1785.
Sensible, (launched 15 March 1767 at Indret) – deleted 1789.

French frigate Boudeuse (1766) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1793 HMS Scourge (14), William Stap, captured richly laden French ship Sans Culotte.

HMS Scourge (1779) was a 14-gun brig-sloop launched in 1779. In 1793 she captured Sans Cullote and she foundered in 1795.


1797 HMS Viper captured Nuestra Señora de la Piedad.

HMS Greyhound was a cutter that the British Admiralty purchased in 1780 and renamed Viper in 1781. Viper captured several French privateers in the waters around Great Britain, and took part in a notable engagement. She was sold in October 1809.

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


1797 - HMS Plymouth captured Amitie.


1797 – Launch of Hope was launched in 1797 on the Thames River

Hope was launched in 1797 on the Thames River. She made seven voyages for the British East India Company (EIC) before she was sold for breaking up in 1816. She was one of the East Indiamen at the battle of Pulo Aura.

Hope (1797 EIC ship) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1800 – Launch of Lady Jane Dundas in 1800 as an East Indiaman.

Lady Jane Dundas was launched in 1800 as an East Indiaman. She made four voyages for the British East India Company (EIC) and was lost in 1809 on the homeward-bound leg of her fifth voyage. She and three other Indiamen parted from the homeward-bound convoy during a gale on 18 March 1809 and were never seen again.

Lady Jane Dundas (1800 EIC ship) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1813 – Launch of Decatur, an American schooner built in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1813 for privateering during the Atlantic Ocean theater of the War of 1812.

Decatur was an American schooner built in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1813 for privateering during the Atlantic Ocean theater of the War of 1812. She was named for the United States Navy Commodore Stephen Decatur, who served with distinction in many of America's earliest conflicts. She was the largest privateer out of Charleston. The Royal Navy captured Decatur in 1814.


Decatur & HMS Dominica, 1812

Decatur (1813 ship) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1869 – Launch of HMS Druid was a Briton-class wooden screw corvette built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s

HMS Druid was a Briton-class wooden screw corvette built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s. She spent her service life overseas on the Cape of Good Hope and North America and West Indies Stations and was sold for scrap in 1886.


HMS Druid amongst icebergs in the Straits of Belleisle.

HMS Druid (1869) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1899 – Launch of Asahi (朝日 Morning Sun) was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1890s.

Asahi (朝日 Morning Sun) was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1890s. As Japan lacked the industrial capacity to build such warships itself, the ship was designed and built in the United Kingdom. Shortly after her arrival in Japan, she became flagship of the Standing Fleet, the IJN's primary combat fleet. She participated in every major naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and was lightly damaged during the Battle of the Yellow Sea and the Battle of Tsushima. Asahi saw no combat during World War I, although the ship participated in the Siberian Intervention in 1918.



Reclassified as a coastal defence ship in 1921, Asahi was disarmed two years later to meet the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, after which she served as a training and submarine depot ship. She was modified into a submarine salvage and rescue ship before being placed in reserve in 1928. Asahi was recommissioned in late 1937, after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and used to transport Japanese troops. In 1938, she was converted into a repair ship and based first at Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China, and then Cam Ranh Bay, French Indochina, from late 1938 to 1941. The ship was transferred to occupied Singapore in early 1942 to repair a damaged light cruiser and ordered to return home in May. She was sunk en route by the American submarine USS Salmon, although most of her crew survived.

Japanese battleship Asahi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1961 - SS Dominator, a freighter, ran ashore on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the South Bay area of California in 1961 due to a navigational error while lost in fog. Its remains can still be seen today, and serves as a point of interest for hikers and kayakers.

SS Dominator, a freighter, ran ashore on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the South Bay area of California in 1961 due to a navigational error while lost in fog. Its remains can still be seen today, and serves as a point of interest for hikers and kayakers.

SS Dominator - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1757 – Admiral Sir John Byng is executed by firing squad aboard HMS Monarch for breach of the Articles of War.


Admiral John Byng (baptised 29 October 1704 – 14 March 1757)[1] was a Royal Navy officer who was notoriously court-martialledand executed by firing squad. After joining the navy at the age of thirteen, he participated at the Battle of Cape Passaro in 1718. Over the next thirty years he built up a reputation as a solid naval officer and received promotion to vice-admiral in 1747. He also served as Commodore-Governor of Newfoundland Colony in 1742, Commander-in-Chief, Leith, 1745 to 1746 and was a member of parliament from 1751 until his death.



Byng is best known for failing to relieve a besieged British garrison during the Battle of Minorca at the beginning of the Seven Years' War. Byng had sailed for Minorca at the head of a hastily assembled fleet of vessels, some of which were in poor condition. He fought an inconclusive engagement with a French fleet off the Minorca coast, and then elected to return to Gibraltar to repair his ships. Upon return to Britain, Byng was court-martialled and found guilty of failing to "do his utmost" to prevent Minorca falling to the French. He was sentenced to death and, after pleas for clemency were denied, was shot dead by a firing squad on 14 March 1757.


Battle of Minorca


We have lately been told
Of two admirals bold,
Who engag'd in a terrible Fight:
They met after Noon,
Which I think was too soon,
As they both ran away before Night.

Byng was serving in the Channel at the time and was ordered to the Mediterranean to relieve the British garrison of Fort St Philip, at Port Mahon. Despite his protests, he was not given enough money or time to prepare the expedition properly. His fleet was delayed in Portsmouth for five days while additional crew were found. By 6 April, the ships had sufficient crew to put to sea, arriving at Gibraltar on 2 May. Byng's Royal Marines were landed to make room for the soldiers who were to reinforce the garrison, and he feared that, if he met a French squadron, he would be dangerously undermanned. His correspondence shows that he left prepared for failure, that he did not believe that the garrison could hold out against the French force, and that he was already resolved to come back from Minorca if he found that the task presented any great difficulty. He wrote home to that effect to the Admiralty from Gibraltar, whose governor refused to provide soldiers to increase the relief force. Byng sailed on 8 May 1756. Before he arrived, the French landed 15,000 troops on the western shore of Minorca, spreading out to occupy the island. On 19 May, Byng was off the east coast of Minorca and endeavoured to open communications with the fort. The French squadron appeared before he could land any soldiers.

The Battle of Minorca was fought on the following day. Byng had gained the weather gage and bore down on the French fleet at an angle, so that his leading ships went into action while the rest were still out of effective firing range, including Byng's flagship. The French badly damaged the leading ships and slipped away. Byng's flag captain pointed out to him that, by standing out of his line, he could bring the centre of the enemy to closer action, but he declined because Thomas Mathews had been dismissed for so doing. Neither side lost a ship in the engagement, and casualties were roughly even, with 43 British sailors killed and 168 wounded, against French losses of 38 killed and 175 wounded.

Byng remained near Minorca for four days without establishing communication with the fort or sighting the French. On 24 May, he called a council of his captains at which he suggested that Minorca was effectively lost and that the best course would be to return to Gibraltar to repair the fleet. The council concurred, and the fleet set sail for Gibraltar, arriving on 19 June, where they were reinforced with four more ships of the line and a 50-gun frigate. Repairs were effected to the damaged vessels and additional water and provisions were loaded aboard.

Before his fleet could return to sea, another ship arrived from England with further instructions, relieving Byng of his command and ordering him to return home. On arrival in England he was placed in custody. Byng had been promoted to full admiral on 1 June, following the action off Minorca but before the Admiralty received Byng's dispatch giving news of the battle. The garrison resisted the Siege of Fort St Philip until 29 June, when it was forced to capitulate. Under negotiated terms, the garrison was allowed passage back to England, and the fort and island came under French control.

Court-martial
Byng's perceived failure to relieve the garrison at Minorca caused public outrage among fellow officers and the country at large. Byng was brought home to be tried by court-martial for breach of the Articles of War, which had recently been revised to mandate capital punishment for officers who did not do their utmost against the enemy, either in battle or pursuit. The revision followed an event in 1745 during the War of the Austrian Succession, when a young lieutenant named Baker Phillips was court-martialled and shot after his ship was captured by the French. His captain had done nothing to prepare the vessel for action and was killed almost immediately by a broadside. Taking command, the inexperienced junior officer was forced to surrender the ship when she could no longer be defended. The negligent behaviour of Phillips's captain was noted by the subsequent court martial and a recommendation for mercy was entered, but Phillips' sentence was approved by the Lords Justices of Appeal. This sentence angered some of parliament, who felt that an officer of higher rank would likely have been spared or else given a light punishment, and that Phillips had been executed because he was a powerless junior officer and thus a useful scapegoat. The Articles of War were amended to become one law for all: the death penalty for any officer of any rank who did not do his utmost against the enemy in battle or pursuit.

