Naval/Maritime History 22nd of March - Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

22 July 1905 - USS Bennington (Gunboat #4) is wrecked by a boiler explosion at San Diego, Calif. One officer and 65 enlisted men die in the explosion, along with numerous crew injuries.

USS Bennington (Gunboat No. 4/PG-43) was a member of the Yorktown class of steel-hulled, twin-screw gunboats in the United States Navy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was the first U.S. Navy ship named in honor of the town of Bennington, Vermont, site of the Battle of Bennington in the American Revolutionary War.

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The Bennington, photographed circa 1898 by William H. Rau

The contract to build Bennington was awarded to N. F. Palmer & Co. of Philadelphia in November 1887. Her hull was subcontracted to the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding & Engine Works which laid down Bennington's keel in June 1888. Bennington was launched in June 1890. She was just over 244 feet (74 m) long and 36 feet (11 m) abeam and displaced 1,710 long tons (1,740 t). She was equipped with two steam engines which were supplemented with three schooner-rigged masts. The ship's main battery consisted of six 6-inch (15.2 cm) guns and was augmented by an assortment of smaller caliber guns.

After her June 1891 commissioning, Bennington was attached to the Squadron of Evolution and for its cruise to South America. The gunboat made two Mediterranean tours between 1892 and 1894, after which she was assigned to the duties in the Pacific. She sailed the Pacific coasts of North and Central America and spent time in the Hawaiian Islands to protect American interests there. On her way to support United States Army operations of the Philippine–American War, Bennington claimed Wake Island for the United States. After two years in the Philippines, she returned to the United States and was decommissioned for 18 months of repairs and refitting. After her March 1903 re-commissioning, most of the next two years were spent patrolling the Pacific coasts of North and South America.

Boiler explosion
On the morning of 21 July 1905, Bennington's crew was preparing her to sail to the aid of the monitor Wyoming which had broken down and was in need of a tow. After her crew had finished the difficult task of coaling the ship that morning, most of them were belowdecks cleaning themselves from the dirty job. Unbeknownst to anyone on board, three problems with one of Bennington's boilers – oily feed water, an improperly closed steam valve, and a faulty steam gauge – were conspiring against them. At about 10:30, excessive steam pressure in the boiler resulted in a boiler explosion that rocked the ship, sending men and equipment flying into the air. The escaping steam sprayed through the living compartments and decks. The explosion opened Bennington's hull to the sea, and she began to list to starboard. Quick actions by the tug Santa Fe — taking Bennington under tow and beaching her – almost certainly saved the gunboat from sinking.

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Bennington after the explosion on 21 July 1905 which killed 66 in San Diego

The combination of the explosion and the scalding steam killed a number of men outright and left others mortally wounded; the final death toll was one officer and sixty-five men, making it one of the U.S. Navy's worst peacetime disasters. Nearly all of the forty-six who survived had an injury of some sort; eleven of the survivors were awarded the Medal of Honor for "extraordinary heroism displayed at the time of the explosion". One of the survivors was John Henry Turpin, who had also survived the explosion of Maine in Havana in February 1898 and was, reportedly, the only man to survive both explosions. The sheer number of casualties – the death toll exceeded the U.S. Navy's death toll for the entirety of the Spanish–American War – overwhelmed San Diego's medical facilities, and many burn victims had to be cared for in makeshift facilities tended by volunteers.

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Sectional view of the gunboat Bennington – Boston Daily Globe, 23 July 1905

The number of dead also taxed the morticians in San Diego, who were hard-pressed to prepare all of the victims for burial. On 23 July, two days after the explosion, the majority of those killed were buried in the cemetery at Fort Rosecrans. The victims are commemorated by the USS Bennington Monument, a 60-foot (18 m) granite obelisk dedicated in the cemetery on 7 January 1908.

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Removing the dead from the ship, following her boiler explosion

In spite of rumors of misconduct by Bennington's engineering crewmen, an official investigation concluded that the explosion was not due to negligence on the part of the crew.

Disposition
After the explosion, Bennington was refloated and towed to the Mare Island Navy Yard. Because of the extent of the damages and the age of the ship, Bennington was not repaired but was instead decommissioned on 31 October 1905. After five years of inactivity, Bennington was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 10 September 1910 and sold for scrap on 14 November. Bennington was not scrapped but was purchased in 1913 by the Matson Line for use as a molasses barge. She was towed to Honolulu and remained in use there from 1913 until 1924, when she was scuttled off Oahu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bennington_(PG-4)
http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/09004.htm
 
23 July 1759 - Keel of HMS Victory (100) laid down at Chatham Dockyard

HMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, ordered in 1758, laid down on 23 July 1759 and launched on 7 May 1765. She is best known for her role as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. She additionally served as Keppel's flagship at Ushant, Howe's flagship at Cape Spartel and Jervis's flagship at Cape St Vincent. After 1824, she was relegated to the role of harbour ship. In 1922, she was moved to a dry dock at Portsmouth, England, and preserved as a museum ship. She has been the flagship of the First Sea Lord since October 2012 and is the world's oldest naval ship still in commission.

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Scale: 1:180. A skeleton model of the ‘Victory’ (1765), a 100-gun, three-decker ship of the line. The model is depicted on the slipway under construction. Although the model has not been positively identified, the dimensions agree with those of the ‘Victory’. See also SLR0514, SLR0516 and SLR0520.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66476.html#tqgMeBU4izQZw5QQ.99


Construction
In December 1758, Pitt the Elder, in his role as head of the British government, placed an order for the building of 12 ships, including a first-rate ship that would become HMS Victory. During the 18th century, Victory was one of ten first-rate ships to be constructed. The outline plans were based on HMS Royal George which had been launched at Woolwich Dockyard in 1756, and the naval architect chosen to design the ship was Sir Thomas Slade who, at the time, was the Surveyor of the Navy. She was designed to carry at least 100 guns. The commissioner of Chatham Dockyard was instructed to prepare a dry dock for the construction. The keel was laid on 23 July 1759 in the Old Single Dock (since renamed No. 2 Dock and now Victory Dock), and a name, Victory, was chosen in October 1760. In 1759, the Seven Years' War was going well for Britain; land victories had been won at Quebec and Minden and naval battles had been won at Lagos and Quiberon Bay. It was the Annus Mirabilis, or Year of Miracles (or Wonders), and the ship's name may have been chosen to commemorate the victories or it may have been chosen simply because out of the seven names shortlisted, Victory was the only one not in use. There were some doubts whether this was a suitable name since the previous first-rate Victory had been lost with all on board in 1744.

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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with sternboard decoration, sheer lines with inboard detail, decoration and figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth for Victory (1765), a 100-gun First Rate, three-decker. Even though the plan is dated 1830, the plan illustrates the vessel prior to her 1800-3 'Large Repair' at Chatham Dockyard. The plan commemorates the death of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson despite the plan representing the ship prior to when she was his flagship in 1803. There are also differences in gunport layouts when compared to the plan signed by Thomas Slade in 1759.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/79911.html#cZ3HzFGDYCH0bw0G.99


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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with sternboard outline, and inboard profile with some external detail for Victory (1765), a 100-gun First Rate, three-decker. The plan is titled 'Presented to the Royal Naval College Museum, Greenwich in 1925 by Mr Chas. H. Jordan M Inst NA". As part of this plan is an envelope containing press cuttings relating to the main plan. Numbered ZAZ0121.1
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/79912.html#dOf2EjsZtckqHqp7.99


A team of 150 workmen were assigned to construction of Victory's frame. Around 6,000 trees were used in her construction, of which 90% were oak and the remainder elm, pine and fir, together with a small quantity of lignum vitae. The wood of the hull was held in place by six-foot copper bolts, supported by treenails for the smaller fittings. Once the ship's frame had been built, it was normal to cover it up and leave it for several months to allow the wood to dry out or "season". The end of the Seven Years' War meant that Victory remained in this condition for nearly three years, which helped her subsequent longevity. Work restarted in autumn 1763 and she was launched on 7 May 1765, having cost £63,176 and 3 shillings, the equivalent of £7.92 million today.

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Scale: 1:60. A model of H.M.S Victory (1765) made entirely in wood that has been painted in realistic colours with metal fittings. The vessel is shown in a launching cradle on a slipway. The hull is painted white below the waterline with a closed black wale above. The remainder of the hull is varnished, and laid in individual planks. There are three gun decks and all the gunports are depicted in an open position, the inner faces of the gunport lids are painted red as are the insides of the gunports themselves. A decorative frieze is painted on a blue ground that runs the entire length of the hull just above main deck level. The figurehead is finely carved depicting George III, allegorical figures and a Union flag on the starboard side. Other bow details include a pair of whisker booms, a pair of catheads, one large admiralty pattern anchor, and one small anchor. The model does not have any masts but instead has three launching flag poles. Foredeck fittings include a bell and belfry, stove chimney, and a forward launching flag pole. The waist has been closed in and four beams support a ship’s boat equipped with a number of red-painted oars. Beneath the boat on the main deck are two sets of gratings. The upper deck fittings include the ship's double wheel painted red, and two companion ways that provide access to the poop deck. The poop deck fittings include a rectangular skylight, launching flag pole, hammock stowage rails, and provision for an ensign jack staff. The stern and quarter galleries, of which two are open, are elaborately carved and painted, and glazed in mica. The launching cradle and slipway is realistically depicted and there are six stabiliser poles attached to the port and starboard stern quarters and the sides of the slipway.

