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

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 26 October


1740 – Launch of French Sérieux 64 at Toulon, designed and begun by René, completed by Pierre-Blaise Coulomb – captured by the British in the First Battle of Cape Finisterre in May 1747


1768 – Launch of French Impérieuse at Bordeaux, renamed Amphitrite after her launch.

Dédaigneuse class (32-gun design by Leon-Michel Guignace, with 26 x 12-pounder and 6 x 6-pounder guns).


1781 - HMS Hannibal (1779 - 50) took Neckar.

HMS Hannibal was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Adams of Bucklers Hard and launched on 26 December 1779. She was subsequently captured by the French ship Héros off Sumatra, on 21 January 1782.
She was called Petit Annibal to distinguish her from the eponymous 74-gun Annibal, which was in the same fleet. English-language histories often refer to her as Hannibal for this reason. Admiral the Bailli de Suffren took her into his fleet, and she saw service in his five battles with British Admiral Sir Edward Hughes in 1782 and 1783.
She was decommissioned in 1787 and used as a hulk from 1792.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hannibal_(1779)


1788 - HMS Bounty, Cptn. William Bligh, arrived at Matavai Bay at Tahiti.


1794 – Spanish San Isidoro 64 (ex-Neapolitan, transferred 1776) - Wrecked


1803 - Boats of HMS Osprey (18), George Younghusband, captured French schooner La Ressource (4) off Trinidad


1807 - HMS Subtle (8), Lt. William Dowers, wrecked off Bermuda

The French schooner Impériale was a 3-gun mercantile schooner-aviso of the French Navy commissioned at Guadeloupe on 23 September 1805. The Royal Navy captured her on 24 May 1806 and named her HMS Vigilant. The Navy renamed her HMS Subtle on 20 November 1806. She wrecked at Bermuda on 20 October 1807.

Capture
On 23 May 1806, Impériale left Saintes to capture some merchant vessels at Roseau. The former British cutter HMS Dominica, which mutineers had taken four days earlier and delivered to the French at Basse-Terre, joined her. (The French had immediately commissioned Dominica under the name Napoléon, and put 75 men aboard her. At Roseau they managed to take one vessel that the British later recaptured.

The next day, His Majesty's sloop Cygnet was anchored at Prince Rupert's Bay, Dominica, when Robert Bell Campbell, Cygnet's captain, received information that a cutter and a schooner were nearby. He immediately made the appropriate signals to HMS Wasp, which was entering the bay.

By 2p.m. Wasp had recaptured Dominica. As Cygnet chased Impériale, the packet ships Duke of Montrose joined the chase and at 8pm engaged Impériale. As Cygnet came up, Impériale surrendered to Duke of Montrose. Impériale was armed with three guns and had a crew of 65 men under the command of a lieutenant de vaisseau.

Impériale was carrying General Hortrade, not in uniform, and 50 soldiers of the 26th Brigade. Duke of Montrose, Captain Birt Dynely (or Dyneley), which had been with the convoy in Roseau roads, and had sailed out in pursuit of the two French vessels, had taken on board Lieutenant Wallis and 40 soldiers from the 46th Regiment of Foot.

Loss
The Royal Navy took Impériale into service as HMS Vigilant, and commissioned her under the command of Lieutenant William Dowers. However, there was already a schooner Vigilantin service, so on 20 November the Navy renamed the ex-Impériale Subtle.

Subtle was sailing from the Delaware Capes to Barbados when Lieutenant Dowers decided to make for Bermuda as she was short of fresh water and had developed an annoying leak in her breadroom. On 25 October 1807, as Subtle sailed through the St George's Channel, sounding her way continuously, she nevertheless grounded. Despite attempts to lighten her, Subtle was soon on her side. She had run onto a reef eight miles WNW of Somerset Island, Bermuda. A current had driven her some 20 miles from where Dowers had believed her to be. The wreck occurred at approximately 32°16′40″N 65°02′20″W. The crew used Subtle's boats to save themselves and no lives were lost.

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


1808 - HMS Crane Brig (4), Lt. Joseph Tindale, wrecked running on a rock to the W. of the Hoe, Plymouth.

HMS Crane was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by Custance & Stone at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.
She was commissioned in 1806 under Lieutenant John Cameron for the North Sea. In May 1808 Crane sent into Plymouth the Danish vessel Justitia.
In 1808 she was under a Lieutenant Mitchell, and then under Lieutenant Joseph Tindale.
At 7:30pm on 25 October 1808 bad weather drove her from her anchorage at Plymouth. She dropped a second anchor. By 4am she was near shore and got under way to make for the Sound. She returned three hours later to find an anchorage but a squall hit her as she went about. She let go an anchor but struck a rock off Plymouth Hoe. She fired her guns to signal distress, which brought out several boats from the dockyard. With some assistance she was refloated but she went aground again. She sank in deeper water with her starboard gunwale just clearing the surface. Boats picked up all her crew from the water. She was later broken up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Crane_(1806)


1808 - HMS Quail (1806) wrecked

HMS Quail was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. Custance & Stone built her at Great Yarmouth and launched her in 1806. Her decade-long career appears to have been relatively uneventful. She was sold in 1816.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Quail_(1806)


1813 – Launch of French Couronne 74 at Amsterdam – abandoned December 1813 to Netherlands, who renamed her Prins Willem de Eerste

Couronne was a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.
Couronne 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.
The Dutch seized Couronne when the French evacuated Amsterdam on 14 November 1813 and commissioned her as Prins Willem de Eerste. She was decommissioned in 1829.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Couronne_(1813)


1819 - Daphne was a brig constructed in Java that arrived in Australia in 1814. Wrecked

Daphne was a brig constructed in Java that arrived in Australia in 1814. She was wrecked without loss of life on 26 October 1819 in the Kent Group in Bass Strait. She was on a voyage from Port Jackson to India.
On August 1819, Daphne, Captain Howard, sailed from Hobart for Port Jackson with wheat and potatoes.
Daphne departed Sydney bound for India on 10 October 1819 under the command of John Howard. As she passed through Bass Strait he stopped at several islands to purchase sealskins from sealers in the area. On 26 October a gale rose and Howard sheltered in the lee of East Island. Howard went ashore, probably to find sealers. On arriving on shore he noticed that Daphne was being driven towards the rocks. He returned on board but could do little to save the brig. He therefore ordered the passengers and crew to abandon ship. The passengers made it to shore safely but Daphne was totally destroyed.
The longboat was badly damaged and it took Howard and his crew some eight days to repair it. He then took his chief mate and three seamen and headed to Launceston on 4 August. Although he was blown off course, he eventually made Hobart on 14 November 1819. There he chartered the sloop Governor Sorrell to rescue the eight passengers and crew remaining on East Island.[3] Meanwhile, John Palmer arrived and took on board some of the wreck survivors and attempted to head back to Hobart. However she was wrecked too. One passenger lost her life. The survivors had to await the arrival of Governor Sorrel for their rescue.
Lloyd's List reported on 4 July 1820 based on a report from Port Jackson dated 12 December 1819, that the brig Daphne, Howard, master, had wrecked about 200 miles north of the Derwent. She was a total loss but her crew had been saved

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_(brig)


1825 – The Erie Canal opens: Passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie.

The Erie Canal is a canal in New York, United States that is part of the east–west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System (formerly known as the New York State Barge Canal). Originally, it ran 363 miles (584 km) from where Albany meets the Hudson River to where Buffalo meets Lake Erie. It was built to create a navigable water route from New York City and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. When completed in 1825, it was the second longest canal in the world (after the Grand Canal in China) and greatly affected the development and economy of New York, New York City, and the United States.

The canal was first proposed in the 1780s, then re-proposed in 1807. A survey was authorized, funded, and executed in 1808. Proponents of the project gradually wore down opponents; its construction began in 1817. The canal has 34 numbered locks starting with Black Rock Lock and ending downstream with the Troy Federal Lock. Both are owned by the federal government. It has an elevation difference of about 565 feet (172 m). It opened on October 26, 1825.

In a time when bulk goods were limited to pack animals (a 250-pound (113 kg) maximum), and there were no railways, water was the most cost-effective way to ship bulk goods.

The canal was denigrated by its political opponents as "Clinton's Folly"[5] or "Clinton's Big Ditch". It was the first transportation system between the Eastern Seaboard and the western interior of the United States that did not require portage.

It was faster than carts pulled by draft animals and cut transport costs by about 95%. The canal gave New York City's port an incomparable advantage over all other U.S. port cities and ushered in the state's 19th century political and cultural ascendancy. The canal fostered a population surge in western New York and opened regions farther west to settlement. It was enlarged between 1834 and 1862. The canal's peak year was 1855, when 33,000 commercial shipments took place. In 1918, the western part of the canal was enlarged to become part of the New York State Barge Canal, which also extended to the Hudson River running parallel to the eastern half of the Erie Canal.

In 2000, the United States Congress designated the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor[9] to recognize the national significance of the canal system as the most successful and influential human-built waterway and one of the most important works of civil engineering and construction in North America.[9] The canal has been mainly used by recreational watercraft since the retirement of the last large commercial ship, Day Peckinpaugh, in 1994. The canal saw a recovery in commercial traffic in 2008.

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


1966 - Tragedy strikes USS Oriskany (CVA 34) when a fire erupts on the starboard side of the ship's forward hangar bay and races through five decks, killing 44 members of her crew and air group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oriskany_(CV-34)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Events on 27 October


1760 - HMS Superb was a 74-gun Bellona-class third-rate ship of the line is launched

HMS Superb was a 74-gun Bellona-class third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 27 October 1760 at Deptford Dockyard
The Superb was Admiral Edward Hughes's flagship in India in 1782 during a notable series of engagements with the French under Suffren.
On 20 June 1783 the Superb took part in the Battle of Cuddalore before returning to Bombay for copper sheathing along her hull. On 7 November she developed a severe leak through the sheathing into the bilge, and sank in Tellicherry Roads off the Bombay coast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Superb_(1760)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellona-class_ship_of_the_line


1775 - HMS Bedford , a Royal Navy 74-gun third rate Launched

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bedford_(1775)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Oak-class_ship_of_the_line


1779 - HMS Laurel , a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate launched

HMS Laurel was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Laurel was first commissioned in October 1779 under the command of Captain Thomas Lloyd. She sailed for the Leeward Islands on 13 April 1780, but was wrecked on 11 October in the Great Hurricane of 1780 at Martinique. Lloyd, and all but 12 of his crew, died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Laurel_(1779)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise-class_frigate


1800 - Boats of HMS Phaeton (38), Sir James Nicoll Morris,cut out San Josef (8) from Fuengirola

HMS Phaeton was a 38-gun, Minerva-class fifth rate of Britain's Royal Navy. This frigate was most noted for her intrusion into Nagasaki harbour in 1808. John Smallshaw (Smallshaw & Company) built Phaeton in Liverpool between 1780 and 1782. She participated in numerous engagements during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars during which service she captured many prizes. Francis Beaufort, inventor of the Beaufort Wind-Scale, was a lieutenant on Phaeton when he distinguished himself during a successful cutting out expedition. Phaeton sailed to the Pacific in 1805, and returned in 1812. She was finally sold on 26 March 1828.


A contemporary Japanese drawing of the HMS Phaeton; in custody of the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Phaeton_(1782)


1803 - HMS Merlin (16), Edward Pelham Brenton, and boats destroyed French privateer Sept Freres, Citizen Pollet, by driving her ashore to the west of Gravelines.

HMS Merlin was launched in 1801 in South Shields as the collier Hercules. In July 1803, with the resumption of war with France, the Admiralty purchased her. She was one of about 20 such vessels that the navy would then employ primarily for convoy escort duties. She served on active duty until 1810, capturing one small privateer. She then served as a receiving ship until 1836 when the navy sold her for breaking up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Merlin_(1803)


1810 - HMS Orestes (16), John Richards Lapenotiere, took French privateer Loup Garou (16), Charles Laurent Faures, some 120 miles west of Scilly

HMS Orestes was a 16-gun brig-sloop of the Seagull class of the British Royal Navy, launched in October 1805. She served during the Napoleonic Wars, primarily in the North Sea and the Channel, where she captured three privateers. The Navy sold her in 1817.

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


1864 - Lt. William Cushing, USN, sinks Confederate ram CSS Albemarle with a spar torpedo attached to the bow of his launch.


Lt William B Cushing, USN

Albemarle successfully dominated the Roanoke and the approaches to Plymouth through the summer of 1864. By autumn the U. S. government decided that the situation should be studied to determine if something could be done: The U. S. Navy considered various ways to destroy Albemarle, including two plans submitted by Lieutenant William B. Cushing; they finally approved one of his plans, authorizing him to locate two small steam launches that might be fitted with spar torpedoes. Cushing discovered two 30-foot (9.1 m) picket boats under construction in New York and acquired them for his mission. On each he mounted a Dahlgren 12-pounder howitzer and a 14-foot (4.3 m) spar projecting into the water from its bow. One of the boats was lost at sea during the voyage from New York to Norfolk, Virginia, but the other arrived safely with its crew of seven officers and men at the mouth of the Roanoke. There, the steam launch's spar was fitted with a lanyard-detonated torpedo.

On the night of October 27 and 28, 1864, Cushing and his team began working their way upriver. A small cutter accompanied them, its crew having the task of preventing interference by the Confederate sentries stationed on a schooner anchored to the wreck of Southfield; both boats, under the cover of darkness, slipped past the schooner undetected. So Cushing decided to use all twenty-two of his men and the element of surprise to capture Albemarle.