Byng's court martial was convened on 28 December 1756 aboard the elderly 96-gun vessel HMS St George, which was anchored in Portsmouth Harbour. The presiding officer was Admiral Thomas Smith, supported by rear admirals Francis Holburne, Harry Norris and Thomas Broderick, and a panel of nine captains. The verdict was delivered four weeks later on 27 January 1757, in the form of a series of resolutions describing the course of Byng's expedition to Minorca and an interpretation of his actions. The court acquitted Byng of personal cowardice. However its principal findings were that Byng had failed to keep his fleet together while engaging the French; that his flagship had opened fire at too great a distance to have any effect; and that he should have proceeded to the immediate relief of Minorca rather than returning to Gibraltar. As a consequence of these actions, the court held that Byng had "not done his utmost" to engage or destroy the enemy, thereby breaching the 12th Article of War.

Once the court determined that Byng had "failed to do his utmost", it had no discretion over punishment under the Articles of War. In accordance with those Articles the court condemned Byng to death, but unanimously recommended that the Lords of the Admiralty ask King George II to exercise his royal prerogative of mercy.

Clemency denied and execution


The Shooting of Admiral Byng, artist unknown

First Lord of the Admiralty Richard Grenville-Temple was granted an audience with the King to request clemency, but this was refused in an angry exchange. Four members of the board of the court martial petitioned Parliament, seeking to be relieved from their oath of secrecy to speak on Byng's behalf. The Commons passed a measure allowing this, but the Lords rejected the proposal.

Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder was aware that the Admiralty was at least partly to blame for the loss at Minorca due to the poor manning and repair of the fleet. The Duke of Newcastle, the politician responsible, had by now joined the Prime Minister in an uneasy political coalition and this made it difficult for Pitt to contest the court martial verdict as strongly as he would have liked. He did, however, petition the King to commute the death sentence. The appeal was refused; Pitt and King George II were political opponents, with Pitt having pressed for George to relinquish his hereditary position of Elector of Hanover as being a conflict of interest with the government's policies in Europe.

The severity of the penalty, combined with suspicion that the Admiralty had sought to protect themselves from public anger over the defeat by throwing all the blame on the admiral, led to a reaction in favour of Byng in both the Navy and the country, which had previously demanded retribution. Pitt, then Leader of the House of Commons, told the King: "the House of Commons, Sir, is inclined to mercy", to which George responded: "You have taught me to look for the sense of my people elsewhere than in the House of Commons."

The King did not exercise his prerogative to grant clemency. Following the court martial and pronouncement of sentence, Admiral Byng had been detained aboard HMS Monarch in the Solent and, on 14 March 1757, he was taken to the quarterdeck for execution in the presence of all hands and men from other ships of the fleet in boats surrounding Monarch. The admiral knelt on a cushion and signified his readiness by dropping his handkerchief, whereupon a squad of Royal Marines shot him dead.


The Monarch was originally the 74-gun ship of the line Monarque of the French Navy launched in March 1747. Captured on 14 October 1747, she was taken into Royal Navy service as the third rate HMS Monarch.

Monarque was built during the War of the Austrian Succession at Brest to a design by Blaise Ollivier, but lasted only a few months in French service. She was captured by the British just three months after being completed, one of several prizes taken by Sir Edward Hawke's fleet at the Battle of Cape Finisterre. Brought into the Royal Navy, she was used for the rest of the War of the Austrian Succession as a guardship and to carry troops. She saw service during the Seven Years' War, forming part of fleets sent to North America and the Mediterranean under Hawke, Boscawen and Osborn, and being commanded at one stage by future admiral George Rodney.

Monarch was the scene of the execution of Admiral Sir John Byng, who had been sentenced to death for failing to do his utmost during the Battle of Minorca (1756), and was shot on Monarch's quarterdeck on 14 March 1757. Monarch went out to the Mediterranean during the last years of the Seven Years' War, and played a role in the British victory at the Battle of Cartagena. She returned home and was reduced to harbour service, and was finally sold for breaking up in 1760.




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

HMS Monarch (1747) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1795 - Révolutionnaire, a xebec that the French Navy commissioned in October 1793 and renamed Téméraire in 1794, was captured by HMS Dido in the Mediterranean.


Révolutionnaire was a xebec that the French Navy commissioned in October 1793 and renamed Téméraire in 1794. HMS Dido captured her in the Mediterranean in 1795. She served for some time as HMS Temeraire until the Royal Navy changed her name to HMS Transfer. She was sold in 1803.



French navy
The French navy commissioned Révolutionnaire in October 1793 and renamed her Téméraire in 1794. Dido captured her in the Mediterranean on 14 March 1795. In May (probably on 30 May), i.e., after her capture, the French Navy underwent a mass renaming exercise and Téméraire was renamed Tympan. However, the French Navy then struck her at Toulon at end-1795.


typical Squared-rigged xebec of the 1780-1815 period

Royal Navy
Dido captured Téméraire on 14 March 1795. British records refer to her as a cutter of 20 guns.

The Royal Navy took Temeraire into service and at some point renamed her Transfer. The British history is uncertain as there was a second HMS Transfer operating in the Mediterranean between 1797 and 1802. Allocation of captains and assignments for both after early 1797 is tentative. Generally, British records refer to the Transfer of this article as a cutter, and the second as a brig.

Lieutenant John Maitland was promoted to Commander and command of Transfer in late 1795. In her he sailed in the vicinity of Gibraltar. On 13 February 1797, the eve of the battle of Cape St Vincent, Transfer was escorting a convoy to Lisbon. Maitland found himself in a fog, and then with the enemy fleet between him and his charges; he was only able to extricate Transfer with some difficulty. In April Maitland transferred to the brig Kingfisher.

On 21 October 1796 Captain Nelson wrote to Admiral Jervis that he, Nelson, was sending Tarleton to Jervis so that, as Jervis wanted, he could transfer Lieutenant William Proby to Téméraire. However, on 2 December Jervis wrote from Gibraltar to Lord Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty, that he, Jervis, intended to transfer Proby to Peterell.

At some point in 1796 or early 1797, Transfer captured a Spanish brig from Puerto Rico. Admiral Nelson believed that as flag officer, he was entitled to $4000 in prize money for her.

Fate
Transfer was broken up in 1803.


HMS Dido was one of the twenty-seven Enterprise class of 28-gun sixth-rate frigates in service with the Royal Navy during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Dido was commissioned in September 1787 under the command of Captain Charles Sandys. She participated in a notable action for which her crew would later be awarded the Naval General Service Medal; her participation in a campaign resulted in the award of another. Dido was sold for breaking up in 1817.




Capture of La Minerve off Toulon, 24 June 1795 by Thomas Whitcombe. In the foreground the damaged and dismasted Minerve duels with HMS Dido, while in the background Artémise flees, pursued by Lowestoffe.


Scale 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail, longitudinal half breadth for Dido (1784) and Rose (1783) , both 28-gun, Sixth Rate, Frigates as built at Sandgate by Messers Stewart and Hall. Annotation on the reverse: " Rose & Dido with Plans as Built."

French ship Révolutionnaire (1793) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1797 – Launch of HMS Acasta, a 40-gun Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate


HMS Acasta was a 40-gun Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate. She saw service in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as well as the War of 1812. Although she never took part in any notable single-ship actions nor saw action in a major battle though she was at the Battle of San Domingo, she captured numerous prizes and rid the seas of many Spanish, French and American privateers. She was finally broken up in 1821.





Lines (ZAZ2301)

Design
Sir William Rule designed her to develop a frigate to replace the 44-gun ships that carried their armament on two decks.[1]Consequently, she was one of the largest frigates built in England, mounting forty guns, thirty 18-pounders on one main gun deck, with another ten 9-pounder long guns on the quarterdeck and forecastle. Later eight 32-pounder carronades replaced the 9-pounder guns. She was launched at the yard of John Randall & Co., of Rotherhithe on 14 March 1797.


A hand-coloured engraving depicting the 'Acasta', right foreground, and the 'Magicienne', left of centre, in the Action of St Domingo on 6 February 1806, as part of a squadron commanded by Admiral Sir John Duckworth. The action depicted occurred twenty-five years after the ‘Magicienne’, formerly a French ship, was captured by the British in 1781, and commissioned into the Royal Navy. Both vessels are depicted flying the white ensign. Two French ships are ablaze in the background – the 136-gun ‘L’Imperiale’ (Shown in far-left background) and the 84-gun ‘Le Diomede’ (shown right of centre, between the ‘Acasta’ and ‘Magicienne’). Both these ships had been driven ashore by the British squadron, and after being deemed unsalvageable were set ablaze. Lifeboats can be seen close to both ships, along with a smaller vessel sinking close to the left of ‘Le Diomede’. The coastline provides a general background.


