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

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
3 May 1915 – Launch of HSwMS Sverige, the first Swedish Sverige-class coastal defence ship (Pansarskepp) commissioned during the last year of World War I and serving into the 1950s.


HSwMS Sverige was the first Swedish Sverige-class coastal defence ship (Pansarskepp) commissioned during the last year of World War I and serving into the 1950s. Her cost was approximately 12 million kronor in 1912, and the entire sum was raised in public in a nationwide fundraising campaign that gained over 15 million (approximately 650 MKr, in 2005 Kr). The fundraising was done because of the Karl Staaff government's reluctance to spend money on a new battleship.



Background
Sweden was not immune from the naval arms race in the early 20th century. After the dissolving of the union with Norway in 1905, the situation was tense with the Russian Empire in the east, Germany south of the Baltic Sea, and Norway, traditionally an Anglophile country. In 1911, battle-ready units from the Royal Navy and the German Imperial navy cruised around in the North Sea. War was close. As the latest Swedish coastal battleship Oscar II was a typical pre-dreadnought ship (2× 8 in (203 mm) guns, 17.8 knots (33.0 km/h; 20.5 mph)), the need for a new class of ships was pressing. Seaworthiness, armament, armour and speed, all had to be improved according to the multiple new technologies that had arrived. In 1911, the parliament voted (with a small majority) funds for the building of the new vessel, known as the F-boat, after the alternative that was chosen from various options (A, B, C, D, D1, D2, E, E1, E2 and F, varying in size from 4,800 to 7,500 metric tons and with armaments and speed in various arrangements accordingly). When Karl Staaff became prime minister in the Autumn of 1911, the funding was postponed. This caused the "Pansarbåtinsamlingen", a fundraising aiming at the 12 million Kronor the ship was estimated to cost. With the backing of King Gustav V in a little over 3 months 15 million was raised to build the ship. This caused a political crisis, and the fall of the government. The new government accepted the money and let the contract for the ship, which was named Sverige for the people who had paid for it.

After the outbreak of World War I two more ships were ordered which had a slightly changed appearance, the two bearing the names of the King and Queen of Sweden.

Note that while the ship is listed as a battleship in Jane's Fighting Ships, 1938 edition, technically it is a coastal defence ship, a class which was commonly used in Nordic countries. The navies of Finland, Norway, and Denmark made use of similar ships. However, the Swedish Navy used the Sverige-class armored warships as the core of battle groups in the same manner as other navies used battleships.


Sverige after 1931


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

Sverige-class coastal defence ship - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
3 May 1927 – Launch of French Suffren, a heavy cruiser of the French Navy, the name ship of the four-ship Suffren class.


Suffren was a heavy cruiser of the French Navy, the name ship of the four-ship Suffren class. Launched in 1927, she was named for the 18th-century French admiral Pierre André de Suffren de Saint Tropez, becoming the sixth vessel to bear the name Suffren.


Suffren on 15 October 1931

Service history
Onset of war
In early June 1940, at the outset of World War II, the cruisers Suffren, Duquesne, Tourville and Duguay-Trouin, along with three destroyers, operated against the Italian-occupied Dodecanese Islands. Later in that same month, Suffren participated in a joint operation with the Royal Navy - the last such operation before the French surrender to Nazi Germany on 22 June 1940.

Surrender
At the time of the French surrender, Suffren was stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, with other French warships. In contrast to the violent confrontation that took place at the same time at Mers-el-Kébir, Algeria, Suffrensurrendered peacefully after the British admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham and the French admiral René-Émile Godfroy reached an agreement. The ship was disarmed and interned by the British on 3 July 1940.

Allied career
Suffren rejoined the Allied cause and was rearmed on 30 May 1943. On 17 July 1943, Suffren rescued survivors of the vessel City of Canton, which was torpedoed off Beira, Mozambique.

Postwar service
Suffren reentered service with the French Navy after World War II. She was wrongly alleged to have participated in the shelling of the Vietnamese port of Haiphong on 23 November 1946, an event that caused over six thousand casualties and contributed to the start of the First Indochina War; three avisos were the actual perpetrators.

On 1 October 1947, after almost twenty years of service, Suffren was decommissioned, and was used as a hulk in Toulon. She was renamed Océan in 1963, and was ultimately broken up in 1974.



The Suffren class was a class of four heavy cruisers built for the French Navy in the late 1920s and early 1930s.



Ships
The four ships of the class were:

• Colbert, scuttled at Toulon during the scuttling of 27 November 1942.
• Dupleix, scuttled at Toulon on 27 November 1942 to prevent her capture by the Germans and raised by the Italians on 3 July 1943. Sunk again during an Allied air raid in 1944.
• Foch, scuttled at Toulon on 27 November 1942.
• Suffren, disarmed and interned in Egypt by the British on 22 June 1940. Rejoined the Allies and rearmed on 30 May 1943. Decommissioned on 1 October 1947. Scrapped in 1974.

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

Suffren-class cruiser - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
3 May 1933 – Launch of Gorch Fock I (ex Tovarishch, ex Gorch Fock), a German three-mast barque, the first of a series built as school ships for the German Reichsmarine in 1933


Gorch Fock I (ex Tovarishch, ex Gorch Fock) is a German three-mast barque, the first of a series built as school ships for the German Reichsmarine in 1933. She was taken as war reparations by the Soviet Unionafter World War II and renamed Tovarishch. The ship was acquired by sponsors, after a short period under the Ukrainian flag in the 1990s and a prolonged stay in British ports due to lack of funds for necessary repairs, and she sailed to her original home port of Stralsund where her original name of Gorch Fock was restored on 29 November 2003. She is a museum ship, and extensive repairs were carried out in 2008.


Gorch Fock in Stralsund, 2013

The Federal German government built a replacement training ship Gorch Fock (1958) which is still in service.

History and details
The German school ship Niobe, a three-masted barque, capsized on 26 July 1932 in the Baltic Sea near Fehmarn due to a sudden squall, killing 69. The loss prompted the German Navy to order a new training vessel built. The contract went to the shipyard of Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, where construction began on 2 December 1932. She was completed in only 100 days. On 3 May 1933 the ship was launched and named Gorch Fock in honor of German writer Johann Kinau who wrote under the pseudonym "Gorch Fock". Kinau had died in the 1916 Battle of Jutland aboard the cruiser SMS Wiesbaden.

Commissioned by the German Navy on 26 June 1933, Gorch Fock is a three-masted barque. She has square sails on the fore and main masts, and is gaff rigged on the mizzen. The steel hull has a sparred length of 82.1 m (269 ft), a width of 12 m (39 ft) and a draught of 5.2 m (17 ft). She has a displacement at full load of 1510 tons. Her main mast stands 41.30 m (135 ft) high above deck and she carries 23 sails totalling 1,753 m2(18,869 sq ft). She is equipped with an auxiliary engine of 410 kW (550 hp).

The training ship was designed to be robust and safe against capsizing. More than 300 tons of steel ballast in the keel give her a righting moment large enough to bring her back in the upright position even when she heels over to nearly a 90°.



Gorch Fock served as a training vessel for the German Reichsmarine prior to World War II.[1] During the war, she was a stationary office ship in Stralsund, until she was officially reactivated on 19 April 1944. On 1 May 1945, the crew scuttled her in shallow waters off Rügen in an attempt to avoid her capture by the Soviets, who already had fired at her for 45 minutes with tanks.

The Soviets ordered Stralsund-based company "B. Staude Schiffsbergung" to raise and salvage her, which after some difficulties was done in 1947 at a cost of 800,000 Reichsmark (equivalent to 2 million 2009 euros). She was under restoration between 1948 and 1950. She was then named Tovarishch (Russian for "Comrade"[2]) in 1951 and put into service as a training vessel. Her new home port was Odessa. She participated in many Tall Ships' Races and cruised far and wide on the seven seas. She made a voyage around the world in 1957 and won the Operation Sail race twice, in 1974 and 1976.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tovarishch sailed under the Ukrainian flag (home port Kherson) until 1993, when she needed repairs and was deactivated for lack of funds. In 1995, she sailed from Kherson to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where private sponsors wanted to have her repaired. This failed because of the high costs, and in 1999, the ship was transported to Wilhelmshaven, where she stayed in dock for four years until finally transferred to Stralsund in 2003. On 29 November 2003 the ship was re-christened Gorch Fock.

As of 2011 the ship is in poor but stable condition. There is about six million dollars worth of restoration work required to bring this ship back to sailing condition. The museum had a dismal tourist season resulting in a fifty thousand dollar loss in revenue from previous years. This has forced a layoff of five workers.



Sister ships
The design of Gorch Fock proved highly successful. She was the first of a series of five sister ships built by Blohm & Voss, and a number of South American school ships are also based on the same design. Of the three original sister ships, only Mircea is an exact replica of Gorch Fock. Horst Wessel and Albert Leo Schlageter are 7 metres (23 ft) longer, and all three have slightly more powerful auxiliary engines.