The torpedo explodes against the Albemarle

As they approached the Confederate docks their luck turned, and they were spotted in the dark. They came under heavy rifle and pistol fire from both the shore and aboard Albemarle. As they closed with the ironclad, they quickly discovered she was defended against approach by floating log booms. The logs, however, had been in the water for many months and were covered with heavy slime. The steam launch rode up and then over them without difficulty; with her spar fully against the ironclad's hull, Cushing stood up in the bow and pulled the lanyard, detonating the torpedo's explosive charge.

The explosion threw Cushing and his men overboard into the water; Cushing then stripped off most of his uniform and swam to shore, where he hid undercover until daylight, avoiding the hastily organized Confederate search parties. The next afternoon, he was finally able to steal a small skiff and began slowly paddling, using his hands and arms as oars, down-river to rejoin Union forces at the river's mouth. Cushing's long journey was quite perilous and he was nearly captured and almost drowned before finally reaching safety, totally exhausted by his ordeal; he was hailed a national hero of the Union cause for his daring exploits. Of the other men in Cushing's launch, one man,Seaman Edward Houghton, also escaped, two others were drowned following the explosion, and the remaining eleven were captured.

Cushing's daring commando raid blew a hole in Albemarle's hull at the waterline "big enough to drive a wagon in." She sank immediately in the six feet of water below her keel, settling into the heavy river bottom mud, leaving the upper casemate mostly dry and the ship's large Stainless Banner ensign flying from the flagstaff at the rear of the casemate's upper deck. Confederate commander Alexander F. Warley, who had been appointed as her captain about a month earlier, later salvaged both of Albemarle's rifled cannon and shells and used them to defend Plymouth against subsequent Union attack—futilely, as it turned out.

Lieutenant Cushing's successful effort to neutralize CSS Albemarle is honored by the U.S. Navy with a battle star on the Civil War campaign streamer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Albemarle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Cushing


1877 - The tall ship Elissa is a three-masted barque.is launched

The tall ship Elissa is a three-masted barque. She is currently moored in Galveston, Texas, and is one of the oldest ships sailing today. Launched in 1877, she is now a museum ship at the Texas Seaport Museum. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990.


The tall ship Elissa, which has sailed in three centuries, sails up the channel into Port Galveston, Texas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elissa_(ship)


1890 - french armed cruiser Dupuy de Lome launched

Dupuy de Lôme was an armoured cruiser built for the French Navy (Marine Nationale) during the late 1880s and 1890s. She is considered by some to be the world's first armoured cruiser and was intended to attack enemy merchant ships. The ship was named after the naval architect Henri Dupuy de Lôme. Dupuy de Lôme's completion was delayed by almost two years by problems with her boilers, but she was finally commissioned in 1895 and assigned to the Northern Squadron (Escadre du Nord), based at Brest, for most of her career. The ship made a number of visits to foreign ports before she began a lengthy reconstruction in 1902. By the time this was completed in 1906, the cruiser was regarded as obsolete and Dupuy de Lôme was placed in reserve, aside from one assignment in Morocco.



The ship was sold to the Peruvian Navy in 1912, but they never paid the last two installments and the ship remained inactive at Brest during World War I. The French agreed to take the ship back in 1917, keeping the money already paid, and they sold her in 1918 to a Belgian shipping company that converted her into a freighter. Renamed Péruvier, the ship's engines broke down and she had to be towed to her destination where part of her cargo of coal was discovered to be on fire during her maiden voyage as a merchant vessel in 1920. Deemed uneconomical to repair, Péruvier was towed to Antwerp and later scrapped in 1923.

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


1914 – The British lose their first battleship of World War I: The British super-dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious (23,400 tons) is sunk off Tory Island, north-west of Ireland, by a minefield laid by the armed German merchant-cruiser Berlin.

HMS Audacious was the fourth and last King George V-class dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the early 1910s. After completion in 1913, she spent her entire career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets. She was sunk by a German naval mine off the northern coast of County Donegal, Ireland, in October 1914.


British battleship HMS Audacious. Date not recorded, but must be some time between 1912 and 1914. Original image cropped and adjusted.

Sinking
Repeated reports of submarines in Scapa Flow led Jellicoe to conclude that the defences there were inadequate and he ordered that the Grand Fleet be dispersed to other bases until the defences were reinforced. On 16 October, the 2nd Battle Squadron was sent to Loch na Keal on the western coast of Scotland. The squadron departed for gunnery practice off Tory Island, Ireland, on the morning of 27 October and Audacious struck a mine at 08:45, laid a few days earlier by the German auxiliary minelayer SS Berlin. Captain Cecil Dampier, thinking that the ship had been torpedoed, hoisted the submarine warning; in accordance with instructions the dreadnoughts departed the area, leaving the smaller ships behind to render assistance.


The crew of Audacious take to lifeboats to be taken aboard Olympic

The explosion occurred 16 feet (4.9 m) under the bottom of the ship, approximately 10 feet (3.0 m) forward of the transverse bulkhead at the rear of the port engine room. The port engine room and the outer compartments adjacent to it flooded immediately, with water spreading more slowly to the central engine room and adjoining spaces. The ship rapidly took on a list to port of up to 15 degrees, which was reduced by counter flooding compartments on the starboard side, so that by 09:45, the list ranged up to nine degrees as she rolled in the heavy swell. The light cruiser Liverpool stood by, while Jellicoe ordered every available destroyer and tug out to assist, but did not send out any battleships to tow Audacious because of the supposed submarine threat. Having intercepted the stricken dreadnought's distress calls, the White Star ocean liner RMS Olympic, sister of the RMS Titanic, arrived on the scene.


Destroyers evacuate crewmen

The ship could make 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) and Dampier believed that he had a chance of making the 25 miles (40 km) to land and beaching the ship, so he turned Audacious south and made for Lough Swilly. After about two hours, the ship had covered 15 miles (24 km) when the rising water forced the abandonment of the centre and starboard engine rooms and she drifted to a stop. Dampier ordered all non-essential crew to be taken off, boats from Liverpool and Olympic assisting, and only 250 men were left aboard by 14:00. At 13:30, Captain Herbert Haddock, the captain of Olympic, suggested that his ship attempt to take Audacious in tow. Dampier agreed, and with the assistance of the destroyer Fury, a tow line was passed 30 minutes later. The ships began moving, but the line was severed when it was fouled by the cruiser's propellers. Liverpool and the newly arrived collier SS Thornhill then attempted to take the battleship in tow, but the line snapped before any progress could be made.


Liverpool (left) and Fury (centre), in combination with Olympic, try to take Audacious in tow (View from Olympic)

Vice-Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, commander of the 1st Battle Squadron, arrived on the scene in the ocean boarding vessel Cambria and took over the rescue operation. Upon learning that two ships had been mined in the area the day before, and that there was no threat from submarines, Jellicoe ordered the pre-dreadnought battleship Exmouth to sail at 17:00 for an attempt to tow Audacious. Dampier ordered all but 50 men to be removed at 17:00 and Bayly, Dampier and the remaining men on the ship were taken off at 18:15 with dark approaching.

Just as Exmouth was coming up on the group at 20:45, Audacious heeled sharply, paused, and then capsized. She floated upside down with the bow raised until 21:00, when an explosion occurred that threw wreckage 300 feet (91 m) into the air, followed by two more. The explosion appeared to come from the area of 'B' magazine and was probably caused by one or more high-explosive shells falling from their racks and exploding, then igniting the cordite in the magazine. A piece of armour plate flew 800 yards (730 m) and killed a petty officer on Liverpool. This was the only casualty in connection with the sinking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Audacious_(1912)


1922 - The Navy League of the United States sponsors the first celebration of Navy Day to focus public attention on the importance of the U.S. Navy. The date is selected because it is Theodore Roosevelts birthday. Navy Day is last observed Oct. 27, 1949.

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


1981 – Cold War: The Soviet submarine S-363 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.

Soviet submarine S-363 was a Soviet Navy Whiskey-class submarine of the Baltic Fleet, which became famous under the designation U 137 when it ran aground on 27 October 1981 on the south coast of Sweden, approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Karlskrona, one of the larger Swedish naval bases. U137 was the unofficial Swedish name for the vessel, as the Soviets considered names of most of their submarines to be classified at the time and did not disclose them. The ensuing international incident is often referred to as the Whiskey on the rocks incident.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
28 October 1780 – Launch of French Alceste, a Magicienne class frigate of the French Navy,


Alceste was a Magicienne class frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1780, that the British seized at the Siege of Toulon. They transferred her to the Kingdom of Sardinia, but the French recaptured her a year later in the Action of 8 June 1794. The British captured her again at the Action of 18 June 1799 and took her into service as HMS Alceste. In 1801 she became a floating battery and she was sold the next year.

Career
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Alceste served in the Mediterranean until she was put in the reserved and disarmed in Toulon. The royalist insurrection found her there; the British, who supported the royalists, seized her and transferred her to the Kingdom of Sardinia before the conclusion of the Siege of Toulon.

The 32-gun Boudeuse recaptured her in the Action of 8 June 1794. The French then took her back into French service. On 4 August 1794 Alceste and Vestale were off Cape Bon when they encountered and captured the brig HMS Scout. The French took Scout into service under existing name, but she wrecked on 12 December 1795 off Cadiz.

Under Captain Louis-Jean-Nicolas Lejoille, Alceste was part of Admiral Martin's squadron, which captured HMS Berwick in 1795.

Jean Joseph Hubert took command of Alceste on 31 March 1795. She took part in the Battle of Hyères Islands, where she battled several British ships before rescuing Alcide.

In March 1796, Alceste ferried Jean-Baptiste Annibal Aubert du Bayet to his appointment as ambassador to Constantinople, along with military advisors.

From November 1796 to January 1797, Alceste patrolled the coasts of Italy under Captain Jean-François-Timothée Trullet.

She took part in the Expédition d'Égypte under Jean-Baptiste Barré, ferrying General Jean Reynier, and was later appointed to a squadron under Admiral Jean-Baptiste Perrée, which also comprised the frigates Junon and Alceste, and Courageuse, and the brigs Salamine and Alerte. In the Action of 18 June 1799, HMS Bellona captured Alceste.

Fate
The Royal Navy commissioned Alceste under Commander Thomas Bayley, who shortly thereafter received promotion to post captain in March 1800. She arrived at Chatham on 4 April. There she was registered as a sloop in July 1801 and fitted as a floating battery in August. She was sold at Sheerness on 20 May 1802 for £1,445.


Scale 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with sternboard decoration and name in a cartouche, sheer lines with inboard detail and figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth for Magicienne (1781), a captured French Frigate, as taken off prior to fitting as a 32-gun Fifth Rate Frigate at Chatham Dockyard. NMM, Progress Book, volume 5, folio 254, states that 'Magicienne' was docked at Chatham Dockyard on 30 October 1783 and coppered. She was undocked on 11 November 1783 and fitted for ordinary.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/82922.html#oXOvXYy5mqW0swta.99



The Magicienne class was a type of twelve 32-gun frigates of the French Navy, each with a main battery of 26 x 12-pounder long guns, and with 6 x 6-pounders on the quarterdeck and forecastle. They were designed by Joseph-Marie-Blaise Coulomb.

• Magicienne

Builder: Toulon
Ordered: 7 February 1777
Begun: March 1777
Launched: 1 August 1778
Completed: October 1778
Fate: captured by British Navy off Boston on 2 July 1781 and added to the British Navy.

• Précieuse

Builder: Toulon
Ordered: 7 February 1777
Begun: March (or August?) 1777
Launched: 22 August 1778
Completed: November 1778
Fate: out of service in January 1804; broken up in July 1816.

• Sérieuse

Builder: Toulon
Ordered: 28 August 1778
Begun: March 1779
Launched: 28 August 1779
Completed: October 1779
Fate: sunk at the Battle of Aboukir on 1 August 1798

• Lutine

Builder: Toulon
Ordered: 23 October 1778
Begun: March 1779
Launched: 11 September 1779
Completed: November 1779
Fate: captured by British Navy in August 1793, and added to the British Navy - wrecked on 9 October 1799, her ship's bell was salvaged and still hangs in Lloyd's of London.

• Vestale

Builder: Toulon
Ordered: 20 April 1780
Begun: May 1780
Launched: 14 October 1780
Completed: February 1781
Fate: captured by British Navy off Bordeaux on 19 August 1799.

• Alceste

Builder: Toulon
Ordered: 20 April 1780
Begun: May 1780
Launched: 28 October 1780
Completed: February 1781
Fate: captured on 29 August 1793 by British Navy at Toulon, but retaken by the French Boudeuse on 8 June 1794, then captured again on 18 June 1799.

• Iris

Builder: Toulon
Begun: May 1781
Launched: 29 October 1781
Completed: March 1782
Fate: captured in August 1793 by British Navy at Toulon, but burnt on 18 December 1793 during the evacuation.

• Réunion

Builder: Toulon
Begun: February 1785
Launched: 23 February 1786
Completed: January 1787
Fate: captured by British Navy off Cherbourg on 18 October 1793, and added to the British Navy.

• Modeste

Builder: Toulon
Begun: February 1785
Launched: 18 March 1786
Completed: January 1787
Fate: captured by British Navy at Genoa on 7 October 1793, and added to the British Navy.

• Sensible

Builder: Toulon
Ordered: 23 January 1786
Begun: February 1786
Launched: 29 August 1787
Completed: March 1788
Fate: captured by British Navy off Malta on 28 June 1798, and added to the British Navy.

• Topaze

Builder: Toulon
Ordered: 14 March 1789
Begun: August 1789
Launched: 26 September 1790
Completed: February 1791
Fate: captured by British Navy at Toulon on 29 August 1793, and added to the British Navy.

• Artémise

Builder: Toulon
Begun: end 1791
Launched: 25 September 1794
Completed: November 1794
Fate: sunk at the Battle of Aboukir on 2 August 1798


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Alceste_(1780)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magicienne-class_frigate

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
28 October 1784 – Launch of HMS Crescent, a 36-gun Flora-Class frigate of the British Royal Navy.