Frame (ZAZ2302)

HMS Acasta (1797) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1797 – Launch of HMS Ethalion, a 38-gun Artois-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.


HMS Ethalion was a 38-gun Artois-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built by Joseph Graham of Harwich and launched on 14 March 1797. In her brief career before she was wrecked in 1799 on the French coast, she participated in a major battle and in the capture of two privateers and a rich prize.



Service
Ethalion entered service in 1797, operating in the English Channel as part of the Channel Fleet. Soon after commissioning in April under Captain George Countess, Ethalion was engaged in chasing a French squadron under Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart intent on invading Ireland during the Rebellion of 1798. Countess kept the French fleet in sight for several days and was able to signal for assistance. This brought a significant force under John Borlase Warren to the region and the French were defeated at the Battle of Tory Island. Ethalion, with Melampus, took the 40-gun Bellone, which the Royal Navy took into service. Ethalion had one man killed and three wounded; the French lost 20 men killed. In 1847 the Battle of Tory Island earned for any still surviving crew members the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "12th October 1798".

On 2 February 1799, Ethalion was operating with Anson when together they captured a 14-gun privateer Bayonnaise cutter. She was the Boulonnoise, out of Dunkirk, and had been "greatly annoyed the trade in the North Sea".[4] She had a crew of 70 men and had been the revenue cutter Swan. Swan had been captured some two years earlier off the Isle of Wight in an action that cost the life of Captain Sarmon, her commander.

On 6 March Ethalion captured the 18-gun privateer Infatigable in the Channel after a 10-hour chase. Infatigable was armed with 18 guns and had a crew of 120 men. She was only one day out of Nantes, provisioned for a four-month cruise.[6] Later that year Captain James Young took command.


"HMS Ethalion in action with the Spanish frigate Thetisoff Cape Finisterre, 16th October 1799", Thomas Whitcombe, 1800

Capture of Thetis and Santa Brigada
Main article: Action of 16 October 1799
In 1799 Ethalion was operating with four other frigates off Vera Cruz against Spanish shipping. The British frigate Naiad, Captain William Pierrepont, was patrolling off the coast of Spain when she sighted two Spanish 34-gun frigates, Santa-Brigida and Thetis. On 15 October 1799 the British frigate Naiad sighted two Spanish frigates. Captain Pierrepont of Naiad gave chase and before dawn Ethalion spotted them and joined the pursuit. At 7.00am the two Spaniards parted company so Pierrepont followed one frigate, together with Alcmene and Triton, which too had joined the chase, while directing Ethalion, to pursue the other frigate. By 11.30am, Ethalion had caught up with her quarry and after a short engagement the Spanish vessel struck her colours. Ethalion had no casualties though the Spaniard had one man killed and nine wounded.

Triton, the fastest of the three British frigates, led the chase of the second frigate. The next morning Triton struck some rocks as she tried to prevent her quarry from reaching port. Triton got off the rocks and resumed the chase despite taking on water. She and Alcmene then exchanged fire with the Spanish frigate, which surrendered before Naiad could catch up. Four large Spanish ships came out from Vigo but then retreated when the three British frigates made ready to engage them. Alcmene had one man killed and nine wounded, and Triton had one man wounded; Santa Brigida had two men killed and eight men wounded.

The vessel that Ethalion had captured turned out to be the Thetis, under the command of Captain-Don Juan de Mendoza. She homeward-bound from Vera Cruz with a cargo of cocoa, cochineal and sugar, and more importantly, specie worth 1,385,292 Spanish dollars (£312,000). The vessel that Triton, Alcmene and Naiad had captured was |Santa Brigida, under the command of Captain Don Antonio Pillon. She was carrying a cargo of drugs, annatto, cochineal, indigo and sugar, and some 1,500,000 dollars. Prize money was paid on 14 January 1800.

In December Ethalion, by then under Captain John Searle, was engaged in the blockade of the French Atlantic Coast.

Loss
On 25 December she was wrecked on a reef off the Penmarks. Attempts were made to save the stricken ship but the damage was too severe. Danae, Sylph and the hired armed cutterNimrod assisted in rescuing the crew; Ethalion's first lieutenant then set the remains on fire. Searle, the first lieutenant, and the master's mate were the last to leave. The subsequent court martial honourably acquitted Searle and his officers for the loss. The board ruled that the accident was due to unusual tides against which the skill and zeal of the officers and ship's company were unavailing


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ethalion_(1797)
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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1807 – Launch of Friedland, the name-ship of her class of French Illyrien or Friedland-class brig.


Friedland was the name-ship of her class of French Illyrien or Friedland-class brig. She was built at Venice and launched in June 1807. The Royal Navy captured her a year later and took her into service as HMS Delight. She served in the Mediterranean and was sold in 1814.



Friedland
Friedland initially bore the name Illyrien, but had her name changed to Vendicare in early 1807. Then she received a second name change, to Friedland, after launch, to commemorate the Emperor Napoleon's victory on 14 June at the battle of Friedland.

Friedland was at Ancona in December 1807, and at Corfu between 1807 and 1808. She is recorded as being at Santa Maria di Leuca in March 1808.

Capture
On 26 March 1808, Friedland was on her way to Corfu with Commodore Don Amilcar Paolucci, commander in chief of the Italian Marine, and Knight of the Iron Crown,[3] when she encountered two British warships that were part of the British blockade of the island. The 64-gun third rate HMS Standard and the 38-gun frigate HMS Active captured Friedland off Cape Blanco, at the south end of Corfu. Captain Richard Mowbray of Active took possession of Friedland after a chase of several hours. Friedland might have escaped had she not lost her topmast. Her captors described her as one year old, and armed with 16 French 12-pounder guns. Activetook her prize to Malta, together with the prisoners, who included her captain, Angelo Thomasi, and Commodore Paolucci.

HMS Delight
Friedland was commissioned in May as HMS Delight in the Mediterranean under Commander John Brett Purvis.

On 28 November 1808 Delight, Active, the supply ship Woolwich, and the hired armed ship Lord Eldon escorted a convoy of 50 vessels out of Malta, bound for Gibraltar, Lisbon, and London. However, contrary winds forced about 40 merchantmen, and the escorts to return to Malta within two weeks.

Purvis received promotion to post-captain on 16 September 1809. In December Commander Lord David Balgonie took command of Delight. Delight arrived at Portsmouth on 25 July 1810. She apparently remained in service until 1812. Lord Balgonie was promoted to post-captain on 28 February 1812.

Fate
Delight was in ordinary in 1812, at Chatham, and apparently remained in ordinary until 1814. The Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy first offered the "Delight, sloop, of 340 tons", lying at Portsmouth for sale on 9 June 1814.[8] Delight sold there on 1 September for £480.

French brig Friedland (1807) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1797 – Launch of HMS Centaur, a 74-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, at Woolwich.


HMS Centaur was a 74-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, launched on 14 March 1797 at Woolwich. She served as Sir Samuel Hood'sflagship in the Leeward Islands and the Channel. During her 22-year career Centaur saw action in the Mediterranean, the Channel, the West Indies, and the Baltic, fighting the French, the Dutch, the Danes and the Russians. She was broken up in 1819.




Picturesque Views of the Diamond Rock... South East View of the Diamond Rock, with the Cannon being hauled up from the Centaur by the Cable (Print) (PAH9544)


The Mars-class ships of the line were a class of two 74-gun third rates of the large class, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir John Henslow.

The two ships of the Mars class were the first large 74s since the Valiant class of 1759, carrying the heavier armament of 24 pdrs on their upper decks, as opposed to the 18 pdrs of the middling and common classes.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for 'Mars' (1794) and 'Centaur' (1797), both 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers. While this draught is for one (unnamed) ship, both were ordered on 17 January 1788 to the same design. Signed by John Henslow [Surveyor of the Navy, 1784-1806].


Ships

• HMS Mars

Builder: Deptford Dockyard
Ordered: 17 January 1788
Launched: 25 October 1794
Fate: Broken up, 1823

• HMS Centaur

Builder: Woolwich Dockyard
Ordered: 17 January 1788
Launched: 14 March 1797
Fate: Broken up, 1819



Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile for 'Mars' (1794) and 'Centaur' (1797), both 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Centaur_(1797)

Mars-class ship of the line - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1808 - The Danish brig HDMS Lougen (20), Lt. Peter F. Wulff, engaged the British brig HMS Childers (16), William H. Dillon, away after several hours of battle, off Hitterø in Norway .