On the day of the launch, shipwright Hartly Larkin, designated "foreman afloat" for the event, suddenly realised that the ship might not fit through the dock gates. Measurements at first light confirmed his fears: the gates were at least 9 1⁄2 inches too narrow. He told the dreadful news to his superior, master shipwright John Allin, who considered abandoning the launch. Larkin asked for the assistance of every available shipwright, and they hewed away enough wood from the gates with their adzes for the ship to pass safely through. However the launch itself revealed significant challenges in the ship's design, including a distinct list to starboardand a tendency to sit heavily in the water such that her lower deck gunports were only 4 ft 6 in (1.4 m) above the waterline. The first of these problems was rectified after launch by increasing the ship's ballast to settle her upright on the keel. The second problem, regarding the siting of the lower gunports, could not be addressed. Instead it was noted in Victory's sailing instructions that these gunports would have to remain closed and unusable in rough weather. This had potential to limit Victory's firepower, though in practice none of her subsequent actions would be fought in rough seas

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Scale: 1:48. A contemporary full hull model of the Victory (1765), a 100 gun first rate, three-decker ship of the line. Model is decked. Depicted after extensive refit (her so-called "large repair") completed in 1803, prior to the Battle of Trafalgar. Model also shows further modifications which were proposed after Trafalgar which were not carried out.

Because there was no immediate use for her, she was placed in ordinary and moored in the River Medway. Internal fitting out continued in a somewhat desultory manner over the next four years, and sea trials were completed in 1769, after which she was returned to her Medway berth. She remained there until France joined the American War of Independence in 1778. Victory was now placed in active service as part of a general mobilisation against the French threat. This included arming her with a full complement of smooth bore, cast iron cannon. Her weaponry was intended to be thirty 42-pounders (19 kg) on her lower deck, twenty-eight 24-pounder long guns (11 kg) on her middle deck, and thirty 12-pounders (5 kg) on her upper deck, together with twelve 6-pounders on her quarterdeck and forecastle. In May 1778, the 42-pounders were replaced by 32-pounders (15 kg), but the 42-pounders were reinstated in April 1779; however there were insufficient 42-pounders available and these were replaced with 32-pounder cannons instead.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pitt,_1st_Earl_of_Chatham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_George_(1756)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Slade
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-357770;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=V
 
23 July 1319 - The Battle of Chios

was a naval battle fought off the shore of the eastern Aegean island of Chios between a Latin Christian—mainly Hospitaller * —fleet and a Turkish fleet from the Aydinid emirate. The Christian fleet was resoundingly victorious, but for the Ayinids, who had been engaging in piracy since the collapse of Byzantine power, it was only a temporary setback in their rise to prominence.

* The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (Latin: Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), also known as the Order of Saint John, Order of Hospitallers, Knights Hospitaller, Knights Hospitalier or Hospitallers, was a medieval Catholic military order. It was headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, on the island of Rhodes, in Malta and St Petersburg.

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Grand Master and senior Knights Hospitaller in the 14th century

Background
The collapse of Byzantine power in western Anatolia and the Aegean Sea in the late 13th century, as well as the disbandment of the Byzantine navy in 1284, created a power vacuum in the region, which was swiftly exploited by the Turkish beyliks and the ghazi raiders. Utilizing local Greek seamen, the Turks began to engage in piracy across the Aegean, targeting especially the numerous Latin island possessions. Turkish corsair activities were aided by the feuds between the two major Latin maritime states, Venice and Genoa. In 1304, the Turks of Menteshe (and later the Aydinids) captured the port town of Ephesus, and the islands of the eastern Aegean seemed about to fall to Turkish raiders. To forestall such a calamitous event, in the same year the Genoese occupied Chios, where Benedetto I Zaccaria established a minor principality, while in ca. 1308 the Knights Hospitaller occupied Rhodes. These two powers would bear the brunt of countering Turkish pirate raids until 1329.

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Battle of Chios and aftermath
In July 1319, the Aydinid fleet, under the personal command of the Aydinid emir Mehmed Beg, set sail from the port of Ephesus. It comprised 10 galleys and 18 other vessels. It was met off Chios by a Hospitaller fleet of 24 ships and eighty Hospitaller knights, under Albert of Schwarzburg, to which a squadron of one galley and six other ships were added by Martino Zaccaria of Chios. The battle ended in a crushing Christian victory: only six Turkish vessels managed to escape capture or destruction.

This victory was followed up by the recovery of Leros, whose native Greek population had rebelled in the name of the Byzantine emperor, and by another victory in the next year over a Turkish fleet poised to invade Rhodes. Pope John XXII rewarded Schwarzburg by restoring him to the post of grand preceptor of Cyprus, whence he had been dismissed two years earlier, and promised the commandery of Kos, if he could capture it.

Impact
According to the historian Mike Carr, the victory at Chios was all the more significant because it had been achieved at the initiative of the Hospitallers and the Zaccarias, without any support or funding by other Western powers, most notably the Papacy, which was still embroiled in plans to launch a Crusade to the Holy Land. It did nevertheless influence the strategic calculations of Western powers, and efforts began to form a Christian naval league to counter Turkish piracy.

Nevertheless, in the immediate future, the defeat off Chios could not halt the rise of Aydinid power. The Zaccarias were soon after forced to surrender their mainland outpost of Smyrna to Mehmed's son Umur Beg, under whose leadership Aydinid fleets roamed the Aegean for the next two decades, until the Smyrniote crusades (1343–1351) broke the Aydinid emirate's power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chios_(1319)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Hospitaller
 
23 July 1785 - Launch of HMS Audacious

was a 74-gun third rate Arrogant class ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 23 July 1785 at Rotherhithe. She was the first ship to bear the name.

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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for building Cornwall (1761), Arrogant (1761), and Kent (1762), and later for Defence (1763), Edgar (1779), Goliath (1781), Vanguard (1787), Excellent (1787), Saturn (1786), Elephant (1786), Illustrious (1789), Bellerophon (1786), Zealous (1785), and Audacious (1785), all 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/80933.html#OC8XufJFszMJWUSo.99


She took part in the Battle of the Nile, under Captain Davidge Gould, where she engaged the French ship Conquérant.
Conquérant was particularly targeted by HMS Audacious and HMS Goliath, who reduced her to a hulk before 19:00. Immobilised, hopelessly overgunned and undermanned, her captain mortally wounded, Conquérant struck her colours and was seized by a boarding party from Audacious.

HMS Audacious was subsequently recommissioned in the Royal Navy under the same name.

She was finally broken up in August 1815.

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His Majestys Ship Audacious of 74 Guns & 600 men. Drawn by Richard Hawes Anno 1793 (PAD6026)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/110177.html#EqGHEM9Tj4ePRbKI.99



Other Ships of the Arrogant Class
Builder: John Barnard, Harwich
Laid down: March 1759
Launched: 22 January 1761
Completed: 28 April 1761
Fate: Sold at Bombay to be broken up, 1810
Builder: William Wells, Deptford
Laid down: 19 February 1759
Launched: 19 May 1761
Completed: 16 September 1761
Fate: Burnt or scuttled as unserviceable at St Lucia, 30 June 1780
Builder: Woolwich Dockyard
Launched: 30 June 1779
Fate: Broken up, 1835
Builder: Deptford Dockyard
Launched: 19 October 1781
Fate: Broken up, 1815
Builder: Barnard, Deptford
Launched: 25 June 1785
Fate: Broken up, 1816
Builder: Randall, Rotherhithe
Launched: 23 July 1785
Fate: Broken up, 1815
Builder: Parsons, Bursledon
Launched: 24 August 1786
Fate: Broken up, 1830
Builder: Graves, Frindsbury
Launched: 6 October 1786
Fate: Sold out of the service, 1836
Builder: Raymond, Northam
Launched: 22 November 1786
Fate: Broken up, 1868
Builder: Deptford Dockyard
Launched: 6 March 1787
Fate: Broken up, 1821
Builder: Graham, Harwich
Launched: 27 November 1787
Fate: Broken up, 1835
Builder: Henry Adams, Bucklers Hard
Launched: 7 July 1789
Fate: Grounded in gale near Livorno (Leghorn) and burnt, 28 March 1795.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Audacious_(1785)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrogant-class_ship_of_the_line
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Conquérant_(1747)
 

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23 July 1804 - Launch of HMS Swiftsure

was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched from Bucklers Hard on 23 July 1804. She fought at Trafalgar.

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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for 'Swiftsure' (1804) and 'Victorious' (1808), both 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers, both to be built at Bucklers Hard by Messrs B & E Adams. The plan also shows alterations to the rudder on 'Swiftsure', while she was at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1815-6. The alterations were suggested by the ship's Captain - Captain William Henry Webly/Webley, appointed 20 September 1814 [Captain seniority: 29 April 1802]. Signed by John Henslow [Surveyor of the Navy, 1784-1806] and William Rule [Surveyor of the Navy, 1793-1813]. NMM, Progress Book, volume 6, folio 130 states that 'Swiftsure' (1804) was at Portsmouth Dockyard between 18 August 1815 and September 1816.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81125.html#dFAVs6eRUrPjyhZo.99


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No scale. Plan showing a part frame profile at the midships for Swiftsure (1804) and Victorious (1808), both 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers. The plan has been identified as relating to that class, designed by Henslow, because the gun deck and extreme breadth dimensions listed match that for the two ships. The annotations on the plan relate to the guns, the construction of the frames and beams, and ship dimensions. Unusually, the gun ports are not staggered from deck to deck, this scheme avoids cast or shifted upper futtocks or toptimbers, reducing the labour involved in construction.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/86656.html#WPzG2wZIwo5TQXqM.99


The French 74-gun ship Swiftsure (launched 1787 - see following drawing) also took part in the battle. She had originally been a British ship that the French had captured in 1801.