USCGC Eagle (ex Horst Wessel)
Horst Wessel was launched in 1936—the growing Reichsmarine needed more school ships. Her home port was Kiel. At the end of World War II, she became one of several war reparations and was assigned to the United StatesAfter some repairs in Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven, she was sailed by her German crew including the Captain together with American sailors to her new home port of New London, Connecticut. Since then, she has sailed under the name Eagle for the United States Coast Guard.


Niobe, 1930

Sagres (ex Albert Leo Schlageter)

Sagres at OpSail 2000 in New London, Connecticut where her sister ship Eagle is home-ported.
Albert Leo Schlageter was launched on 30 October 1937. She was confiscated by the United States after World War II and then sold to Brazil, where she sailed as a school ship under the name Guanabara. In 1961, the Portuguese Navy bought her to replace the previous school ship Sagres (which was later transferred to Hamburg, where she is a museum ship under her original name Rickmer Rickmers). The Portuguese named her Sagres also. She still sails as of 2015, having completed a circumnavigation on 24 December 2010.

Mircea

Mircea at SAIL Amsterdam 2005

Mircea was built by Blohm & Voss for the Romanian Navy. She was launched in 1938 and has always sailed under the Romanian flag (except for a short period after World War II, when she was confiscated by the Soviet Union). She is the only one of the sister ships that is truly identical to Gorch Fock. She was overhauled at the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg in 1966, and she still sails today.

Herbert Norkus
Named after the Hitler Youth martyr Herbert Norkus, another ship of the Gorch Fock design—with the same dimensions as Horst Wessel—was begun at the Blohm & Voss shipyard. However, the unfinished ship had to be launched prematurely on 7 November 1939 because the slipway had to be cleared to build submarines. The hull stayed in the harbor of Hamburg throughout World War II. It was damaged in a bomb raid in 1945, and instead of being sold to Brazil as had been considered, ended up being filled with gas grenades and sunk in the Skagerrak in 1947.

The yards, which had been prepared, but not yet mounted, and the tackle, which had not yet been rigged, were later used for Gorch Fock built in 1958.

Gorch Fock

Gorch Fock of 1958

As Germany had lost all of its training vessels as war reparations after World War II, the West German Bundesmarine decided in 1957 to have a new training ship built following the plans for Gorch Fock. The new ship was a modernized rebuild of Horst Wessel. Coincidentally, her design had been influenced by another shipwreck: whereas the 1933 Gorch Fock was built in response to the Niobe disaster, the plans of SSS Gorch Fock were altered somewhat after the sinking of Pamir in 1957.

The modern-day Gorch Fock was launched on 23 August 1958 and commissioned on 17 December of that year.

Latin American ships
A number of similar ships have been built by the Astilleros Celaya S.A. shipyard in Bilbao for Latin American Navies, possibly following the Blohm & Voss design[citation needed]. The hulls and rigging of these ships are very similar, the main differences are in the superstructure and they also have larger tanks for both diesel and water, and they are also longer[citation needed]. These ships are Gloria (1967, Colombia), Guayas (1976, Ecuador), Simón Bolívar (1979, Venezuela), and Cuauhtémoc (1982, Mexico).



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorch_Fock_(1933)
http://gorchfock1.de/

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
3 May 1939 – Launch of HMS Prince of Wales, a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy, built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead


HMS Prince of Wales was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy, built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, England. She was involved in several key actions of the Second World War, including the May 1941 Battle of the Denmark Strait against the German battleship Bismarck, operations escorting convoys in the Mediterranean, and her final action and sinking in the Pacific in December 1941.

Prince of Wales had an extensive battle history, first seeing action in August 1940 while still being outfitted in her drydock, being attacked and damaged by German aircraft. Her brief but storied career ended 10 December 1941, when Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse became the first capital ships to be sunk solely by air power on the open sea, a harbinger of the diminishing role this class of ships was subsequently to play in naval warfare. The wreck lies upside down in 223 feet (68 m) of water, near Kuantan, in the South China Sea.



Construction
In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race developing between Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. This treaty limited the number of ships each nation was allowed to build and capped the tonnage of all capital ships at 35,000 tons.[3] These restrictions were extended in 1930 through the Treaty of London, however, by the mid-1930s Japan and Italy had withdrawn from both of these treaties, and the British became concerned about a lack of modern battleships within their navy. As a result, the Admiralty ordered the construction of a new battleship class: the King George V class. Due to the provisions of both the Washington Naval Treaty and the Treaty of London, both of which were still in effect when the King George Vs were being designed, the main armament of the class was limited to the 14-inch (356 mm) guns prescribed under these instruments. They were the only battleships built at that time to adhere to the treaty, and even though it soon became apparent to the British that the other signatories to the treaty were ignoring its requirements, it was too late to change the design of the class before they were laid down in 1937.

Prince of Wales was originally named King Edward VIII but upon the abdication of Edward VIII the ship was renamed even before she had been laid down. This occurred at Cammell Laird's shipyard in Birkenhead on 1 January 1937, although it was not until 3 May 1939 that she was launched. She was still fitting out when war was declared in September, causing her construction schedule, and that of her sister, King George V, to be accelerated. Nevertheless, the late delivery of gun mountings caused delays in her outfitting.

During early August 1940, while she was still being outfitted and was in a semi-complete state, Prince of Wales was attacked by German aircraft. One bomb fell between the ship and a wet basin wall, narrowly missing a 100-ton dockside crane, and exploded underwater below the bilge keel. The explosion took place about six feet from the ship's port side in the vicinity of the after group of 5.25-inch guns. Buckling of the shell platingtook place over a distance of 20 to 30 feet (9.1 m), rivets were sprung and considerable flooding took place in the port outboard compartments in the area of damage, causing a ten-degree port list. The flooding was severe, due to the fact that final compartment air tests had not yet been made and the ship did not have her pumping system in operation.

The water was pumped out through the joint efforts of a local fire company and the shipyard, and Prince of Wales was later dry docked for permanent repairs. This damage and the problem with the delivery of her main guns and turrets delayed her completion. As the war progressed there was an urgent need for capital ships, and so her completion was advanced by postponing compartment air tests, ventilation tests and a thorough testing of her bilge, ballast and fuel-oil systems


Winston Churchill restrains Blackie, the ship's cat of HMS Prince of Wales, from boarding USS McDougal during a 1941 ceremonial visit

Description
Main article: King George V-class battleship (1939)
Prince of Wales displaced 36,727 long tons (37,300 t) as built and 43,786 long tons (44,500 t) fully loaded. The ship had an overall length of 745 feet (227.1 m), a beam of 103 feet (31.4 m) and a draught of 29 feet (8.8 m). Her designed metacentric height was 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) at normal load and 8 feet 1 inch (2.46 m) at deep load.

She was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts. Steam was provided by eight Admiralty boilers which normally delivered 100,000 shaft horsepower (75,000 kW), but could deliver 110,000 shp (82,000 kW) at emergency overload. This gave Prince of Wales a top speed of 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph). The ship carried 3,542 long tons (3,600 t) of fuel oil. She also carried 180 long tons (200 t) of diesel oil, 256 long tons (300 t) of reserve feed water and 444 long tons (500 t) of freshwater. During full power trials on 31 March 1941, Prince of Wales at 42,100 tons displacement achieved 28 knots with 111,600 shp at 228 rpm and a specific fuel consumption of 0.73 lb per shp. Prince of Wales had a range of 3,100 nautical miles (5,700 km; 3,600 mi) at 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph).

Armament
Prince of Wales mounted 10 BL 14-inch (356 mm) Mk VII guns. The 14-inch guns were mounted in one Mark II twin turret forward and two Mark III quadruple turrets, one forward and one aft. The guns could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees. Training arcs were: turret "A", 286 degrees; turret "B", 270 degrees; turret "X", 270 degrees. Training and elevating was done by hydraulic drives, with rates of two and eight degrees per second, respectively. A full gun broadside weighed 15,950 pounds (7,230 kg), and a salvo could be fired every 40 seconds. The secondary armament consisted of 16 QF 5.25-inch (133 mm) Mk I gunswhich were mounted in eight twin mounts, weighing 81 tons each. The maximum range of the Mk I guns was 24,070 yards (22,009.6 m) at a 45-degree elevation, the anti-aircraft ceiling was 49,000 feet (14,935.2 m). The guns could be elevated to 70 degrees and depressed to 5 degrees. The normal rate of fire was ten to twelve rounds per minute, but in practice the guns could only fire seven to eight rounds per minute. Along with her main and secondary batteries, Prince of Wales carried 32 QF 2 pdr (1.575-inch, 40.0 mm) Mk.VIII "pom-pom" anti-aircraft guns. She also carried 80 UP projectors, which were short range rocket firing anti-aircraft weapons used extensively in the early days of the Second World War by the Royal Navy.











https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Prince_of_Wales_(53)

King George V-class battleship (1939) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/colle...4;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=K;start=0

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
3 May 1945 – World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay, with great loss of life of 8.500 people who died



Cap Arcona, named after Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen, was a large German ocean liner and the flagship of the Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft ("Hamburg-South America Line"). She took her maiden voyage on 29 October 1927, carrying passengers and cargo between Germany and the east coast of South America, and in her time was the largest and quickest ship on the route.