HDMS Lougen was a Danish naval brig launched in 1805. She saw service in the Danish navy and participated in two notable actions against the British Royal Navy during the Gunboat War. In 1814, as a result of the Treaty of Kiel, the Danes transferred her to the Norwegian navy. The Norwegians sold her to German merchants in the Scheld in 1825. She was finally shipwrecked near Bremerhafen in 1881.



Danish Navy
Lougen vs. Childers
On 14 March 1808 Lougen found the British brig Childers engaged in escort duty in Norwegian waters. Lougen tried over the course of several hours to bring about an engagement, and eventually succeeded, but Childers escaped much damaged though her crew did suffer casualties.


The Danish naval brig Lougen

Lougen vs. Seagull
On Sunday, 19 June 1808, off the Naze of Norway in the vicinity of the port of Kristiansand, Seagull encountered and chased Lougen. Lougen, under the command of First Lieutenant Peter Frederik Wulff, tried to maintain a distance from Seagull to take advantage of the range of her 18-pounders relative to the range of Seagull's 24-pounder carronades. The chase brought both vessels close in shore where the fresh breeze was lessening to a near calm. Seagull tried to get between Lougen and the shore to prevent her from reaching Kristiansand.

Unfortunately for Seagull, about 20 minutes into the engagement six Danish gunboats arrived from behind some rocks, and in two divisions of three each, took up positions on Seagull's quarter, where they fired on her with their 24-pounder guns while Lougen fired on her larboard bow. Within half an hour the Danish fire had badly damaged Seagull's rigging and dismounted five of her guns. Eventually Seagull's captain, Commander Robert B. Cathcart, who was himself severely wounded, struck, having lost eight men killed and 20 wounded. Lougen had only one man killed and a dozen men slightly wounded.

Shortly after Seagull had surrendered, and after her crew and wounded had been taken off, she sank. A number of the prize crew from the Lougen drowned as Seagull sank. The Danes later recovered Seagull and took her into their naval service.

In Northern Waters
Jochum Nicolay Müller, a native of Trondheim, took command of Lougen in 1809. During the summer of 1809, three British vessels - HMS Snake (18; Commander Thomas Young), HMS Nightingale (16), and HMS Gallant (14) operated in the far northern waters of Norway, briefly occupying - after one failed attempt – the small town and sheltered harbour of Hammerfest near North Cape.

In the spring of 1810 the two Danish-Norwegian brigs Lougen and Langeland (under the newly promoted Captain Müller and Senior Lieutenant Thomas Lütken, respectively) left Fredericksværn and reached Hammerfest on the 28 June. Three gun-schooners - Nornen, Valkyren, and Axel Thorsen - each with two 24-pounder guns, one fore and one aft, had joined them en route. This squadron sailed to find the British squadron in the waters of North Cape, for which, however, there were few and poor charts, and no pilotage instructions. The two remaining British ships, Nightingale and Gallant, had been warned of the Danes' approach and had left, apparently having sailed to Greenland to escort a convoy of British whalers. In the absence of the enemy, coastal trade blossomed with Russia and the Danish vessels escorted a final convoy of the year into Trondheim. including 11 prize merchant ships

On 31 July 1811, Lougen, in company with the brigs Lolland and Kiel, encountered HMS Brev Drageren and HMS Algerine cruising together in Long Sound, Norway. The Danes had 54 guns and 480 men, against the British 22 guns and 107 men. Outnumbered and outgunned, the British vessels took flight.

The next day Brev Drageren unsuccessfully re-engaged first one and then two of the brigs. In the inconclusive engagement each British vessel sustained one man killed, and Brev Drageren also had three wounded. In the second day’s fight, Algerine sent a boat and sweeps to Brev Drageren, which helped her escape the Danes, though not until after her crew had rowed for 30 hours. Lolland captured two cargo ships (galleases) that Brev Drageren had been escorting.

Fate
After the Treaty of Kiel and Norway's separation from Denmark, Lougen was transferred to the Norwegian navy in 1814. In 1825 the Norwegians sold her into the merchant navy and she moved to the Scheldt. She was shipwrecked in 1881 at Bremerhafen.



HMS Childers was a brig-sloop of the British Royal Navy, initially armed with 10 carriage guns which were later increased to 14 guns. The first brig-sloop to be built for the Navy, she was ordered from a commercial builder during the early years of the American War of Independence, and went on to support operations in the English Channel and the Caribbean. Laid up for a time after the end of the American War of Independence, she returned to service shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars. She had an active career in both the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, capturing numerous French privateers and during the Gunboat War participated in a noteworthy single-ship action. The navy withdrew her from service at the beginning of 1811, at which time she was broken up.






Inboard profile plan (ZAZ4990)

Construction and commissioning
James Mentone, a notable builder of fast vessels at Limehouse, built Childers, one of only two vessels he built for the navy. Although the design was nominally attributed to the Surveyor of the Navy, Sir John Williams, it was approved beforehand on 16 July 1778 as "adopted from a current merchant ship design" and was probably prepared by Mentone before Williams adapted it to meet Admiralty needs. The lines and hull form were those normally found in cutters rather than in the conventional ship-rigged sloops with three masts then prevalent in British naval service. She was initially described as simply a "brig", but was re-registered and established as a sloop on 6 August 1779.

Launched in September 1778, she was commissioned in October under Commander William Peacock.

After the Admiral Rodney's victory at the battle of Cape St. Vincent, Childers, under the command of Captain M'Bride, brought back the dispatches to Britain. However, although she left ten days before Hyaena, which was carrying the duplicates, Hyaena arrived two days earlier.


Title: French batteries firing at the brig 'Childers' off Brest 1793

HDMS Lougen (1805) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1831 – Launch of HMS Calcutta, an 84-gun second-rate ship-of-the-line of the Royal Navy, built in teak to a draught by Sir Robert Seppings, in Bombay.


HMS Calcutta was an 84-gun second-rate ship-of-the-line of the Royal Navy, built in teak to a draught by Sir Robert Seppings and launched on 14 March 1831 in Bombay. She was the only ship ever built to her draught. She carried her complement of smooth-bore, muzzle-loading guns on two gundecks. Her complement was 720 men (38 officers, 69 petty officers, 403 seamen, 60 boys and 150 marines)




The hulks of HMS Calcutta (right) and HMS Cambridge(left) in Portsmouth Dockyard, c.1890

History


The Gallery of H.M.S. 'Calcutta' (Portsmouth), moored at Portsmouth about 1876, painted by Tissot
The Gallery of HMS 'Calcutta' (Portsmouth), also known as Officer and Ladies on Board HMS Calcutta, is an 1876 oil painting by James Tissot. It depicts two ladies in fashionable clothing and a young naval lieutenant, standing on the quarter gallery at the stern of the Royal Navy warship HMS Calcutta. The painting is held by the Tate Gallery in London and measures 68.6 by 91.8 centimetres (27.0 in × 36.1 in).

In 1855 the ship had been in reserve, but was recommissioned due to the Crimean War and sailed for the Baltic. After two months she was sent home again, as being useless for modern naval actions.

She saw action in the Second Opium War as the flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, under the command of Captain William King-Hall. In 1858 Calcutta visited Nagasaki where she stayed for one week, becoming the first ship-of-the-line to visit Japan.

In 1865, she was converted to a gunnery ship, moored at Devonport, Devon, with HMS Cambridge. She was sold to breakers in 1908. Her figurehead was acquired by Admiral Lord Fisher, then First Sea Lord, as she had been his first seagoing ship. In 2013 the figurehead was restored and transferred to the National Museum of the Royal Navy


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for Calcutta (1831), an 80-gun, Second Rate, two-decker. A copy was sent to Bombay on 31 October 1827. Signed by Robert Seppings [Surveyor of the Navy, 1813-1832].


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the quarter elevation, and deck plans for the after parts of the roundhouse, quarterdeck, and upper deck illustrating the layout of the circular stern for Calcutta (1831), an 80-gun Second Rate, two-decker. A copy of this plan was sent to Bombay.