HMS Crescent was a 36-gun Flora-Class frigate of the British Royal Navy. Launched in 1784, she spent the first years of her service on blockade duty in the English Channel where she single-handedly captured the French frigate, La Reunion. In 1795, Crescent was part of a squadron commanded by George Elphinstone, that forced the surrender of a Batavian Navy squadron at the capitulation of Saldanha Bay. After serving in the West Indies, Crescent returned to home waters and was wrecked off the coast of Jutland on 6 December 1808


Action between HMS 'Crescent' and the 'Reunion', 20 October 1793: surrender (BHC0465)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/11957.html#f3xOIMvskZOzMz4w.99

Background
Britain's early preference for smaller warships was mainly because of a requirement to maintain a large navy and to keep the expense of doing so down. However, by the latter half of the 1770s, Britain was facing a war with France, Spain and the United States of America, and was in need of a more powerful type of frigate. In 1778, the Navy Board ordered the first of two new types of frigate, one with 38 guns, the Minerva-class, and the other with 36, the Flora-Class. Both had a main battery of 18 pounder guns. Crescent was ordered on 11 August 1781 and was to be of the 36-gun variety.

Construction
Built by John Nowlan and Thomas Calhoun of Bursledon, Crescent was 137 feet 2.5 inches (41.821 m) along her gundeck, had a 38 feet 5.5 inches (11.722 m) beam and a depth in the hold of 13 feet 3.5 inches (4.051 m). This gave her a capacity of 887 85⁄94 tons (bm). Launched on 28 October 1784, she was completed in January the following year, including copper sheathing of the hull, and was taken to Portsmouth where she was laid up in ordinary and not fitted for sea until 6 June 1790. Crescent was armed with a 26-gun main battery of 18 pounders on her gundeck, eight 9 pound guns and four 18 pound carronades on her quarterdeck, and two 9 pound guns and four 18 pound carronades on her fo'c'sle.





Career
Initially commissioned under Captain William Young in May 1790, she was recommissioned in January 1793 under James Saumarez. She joined Rear-Admiral John MacBride's squadron on blockade duty in the English Channel and on 22 June, assisted by HMS Hind and a privateer named Lively, captured the 10-gun French privateer, le Chib de Cherbourg. Later that month, Hind and Crescent also took a 12-gun privateer called L'Espoir. HMS Crescent narrowly avoided capture herself when on 8 June 1793, she managed to escape from the 50-gun French ships, Le Scévola and Le Brutus.

Action of 20 October 1793
Main article: Action of 20 October 1793


H.M.S. Crescent, under the command of Captain James Saumarez, capturing the French frigate Réunion off Cherbourg, 20 October 1793, att. John Christian Schetky

On the morning of 20 October 1793, lookouts on board Crescent reported sails off Cape Barfleur, on the Cotentin Peninsula, heading towards Cherbourg. Saumarez set a course to intercept, and with the wind in his favour, soon came up on the port side of the two vessels which proved to be the 38-gun French frigate La Réunion and a 14-gun cutter named Espérance, returning from a raiding cruise in the Channel under the command of Captain François A. Dénian.

A second British frigate, the 28-gun HMS Circe, was becalmed some 9 nautical miles (17 km) away and Espérance fled towards Cherbourg, leaving Réunion and Crescent to engage alone. Although the French ship was bigger, 951 long tons (966 t) compared to 888 long tons (902 t), and carried a larger crew; the British ship had a slight advantage in weight of shot, 315 pounds (143 kg) to 310 pounds (141 kg) and was marginally faster.

After the opening exchanges, Réunion lost her fore yard and mizzen topmast while Crescent lost the top off her foremast. Both ships had rigging cut and a number of sails damaged but Crescentwas still able to manoeuvre across Réunion's stern and rake her. This raking caused huge damage to the French ship and her crew, and although Réunion continued to resist for some time, she was no longer able to move effectively. With Saumarez about to cross his bow and Circe now rapidly approaching due to a strengthening wind, Dénian realised he had no choice but to surrender his vessel. The engagement had lasted two hours and ten minutes during which time the cutter, Espérance, managed to escape to Cherbourg. The French frigate Sémillante, which had been anchored in the harbour, was unable to come to Réunion's rescue because of contrary wind and tides.


Action between HMS 'Crescent' and the 'Reunion', 20 October 1793: ships engaged (BHC0464)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/11956.html#8qUY8kECfeVyFxmR.99

Capitulation of Saldanha Bay
Main article: Capitulation of Saldanha Bay
In 1795, Crescent was commanded by Edward Buller and on 7 March 1796 she made for the Cape of Good Hope. As part of a squadron commanded by George Elphinstone, she was present at Saldanha Bay where a squadron of the new Batavian Republic capitulated. The Cape had long been important to Britain's marine traffic, providing a convenient stopping point en route to India. In the previous year, fearing that it may fall into the hands of the French, Britain had captured the colony from the Dutch. The following year (1796) the Dutch sent a squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Engelbertus Lucas to recapture the Cape. Keith's ships trapped the Dutch in Saldanha Bay on 17 August and Lucas was forced to surrender without a fight.

Crescent remained stationed at the Cape and in 1797 she was under the command of Captain John Murray. Murray was superseded by Captain John Spranger in February 1798, then Charles Brisbane in June that same year.

West Indies
Crescent was repaired and refitted at Deptford in August 1798, re-commissioned under William Lobb in April 1799 and sent to the West Indies. In November, while en route, she captured the 16-gun El Galgo. Then while serving on the Jamaica station, in July 1800 Crescent took the 12-gun Diligente, which the Royal Navy took into service as a 14-gun transport under her existing name.

Between 21 May and 8 August, Crescent, Meleager, and Nimrod captured two Spanish vessels: a Spanish felucca that was sailing from Havana to Vera Cruz, and a xebec sailing from Campeachy to Havana.

Captain Lennox Thompson took command of Crescent in July 1802 and in June the following year, Crescent was recommissioned under Lord William Stuart.

Return to home waters
Crescent returned to home waters in February 1806, under Captain James Carthew. She served in the North Sea before undergoing repairs between June and October 1808. Recommisioned under George Reynolds in April 1808 she remained in home waters and passed to Captain John Temple who was in command when Crescent was wrecked off the coast of Jutland on 6 December. More than 200 people died as a result, including Temple himself.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Crescent_(1784)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Réunion_(1786)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
28 October 1805 - spanish 74 gun ship Monarca run aground


The Monarca was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Spanish Navy. She was ordered by a royal order of 28 September 1791, built in the Reales Astilleros de Esteiro shipyard and launched on 17 March 1794. Designed by Romero Landa and belonging to the Montañés-class (a subset or modification of the San Ildefonsino class), her main guns were distributed along two complete decks, with 28 24-pounder in her first battery (lower deck) and 30 18-pounders in her second battery (upper deck). Additionally she had 12 8-pounders on her quarterdeck and four 8-pounders on her forecastle.


Plans of Spanish ship of the line of 74 by José Romero y Fernández de Landa

History
She underwent proving trials between September and November 1794 alongside the Montañés, also launched in 1794, aiming to work out whose method of construction was best. The trials were overseen by José Justo Salceno and the results favoured the Montañés. The Monarca was assigned to Juan de Lángara's squadron, taking part in the defence of Roses.

She took part in the battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 under the command of Captain Teodoro Argumosa. She was attacked at close range by Mars and Tonnant as they first cut the Franco-Spanish line. The ship behind the Tonnant, the Bellerophon, slipped under her stern at 12:30 and fired two broadsides into her. She was heavily damaged, with 100 men killed and 150 wounded. A party of 55 Royal Marines captured the ship, but the night after the battle the surviving Spanish crew overpowered them and cast them adrift, leaving them to the mercy of the storm that night.

On 24 October the survivors decided to try to repair the ship's rudder and return to Cadiz, as the weather was improving, but an hour later they were pursued by Leviathan, which also picked up the marines and some Spanish survivors of the storm. On 28 October the ship ran aground on the Arenas Gordas coast near Huelva, between Torre de la Higuera and Torre del Asperillo, leaving it lying on its side. On 31 October she was destroyed by the guns of the frigate Naiadto avoid her being reused or refloated.


The Montañés class were a series of four ships of the line designed and built between 1792 and 1798 by Julián Martín de Retamosa for the Spanish Navy.

The four ships in the class, and their fates, were:

• Montañés (1794) - ran aground in 1810.
• Neptuno (1795) - lost in the storm after the Battle of Trafalgar.
• Monarca (1794) - captured by Britain at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and later lost in the storm.
• Argonauta (1798) - captured by Britain at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and later sunk in the storm.

General characteristics
Type:Ship of the line
Tons burthen:1753 bm
Length:

• 181 ft (55 m) (keel)
• 175 ft 3 in (53.42 m) (gundeck)

Beam:51 ft (16 m)

Draught:

• 26 ft 7 in (8.10 m) (afore)
• 23 ft 3 in (7.09 m) (abaft)

Depth of hold:25 ft 6 in (7.77 m)
Complement:715
Armament:74-80 guns



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_ship_Monarca_(1794)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
28 October 1806 – Launch of french Pénélope, 40-gun Armide-class frigate, at Bordeaux


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


Portrait of Pénélope by François-Geoffroi Roux

Commissioned under Captain Bernard Dubourdieu in November 1806, Pénélope served in the Atlantic for some months.

On 21 January 1808, along with Thémis, she departed Bordeaux for a cruise to Toulon. They arrived on 28 March, having captured 12 British prizes en route, including the privateer Sirene.

On 1 January 1809, command of Pénélope was transferred to Captain Simonot. In the Action of 27 February 1809, she and Pauline captured HMS Proserpine. Pénélope later took part in the Action of 5 November 1813.


Capture of HMS Proserpine by Pénélope and Pauline. Watercolour by Antoine Roux.

Pénélope was decommissioned at the Bourbon Restoration, on 31 August 1815, and was sold for scrap in 1828.


1/48th scale model of Flore, on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris

The Armide class was a type of 40-gun frigates of the French Navy, designed by Pierre Roland. A highly detailed and accurate model of Flore, one of the units of the class, is on display at Paris naval museum, originally part of the Trianon model collection.


lines & profile These plans show her as fitted as a British ship. NMM, Progress Book, volume 6, folio 365, states that 'Armide' was at Plymouth Dockyard between 1806 and 1809 for middling repairs and to be fitted.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/82543.html#ly4cci0qUUjKpO83.99

Armide class, (40-gun design by Pierre Roland, with 28 x 18-pounder and 8 x 12-pounder guns and 4 x 36-pounder obusiers).

• Armide, (launched 24 April 1804 at Rochefort) – captured by British Navy 1806, becoming HMS Armide.
• Minerve, (launched 9 September 1805 at Rochefort) – captured by British Navy 1806, becoming HMS Alceste.
• Pénélope, (launched 28 October 1806 at Bordeaux) – deleted 1826.
• Flore, (launched 11 November 1806 at Rochefort) – wrecked 1811.
• Amphitrite, (launched 11 April 1808 at Cherbourg) – burnt 1809.
• Niémen, (launched 8 November 1808 at Bordeaux) – captured by British Navy 1809, becoming HMS Niemen.
• Saale, (launched 28 October 1810 at Rochefort) – renamed Amphitrite September 1814, reverted to Saale March 1815, then Amphitrite again in July 1815 – deleted 1821.
• Alcmène, (launched 3 October 1811 at Cherbourg) – captured by British Navy 16 January 1814, becoming HMS Dunira, but quickly renamed HMS Immortalite.
• Circé, (launched 15 December 1811 at Rochefort) – deleted 1844.

deck These plans show her as fitted as a British ship. NMM, Progress Book, volume 6, folio 365, states that 'Armide' was at Plymouth Dockyard between 1806 and 1809 for middling repairs and to be fitted.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/82544.html#bHjghoRDcui29LCr.99


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Pénélope_(1806)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armide-class_frigate
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-292767;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=A

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
28 October 1824 - USS Wild Cat lost in a gale between Cuba and Thompson's Island


USS Wild Cat was a two masted schooner displacing 48 tons and was part of a naval fleet, the West Indies Squadron, that sailed to the Caribbean to subdue the occurrence of pirate raids on merchant ships that had increased to almost 3,000 by the early 1820s. She was armed with three guns and had a crew of 31. Wildcat was commanded by Lieutenant Legare' who sailed her to Washington with a dispatch regarding the disposition of the squadron and other matters concerning the war against piracy in the Caribbean. On 28 October 1824 Wildcat was lost in a gale with all hands while sailing between Cuba and Thompson's Island, West Indies. Approximately 31 drowne


Map of early 1800s West Indies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wild_Cat_(1822)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
28 October 1914 - Battle of Penang


The Battle of Penang occurred on 28 October 1914, during World War I. It was a naval action in the Strait of Malacca, in which the German cruiser SMS Emden sank two Allied warships.


SMS Emden

Background
At the time, Penang was part of the Straits Settlement, a British Crown colony. Penang is an island off the west coast of Malaya, now the present day Malaysia. It is only a short distance from the mainland. The main town of Penang, George Town, is on a harbor. In the early months of the war, it was heavily used by Allied naval and merchant vessels.

Shortly after the outbreak of the war, the German East Asia Squadron left its base in Tsingtao, China. The squadron headed east for Germany, but one ship, the light cruiser SMS Emden under Lt. Commander Karl von Müller was sent on a solitary raiding mission.