In 1940 the Kriegsmarine requisitioned her as an accommodation ship. In 1942 she served as the set for the German propaganda feature film Titanic. In 1945 she evacuated almost 26,000 German soldiers and civilians from East Prussia before the advance of the Red Army.

Cap Arcona's final use was as a prison ship. In May 1945 she was heavily laden with prisoners from Nazi concentration camps when the Royal Air Force sank her, killing about 5,000 people; with more than 2,000 further casualties in the sinkings of the accompanying vessels of the prison fleet; Deutschland and Thielbek. This was one of the biggest single-incident maritime losses of life in the Second World War, the largest being the wartime sinking of the German evacuation liner Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945 in World War II by a Soviet Navy submarine, with an estimated loss of about 9,400 people

Evacuation of East Prussia
On 31 January 1945, the Kriegsmarine reactivated her for Operation Hannibal, where she was used to transport 25,795 German soldiers and civilians from East Prussia to safer areas in western Germany. By now these trips were made very dangerous by mines and Soviet Navy submarines. On 30 January Wilhelm Gustloff, carrying a total of 10,582 passengers and crew, was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine S-13 and sank in 40 minutes. An estimated 9,400 people died. Early on the morning of 11 February, the same submarine torpedoed the 14,666 GRT General von Steuben on its way to Copenhagen with wounded and bed-ridden soldiers and civilian passengers, killing over 4,000 people. On 20 February, Cap Arcona's captain, Johannes Gertz, shot himself in his cabin while berthed in Copenhagen rather than face another trip back to Gotenhafen.

On 30 March 1945, Cap Arcona finished her third and last trip between Gdynia and Copenhagen, carrying 9,000 soldiers and refugees. However, her turbines were completely worn out. They could only be partially repaired and her days of long-distance travel were over. She was decommissioned, returned to her owners Hamburg-Süd and ordered out of Copenhagen Harbour to Neustadt Bay.

Prison ship
During March and April 1945, concentration camp prisoners from Scandinavian countries had been transported from all over the Reich to the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, in the White Bus programme co-ordinated through the Swedish Red Cross - with prisoners of other nationalities displaced to make room for them. Eventually Himmler agreed that these Scandinavians, and selected others regarded as less harmful to Germany, could be transported through Denmark to freedom in Sweden. Then between 16 and 28 April 1945, Neuengamme was systematically emptied of all its remaining prisoners, together other groups of concentration camp inmates and Soviet POWs; with the intention that they would be relocated to a secret new camp, either on the Baltic island of Fehmarn; or at Mysen in Norway where preparations were put in hand to house them under the control of concentration camp guards evacuated from Sachsenhausen. In the interim, they were to be concealed from the advancing British and Canadian forces; and for this purpose the SS assembled a prison flotilla of decommissioned ships in the Bay of Lübeck, consisting of the liners Cap Arcona and Deutschland, the freighter Thielbek, and the motor launch Athen [de]. Since the steering motors were out of use in Thielbek and the turbines were out of use in Cap Arcona, Athen was used to transfer prisoners from Lübeck to the larger ships and between ships; they were locked below decks and in the holds, and denied food and medical attention


Scale model of Cap Arcona

On 30 April 1945 the two Swedish ships Magdalena and Lillie Matthiessen, previously employed as support vessels for the White Bus evacuations, made a final rescue trip to Lübeck and back. Amongst the prisoners rescued were some transferred from the prison flotilla. On the evening of 2 May 1945 more prisoners, mainly women and children from the Stutthof and Mittelbau-Dora camps were loaded onto barges and brought out to the anchored vessels; although, as the Cap Arcona refused to accept any more prisoners, over eight hundred were returned to the beach at Neustadt in the morning of 3 May, where around five hundred were killed in their barges by machine-gunning, or beaten to death on the beach, their SS guards then seeking to make their escape unencumbered.

The order to transfer the prisoners to the prison ships had come from Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann in Hamburg. Marc Buggeln has challenged Kaufmann's subsequent claim that he had been acting on orders from SS Headquarters in Berlin, arguing that the decision in fact resulted from political and business pressures from leading industrialists in Hamburg, who were already at this stage plotting with Kaufmann to hand the city over to British forces undefended and unharmed, and who consequently wished to whitewash away (literally so in the case of the Neuengamme concentration camp) all evidence for the prisoners' former presence within the city and its industries.

By early May however, any relocation plans had been scotched by the rapid British military advance to the Baltic; so the SS leadership, which had moved to Flensburg on 28 April, discussed scuttling the ships with the prisoners still aboard. Later, at a war crimes tribunal, Kaufmann claimed that the prisoners were intended to be sent to Sweden although, as none of the ships carried Red Cross hospital markings, nor were they seaworthy, this was scarcely credible. Georg-Henning Graf von Bassewitz-Behr, Hamburg's last Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF), testified at the same trial that the prisoners were in fact to be killed "in compliance with Himmler's orders". Kurt Rickert, who had worked for Bassewitz-Behr, testified at the Hamburg War Crimes Trial that he believed the ships were to be sunk by U-boats or Luftwaffe aircraft. Eva Neurath, who was present in Neustadt, and whose husband survived the disaster, said she was told by a police officer that the ships held convicts and were going to be blown up.

On 2 May 1945, the British Second Army discovered the empty camp at Neuengamme, and reached the towns of Lübeck and Wismar. No. 6 Commando, 1st Special Service Brigade commanded by Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts, and 11th Armoured Division, commanded by Major-General George P. B. Roberts, entered Lübeck without resistance. Lübeck contained a permanent Red Cross office in its function as a Red Cross port, and Mr. De Blonay of the International Committee of the Red Cross informed Major-General Roberts that 7,000–8,000 prisoners were aboard ships in the Bay of Lübeck. In the afternoon of 3 May 1945, the British 5th reconnaissance regiment advanced northwards to Neustadt, witnessing the ships burning in the bay and rescuing some severely emaciated prisoners on the beach at Neustadt, but otherwise finding mostly the bodies of women and children massacred that morning.


Loading 60lb RP-3 rockets onto a Typhoon


Bay of Lübeck, 3 kilometres (2 mi) from Neustadt in Holstein (left at the top): position of the sinking of Cap Arcona.


Bay of Lübeck : positions of Cap Arcona, Thielbek, and Deutschland.


Cap Arcona burning shortly after the attacks

Sinking
On 3 May 1945, three days after Hitler's suicide and only one day before the unconditional surrender of the German troops in northwestern Germany at Lüneburg Heath to Field Marshal Montgomery, Cap Arcona, Thielbek, and the passenger liner Deutschland were attacked as part of general strikes on shipping in the Baltic Sea by Royal Air Force (RAF) Hawker Typhoons of 83 Group of the 2nd Tactical Air Force. Through Ultra Intelligence, the Western Allies had become aware that most of the SS leadership and former concentration camp commandants had gathered with Heinrich Himmler in Flensburg, hoping to contrive an escape to Norway. The western allies had intercepted orders from the rump Dönitz government, also at Flensburg, that the SS leadership were to be facilitated in escaping Allied capture - or otherwise issued with false naval uniforms to conceal their identities - as Dönitz sought, while surrendering, to maintain the fiction that his administration had been free from involvement in the camps, or in Hitler's policies of genocide.

The aircraft were from No. 184 Squadron, No. 193 Squadron, No. 263 Squadron, No. 197 Squadron RAF, and No. 198 Squadron. Besides four 20 mm cannon, these Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B fighter-bombers carried either eight HE High Explosive "60 lb" RP-3 unguided rockets or two 500 lb (230 kg) bombs.

None of the prison flotilla were Red Cross marked (although the Deutschland had previously been intended as a hospital ship, and retained one white painted funnel with a red cross), and all prisoners were concealed below deck, so the pilots in the attacking force were unaware that they were laden with concentration camp survivors. Although Swedish and Swiss Red Cross officials had informed British intelligence on 2 May 1945 of the presence of large numbers of prisoners on ships at anchor in Lübeck Bay, this vital information failed to be passed on. The RAF commanders ordering the strike believed that a flotilla of ships was being prepared in Lübeck Bay, to accommodate leading SS personnel fleeing to German-controlled Norway in accordance with Dönitz's orders. "The ships are gathering in the area of Lübeck and Kiel. At SHAEF it is believed that important Nazis who have escaped from Berlin to Flensburg are onboard, and are fleeing to Norway or neutral countries".

Equipped with lifejackets from locked storage compartments, most of the SS guards managed to jump overboard from Cap Arcona. German trawlers sent to rescue Cap Arcona's crew members and guards managed to save 16 sailors, 400 SS men, and 20 SS women.
Only 350 of the 5,000 former concentration camp inmates aboard Cap Arcona survived.
From 2,800 prisoners on board the Thielbek only 50 were saved;
whereas all 2,000 prisoners on the Deutschland were safely taken off onto the Athen, before the Deutschland capsized.