Scale: 1:16. A sectional model depicting the circular stern for Canopus Class second rate vessels. The model is made entirely of wood, with the outboard painted black and the traditional yellow buff stripes along the gun decks, which carry on round the stern and onto the galleries. The lower part of the stern is painted brown to indicate copper sheaving. There are twelve gun ports, all of which are painted red internally. The upper and lower stern galleries all run into one with the quarter galleries and comprise of a series of dummy as well as framed glass panels, and individual sliding sash doors, some of which are working. On the lower stern galleries moulded columns are painted on raised pillars between each stern gallery window. The stern post is fitted together with two small brass eyes to take the rudder, which unfortunately is missing. Internally the model comprises of three decks supported by deck beams and shelves, all of which are painted a light brown colour. The underside of the decks and beams are painted white. The lower of the decks is fitted to a solid waterline base, with the interior hull and ceiling planking painted the same colour as the decks. The poop deck is fitted with a raise taffrail and bulwark rail complete with ports for guns and access. On the starboard stern quarter at the upper gun deck the model inscribed "Canopus Class" and on the lower deck "Original After-Port" is hand painted. There is an accompanying original metal display plaque painted black and inscribed "CIRCULAR STERN, of ships of "Canopus" class. 84 GUNS, built by Sir Robert Sepping, between 1821-1832. S.K.No550 CL1 DIV. E.".


The Gallery of H.M.S. 'Calcutta' (Portsmouth)
Tissot's elegant depictions of passing fashions in sophisticated London society, with their ambiguous undercurrents, were criticised as immoral and superficial. Oscar Wilde criticised Tissot and his "hard unscrupulousness in painting uninteresting objects in uninteresting ways". Henry Jamescontemptuously described The Gallery of HMS Calcutta as "hard, vulgar and banal".

The painting was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in London in 1877, after it had been sold to Scottish painter John Robertson Reid. It was later sold to Henry Trengrouse. After his death, it was bought by the Leicester Galleries in London in 1929 for 16 guineas, and then sold to Samuel Courtauld, who donated it to the Tate Gallery in 1936.

HMS Calcutta (1831) - Wikipedia

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The Gallery of H.M.S. 'Calcutta' (Portsmouth) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1862 – Launch of SMS Kaiser Max, the lead ship of the Kaiser Max class of armored frigates built for the Austrian Navy in the 1860s.


SMS Kaiser Max was the lead ship of the Kaiser Max class of armored frigates built for the Austrian Navy in the 1860s. Her keel was laid in October 1861 at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard; she was launched in March 1862, and was completed in 1863. She carried her main battery—composed of sixteen 48-pounder guns and fifteen 24-pounders—in a traditional broadsidearrangement, protected by an armored belt that was 110 mm (4.3 in) thick.

Kaiser Max saw action at the Battle of Lissa in July 1866. She engaged the Italian coastal defense ship Palestro, which later exploded and sank after sustaining heavy Austrian fire. Kaiser Max emerged from the battle largely unscathed, save for minor damage to her funnel and rigging inflicted by the armored frigate Re d'Italia. After the war, Kaiser Max was modernized slightly in 1867 to correct her poor seakeeping and improve her armament, but she was nevertheless rapidly outpaced by naval developments in the 1860s and 1870s. Obsolescent by 1873, Kaiser Max was officially "rebuilt", though in actuality she was broken up for scrap, with only her armor plate, parts of her machinery, and other miscellaneous parts being reused in the new Kaiser Max.


Illustration of Kaiser Max c. 1866

Design
Main article: Kaiser Max-class ironclad (1862)
Kaiser Max was 70.78 meters (232.2 ft) long between perpendiculars; she had a beam of 10 m (33 ft) and an average draft of 6.32 m (20.7 ft). She displaced 3,588 long tons (3,646 t). She had a crew of 386. Her propulsion system consisted of one single-expansion steam engine that drove a single screw propeller. The number and type of her coal-fired boilers have not survived. Her engine produced a top speed of 11.4 knots (21.1 km/h; 13.1 mph) from 1,926 indicated horsepower (1,436 kW). She could steam for about 1,200 nautical miles (2,200 km; 1,400 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

Kaiser Max was a broadside ironclad, and she was armed with a main battery of sixteen 48-pounder muzzle-loading guns and fifteen 24-pounder 15 cm (5.9 in) rifled muzzle-loading guns. She also carried a single 12-pounder gun and a six-pounder. The ship's hull was sheathed with wrought iron armor that was 110 mm (4 in) thick.

Service history
Kaiser Max was built by the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino (STT) shipyard; her keel was laid down in October 1861, and her completed hull was launched on 14 March 1862. Fitting-out work was completed the following year, when she was commissioned into the Austrian fleet. She proved to be very wet forward owing to her open bow, and as a result, tended to handle poorly. In June 1866, Italy declared war on Austria, as part of the Third Italian War of Independence, which was fought concurrently with the Austro-Prussian War. Rear Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, the commander of the Austrian Fleet, immediately began to mobilize his fleet. As the ships became fully manned, they began to conduct training exercises in Fasana. Tegetthoff brought the Austrian fleet to Ancona on 27 June, in an attempt to draw out the Italians, but the Italian commander, Admiral Carlo Pellion di Persano, refused to engage Tegetthoff. Tegetthoff made another sortie on 6 July, but again could not bring the Italian fleet to battle.

Battle of Lissa


Map showing the disposition of the fleets on 20 July
Main article: Battle of Lissa (1866)

On 16 July, Persano took the Italian fleet, with twelve ironclads, out of Ancona, bound for the island of Lissa, where they arrived on the 18th. With them, they brought troop transports carrying 3,000 soldiers. Persano then spent the next two days bombarding the Austrian defenses of the island and unsuccessfully attempting to force a landing.[6] Tegetthoff received a series of telegrams between the 17 and 19 July notifying him of the Italian attack, which he initially believed to be a feint to draw the Austrian fleet away from its main base at Pola and Venice. By the morning of the 19th, however, he was convinced that Lissa was in fact the Italian objective, and so he requested permission to attack. As Tegetthoff's fleet arrived off Lissa on the morning of 20 July, Persano's fleet was arrayed for another landing attempt. The latter's ships were divided into three groups, with only the first two able to concentrate in time to meet the Austrians. Tegetthoff had arranged his ironclad ships into a wedge-shaped formation, with Kaiser Max on his left flank; the wooden warships of the second and third divisions followed behind in the same formation.

While he was forming up his ships, Persano transferred from his flagship, Re d'Italia to the turret ship Affondatore. This created a gap in the Italian line, and Tegetthoff seized the opportunity to divide the Italian fleet and create a melee. He made a pass through the gap, but failed to ram any of the Italian ships, forcing him to turn around and make another attempt. After the second pass, Kaiser Max engaged Re d'Italia, with the latter damaging Kaiser Max's rigging and funnel. After the Italian ship had been rammed and sunk by Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, Kaiser Max attempted to ram another Italian vessel without success. She then engaged the small coastal defense ship Palestro with fifteen broadsides. The Austrian ironclad Don Juan d'Austria then became surrounded by Italian ships, prompting Kaiser Max to come to her rescue.

Around this time, Persano broke off the engagement, and though his ships still outnumbered the Austrians, he refused to counter-attack with his badly demoralized forces. In addition, the fleet was low on coal and ammunition. The Italian fleet began to withdraw, followed by the Austrians; Tegetthoff, having gotten the better of the action, kept his distance so as not to risk his success. As night began to fall, the opposing fleets disengaged completely, heading for Ancona and Pola, respectively. Kaiser Max had emerged from the battle essentially undamaged, the Italian shells having been unable to penetrate her armor.

sistership

Austrian ironclad SMS Prinz Eugen before 1867.

Later career
After returning to Pola, Tegetthoff kept his fleet in the northern Adriatic, where it patrolled against a possible Italian attack. The Italian ships never came, and on 12 August, the two countries signed the Armistice of Cormons; this ended the fighting and led to the Treaty of Vienna. Though Austria had defeated Italy at Lissa and on land at the Battle of Custoza, Italy's ally Prussia had decisively defeated the Austrian army at the Battle of Königgrätz. As a result, Austria, which became Austria-Hungary in the Ausgleich of 1867, was forced to cede the city of Venice to Italy. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the bulk of the Austrian fleet was decommissioned and disarmed.

The fleet embarked on a modest modernization program after the war, primarily focused on re-arming the ironclads with new rifled guns. Kaiser Max was rebuilt in 1867, particularly to correct her poor seakeeping. Her open bow was plated over and she was rearmed with twelve 7-inch (178 mm) muzzleloaders manufactured by Armstrong and two 3-inch (76 mm) 4-pounder guns. By 1873, the ship was obsolescent and had a thoroughly rotted hull, so the Austro-Hungarian Navy decided to replace the ship. Parliamentary objection to granting funds for new ships forced the navy to resort to subterfuge to replace the ship. Reconstruction projects were routinely approved by the parliament, so the navy officially "rebuilt" Kaiser Max and her sister ships. In reality, Kaiser Max was completely broken up at the STT shipyard starting in December 1873, and only some parts of the engines, her armor plate, and other miscellaneous parts were salvaged for use in the new Kaiser Max, so-named to conceal the fact that she was a new vessel.