Map from 1914 New York Times / Route taken by Emden during her commerce raiding operations

Battle
At about 04:30 on 28 October, Emden appeared off the George Town roads and attacked the harbor and vessels lying therein. Captain von Müller had disguised his ship by rigging a false smoke stack, which made Emden resemble the British cruiser HMS Yarmouth (1911). Once he had entered the harbor, however, he ran up the German naval ensign and revealed what ship the newcomer actually was. Before any of the Allied naval vessels could respond, a torpedo was fired at the Russian protected cruiser Zhemchug, followed up with a salvo of shells which riddled the ship. As Zhemchug returned fire, a second torpedo was fired. The torpedo penetrated the forward magazine, causing an explosion that sank the Russian ship. Casualties amongst Zhemchug's crew of 250 amounted to 88 dead and 121 wounded.

Returning to the harbour from a patrol was the French destroyer Mousquet, under the command of a Lt. Théroinne. The Mousquet set off in pursuit of Emden, but was quickly sunk by the German ship.


Zhemchug, after 1909

Aftermath
Zhemchug was tied up in a state of non-readiness while her captain, Cmdr. Baron I. A. Cherkassov, went ashore that night to visit his wife (some sources say mistress). The keys for the ship's magazine had been taken ashore and no lookouts had been posted. Cherkassov could only watch in helpless horror from the Eastern & Oriental Hotel as his ship sank to the bottom of the Straits. He was court-martialled for negligence and sentenced to 3½ years in prison, reduction in rank and expelled from the navy. His deputy, Lt. Kulibin, was sentenced to 1½ years in prison. However, Tsar Nicholas II changed both sentences; they were sent to the front as ordinary seamen. Both men later distinguished themselves in combat and were decorated with the Cross of St. George.

Lt. Théroinne was amongst the Frenchmen lost aboard Mousquet. Thirty-six French survivors out of a crew of 80 from the destroyer were picked up by Emden, three of whom later died from their injuries. They were buried at sea at the insistence of von Müller. Two days later, the Germans stopped the British steamer Newburn and transferred the remaining Frenchmen so that they could be conveyed to Sabang, Sumatra, then part of the neutral Dutch East Indies. Emden continued its raiding mission for another 10 days, before being severely damaged and run aground at the Battle of Cocos.

Legacy

Zhemchug memorial at the Western Road Cemetery, Penang

A total of 12 Russian sailors are buried on Jerejak and Penang islands. The monument honouring the sailors of Zhemchug was twice renovated by Soviet sailors in 1972 and 1987 respectively. The battle was mentioned numerous times by Vladimir Putin on his 2003 presidential visit to Malaysia. The Russian embassy in Malaysia holds memorial services twice annually in honour of the fallen sailors.


SMS Emden ("His Majesty's Ship Emden")[a] was the second and final member of the Dresden class of light cruisers built for the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). Named for the town of Emden, she was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Dockyard) in Danzig in 1906. Her hull was launched in May 1908, and completed in July 1909. She had one sister ship, Dresden. Like the preceding Königsberg-class cruisers, Emden was armed with ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two torpedo tubes.


Emden underway in 1910

Emden spent the majority of her career overseas in the German East Asia Squadron, based in Tsingtao, in the Kiautschou Bay concession in China. In 1913, she came under the command of Karl von Müller, who would captain the ship during World War I. At the outbreak of hostilities, Emden captured a Russian steamer and converted her into the commerce raider Cormoran. Emden rejoined the East Asia Squadron, after which she was detached for independent raiding in the Indian Ocean. The cruiser spent nearly two months operating in the region, and captured nearly two dozen ships. On October 28, 1914, Emden launched a surprise attack on Penang; in the resulting Battle of Penang, she sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug and the French destroyer Mousquet.

Müller then took Emden to raid the Cocos Islands, where he landed a contingent of sailors to destroy British facilities. There, Emden was attacked by the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney. The more powerful Australian ship quickly inflicted serious damage and forced Müller to run his ship aground to prevent her from sinking. Out of a crew of 376, 133 were killed in the battle. Most of the survivors were taken prisoner; the landing party, led by Hellmuth von Mücke, commandeered an old schooner and eventually returned to Germany. Emden's wreck was quickly destroyed by wave action, and was broken up for scrap in the 1950s.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Penang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Emden

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
28 October 1940 - The RMS Empress of Britain was an ocean liner torpedoed and sunk


The RMS Empress of Britain was an ocean liner built between 1928 and 1931 by John Brown shipyard in Scotland and owned by Canadian Pacific Steamship Company. This ship was the second of three CP vessels named Empress of Britain — provided scheduled trans-Atlantic passenger service from spring to autumn between Canada and Europe from 1931 until 1939.


Picture of the Empress of Britain, passing through the Saint Lawrence River near Quebec. Photo taken from the Île Orléans.

In her time, Empress of Britain was the largest, fastest, and most luxurious ship between England and Canada. She was torpedoed on 28 October 1940 by U-32 and sank. At 42,348 gross tons, she was the largest liner lost during the Second World War and the largest ship sunk by a U-boat.

History


Side elevation plans of Empress of Britain.

Work began on Empress of Britain on 28 November 1928 when the plates of her keel were laid at John Brown & Co, Clydebank, Scotland. She was launched on 11 June 1930 by HRH the Prince of Wales. This was the first time that launching ceremonies in Britain were broadcast by radio to Canada and the United States.[4]

Although mostly equipped with eight Yarrow boilers, she was also the first to be fitted with a single Johnson boiler as an experiment.

The ship began sea trials on 11 April 1931 where she recorded 25.5 knots (47.2 km/h), and left Southampton on her maiden voyage to Quebec on 27 May 1931.[6]

Design and construction
As the ship would sail a more northerly trans-Atlantic route where ice-infested waters off Newfoundland sometimes awaited, Empress of Britain was ordered with outer steel plating double the thickness at the stem and for 150 feet (46 m) back at either side, up to the waterline. Her sea trials showed her to be "the world’s most economical steamship for fuel consumption per horsepower-hour for her day."

Her primary role was to entice passengers between England and Quebec instead of the more popular Southampton–New York. The ship was designed to carry 1,195 passengers (465 first class, 260 tourist class and 470 third class).

Empress of Britain was the first passenger liner designed specifically to become a cruise ship in winter when the St. Lawrence River was frozen.[8] Empress of Britain was annually converted into an all-first-class, luxury cruise ship, carrying 700 passengers.

For the latter role her size was kept small enough to use the Panama and Suez canals, though at 760.6 feet (231.84 m) and 42,348 gross tons, she was still large. When passing through Panama, there was only 7.5 inches (190 mm) between the ship and the canal lock wall. Empress of Britain was powered by four steam turbine engines driving four propellers. The two inboard propellers took two-thirds of the power, the outboard propellers one-third. For cruising two engines were shut down, and the two outboard propellers removed to reduce drag, since speed was not as important on a cruise. With four propellers, her speed during trials was 25.271 knots (46.802 km/h), although her service speed was stated at 24 knots (44 km/h) making her the fastest ship from England to Canada. Running on inner propellers, her speed was measured during trials at 22.595 knots (41.846 km/h). The efficiency of this arrangement became clear in service – for transatlantic service, she consumed 356 tons of oil a day, while on her 1932 cruise, consumption fell to 179.

To serve as a beacon at night during emergencies the three funnels on Empress of Britain were illuminated with powerful flood lights. From the air the funnels could be spotted 50 miles away and ships could spot the illuminated funnels 30 miles distance.

Peacetime commercial service
Following sea trials, the ship headed for Southampton to prepare for her maiden voyage to Quebec City. Canadian Pacific posters proclaimed the "Five Day Atlantic Giantess", "Canada’s Challenger" and "The World’s Wondership".

The night before her maiden voyage, the Prince of Wales decided to go to Southampton to bid bon voyage. His inspection of the ship caused a short delay but at 1:12pm on Wednesday, 27 May 1931 Empress of Britain left Southampton for Quebec. Once at sea, the Toronto newspaper The Globe ran an editorial on what the ship meant to Canadians.

“Canadian enterprise has issued a new challenge in the world of shipping by the completion and sailing of the Empress of Britain from England for Quebec. This giant Canadian Pacific liner of 42,500 tons sets a new standard for the Canadian route. Its luxurious equipment includes one entire deck for sport and recreation, another for public rooms, including a ballroom, with decorations by world-famous artists. There are apartments instead of cabins, and each is equipped with a radio receiving set for the entertainment of passengers. . . . In the later years of the last century, … there was long agitation for a ‘fast Atlantic service’. Time has brought the answer. Despite the current depression, Canada has a new ship which will reach far for traffic during the St. Lawrence season, and when winter comes will go on world cruises, carrying passengers who will ask and receive almost the last word in comfort and luxury in ocean travel. The first journey of the new Empress is a historic event in the record of Canadian advancement.”​

Empress of Britain made nine round-trips in 1931 between Southampton and Quebec, carrying 4,891 passengers westbound and 4,696 eastbound. To begin her winter cruise, she made a westbound trans-Atlantic trip to New York, carrying 378. On 3 December 1931, she sailed on a 128-day round-the-world cruise, to the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Holy Land, through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea, then to India, Ceylon, Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies, on to China, Hong Kong and Japan, then across the Pacific to Hawaii and California before transversing the Panama Canal back to New York. The ship then made a one-way Atlantic crossing from New York to Southampton, where she entered dry dock for maintenance and reinstallation of her outer propellers. Until 1939, this schedule was duplicated with minor adjustments each year except 1933.

Her captain from 1934 to 1937 was Ronald Niel Stuart, VC, a First World War veteran entitled to fly the Blue Ensign.

Canadian Pacific hoped to convince Midwesterners from Canada and the United States to travel by train to Quebec City as opposed to New York City. This gave an extra day and a half of smooth sailing in the shorter, sheltered St Lawrence River transatlantic route, which Canadian Pacific advertised as "39 per cent less ocean". While initially successful, the novelty wore off, and Empress of Britain proved to be one of the least profitable liners from the 1930s.

In June 1939, Empress of Britain sailed from Halifax to Conception Bay, St Johns, Newfoundland and then eastbound to Southampton with her smallest passenger list: 40 people: King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and 13 ladies and lords in waiting, 22 household staff, plus a photographer and two reporters. The royal couple and their entourage were comfortably settled in a string of suites. After this voyage, Empress of Britain returned to regular transatlantic service, but through summer 1939, war loomed.


Empress of Britain arriving at Greenock with Canadian troops aboard. (HMS Hood is visible in the background.)

On 2 September 1939, one day before the United Kingdom declared war (seven days before Canada entered the war), Empress of Britain sailed on her last voyage for Canadian Pacific, with the largest passenger list. Filled beyond capacity, and with temporary berths in the squash court and other spaces, Empress of Britain zig-zagged across the Atlantic, arriving in Quebec on 8 September 1939.

War service
Upon arrival, the ship was repainted grey and then laid up awaiting orders. On 25 November 1939, when Empress of Britain was requisitioned as a troop transport. First, she did four transatlantic trips bringing troops from Canada to England. Then she was sent to Wellington, New Zealand, returning to Scotland in June 1940 as part of the "million dollar convoy" of seven luxury liners — Andes, Aquitania, Empress of Britain, Empress of Canada, Empress of Japan, Mauretania and Queen Mary.

In August 1940 Empress of Britain transported troops to Suez via Cape Town, returning with 224 military personnel and civilians, plus a crew of 419.

Sinking

"Attack on the transport Empress of Britain 42,000 Gross Register Tons. Front Line Intelligence sheet of the Luftwaffe No. 26, Sheet 213."

At around 9:20am on 26 October 1940, travelling about 70 miles northwest of Ireland along the west coast, Empress of Britain was spotted by a German Focke-Wulf Fw 200C Condor long-range bomber, commanded by Oberleutnant Bernhard Jope. Jope’s bomber strafed Empress of Britain three times and struck her twice with 250 kilograms (550 lb) bombs.

Only after Jope returned to base in northern France was it discovered which ship he had attacked. A telex was sent to German Supreme Headquarters. Realising the significance, a reconnaissance plane went to verify; and the German news agency reported that Empress of Britain had been sunk:

"The Empress of Britain was successfully attacked by German bombers on Saturday morning within the waters of Northern Ireland. The ship was badly hit and began to sink at once. The crew took to their boats."
Despite the ferocity of Jope's attack and the fires, there were few casualties. Bombs started a fire that began to overwhelm the ship. At 9:50am, Captain Sapworth gave the order to abandon. The fire was concentrated in the midsection, causing passengers to head for the bow and stern and hampering launching of the lifeboats. Most of the 416 crew, 2 gunners, and 205 passengers were picked up by the destroyers HMS Echo and ORP Burza, and the anti-submarine trawler HMS Cape Arcona. A skeleton crew remained aboard.

The fire left the ship unable to move under her own power, but she was not sinking and the hull appeared intact despite a slight list. At 9:30am on 27 October, a party from HMS Broke went on board and attached tow ropes. The oceangoing tugs HMS Marauder and HMS Thames had arrived and took the hulk under tow. Escorted by Broke and HMS Sardonyx, and with cover from Short Sunderland flying boats during daylight, the salvage convoy made for land at 4 kn (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph).

The German submarine U-32, commanded by Hans Jenisch, had been told and headed in that direction. He had to dive due to the flying boats, but that night, using hydrophones (passive sonar), located the ships and closed on them. The destroyers were zigzagging and U-32 positioned herself between them and Empress of Britain, from where she fired two torpedoes. The first detonated prematurely, but the second hit, causing a massive explosion. It appears that the crews of the destroyers thought the explosion was caused by the fires aboard the liner reaching her fuel tanks. Jenisch manoeuvred U-32 and fired a third torpedo which impacted just aft of the earlier one.

Empress of Britain began to fill with water and list heavily. The tugs slipped the tow lines and at 2.05am on 28 October, Empress of Britain sank northwest of Bloody Foreland, County Donegal (off Ireland at 55-16N 09-50W).