RAF Pilot Allan Wyse of No. 193 Squadron recalled, "We used our cannon fire at the chaps in the water... we shot them up with 20 mm cannons in the water. Horrible thing, but we were told to do it and we did it. That's war."

Severely damaged and set on fire, Cap Arcona eventually capsized. Photos of the burning ships, listed as Deutschland, Thielbek, and Cap Arcona, and of the emaciated survivors swimming in the very cold Baltic Sea, around 7 °C (44.6 °F), were taken on a reconnaissance mission over the Bay of Lübeck by F-6 Mustang (the photo-reconnaissance version of the P-51) of the USAAF's 161st Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron around 1700 hrs, shortly after the attack.

On 4 May 1945, a British reconnaissance plane took photos of the two wrecks, Thielbek and Cap Arcona, the Bay of Neustadt being shallow. The capsized hulk of Cap Arcona later drifted ashore, and the beached wreck was finally broken up in 1949. For weeks after the attack, bodies of victims washed ashore, where they were collected and buried in mass graves at Neustadt in Holstein, Scharbeutz and Timmendorfer Strand. Parts of skeletons washed ashore over the next 30 years, with the last find in 1971.

The prisoners aboard the ships were of at least 30 nationalities: American, Belarusian, Belgian, Canadian, Czechoslovakian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourger, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swiss, Ukrainian, and possibly others.

Notable survivors

• Francis Akos (1922–2016), born Weinman Akos Ferencz in Budapest, Hungary; Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist
• Heinrich Bertram, captain of Cap Arcona
• Emil František Burian (1904–1959), musician and theatrical director, founder of Theatre D, a leading avant-garde theatre in inter-war Europe
• Erwin Geschonneck (1906–2008), who later became a notable German actor, and whose story was made into a film in 1982
• Ernst Goldenbaum (1898–1990), East German politician
• Benjamin Jacobs (1919–2004) born Berek Jakubowicz in Dobra, Poland; dentist, Holocaust speaker and author
• Philip Jackson (1928–2016), son of an American surgeon, Sumner Jackson, killed in the attacks
• Heinz Lord (1917–1961), German-American surgeon
• André Migdal (1924–2007), French resistant, Holocaust speaker and author, poet, survivor of Athen
• Sam Pivnik (1926–2017) , art dealer and lecturer on the Holocaust
• Gustaaf Van Essche (1923–1979), Belgian politician

Thielbek was a 2,815 GRT cargo steamship that was built in Germany in 1940, sunk in an air raid in 1945, refloated in 1949 and repaired, and was in service until 1974. Lübecker Maschinenbau Gesellschaft in Lübeck built her in 1940 for the Knöhr and Burchard shipping company of Hamburg. In 1961 Knöhr and Burchard sold her to buyers who renamed her Magdalene and registered her in Panama. In 1965 she was renamed Old Warrior. She was scrapped in Yugoslavia in 1974.



Thielbek is notable for having been sunk by RAF aircraft on 3 May 1945, killing 2,750 people aboard. She was at anchor in the Bay of Lübeck with the passenger ships Cap Arcona and the Deutschland, which were sunk in the same air raid. At the time Cap Arcona and Thielbek were crowded with prisoners from the Neuengamme, Stutthof, and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps.

The commander of the Gestapo in Hamburg later revealed that the prisoners were to be killed, possibly by scuttling the ships with the prisoners still aboard.


SS Deutschland was a 21,046 gross registered ton (GRT) German HAPAG ocean liner which was sunk in a British air attack on May 3, 1945 when it was in the process of being converted as a hospital ship. All people on-board the Deutschland survived the attack, though two accompanying vessels sank with great loss of life.


SS Deutschland (Baujahr 1923), zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges 1945 zum Lazarettschiff umgerüstet.



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

SS Thielbek (1940) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

SS Deutschland (1923) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 3 May


1657 - The Action of 3 May 1657 was a battle that took place on 3 May 1657 and was a victory for the Republic of Venice over the Ottoman fleet of Algiers. Venetian casualties were 117 killed and 346 wounded. Few details are known.

Ships involved
Venice (Mocenigo)
6 galleasses?
19 galleys?

Algiers
Perla (flag??) - Captured
Fontana Rose - Captured
Sette Teste - Aground and burnt
Doi Lioni - Aground and burnt
Luna Biscaina - Aground and burnt
Molin de Vento - Captured
Tigra - Aground and burnt
Lione
? (ex-Venetian Croce d'Oro, captured earlier that year) - Captured

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_3_May_1657


1707 – Launch of French Astrée, 24 guns, design by Blaise Pangalo, launched 3 May 1707 at Brest – believed lost at Barcelona 1719.


1808 – Launch of French Breslaw, a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy

Breslaw was a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy
Ordered as Superbe, the ship took her name of Breslaw on 14 May 1807, to commemorate the capture of the city of Wrocław by Jérôme Bonaparte on 7 January. She was commissioned on 9 August 1808 under Captain Joseph Allemand[3] and appointed to the Toulon squadron. She departed Genoa for Toulon on 20 January 1809, along with the corvette Victorieuse; the ships crossed safely, arriving on 26, but collided off the harbour.
Refitted in 1824, Breslaw later took part in the Battle of Navarino, on 20 October 1827. She played a decisive role in the battle when her captain, La Bretonnière, took the initiative of leaving the French squadron, which had safely completed its objectives, to reinforce HMS Albion, which was trapped and in danger of being overwhelmed by the Ottoman fleet.
Breslaw took part in the Invasion of Algiers in 1830 under Captain Maillard de Liscourt, notably landing troops at Sidi Ferruch on 16 June.
Refitted again in 1831, Breslaw was struck in 1837

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Breslaw_(1808)

Téméraire-class ship of the line - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1810 HMS Spartan (38), Cptn. Jahleel Brenton, engaged French Ceres (42), Fame (28), and Achilles (10) and captured Sparviere (8) in Bay of Naples.

In 1810, Spartan was operating off Naples and there fought and inconclusive engagement against a much larger Neapolitan squadron on 3 May, for which Brenton was highly rewarded.



HMS Spartan was a Royal Navy 38-gun fifth-rate frigate, launched at Rochester in 1806. During the Napoleonic Wars she was active in the Adriatic and in the Ionian Islands. She then moved to the American coast during the War of 1812, where she captured a number of small vessels, including a US Revenue Cutter and a privateer, the Dart. She then returned to the Mediterranean, where she remained for a few years. She went on to serve off the American coast again, and in the Caribbean, before being broken up in 1822.


The Boats of the Spartan boarding & cutting out, a French Privateer (PAD5791)

HMS Spartan (1806) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/colle...el-278870;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=S


1812 – Launch of French Galatée, a 44-gun Pallas-class frigate of the French Navy

Pallas-class frigate (1808) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1848 – Launch of french Duguesclin was a 90-gun Ship of the line of the French Navy. She was the second ship in French service named in honour of Bertrand du Guesclin

The Duguesclin was a 90-gun Ship of the line of the French Navy. She was the second ship in French service named in honour of Bertrand du Guesclin.
Bayard was first used as barracks for prisoners sent to deportation to Îles du Salut, and then as a transport for those sent to the Bagne of Cayenne. She then took part in the Crimean War in the Black Sea in 1854 and 1855.
In 14 December 1859, she as she conducted trials of her newly installed steam engine under Commander Choux,[2] she ran aground on Île Longue. All efforts to raise her proved fruitless and she was scrapped. Her engine was used on Jean Bart


1/20th scale model of Suffren, lead ship of Duguesclin's class, on display at the Musée national de la Marine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Duguesclin_(1848)

Suffren-class ship of the line - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1849 May 3 - Schleswig-Holstein vs Denmark near Kiel


1861 USS Surprise captures Confederate privateer Savannah


1888 – Launch of french Amiral Cécille was a protected cruiser of the French Navy, named in honour of Jean-Baptiste Cécille

Amiral Cécille was a protected cruiser of the French Navy, named in honour of Jean-Baptiste Cécille.
She replaced Dubourdieu in the station of the Caribbean. In late January 1900 she left Fort-de-France, Martinique, for the West Coast of Africa.[1]
From 1907, she was used as a school ship for mechanics in Toulon.

French cruiser Amiral Cécille - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1920 – Soviet floating battery Krasnaya Zarya engages French sloop Le Scarpe off Ochakov, damaging her and forcing her surrender.