SMS Kaiser Max (1862) - Wikipedia

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Kaiser Max-class ironclad (1862) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1865 – Launch of HMS Pallas, a purpose-built wooden-hulled ironclad of the Royal Navy,
designed as a private venture by Sir Edward Reed, and accepted by the Board of Admiralty because, as an economy measure, they wished to use up the stocks of seasoned timber held in the Woolwich Dockyard.


HMS Pallas was a purpose-built wooden-hulled ironclad of the Royal Navy, designed as a private venture by Sir Edward Reed, and accepted by the Board of Admiralty because, as an economy measure, they wished to use up the stocks of seasoned timber held in the Woolwich Dockyard. The fact that Woolwich was not equipped to build iron ships was also relevant.




Photograph of British ironclad HMS Pallas.

Background and design
She was built as a box-battery ship, with two of her big guns on either broadside and the others mounted in the extreme bow and stern as chase guns. It was possible to achieve axial fire from the battery guns by traversing them to fire fore or aft through recessed embrasures at the corners of the battery. As with similar arrangements in contemporary box-battery ironclads, moving the guns in anything other than calm water would have been extremely hazardous. The small number of guns, and the low weight of the broadside, was excused on the basis that the ship's primary weapon was the ram.

Pallas was the first warship in the Royal Navy to be fitted with compound expansion engines, and a high performance was expected from them; her specification claimed a speed under power of fourteen knots, which was necessary if she were to ram enemy ships who were themselves under way. On her trials, however, riding light, she achieved only 12.5 knots (23.2 km/h), while piling up an enormous bow wave. After her bow contour was hastily modified she was able to just reach 13 knots (24 km/h), which in the event of armed conflict would have been insufficient to allow her to fulfil her designed ramming function against any enemy ship with an operational power plant.

In spite of this assessment, the fact that the 12.54-knot Austro-Hungarian ironclad SMS Erzherzog Ferdinand Max (1865) was later able to successfully ram an enemy screw-propelled warship which was under way - and indeed sink it - suggests that Pallas' modest speed, while a hindrance to her employment as a ram, would not have entirely prevented an enterprising commander from taking advantage of her fixed underwater weaponry in battle, had a suitable tactical opportunity arisen. As with many tactical aspects of early ironclad warships, the practicability of ramming in a fleet action was poorly understood by naval planners at the time of Pallas' commissioning.



Service history
HMS Pallas was commissioned at Portsmouth, and served with the Channel Fleet until September 1870, when she was paid off for a long (and very early) refit.
She went into refit in 1870 when her armament was modified and a control tower added. out of refit in 1872.
She served in the Mediterranean Fleet from 1872 to 1879, and was paid off. She was retained in fourth class reserve at Devonport until sold.

HMS Pallas (1865) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1886 - SS Oregon sank after a collision with a schooner 18 nautical miles (33 km) East of Long Island, New York


The Oregon was a record breaking British passenger liner that won the Blue Riband for the Guion Line as the fastest liner on the Atlantic in 1884. She was sold to the Cunard Line after a few voyages and continued to improve her passage times for her new owner. In 1885, Oregon was chartered to the Royal Navy as an auxiliary cruiser, and her success in this role resulted in the Admiralty subsidizing suitable ships for quick conversion in the event of a crisis. She returned to Cunard service in November 1885 and four months later collided with a schooner while approaching New York. All persons on board were rescued before Oregon sank. Her wreck, 18 miles east of Long Island, remains a popular diving site.



Development and design
The Arizona and Alaska only allowed Guion to schedule fortnightly sailings with express liners in each direction. On alternate weeks, Guion's sailings used ships that were considerably slower. Guion needed two additional Atlantic greyhounds for a balanced weekly service.[2] When Cunard started to build a new fleet for its weekly Liverpool - New York express service, Guion Line ordered Oregon to retain the Atlantic records won by Alaska. As her predecessors, Oregon was built at the Fairfield Yard of John Elder & Company of Glasgow, Scotland, and cost $1,250,000.

Oregon was 6.5% larger and 4 feet wider than Alaska, but the same length to reduce her ratio of length to beam and address the serious vibration problem experienced by Arizona and Alaska. Consideration was given to building Oregon of steel after the fisaco of the City of Rome, but the new metal was still expensive and hard to obtain. Oregon was the last iron record breaker. She had nine transverse watertight bulkheads, five iron decks, and a strong turtle-back deck forward and aft as a protection from the heavy seas.

The compound steam engine built for Oregon had a 70-inch-diameter (1,800 mm) high-pressure cylinder flanked by two 104-inch-diameter (2,600 mm) low-pressure cylinders. The engine generated 12,500 indicated horsepower as compared to 8,300 for Alaska. Steam was generated from nine Fox patent double-ended boilers, each 163⁄4 feet long and 161⁄2 feet in diameter. Daily coal consumption was 300 tons, an increase of 50 tons compared to Alaska and 165 tons over Arizona. The screw propeller was twenty-four feet in diameter with a shaft that consisted of fifteen separate parts made of crucible steel.

Oregon was fitted for 340 saloon, 92 second-class, and 1,000 steerage passengers. Passengers traveling saloon or cabin were equivalent to first class today. On Oregon, steerage had been upgraded to third class and given assigned berths in small rooms rather than dormatories.

The main public room, the grand saloon was in the forepart of the ship and described at the time as "capable of dining the whole of the 340 cabin passengers." "The ceiling decorations were almost exclusively confined to white and gold. The panels were of polished satinwood, the pilasters of walnut, with gilt capitals. The saloon measured 65 by 54 feet, and was 9 feet high in the lowest part. A central cupola of handsome design, 25 feet long and 15 feet wide, rose to a height of 20 feet, and gave abundant light and ventilation." "The staterooms are large and well lighted and ventilated. Every facility for comfort is provided in the cabin. The ladies' drawing room is furnished in a costly manner, and is on the promenade deck. The latter extends nearly the entire length of the vessel. The wood work of the ladies' drawing room, the Captain's cabin, and the principal entrance to the saloons came from the State of Oregon. On the upper deck near the entrance of the grand saloon is the smoking room, which is paneled in Spanish mahogany and has a mosaic floor." The Oregon was also the first ship to have installed dynamos and incandescent electric lamps, supplied by the Edison Company, which were used in lighting the vessel. In 1884 the dynamos became badly damaged and were repaired by an engineer from the Edison Machine Works, Nikola Tesla, who had just transferred from Edison's European company. Tesla stayed up all night getting the dynamos back in order and received a compliment from Edison the next morning.

Service history
Oregon sailed on her maiden voyage in October 1883 and was gradually broken in before attempting Alaska's records. On 5 April 1884, she won the eastbound record with a New York - Queentown run of 7 days, 2 hours, 18 minutes (17.12 knots). On her return to New York, she also won the Blue Riband with a westbound voyage of 6 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes (18.56 knots).[1] However, the Guion Line was in financial difficulty because in January 1884, Stephen Guion's older brother, William resigned from the firm due to bad investments unrelated to the steamship line. Unable to make payments to the shipbuilder, Stephen Guion returned Oregon to her builders. At that time, Elders was completing two liners for Cunard to beat Oregon, and Cunard took the opportunity to acquire Oregon herself. On 7 June 1884, Oregon sailed under the Cunard flag and in August, bettered her eastbound record.

In March 1885, during the Russian war scare over Afghanistan, the British Navy chartered sixteen passenger liners for conversion to auxiliary cruisers. While thirteen were converted, only Oregon and the Union Line's Moor were actually commissioned. Oregon proved successful because of her speed, and the Navy started to pay annual subsidies to passenger lines to make suitable ships available on call. When war fears abated, Oregon was returned to Cunard and on 14 November 1885, she resumed commercial sailings.

With the completion of Umbria and Etruria, Oregon was now redundant on the New York express service, and Cunard announced that she was to be transferred to the Liverpool - Boston route.

