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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

8th of August

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1745 - John Byng promoted to Rear-Admiral of the Blue - The start of his ending career
Byng is best known for "failing" to relieve a besieged British garrison during the Battle of Minorca at the beginning of the Seven Years' War. Byng had sailed for Minorca at the head of a hastily assembled fleet of vessels, some of which were in poor condition. He fought an inconclusive engagement with a French fleet off the Minorca coast, and then elected to return to Gibraltar to repair his ships. Upon return to Britain, Byng was court-martialled and found guilty of failing to "do his utmost" to prevent Minorca falling to the French. He was sentenced to death and, after pleas for clemency were denied, was shot dead by a firing squad on 14 March 1757.
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Remark Uwe: It seems to be, that George Byng was a typical "son", but make your own opinion!

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The Shooting of Admiral Byng, artist unknown


1796 - HMS Mermaid (1784 – 32 gun Active class Frigate) engaged Vengeance and batteries.
HMS Mermaid was a 32-gun Active-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, launched in 1784. During the French Revolutionary Wars she served in the West Indies, the Channel, and the Mediterranean. During the Napoleonic Wars she first served in the Americas, but from early 1811 on, she was armed en flute and served as a troopship until she was broken up in 1815.
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1806 - Launch of French 110 gun ship Commerce de Paris
The Commerce de Paris was a 110-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, lead ship of her class.
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The Commerce de Paris under construction in Toulon in 1806


1808 - Boats of HMS Porcupine (1807 - 22 guns), Cptn. Hon. Henry Duncan, cut out Conception.
HMS Porcupine
was a Royal Navy Banterer-class post ship of 24 guns, launched in 1807. She served extensively and relatively independently in the Adriatic and the Western Mediterranean during the Napoleonic Wars, with her boats performing many cutting out expeditions, one of which earned for her crew the Naval General Service Medal. She was sold for breaking up in 1816 but instead became the mercantile Windsor Castle. She was finally sold for breaking up in 1826 at Mauritius.
After dark on 8 August, Porcupine, still under the command of Duncan, had her cutter and jolly boat under Lieutenant Francis Smith cut out a vessel she had run ashore on the island of Pianosa. The cutting out party was successful, bringing out Concepcion, which was armed with four guns. She had been lying within 30 yards of a tower and a shore battery of six guns. She was also defended by soldiers on the beach and one of her guns which she had landed. She had been carrying bale goods from Genoa to Cyprus. The action cost Porcupine one man killed, and a lieutenant and eight men severely wounded, with three men later dying of their wounds. Smith might have received a promotion for this and prior actions but Duncan's letter to Admiral Collingwood was lost and the duplicate arrived only after Collingwood had died in March 1810.
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1914 - The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914–17), also known as the Endurance Expedition started from Plymouth
The Edurance Expedition is considered the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After the conquest of the South Pole by Roald Amundsen in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". The expedition failed to accomplish this objective, but became recognised instead as an epic feat of endurance.
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Endurance under full sail by Frank Hurley, paget plate, 1914–1915 State Library New South Wales a090012h


1915 - Beginning of the Battle of the Gulf of Riga
The Battle of the Gulf of Riga was a World War I naval operation of the German High Seas Fleet against the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic Sea in August 1915. The operation's objective was to destroy the Russian naval forces in the Gulf in preparation for landing German troops to facilitate the fall of Riga in the later stages of the Central Powers' offensive on the Eastern Front in 1915. The German fleet, however, failed to achieve its objective and was forced to return to its bases; Riga remained in Russian hands until it fell to the German Army on 1 September 1917.
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Russian Battleship Slawa (1915)


1940 - Launch of japanese battleship Yamato
Yamato (大和) was the lead ship of her class of battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) shortly before World War II. She and her sister ship, Musashi, were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed, displacing 72,800 tonnes at full load and armed with nine 46 cm (18.1 in) Type 94 main guns, which were the largest guns ever mounted on a warship.
Named after the ancient Japanese Yamato Province, Yamato was designed to counter the numerically superior battleship fleet of the United States, Japan's main rival in the Pacific. She was laid down in 1937 and formally commissioned a week after the Pearl Harbor attack in late 1941. Throughout 1942, she served as the flagship of the Combined Fleet, and in June 1942 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto directed the fleet from her bridge during the Battle of Midway, a disastrous defeat for Japan. Musashi took over as the Combined Fleet flagship in early 1943, and Yamato spent the rest of the year, and much of 1944, moving between the major Japanese naval bases of Truk and Kure in response to American threats. Although present at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, she played no part in the battle.
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1942 - The Battle of Savo Island, also known as the First Battle of Savo Island
and, in Japanese sources, as the First Battle of the Solomon Sea (第一次ソロモン海戦 Dai-ichi-ji Soromon Kaisen), and colloquially among Allied Guadalcanal veterans as The Battle of the Five Sitting Ducks,[4][5] was a naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval forces. The battle took place on August 8–9, 1942 and was the first major naval engagement of the Guadalcanal campaign, and the first of several naval battles in the straits later named Ironbottom Sound, near the island of Guadalcanal.
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The U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Quincy (CA-39) photographed from a Japanese cruiser during the Battle of Savo Island, off Guadalcanal, 9 August 1942. Quincy, seen here burning and illuminated by Japanese searchlights, was sunk in this action. The flames at the far left of the picture are probably from the USS Vincennes (CA-44), also on fire from gunfire and torpedo damage.


2000 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised
to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor and 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence.
H. L. Hunley, often referred to as Hunley, was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War. Hunley demonstrated the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship (USS Housatonic), although Hunley was not completely submerged and, following her successful attack, was lost along with her crew before she could return to base. The Confederacy lost 21 crewmen in three sinkings of Hunley during her short career. She was named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, shortly after she was taken into government service under the control of the Confederate States Army at Charleston, South Carolina.
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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

9th of August

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1778 - First Engagement between British squadron under Lord Howe and French squadron under Comte d'Estaing off Rhode Island
Howe was ordered to institute a naval blockade of the American coastline, but this proved to be ineffective. Howe claimed to have too few ships to successfully accomplish this, particularly as a number had to be detached to support operations by the British Army. As a result, large amounts of covert French supplies and munitions were smuggled to America. It has been suggested that Howe's limited blockade at this point was driven by his sympathy with and desire for conciliation with the Americans. By 1778 the blockade was looking more promising, with many merchant ships being taken. Howe complained to London that while his ships were able to successfully guard the southern colonies, the blockade of the northern colonies was still ineffective.
...........
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Lord Howe and the Comte d'Estaing off Rhode Island, 9th August 1778


1781 - HMS Iris, ex USS Hancock (1777 – 28 guns) took USS Trumbull (1776 – 30 guns)
Remark Uwe 1: In most web-pages is written, that HMS Isis (50 guns) took the Trumbull, but this is a typewriting error
Remark 2: Some sources mention this at the 8.th, some 9th, and others on 28.8.1781

On 8 August 1781, Trumbull — the last remaining frigate of the original 13 authorized by Congress in 1775 — eventually departed from the Delaware capes in company with a 24-gun privateer and a 14-gun letter-of-marque. Under their protection was a 28-ship merchant convoy. On 28 August 1781, lookouts on the American ships spotted three sails to the eastward; two tacking to give chase to the convoy.
At nightfall, a rain squall struck with terrific force and carried away Trumbull's fore-topmast and her main topgallant mast. Forced to run before the wind, the frigate separated from the convoy and their escorts, and soon found herself engaged with the frigate Iris (the former Continental frigate Hancock), and the 18-gun ship General Monk (the former Continental privateer General Washington). Even with the "utmost exertion," the wrecked masts and sails could not be cleared away. Knowing he could not run, Nicholson decided to fight.
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"USS TRUMBULL Captured by HMS IRIS and HMS GENERAL MONK"