Gold and salvage
It was suspected that she had been carrying gold. The United Kingdom was at the time attempting to ship gold to North America in order to improve its credit. South Africa was a gold producer, and Empress of Britain had recently berthed in Cape Town. Most of the consignments of gold were transported from Cape Town to Sydney, Australia, and from there to America; there were not enough suitable ships and the gold was frequently held up in Sydney. It is possible that, as a result of this delay, Empress of Britain was transporting gold from South Africa to England, where it could then be moved to the United States of America.

On 8 January 1949, the Daily Mail reported that a salvage attempt was to be made in the summer of that year. There were no follow-ups, and the story contained errors. In 1985, a potential salvager received a letter from the Department of Transport Shipping Policy Unit saying gold on board had been recovered.

In 1995, salvagers found Empress of Britain upside-down in 500 feet (150 m) of water. Using saturation diving, they found that the fire had destroyed most of the decks, leaving a largely empty shell rising from the sea floor. The bullion room was still intact. Inside was a skeleton but no gold. It is suspected the gold was unloaded when Empress of Britain was on fire and its passengers evacuated. The body inside the bullion room may have been someone involved in salvage.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Empress_of_Britain_(1930)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 28 October


1492 – Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba on his first voyage to the New World.

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


1669 – Launch of HMS Saudadoes at Portsmouth

Sixth-rate frigates 1660 to 1688
Designed and built by Anthony Deane at Portsmouth

1677 - Marigold 44 (ex-Algerine Marygold), captured – wrecked 1679.

The Royal Navy took into service as fourth rates the following ships captured from the Algerines (Algerian corsairs)


1690 – Birth of Peter Tordenskjold, Norwegian admiral (d. 1720)

Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold (28 October 1690 – 12 November 1720), commonly referred to as Tordenskjold (lit. Thunder Shield), was a Norwegian nobleman and an eminent naval flag officer in the service of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. He rose to the rank of Vice-Admiral for his services in the Great Northern War. Born in Trondheim, Peter Wessel travelled to Copenhagen in 1704, and was employed in the navy. He won a name for himself through audacity and courage, and was ennobled as Peter Tordenskiold by King Frederick IV in 1716. His greatest exploit came later that year, as he destroyed the supply fleet of Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Dynekilen. In 1720, he was killed in a duel. In Denmark and Norway he is among the most famous national naval heroes. He experienced an unusually rapid rise in rank and died when he was only 30 years old.

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


1784 – Launch of French Audacieux was a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.

Audacieux was a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.
Between 1791 and 1793, she was decommissioned in Lorient. She joined active service again in 1793, and the next year, she salvaged the Révolutionnaire, dismasted after the Glorious First of June.
She was eventually broken up in 1803.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Audacieux_(1784)


1798 - British squadron, under James Saumarez, of HMS Caesar (1793 - 80), Cptn. Rodham Home, HMS Terrible (1785 - 74) Sir Richard Bickerton and HMS Melpomene (1794 - 38), Cptn. Sir Charles Hamilton, engaged four French frigates under Commodore Daniel Savary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Caesar_(1793)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Terrible_(1785)


1801 - HMS Sir Thomas Paisley (16), Lt. Wooldridge, captured Spanish privateer El Virgine Del Rosario (10) off Cape de Gat


1810 – Launch of French Saale at Rochefort

renamed Amphitrite September 1814, reverted to Saale March 1815, then Amphitrite again in July 1815 – deleted 1821.
Armide class, (40-gun design by Pierre Roland, with 28 x 18-pounder and 8 x 12-pounder guns and 4 x 36-pounder obusiers).

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


1812 - During the War of 1812, the brig Argus, commanded by Commodore Arthur Sinclair, captures the British merchant brig Fly in the North Atlantic.


1822 - Actaeon (or Actæon, or Acteon) was launched at Fort Gloster, India, in 1815. She was wrecked without loss of life on 28 October 1822 in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel in southern Tasmania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actaeon_(1815_ship)


1864 - Steamer USS General Thomas and gunboat Stone River destroy Confederate batteries on Tennessee River near Decatur, Alabama.

At Decatur, Alabama, 28 October 1864, the gunboat engaged strong batteries from General John Bell Hood's army. After passing the batteries downstream and sustaining several hits, General Thomas rounded to and, with Union Army gunboat Stone River, poured such a withering crossfire into the emplacements that the Confederates were forced to withdraw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_General_Thomas_(1864)


1864 - CSS Lady Stirling, a blockade runner built by James Ash at Cubitt Town, was badly damaged and captured by the United States Navy off Wilmington, North Carolina

The USS Hornet (1865) was the fifth United States Navy ship to bear the name Hornet. [Note 1] She was originally the CSS Lady Stirling, a blockade runner built by James Ash at Cubitt Town, London in 1864 for the Confederate States Navy. She was badly damaged and captured by the United States Navy on 28 October 1864 off Wilmington, North Carolina.



History

Following condemnation by a prize court, Lady Sterling was bought by the U.S. Navy, repaired, armed, and commissioned as USS Lady Sterling and later renamed USS Hornet on 25 April 1865 In navy service she mainly operated in the Chesapeake Bay squadron. In October 1865, Hornet escorted the Confederate ironclad CSS Stonewall from Cuba to the United States.

Hornet was decommissioned on 15 December 1865 and sold into private ownership in 1869. After the war Hornet was involved in several filibustering expeditions to Cuba under the names Hornet and Cuba, including an unsuccessful mission in January 1871 to deliver weapons and ammunition to Cuban rebels during the Ten Years' War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hornet_(1865)


1905 - Steam yacht Branwen launched, 135 feet (41 m) length overall, powered by a triple expansion engine, built for Lord Howard de Walden launched 28 October 1905 and first vessel built at the Woolston yard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_built_at_John_I._Thornycroft_&_Company,_Woolston
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Scott-Ellis,_8th_Baron_Howard_de_Walden

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1618 – Death of Walter Raleigh, English admiral, explorer, and politician, Lieutenant Governor of Jersey (b. 1554)


Sir Walter Raleigh (/ˈrɔːli, ˈræli, ˈrɑːli/; c. 1552 (or 1554) – 29 October 1618), also spelled Ralegh, was an English landed gentleman, writer, poet, soldier, politician, courtier, spy and explorer. He was cousin to Sir Richard Grenville and younger half-brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England.


Portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh inscribed right: Aetatis suae 34 An(no) 1588 ("In the year 1588 of his age 34") and left: with his motto Amore et Virtute ("By Love and Virtue"). National Portrait Gallery, London

Raleigh was born to a Protestant family in Devon, the son of Walter Raleigh and Catherine Champernowne. Little is known of his early life, though he spent some time in Ireland, in Killua Castle, Clonmellon, County Westmeath, taking part in the suppression of rebellions and participating in the Siege of Smerwick. Later, he became a landlord of property confiscated from the native Irish. He rose rapidly in the favour of Queen Elizabeth I and was knighted in 1585. Raleigh was instrumental in the English colonisation of North America and was granted a royal patent to explore Virginia, paving the way for future English settlements. In 1591, he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, without the Queen's permission, for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London. After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset.

In 1594, Raleigh heard of a "City of Gold" in South America and sailed to find it, publishing an exaggerated account of his experiences in a book that contributed to the legend of "El Dorado". After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, Raleigh was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time for being involved in the Main Plot against King James I, who was not favourably disposed towards him. In 1616, he was released to lead a second expedition in search of El Dorado. During the expedition, men led by his top commander ransacked a Spanish outpost, in violation of both the terms of his pardon and the 1604 peace treaty with Spain. Raleigh returned to England and, to appease the Spanish, he was arrested and executed in 1618.

Raleigh was one of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era. In 2002, he was featured in the BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

First voyage to Guiana
Further information: Raleigh's El Dorado Expedition

Republic of Guyana, 100-dollar gold coin 1976 Commemorating the book Discovery of Guiana 1596 and 10 Years of Independence from British Rule

In 1594, he came into possession of a Spanish account of a great golden city at the headwaters of the Caroní River. A year later, he explored what is now Guyana and eastern Venezuela in search of Lake Parime and Manoa, the legendary city. Once back in England, he published The Discovery of Guiana (1596), an account of his voyage which made exaggerated claims as to what had been discovered. The book can be seen as a contribution to the El Dorado legend. Venezuela has gold deposits, but no evidence indicates that Raleigh found any mines. He is sometimes said to have discovered Angel Falls, but these claims are considered far-fetched.

1596–1603

Raleigh and his son Walter in 1602

In 1596, Raleigh took part in the Capture of Cadiz, where he was wounded. He also served as the rear admiral (a principal command) of the Islands Voyage to the Azores in 1597. On his return from the Azores, Raleigh faced the major threat of the 3rd Spanish Armada during the autumn of 1597. The Armada was dispersed by a storm, but Lord Howard of Effingham and Raleigh were able to organise a fleet that resulted in the capture of a Spanish ship in retreat carrying vital information regarding the Spanish plans.

In 1597 Raleigh was chosen member of parliament for Dorset, and in 1601 for Cornwall.[20] He was unique in the Elizabethan period in sitting for three counties.

From 1600 to 1603, as governor of the Channel Island of Jersey, Raleigh modernised its defences. This included construction of a new fort protecting the approaches to Saint Helier, Fort Isabella Bellissima, or Elizabeth Castle.

Trial and imprisonment

Raleigh's cell, Bloody Tower, Tower of London

Royal favour with Queen Elizabeth had been restored by this time, but his good fortune did not last; the Queen died on 24 March 1603. Raleigh was arrested on 19 July 1603, charged with treason for his involvement in the Main Plot against Elizabeth's successor, James I, and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Raleigh's trial began on 17 November in the converted Great Hall of Winchester Castle. Raleigh conducted his own defence. The chief evidence against him was the signed and sworn confession of his friend Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham. Raleigh repeatedly requested that Cobham be called to testify. "[Let] my accuser come face to face, and be deposed. Were the case but for a small copyhold, you would have witnesses or good proof to lead the jury to a verdict; and I am here for my life!" Raleigh argued that the evidence against him was "hearsay", but the tribunal refused to allow Cobham to testify and be cross-examined.[31][32] Raleigh was found guilty, but King James spared his life.

He remained imprisoned in the Tower until 1616. While there, he wrote many treatises and the first volume of The Historie of the World (first edition published 1614)[34] about the ancient history of Greece and Rome. His son, Carew, was conceived and born (1604) while Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower.

Second voyage to Guiana

James I's royal warrant pardoning Raleigh in 1617.

In 1617, Raleigh was pardoned by the King and granted permission to conduct a second expedition to Venezuela in search of El Dorado. During the expedition, a detachment of Raleigh's men under the command of his long-time friend Lawrence Keymis attacked the Spanish outpost of Santo Tomé de Guayana on the Orinoco River, in violation of peace treaties with Spain, and against Raleigh's orders. A condition of Raleigh's pardon was avoidance of any hostility against Spanish colonies or shipping. In the initial attack on the settlement, Raleigh's son, Walter, was fatally shot. Keymis informed Raleigh of his son's death and begged for forgiveness, but did not receive it, and at once committed suicide. On Raleigh's return to England, an outraged Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, demanded that Raleigh's death sentence be reinstated by King James, who had little choice but to do so. Raleigh was brought to London from Plymouth by Sir Lewis Stukeley, where he passed up numerous opportunities to make an effective escape.

Execution and aftermath
Raleigh was beheaded in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster on 29 October 1618. "Let us dispatch", he said to his executioner. "At this hour my ague comes upon me. I would not have my enemies think I quaked from fear." After he was allowed to see the axe that would be used to behead him, he mused: "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries." According to biographers, Raleigh's last words (as he lay ready for the axe to fall) were: "Strike, man, strike!"


Raleigh just before he was beheaded – an illustration from circa1860

Thomas Hariot may have introduced him to tobacco. Having been one of the people to popularise tobacco smoking in England, he left a small tobacco pouch, found in his cell shortly after his execution. Engraved upon the pouch was a Latin inscription: Comes meus fuit in illo miserrimo tempore ("It was my companion at that most miserable time")

Raleigh's head was embalmed and presented to his wife. His body was to be buried in the local church in Beddington, Surrey, the home of Lady Raleigh, but was finally laid to rest in St. Margaret's, Westminster, where his tomb may still be visited today. "The Lords", she wrote, "have given me his dead body, though they have denied me his life. God hold me in my wits." It has been said that Lady Raleigh kept her husband's head in a velvet bag until her death. After Raleigh's wife's death 29 years later, his head was returned to his tomb and interred at St. Margaret's Church.

Although Raleigh's popularity had waned considerably since his Elizabethan heyday, his execution was seen by many, both at the time and since, as unnecessary and unjust, as for many years his involvement in the Main Plot seemed to have been limited to a meeting with Lord Cobham. One of the judges at his trial later said: "The justice of England has never been so degraded and injured as by the condemnation of the honourable Sir Walter Raleigh





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

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1658 – Second Northern War: Naval forces of the Dutch Republic defeat the Swedes in the Battle of the Sound


The naval Battle of the Sound took place on 8 November 1658 (29 October O.S.) during the Second Northern War, near the Sound or Øresund, just north of the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Sweden had invaded Denmark and an army under Charles X of Sweden had Copenhagen itself under siege. The Dutch fleet was sent to prevent Sweden from gaining control of both sides of the Sound and thereby controlling access to the Baltic Sea as well as of its trade.