Sinking
On what was supposed to be one of her last runs to New York, Oregon sailed from Liverpool on 6 March 1886 with 852 people on board, 647 passengers (186 First Class, 66 Second Class and 395 Steerage) and a crew of 205, along with 1,835 tons of cargo and 598 bags of mail, under the command of Captain Phillip Cottier. The collision occurred in the early morning hours of 14 March, only a few hours from her scheduled arrival in New York City, which was only about 15 miles to the west. At about 4:30 AM, she collided with an unidentified schooner, most likely the Charles H. Morse, which disappeared in those waters about the same time. The schooner evidently sank almost immediately upon impact with all hands.


SS Oregon sinking in 1886 after collision. Depicted in 1902 painting by Antonio Jacobsen.

The hole in Oregon's side was described by one passenger as big enough for a horse and carriage. While the chief officer, who had been on duty on the bridge at the time of the collision and had scantly seen the lights of the schooner before she plowed into the liner's side, described the collision as being merely 'a glancing blow', several passengers who had been quartered in cabins close to the point of collision described it as being a terrible crash. An unsuccessful attempt was made by the crew to plug the hole with canvas. Two hours after the collision, the captain ordered Oregon to be abandoned, but the 10 lifeboats and three emergency rafts aboard the Oregon only had room for half of the 852 people on board. A Mrs. W.H. Hurst, who had been travelling in First Class along with her husband, was one of several passengers who later claimed that during the evacuation, a group of stokers and trimmers from the boiler rooms had tried to push ahead of the women and children to get into the lifeboats, and noted to have seen the first boat launched to be completely filled with them. She then noted that the officers in charge of the evacuation and several male passengers managed to regain order on the boat deck over these men. During the evacuation, the first-class cricketer Charles Waller fell overboard and drowned.

Finally, at 8:30 AM, the pilot boat Phantom and the schooner Fannie A. Gorham responded to Oregon's emergency flares and boarded all passengers and crew. At 10:30 AM, SS Fulda of Norddeutscher Lloyd also arrived, and the passengers and crew were transferred again. Eight hours after the collision, Oregon sank bow first in 125 feet of water. Her mast tops remained above water for several tides.

Cunard sent divers to the wreck to determine if Oregon could be salvaged. However, the hull broke open when the ship hit the bottom. The loss amounted to $3,166,000 including $1.25 million for the ship, $700,000 for her cargo, $216,000 in passenger baggage, and $1 million for currency and other valuables carried in the mails. Oregon's purser managed to save a large shipment of diamonds in the ship's safe.

Over the years, the ship's hull and iron decks have collapsed. However, the engine still stands 40 feet above the ocean floor near the ship's nine boilers.

SS Oregon (1883) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14 March 1915 - The Battle of Más a Tierra was a First World War sea battle fought, near the Chilean island of Más a Tierra, between a British squadron and a German light cruiser.


The Battle of Más a Tierra was a First World War sea battle fought on 14 March 1915, near the Chilean island of Más a Tierra, between a British squadron and a German light cruiser.The battle saw the last remnant of the German East Asia Squadron destroyed, when SMS Dresden was cornered and sunk in Cumberland Bay.


SMS Dresden shortly before sinking at Cumberland Bay.

Background
After escaping from the Battle of the Falkland Islands, SMS Dresden and several auxiliaries retreated into the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to resume commerce raiding operations against Allied shipping. These operations did little to stop shipping in the area, but still proved troublesome to the British, who had to expend resources to counter the cruiser. On 8 March, his ship low on supplies and in need of repairs, the captain of the Dresden decided to hide his vessel and attempt to coal in Cumberland Bay near the neutral island of Más a Tierra. By coaling in a neutral port rather than at sea, Dresden's Captain Lüdecke gained the advantage of being able to intern the ship if it was discovered by enemy vessels.

British naval forces had been actively searching for the German cruiser and had intercepted coded wireless messages between German ships. Although they possessed copies of captured German code books, these also required a "key" which was changed from time to time. However, Charles Stewart, the signals officer, managed to decode a message from Dresden for a collier to meet her at Juan Fernandez on 9 March. A squadron made up of the cruisers HMS Kent and Glasgow along with the auxiliary cruiser Orama found the Dresden in the harbour because its sailors had joined a football match on the shore. The British ships cornered the Dresden in the bay on 14 March, challenging it to battle.



Battle
Glasgow opened fire on Dresden, damaging the vessel and setting it afire. After returning fire for a short period of time, the captain of Dresden decided the situation was hopeless as his vessel was vastly outgunned and outnumbered, while stranded in the bay with empty coal bunkers and worn out engines. Captain Lüdecke gave the order to abandon and scuttle his vessel. The German crew fled the cruiser in open boats to reach the safety of the island, which was neutral territory. The British cruisers kept up their fire on Dresden and the fleeing boats until the light cruiser eventually exploded, but it is unclear whether the explosion was caused by the firing from the British ships or from scuttling charges set off by the Germans. After the ship exploded, the British commander ordered his ships to capture any survivors from Dresden. Three Germans were killed in action and 15 wounded. The British suffered no casualties.

Aftermath
With the sinking of Dresden, the last remnant of the German East Asian Squadron was destroyed, as all the other ships of the squadron had been sunk or interned. The only German presence left in the Pacific Ocean was a few isolated commerce raiders, such as SMS Seeadler and Wolf. Because the island of Más a Tierra was a possession of Chile, a neutral country, the German Consulate in Chile protested that the British had broken international law by attacking an enemy combatant in neutral waters. The wounded German sailors were taken to Valparaíso, Chile, for treatment, where one later died of wounds received during the action. The 315 of Dresden's crew who remained were interned by Chile until the end of the war, when those who did not wish to remain in Chile were repatriated to Germany. One of the crew—Lieutenant Wilhelm Canaris, the future admiral and head of Abwehr—escaped internment in August 1915 and made it back to Germany, where he returned to active duty in the Imperial Navy


SMS Dresden transiting the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal

SMS Dresden ("His Majesty's Ship Dresden") was a German light cruiser built for the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), the lead ship of her class. She was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in 1906, launched in October 1907, and completed in November 1908. Her entrance into service was delayed by accidents during sea trials, including a collision with another vessel that necessitated major repairs. Like the preceding Königsberg-class cruisers upon which her design was based, Dresden was armed with ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/40 guns guns and two torpedo tubes.



Dresden spent much of her career overseas. After commissioning, she visited the United States in 1909 during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, before returning to Germany to serve in the reconnaissance force of the High Seas Fleet for three years. In 1913, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Division. She was then sent to the Caribbean to protect German nationals during the Mexican Revolution. In mid-1914, she carried the former dictator Victoriano Huerta to Jamaica, where the British had granted him asylum. She was due to return to Germany in July 1914, but was prevented by the outbreak of World War I from doing so. At the onset of hostilities, Dresden operated as a commerce raider in South American waters in the Atlantic, then moved to the Pacific Ocean in September and joined Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron.

Dresden saw action in the Battle of Coronel in November, where she engaged the British cruiser HMS Glasgow, and at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December, where she was the only German warship to escape destruction. She eluded her British pursuers for several more months, until she put into Robinson Crusoe Island in March 1915. Her engines were worn out and she had almost no coal left for her boilers, so the ship's captain contacted the local Chilean authorities to have Dresden interned. She was trapped by British cruisers, including her old opponent Glasgow. The British violated Chilean neutrality and opened fire on the ship in the Battle of Más a Tierra. The Germans scuttled Dresden and the majority of the crew escaped to be interned in Chile for the duration of the war. The wreck remains in the harbor; several artifacts, including her bell and compass, have been returned to Germany.


Dresden, Victoria Louise, and Hertha during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in 1909

Battle of Más a Tierra - Wikipedia

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SMS Dresden (1907) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 14 March


1701 – Launch of French Parfait 72 guns (Designed and built by François Coulomb snr, launched 14 March 1701 at Toulon) – sold 1726


1704 - HMS Seahorse (24) wrecked off Jamaica

HMS Seahorse (1694) was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1694 and wrecked in 1704


1726 – Launch of French Alcyon 50 guns (launched 14 March 1726 at Toulon, designed and built by René Levasseur) – Burnt in action with the British in 1759.


1779 HMS Rattlesnake (10) took Fenelon.

HMS Rattlesnake (1777), a 14-gun cutter launched 1777, later re-classified as a sloop, and lost in 1781.


1790 - William Bligh arrived back in Britain after Bounty Mutiny.


1804 HMS Drake (14), Lt. Samuel W. King, captured two prizes off Englishman's Head in Guadeloupe.

HMS Drake (1798) was a 14-gun brig-sloop, formerly the French privateer Tigre. She was captured in 1798 by HMS Melpomene and wrecked in 1804.