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1803 – Robert Fulton operated the first steamboat on the Seine
On August 9, 1803, about six o'clock, Robert Fulton began to move a boat of his own, powered by a fire pump. Parti de Chaillot, the machine went up the Seine to the speed of a pedestrian in a hurry, then down, made several maneuvers and embarked several members of the Institute, which Volney, Prony, and Carnot Bossut, which could verify the success of the experiment. Fulton tests came after a long series of attempts to apply steam to the inland waterways: Germany Denis Papin (1707), and of Auxiron Joffroy in France (1774), Ramsey (1786) and Fitch (1790 ) in America, and Lord Dundas Symmington (1788-1801) in England. Fulton is a self-taught and creativity is rooted, as often in those days, in the practice of industrial design.
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1835 - Launch of Russian ship of the line Lefort 84 guns
Lefort (Russian "Лефорт", also spelled "Leffort") was a ship of the line of the Imperial Russian Navy.
Lefort was a ship of the line of the Imperatritsa Aleksandra (Empress Alexandra) class, rated at 84 guns but actually armed with 94 guns. Her keel was laid in 1833 at Saint Petersburg and she was launched 9 August 1835 in the presence of Nicholas I. She was named after Admiral Franz Lefort, chief of the Russian Navy from 1695-1696. She was the last classic wooden battleship of the Russian Imperial Fleet, Empress Alexandra-class.
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1862 – Launch of USS Lackawanna, a screw sloop-of-war in the Union Navy
The first USS Lackawanna was a screw sloop-of-war in the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
Lackawanna was launched by the New York Navy Yard on 9 August 1862; sponsored by Ms. Imogen Page Cooper; and commissioned on 8 January 1863, Captain John B. Marchand in command. She was named after the Lackawanna River in Pennsylvania.
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USS Lackawanna crew, 1880.


1910 - With sailing of the polarship Fram leaving the norwegian Kristiania, Roald Amundsen is starting his (at this time) confidential expedition to the South-pole
In the months before departure, funds for the expedition became harder to acquire. Because of limited public interest, newspaper deals were cancelled and parliament refused a request for a further 25,000 kroner. Amundsen mortgaged his house to keep the expedition afloat; heavily in debt, he was now wholly dependent on the expedition's success to avoid personal financial ruin.
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Fram under sail

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1942 - A Japanese force runs through the Allied forces guarding Savo Sound, sinking three American heavy cruisers,
USS Quincy (CA 39), USS Vincennes (CA 44), and USS Astoria (CA 34), along with other damaged Allied vessels. As a result of the loss, the sound gains the nickname, Iron Bottom Sound.
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USS Astoria on 8 August 1942.
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

10th of August

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1512 - – The naval Battle of Saint-Mathieu,
during the War of the League of Cambrai, sees the simultaneous destruction of the Breton ship La Cordelière and the English ship The Regent
The naval Battle of Saint-Mathieu took place on 10 August 1512 during the War of the League of Cambrai, near Brest, France, between an English fleet of 25 ships commanded by Sir Edward Howard and a Franco-Breton fleet of 22 ships commanded by René de Clermont. It is possibly the first battle between ships using cannon through ports, although this played a minor role in the fighting. This was one of only two full-fledged naval battles fought by King Henry VIII's Tudor navy. During the battle, each navy's largest and most powerful ship—Regent and Marie-la-Cordelière (or simply Cordelière)—was destroyed by a large explosion aboard the latter.
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The simultaneous destruction of the Cordelière and the Regent depicted by Pierre-Julien Gilbert


1628 – The Swedish warship Vasa sinks in the Stockholm harbour after only about 20 minutes of her maiden voyage
The ship was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus as part of the military expansion he initiated in a war with Poland-Lithuania (1621–1629). It was constructed at the navy yard in Stockholm under a contract with private entrepreneurs in 1626–1627 and armed primarily with bronze cannon cast in Stockholm specifically for the ship. Richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself, upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, Vasa was dangerously unstable and top-heavy with too much weight in the upper structure of the hull. Despite this lack of stability she was ordered to sea and foundered only a few minutes after encountering a wind stronger than a breeze.
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1666 – Holmes´ Bonfire (09.08.-10.08.)
'Holmes's Bonfire' of 10/20 August 1666 was a successful British attack on Dutch shipping that came in the aftermath of their victory in the battle of St. James's Day on 25/26 July. In the aftermath of that battle the British fleet was cruising off the Dutch coast, while Dutch shipping attempted to shelter in the shallow coastal waters. A particularly large group of ships – perhaps as many as 200 fully loaded merchant ships – took shelter between the islands of Vlieland and Ter Schelling, protected by two men-of-war.
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1756 – Launch of French Glorieux, 74 guns, later HMS Glorieux or HMS Glorious
Glorieux 74 (launched 10 August 1756 at Rochefort, designed by François-Guillaume Clairin-Deslauriers) – captured by the British in the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782, sank in a storm in September 1782
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Plate IV. A View of the Sea on the Morning after the Storm, with the distressed situation of the Centaur, Ville de Paris and the Glorieux as seen from the Lady Juliana, the Ville de Paris passing to Windward under close reef'd Topsails


1759 – Launch of HMS Valiant , 74 guns, Valiant class
HMS Valiant
was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, modelled on the captured French ship Invincible and launched on 10 August 1759 at Chatham Dockyard. Her construction, launch and fitting-out are the theme of the 'Wooden Walls' visitor experience at Chatham Historic Dockyard.
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1837 – Wrecked Gloire, Artemise class 52 gun ship (launched 1837 at Rochefort) – wrecked 10 August 1847 off Korea.
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1904 – The Battle of the Yellow Sea between the Russian and Japanese battleship fleets (Russo-Japanese War) takes place.
The Battle of the Yellow Sea (Japanese: 黄海海戦 Kōkai kaisen; Russian: Бой в Жёлтом море) was a major naval engagement of the Russo-Japanese War, fought on 10 August 1904. In the Russian Navy, it was referred to as the Battle of 10 August.[1] The battle foiled an attempt by the Russian fleet at Port Arthur to break out and form up with counterparts from Vladivostok, forcing them to return to port. Four days later, the Battle off Ulsan similarly ended the Vladivostok group's sortie, forcing both fleets to remain at anchor.
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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

11th of August

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1695 - unsuccessfull Bombardment of Dunkirk by british
By the mid-17th century the channel port of Dunkirk had a reputation for being a haven for privateers who were a menace to Dutch and English shipping. However, when Dunkirk was acquired by France in 1662, after a brief period of English rule, the harbour entrance was becoming silted and large ships could not enter. French king Louis XIV decided to transform the town into an important naval harbour and fortress, spending vast sums of money there throughout the rest of the 17th century.
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1705 - HMS Plymouth (1653 - 60 guns) foundered.
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The English ship ‘Plymouth’, 60 guns, was built in 1653 and rebuilt in 1705. The drawing is inscribed pleijmoud vergadt which identifies the ship. There is a drawing in the Boymans Museum in Rotterdam (MB1866.T331) of ‘de oude pleijmout daer Sr thomas/hallin mede naer konstantinoobelen was’ (The old ‘Plymouth’ in which Sir Thomas Allin went to Constantinople).


1718 - Battle of Cape Passaro. British fleet under Sir George Byng defeated Spanish fleet under Antonio de Gaztaneta off Sicily.
The Battle of Cape Passaro (or Passero) was the defeat of a Spanish fleet under Admirals Antonio de Gaztañeta and Fernando Chacón by a British fleet under Admiral George Byng, near Cape Passero, Sicily, on 11 August 1718, four months before the War of the Quadruple Alliance was formally declared.
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The Battle of Cape Passaro, 11 August 1718 by Richard Paton (oil on canvas, 1767)


1779 French Sibylle class 32 gun frigate Fine launched in Nantes
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1791 - Battle of Cape Kaliakra
The Battle of Cape Kaliakra was the last naval battle of the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792). It took place on 11 August 1791 off the coast of Cape Kaliakra, Bulgaria, in the Black Sea. Neither side lost a ship, but the Ottomans retreated to Istanbul afterward.


1901 - The first german South Polar Expedition of Erich von Drygalski started from Kiel the voyage on board of ship Gauß .