First Phase of the Battle of the Sound by Jan Abrahamsz straaten

The Dutch, under the command of Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam with Egbert Bartholomeusz Kortenaer as his flag captain, who had sailed to the Baltic in support of Denmark, had 41 ships with 1413 guns while the Swedes, under Lord High Admiral Carl Gustaf Wrangel, had 45 ships with 1838 guns. The Dutch were grouped into three squadrons, while the Swedes separated their ships into four. The seven Danish ships with about 280 guns were unable to assist their Dutch allies because of adverse northern winds and could only watch. Obdam, who first received very complicated written instructions from the Grand Pensionary, Johan de Witt, and went so far as to request them again "in three words", summed up his mission in a single sentence: "Save Copenhagen and punch anyone in the face who tries to prevent it". This was a direct reference to the English, whose powerful fleet had recently defeated the Dutch in the First Anglo-Dutch War; in the event, however, the English did not intervene. The Swedes attacked aggressively, but failed to gain the upper hand, primarily because the approaching Dutch had the weather gage. The Dutch forced the Swedish fleet to end the blockade of the Danish capital, enabling its resupply by Dutch armed transport ships, which eventually forced Charles to abandon the siege entirely.


Painting by Peter van de Velde.

The Swedes lost five ships in the action compared to one Dutch ship, however, remaining allied ships were more damaged. Also, considering the slightly fewer losses of men in the Swedish navy; 1,200 compared to 1,400 (439 killed, 269 captured and slightly more than 650 wounded allies), the battle is considered a tactical draw. Strategically, however, it was a major allied victory.

Order of Battle







Brederode was a ship of the line of the Maas Admiralty, part of the navy of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the flagship of the Dutch fleet in the First Anglo-Dutch War. Throughout her career, she carried from 49 to 59 guns. She was named after Johan Wolfert van Brederode, the brother-in-law of stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange.


Brederode off Hellevoetsluis by Simon de Vlieger

Construction
Brederode was, in Maas feet, about 132 ft (40 m) long by about 32 ft (9.8 m) wide by approximately 13.5 ft (4.1 m) deep. The English dimensions were very close to those figures. The published dimensions are in Maas feet of 308 mm, divided into 12 inches (300 mm).

Brederode was initially armed with 49 guns, increasing to 54 from 1652. These comprised four 36-pounders, twelve 24-pounders, and eight 18-pounders on the lower deck, twenty 12-pounders on the upper deck, and ten to twelve 6-pounders on the forecastle, quarterdeck, and poop deck. All of her guns were bronze-cast except four of the 12-pounders which were Swedish-made and cast in iron.

Crew numbers varied considerably over Bredereode's sailing career. In September 1652 her complement was 175 sailors, rising to 260 in June 1653 before falling back to 113 in 1656. Between 40 and 75 soldiers were also accommodated aboard.

Ship history
Launched at Rotterdam in 1644, and a design of shipwright Jan Salomonszoon van den Tempel, she was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Witte Corneliszoon de With from May 1645 until 1647 when she was assigned to Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp. The same year however, she again became De With's flagship for his expedition to Dutch Brazil. De With delegated actual command of the vessel to Lieutenant Jan Janszoon Quack, who remained in that role after the expedition returned to Holland in 1647. Only in 1652 would Tromp sail for the first time with his flag on Brederode, during an attack against royalist privateers operating from the Scilly Islands.

In the First Anglo-Dutch War Brederode was present under Tromp's command at the Battle of Goodwin Sands on 29 May 1652. After Tromp's failure to bring the English to battle off the Shetland Islands in July, Tromp was relieved and Michiel de Ruytertook over command. When De Ruyter was subordinated to De With in September, Brederode's crew refused to let the latter come on board to take command, so he had to content himself with Prins Willem. Without Tromp, Brederode fought at the Battle of the Kentish Knock on 8 October 1652.


The Battle of the Gabbard, 12 June 1653 by Heerman Witmont, shows the Dutch flagship Brederode (foreground left) in action.

With Tromp back in command, Brederode fought at the Battle of Dungeness on 10 December 1652 where she came close to being captured, but was instrumental in that victory over the English. She fought again on 18 February 1653 at the Battle of Portland and on 12 June 1653 at the Battle of the Gabbard, where she fought an exhausting but inconclusive duel with William Penn's flagship James. On that day, the first day of the battle, Tromp's men boarded the English ship but were beaten back; boarded in turn by the English, Tromp was only able to dislodge the boarders by blowing up Brederode's deck. On 13 June the English were joined by a squadron under Admiral Robert Blake and the Dutch were scattered in defeat.

Brederode fought in the last major engagement of the war, the Battle of Scheveningen on 26 July 1653, when Tromp was killed. The acting flag captain (later Admiral) Egbert Bartholomeusz Kortenaer kept Tromp's standard raised after his death to keep up morale.

In the Northern Wars the United Provinces sent an expeditionary force to support Denmark in the war against Charles X of Sweden. In the Battle of the Sound on 8 November 1658 the Dutch fleet, commanded by Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam, defeated a Swedish fleet and relieved the siege of Copenhagen. Van Wassenaer's flagship was Eendracht; De With commanded the van in Brederode; attacking the enemy without proper knowledge of the shoals he grounded his ship (after damaging Leoparden so much that this enemy vessel subsequently was lost by fire) and was surrounded; after many hours of fighting, Brederode was boarded by Wismar and De With mortally wounded. The partially burnt wreck was deemed unsalvagable.


The Eendracht or Eendragt ("Concord" - more precisely translated as "Unity") was the usual flagship of the confederate navy of the United Provinces (a precursor state of the Netherlands) between 1655 and 1665. Eendragt was the more common spelling in the 17th century; Eendracht is the modern Dutch standard spelling.


The Royal Charles and the Eendracht in the Battle of Lowestoft

Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp had for many years insisted on the construction of a new flagship to replace the Brederode, which was too lightly armed with only 56 guns. For reasons of cost and impracticality (Dutch home waters being very shallow) this was refused until the events of the First Anglo-Dutch War made it painfully clear that much heavier ships were needed. In February 1653 it was decided that the cost was to be shared confederately by the seven provinces of the Netherlands. The project was at the instigation of Cornelis de Witt moved to the wharf of Goossen Schacks van der Arent in Dordrecht for a ship to be built under the supervision of shipwright Jan Salomonszoon van den Tempel who had previously designed Brederode and the earlier flagship Aemilia. The Admiralty of de Maze based in Rotterdam (one of the five autonomous Dutch admiralties) therefore signed a contract with van den Tempel on 8 March 1653 and he then laid the keel of a ship of 150 (Amstrerdam) feet in length.

Due to conflicts about cost, size and materials, Eendracht was only finished in January 1655 when the First Anglo-Dutch War had already ended and Tromp was dead. At first it was intended to name the then 58-gun ship Prins Willem after the infant son of the late stadtholder William II of Orange, but Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary with the States of Holland, decided to rename the project after the main ideal of his domestic policy: the concord between all provinces and citizens, also expressed in the official motto of the Republic: Concordia res parvae crescunt, "Small things grow through concord". When he happened to be absent for a month the Orangist faction changed the name back, but the States hurriedly reverted this when De Witt after his return merely expressed his amazement.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sound
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_ship_Brederode_(1644)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_ship_Eendracht_(1655)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1704 – Birth of John Byng, English admiral and politician, 11th Commodore Governor of Newfoundland (d. 1757)


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



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


Battle of Minorca

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

Admiral John Byng's account of the Battle of Minorca

The island of Minorca had been a British possession since 1708, when it was captured during the War of the Spanish Succession. On the approach of the Seven Years' War, it was threatened by a French naval attack from Toulon, and was invaded in 1756.

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


English and French fleets

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clemency denied and execution


The Shooting of Admiral Byng, artist unknown

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

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

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

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


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Minorca_(1756)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1808 - HMS Banterer, a Royal Navy Banterer-class sixth-rate post-ship of 24 guns, wrecked


HMS Banterer was a Royal Navy Banterer-class sixth-rate post-ship of 24 guns, built in 1805-07 at South Shields, England. She was ordered in January 1805 as HMS Banter but her name was lengthened to Banterer on 9 August of that year.

She was rated a 24-gun ship and was intended to mount that number of long 9-pounders on her main deck. However she also carried eight 24-pounder carronades and two long 6-pounders on her quarter-deck and forecastle. By the time that Captain Alexander Cary took command in May 1807, the Admiralty added two brass howitzers to her armament, while exchanging her 9-pounders for 32-pounder carronades. Her complement was increased by twenty to 175 officers, men and boys.

Captain Alexander Shippard (or Sheppard) commissioned Banterer in May 1807. Later that year she participated in the battle of Copenhagen.

Subsequently she returned to England. Banterer then sailed with a convoy for Halifax, Nova Scotia on 13 February 1808; later that year, on 29 October, she was wrecked in the Saint Lawrence River, near Point Mille Vache.

The court-martial for Sheppard and his officers and crew took place on Tourterelle between 28 and 30 January 1809 at St. George's Harbour, Bermuda. The court martial dismissed Lieutenant Stephen C. McCurdy from the Navy for having neglected his responsibilities during the third watch. It also severely reprimanded the acting master, Robert Clegram for culpable negligence in failing to pass on to the officer who relieved him Sheppard's instructions concerning certain safety precautions. The court martial acquitted Sheppard, his other officers and crew, and the pilot of the loss.


Wooden model of frigate HMS Cyane. Scale 1:98

The Banterer-class sailing sixth rates were a series of six 22-gun post ships built to an 1805 design by Sir William Rule, which served in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic War. The first four were launched in 1806 and the remaining two in 1807. One ship – the Banterer – was lost in 1808 and another – the Cyane – captured by the United States Navy in 1815; the remaining four were all deleted during 1816.

Ships in class

• HMS Crocodile
  • Builder: Simon Temple, South Shields
  • Ordered: 30 January 1805
  • Laid down: June 1805
  • Launched: 19 April 1806
  • Completed: 10 August 1806 at Chatham Dockyard
  • Fate: Broken up at Portsmouth in October 1816.
• HMS Daphne
  • Builder: Robert Davy, Topsham, Exeter
  • Ordered: 30 January 1805
  • Laid down: July 1805
  • Launched: 2 July 1806
  • Completed: 4 October 1806 at Plymouth Dockyard
  • Fate: Sold to be broken up at Deptford in February 1816, but became mercantile Daphne; last listed in 1823
• HMS Cossack
  • Builder: Simon Temple, South Shields
  • Ordered: 30 January 1805
  • Laid down: July 1805
  • Launched: 24 December 1806
  • Completed: 2 July 1807 at Chatham Dockyard
  • Fate: Broken up at Portsmouth in June 1816.
• HMS Cyane
  • Builder: John Bass, Topsham, Exeter
  • Ordered: 30 January 1805
  • Laid down: August 1805
  • Launched: 14 October 1806
  • Completed: 13 July 1807 at Plymouth Dockyard
  • Fate: Captured by USS Constitution off Madeira on 20 February 1815.
• HMS Banterer
  • Builder: Simon Temple, South Shields
  • Ordered: 30 January 1805
  • Laid down: August 1805
  • Launched: 24 February 1807
  • Completed: 12 July 1807 at Chatham Dockyard
  • Fate: Wrecked in the Saint Lawrence River in October 1808.
• HMS Porcupine
  • Builder: Thomas Owen, Topsham, Exeter
  • Ordered: 30 January 1805
  • Laid down: September 1805
  • Launched: 26 January 1807
  • Completed: 22 June 1807 at Plymouth Dockyard
  • Fate: Sold to be broken up at Portsmouth in April 1816.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Banterer_(1807)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banterer-class_post_ship

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1814 - Launching of Fulton I (Demologos ), first American steam powered warship


Demologos was the first warship to be propelled by a steam engine. She was a wooden floating battery built to defend New York Harbor from the Royal Navy during the War of 1812. The vessel was designed to a unique pattern by Robert Fulton, and was renamed Fulton after his death. Because of the prompt end of the war, Demologos never saw action, and no other ship like her was built.



History

Robert Fulton, designer

On 9 March 1814, Congress authorized the construction of a steam warship to be designed by Robert Fulton, a pioneer of commercial steamers in North America. The construction of the ship began on 20 June 1814, at the civilian yard of Adam and Noah Brown, and the ship was launched on 29 October. After sea trials she was delivered to the United States Navy in June 1816. The ship was never formally named; Fulton christened it Demologos or Demologus, though following his death in February 1815, the ship was named Fulton.

By the time she was completed, the war for which Demologos had been built had ended. She saw only one day of active service, when she carried President James Monroe on a tour of New York Harbor. A two-masted lateen rig was added by the orders of her first commander, Captain David Porter. In 1821 her armament and machinery were removed. The remainder of her career was spent laid up in reserve; after 1825 she served as the floating barracks for Brooklyn Navy Yard. She came to an end on 4 June 1829 in a gunpowder explosion. She exploded while lying at anchor, killing an officer and 47 men.

General characteristics
Class and type: Steam battery
Displacement: 1,450 tons
Length: 153 ft 2 in (46.69 m)
Beam: 58 ft (18 m)
Draft: 13 ft (4.0 m)
Propulsion: Steam, 1 cylinder 120 hp (89 kW)
Speed: 5.5 knots (10.2 km/h; 6.3 mph)
Armament:
30 × 32-pounder guns
2 × 100-pounder Columbiads fitted to fire at enemy ships below their waterline
Armor : 5' reinforced timber planking


Design and impact
Demologos had an entirely unique and innovative design. A catamaran, her paddlewheel was sandwiched between two hulls. Each hull was constructed 5 ft (1.5 m) thick for protection against gunfire. The steam engine, mounted below the waterline in one of the hulls, was capable of giving 5.5 knots (10.2 km/h) speed in favorable conditions. Although designed to carry 30 32-pounder guns, 24 port and starboard, 6 fore and aft, the Navy had trouble acquiring sufficient guns, and a varying number were mounted while in actual service. Demologos was also fitted for two 100-pounder Columbiads, one mounted fore and another aft, these weapons were never actually furnished to the vessel.


Three-view of Demologos as originally portrayed to the US government. The resulting vessel differed greatly from this early proposal.