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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for 'Elizabeth' (1769), and with alterations for 'Resolution' (1770), 'Cumberland' (1774), 'Berwick' (1775), 'Bombay Castle' (1782), 'Defiance' (1783), 'Powerful' (1783), and 'Swiftsure' (1787), all 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers.


It was a myth at the time that the Swiftsure sailed faster at night.

Swiftsure became a receiving ship in 1819, In September 1844, she heeled over and sank at Portchester, Hampshire. She was sold out of the service in 1845. In November 1844, she was in use as a target ship by HMS Excellent.


Other Ships of the Swiftsure Class
Builder: Adams, Bucklers Hard
Launched: 23 July 1804
Fate: Sold, 1845
Builder: Adams, Bucklers Hard
Launched: 20 October 1808
Fate: Sold, 1862


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Swiftsure_(1804)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftsure-class_ship_of_the_line
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Swiftsure_(1787)
 
23 July 1810 - Battle of Silda

(Affæren ved Silden or Affæren ved Stadt) was a naval battle fought on 23 July 1810 between the United Kingdom and Denmark–Norway near the Norwegian island of Silda in Sogn og Fjordane county. The battle occurred during the Gunboat War, itself part of the Napoleonic Wars. In the battle, two British frigates captured or destroyed three or four Dano-Norwegian gunboats. The Danish and British accounts of the battle differ.

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Dano-Norwegian shallop gunboat

Danish account
The Dano-Norwegian Navy had based three gun-schooners Odin, Thor and Balder and the gun-barge Cort Adeler at the pilot station on Silda. However, only the latter two of these, plus a third, smaller gunboat, were involved in the battle.

On 23 July the British frigates HMS Belvidera, Captain Richard Byron, and HMS Nemesis, Captain William Ferris, attacked. One of the Norwegian boats was able to hit at least one of the British boats, killing several British soldiers. Still, the British captured the station. The crew of one of the Danish boats scuttled their vessel and escaped. The British took the other two Danish vessels as prizes and sent their crews to imprisonment in England. The British also raided civilian ships moored in the vicinity. The British raided farms several places along the coast both before and after this incident.

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English Brig Attacked by Danish-Norwegian gunboat

British account
Belvidera and Nemesis were sailing close in-shore of Studtland, Norway. On the evening of 22 July a boat from Belvidera scouting a deep bay sighted three Danish gun-vessels. The next morning seven boats from the two frigates entered the creek and cut out the two larger Dano-Norwegian vessels. The British suffered no casualties, though the Danes lost four men killed.

The two larger vessels, Balder and Thor, commanded by Lieutenants Dahlreup and Rasmusen, were schooner-rigged. Each mounted two long 24-pounder guns and six 6-pounder howitzers and had a crew of 45 men. The third gun-vessel, Gunboat No. 5, was of a smaller class; she carried one long 24-pounder and had a crew of 25 men. Her crew ran her up a fiord where they abandoned her; the British then burnt her.

The British prize money reckoning refers to three vessels, Balder, Thor and Fortuna. Fortuna may have been a merchant vessel seized at the time.

Aftermath
The local Norwegian commander, vicar Gabriel Heiberg, failed to alert other Dano-Norwegian naval vessels nearby that could have helped repel the British attack. He also later issued an order to keep out of the way of the British as he thought they would behave better if they were unopposed, an action for which he later underwent a court-martial.


The Norwegian gun-ships were a class of ten armed schooners that served first in the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy, and then after 1814 in the Royal Norwegian Navy. The first was launched in 1808 and the last was lost in 1872.

Following the near total loss of the Danish-Norwegian fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen in September 1807, the Gunboat War and the British blockade of Danish ports was fought primarily in the relatively confined seas around Denmark. The Danes built their naval strategy on small gunboats that rarely ventured very far from their sheltered harbours.

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Norwegian Navy sailing schooners "Skjøn Valborg" and "Axel Thorsen", built in 1811. They were armed with two large cannons, and had a crew of 45 men.

As the British extended their blockade to the longer Norwegian coastline and up to Russia during the Anglo-Russian War (1807-1812), a different type of vessel became necessary. The result was the Norwegian gun-ship, a class of ten pine schooner-rigged vessels all built to the same plan. Each was equipped with 30 oars to permit their crews to row them in calm weather; all were more or less identically armed. These ships had a reputation for seaworthiness, a characteristic much needed in the waters of the Norwegian Sea that was their main area of operations.

The Dano-Norwegian navy stationed eight in Bergen and two in Trondheim, though this is a little deceptive. After the British Royal Navy captured two at the Battle of Silda, the Danes built two more to replace them. The two new schooners received the same names (Thor and Balder) as the lost schooners. Thus there was only a maximum of eight schooners on active duty at any one time.

Eight of the schooners were still in service in 1814, all of them based in the Norwegian ports of Bergen and Trondheim. Under the Treaty of Kiel, which provided for the separation of Norway from Denmark, those naval vessels in Norwegian ports automatically transferred to the new Norwegian navy. The schooners therefore continued their careers in the Norwegian navy, with the last serving until 1872.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Silda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Gunships
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Belvidera_(1809)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Nemesis_(1780)
 
23 July 1943 – The British destroyers HMS Eclipse and HMS Laforey sink the Italian submarine Ascianghi in the Mediterranean after she torpedoes the cruiser HMS Newfoundland.

The italian submarine Augusta Ascianghi
In the afternoon of July 23, 1943 while patrolling submerged ten miles from Augusta Ascianghi detected a group of enemy cruisers and destroyers. She closed in and launched two torpedoes, one of which at 13:38 struck light cruiser HMS Newfoundland blowing off the rudder and causing casualties, putting the cruiser out of service until 1944. At 15:41 one of the escorts, destroyer HMS Laforey after dodging another torpedo, immediately went after Ascianghi with HMS Eclipse joining in. Ascianghi went through several depth charge attacks, and eventually got seriously damaged and flooded. Ascianghi plummeted below the test depth, and to avoid being destroyed by pressure, she was forced to surface and try fighting it out with her deck gun. But she was immediately fired upon and hit by both ships, causing serious casualties. Abandoned by the survivors, Ascianghi sank at 16:23, with 23 people killed, and 27 survivors.

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RIN Ascianghi

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British light cruiser HMS NEWFOUNDLAND at anchor at Greenock.

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British destroyer HMS LAFOREY secured to a buoy.

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Photograph of British E class destroyer HMS Eclipse.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_submarine_Ascianghi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Laforey_(G99)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Eclipse_(H08)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Newfoundland_(59)
 
Other events on 23 July

1805 HMS Champion (launched 1779) (24-guns), Cptn. Robert Howe Bromley, and consorts engaged a French flotilla off Fecamp.
https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=3545

1943 - USS George E. Badger (DD 196) sinks German submarine (U 613), en route to mine waters off Jacksonville, Fla., south of the Azores.

george e.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_E._Badger_(DD-196)

1943 - USS Charles J. Badger (DD 657) is commissioned by Bethlehem Steel Co., Staten Island, N.Y.

george J.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Charles_J._Badger_(DD-657)

1943 - TBFs (VC 9) from USS Bogue (AVG 9) breaks up a rendezvous between German submarines (U 527) and (U 648) south of the Azores. U-527 sinks at while U-648 escapes.

1950 - USS Boxer (CV 21) sets the record of crossing the Pacific, bringing aircraft, troops and supplies for the Korean War, arriving at Yokosuka, Japan. She carries a load of 145 (P 51) and six (L 5) Air Force aircraft, 19 Navy aircraft, 1,012 passengers and 2,000 tons of additional cargo, all urgently needed for operations in Korea. In making this delivery, Boxer breaks all existing records for a Pacific crossing, steaming from Alameda, Calif., to Yokosuka in 8 days and 16 hours. On her return trip to the U.S. on July 27, she cuts the time down to seven days, ten hours and 36 minutes.

USS_Boxer_(CV-21)_loading_F-51_Mustangs_at_NAS_Alameda_in_July_1950_(80-G-418776).jpg
Boxer loads USAF F-51 Mustangs at Alameda for the Korean theater, in July 1950.

With the outbreak of the Korean War, the U.S. forces in the Far East had an urgent need for supplies and aircraft. The only aircraft carriers near Korea were USS Valley Forge and HMS Triumph. Boxer was ordered into service to ferry aircraft from California to the fighting on the Korean Peninsula. She made a record-breaking crossing of the Pacific Ocean, leaving Alameda, California on 14 July 1950 and arriving at Yokosuka, Japan on 23 July, a trip of 8 days and 7 hours. She carried one hundred forty-five North American P-51 Mustangs and six Stinson L-5 Sentinels of the United States Air Force destined for the Far East Air Force as well as 19 Navy aircraft, 1,012 Air Force support personnel, and 2,000 tonnes (2,000 long tons; 2,200 short tons) of supplies for the United Nations troops fighting the North Korean invasion of South Korea, including crucially needed spare parts and ordnance. Much of this equipment had been taken from Air National Guard units in the United States because of a general shortage of materiel. She began her return trip from Yokosuka on 27 July and arrived back in California on 4 August, for a trip of 7 days, 10 hours and 36 minutes, again breaking the record for a trans-Pacific cruise. She carried no jet aircraft, though, because they were deemed too fuel inefficient for the initial defense mission in Korea. By the time Boxer arrived in Korea, the UN forces had established superiority in the air and sea

1024px-USS_Boxer_(CVA-21)_underway_off_Korea_in_July_1953.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Boxer_(CV-21)

1964 - Explosions aboard the Egyptian munitions ship Star of Alexandria sank the freighter, damaged the harbor of Bône, Algeria, and killed more than 100 persons.

ob_b12f4f_cargo.jpg d-quand-ce-sont-les-etrangers-qui-se-preoccupent-de-notre-histoire-5296c.jpg
 
23 July 2017 - After a two-year restoration at historic Dry Dock 1 at Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston National Historical Park, America's oldest commissioned warship, USS Constitution is refloated. Since entering dry dock on May 18, 2015, ship restorers from the Naval History and Heritage Command Detachment Boston, and teams of Constitution Sailors have worked to bring Old Ironsides back to her glory.