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

12th of August

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1499 - The naval Battle of Zonchio
(Turkish: Sapienza Deniz Muharebesi, also known as the Battle of Sapienza or the First Battle of Lepanto) took place on four separate days: 12, 20, 22 and 25 August 1499. It was a part of the Ottoman–Venetian War of 1499–1503. It was the first naval battle in history in which cannons were used on ships.[citation needed]
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1780 - HMS Bienfaisant (1758 - 64), Cptn. John Macbride, took Count d'Artois off the Old Head of Kinsale.
The Action of 13 August 1780 (other sources says 12th August, others 9/1780) was a minor naval battle fought off the Old Head of Kinsale (County Cork, Ireland) in which the 64-gun French "private man of war" (privateer) Comte d'Artois fought two British Royal Navy ships, HMS Bienfaisant and HMS Charon, during the American Revolutionary War.
After Royal Navy admiral George Rodney successfully brought relief to the defenders of Gibraltar, capturing a Spanish convoy off Cape Finisterre and eight days later winning the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, his fleet returned to Britain in March 1780. One of the ships of his fleet, HMS Bienfaisant, under John MacBride, sailed back with them and kept a watch of the Irish coast in order to report if there were any movements by Spanish and French fleets in the area.
Reports arrived in early August 1780 of a large French privateer, the 64-gun Comte d'Artois, which had sailed from Brest to cruise off the Irish south coast, and was at once to be dealt with. MacBride was ordered to sail together with the 44-gun HMS Charon to capture Comte d'Artois. After several days in search of the vessel, a mysterious sail was finally sighted early on 13 August, chasing after some of the ships of a British convoy departing from Cork.

Comte d'Artois
Comte d'Artois was an Indiaman of the French East India Company, launched in 1759. She had been hulked in 1767 to serve as a careening hulk, but in 1780 was sold as a privateer. From May 1780 until the action she cruised under the command of Lieutenant Chevalier Robert Sutton de Closnard (or Clonard).

Bienfaisant
was a 64-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, launched in 1754.

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1798 - HMS Hazard (1794 - 16), William Butterfield, captured french Neptune (20/10) from the Isle de France bound for Brest.
HMS Hazard was a 16-gun Royal Navy Cormorant class ship-sloop built by Josiah & Thomas Brindley at Frindsbury, Kent, and launched in 1794. She served in the French Revolutionary Wars and throughout the Napoleonic Wars. She captured numerous prizes, and participated in a notable ship action against Topaze, as well as in several other actions and campaigns, three of which earned her crew clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. Hazard was sold in 1817.
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1809 - HMS Monkey (1801 - 12), Lt. Thomas Fitzgerald, and HMS Lynx (1794 - 16), John Willoughby Marshall, captured three Danish luggers off Dais Head near Rostock.
On 12 August, Commander John Willoughby Marshall and Lynx, in the company of the gun-brig Monkey under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Fitzgerald, discovered three Danish luggers off the Danish coast.
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HMS 'Lynx' and 'Monkey' capturing three Danish luggers, 12 August 1809

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1809 – Launch of HMS Orpheus, Apollo class 36 gun frigate
HMS Orpheus
was a 36-gun Apollo-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1809 from Deptford Dockyard. She was broken up in 1819.
Construction
Ordered on 27 February 1807 and laid down in August 1808 at Deptford Dockyard. Launched on 12 August 1809 and completed on 21 September 1809.
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1812 – Launch of French Ceres , 40 gun Pallas-class frigate
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2000 – The Russian Navy submarine Kursk explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise, killing her entire 118-man crew
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Kursk was an Oscar-class submarine, twice the length of a 747 jumbo jet, and one of the largest submarines in the Russian Navy.

The Kursk submarine disaster, the sinking of the Oscar-class submarine (Russian: Project 949A Антей) Kursk, took place during the first major Russian naval exercise in more than ten years, in the Barents Sea on 12 August 2000, killing all 118 personnel on board. Nearby ships registered the initial explosion and a second, much larger, explosion two minutes and fifteen seconds later, which was powerful enough to register on seismographs as far away as Alaska. The Russian Navy did not realise that the sub had sunk and did not halt the exercise or initiate a search for it for more than six hours. Because the sub's emergency rescue buoy had been intentionally disabled, it took more than 16 hours for them to locate the sunken boat.
Over four days, the Russian Navy used four different diving bells and submersibles to try to attach to the escape hatch without success. The navy's response was criticised as slow and inept. The government initially misled and manipulated the public and media about the timing of the accident, stating that communication had been established and that a rescue effort was under way, and refused help from other governments. On the fifth day, President Vladimir Putin authorised the navy to accept British and Norwegian offers of assistance. Seven days after the submarine went down, Norwegian divers finally opened a hatch to the escape trunk in the boat's ninth compartment, hoping to locate survivors, but found it flooded.


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Silhouette of soviet Oscar-II class guided missile submarine (project 949A "Antey").

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Wreck of Russian submarine Kursk (K-141) in a floating dock at Roslyakovo.
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

13th of August

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1704 - Battle of Malaga
An Anglo-Dutch fleet under Sir George Rooke, flying his flag in HMS Royal Katherine (84), fought an inconclusive action with a Franco-Spanish fleet under the Comte de Toulouse, in Foudrayant (104).
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1761 - The Battle of Cape Finisterre
was a naval engagement fought off the Northern Spanish Atlantic coast near Cape Finisterre between British and French squadrons during the Seven Years' War. A British force comprising the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Bellona and 36-gun frigate HMS Brilliant was sailing from Lisbon to Britain with a cargo of specie when on 13 August they encountered a French force comprising the 74-gun Courageux and the 32-gun frigates Malicieuse and Hermione. The British ships immediately chased the French squadron, maintaining contact through the night, and on the following morning two separate engagements occurred as Brilliant fought the French frigates and Bellona battled Courageux.
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A drawing depicting the action of 14 August 1761 off Cape Finisterre at which HMS Bellona captured French ship Courageux. Drawn by H. Fletcher c. 1890

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Scale: 1:48. A model of the 74-gun ship Bellona (1760) made entirely in a mid-brown patinated wood and varnished or polished.

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Scale: 1:38.4 (5/16 inch to the foot). A model of the 74-gun ship Bellona (1760), made entirely in wood with wood, metal, and organic and inorganic material fittings and painted and varnished.


1764 - Launch of HMS Ardent
HMS
Ardent was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was built by contract by Hugh Blaydes at Hull according to a design by Sir Thomas Slade, and launched on 13 August 1764 as the first ship of the Ardent-class. She had a somewhat turbulent career, being captured by the French in 1779, and then re-captured by Britain in 1782.
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1777 - newly developed powder keg torpedoe made by David Bushnell attached to the 'Turtle' was used to attack HMS Cerberus (28), Cptn. J. Symons, at anchor off New London, CT. It actually blew up a schooner astern of the frigate, and killed several men on board. This was the first vessel ever destroyed in such a manner.
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A diagram of Bushnell's American Turtle


1779 - The Penobscot Expedition
was a 44-ship American naval task force mounted during the Revolutionary War by the Provincial Congress of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The flotilla of 19 warships and 25 smaller support vessels sailed from Boston on July 19, 1779 for the upper Penobscot Bay in the District of Maine carrying a ground expeditionary force of more than 1,000 colonial Marines and militiamen. Also included was a 100-man artillery detachment under the command of Lt. Colonel Paul Revere. The Expedition's goal was to reclaim control of what is now mid-coast Maine from the British who had seized it a month earlier and renamed it New Ireland. It was the largest American naval expedition of the war. The fighting took place both on land and at sea in and around the mouth of the Penobscot and Bagaduce Rivers at what is today Castine, Maine over a period of three weeks in July and August of 1779. One of its greatest victories of the war for the British, the Expedition was also the United States' worst naval defeat until Pearl Harbor 162 years later in 1941.
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This is a depiction of naval action in the American Revolutionary War's 1779 Penobscot Expedition.
 
A small remark to this topic, which is now already running some years

Many Thanks to your not ending interest in the naval history :cool:

In the this topic was viewed by our members more than 4.000.000 times

View attachment 323271
Dear Uwek
I also greatly enjoy reading the historical reviews you prepare for us, I discover a lot of knowledge there that I did not know, and for that we are very grateful and appreciated Thumbsup Thumbsup :)
 
Hi Uwe,

Your historical posts/reviews are an important part of this excellent SOS site. With the ever expanding membership it makes sense that members tend to concentrate on the model builds but there are many of us who enjoy the historical context and research as well. Your posts provide really good references to topics we can, if we so wish, take further in our studies.