Fulton's design solved several of the problems inherent in warships powered by paddlewheels which led to the adoption of the paddle-steamer as an effective warship in following decades. By placing the paddlewheel centrally, sandwiched between two hulls, Fulton protected it from gunfire; this design also allowed the ship to mount a full broadside of guns.

The steam engine offered the prospect of tactical advantage against sail-powered warships. In a calm, sailing ships depended on the manpower of their crews to tow the ship from the boats, or to kedge with anchors. Demologos, with steam, might have found it easy to outmaneuver a ship-of-the-line in calm weather.

The innovative construction and steam power also fundamentally limited the role Demologos could fill. With an unreliable engine and a hull unsuited to seaways, Demologos was unable to travel on the high seas. The United States Navy planned to build a number of similar steam batteries, but none of these plans got off the drawing board until the USS Fulton of 1837. A number of European navies also considered acquiring the Demologos, but these inquiries came to nought.

The Demologos was ultimately a dead end in the introduction of steam power to the warship. Armed paddle steamers proliferated in the 1830s and 40s as armed tugs and transports. During the Civil War, the United States Navy operated a number of iron clad steam-powered paddle-wheel gunboats as a part of the Mississippi River Squadron. Known as City-class ironclad gunboats as they were named after cities on the Mississippi River or its tributaries, these ships utilized a double-hulled configuration similar to Fulton's design, with the paddle wheel in the center. The wheel was protected by armored plate, allowing full broad-sides, as well as bow and stern shots. An example, the USS Cairo, is on display at the Vicksburg National Military Park. Paddle-wheel propulsion, more usually side-paddle configurations, in military use continued until World War II with the USS Wolverine and USS Sable training aircraft carriers. These designs were typically limited to use in the brown-water navy or on large lakes.

Steam-powered paddle wheel propulsion would ultimately be eclipsed by the introduction of the screw propeller in the 1840s, enabling steam-powered version of the ship of the line and the frigate before steam power was properly adapted for use in a blue water navy.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_floating_battery_Demologos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fulton

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1867 - RMS Rhone, a UK Royal Mail Ship owned by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSP), was wrecked off the coast of Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands in a hurricane, killing 123 people.


RMS Rhone was a UK Royal Mail Ship owned by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSP). She was wrecked off the coast of Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands on 29 October 1867 in a hurricane, killing 123 people. She is now a popular Caribbean wreck dive site.

History


RMS Rhone

RMSP ships carried mail, passengers, horses, and cargo on regular scheduled routes. Its first services had been between Southampton and the Caribbean, but in 1851 it added a new route between Southampton and Rio de Janeiro. This growing trade, and a number of ships lost at sea, created a need for new ships.

In June 1863 RMSP ordered Rhone from the Millwall Iron Works on the Isle of Dogs, London and her sister ship Douro from Caird & Company in Greenock. The pair was initially to work the Rio de Janeiro route. They were similar but not identical. Both were handsome ships, but Rhone was considered to have slightly finer lines.

At this time the Admiralty supervised Royal Mail Ship contracts. During building the Admiralty surveyor criticised Rhone's bulkheads and water tight compartments. Revisions were made, and the ship was completed to the surveyor's satisfaction.

Rhone had an iron hull, was 310 feet (94 m) long, had a 40-foot (12 m) beam and 2,738 GRT. She was a sail-steamer, rigged as a two-masted brig. Her compound steam engine developed 500 NHP and gave her a speed of 14 knots (26 km/h) on her sea trials. In her contract the ship cost £25 17s 8d per ton and her engine cost £24,500.


Emperor Pedro II in 1865, the year he visited Rhone's engine room

Rhone was an innovative ship. She had a bronze propeller, which was only the second ever made of this alloy.[citation needed] She had also a surface condenser in order to save and re-use water in her boilers and steam engine. She was the first ship so equipped to visit Brazil, so in port in 1865 the Emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, came aboard and visited her engine room to see it.

Rhone's passenger capacity was 253 first class, 30 second class and 30 third class. On 9 October 1865 she left Southampton on her maiden voyage to Brazil. At first she suffered from overheated bearings, but once this was resolved she became a fast and reliable ship. Her next five voyages were also to Brazil.

Rhone proved her worth by weathering several severe storms. One storm in 1866 destroyed the cutter and two lifeboats on her port side, damaged the cutter and the mail boat on her starboard side, damaged much of her deck furniture, killed two horses and broke one sailor's leg.

In January 1867 Rhone made her final voyage to Brazil, after which RMSP transferred her to the Caribbean route, which at the time was more lucrative and prestigious.



RMS Rhone and Solent

Sinking
On 19 October 1867 Rhone drew alongside RMS Conway in Great Harbour, Peter Island for bunkering. The original coaling station they needed had been moved from the then Danish island of St. Thomas due to an outbreak of yellow fever.

On the day of the sinking, Rhone's Master, Frederick Woolley,[9] was slightly worried by the dropping barometer and darkening clouds, but because it was October and hurricane season was thought to be over, Rhone and Conway stayed in Great Harbour. The storm which subsequently hit was later known as the San Narciso Hurricane and retrospectively categorised as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale. The first half of the storm passed without much event or damage, but the ferocity of the storm worried the captains of Conway and Rhone, as their anchors had dragged and they worried that when the storm came back after the eye of the storm had passed over, they would be driven onto the shore of Peter Island.

They decided to transfer the passengers from Conway to the "unsinkable" Rhone; Conway was then to head for Road Harbour and Rhone would make for open sea. As was normal practice at the time, the passengers in Rhone were tied into their beds to prevent them being injured in the stormy seas.

Conway got away before Rhone but was caught by the tail end of the storm, and eventually foundered off the south side of Tortola.[10] But Rhone struggled to get free as her anchor was caught fast. It was ordered to be cut loose, and lies in Great Harbour to this day, with its chain wrapped around the same coral head that trapped it a century and a half ago. Time was now critical, and Captain Woolley decided that it would be best to try to escape to the shelter of open sea by the easiest route, between Black Rock Point of Salt Island and Dead Chest Island. Between those two islands lay Blonde Rock, an underwater reef which was normally a safe depth of 25 feet (7.6 m), but during hurricane swells, there was a risk that Rhone might founder on that. The Captain took a conservative course, giving Blonde Rock (which cannot be seen from the surface) a wide berth.

However, just as Rhone was passing Black Rock Point, less than 250 yards (230 m) from safety, the second half of the hurricane came around from the south. The winds shifted to the opposite direction and Rhone was thrown directly into Black Rock Point. It is said that the initial lurch of the crash sent Captain Woolley overboard, never to be seen again. Local legend says that his teaspoon can still be seen lodged into the wreck itself. Whether or not it is his, a teaspoon is clearly visible entrenched in the wreck's coral. The ship broke in two, and cold seawater made contact with her hot boilers which had been running at full steam, causing them to explode.

The ship sank swiftly, the bow section in 80 feet (24 m) of water, the stern in 30 feet (9 m). Of the approximately 145 crew and passengers on board, twenty-five people survived the wreck. The bodies of many of the sailors were buried in a nearby cemetery on Salt Island. Due to her mast sticking out of the water, and her shallow depth, she was deemed a hazard by the Royal Navy in the 1950s and her stern section was blown up.


The memorial to the sailors of Southampton who perished aboard the RMS Rhone and RMS Wye which both sank during the same hurricane in October 1867


Detail of the Bas Relief illustration of the RMS Rhone from the memorial in Southampton Old Cemetery

As dive site


Rhone is now a popular dive site, and the area around her was turned into a national park in 1980.

Rhone has received a number of citations and awards over the years as one of the top recreational wreck dives in the Caribbean, both for its historical interest and teeming marine life, and also because of the open and relatively safe nature of the wreckage. Very little of the wreckage is still enclosed, and where overhead environments do exist, they are large and roomy and have openings at either end permitting a swim through, so there is no real penetration diving for which divers usually undergo advanced training.

Her bow section is still relatively intact, and although the wooden decks have rotted away, she still provides an excellent swim-through for divers. Her entire iron hull is encrusted with coral and overrun by fishes (and the local barracuda named Fang), and the cracks and crevices of her wreckage provide excellent habitats for lobsters, eels, and octopuses. Her wreckage was also featured in the 1977 filming of The Deep, including a scene of Jacqueline Bisset diving in a T-shirt.


Wreck of RMS Rhone

The wreck has been well treated over the years. There used to be a full set of wrenches (spanners), still visible on the deep part (each wrench being about 4 feet (1.2 m) long and weighing over 100 pounds (45 kg)). In recent decades the largest of these were stolen by a collector, leaving only the smaller wrenches. Also remaining are a few brass portholes and even a silver teaspoon. The remaining wrenches are under 55 feet (17 m) of water. Similarly the wreck features the "lucky porthole", a brass porthole in the stern section which survived the storm intact and remains shiny by divers rubbing it for good luck. This porthole is considered "lucky" because the glass still survives. For many years a popular resident of the wreck was a 500-pound (230 kg) Goliath grouper also known as a Jew fish, but two ex-pat fishermen with spear guns killed it despite spear guns being illegal for non-nationals and the area being a national park. Today the wreck is visited by hundreds of tourists every day, most of whom are more circumspect in their treatment of the site.

The wreck's maximum depth is 85 feet (26 m) of water.

The Rhone National Park was closed for a short time from 29 August 2011 because the container ship Tropical Sun had run aground on rocks near Salt Island very near the wreck.


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

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1870 - first USS Saginaw was a sidewheel sloop-of-war wrecked


The first USS Saginaw was a sidewheel sloop-of-war in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.


Side wheel steamer USS Saginaw, built at the Navy Yard, Mare Island, California, in 1859. Depicted at at Mare Island Naval Yard, circa 1860.

History
The first vessel built by the Mare Island Navy Yard, Saginaw was laid down on 16 September 1858; launched as Toucey on 3 March 1859; sponsored by Miss Cunningham, daughter of the commandant of the Navy Yard; renamed Saginaw; and commissioned on 5 January 1860, Commander James F. Schenck in command.

The new side-wheel ship sailed from San Francisco Bay on 8 March 1860, headed for the western Pacific, and reached Shanghai, China on 12 May. She then served in the East India Squadron, for the most part cruising along the Chinese coast to protect American citizens and to suppress pirates. She visited Japan in November but soon returned to Chinese waters. On 30 June 1861, she silenced a battery at the entrance to Qui Nhon Bay, Cochin China, which had fired upon her while she was searching for the missing boat and crew of American bark Myrtle.

On 3 January 1862, Saginaw was decommissioned at Hong Kong and returned to Mare Island on 3 July for repairs.

Relaunched on 3 December 1862 and recommissioned on 23 March 1863, saginaw was attached to the Pacific Squadron and operated along the United States West Coast to prevent Confederate activity. She visited Puget Sound in the spring of 1863 to investigate reports that Confederate privateers were being outfitted in British Columbia, but returned after learning that the scheme had no chance of success.

Her cruises in 1864 took Saginaw to ports in Mexico and Central America to protect the interests of the United States endangered by Confederate activity and by European interference in Mexico. During the closing months of the year, she escorted steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company carrying rich cargoes of bullion from the California gold fields. In the spring of 1865, the ship was assigned to the United States Revenue Cutter Service but was returned to the Navy on 2 June 1865. She spent the remainder of 1865 protecting American citizens at Guaymas and other Mexican ports during the unrest and disorder which beset Mexico during the struggle between Emperor Maximilian I and Benito Juárez.

In March 1866, Saginaw returned to Mare Island. She sailed in August 1866 for Puget Sound to support settlers in the Pacific Northwest. While there, she aided the Western Union Company in laying a cable which brought the first telegraphic service to the region. After returning to Mare Island in December 1866, the ship remained at the navy yard through 1867.

In April 1868, a year after the United States purchased Alaska from Russia, Saginaw got underway for the Alaska Territory and, with the exception of a run home late in the year for replenishment, spent the next year exploring and charting the Alaskan coast. In the February 1869 Kake War the USS Saginaw destroyed three deserted villages and two forts near present-day Kake, Alaska. Prior to the conflict, two white trappers were killed by the Kake in retribution for the death of two Kake departing Sitka village in canoe. Sitka was the site of a standoff between the Army and Tlingit due to the army demanding the surrender of chief Colchika who was involved in an altercation in Fort Sitka. While no Kake, or possibly a single old woman, died in the destruction of the villages, the loss of winter stores, canoes, and shelter led to the death during the winter of some of the Kake.

After steaming back to San Francisco Bay in April 1869, Saginaw departed her home port on 28 July 1869 and operated along the coast of Mexico until arriving back at Mare Island on 11 November 1869.

Fate


The Captain's depiction of Saginaw's fate

Saginaw's next assignment took her to Midway Atoll to support dredging operations to deepen the entrance to the harbor. She reached Midway on 24 March 1870 and completed her task on 21 October 1870. A week later, she sailed for San Francisco, intending to touch at Kure Atoll (at that time known as Ocean Island) en route home to rescue any shipwrecked sailors who might be stranded there. The next day, 29 October 1870, as she neared this rarely visited atoll, Saginaw struck an outlying reefand grounded. Before the surf battered the ship to pieces, her 93 crew managed to transfer much of her gear and provisions to the atoll.

On 18 November, a party of five men, headed by Lieutenant John G. Talbot, the executive officer, set out for Honolulu in a small boat to get relief for their stranded shipmates. As they neared Kauai, 31 days and some 1,500 mi (2,400 km) later, their boat was upset by breakers. Only Coxswain William Halford survived to obtain help. He landed on Kauai, where Captain Dudoit of the schooner Wainona offered to take him straight to Honolulu leaving his return freight for a later trip. They sailed on Tuesday Dec 20th and arrived at Honolulu on Saturday 24 December and was taken to the United States Consulate there.