1814 - Hannah repelled an attack by the American privateer Jacob Johns

Hannah was launched at Bombay Dockyard in 1811. Shortly after she was launched, she sailed to England on a voyage for the British East India Company (EIC), where her owners sold her to British owners. She engaged in a single-ship action in 1814 in which she repelled an American privateer. She participated as a transport in a punitive expedition in 1819-1820 to Ras al-Khaimahin the Persian Gulf. She was last listed in 1833.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_(1811_ship)


1816 – Launch of french Antigone (launched 14 March 1816 at Bordeaux) – deleted 3 August 1829.

Three more of this design – Androméde, Emeraude and Cornélie – were begun at Bayonne but never reached launch stage, while three more were completed post-war:

Antigone (launched 14 March 1816 at Bordeaux) – deleted 3 August 1829.
Cléopatre (launched 1 April 1817 at Cherbourg) – deleted 30 September 1823.
Magicienne (launched 11 April 1823 at Rochefort) – deleted 29 November 1840.


1823 - Death of John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent

Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent GCB, PC (9 January 1735 – 13 March 1823) was an admiral in the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Jervis served throughout the latter half of the 18th century and into the 19th, and was an active commander during the Seven Years' War, American War of Independence, French Revolutionary Warand the Napoleonic Wars. He is best known for his victory at the 1797 Battle of Cape Saint Vincent, from which he earned his titles, and as a patron of Horatio Nelson.

Jervis was also recognised by both political and military contemporaries as a fine administrator and naval reformer.[4] As Commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean, between 1795 and 1799 he introduced a series of severe standing orders to avert mutiny. He applied those orders to both seamen and officers alike, a policy that made him a controversial figure. He took his disciplinarian system of command with him when he took command of the Channel Fleet in 1799. In 1801, as First Lord of the Admiralty he introduced a number of reforms that, though unpopular at the time, made the Navy more efficient and more self-sufficient. He introduced innovations including block making machinery at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard. St Vincent was known for his generosity to officers he considered worthy of reward and his swift and often harsh punishment of those he felt deserved it.

Jervis' entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography by P. K. Crimmin describes his contribution to history: "His importance lies in his being the organiser of victories; the creator of well-equipped, highly efficient fleets; and in training a school of officers as professional, energetic, and devoted to the service as himself."

John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1863 - A squadron of ships led by Rear Adm. David G. Farragut passes the heavy batteries at Port Hudson, La., to establish blockade of Red River supply lines during the Civil War. USS Mississippi becomes grounded, catches fire and blows up, killing 64.


1945 - USS Bream (SS 243) sinks the Japanese auxiliary submarine chaser Kihin Maru in the Java Sea, south of Borneo. Also on this date, USS Trepang (SS 412) sinks the Japanese guardboat Kaiko Maru off Inubo Saki, Japan.


1994 – Crude oil carrier M/T Nassia collided with the bulk carrier M/V Shipbroker, both Cyprus-registered, in street of Bosporus near Instanbul

27 people were killed. 9,000 tons of petroleum spilled and 20,000 tons burnt over four days, severely affecting the marine environment. Traffic in the strait was suspended for several days and Shipbroker burnt totally.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
15 March 1652 – Launch of HMS Ruby, a 40-gun frigate of the Commonwealth of England, built by Peter Pett at Deptford
15 March 1652 – Launch of HMS Diamond, a 40-gun fourth-rate frigate of the English Royal Navy, originally built for the navy of the Commonwealth of England by Peter Pett at Deptford Dockyard,


HMS Ruby was a 40-gun frigate of the Commonwealth of England, built by Peter Pett at Deptford and launched on 15 March 1652.



She took part in numerous actions during all three of the Anglo-Dutch Wars of 1652-54, 1665–67 and 1672-74. She later served in the West Indies, and in 1683 was sent to the Leeward Islands to protect their British settlements against Carib and pirate raids. In 1687 the notorious English pirate Joseph Bannister was captured by the crew of Ruby and brought to Port Royal for trial. He later escaped and returned to piracy, but was recaptured by HMS Drake. Fearing another escape the governor of Jamaica had him hanged without trial before he could get off the ship

Ruby was rebuilt in 1687 at Sir Henry Johnson's shipyard at Blackwall. On 7 April 1694 Ruby captured the French privateer Entreprenante, which the Royal Navy took into service as HMS Ruby Prize.

She served in the War of the Spanish Succession and, commanded by Captain George Walton, took part in the Action of August 1702 as part of a fleet under Admiral John Benbow. She was one of the only ships to support the Admiral in HMS Breda in that engagement.

HMS Ruby was rebuilt at Deptford in 1706 as a fourth rate ship of the line carrying between 46 and 54 guns. However, Marscaptured Ruby on 21 October 1707 (NS) during the Battle at The Lizard.

The French brought Ruby back to St Malo 8 January 1708 and commissioned her into the French Navy. She took part in a campaign to the Levant, and was decommissioned the next year to be broken up.

Capt. Hon. Peregrine Bertie (2 February 1677 – 1709), 5th son of James Bertie, 1st Earl of Abingdon, commanded HMS Ruby; he died as prisoner of war in France



HMS Taunton was originally designed as a 40-gun two-deck 4th-rate 545-ton full-rigged frigate, a ship of the line built in 1654, three years after the end of the English Civil War, a year into the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell and a year after the outbreak of the First Dutch War. She was one of the ships ordered in the "Thirty Ships Programme" issued by the parliament in 1652. HMS Taunton was 104ft long (measured along the keel), with a 31ft 8in beam and a hold depth of 13ft. She cost £3484 (according the the National Archives Currency Converter, in 1650, £3,484 0s 0d would have the same spending worth of 2005's £263,251.04). Like most ships of her time she was modified during her career, with alterations that significantly changed her vital statistics. Ships are often described in terms of the classes to which they belonged, a designation that refers to specific designs made by often famous ship designers, and Taunton was a Ruby Class ship. The first Ruby Class ship was HMS Ruby, built by Peter Pett II in Deptford in 1651. Taunton was the ninth of the Ruby Class Fourth Rates. The model of her above is a photograph from Riff Winfield's "British Warships in the Age of Sail 1603-1714" and is probably either HMS Taunton or HMS Dover. It shows an additional port on the upper deck mentioned above, a characteristic of William Castle's warships.


HMS Diamond was a 40-gun fourth-rate frigate of the English Royal Navy, originally built for the navy of the Commonwealth of England by Peter Pett at Deptford Dockyard, and launched on 15 March 1652. By 1677 her armament had been increased to 48 guns.

Diamond was captured by the French in 1693.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ruby_(1652)

HMS Diamond (1652) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

HMS Taunton 1654, the first ship known to be built on Rotherhithe for the Royal Navy

London in the 1600s, showing a mainly rural Rotherhithe at far right Rotherhithe was a major ship-building centre from at least the ...

russiadock.blogspot.com

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
15 March 1703 – Launch of HMS Leopard, a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Rotherhithe
15 March 1703 - Launch of HMS Panther, a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford Dockyard



HMS Leopard was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Rotherhithe and launched on 15 March 1703.

Leopard underwent a rebuild according to the 1719 Establishment at Woolwich, and was relaunched on 18 April 1721. Leopard served until 1739, when she was broken up.






Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for Leopard (1721), a 1719 Establishment 50-gun Fourth Rate, two-decker. The ship was a proposed re-build of the Leopard (1703) by Mr John Hayward, Master Shipwright, Woolwich Dockyard. The plan includes undated alterations in pencil.


HMS Panther was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford Dockyard and launched on 15 March 1703.

In 1707, she belonged to Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell's fleet. She saw action during the unsuccessful Battle of Toulon and was present during the great naval disaster off the Isles of Scilly when Shovell and four of his ships (Association, Firebrand, Romneyand Eagle) were lost, claiming the lives of nearly 2,000 sailors. Panther suffered little to no damage and finally managed to reach Portsmouth.

Panther was rebuilt according to the 1706 Establishment at Woolwich Dockyard, and relaunched on 6 April 1716. She was hulked in 1743, remaining in that role until she was sold out of the navy in 1768.






Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, stern board outline with some decoration detail, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for Panther (1746), a 1741 Establishment, 50-gun, Fourth Rate, two-decker. This was the 're-build' of the 1706 Establishment Panther (1716). Signed by Thomas Fellowes [Master Shipwright, Plymouth Dockyard, 1742-1746]


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, stern board outline, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed for Panther (1743), a 50-gun Fourth Rate, two-decker.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Leopard_(1703)

HMS Panther (1703) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/colle...el-325788;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=L
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81358.html