Thank you for making the time and effort to do this.
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

14th of August

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1744 - Launch of HMS Colchester
HMS Colchester
was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Harwich according to the dimensions specified in the 1741 proposals of the 1719 Establishment, and launched on 14 August 1744.
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1787 - Launch of unique HMS Veteran, 64 guns third rate
HMS Veteran
was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 14 August 1787 at East Cowes. She was designed by Sir Edward Hunt, and was the only ship built to her draught.
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1804 - Boats of HMS Galatea (1794 - 32), Cptn. Henry Heathcote, failed to cut out French privateer General Ernouf (late Lily) lying at the Saintes near Guadeloupe.
In February 1804 Galatea sailed to the West Indies as escort to a convoy of merchant vessels. On 19 May she recaptured Boyd, which was carrying plantation stores. A month later, on 25 June, she recaptured the English ship Beaver, which was carrying a cargo of slaves and ivory.
On 3 August the French privateer schooner Elizabeth, of six guns, arrived at Dominica. Galatea had cut her out at Guadeloupe.
The debacle
The next attempt to cut out a French vessel went badly. On 14 August Galatea attempted to cut out the French privateer Général Ernouf, which had been the British sloop-of-war Lilly). Général Ernouf was sheltering at the Saintesnear Guadeloupe where shore batteries could protect her. The attack was a debacle for the British, who failed completely in their attempt. Captain Heathcote had been too obvious in his reconnoitering and the French were waiting for the night attack. In all, the British lost some 10 men killed, including Lieutenant Charles Hayman, the commander of the boarding party, and first lieutenant of Galatea, and 55 or more wounded or captured. The French lost four killed and suffered some wounded, among them Captain Lapointe, commander of Général Ernouf, and Lieutenant Mouret, commander of the detachment of troops the French stationed aboard her in anticipation of the attack. The French also captured Galatea's barge, which the other three boats of the cutting out party could not retrieve as they made their escape.
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HMS Galatea, by Thomas Whitcombe


1813 - capture of USS Argus by HMS Pelican
The first USS Argus, originally named USS Merrimack, was a brig in the United States Navy launched on 31 August 1803 and commissioned on 6 September 1803. She enforced the Embargo Act of 1807 and fought in the First Barbary War – taking part in the blockade of Tripoli and the capture of Derna – and the War of 1812.
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Argus during the War of 1812

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The crew of the HMS Pelican prepare to board the USS Argus. Captain Maples leading the Pelican's boarding party.


1904 - The naval Battle off Ulsan - sinking of russian armed cruiser Rurik
(Japanese: 蔚山沖海戦 Urusan'oki kaisen; Russian: Бой в Корейском проливе, Boi v Koreiskom prolive), also known as the Battle of the Japanese Sea or Battle of the Korean Strait, took place on 14 August 1904 between cruiser squadrons of the Imperial Russian Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Russo-Japanese War, four days after the Battle of the Yellow Sea.
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1807 - Action between HMS Comus vs. Fredrickscoarn
Comus was under Captain Edward Heywood from July 1807, and in August she was with the expedition to Copenhagen. During this service she took part in a notable, illegal and ultimately one-sided single-ship action, and accumulated substantial prize money.
On 12 August the 32-gun Danish frigate Frederiksværn (Fredrickscoarn in British usage), sailed for Norway from Elsinor and Admiral Lord Gambier sent the 74-gun third rate Defence and Comus after her, even though war had not yet been declared. Comus was faster than Defence in the light winds and so outdistanced her.
On 14 August 1807 Comus sighted Frederiksværn and chased her, catching up off Marstrand a little before midnight on the 15th. Heywood ordered the Frederiksværn to halt and allow herself to be detained.[8] War not having been declared, and Frederiksværn being a naval vessel, she ignored Heywood's instructions. Heywood ordered a musket fired, to which Frederiksværn replied with a shot from her stern guns. Comus followed with a broadside.
After an action of 45 minutes, Frederiksværn's rigging was disabled. Comus and Frederiksværn then came together, which enabled a boarding party from Comus to climb over Frederiksværn's bow and capture her.
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1895 - The battleship USS Texas is commissioned. She is the first American steel-hulled battleship.
USS Texas was a second-class battleship built by the United States in the early 1890s, the first American battleship commissioned[1] and the first ship named in honor of the state of Texas to be built by the United States.[a] Built in reaction to the acquisition of modern armored warships by several South American countries, Texas was meant to incorporate the latest developments in naval tactics and design. This includes the mounting of her main armament en echelon to allow maximum end-on fire and a heavily-armored redoubt amidships to ensure defensive strength. However, due to the state of U.S. industry at the time, Texas's building time was lengthy, and by the time she was commissioned, she was already out of date. Nevertheless, she and her near-sister USS Maine were considered advancements in American naval design.
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USS Texas in 1898 (commissioned 1892)



1914 – The Panama Canal opens to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship SS Ancon.
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1940 – An Italian submarine Delfino torpedoes and sinks the Greek cruiser Elli at Tinos harbor during peacetime, marking the most serious Italian provocation prior to the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War in October.
Elli (Greek: Κ/Δ Έλλη) was a 2,600 ton Greek protected cruiser (Greek: Εύδρομο Καταδρομικό) named for a naval battle of the First Balkan War in which Greece was victorious. She was completed in 1913 and commissioned in 1914. Elli saw action during World War I and in the disastrous Asia Minor Expedition. An Italian submarine sank her, before the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War on 15 August 1940 while she sat at anchor.
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1942 – World War II: Operation Pedestal: The SS Ohio reaches the island of Malta barely afloat carrying vital fuel supplies for the island's defenses.
The SS Ohio was an oil tanker built for the Texas Oil Company (now Texaco). The ship was launched on 20 April 1940 at the Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. in Chester, Pennsylvania. She was requisitioned by the Allied forces to re-supply the island fortress of Malta during the Second World War.
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1742 - HMS Gloucester (1711 - 50 guns) burnt near Ladrones to avoid capture by Spanish.
HMS Gloucester was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy in the 1710s. She participated in the 1701–15 War of the Spanish Succession. The ship was burned to prevent capture after she was damaged in a storm during Commodore George Anson's voyage around the world in 1742.
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1778 - HMS Isis (1774 - 50 guns) engaged french Cesar (1768 - 74 guns)
HMS Isis
was a 50-gun Portland-class fourth-rate of the Royal Navy. She saw service during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
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The end of the César, by François Aimé Louis Dumoulin.


1779 - HMS Ardent (1764 - 64 guns), Cptn. Phillip Boteler, captured by Franco-Spanish fleet in the Channel.
HMS Ardent
was a 64-gun Ardent-class third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was built by contract by Hugh Blaydes at Hull according to a design by Sir Thomas Slade, and launched on 13 August 1764 as the first ship of the Ardent-class. She had a somewhat turbulent career, being captured by the French in 1779, and then re-captured by Britain in 1782.
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Capture of HMS Ardent by the frigates Junon and Gentille


1801 - Horatio Nelson failed in his attack on Boulogne
The raid on Boulogne in 1801 was a failed attempt by elements of the Royal Navy led by Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson to destroy a flotilla of French vessels anchored in the port of Boulogne, a fleet which was thought to be used for the invasion of England, during the French Revolutionary Wars. At dawn on 4 August, Nelson ordered five bomb vessels to move forward and open fire against the French line. Despite the inferior gunpowder of French artillery and the high number of shots fired by the bomb vessels, the British sustained more casualties and withdrew. The night of 16 August Nelson returned and tried to bring off the flotilla, attacking with seventy boats and nearly two thousand men organized into four divisions, but the attack was successfully repelled by the defenders, led by Admiral Latouche Tréville.
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1807 - Beginning of the Second Battle of Copenhagen
The Second Battle of Copenhagen (or the Bombardment of Copenhagen) (16 August – 5 September 1807) was a British bombardment of the Danish capital, Copenhagen in order to capture or destroy the Dano-Norwegian fleet, during the Napoleonic Wars. The incident led to the outbreak of the Anglo-Russian War of 1807, which ended with the Treaty of Örebro in 1812.
Britain's first response to Napoleon's Continental system was to launch a major naval attack on the weakest link in Napoleon's coalition, Denmark. Although ostensibly neutral, Denmark was under heavy French and Russian pressure to pledge its fleet to Napoleon. In September 1807, the Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen, seizing the Danish fleet, and assured use of the sea lanes in the North Sea and Baltic Sea for the British merchant fleet. A consequence of the attack was that Denmark did join the war on the side of France, but without a fleet it had little to offer.
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Contemporary Danish painting of the battle seen from land.