A time-lapse video showing the flooding of Dry Dock 1 in the Charlestown Navy Yard and the undocking of USS Constitution into Boston Harbor on July 23, 2017.

A final Look at USS Constitution in Dry Dock 1 in the Charlestown Navy Yard, July 19, 2017.


https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2017/07/25/uss-constitution-afloat/
 
24 July 1684 - Robert de La Salle left La Rochelle with four ships (one is La Belle) to establish a French colony on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

On July 24, 1684, La Salle left La Rochelle with four ships: the 36-gun man-of-war Le Joly, the 300-ton storeship L'Aimable, the barque La Belle, and the ketch St. Francois.

IMG_0064.jpg
La Belle

The ships carried almost 300 people, including 100 soldiers, six missionaries, eight merchants, over a dozen women and children, and artisans and craftsmen. The St. Francois and its full load of supplies, provisions, and tools for the colony was captured by Spanish privateers in Santo Domingo. In late November 1684, the three remaining ships continued their search for the Mississippi River delta. Before they left, local sailors warned them that the Gulf currents flowed east, and would carry the ships toward the Florida straits unless they corrected for it. On December 18, the ships reached the Gulf of Mexico and entered waters that Spain claimed as their sole territory. None of the members of the expedition had ever been in the Gulf of Mexico or knew how to navigate it. The expedition was to be unable to find the Mississippi due to a combination of inaccurate maps, La Salle's previous miscalculation of the latitude of the mouth of the Mississippi River, and overcorrecting for the currents. Instead, they landed at Matagorda Bay in Spanish Texas in early 1685, 400 miles (644 km) west of the Mississippi.

lasalle_explorations01.jpg belle-route.jpg

LaSallesExpeditiontoLouisiana.JPG
Painting by Theodore Gudin titled La Salle's Expedition to Louisiana in 1684. The ship on the left is La Belle, in the middle is Le Joly, and L'Aimable is to the right. They are at the entrance to Matagorda Bay

Although La Belle was able to easily navigate the pass into the Bay, the Aimable was grounded on a sandbar. A bad storm prevented them from recovering more than food, cannons, powder, and a small amount of the merchandise from the ship, and by March 7 she had sunk. Beaujeu, having fulfilled his mission in escorting them, returned to France aboard the Joly in mid-March, leaving La Belle the only ship available to the remaining settlers.

Lasalle_au_Mississippi.jpg
Claiming Louisiana for France

La Salle chose to establish Fort Saint Louis on a bluff overlooking Garcitas Creek, 50 miles (80 km) from their initial campsite. With their permanent camp established, the colonists took several short trips within the next few months to further explore their surroundings. At the end of October La Salle decided to undertake a longer expedition and reloaded the La Belle with much of the remaining supplies. He took 50 men, plus the La Belle's crew of 27 sailors, leaving behind 34 men, women, and children. The bulk of the men traveled with La Salle in canoes, while the La Belle followed further off the coast. Several of the men, including the captain of the La Belle, Canil Maraud, died on this expedition from eating prickly pear. Soon after, the Karankawa killed a small group of the men, including the new captain of La Belle, former pilot Eli Richaud, who had camped on the shore at night. In January 1686, La Salle left the ship 30 miles (48 km) from Fort Saint Louis. La Salle took 20 men with him to travel overland to reach the Mississippi, leaving Pierre Tessier, the former second in command of the La Belle, in charge of the ship. After three months of searching overland, La Salle's group returned, but were unable to find the La Belle where they had left her and were forced to walk back to the fort.

Loss
While La Salle was gone, the ship began to run low of drinking water. Tessier sent the five best sailors ashore in the La Belle's only longboat to search for water. The men were seen struggling against a strong wind to return to the ship as night fell, and were presumed lost when the longboat never arrived at the ship. The remaining sailors drank wine in place of water, but the alcohol further dehydrated them, and several died.

belle-picture18.jpg

Tessier finally decided that the ship must return to Fort Saint Louis for more supplies. As they got underway, a cold front blew in. Since the remaining crewmembers were unskilled, they were unable to keep control of the ship, and because they had lost their second anchor, there was no way to stop the ship from drifting in the wind. Within a short amount of time, the La Belle had run aground at the southern end of the bay, approximately a quarter of a mile (400 m) from shore.

When the storm had abated, the men built a raft from planks and barrels and sent two men to shore. The raft broke up in the waves, and both men drowned. After making a second, more solid, raft, the others were able to make it safely to shore. Over the next few days they returned to the ship daily to retrieve cargo, managing to salvage some of La Salle's papers and clothes, barrels of flour, casks of wine, glass beads, and other trade items. Before long, however, a strong southerly wind drove the hull into the muddy bottom, and soon only the rear deck remained above water. Of the 27 people originally assigned to the ship, the only survivors were Tessier, a priest, a military officer, a regular soldier, a servant girl, and a small boy. They remained on the peninsula for three months, as the only way to the fort was to walk through Karankawa territory. After a small Indian canoe washed ashore one day, the survivors were able to paddle across the bay and return to the fort. The destruction of their last ship left the settlers stranded on the Texas coast, with no hope of any assistance from the French colonies in the Caribbean Sea

Discovery by the Spanish
The Spanish authorities learned of La Salle's expedition when a former member of the colony, Denis Thomas, was captured aboard a pirate ship. In an attempt to save his life, Thomas related that La Salle had planned to establish a colony near the Mississippi River and eventually take over Spanish silver mines. Although Thomas was quickly hanged, the Spanish believed his information to be reliable and began searching for the French colony. On December 25, 1686, a Spanish expedition led by Captain Martin de Rivas and Captain Pedro de Yriarte left Veracruz to sail along the Gulf Coast. On April 4, they reached Matagorda Bay and dispatched several canoes to explore the area. 3 miles (4.8 km) from their ship, they discovered La Belle, which they described as a "broken ship" with three fleur-de-lys on her stern.

The Spanish salvaged two swivel guns and five cannons from the ship, as well as the anchor, some cordage, and the masts, which they made into oars. As final proof that this ship had belonged to the French colony, the expedition also discovered the campsite where the French survivors had lived for three months. Among the remains of the campsite were pages from books written in French.

Belle_hull.jpg
Composite image from three photographs looking down at the excavated wooden hull remains of the Belle shipwreck, excavated by the Texas Historical Commission in 1995. The photos were taken from the roof of the cofferdam which surrounded the ship and kept it in a semi-dry environment. All artifacts had been recovered from inside the hull before these photographs were taken. La Belle was the ship of French explorer La Salle, lost at Matagorda Bay in 1686 and discovered and excavated by the Texas Historical Commission from 1995 to 1997. The photographer was an archaeologist working on the project.

The review of the Planset by Jean Boudriot you can find here:
Planset: "LA BELLE - 1684" - 20 plates in scale 1:24 - click on the title







https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René-Robert_Cavelier,_Sieur_de_La_Salle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Belle_(ship)
http://mapsandexplorers.com/la-salles-shipwreck-exceptional-archeological-find/
https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/la-belle/the-exhibit/how-la-belle-changed-history
 
24 July 1823 - The Battle of Lake Maracaibo

also known as the "Naval Battle of the Lake" was fought on 24 July 1823 on Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo between fleets under the commands of Republican Admiral José Prudencio Padilla and royalist Captain Ángel Laborde.

Lake_Maracaibo_map.png

The engagement was won by the Republican forces, and was the last battle of the Venezuelan War of Independence and the larger Spanish American wars of independence. The Republican ships were part of the armed forces of Gran Colombia led by Simón Bolívar.

Batalla_del_Lago_de_Maracaibo_1823.jpg
Depiction of the battle from c. 1830

The Battle of Carabobo of 1821 is usually seen in the historiography as the culminating battle for Venezuelan independence. However, some historians point out that if the Battle of Lake Maracaibo had been a victory for the Royalist forces, the Spanish Crown might have been able to establish a new front in Western Venezuela from which to attack the Republican forces stationed in Venezuela. As a result of the defeat, the Spanish did not send any reinforcing regiments to Venezuela, and finally accepted Venezuelan independence as a result of this second decisive Republican victory, although it did not formally recognize the new nation's independence for more than a decade afterward.

24 July is a regional holiday of Zulia State in Venezuela, and as it is also the date of the birth of Simón Bolívar, is also marked as Navy Day in both Venezuela and Colombia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Maracaibo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Maracaibo
 
24 July 1915 - SS Eastland disaster in harbour of Chicago, 844 people died

The SS Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On July 24, 1915, the ship rolled over onto her side while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed in what was the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.

Construction
The ship was commissioned during 1902 by the Michigan Steamship Company and built by the Jenks Ship Building Company of Port Huron, Michigan.[3] The ship was named during May 1903, immediately before its inaugural voyage.