The Action of 3 May 1920 was a short single-ship action fought during the Russian Civil War between the French Navy and the Soviet Russia.
Background
During the Russian Civil War, the French Navy was engaged as part of the Allied Intervention providing assistance to the White faction engaged on the Southern Front. The French Navy suffered a mutiny in 1919 but operations were carried until the end of the conflict.
Action
According to French sources, the French sloop (avisos) Le Scarpe imprudently advanced into the territorial waters of the red Russia near Novorossiysk during a routine patrol in the Black Sea. The Captain wanted to sail to Nikolaiev to collect information about procuring supplies. The French ship encountered the Soviet floating battery Krasnaya Zarya near Ochakov; during the subsequent fight she was damaged and surrendered. This happened near the end of the Russian Civil War, and the ship was soon returned.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_3_May_1920


1944 - USS Flasher (SS 249) sinks the Japanese freighter, USS Sand Lance (SS 381) sinks Japanese transport, and USS Tautog (SS 199) sinks Japanese army cargo ship, USS Tinosa (SS 283) sinks the Japanese freighter.


1945 – HDMS Niels Juel was a training ship built for the Royal Danish Navy between 1914 and 1923, scuttled and sunk

HDMS Niels Juel was a training ship built for the Royal Danish Navy between 1914 and 1923. Originally designed before World War I as a monitor, construction was slowed by the war and she was redesigned as a training cruiser. Completed in 1923 she made training cruises to the Black and Mediterranean Seas, South America and numerous shorter visits to ports in northern Europe. The ship often served as a flagship and occasionally was used as a royal yacht for visits to overseas possessions and other countries.



Niels Juel was extensively modernized in the mid-1930s and remained operational after Nazi Germany occupied Denmark in 1940. When the Germans attempted to seize the Danish Fleet in August 1943, the ship attempted to escape to Sweden, but was attacked and damaged by German bombers. She was deliberately run aground by her crew to deny the ship to the Germans, but Niels Juel was not badly damaged. The ship was refloated several months later and repaired by the Germans. They renamed her Nordland and used her as a training ship. She was scuttled by them in May 1945 and her wreck was salvaged in 1952.

HDMS Niels Juel (1918) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

2002 - MV Salahuddin-2 – On the night of 3 May 2002, the ferry sank in the Meghna River south of Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing more than 450 people.


A Bangladeshi salvage ship refloats the passenger ferry MV Salahuddin-II in the Meghna at Shalna, 170 km south of Dhaka, on Monday. — Reuters

MV Salahuddin-2 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DocBlake]

Busy day in history today!. Thanks for posting, Uwe!

 

[Uwek]

Busy day in history today!. Thanks for posting, Uwe!

Oh yes - just counted - 19 posts for the 3rd may - I am not realizing it, when I collect the info....already more than 3.500 posts in this topic - upps
Many thanks for your interest....

 

[DocBlake]

I found your posting on the stern models yesterday very interesting. Keep that kind of stuff coming!

 

[DonRobinson]

I am finally all caught up Uwe. Thank you so much for this thread it is so entertaining. I can now resume my normal coffee session tomorrow morning.
Is there a way a person can search for a certain date without having to go through each page? When you complete your year in June (that year has gone fast!!) it would be nice if this was possible.

 

[Uwek]

I am finally all caught up Uwe. Thank you so much for this thread it is so entertaining. I can now resume my normal coffee session tomorrow morning.
Is there a way a person can search for a certain date without having to go through each page? When you complete your year in June (that year has gone fast!!) it would be nice if this was possible.

Thanks for your all kind words and likes.....
Good point.....I will think about it, how we can solve it and finally sort it......it is a good library, but shall be organized.....thanks for your interest

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 May 1744 – Launch of HMS Vulture, a 10-gun two-masted Hind-class sloop of the Royal Navy, designed by Joseph Allin and built by John Greaves at Limehouse on the Thames River, England


HMS Vulture was a 10-gun two-masted Hind-class sloop of the Royal Navy, designed by Joseph Allin and built by John Greaves at Limehouse on the Thames River, England and launched on 4 May 1744, during the War of the Austrian Succession. Her name was often written as Vulter.



The Vulture set sail from Portsmouth as part of a joint Anglo-Dutch fleet under Vice Admiral Thomas Davers in September 1744. In the spring of 1746, the Vulture and the 14-gun sloop Shark engaged two superior French Men of War. The Vulture broke off from the action to alert two nearby British cruisers. The arrival of these reinforcements caused the French ships to surrender. The sloop was part of a squadron that sailed from Britain in 1747 under Admirals Anson and Warren. On 3 June, the Vulture intercepted the lightly armed Cherbourg dogger privateer L'Huitre in the English Channel between the British coast and the Isle of Wight. The sloop captured the privateer intact after a three-hour chase.

After service from 1744 to 1749 (when her armament was increased to 14 x 6-pounder guns), and then from 1751 to 1758, she was sold to be taken to pieces at Portsmouth on 30 January 1761.


lines This plan relates to the new-builds which originally hads the names of the ships they replaced - esp. the Rupert's Prize and Pembroke's Prize.
Peregrina was launched as Merlin
Galgo was launched as Swallow
NMM, progress Book, volume 2, folio 542, states that 'Rupert Prize' was renamed 'Hind' per Admiralty Order dated April 1744. She was launched 19 April 1744, and fitted at Woolwich Dockyard between April and May 1744. The previous 'Rupert Prize' was sold in October 1743.
NMM, Progress Book volume 2, folio 540, states that 'Pembroke Prize' was renamed per Admiralty Order 'Vulture' on 18 April 1744. She was launched in May 1744, and surveyed afloat and refitted at Plymouth Dockyard, October-November 1744. The previous 'Pembroke Prize' was sold 13 March 1743.


deck NMM, Progress Book, volume 2, folio 540, states that 'Peregrina' was launched as the 'Merlin', and that the 'Pembroke Prize' was launched as the 'Vulture'. The plan does not relate to the ex-Spanish ship 'Pembroke Prize' sold 13 March 1744


Lines & Profile (ZAZ5029)


The Hind class was a class of four sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy between 1743 and 1746. Two were built by contract with commercial builders to a common design prepared by Joseph Allin, the Master Shipwright at Deptford Dockyard, and the other two were built in Deptford Dockyard itself.



The first two - Hind and Vulture - were ordered on 6 August 1743 to be built to replace two ex-Spanish vessels (the Rupert's Prize and Pembroke's Prize, captured in 1741 and 1742 respectively, and put into service by the British). Although initially armed with ten 6-pounder guns, this class was built with seven pairs of gunports on the upper deck, enabling them to be re-armed with fourteen 6-pounders later in their careers.

Two more vessels to the same design - Jamaica and Trial - were ordered ten days later, on 18 August 1743; these were built under Allin's supervision at Deptford Dockyard, and were the only wartime sloops of this era be built in a Royal Dockyard.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vulture_(1744)
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/colle...el-330768;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=M

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 May 1812 Re-capture of Brig-sloop HMS Apelles (14) near Etaples by HMS Bermuda (10), Alexander Cunningham, HMS Rinaldo (10), Sir W. G. Parker, HMS Castilian (18), David Braimer, and HMS Phipps (14), Thomas Wells.


HMS Apelles was a Crocus-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1808 and sold in 1816. During her service she grounded on the French coast and was in French hands for about a day before the British recaptured her. During her career she captured two French privateers.




Apelles and Somnambule. This is an engraving by Felix Achille Saint-Aulaire (1801-99), engraver T. Ruhierre, in the book France Maritime, by Amédée Gréhan, published in 1844, though the picture itself dates to 1837

Career
Commander Thomas Oliver was appointed captain of Apelles in September 1808. She participated in the ill-fated Walcheren Campaign. Starting on 30 July 1809, a British armed force of 39,000 men landed on Walcheren. However, the French fleet had left Flushing (Vlissingen) and sailed to Antwerp, and the British lost over 4,000 men to "Walcheren Fever", a combination of malaria and typhus, and to enemy action. As the strategic reasons for the campaign dissipated and conditions worsened, the British force withdrew in December. Prize money arising from the net proceeds of the property captured at Walcheren and the adjacent islands in the Scheld was paid in October 1812.

On 19 October 1810 Apelles captured the French privateer Somnambule (or Somnus), of 18 guns and 56 men, off Dieppe. The privateer was so damaged in the engagement before she surrendered that Oliver had to scuttle her.

Before Apelles captured her the privateer had captured the sloop Friends. While Apelles was in sight, Sarpedon recaptured Friends, and sent her into Dover. French sources report that Somnambule was a chasse maree under the command of M. Sauvage, with lieutenant de vaisseau F. Lecomte as his second-in-command. In the engagement a musket ball killed Sauvage, and Lecomte took over, and it was he that struck, though not before he himself was wounded.

Commander Frederick Hoffman assumed command in December, relieving Oliver. Apelles's officers had informed Admiral George Campbell that Oliver was insane, and that discipline on the sloop had deteriorated. Campbell ordered a Court of Inquiry, and as a result of its report, gently suggested to Oliver that he resign, which, after some hesitation, he did. Hoffman recommissioned her in early 1811.

Captured by the French
Apelles and Skylark were blockading the French coast between Cape Gris Nez and Étaples when at 3am on the morning of 3 May 1812 a thick fog descended. Within 45 minutes Skylark had grounded.