1808 - HMS Sybille (44), Cptn. Clotworthy Upton, captured Espiegle (1804 - 16), Cptn. Maujouan.
Espiègle was a 16-gun brig-sloop of the French Curieux-class . She was built by the Enterprise Ethéart, Saint-Malo, and launched in 1804. She was armed in 1807 at Saint Servan. The British frigate Sybille captured her on 16 August 1808. There was already an Espiegle in the Royal Navy so the Navy took the vessel they had just captured into service as HMS Electra, her predecessor Electra having been wrecked in March. Electra captured one American privateer before she was sold in 1816.
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1897 - The ship Belgica under lead of Adrien de Gerlache set sail for the first expedition to winter in the Antarctic region
In 1896, Baron Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery (2 August 1866 – 4 December 1934), who was an officer in the Belgian Royal Navy , purchased the Norwegian-built whaling ship Patria, which, following an extensive refit, he renamed as the Belgica. With a multinational crew, which included Roald Amundsen, Frederick Cook, Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski, Henryk Arctowski and Emil Racoviță, he set sail from Antwerp on 16 August 1897.
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The Belgica anchored at Mount William
 
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1606 - Battle of Cape Rachado - Indecisive action between a Dutch fleet under Cornelis Matelief de Jonge and a Portuguese fleet near Malacca
The Battle of Cape Rachado, off the present day Malaccan exclave of Cape Rachado in 1606, was an important naval engagement between the Dutch East India Company and Portuguese fleets.
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Battle for Malacca between the VOC fleet and the Portuguese, 1606.


1712 – Action of 17 August 1712 - Danes under Sehested fight and then defeat Swedes under Henck near Rugen
This battle took place on 17 August 1712 south of Rügen, in the Baltic Sea, during the Great Northern War. It was the second time that the two fleets met, first action was at 31 July the same year. The site is known as Neues Tief in German, Nydyp in Danish, and Nya Djupet in Swedish, all meaning "New Deep." The action was a victory for Denmark, commanded by Hannibal Sehested, over Sweden, commanded by Henck.
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places of the two battles on 31 July and 17 August


1757 – Launch of HMS Shannon, a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.
Shannon was one of five frigates of the class built of fir rather than oak. Fir was cheaper and more abundant than oak and permitted noticeably faster construction, but at a cost of a reduced lifespan; the four fir-built Coventry-class vessels that did not get captured lasted an average of only nine years before being struck off.
The vessel was named after the River Shannon in Ireland. In selecting her name the Board of Admiralty continued a tradition dating to 1644, of using geographic features for ship names; overall, ten of the nineteen Coventry-class vessels were named after well-known regions, rivers or towns. With few exceptions the remainder of the class were named after figures from classical antiquity, following a more modern trend initiated in 1748 by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich in his capacity as First Lord of the Admiralty.
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Scale: 1:48. A contemporary full hull model of the sixth-rate sloop


1796 - Dutch fleet under Ad. Engelburtus Lucas surrendered to British squadron under Ad. Sir George Keith Elphinstone at Saldanha Bay, South Africa.
The Capitulation of Saldanha Bay was the surrender in 1796 to the British Royal Navy of a Dutch expeditionary force sent to recapture the Dutch Cape Colony. In 1794, early in the French Revolutionary Wars, the army of the French Republic overran the Dutch Republic which then became a French client state, the Batavian Republic. Great Britain was concerned by the threat the Dutch Cape Colony in Southern Africa posed to its trade routes to British India. It therefore sent an expeditionary force that landed at Simon's Town in June 1795 and forced the surrender of the colony in a short campaign. The British commander, Vice-Admiral Sir George Elphinstone, then reinforced the garrison and stationed a naval squadron at the Cape to protect the British conquest.


1803 - HMS Racoon (1795 - 16) destroyed Mutine (1799 – 18) off St.Jago.
In August, Having received information that French privateers were operating out of Cuban ports, Bissell sailed along the east end of the Jamaican coast and then crossed to Santiago de Cuba. There he saw four schooners, which appeared to be armed. Within a few days Racoon was able to encounter three of them early in the morning. Racoon captured two after tedious chases, as they separated. They were the Deux Amis and the Trois Freres, both of three guns. Racoon was also able to drive the third, of two guns, on shore, where she was wrecked.
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HMS Racoon capturing French navy corvette Mutine, circle of William John Huggins


1803 – Launch of french 74 gunner Magnanime (1803 - 74)
Magnanime was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.
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Magnanime towing Commerce de Paris, by Ange-Joseph Antoine Roux, 1809.


1804 - HMS Loire (1796 - 40) captured privateer frigate Blonde (30) off Bordeaux after a chase of 36 hours.
On 16 August 1804 Loire gave chase to a suspicious-looking sail. After a chase of 20 hours, including a running fight of a quarter of an hour, during which the British had one midshipman and five men wounded, and the French lost two men killed and five wounded, the latter hauled down her colours. She proved to be French privateer Blonde, of Bordeaux, mounting 30 guns, eight-pounders on the main deck, with a crew of 240 men under François Aregnaudeau; the same ship that, about five months earlier, had captured the Wolverine. Loire took the prize in tow to Plymouth where the prisoners were disembarked on 31 August. Blonde was not commissioned in the Royal Navy.
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1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
The North River Steamboat or North River, colloquially known as the Clermont, is widely regarded as the world's first vessel to demonstrate the viability of using steam propulsion for commercial water transportation. Built in 1807, the North River Steamboat operated on the Hudson River – at that time often known as the North River – between New York City and Albany, New York. She was built by the wealthy investor and politician Robert Livingston and inventor and entrepreneur Robert Fulton (1765–1815).
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1841 – Launch of HMS Collingwood, Vanguard class (1841-80)
HMS Collingwood
was an 80-gun two-deck second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 August 1841 at Pembroke Dockyard.
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1977 – The Soviet icebreaker Arktika becomes the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.
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1590 – John White, the governor of the Roanoke Colony, returns from a supply trip to England and finds his settlement deserted.
Governor White finally reached Roanoke Island on 18 August 1590, his granddaughter's third birthday, but he found his colony had been long deserted. The buildings had collapsed and "the houses [were] taken downe." The few clues about the colonists' whereabouts included the letters "CRO" carved into a tree, and the word "CROATOAN" carved on a post of the fort. Croatoan was the name of a nearby island (likely modern-day Hatteras Island) and of a local tribe of Native Americans. Roanoke Island was not the original planned location for the colony and the idea of moving elsewhere had been discussed. Before the Governor's departure, he and the colonists had agreed that a message would be carved into a tree if they had moved and would include an image of a Maltese Cross if the decision was made by force. White found no such cross and was hopeful that his family were still alive.
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John White discovers the word "CROATOAN" carved at Roanoke's fort palisade.


1759 - The naval Battle of Lagos between Britain and France
took place over two days, on 18 and 19 August 1759, during the Seven Years' War off the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and is named after Lagos, Portugal. For the British, it was part of the Annus Mirabilis of 1759.
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Battle of Lagos in 1759 off Portugal - painting by Thomas Luny

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The British Royal Navy defeat the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of Lagos - by Richard Perret


1798 - HMS Leander (1780 - 50), Cptn. Thomas Boulden Thompson, captured by Genereaux (1785 - 74) Cptn. Lejoille.
HMS Leander
was a Portland-class 50-gun fourth rate of the Royal Navy, launched at Chatham on 1 July 1780. She served on the West Coast of Africa, West Indies, and the Halifax station. During the French Revolutionary Wars she participated in the Battle of the Nile before a French ship captured her. The Russians and Turks recaptured her and returned her to the Royal Navy in 1799. On 23 February 1805, while on the Halifax station, Leander captured the French frigate Ville de Milan and recaptured her prize, HMS Cleopatra. On 25 April 1805 cannon fire from Leander killed an American seaman while Leander was trying to search an American vessel off the US coast for contraband. The resulting "Leander Affair" contributed to the worsening of relations between the United States and Great Britain. In 1813 the Admiralty converted Leander to a hospital ship under the name Hygeia. Hygeia was sold in 1817.
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1803 – Launch of HMS Hero 74 gun Fame class Ship of the Line
HMS Hero
was a 74-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, launched on 18 August 1803 at Blackwall Yard.
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The wreck of HMS Hero in the Texel, 25 December 1811