S.S._Eastland_c.1911.jpg
The S.S. Eastland, in Cleveland, Ohio, around 1911

Early problems
After her construction, Eastland was discovered to have design flaws, making her susceptible to listing. The ship was top-heavy, which became evident when passengers congregated en masse on the upper decks. During July 1903, a case of overcrowding caused Eastland to list with water flowing up one of the ship's gangplanks. The situation was quickly rectified, but this was the first of several incidents. Later in the same month, the stern of the ship was damaged when she was backed into the tugboat George W. Gardner. During August 1906, another incident of listing occurred which resulted in the filing of complaints against the Chicago-South Haven Line which had purchased the ship earlier that year.


The Eastland disaster
On July 24, 1915, Eastland and four other Great Lakes passenger steamers, Theodore Roosevelt, Petoskey, Racine, and Rochester, were chartered to take employees from Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, to a picnic in Michigan City, Indiana. This was a major event in the lives of the workers, many of whom could not take holidays. Many of the passengers on Eastland were Czech immigrants from Cicero; 220 of them perished.

Eastland_Postcard_-_View_of_Eastland_taken_from_Fire_Tug_in_river.png ih161310.jpg

During 1915, the new federal Seamen's Act had been passed because of the RMS Titanic disaster three years earlier. The law required retrofitting of a complete set of lifeboats on Eastland, as on many other passenger vessels. This additional weight may have made Eastland more dangerous as it potentially worsened the already severe problem of being top-heavy. Some argued that other Great Lakes ships would suffer from the same problem. Nonetheless, it was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. Eastland was already so top-heavy that it had special restrictions concerning the number of passengers that could be carried. Prior to that, during June 1914, Eastland had again changed ownership, this time bought by the St. Joseph and Chicago Steamship Company, with Captain Harry Pedersen appointed the ship's master.

On the fateful morning, passengers began boarding Eastland on the south bank of the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle Streets about 6:30 am, and by 7:10 am, the ship had reached its capacity of 2,572 passengers. The ship was packed, with many passengers standing on the open upper decks, and began to list slightly to the port side (away from the wharf). The crew attempted to stabilize the ship by admitting water to its ballast tanks, but to little avail. Sometime during the next 15 minutes, a number of passengers rushed to the port side, and at 7:28 am, Eastland lurched sharply to port, and then rolled completely onto its port side, coming to rest on the river bottom, which was only 20 feet (6.1 m) below the surface. Many other passengers had already moved below decks on this relatively cool and damp morning to warm before the departure. Consequently, hundreds of people were trapped inside by the water and the sudden rollover; some were crushed by heavy furniture, including pianos, bookcases, and tables. Although the ship was only 20 feet (6.1 meters) from the wharf, and in spite of the quick response by the crew of a nearby vessel, Kenosha, which came alongside the hull to allow those stranded on the capsized vessel to leap to safety, a total of 844 passengers and four crew members died in the disaster. In the aftermath, the Western Electric Company provided $100,000 to relief and recovery efforts of family members of the victims of the disaster.

The-Eastland-disaster-chicago-06.jpg

The bodies of the victims were taken to various temporary morgues established in the area for identification; by afternoon, the remaining unidentified bodies were consolidated in the Armory of the 2nd Regiment, on the site which was later transformed into Harpo Studios, but has since been demolished to make room for a new McDonald's corporation headquarters.

u31334inp.jpg


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-fall-of-the-eastland/
 
24 July 1945 - USS Underhill (DE-682) is hit and sunk by a Japanese kaiten manned torpedo.

USS Underhill (DE-682) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy during World War II. Built in 1943, she served in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific until her sinking in a suicide attack by a Japanese Kaiten manned torpedo on 24 July 1945.

1280px-USS_Underhill;0668201.jpg
USS Underhill (DE-682)

On the morning of the third day out, 24 July 1945, about 200 to 300 miles northeast of Cape Engaño, Underhill's radar detected a Japanese "Dinah" reconnaissance plane circling the convoy about ten miles out. Her crew immediately manned their battle stations and ordered other escorts to air defense stations. The Japanese pilot remained out of gun range, determining the convoy's base course and relaying it to Japanese submarines in the area. After some 45 minutes, Underhill crew secured from battle stations and ordered the other escorts to resume assigned patrol stations. During this time, an SC had developed mechanical problems and had to be taken in tow by PCE-872.

KaitenMission.JPG
kaiten2.jpg
Three Kaiten torpedoes on the deck of an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine

Two or three Japanese submarines were in the area. After establishing the convoy's base course, one released a dummy naval mine in the path of the convoy. When it was sighted by Underhill lookouts, the ship's commander ordered a general course change to port. When the last ship had cleared, Underhill stood in to sink the mine. After repeated direct hits by the 20-millimeter guns and 30-calibre rifle fire, the convoy realized the mine was a diversionary tactic by the Japanese submarines.

A sonar contact made earlier had been lost during the course changes required by the mine threat, but Underhill regained contact and guided PC-804 into a depth charge attack with no immediate results. A few minutes later, however, a sub was sighted on the surface in the area where PC-804 had attacked. Underhill set course to ram, but the sub dove and the command was changed to drop depth charges. A 13-charge pattern was laid, explosions brought up oil and debris, and PC-804 reported a kill.

Underhill reversed course and passed back through the debris. Sonar picked up another contact. The depth charges had brought to the surface two Kaiten, Japanese suicide manned torpedoes, each with a warhead equivalent to about two standard torpedoes. One was on either side of Underhill; the one to starboard was too close for any of Underhill's guns to bear.

Kaiten_Type_1_Yushukan.jpg
A Kaiten Type I at the Tokyo Yasukuni War Memorial Museum

At 15:15, the captain ordered flank speed, a turn onto collision course, and all hands to stand by to ram. Underhill struck the Kaiten to port, and two explosions resulted, the first directly under the bridge and magazine area, the second, a few seconds later, forward of the bridge area and more to starboard. Underhill broke in half at the forward fire room. The stern section remained upright and afloat; The bow, sticking straight up, began drifting away to starboard. The explosions flung a tremendous quantity of oily water over the aft section, knocking down men and washing some overboard, but also dousing possible fires in that portion of the ship.

674px-Kaiten_torpedo_type_1_schematic-1.svg.png
Schematic of a Kaiten type 1

Although hampered in their rescue efforts by the necessity to pursue sound contacts and by alarms over real and imagined periscope sightings, PC-803 and PC-804 quickly came to the aid of survivors in the water and on the slowly sinking aft section. On board Underhill, the wounded were brought to the boat and main decks, while unhurt survivors aided the injured and attempted to control the damage.

About an hour later PC-803 and PC-804 had returned to rescue survivors. Hampered because of still being under attack by the midget subs, the transfer of many seriously wounded men to the patrol craft was difficult. PC-804 was the first to reach the combat site to assist with rescue operations and hove-to off the starboard quarter of Underhill. The patrol boats and sub chasers alternated between assisting survivors and attacking submarine contacts.

After the last known survivors were rescued, a firing line was formed by PC-803, PC-804, and PCE-872. The fragments of Underhill were sunk by three-inch (76.2 mm) and 40 mm gunfire at 19:17. Loss Location reported at 19°20'N, 126°42'E.


The remainder of 24 July was spent rejoining the convoy. Some survivors were transferred to LST 768 and the balance to LST 739 which had on board Commander LST Group 46 who among the command was the only Medical Doctor in the convoy at about 03:00 on 25 July. Task Unit 99-1-18 proceeded to its destination of Leyte Gulf.

A total of 112 crew members of Underhill perished in the explosion, while 122 survived. Ten of the fourteen officers were lost, including the commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Newcomb. Every crewman was awarded the Purple Heart, and Newcomb also received the Silver Star. Chief Boatswain's Mate Stanley Dace was posthumously awarded the bronze star with combat "V" and citation of merit in August 1998. One other shipmate, Pharmacy Mate Third class Joseph Manory, was awarded the Navy and Marine Commendation Medal with Combat "V" in 1998.

Just six days after the sinking of the Underhill, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis was attacked and sunk in the area by a Japanese submarine.

USS Underhill was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 September 1945.

Film in German language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Underhill_(DE-682)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiten
http://www.navsource.org/archives/06/682.htm
 
24 July 1963 – The ship Bluenose II was launched in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

Bluenose II is a replica of the fishing schooner Bluenose, and was built in 1963 as a promotional yacht for Oland Brewery. It became Nova Scotia's sailing ambassador in 1971.

Bluenose_sailing_1921.jpg
BLUENOSE under full sail.


Construction
Bluenose II was launched at Lunenburg on 24 July 1963, built to original plans and by some of the same workers at Smith and Rhuland. The original captain of Bluenose, Angus J. Walters, was consulted on the replica's design. The replica was built by Oland Brewery for roughly $300,000 (in 1963 Canadian dollars) as a marketing tool for their Schooner Lager beer brand.

In 2004, the Bluenose Preservation Trust, with Lex McKay and Senator Wilfred Moore, donated a piece of wood from the deck of the ship to the Six String Nation project. Parts of that material now serve multiple functions in Voyageur, the guitar at the heart of the project, including two elements of the neck laminate, the top and end blocks on the guitar's interior and decorative elements on the rosette surrounding the sound hole of the instrument.