All efforts to free Skylark failed and in the morning shore batteries started firing on her as French troops started to gather. The crew set fire to Skylark and left in her boats.

Apelles too had run aground in the fog at about 4am, and within sight of Skylark. Shore batteries fired on Apelles also, and troops gathered. All efforts to free her failed and by 6am Commander Frederick Hoffman ordered his crew into the boats. Unfortunately there was not enough room for all, so Hoffman and 19 of his men stayed behind. Commander Boxer, of Skylark, came alongside in a boat and urged Hoffman to leave, but Hoffman refused to do so while some of his men were still on board. As more French troops arrived with field artillery, Hoffman raised a white flag at about 6:30am. Before he gave up his ship, Hoffman and the purser burned all Apelles's signal books and other instructions.

The French took Hoffman and his men prisoner and refloated Apelles. However, the next day Bermuda and Rinaldo arrived and were able to drive Apelleson shore. Then Castillian and Phipps arrived. Gunfire from the British squadron drove the French off, permitting boats from Bermuda to recapture Apelles.

Return to service
Between May and September Apelles underwent refitting at Sheerness. She then came under the command of Commander Charles Robb.

Robb was already captain in December when Apelles captured the Danish vessels No. 23 (3 December), Haabet (13 December), and Falken (20 December).

At daybreak on 18 February 1813, Apelles captured the French privateer cutter Ravisseur at 57°10′N 5°30′E. Ravisseur was armed with ten 9-pounder carronades and four long 6-pounder guns, and had a crew of 51 men under the command of M. Alexander Happey. She was 12 days out of Dunkirk and had intended to cruise off Flamborough Head, but westerly gales had driven her eastward. She had not made any captures.

Commander Robb drowned on 27 February when a gale of wind washed him overboard off the Isle of May. He was assisting in throwing her guns overboard to lighten her.

Commander Alexander McVicar (or M'Vicar) was appointed to Apelles on 8 March, and recommissioned her that month for the North Sea. McVicar tested a new patent compass in July and wrote a testimonial letter on 13 June. Vice-Admiral Robert Otway had ordered him to test the compass belonging to Mr. Alexander, of Leith, and McVicar used it for some nine weeks, finding it better than the other compasses on Apelles. It was quick to come on point and held its direction in heavy seas and despite shocks such as guns firing or seas striking.

On 11 December 1813, Apelles captured Speculation.[Note 3] Speculation, of Bergen, Fornguest, master, reached Leith on 21 December.

In 1814 Apelles visited Archangel, having sailed from Leith with a fleet.

Fate
Apelles was paid off into ordinary in September 1815. The Admiralty offered her for sale at Sheerness on 17 February 1816. Mr. Marclark purchased her on 6 March 1816 for £800.






The Crocus-class brig-sloops were a class of sloop-of-war built for the Royal Navy, and were the only Royal Navy brig-sloops ever designed rated for 14 guns. The class was designed by the Surveyors of the Navy (Sir William Rule and Sir John Henslow) jointly, and approved on 28 March 1807. Unlike the vast majority of other British brig-sloops built for the Royal Navy in this wartime period, which were built by contractors, construction of the Crocusclass was confined to the Admiralty's own dockyards. One vessel was ordered from each of the Royal Dockyards (except Sheerness) on 30 March; four more were ordered in 1808 and a final unit in 1810. All the ships of the class survived the Napoleonic Wars and were broken up between 1815 and 1815.



Vessels
In the following table, the Crocus-class brig-sloops are listed in the order in which they were ordered.







inboard works, expansion of Date: NMM, Progress Book, volume 7, folio 205, states that 'Podargus' was fitted at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1808, repaired at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1809, and had defects repaired at Plymouth Dockyard in 1810


outboard works, expansion of Date: NMM, Progress Book, volume 7, folio 205, states that 'Podargus' was fitted at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1808, repaired at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1809, and had defects repaired at Plymouth Dockyard in 1810

HMS Apelles (1808) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus-class_brig-sloop
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/colle...el-339653;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=P

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 May 1823 - The Battle of 4 May was fought in open sea near Salvador, Bahia,
between the Brazilian Navy, under the command of a former admiral of the British Royal Navy, Thomas Cochrane, and the Portuguese Navy during the Brazilian War of Independence


The Battle of 4 May was fought in open sea near Salvador, Bahia, on 4 May 1823, between the Brazilian Navy, under the command of a former admiral of the British Royal Navy, Thomas Cochrane, and the Portuguese Navy during the Brazilian War of Independence



Background
During the period of Portuguese control of Brazil, commerce had been largely restricted to Portuguese ships with Portuguese crews; so few Brazilians had the opportunity to become proficient sailors. Following the Brazilian Declaration of Independence from Portugal in September 1822, Brazil began assembling a fleet of warships; but had difficulty finding trained sailors to man those ships. In December 1822 Brazil solicited English mercenaries with the offer of Portuguese prizes. Thomas Cochrane, who ended Spanish control of Chile with the capture of Valdivia in February 1820, was offered command of the Brazilian fleet.

Cochrane arrived on 13 March 1823 with several officers and seamen who had served with him in Chile. After some negotiation about terms of compensation, Cochrane assumed command of the Brazilian fleet aboard the flagship Pedro Primeiro on 21 March 1823. On 29 March he received orders to blockade Bahia and destroy or capture any Portuguese shipping he found there. Cochrane sailed on 3 April with the frigate Piranga and the American clippers Liberal and Maria da Glória which were armed as corvettes. The brig Guarani and schooner Real accompanied the squadron for use as fire ships; but they were unprepared for combat. The frigate Nitherohy joined the squadron on 29 April.

Cochrane's flagship Pedro Primeiro was rated as a 74-gun ship of the line, although she might have been considered a 64-gun third-rate by Royal Navystandards. Cochrane found fabrics had deteriorated so sails were frequently torn by the wind and gunpowder bags were unsafe to use without swabbing the cannon bore with sponges between shots. Cochrane's crew fashioned new powder bags from flags, but Cochrane remained dissatisfied with the quality of gunpowder and lamented the absence of flintlock mechanisms on the cannon. His flagship crew consisted of 160 English and North American sailors and 130 black marines recently emancipated from slavery, with the remainder marginally qualified Portuguese sailors paid less than half the standard wage for experienced seamen. Cochrane considered the crew to be 120 men short of a normal complement and estimated 300 more men might be effectively employed in battle conditions. The marines' experience as slaves caused them to believe they should not be assigned cleaning tasks as free men, so the Portuguese sailors performed cleaning tasks rather than practicing seamanship.


Batalha de 4 de maio de 1823

Battle
On 30 April, the Portuguese prepared to battle the Brazilian squadron. Shortly after sunrise on 4 May 1823 the Brazilian squadron detected the Portuguese line of battle as thirteen sail to leeward. To compensate for the numerical inferiority of Brazilian ships, Cochrane attempted to cut the Portuguese line to engage the rearmost four ships before they could maneuver the van ships to prevent localized numerical inferiority. Cochrane signaled his squadron to follow him as he maneuvered Pedro Primeiro to cut the Portuguese line astern of the frigate Constituição and ahead of the Portuguese troopship Princesa Real. Pedro Primeiro opened fire on Princesa Real at noon, in anticipation the remainder of the Brazilian squadron would engage the other three Portuguese ships.

At that point the underpaid Portuguese sailors aboard the Brazilian ships demonstrated loyalty to Portugal rather than Brazil. Piranga, Nitherohy and Liberal failed to follow Pedro Primeiro into gunnery range of the Portuguese ships. Two Portuguese sailors assigned to the powder magazine aboard Pedro Primeiro imprisoned the powder boys sent to carry the gunpowder to reload the cannon. Only Maria da Glória, with a crew of Brazilians trained by their French Captain Beaurepaire, was effectively engaging the enemy. Cochrane successfully disengaged upon recognizing the inability to obtain even localized advantage; and prevented the Portuguese crew of Real from surrendering their Brazilian ship to the enemy.

Aftermath
Cochrane retired to Morro São Paulo where he organized a blockade with Pedro Primeiro and Maria da Glória. The remaining Brazilian ships transferred their best sailors to the two blockading ships; and were left in the care of Captain Pio and men of unquestioned Brazilian loyalty.[3] When Brigadier General Inácio Madeira de Melo and his Portuguese soldiers left the capital on the morning of 2 July 1823, Cochrane pursued the fleet to Portugal, managing to capture seven ships during the chase. Salvador was taken by Brazilian troops joining the Empire of Brazil.