1838 - The United States Exploring Expedition led by Lt. Charles Wilkes weighs anchor at Hampton Roads on a world cruise
The United States Exploring Expedition was an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands conducted by the United States from 1838 to 1842. The original appointed commanding officer was Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones. Funding for the original expedition was requested by President John Quincy Adams in 1828, however, Congress would not implement funding until eight years later. In May 1836, the oceanic exploration voyage was finally authorized by Congress and created by President Andrew Jackson. The expedition is sometimes called the "U.S. Ex. Ex." for short, or the "Wilkes Expedition" in honor of its next appointed commanding officer, United States Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes. The expedition was of major importance to the growth of science in the United States, in particular the then-young field of oceanography. During the event, armed conflict between Pacific islanders and the expedition was common and dozens of natives were killed in action, as well as a few Americans.
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Route of the voyage :
1. Hampton Roads; 2. Madeira; 3. Rio de Janeiro;
4. Tierra del Fuego; 5. Valparaíso; 6. Callao; 7. Samoa;
8. Fiji; 9. Sydney; 10. Antarctica; 11. Hawaii

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Return route :
1. Puget Sound; 2. Columbia; 3. San Francisco;
4. Polynesia; 5. Philippines; 6. Borneo; 7. Singapore;
8. Cape of Good Hope; 9. New York


1887 – Launch of SS Britannia, british passenger steamer
SS Britannia
was a British Passenger Liner that was scrapped after 22 years of duty (1887–1909) at Genoa, Italy.
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1920 – Launch of Oceanliner RMS Empress of Canada
RMS Empress of Canada
was an ocean liner built in 1920 for the Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP) by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland. This ship—the first of two CP vessels to be named Empress of Canada—regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Far East until 1939.
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1702 - The Action of August 1702
was a naval battle that took place from 19–25 August 1702 O.S. between an English squadron under Vice-Admiral John Benbow and a French under Admiral Jean du Casse, off Cape Santa Marta on the coast of present-day Colombia, South America, during the War of the Spanish Succession. Benbow vigorously attacked the French squadron, but the refusal of most of his captains to support the action allowed du Casse to escape. Benbow lost a leg during the engagement and died of illness about two months later. Two of the captains were convicted of cowardice and shot.
Benbow's resolution to pursue the French, in what proved to be his last fight, proved irresistible to the public imagination. The events of the fight inspired a number of ballads, usually entitled Admiral Benbow or Brave Benbow, which were still favourites among British sailors more than a century later.
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Adml John Benbow courageously commanding his Men to fight after his Leg was shattered to Pieces, St Martha (West Indies) 19-24 July 1702


1711 - Birth of Edward Boscawen, PC (19 August 1711 – 10 January 1761)
who was an Admiral in the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament for the borough of Truro, Cornwall. He is known principally for his various naval commands during the 18th century and the engagements that he won, including the Siege of Louisburg in 1758 and Battle of Lagos in 1759.[2] He is also remembered as the officer who signed the warrant authorising the execution of Admiral John Byng in 1757, for failing to engage the enemy at the Battle of Minorca (1756). In his political role, he served as a Member of Parliament for Truro from 1742 until his death although due to almost constant naval employment he seems not to have been particularly active. He also served as one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty on the Board of Admiralty from 1751 and as a member of the Privy Council from 1758 until his death in 1761.
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1801 - HMS Sybille (1791 - 44), Cptn. Chas. Adam, captured French national frigate Chiffone, in Mahe Road - also known as the Battle of Mahe
The Battle of Mahé was a minor naval engagement of the last year of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought on 19 August 1801 in the harbour of Mahéin the Seychelles, a French colony in the Indian Ocean. Since the demise of the French Indian Ocean squadron in 1799, the Royal Navy had maintained dominance in the East Indies, controlling the shipping routes along which trade flowed and allowing the rapid movement of military forces around the theatre. French First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte had long-harboured ambitions of threatening British India, and in 1798 had launched an invasion of Egypt as an initial step to achieving this goal. The campaign had failed, and the French army in Egypt was under severe pressure by early 1801, partly due to the presence of a British squadron acting with impunity in the Red Sea.
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1808 – Death of Fredrik Henrik af Chapman, Swedish admiral and shipbuilder (b. 1721)
Fredrik Henrik af Chapman (9 September 1721 in Gothenburg – 19 August 1808) was a Swedish shipbuilder, scientist and officer in the Swedish navy. He was also manager of the Karlskrona shipyard 1782-1793. Chapman is credited as the first person to apply scientific methods to shipbuilding and is considered to be the first naval architect.
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Title page of Architectura Navalis Mercatoria, published 1768.


1812 - The frigate USS Constitution captures the frigate HMS Guerriere, off Halifax, Nova Scotia after an intense battle.
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Constitution fires into the burning hulk of Guerriere, now badly damaged


2017 - A team of civilian researchers led by entrepreneur and philanthropist Paul G. Allen announces they found the wreck of World War II cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA 35), which was lost July 30, 1945, in 18,000 feet of water. About 800 of the ship's 1,196 Sailors and Marines survived the sinking, but after four to five days in the water - suffering exposure, dehydration, drowning, and shark attacks - only 316 survived.

Navy firing detail as part of a burial-at-sea in 2008 for one of the 316 survivors of Indianapolis sinking on 30 July 1945.
 
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1777 - Launch of Barfleur-class 90 gun Ship of Line HMS Formidable
HMS Formidable
was a 90-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, designed by Sir Thomas Slade on the lines of the 100-gun ship Royal William, launched on 20 August 1777 at Chatham. In about 1780, she had another eight guns added to her quarterdeck increased to 98-guns.
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Scale model of HMS Formidable, flagship of Rodney at the Battle of the Saintes. On display at Fort Napoléon des Saintes museum.


1778 - Launch of french 74 gun Ship of the Line Neptune
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Saint Remi museum of Reims (Marne, France) ; miltary room, model of the Neptune


1785 – Launch of Yacht HDMS Kronprindsens Lystfregat
HDMS Kronprindsens Lystfregat
(literally, "the crown prince's pleasure frigate") was a yacht launched in Britain in 1785. George III gave it to his nephew Frederick, the Crown Prince of Denmark. Kronprindsens Lystfregat cost £10,347 to build and furnish.
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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with stern quarter and broadside window decoration, and longitudinal half-breadth for building a yacht for the Prince Royal of Denmark at Deptford Dockyard.


1797 - Launch of french Carrère class 40 gun frigate Carrère at Venice
40-gun design by Pierre-Alexandre Forfait, with 28 x 18-pounder and 12 x 8-pdr guns, plus 4 x 36-pounder obusiers.
Carrère was a French frigate that served briefly in the French navy before the British captured her in 1801, naming her HMS Carrere. She seems never to have seen any meaningful active duty after her capture as she was laid up in 1802 and finally sold in 1814.
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1800 - Start of a 6 day engagement in which HMS Seine (48) captured Vengeance (24) off the Mona Passage.
HMS Seine was at West Africa before she sailed for Jamaica in July. On 20 August 1800 Seine attacked the French ship, Vengeance, which had just finished refitting at Curaçao. The vessels broke off action and Seine was unable to resume the engagement until 25 August. Then, after an hour and a half of hard fighting, Seine captured the French frigate. Both ships had sustained heavy casualties; 13 crew were killed aboard the Seine, 29 were wounded, and the ship was cut up. However, Vengeance sustained worse; almost cut to pieces, many considered her beyond repair. Nevertheless Vengeance was repaired in Jamaica and taken into British service under her existing name. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issue of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Seine 20 Augt. 1800" to all surviving claimants from this action.
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Depiction of the capture of Vengeance


1808 - Launch of French Pallas-class fifth rate frigate La Renommée, later HMS Java
HMS Java
was a British Royal Navy 38-gun fifth-rate frigate. She was originally launched in 1805 as Renommée, described as a 40-gun Pallas-class French Navy frigate designed by Jacques-Noël Sané, but the vessel actually carried 46 guns. The British captured her in 1811 in a noteworthy action during the Battle of Tamatave, but she is most famous for her defeat on 29 December 1812 in a three-hour single-ship action against USS Constitution. Java had a crew of about 277 but during her engagement with Constitution her complement was 475.
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Capture of the HMS Java Drawn & Etched by N. Pocock, from a Sketch by Lieut. Buchanan / Engraved by R. & D. Havell / Published by Messrs. Boydell & Co.