Provincial ownership
Bluenose II was sold to the government of Nova Scotia in 1971 for the sum of $1. After a number of years of managing the schooner directly, the province gave possession of the ship to the "Bluenose II Preservation Trust". The trust's mandate was to restore the aging schooner to full operational status and continue to operate her for the people of Nova Scotia. Over the winter of 1994–95 the ship’s hull was restored and she was recommissioned in May 1995. During this time Bluenose II was involved in the Sponsorship scandal when the federal government allocated $2.3 million for the schooner through a consulting firm but only a small amount[clarification needed] of the money reached the vessel. The trust maintained and operated Bluenose II until 31 March 2005, when the government of Nova Scotia placed the vessel under the management of the Lunenburg Marine Museum Society at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. In a controversial move, the head of the trust, Senator Wilfred Moore, refused to release over $600,000 raised by the trust in the schooner's name to the current operators of Bluenose II. Moore agreed to turn over the trust's assets to the province in July 2012 but did not release the financial records from the trust. Bluenose II serves as a goodwill ambassador, tourist attraction in Lunenburg, and symbol of the province. During the summer, she visits ports all around Nova Scotia and frequently sails to other ports on the eastern seaboard. Bluenose II has one of the largest mainsails in the world, measuring 386 square metres (4,150 sq ft). She has a total sail area of 1036 m² (11,150 ft²). In honour of her predecessor, Bluenose II does not officially race. Funds for the operation of the ship are raised through charging for passage on the vessel, public donations, and sales in the Fisheries Museum Gift Shop (in Lunenburg), run by the Lunenburg Marine Museum Society.


Current rebuild
In May 2009, the provincial and federal government announced support for a major restoration of the Bluenose II. The project is valued at $14.8 million. In July 2010, the Nova Scotia government awarded a $12.5 million contract for the restoration of Bluenose II to a consortium of three Nova Scotia shipyards. When the ship was finally relaunched in 2012, after major delays, the final cost was closer to 16 million dollars, just from the Nova Scotian government.

This restoration was not without controversy. Tourism, Culture and Heritage Department sources stated that the restoration was "not intended to create an authentic replica of the original Bluenose" and that the builders would not be using the plans. Large portions of the hull were chipped while other small pieces were given away at the rebuilding site in Lunenburg NS. The masts, sails, booms, gaffs, deck boxes, rigging, and some ironwork will go back onto the vessel upon completion. This has led Joan Roue, a descendant of the first Bluenose's designer William Roue and current rights-holder of the design, to question whether this should even be considered the same ship.

As has almost all of the rest of the ship, even the keel has been remade. It can be argued that Bluenose II had so many rebuilds and repairs over the years since she was built in 1963 by the Oland's, that she has not been the same ship for quite some time. The current rebuild aims to have the schooner look more like the original Bluenose with smaller deckhouses and more deck space, as Bluenose II was built with yacht accommodation as opposed to the layout of a fishing schooner. Various subcomponents for this Bluenose II project were supplied from notable firms including the ships keel at Snyder's Shipyard in Dayspring, the ship's backbone of laminated ribs at Covey Island Boatworks in Riverport and assembly of the vessel in Lunenburg.

After more than 25 months of reconstruction, Bluenose II was relaunched into Lunenburg Harbor on 29 September 2012 from the Lunenburg marine railway followed by festivities at the nearby Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic, however due to repairs not completed, the vessel was pulled back onto land for more work. The vessel was returned to the water on 6 September 2013 and will undergo dock and sea trials before being handed over to the province for tourist duty. Retrofit costs to date are at least $19 million and the vessel still required modifications to its steering mechanism at an unknown additional cost.

In the summer of 2016, Bluenose II renovations were completed.




https://bluenose.novascotia.ca/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluenose_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluenose
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bluenose/
 
Other events on 24 July


1534 – French explorer Jacques Cartier
plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France.

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

1725 – Birth of John Newton, English sailor and priest (d. 1807)

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

1762 - HMS Chesterfield, launched 1745 (44), Cptn. John Scaife, and four of a convoy, wrecked on Cayo Comsite.
j3728.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Chesterfield_(1745)

1797 - Horatio Nelson loses right arm during failed attack on Santa Cruz, Tenerife.

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

1798 - HMS Resistance, launched 1782 (44), Cptn. Edward Pakenham, struck by lightening while anchored in the Straits of Banca, caught fire and violently exploded.

1801 - HMS Jason (36), Cptn. Hon. John Murray, wrecked on an uncharted rock in the entrance of St. Malocs.

1813 - USS President (44), John Rodgers, captures British ship Eliza Swan.

1815 - Reduction of Gaeta by HMS Malta , launched 1800 (84), Cptn. William Fahie, and HMS Berwick, Vengeur-class ship of the line launched 1809 (74), Cptn. Edward Brace

Guillaume_Tell_PU5634.jpg

HMS Malta was an 80-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She had previously served with the French Navy as the Tonnant-class Guillaume Tell , but was captured in the Mediterranean in 1800 by a British squadron enforcing the blockade of Malta. Having served for less than four years for the French from her completion in July 1796 to her capture in March 1800, she would eventually serve for 40 years for the British.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Gaeta_(1815)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Malta_(1800)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Berwick_(1809)

1863 - During the Civil War, the steam sloop of war USS Iroquois captures the Confederate blockade-runner, Merrimac, off North Carolina. Purchased by the Navy in March 1864, she is converted into a gunboat and commissioned USS Merrimac.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Iroquois_(1859)

1987 – US supertanker SS Bridgeton collides with mines laid by IRGC causing a 43-square-meter dent in the body of the oil tanker.

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

1987 - Operation Earnest Will started

Operation Earnest Will (24 July 1987 – 26 September 1988) was the American military protection of Kuwaiti-owned tankers from Iranian attacks in 1987 and 1988, three years into the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War. It was the largest naval convoy operation since World War II.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Will
 
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25 July 1666 - The naval St James' Day Battle (also known as the St James' Day Fight), the Battle of the North Foreland and the Battle of Orfordness)

took place on 25 July 1666 — St James' day in the Julian calendar then in use in England (4 August 1666 in the Gregorian calendar), during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. It was fought between fleets of England, commanded jointly by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, and the United Provinces commanded by Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. In the Netherlands, the battle is known as the Two Days' Battle.
This attack follows on the heels of the Four Day Battle of 1-4 June 1666.
The St. James's Day Battle was a British victory that proved that the Royal Navy had not been too badly damaged during the Dutch victory in the Four Days' Battle at the start of June.

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Portrait of Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter, 1607–1676, Lieutenant-Admiral-General of the United Provinces

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Prince Rupert (1619-1682)

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George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, KG (6 December 1608 – 3 January 1670) was an English soldier and politician, and a key figure in the Restoration of the monarchy to King Charles II in 1660

First day
In the early morning of 25 July, the Dutch fleet of 88 ships discovered the English fleet of 89 ships near North Foreland, sailing to the north. De Ruyter gave orders for a chase and the Dutch fleet pursued the English from the southeast in a leeward position, as the wind blew from the northwest. Suddenly, the wind turned to the northeast. The English commander, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, then turned sharply east to regain the weather gauge. De Ruyter followed, but the wind fell and the fleet fell behind. The Dutch van, commanded by Lieutenant-Admiral Johan Evertsen, was becalmed and drifted away from the line of battle, splitting De Ruyter's fleet in two. This awkward situation lasted for hours; then, again, a soft breeze began to blow from the northeast. Immediately, the English van, commanded by Thomas Allin, and part of the centre formed a line of battle and engaged the Dutch van, still in disarray and basically defenceless.

12 Trevor Morris - Michiel de Ruyter - St. James Day Battle


The outnumbered Dutch failed to form a coherent line of battle in response, and ship after ship was mauled by the combined firepower of the English line. Vice-Admiral Rudolf Coenders was killed, and Lieutenant-Admiral Tjerk Hiddes de Vries had an arm and a leg shot off. De Ruyter formed the Dutch centre and attempted to reach the van, but the wind was against him and he failed to reunite his forces.

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"Zee-Slag tussen de Engelse en Nederlandtse Vloot, op den 4. Aug. 1666"; Engraving showing the St. James Day Fight August 4th, 1666 between English and Dutch Ships

With the Dutch van defeated, the English converged to deliver the coup-de-grâce to De Ruyter's centre . George Monck, accompanying Rupert, predicted that De Ruyter would give two broadsides and run, but the latter put up a furious fight on the Dutch flagship De Zeven Provinciën. He withstood a combined attack by Sovereign of the Seas and Royal Charles and forced Rupert to leave the damaged Royal Charles for Royal James. The Dutch centre's resistance enabled the seaworthy remnants of the van to make an escape to the south.

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The Dutch ship Zeven Provincien (1665-1694) by Willem van de Velde

Lieutenant-Admiral Cornelis Tromp, commanding the Dutch rear, now brought his vessels to De Ruyter's rescue. Tromp ordered his vessels to the west crossing the line of the English rear under the command of Jeremiah Smith. The English rear was now cut off from the centre, and Tromp's squadron began a dogged attack that forced Smith's ships to flee to the west. The pursuit of the English rear lasted well into the night, with Tromp ultimately destroying HMS Resolution with a fireship. After Tromp thrice shot the entire crew from its rigging, Smith's flagship HMS Loyal London caught fire and had to be towed home. The vice commander of the English rear was Edward Spragge, who felt so humiliated by the course of events that he became a personal enemy of Tromp. He would later be killed pursuing Tromp in the Battle of Texel.

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The so called Morgan-drawing by Willem van de Velde the Younger of the Sovereign of the Seas (1637)

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Jeronymus van Diest (II) - Het opbrengen van het Engelse admiraalschip de 'Royal Charles'

Second day
On the morning of 26 July, Tromp broke off pursuit, well-pleased with his first real victory as a squadron commander. During the night, a ship had brought him the message that De Ruyter had likewise been victorious, so Tromp was in a euphoric mood. That abruptly changed upon the discovery of the drifting flagship of the dying Tjerk Hiddes de Vries. Suddenly he feared that his ship was now the only remnant of the Dutch fleet and that he was in mortal peril. Behind him, those ships of the English rear still operational had again turned to the east. In front, the other enemy squadrons surely awaited him. On the horizon, only English flags were to be seen. Manoeuvring wildly, Tromp, drinking a lot of gin to restore his nerve, dodged any attempt to trap him and brought his squadron safely home in the port of Flushing on the morning of 26 July. There, to great mutual relief, he discovered the rest of the Dutch fleet.