Order of battle
Brazil
Names of the ships involved followed by the number of cannons that ship had (when the number is known):

• Pedro Primeiro (64) (flag, captain Crosbie)
• Maria da Glória (32) (Beaurepaire)
• Piranga (Jowett)
• Liberal (Garcão)
• Guarani
• Real
• Nitheroy (Taylor)

Portugal
Names of the ships involved followed by the number of cannons that ship had (when the number is known):

• Dom João (74)
• Constituição (50)
• Pérola (44)
• Princesa Real (28)
• Calypso (22)
• Regeneração (26)
• Activa (22)
• Doze de Fevereiro (26)
• Audaz (20)
• São Gualter (20)
• Príncipe do Brazil (26)
• Restauração (26)
• Conceição (8)

Battle of 4 May - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 May 1869 - Naval Battle of Hakodate Bay


The Naval Battle of Hakodate (函館湾海戦 Hakodatewan Kaisen) was fought from 4 to 10 May 1869, between the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate navy, consolidated into the armed forces of the rebel Ezo Republic, and the newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy. It was one of the last stages of Battle of Hakodate during the Boshin War, and occurred near Hakodate in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō.



Ezo Republic forces
The naval forces of the Ezo Republic were grouped around the warship Kaiten. The fleet originally consisted of eight steamships: Kaiten, Banryū, Japanese gunboat Chiyoda, Chōgei, Kaiyō Maru, Kanrin Maru, Mikaho and Shinsoku.

However, Kaiyō Maru and Shinsoku had been lost in a previous engagement in front of Esashi, and Kanrin Maru had been captured by Imperial forces after suffering damage in bad weather. The loss of these two major units seriously weakened the Ezo Republic side.


The naval battle of Hakodate Bay Bay, May 1869; in the foreground, Kasuga and Kōtetsu of the Imperial Japanese Navy

Imperial forces
For the operation, an Imperial Japanese Navy fleet had been rapidly constituted around the recently acquired ironclad warship Kōtetsu (the former CSS Stonewall), which had been purchased from the United States. Other Imperial ships were Kasuga, Hiryū, Teibō, Yōshun [ja], Mōshun, which had been supplied by the domains of Saga, Chōshū and Satsuma to the newly formed Meiji government in 1868.

The nascent Imperial government started with a much weaker navy than that of the Ezo Republic, both in terms of vessel strength, unity (most of its ships were borrowed from Western domains), and training. However the loss of two major units on the Ezo side previous to the main action (Kaiyō Maru and Kanrin Maru), and most of all, the incorporation of the revolutionary Kōtetsu since April 1868 on the Imperial side (a ship originally ordered by the Tokugawa shogunate but withheld by the United States during the main conflict under a policy of neutrality taken by foreign nation and finally delivered to the newly formed government), turned the tables. In addition, the Imperial government received the support of two transportation ships chartered by the United States for the transportation of its troops.

Combat


Sinking of Chiyodagata by the rebel Banryū

The Imperial fleet supported the deployment of troops on the island of Hokkaidō, destroyed onshore fortifications and attacked the rebel ships. On 4 May Chiyodagata was captured by Imperial forces after having been abandoned in a grounding and on 7 May Kaiten was heavily hit and put out of action. Banryū managed to sink the Imperial forces' Chiyodagata, but Banryū later sank in turn because of heavy damage.

The Imperial Japanese Navy won the engagement, ultimately leading to the surrender of the Republic of Ezo at the end of May 1869.


A Japanese rendition of the land and naval battle of Hakodate

Ships of foreign navies — the British HMS Pearl and the French Coetlogon — were standing by neutrally during the conflict. The French captain Jules Brunet who had trained the rebels and helped organize their defenses, surrendered on Coetlogon on 8 June.

The future Admiral of the fleet Tōgō Heihachirō participated in the battle on the Imperial side as a young third-class officer, onboard Kasuga.




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

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 May 1917 - The Action of 4 May 1917 was a naval and air engagement of the First World War in the North Sea.


The Action of 4 May 1917 was a naval and air engagement of the First World War in the North Sea. The action took place between the German ZeppelinLZ 92 (tactical name: L.43), several German submarines and a naval force led by the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney. The action was inconclusive with no casualties on either side, concluding when the Zeppelin had dropped all of its bombs and the cruisers had expended all of their anti-aircraft ammunition.




A painting of the engagement between Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and German Zeppelin LZ43 in the North Sea on 4 May 1917.

Action
Sydney was serving in British waters when on 4 May 1917, while part of an anti-submarine patrol from Rosyth, Scotland, the ship took part in a battle with a German Zeppelin, L.43, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Hermann Kraushaar. In concert with another cruiser, Dublin and four destroyers, Obdurate, Nepean, Pelican and Pylades. Sydney, under the command of Commander John Dumaresq who was the second-in-command of the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, had been patrolling between the Firth of Forth and River Humber, when lookouts spotted a vessel on the surface to the east of the British flotilla and Obdurate was detailed to investigate at around 10:00 am. About twenty-five minutes later, the Zeppelin was located by Dublin about 27 kilometres (17 mi) to the east, Sydney and Dublin turned towards the contact and fired at maximum range.

Obdurate continued to investigate the surface contact and subsequently located two German submarines. Coming under attack from one of these submarines, the destroyer dropped depth charges before turning away to attack the Zeppelin. As the destroyer closed on it, though, the Zeppelin turned away to the south-east. Within the space of the next half an hour, Dublin was unsuccessfully attacked by the German submarines at least three times with torpedoes, leading Dumaresq to conclude that the Germans were attempting to spring a trap on the British vessels. He subsequently ordered Obdurate to complete its investigation of the suspect vessel, which was subsequently determined to be a Dutch fishing vessel.

Dumaresq then attempted to draw the aircraft into following the British force by ordering his ships to turn away back onto their original course. As the airship approached again, Dublin and Sydney turned about to attack. In response, the Zeppelin's commander began a high-level bombing run on Dublin, but fast manoeuvres from the cruisers frustrated these efforts and the Zeppelin's attention turned instead to Obdurate, dropping three bombs which achieved near misses. This was followed by a further attack on Sydney, with between ten and twelve bombs being dropped but missing due to the cruiser's wild evasive manoeuvres. Sydney returned fire with her anti-aircraft guns but the aircraft proved to be flying too high to be successfully engaged.

A further Zeppelin moved towards the battle at around 1:00 pm, having been contacted by L.43 for assistance but it loitered to the north-east and did not close in to attack. The engagement ended when both sides exhausted their ammunition around 2:30 pm. The Zeppelin was forced to remain high to stay out of range of the flak, this meant that the bombs were dropped from too great of height to strike the Allied patrol. There was no damage or casualties. After the action, the Zeppelins departed the area and the British vessels completed their patrol before returning to Rosyth.

The action was commemorated in the early 1930s, in an oil painting by Australian war artist Charles Bryant. It was the first time that a Royal Australian Navy vessel had been attacked by an enemy aircraft and was one of the actions that resulted in Sydney being awarded the "North Sea 1916–18" battle honour.

Action of 4 May 1917 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 May 1917 - Transylvania – The ship was torpedoed and sunk in the Gulf of Genoa on 4 May 1917 by U-63. She was carrying Allied troops to Egypt; 412 people were killed.


The SS Transylvania was a passenger liner of the Cunard subsidiary Line, and a sister ship to SS Tuscania. She was torpedoed and sunk on May 4, 1917 by the German U-boat U-63 at 44°15′N 8°30′ECoordinates:

44°15′N 8°30′E while carrying Allied troops to Egypt and sank with a loss of 412 lives.



Completed just before the outbreak of World War I, the Transylvania was taken over for service as a troopship upon completion. She was designed to accommodate 1,379 passengers but the Admiralty fixed her capacity at 200 officers and 2,860 men, besides crew, when she was commissioned in May 1915.



Loss
On May 3, 1917, the Transylvania sailed from Marseille to Alexandria with a full complement of troops, escorted by the Japanese destroyers Matsu and Sakaki.

At 10 am on May 4 the Transylvania was struck in the port engine room by a torpedo fired by the German U-boat U-63 under the command of Otto Schultze. At the time the ship was about 2.5 miles (2.2 nmi; 4.0 km) south of Cape Vado near Savona, in the Gulf of Genoa. The Matsu came alongside the Transylvania and began to take on board troops while the Sakaki circled to force the submarine to remain submerged.

Twenty minutes later a second torpedo was seen coming straight for the Matsu, which saved herself by going astern at full speed. The torpedo hit the Transylvania instead, which sank immediately. Ten crew members, 29 army officers and 373 soldiers lost their lives.

Many bodies of victims were recovered at Savona and buried two days later, in a special plot in the town cemetery. Others are buried elsewhere in Italy, France, Monaco and Spain. Savona Town Cemetery contains 85 Commonwealth burials from the First World War, all but two of them casualties from the Transylvania. Within the cemetery is the Savona Memorial which commemorates a further 275 casualties who died when the Transylvania sank, but whose graves are unknown.

Transylvania was discovered by the Italian Carabinieri on 7 October 2011 off the coast of the island of Bergeggi at a depth of 630 metres (about).



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

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 May 1940 - ORP Grom – On 4 May 1940, naval gunfire support missions in the Narvik area, the Polish destroyer was attacked by German aircraft.
Her loaded midship torpedo launcher was struck by a bomb from a German plane and the torpedo exploded causing the hull to break in two.
The ship sank almost immediately, killing 59 crew.