1810 - The Battle of Grand Port started,
which was a naval battle between squadrons of frigates from the French Navy and the British Royal Navy. The battle was fought during 20–27 August 1810 over possession of the harbour of Grand Port on Isle de France (now Mauritius) during the Napoleonic Wars. The British squadron of four frigates sought to blockade the port to prevent its use by the French through the capture of the fortified Île de la Passe at its entrance. This position was seized by a British landing party on 13 August, and when a French squadron under Captain Guy-Victor Duperré approached the bay nine days later the British commander, Captain Samuel Pym, decided to lure them into coastal waters where his superior numbers could be brought to bear against the French ships.
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Detail from Combat de Grand Port by Pierre-Julien Gilbert. Visible from left to right: HMS Iphigenia (seen striking her colours), HMS Magicienne and HMS Sirius being set on fire by their crews, HMS Nereide surrendering, French frigate Bellone, French frigate Minerve, Victor (in the background) and Ceylon. Many of the details shown in the painting did not happen simultaneously, but were spread over several days


1810 – 38 gun frigate HMS Lively (1804) wrecked
HMS Lively
was a 38-gun fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy, launched on 23 July 1804 at Woolwich Dockyard, and commissioned later that month. She was the prototype of the Lively class of 18-pounder frigates, designed by the Surveyor of the Navy, Sir William Rule. It was probably the most successful British frigate design of the Napoleonic Wars, to which fifteen more sister ships would be ordered between 1803 and 1812.
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1852 – Steamboat Atlantic sank on Lake Erie after a collision, with the loss of at least 150 lives.
Atlantic was a steamboat that sank on Lake Erie after a collision with the steamer Ogdensburg on 20 August 1852, with the loss of at least 150 but perhaps as many as 300 lives. The loss of life made this disaster, in terms of loss of life from the sinking of a single vessel, the fifth-worst tragedy in the history of the Great Lakes.
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Atlantic, Great Lakes steamboat built 1848.


1857 - The british clipper Dunbar wrecked near harbour of Sydney. From 122 people on board only one survived.
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Hand-coloured lithograph inscribed: The Dunbar, 1321 tons


1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision. Fifty-one people are killed.

 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

21st of August

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1635 - Dunkirk squadron under Jacob Collaart (see Dunkirkers) defeat Dutch guardships and captures 60 fishing trawlers
During the Dutch Revolt (1568–1648), the Dunkirkers or Dunkirk Privateers were commerce raiders in the service of the Spanish monarchy. They were also part of the Dunkirk fleet, which consequently was a part of the Spanish monarchy's Flemish fleet (Armada de Flandes). The Dunkirkers operated from the ports of the Flemish coast: Nieuwpoort, Ostend, and Dunkirk. Throughout the Eighty Years' War, the fleet of the Dutch Republic repeatedly tried to destroy the Dunkirkers. The first Dunkirkers sailed a group of warships outfitted by the Spanish government, but non-government investment in privateering soon led to a more numerous fleet of privately owned and outfitted warships..........
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The Battle of the Downs


1673 - The naval Battle of Texel or Battle of Kijkduin
took place off the southern coast of island of Texel on 21 August 1673 (11 August O.S.) between the Dutch and the combined English and French fleets. It was the last major battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War, which was itself part of the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), during which Louis XIV of France invaded the Republic and sought to establish control over the Spanish Netherlands. English involvement came about because of the Treaty of Dover, secretly concluded by Charles II of England, and which was highly unpopular with the English Parliament.
The overall commanders of the English and Dutch military forces were Lord High Admiral James, Duke of York, afterwards King James II of England, and Admiral-General William III of Orange, James' son-in-law and also a future King of England. Neither of them took part in the fight.
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The encounter between Cornelis Tromp on the 'Gouden Leeuw'and Sir Edward Spragg on the 'Royal Prince'in the night of 21 August 1673, during the Battle of Kijkduin: episode from the Third Angli-Dutch War (1672-1674) by Willem van de Velde the Younger

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The Battle of Texel, 11/21 August 1673 by Willem van de Velde the Younger, painted 1683. The ship at the centre is Dutch Admiral Cornelis Tromp's flagship Gouden Leeuw, 82 guns


1799 - HMS Clyde (1796 - 38), Cptn. Charles Cunningham, captured the French frigate Vestale (1781 -32) in the mouth of the Garonne.
In August, Clyde was off the coast of France. On 21 August, she was six or seven leagues northwest of the Cordovan Lighthouse near the mouth of the Gironde when she observed two sail. As Clyde approached, they separated, and she pursued the larger. Clyde brought her quarry to action, eventually forcing the French vessel to strike. The French vessel was Vestale, a 32-gun frigate and a crew of 235 men under the command of M. P.M. Gaspard. She had sailed from Cadiz with dispatches for Saint Domingue and was on her return voyage. She carried a number of passengers who she had landed at Passages (Pasajes) two days earlier, and was now on her way to Rochefort. In the engagement, Clyde lost two men killed and three wounded; Vestale had ten men killed and 22 wounded, several of whom died later. Vestale's consort, the 20-gun corvette Sagesse (launched 1794) had too large a lead and escaped into the Garonne.
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1808 – Launch of Dalmate, a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.
1810 - Launch of Capri, a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the Real Marina of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Dalmate
Ordered on 11 August 1806, Dalmate was one of the ships built in the various shipyards captured by the First French Empire in Holland and Italy in a crash programme to replenish the ranks of the French Navy.
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1823 – Launch of Algésiras, an 80-gun Bucentaure-class 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, designed by Sané.
The Algésiras was an 80-gun Bucentaure-class 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, designed by Sané.
She took part in the Invasion of Algiers in 1830, under Captain Ponée, and in the Battle of the Tagus the next year, under Captain Moulac.
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Loss of a longboat of Algésiras in a storm, 9 August 1831.


1883 - USS Trenton (1876) get Pioneer in Electricity for US Naval Vessels
USS Trenton was the first U.S. Navy ship to have electric lights. A dynamo, engine, and lights were installed in the summer of 1883. The successful use of electricity on this ship led to the installation of electricity on the first ships of the New Steel Navy.
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1846 – Launch of HMS Thetis, a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, later SMS Thetis of prussian Navy
After nearly a decade of service with the British, she was transferred to Prussia in exchange for two steam gunboats. She served with the Prussian Navy, the North German Federal Navy and the Imperial German Navy as a training ship until being stricken in 1871. Thetis was subsequently converted into a coal hulk and broken up in 1894–95.
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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

22nd of August

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1638 - The Battle of Getaria or the Battle of Guetaria, Action of 22 August 1638
are the names given to a battle in the Franco-Spanish War (1635–59), which took place on 22 August 1638 at Getaria, northern Spain, when a French fleet under de Sourdis attacked and destroyed a Spanish fleet under Lope de Hoces.
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The Battle of Guetaria, by Andries van Eertvelt


1696 - Battle of Andros - Venetians under Contarini vs Turks and their allies under Mezzo Morto near island Andros
The Battle of Andros took place on 22 August 1696 southeast of the Greek island of Andros between the fleets of the Republic of Venice and the Papal States under Bartolomeo Contarini on the one side and the Ottoman Navy, under Mezzo Morto Hüseyin Pasha, and allied Barbary forces on the other. The encounter was indecisive, and no vessels were lost on either side.