It took Tromp six hours to gather enough courage to face De Ruyter. It was obvious to him that he should never have allowed himself to get completely separated from the main force. Indeed De Ruyter, not being his usual charitable self, immediately blamed him for the defeat and ordered Tromp and his subcommanders Isaac Sweers and Willem van der Zaan from his sight, and told them to never again set foot on De Zeven Provinciën. The commander of the Dutch fleet still hadn't mentally recovered from the events of the previous day.

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St. James Day Fight August 4th, 1666 by Wenceslaus Hollar

On the morning of 5 August, after a short summer's night, De Ruyter discovered that his position had become hopeless. Lieutenant-Admiral Johan Evertsen had died after losing a leg, De Ruyter's force was now reduced to about forty ships, crowding together and most of these were inoperational, being survivors of the van. Some fifteen good ships had apparently deserted during the night. A strong gale from the east prevented an easy retreat to the continental coast, and to the west the British van and centre (about fifty ships) surrounded him in a half-circle, safely bombarding him from a leeward position.

De Ruyter was desperate. When his second-in-command of the centre, Lieutenant-Admiral Aert Jansse van Nes visited him for a council of war, he exclaimed: "With seven or eight against the mass!" He then sagged, mumbling: "What's wrong with us? I wish I were dead." His close personal friend Van Nes tried to cheer him up, joking: "Me too. But you never die when you want to!" No sooner had both men left the cabin than the table they had been sitting at was smashed by a cannonball.

The English, however, had their own problems. The strong gale prevented them from closing with the Dutch. They tried to use fire ships, but these, too, had trouble reaching the enemy. Only the sloop Fan-Fan, Rupert's personal pleasure yacht, rowed to the Dutch flagship De Zeven Provinciën to harass it with its two little guns, much to the hilarious laughter of the English crews.

When his ship had again warded off an attack by a fire ship (the Land of Promise) and Tromp still didn't show up, for De Ruyter tension became unbearable. He sought death, exposing himself deliberately on the deck. When he failed to be hit, he exclaimed: "Oh, God, how unfortunate I am! Amongst so many thousands of cannonballs, is there not one that would take me?" His son-in-law, Captain of the Marines Johann de Witte, heard him and said: "Father, what desperate words! If you merely want to die, let us then turn, sail in the midst of our enemies and fight ourselves to death!". This brave but foolish proposal brought the Admiral back to his senses, for he discovered that he wasn't so desperate and answered: "You don't know what you are talking about! If I did that, all would be lost. But if I can bring myself and these ships safely home, we'll finish the job later."

Then the wind, that had brought so much misfortune to the Dutch, saved them by turning to the west. They formed a line of battle and brought their fleet to safety through the Flemish shoals, Vice-Admiral Adriaen Banckert of the Zealandic fleet covering the retreat of all damaged ships with the operational vessels, the number of the latter slowly growing as it turned out that only very few ships had actually deserted in the night; most had merely drifted away, and now, one after the other, they rejoined the battle.

Aftermath
The battle was a clear English victory, but the separate clash of the two years was a victory for Tromp. Dutch casualties were enormous, estimated immediately after the battle of about 5,000 men, compared with 300 English killed; later, more precise information showed that only about 1,200 of them had been killed or seriously wounded. However, the Dutch lost only two ships: De Ruyter had been successful at saving almost the complete van, only Sneek and Tholen struck their flag, and they could quickly repair the damage. The twin disasters of the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London, however, combined with his financial mismanagement, left Charles II without the funds to continue the war. In fact, he had had only enough reserves for this one last battle. The Dutch soon recovered; within a month, they again took sea, but only a minor skirmish resulted. During this later fight, De Ruyter inhaled a burning fuse filament that burnt a fistula in his throat; he would recover just in time to inflict a severe blow on the English navy in the Raid on the Medway in 1667, when, at last, he could carry out the plan he was prevented from executing in 1666.

During the weeks that the Dutch fleet was in repair, Admiral Robert Holmes, aided by the Dutch traitor Laurens van Heemskerck, penetrated the Vlie estuary, burnt a fleet of 150 merchants (Holmes's Bonfire) and sacked the town of Ter Schelling (the present West-Terschelling) on the Frisian island of Terschelling. Fan-Fan was again present.

In the Republic, the defeat also had a far-reaching political effect. Tromp was the champion of the Orangist party; now that he was accused of severe negligence, the country split over this issue. To defend himself, Tromp let his brother-in-law, Johan Kievit, publish an account of his conduct. Shortly afterward, Kievit was discovered to have planned a coup, secretly negotiating a peace treaty with the English king. He fled to England and was condemned to death in absentia; Tromp's family was fined and he himself forbidden to serve in the fleet. In November 1669, a supporter of Tromp tried to stab De Ruyter in the entrance hall of his house. Only in 1672 would Tromp have his revenge, when Johan de Witt was murdered; some claim Tromp has had a hand. The new ruler, William III of Orange, succeeded, with great difficulty, in reconciling De Ruyter with Tromp in 1673.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James's_Day_Battle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiel_de_Ruyter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Rupert_of_the_Rhine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Monck,_1st_Duke_of_Albemarle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_ship_De_Zeven_Provinciën_(1665)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sovereign_of_the_Seas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_Charles_(1655)
 
25 July 1611 - launch of english ship Prince Royal - the first Three-decker

Prince Royal was a 55-gun royal ship of the English Royal Navy, built by Phineas Pett I at Woolwich and launched in 1610. The ship's fittings were carved by Sebastian Vicars, and painted and gilded by Robert Peake and Paul Isackson between Easter and Michaelmas 1611.

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The Prince Royal arriving at Flushing in 1613

She was the first ship of the line with three complete gun decks, although when first completed the upper deck carried no guns in the waist, and was stepped down aft because of the large amount of sheer (the manner in which the decks rose towards the stern and bow). In 1621 a refit saw the removal of this step-down, with all three gun decks now being continuous.

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Scale: 1:48. A full hull model of the 55-gun three-decker ‘Prince Royal’ (circa 1610), built plank on frame in the Navy Board style. The model is equipped, fully rigged with a highly decorated hull, nearly all of which is based on the fine contemporary painting of her by the Dutch artist Adam Willaerts (see BHC0266 and BHC0267). Designed and built by the well-known shipwright Phineas Pett, the ‘Prince Royal’ was floated out of the building dock at Woolwich on 25 September 1610, and had the distinction of being the first three-decker in the Royal Navy. It was common practice during the 17th century for major warships of this size to undergo several repairs during their careers and this ship in its last configuration had a gun deck measuring 160 feet in length and was capable of mounting up to 90 guns in total. It was not until her 40th year, under her Commonwealth name ‘Resolution’ that she saw action engaging successfully at the battles of Kentish Knock, North Foreland and Scheveningen, during the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–54). During the reign of Charles II, she survived the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665, but during the Four Day’s Battle, 1–4 June 1666, she ran aground and was captured and subsequently burnt by the Dutch.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/210068.html#uqgvh5Ab8dil6Qy3.99


From 1639 to 1641 she was rebuilt by Peter Pett at Woolwich as a 70-gun first-rate ship. During the time of the Commonwealth of England, she was named Resolution and fought in most battles of the First Anglo-Dutch War. By 1660 she was carrying 80 guns, and with the English Restoration of King Charles II she resumed the name Royal Prince. In 1663 she was rebuilt again at Woolwich Dockyard by Sir Phineas Pett II as a 92-gun first-rate ship of the line.

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The surrender of Prince Royal at the Four Days Battle, 3 June 1666, by Willem van de Velde the Younger

In 1665, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, she served as the flagship of Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich at the Battle of Lowestoft on 3 June. A year later in 1666, she was Vice-Admiral George Ayscue's flagship in the Four Days Battle, on the third day of which (3 June by the Julian calendar then used in England) she ran aground on the Galloper Sand. When Dutch fireships surrounded the stranded ship, the crew panicked and Ayscue was forced to surrender to Lieutenant-Admiral Cornelis Tromp who was aboard the Gouda. The Dutch managed to free the ship from the shoal, but found her steering to be irreparably damaged. In accordance with standing orders issued by the States-General of the Netherlands, Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter ordered the Prince Royal to be burned, to prevent her recapture.


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This is one of a series of paintings produced to record the marriage of Frederick, Elector Palatine, to Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I and Anne of Denmark, in 1613. After elaborate celebrations, the couple and their retinue processed to the coast at Margate, via Greenwich, Rochester and Canterbury. There they boarded the 'Prince Royal' and eventually set sail for the Continent on 25 April 1613.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/11758.html#0hKX9sg2jCU5X3Qy.99


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_ship_Prince_Royal_(1610)
 
25 July 1609 - The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there

Sea Venture was a seventeenth-century English sailing ship, part of the Third Supply mission to the Jamestown Colony, that was wrecked in Bermuda in 1609. She was the 300 ton purpose-built flagship of the London Company and a highly unusual vessel for her day, given that she was the first single timbered, merchantman built in England, and also the first dedicated emigration ship. Sea Venture's wreck is widely thought to have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's play The Tempes

Construction
The Virginia Company built Sea Venture, probably in Aldeburgh, as England's first purpose-designed emigrant ship and in response to the inadequacy of its vessels. She measured "300 tunnes", cost £1,500, and differed from her contemporaries primarily in her internal arrangements. Her guns were placed on her main deck, rather than below decks as was then the norm. This meant that the ship did not need double-timbering, and she may have been the first single-timbered, armed merchant ship built in England[citation needed]. The hold was sheathed and furnished for passengers. She was armed with eight 9-pounder (4.1 kg) demi-culverins, eight 5-pounder (2.3 kg) sakers, four 3-pounder (1.4 kg) falcons, and four arquebuses. The ship was launched in 1609, and her uncompleted journey to Jamestown appears to have been her maiden voyage.