ORP Grom was the lead ship of her class of destroyers serving in the Polish Navy during World War II. She was named after the Polish word for Thunderbolt, while her sister ship ORP Błyskawica translates to lightning.





Design
Grom was thought of as a large destroyer, similar to flotilla leaders. She and sister ship ORP Błyskawica were to support the outdated French-built Wicherand Burza in the role of the core of the Polish Navy in a possible conflict. As Poland had only one major seaport, the main task of the Polish naval forces was to secure supplies shipment to and from allied countries. Because of that, the Grom class was designed to fulfill both the role of shore defence and convoy escort and was supposed to be stronger than single enemy destroyers.

Two Parsons steam turbines of 54,000 shaft horsepower (40,000 kW) altogether, three boilers and two shafts allowed Grom to travel at 39 knots (72 km/h; 45 mph), faster than the contemporary designs like the US Farragut and Porter classes, the British Tribal class, or the German Type 1934s. Also, as it was not clear whether the ships would be used to secure convoys to the Polish port of Gdynia or the Romanian port of Constanţa (through the Romanian Bridgehead), the possible range was much larger than in the case of destroyers designed exclusively for the Baltic Sea. The ship had an effective range of 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

Construction and career
Grom was ordered from the British J. Samuel White shipyard in Cowes and was laid down in 1935. The destroyer was commissioned in 1937.

On 30 August 1939, the Polish destroyers Błyskawica, Burza, and Grom were ordered to activate the Peking Plan, and the warships headed for Great Britain, from where they were to operate as convoy escorts. On 1 September 1939, Polish destroyers met the British destroyers Wanderer and Wallace. The British ships led the Polish flotilla to Leith, and in the night the Polish destroyers came to Rosyth. However, no convoys were ever organized to help Poland during the Polish Defensive War and the Polish ships were used in support of Allied maritime operations.

During her operations in the Norwegian Campaign, Grom was ranked by the German soldiers as probably the most hated of all the Allied ships deployed to the area. This hatred was founded on the fact that Grom took an intense interest in all hostile movements on shore and was reputed to spend hours lurking the coast in order harass German forces. On 4 May 1940, Grom carried out what turned out to be the last of her many naval gunfire supportmissions in the Narvik area in the Rombaken fjord. She was attacked by a Heinkel He 111 bomber from Kampfgeschwader 100 (piloted by Lt. Korthals). Her loaded midship torpedo launcher was struck by a bomb from a German plane and the torpedo exploded, causing the hull to break into two and the ship to sink almost immediately with a loss of life of 59 sailors.

The wreck was never raised and it was not until 6 October 1986 that it was explored by divers for the first time.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORP_Grom_(1936)

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 May 1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier USS Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before.


The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4–8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia, taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. The battle is historically significant as the first action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other, as well as the first in which the opposing ships neither sighted nor fired directly upon one another.



In an attempt to strengthen their defensive position in the South Pacific, the Japanese decided to invade and occupy Port Moresby (in New Guinea) and Tulagi (in the southeastern Solomon Islands). The plan to accomplish this was called Operation MO, and involved several major units of Japan's Combined Fleet. These included two fleet carriers and a light carrier to provide air cover for the invasion forces. It was under the overall command of Japanese Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue.

The U.S. learned of the Japanese plan through signals intelligence, and sent two United States Navy carrier task forces and a joint Australian-U.S. cruiserforce to oppose the offensive. These were under the overall command of U.S. Admiral Frank J. Fletcher.


Yorktown conducts aircraft operations in the Pacific sometime before the battle. A fleet oiler is in the near background.

On 3–4 May, Japanese forces successfully invaded and occupied Tulagi, although several of their supporting warships were sunk or damaged in surprise attacks by aircraft from the U.S. fleet carrier Yorktown. Now aware of the presence of U.S. carriers in the area, the Japanese fleet carriers advanced towards the Coral Sea with the intention of locating and destroying the Allied naval forces. On the evening of 6 May, the direction chosen for air searches by the opposing commanders brought the two carrier forces to within 70 nmi (81 mi; 130 km) of each other, unbeknownst to both sides. Beginning on 7 May, the carrier forces from the two sides engaged in airstrikes over two consecutive days. On the first day, both forces mistakenly believed they were attacking their opponent's fleet carriers, but were actually attacking other units, with the U.S. sinking the Japanese light carrier Shōhō while the Japanese sank a U.S. destroyer and heavily damaged a fleet oiler (which was later scuttled). The next day, the fleet carriers found and engaged each other, with the Japanese fleet carrier Shōkaku heavily damaged, the U.S. fleet carrier Lexington critically damaged (and later scuttled), and Yorktown damaged. With both sides having suffered heavy losses in aircraft and carriers damaged or sunk, the two forces disengaged and retired from the battle area. Because of the loss of carrier air cover, Inoue recalled the Port Moresby invasion fleet, intending to try again later.


The American aircraft carrier USS Lexington explodes on 8 May 1942, several hours after being damaged by a Japanese carrier air attack.

Although a tactical victory for the Japanese in terms of ships sunk, the battle would prove to be a strategic victory for the Allies for several reasons. The battle marked the first time since the start of the war that a major Japanese advance had been checked by the Allies. More importantly, the Japanese fleet carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku—the former damaged and the latter with a depleted aircraft complement—were unable to participate in the Battle of Midway the following month, while Yorktown did participate, ensuring a rough parity in aircraft between the two adversaries and contributing significantly to the U.S. victory in that battle. The severe losses in carriers at Midway prevented the Japanese from reattempting to invade Port Moresby from the ocean and helped prompt their ill-fated land offensive over the Kokoda Track. Two months later, the Allies took advantage of Japan's resulting strategic vulnerability in the South Pacific and launched the Guadalcanal Campaign; this, along with the New Guinea Campaign, eventually broke Japanese defenses in the South Pacific and was a significant contributing factor to Japan's ultimate surrender in World War II.

...... read in detail in wikipedia .......


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea_order_of_battle

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 May 1943 - Battle of the Campobasso Convoy
Perseo – An Italian torpedo boat sunk by HMS Paladin, HMS Petard and HMS Nubian.
133 crew members and troops on passage lost their lives, while 83 were rescued.


The Battle of the Campobasso Convoy was a naval engagement between three British Royal Navy destroyers and an Italian Regia Marina torpedo boat which took place off Cape Bon in the Mediterranean sea on the night of 3/4 May 1943. The Italians were escorting the 3,566 long tons transport ship Campobasso to Tunisia.




Background
As the North Africa campaign neared its conclusion, HMS Petard, HMS Paladin and HMS Nubian were patrolling the waters off Cape Bon. On the night of 29/30 April, they made a sweep along the south coast of Sicily and sank a 2,000 ton merchant ship escorted by German E-boats, without damage or casualties to themselves.

A few days later Nubian Petard and Paladin from intelligence signals waited for an Italian convoy to cross their path. The Italian 3,566 ton merchant Campobasso had left Pantelleria island loaded with bombs, land-mines, motor transport and other vital supplies to the beleaguered Axis force in Tunisia; it was one of the last four convoys sent from Italy to Tunisia. The merchant was then escorted by the Italian torpedo boat Perseo soon after departure.


Petard photographed from the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable, December 1943

Action
On the night of 3/4 May radar on the British destroyers picked up contacts heading towards the Tunisian coast. The Italian torpedo boat Perseo, using a Metox radar detector, picked up the emissions from the British destroyers and warned Italian high command that the convoy had been found.

All three British destroyers at once attacked targeting the Italian merchantman Campobasso. Hits were scored by 4-inch gun and "pom-pom" fire. Campobasso was hit numerous times, set alight and within half an hour tremendous and continuous explosions took place as the ammunition and bombs were ignited. The merchant sank quickly with the loss of 73 of the 103 men aboard, but Perseo responded and launched torpedoes to little effect; the British destroyers found the range and bombarded Perseo. She was soon set on fire and exploded, sinking within sight of the last Axis stronghold with the loss of 133 of the 216 men aboard, including naval personnel on passage and her commanding officer Lt. Cdr. Saverio Marotta, who refused to abandon his ship after being seriously wounded. The next day the Italian hospital ship Principessa Giovanna picked up 4 survivors from Campobasso(20 more men from the steamer reached the coast in a lifeboat) and 67 from Perseo. On 6 May the hospital ship was bombed and damaged by Alliedaircraft, with 54 killed and 52 wounded.

A second convoy led by the Italian torpedo boat Tifone, escorting the transport Belluno and loaded herself with aviation spirit for Bizerte, managed to evade the British destroyers after witnessing the destruction of Campobasso. Tifone's convoy was the last Axis convoy to reach Africa during World War II.

At dusk on 8 May, as part of Operation Retribution Paladin, with Jervis and Nubian bombarded Kelibia, the most easterly point of the Cape Bon peninsula. This bombardment was repeated at dawn the next day until all Axis forces surrendered in Tunisia.

Battle of the Campobasso Convoy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org