1711 - Britain´s Quebec Expedition, or the Walker Expedition to Quebec, was ending with a disaster with the loss of eight ships and almost nine hundred soldiers, sailors and women to rocks at Pointe-aux-Anglais
The beginning of the Quebec Expedition was described in detail already at the day of the beginning:
See herefore:
https://www.shipsofscale.com/sosfor...ime-events-in-history.2104/page-12#post-36365


1770 – James Cook names and lands on Possession Island, and claims the east coast of Australia for Britain as New South Wales.
During his first voyage of discovery, British explorer, then Lieutenant James Cook sailed northwards along the east coast of Australia, landing at Botany Bay. Reaching the tip of Queensland, he named and landed on Possession Island, just before sunset on 22 August 1770, and declared the coast British territory in the name of King George III.
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1778 - Launch of french frigate Bellone (1778 - 32 - Iphigenie-class)
Bellone was an Iphigénie-class 32-gun frigate of the French Navy. She was one of the French ships with a copper-covered hull.
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Fight between Bellone and HMS Foudroyant at the Battle of Tory Island

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1796 - HMS Galatea (1794 - 32) drove the frigate L'Andromaque (1778 – 48 (mounted 40) – Nymphe-class), on shore near Arcasson, where she was completely destroyed by HMS Sylph (18) on the 23rd.
Andromaque was commissioned in Brest in 1778 and took part in the American War of Independence. After an overhaul in which she was coppered in April 1780, she captured the British 20-gun post shipHMS Unicorn on 4 October 1780, off Tortuga. The French Navy took Unicorn into service as La Licorne.
On 21 April 1781, Andromaque landed troops for the Siege of Pensacola, in the squadron under Monteil.
On 20 April 1782, a 10-ship convoy departed Brest escorted by the 74-gun Protecteur and Pégase, and the frigates Indiscrète and Andromaque. At sunset, at the mouth of the English Channel, the convoy met a British force of three 74-gun ships of the line under John Jervis; in the ensuing Action of 20–21 April 1782, Pégase and the 64 Actionaire, armed en flûte, were captured.


1851 – The first America's Cup is won by the yacht America
The regatta, held on 22 August 1851, raced clockwise around the Isle of Wight in a fleet race. The course was called "The Queen's Course". The course was near Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight, where the Royal Yacht Squadron headquarters are located. The race took place as part of the 1851 Royal Yacht Squadron Regatta. The signal gun for sailing was fired at 10am, and the winner saluted by a gun from the flag-ship at 8:34pm (8:37pm railway time).


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America with 1887 rig


1942 - Destroyer USS Ingraham collided with the oil tanker USS Chemung in heavy fog off the coast of Nova Scotia and Ingraham sank almost immediately. Only 11 survived from 200.
USS Ingraham (DD-444)
, a Gleaves-class destroyer, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for Captain Duncan Ingraham (1802–1891), who was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal following his actions regarding Martin Koszta, a Hungarian who had declared in New York his intention of becoming an American citizen, and who had been seized and confined in the Austrian ship Hussar.
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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

23rd of August

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1766 - Launch of HMS Carysfort, 28-gun Coventry-class frigate
HMS Carysfort
was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars in a career that spanned over forty years.
She had a number of notable commanders during this period, and saw action in several single-ship actions against French and American opponents. She took several privateers during the American War of Independence, though one of her most notable actions was the recapture of Castor, a Royal Navy frigate that a French squadron had captured nearly three weeks earlier and a French prize crew was sailing to France. Carysfort engaged and forced the surrender of her larger opponent, restoring Castor to the British, though not without a controversy over the issue of prize money. Carysfort spent the later French Revolutionary and early Napoleonic Wars on stations in the East and later the West Indies. Carysfort returned to Britain in 1806 where she was laid up in ordinary. The Admiralty finally sold her in 1813.
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HMS Guadeloupe (1763) from the same class

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1774 – Launch of HMS Boreas, a 28 gun Mermaid-class frigate - H. Nelson commanded her 1784 to 1787
HMS Boreas was a modified Mermaid-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was first commissioned in August 1775 under Captain Charles Thompson.
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1785 – Birth of Oliver Hazard Perry, American commander (d. 1819) and "Hero of Lake Erie"
Oliver Hazard Perry
(August 23, 1785 – August 23, 1819) was an American naval commander, born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. He was the son of Sarah Wallace Alexander and United States Navy Captain Christopher Raymond Perry and the older brother of Commodore Matthew C. Perry.
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1813 - HMS Colibri Sloop (16), John Thomson, wrecked in crossing the bar of Port Royal, Jamaica.
HMS Colibri
was the French naval Curieux-class brig Colibri, launched in 1808, that the British captured in 1809 and took into the Royal Navy under her existing name. She spent her time in British service on the North American station based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. During the War of 1812, Colibri served mostly in blockading the American coast and capturing privateers and merchant ships. She foundered in 1813 in Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, but without loss of life.
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1819 - Commodore Oliver H. Perry, the hero of the Battle of Lake Erie, dies on board the schooner USS Nonsuch on his 34th birthday
Mission to Venezuela and death

In 1818 Perry purchased a large house on Washington Square in Newport which was built in 1750 for merchant Peter Buloid. The house remained in the Perry family until 1865 and now serves as the headquarters for Oliver Hazard Perry, a sail training ship.
In 1819, Perry sailed for the Orinoco River, Venezuela, aboard of the frigate John Adams with the frigate Constellation and the schooner USS Nonsuch, arriving on July 15 to discourage piracy, while still maintaining friendly relations with Republic of Venezuela and the Republic of Buenos Aires. Shifting his flag to USS Nonsuch, due to its shallower draft, Perry sailed upriver to Angostura to negotiate an anti-piracy agreement with President Simón Bolívar. A favorable treaty was signed on August 11 with Vice-President Francisco Antonio Zea in the absence of Bolivar (who was engaged in the liberation of New Granada), but when the schooner started downriver, many of her crew including Perry had been stricken with yellow fever.
Despite the crew's efforts to reach Trinidad for medical assistance, the commodore died on board USS Nonsuch on August 23, 1819, his 34th birthday, as the ship entered the Gulf of Paria and was nearing Port of Spain. He was buried in Port of Spain with great honors while the Nonsuch's crew acted as honor guard.


1884 - The Battle of Fuzhou, or Battle of Foochow,
also known as the Battle of the Pagoda Anchorage (French: Combat naval de Fou-Tchéou, Chinese: , 馬江之役 or 馬尾海戰, literally Battle of Mawei), was the opening engagement of the 16-month Sino-French War (December 1883 – April 1885). The battle was fought on 23 August 1884 off the Pagoda Anchorage in Mawei (馬尾) harbour, 15 kilometres to the southeast of the city of Fuzhou (Foochow). During the battle Admiral Amédée Courbet's Far East Squadron virtually destroyed the Fujian Fleet, one of China's four regional fleets.
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The Chinese flagship Yangwu and the corvette Fuxing under attack by French torpedo boats No. 46 and No. 45. Combat naval de Fou-Tchéou ('The naval battle at Foochow'), by Charles Kuwasseg, 1885


1890 - USS Baltimore (Cruiser #3) departs New York Harbor to return the remains of inventor John Ericsson to his native Sweden. For the US Navy, Ericssons most notable designs are for USS Princeton and USS Monitor.
John Ericsson (born Johan) (July 31, 1803 – March 8, 1889) was a Swedish-American inventor, active in England and the United States, and regarded as one of the most influential mechanical engineers ever. Ericsson collaborated on the design of the steam locomotive Novelty, which competed in the Rainhill Trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, won by George Stephenson's Rocket. In America he designed the US Navy's first screw-propelled steam-frigate USS Princeton, in partnership with Captain Robert Stockton, who unjustly blamed him for a fatal accident. A new partnership with Cornelius H. DeLamater of the DeLamater Iron Works in New York resulted in the first armoured ship with a rotating turret, the USS Monitor, which dramatically saved the US naval blockading squadron from destruction by an ironclad Confederate vessel, CSS Virginia, at Hampton Roads in March 1862.
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1898 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, departs from London.
The Southern Cross Expedition, officially known as the British Antarctic Expedition 1898–1900, was the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, and the forerunner of the more celebrated journeys of Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton. The brainchild of the Norwegian-born, half-British explorer and schoolmaster Carsten Borchgrevink, it was the first expedition to over-winter on the Antarctic mainland, the first to visit the Great Ice Barrier since James Clark Ross's expedition of 1839 to 1843, and the first to effect a landing on the Barrier's surface. It also pioneered the use of dogs and sledges in Antarctic travel.
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Expedition ship SS Southern Cross in the Derwent, Tasmania, used at The British Antarctic Expedition 1898–1900. She was built in Norway in 1886 as whaling ship Pollux.
 
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