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Loss
On 2 June 1609, Sea Venture set sail from Plymouth as the flagship of a seven-ship fleet (towing two additional pinnaces) destined for Jamestown, Virginia as part of the Third Supply, carrying 500 to 600 people (it is unclear whether that number includes crew, or only settlers). On 24 July, the fleet ran into a strong storm, likely a hurricane, and the ships were separated. A pinnace, Catch, went down with all aboard lost. Sea Venture however, fought the storm for three days. Comparably sized ships had survived such weather, but Sea Venture had a critical flaw in her newness: her timbers had not set. The caulking was forced from between them, and the ship began to leak rapidly. All hands were applied to bailing, but water continued to rise in the hold.

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The ship's starboard-side guns were reportedly jettisoned to raise her buoyancy, but this only delayed the inevitable. The Admiral of the Company himself, Sir George Somers, was at the helm through the storm. When he spied land on the morning of 25 July, the water in the hold had risen to 9 feet (2.7 m), and crew and passengers had been driven past the point of exhaustion. Somers deliberately had the ship driven onto the reefs of Discovery Bay, in what later proved to be eastern Bermuda, in order to prevent its foundering. This allowed all 150 people aboard, and one dog, to be landed safely ashore.[4] The survivors, including several company officials (Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Gates, the ship's captain Christopher Newport, Sylvester Jordain, Stephen Hopkins, later of Mayflower, and secretary William Strachey), were stranded on Bermuda for approximately nine months.

Deliverance and Patience

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Sylvester Jordain's A Discovery of the Barmudas, 1610

During the time on Bermuda, the survivors constructed two new ships, the pinnaces Deliverance and Patience, from local Bermuda cedar, which was a wood especially prized by regional ship builders because it was as strong as oak, yet lighter. This misnamed juniper species could be worked with immediately after felling, and it has high resistance to rot and wood worms. Materials salvaged from the beached wreck were also used, especially her rigging.[5] They were constructed between late fall 1609 and early spring 1610 under the guidance of Admiral Somers and James Davis, Captain of the "Gift of God" who possessed considerable ship building knowledge. These ships represented the second and third pinnaces built in the English colonies in the Americas, the first being the 1607–08 construction of Virginia at the Popham Colony in New England.

The original plan was to build only one vessel, Deliverance, but it soon became evident that she would not be large enough to carry the settlers and all of the food that was being sourced on the islands. While the new ships were being built, Sea Venture's longboat was fitted with a mast and sent under the command of Henry Ravens to find Virginia, but the boat and its crew were never seen again.[6] Finally, under the command of Newport, the two ships with 142 survivors set sail for Virginia on 11 May 1610, and arrived at the Jamestown settlement on the 23rd, a journey of less than two weeks. Two men, Carter and Waters, were left behind; they had been convicted of unknown offences, and fled into the woods of Bermuda to escape punishment and execution.

On reaching Jamestown, only 60 survivors were found of the 500 or so who had preceded them. Many of these were themselves dying, and Jamestown was quickly judged to be nonviable. Everyone then boarded Virginia, Deliverance, and Patience, which set sail for England. The timely arrival of another relief fleet, bearing Governor Baron De La Warre, granted Jamestown a reprieve. All the settlers were relanded at the colony, but there was still a critical shortage of food. In the fall of 1610, Admiral Somers returned to Bermuda in Patience to obtain wild pigs and food that had been stockpiled there. Unfortunately, Somers died in Bermuda from a "surfeit of pork" and the pinnace, captained by his nephew Mathew Somers, returned directly to Lyme Regis in Dorset, England with the body in order to claim his inheritance

Wreck

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Captain John Smith's 1624 map of the Somers Isles (Bermuda), showing St. George's Town and related fortifications, including the Castle Islands Fortifications.

Sea Venture sat atop the reefs off Gate's Bay long enough to be stripped of all useful parts and materials, not only by her crew and passengers, but by subsequent settlers; what was left of her eventually disappeared beneath the waves. Two of her guns were salvaged in 1612 and used in the initial fortification of Bermuda (one was placed on Governor's Island, opposite Paget's Fort, the other on Castle Island).[10] After the wreck's submergence, her precise location was unknown until rediscovered by sport divers Downing and Heird in October 1958, still wedged into a coral reef. There was little left of the ship or its cargo. Despite the lack of artifacts to be found, she was positively identified in 1959, in time for the 350th anniversary of the wrecking. Subsequent research uncovered one gun and cannonball, along with shot for small arms. There were also some Spanish jars, stoneware from Germany and ceramics and cooking pots much like what had been found excavating Jamestown.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Venture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tempest
http://www.bermuda-online.org/sirgeorgesomers.htm
 
25 July 1894 - The First Sino-Japanese War started (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895)

was fought between Qing dynasty of China and Empire of Japan, primarily for influence over Joseon. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the port of Weihaiwei, the Qing government sued for peace in February 1895.

The war demonstrated the failure of the Qing Empire's attempts to modernize its military and fend off threats to its sovereignty, especially when compared with Japan's successful Meiji Restoration. For the first time, regional dominance in East Asia shifted from China to Japan; the prestige of the Qing Empire, along with the classical tradition in China, suffered a major blow. The humiliating loss of Korea as a tributary statesparked an unprecedented public outcry. Within China, the defeat was a catalyst for a series of political upheavals led by Sun Yat-sen and Kang Youwei, culminating in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution.

The war is commonly known in China as the War of Jiawu (Chinese: 甲午戰爭; pinyin: Jiǎwǔ Zhànzhēng), referring to the year (1894) as named under the traditional sexagenary system of years. In Japan, it is called the Japan–Qing War (Japanese: 日清戦争 Hepburn: Nisshin sensō). In Korea, where much of the war took place, it is called the Qing–Japan War (Korean: 청일전쟁; Hanja: 淸日戰爭).

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First Sino-Japanese War, major battles and troop movements

The Battle of Pungdo or Feng-tao (Japanese: Hoto-oki kaisen (豊島沖海戦)) was the first naval battle of the First Sino-Japanese War. It took place on 25 July 1894 of Asan, Chungcheongnam-do, Korea, between cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy and components of the Chinese Beiyang Fleet. Both China and Japan had been intervening in Korea against the Donghak Peasant Revolution. While China tried to maintain her suzerain relationship with Korea, Japan wanted to increase her sphere of influence. Both countries had already sent troops to Korea as requested by different factions within the Korean government. Chinese troops from the Huai Army, were stationed in Asan, south of Seoul, numbering 3,000 men in early July, could be effectively supplied only by sea through the Bay of Asan. This presented a situation very similar to the British position at the beginning of the Yorktown campaign during the American Revolution. The Japanese plan was to blockade the entrance of the Bay of Asan, while her land forces moved overland to encircle the Chinese detachment in Asan before reinforcements arrived by sea.


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The French-built Matsushima, flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Sino-Japanese conflict.

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Dingyuan, the flagship of the Beiyang Fleet


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sino-Japanese_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pungdo
 
25 July 1956 - Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, killing 51.

SS Andrea Doria, pronounced [anˈdrɛːa ˈdɔːrja], was an ocean liner for the Italian Line (Società di navigazione Italia) home ported in Genoa, Italy, most famous for her sinking in 1956, when 46 people were killed.

Named after the 16th-century Genoese admiral Andrea Doria, the ship had a gross register tonnage of 29,100 and a capacity of about 1,200 passengers and 500 crew. For a country attempting to rebuild its economy and reputation after World War II, Andrea Doria was an icon of Italian national pride. Of all Italy's ships at the time, Andrea Doria was the largest, fastest, and supposedly safest. Launched on 16 June 1951, the ship undertook its maiden voyage on 14 January 1953.

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On 25 July 1956, while Andrea Doria was approaching the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, bound for New York City, the eastbound MS Stockholm of the Swedish American Line collided with it in one of history's most infamous maritime disasters. Struck in the side, the top-heavy Andrea Doria immediately started to list severely to starboard, which left half of its lifeboats unusable. The consequent shortage of lifeboats could have resulted in significant loss of life, but the efficiency of the ship's technical design allowed it to stay afloat for over 11 hours after the ramming. The good behavior of the crew, improvements in communications, and the rapid response of other ships averted a disaster similar in scale to that of Titanic in 1912. While 1,660 passengers and crew were rescued and survived, 46 people died with the ship as a consequence of the collision. The evacuated luxury liner capsized and sank the following morning. This accident remains the worst maritime disaster to occur in United States waters since the sinking of the SS Eastland in 1915.

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The incident and its aftermath were heavily covered by the news media. While the rescue efforts were both successful and commendable, the cause of the collision with Stockholm and the loss of Andrea Doriagenerated much interest in the media and many lawsuits. Largely because of an out-of-court settlement agreement between the two shipping companies during hearings immediately after the disaster, no determination of the cause(s) was ever formally published. Although greater blame appeared initially to fall on the Italian liner, more recent discoveries have indicated that a misreading of radar on the Swedish ship initiated the collision course, leading to errors on both ships.

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The Stockholm after the collision


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