The US Consul authorised the despatch of a fast sailing coaster, the Kona Packet, which departed on Sunday 25 December, and the King of Hawaii, Kamehameha V, sent the inter-island steamer, Kilauea under Captain Thomas Long, to rescue the shipwrecked sailors. After loading with coal for 20 days and food and copious fresh water they departed on Monday 26 December. The Kilauea arrived at Kure on 4 January 1871, and the Kona Packet a day later. Due to uncertainty over the coal required for the return journey they steamed to Midway Island loading 40 tons of coal and left on 7 January, arriving back in Honolulu on 14 January, a round trip of 2350 miles. Captain Long was presented with a heavy gold-cased chronometer watch by the U.S. Government as thanks for successfully undertaking the rescue mission.

The Saginaw's gig survived being capsized in the breakers, and was sold at auction in January 1871. The purchaser presented it to the rescued crew of the Saginaw, whereupon it was transported back to San Francisco on the A.P. Jordan. It survives as part of the Curator Collection at the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History in Saginaw, Michigan.

The crew of the Saginaw may have been aware of the loss of the whaler Gledstanes on the same reef on 9 July 1837, as they faced the same predicament and constructed a schooner Deliverance from the wreckage over many months. Captain Brown with 8 men sailed for Hawaii on 15th Dec to secure a rescue ship which took the remaining men off the atoll in February. The wreck of Saginaw was discovered in 2003 and remains under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.

The book A Civil War Gunboat in Pacific Waters: Life on Board USS Saginaw (by Hans Van Tilburg, University Press of Florida, 2010) covers the ship's construction, her ten years of service in the Pacific, and her loss at Kure Atoll. Van Tilburg led the team which discovered the wreck site in 2003.

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

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1894 - SS Wairarapa, a New Zealand ship of the late 19th century plying the route between Auckland, New Zealand and Australia, hit a reef at the northern edge of Great Barrier Island, about 100 km out from Auckland, and sank. The death toll of around 140 people remains one of the largest such losses in the country's history..


SS Wairarapa was a New Zealand ship of the late 19th century plying the route between Auckland, New Zealand and Australia. It came to tragic fame when it hit a reef at the northern edge of Great Barrier Island, about 100 km out from Auckland, and sank. The death toll of around 140 people remains one of the largest such losses in the country's history. The ship was named for the Wairarapa region.




Wrecking
Wairarapa was built in Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1882, for the Union Steam Ship Company. Soon after launch she sailed to New Zealand, to become one of a small number of luxury steamers plying the route across the Tasman Sea to Australia.

Wairarapa sailed from Sydney, Australia, on Wednesday, 24 October 1894. The ship’s destination was the rapidly growing New Zealand port city of Auckland, 2,000 miles away. As Wairarapa rounded the top of the North Island of New Zealand four days later, fog and storms set in. However, Captain John S. McIntosh refused to slow the ship from 13 knots, nearly full speed despite the thick fog. Fatally, the ship went off-course, possibly due to a faulty compass bearing. At the subsequent Court of Enquiry into the incident, some even suggested the ship had been steered by dead reckoning rather than using a compass at all. Whatever the cause, the ship skirted to the west of the Poor Knights Islands, not the east. As a consequence she was much closer to the mainland than the ship’s crew believed.

At around 8 minutes past midnight on Monday, 29 October 1894, the ship was wrecked on the steep cliffs near Miners Head on the northern tip of Great Barrier Island, off the coast of Auckland.




The wreck of the SS Wairarapa, wrecked at Miners Head, Great Barrier Island, New Zealand in 1894

The hours after the wreck saw great loss of life. Many passengers could not swim and drowned in the rough seas trying to make it to shore. One liferaft was seen floating out to sea and was never sighted again. Many men, including a large portion of the crew, took to one of the lifeboats, leaving women and children behind. A number of people took refuge in the ship’s rigging. At about 3 am Captain McIntosh jumped into the sea and was presumed drowned. Several other lifeboats which had been safely launched stayed near the stricken ship and picked survivors from the sea where possible.

One lifeboat eventually succeeded in reaching a local community of Ngati Wai Māori based at Katherine Bay, on the western coast of the island. They were able to rescue and provide care for a number of the survivors. Seaman, fisherman and farmer Mariano Vella and his new wife belonged to the survivors of the disaster.[3]

Although Wairarapa was expected in Auckland, there was no way of knowing where she may have come to grief. As the only contact with the island at the time was via weekly trips from a steamer, it was three full days until news of the shipwreck reached Auckland.

The Northern Company's steamer Argyle arrived in Port FitzRoy on Wednesday, 31 October, and took the survivors who had reached Port FitzRoy on board. The steamer then proceeded to the site of the shipwreck, and to Katherine Bay, picking up further survivors and sailing back to arrive in Auckland about 3am Thursday 1 November.

A Court of Enquiry was held after Wairarapa disaster, and found Captain McIntosh's actions were the primary cause of the tragedy.

Protection
The wreck of Wairarapa is scheduled for preservation in the Auckland Regional Plan: Coastal and is also protected under the archaeological provisions of the Historic Places Act 1993.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Wairarapa
https://blog.doc.govt.nz/2015/11/12/ss-wairarapa-shipwreck/

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1918 – The German High Seas Fleet is incapacitated when sailors mutiny on the night of the 29th-30th, an action which would trigger the German Revolution of 1918–19.


The Kiel mutiny was a major revolt by sailors of the German High Seas Fleet on 3 November 1918. The revolt triggered the German revolution which was to sweep aside the monarchy within a few days. It ultimately led to the end of the German Empire and to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.


Text supplied by the German Federal Archive: "With the rebellion of the sailors and workers on 3 November 1918 in Kiel the November revolution starts. On 6 November the revolutionary movement reaches Wilhelmshaven. Our picture shows the soldiers' council of the Prinzregent Luitpold."

Background
By September 1918, Germany's military situation was close to hopeless. Kaiser Wilhelm II was advised to request the Entente for an immediate cease fire and put the government on a democratic footing, hoping for more favorable peace terms.

On 3 October, the Kaiser appointed Prince Maximilian of Baden as the new imperial chancellor. In his cabinet the Social Democrats (SPD) also took on responsibility. The most prominent and highest-ranking was Philipp Scheidemann, a prominent leader of the SPD as undersecretary without portfolio.

Morale in the High Seas Fleet
Following the Battle of Jutland, the capital ships of the imperial navy had been confined to inactive service in harbor.[citation needed] Many officers and crewmen had volunteered to transfer to the submarines and light vessels which still had a major part to play in the war. The discipline and spirit of those who remained, on lower rations, with the battleships tied up at dock-side, inevitably suffered. On 2 August 1917, 350 crewmen of the dreadnought Prinzregent Luitpold staged a protest demonstration in Wilhelmshaven. Two of the ringleaders were executed by firing squad while others were sentenced to prison. During the remaining months of the war, secret sailors' councils were formed on a number of the capital ships.

Naval order of 24 October 1918
Main article: Naval order of 24 October 1918

The plan to force a naval clash on the high seas

In October 1918, the imperial naval command in Kiel under Admiral Franz von Hipper planned to dispatch the fleet for a final battle against the Royal Navy in the English Channel. The naval order of 24 October 1918 and the preparations to sail triggered a mutiny among the affected sailors and then a general revolution which was to sweep aside the monarchy within a few days.

Wilhelmshaven mutiny


Sailors demonstrating at Wilhelmshaven

The sailors' revolt started on the Schillig Roads off Wilhelmshaven, where the German fleet had anchored in expectation of a planned battle. During the night from 28 to 30 October 1918 some crews refused to obey orders. Sailors on board three ships from the Third Navy Squadron refused to weigh anchor. Part of the crew on SMS Thüringen and SMS Helgoland, two battleships from the First Navy Squadron, committed outright mutiny and sabotage.

However, when, a day later, some torpedo boats pointed their cannons at these ships, the mutineers gave up and were led away without any resistance. Nevertheless, the naval command had to drop its plans as it was felt that the crew's loyalty could no longer be relied upon. The Third Navy Squadron was ordered back to Kiel.

Sailors revolt in Kiel

Sculpture in Kiel to remember the 1918 sailors' mutiny

The squadron commander, Vizeadmiral Hugo Kraft, exercised a maneuver with his battleships in the Heligoland Bight. When it "functioned perfectly (tadellos funktionierte)" he believed he was master of his crews again. While moving through the Kiel Canal he had 47 sailors from the Markgraf, who were seen as the ringleaders, imprisoned. In Holtenau (end of the canal in Kiel) they were brought to the Arrestanstalt (the military prison in Kiel) and to Fort Herwarth in the north of Kiel.

The sailors and stokers were now pulling out all the stops to prevent the fleet from setting sail again and to achieve the release of their comrades. Some 250 met in the evening of 1 November in the Union House in Kiel. Delegations sent to their officers requesting the mutineers' release were not heard. The sailors were now looking for closer ties to the unions, the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and the SPD. Thereupon the Union House was closed by police, leading to an even larger joint open-air meeting on 2 November, at the large drill ground (Großer Exerzierplatz).

Led by the sailor Karl Artelt, who worked in the repair ship yard for torpedo boats in Kiel-Wik and by the mobilized shipyard worker Lothar Popp, both USPD members, the sailors called for a large meeting the following day at the same place. This call was heeded by several thousand people on the afternoon of 3 November with workers' representatives also being present. The slogan "Frieden und Brot" (peace and bread) was raised showing that the sailors and workers demanded not only the release of the imprisoned but also the end of the war and the improvement of food provisions. Eventually the people supported Artelt's call to free the prisoners and they moved in the direction of the military prison.

Sublieutenant Steinhäuser, who had orders to stop the demonstrators, ordered his patrol to give warning shots and then to shoot directly into the demonstrators. Seven men were killed and 29 were seriously injured. Some demonstrators also opened fire. Steinhäuser was severely injured by rifle-butt blows and shots, but contrary to later statements, he was not killed. After this incident, commonly viewed as the starting point of the German revolution, the demonstrators dispersed and the patrol withdrew.

Protesters take over Kiel
Wilhelm Souchon, the governor of the naval station, initially asked for outside troops but revoked his request for military assistance when his staff claimed the situation was under control. Souchon had been deployed to Kiel only a few days earlier on 30 October 1918 and therefore had to rely heavily on his staff. On 4 November, however, the request was renewed, resulting in six infantry companies being brought to Kiel. Some units stayed in the city quarter Wik and in the Marinestation der Ostsee. However, these troops also showed signs of disintegration and some joined the revolutionaries or went back.

On the morning of 4 November groups of mutineers moved through the town. Sailors in a large barracks compound in a northern district of Kiel (Wik Garnison: Tirpitz Hafen) refused obedience: after a division inspection of the commander, spontaneous demonstrations took place. Karl Artelt organized the first soldiers' council, and soon many more were set up. The governor of the navy station had to negotiate and to order the withdrawal of the units. The imprisoned sailors and stokers were freed.

Soldiers and workers brought public and military institutions under their control. When, against Souchon's promise, different troops advanced to quash the rebellion, they were intercepted by the mutineers and were either sent back or joined the sailors and workers. By the evening of 4 November, Kiel was firmly in the hands of approximately 40,000 rebellious sailors, soldiers and workers, as was Wilhelmshaven two days later.

Late in the evening of the 4 November a meeting of sailors and workers representatives in the union house led to the establishment of a soldiers' and a workers' council. The Kiel 'Fourteen Points' of the soldier's council were issued:


Plaque at the union house in Kiel saying that the workers' and soldiers' council gathered here during the sailors' mutiny and gave the decisive impulse for the proclamation of the first German republic

Resolutions and demands of the soldiers' council:

• The release of all inmates and political prisoners.
• Complete freedom of speech and the press.
• The abolition of mail censorship.
• Appropriate treatment of crews by superiors.
• No punishment for all comrades on returning to the ships and to the barracks.
• The launching of the fleet is to be prevented under all circumstances.
• Any defensive measures involving bloodshed are to be prevented.
• The withdrawal of all troops not belonging to the garrison.
• All measures for the protection of private property will be determined by the soldiers' council immediately.
• Superiors will no longer be recognized outside of duty.
• Unlimited personal freedom of every man from the end of his tour of duty until the beginning of his next tour of duty
• Officers who declare themselves in agreement with the measures of the newly established soldiers' council, are welcomed in our midst. All the others have to quit their duty without entitlement to provision.
• Every member of the soldiers' council is to be released from any duty.
• All measures to be introduced in the future can only be introduced with the consent of the soldiers' council.

These demands are orders of the soldiers' council and are binding for every military person.

Dirk Dähnhardt came to the following conclusion in his 1978 doctoral thesis: "The 14 points of Kiel were ... mainly an attack on the military system, political objectives were lacking widely." Dähnhardt attributes this on the one hand to the heterogeneous composition of the bodies, and on the other hand to the intention to first of all issue a catalogue of immediate measures. During the following events, councils all over Germany oriented themselves on these 14 items. Dähnhardt saw this political shortsightedness as a major reason for the dissolution of soldiers' councils after six months.

Wolfram Wette from the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office noted: "... the Kiel signal ... did not point in the direction of a council state according to the Bolshevistic example. Instead it stood ... for the demand for the fastest possible ending of the war. Secondly it pointed – starting with the 'Kiel 14 points' – ... in the direction of a liberal, social and democratic political system, in which especially militarism ... should have no space any more."

On the same evening the SPD deputy Gustav Noske arrived in Kiel and was welcomed enthusiastically, although he had orders from the new government and the SPD leadership to bring the rising under control. He had himself elected chairman of the soldiers' council and reinstated peace and order. Some days later he took over the governor's post, while Lothar Popp from the USPD became chairman of the overall soldiers council. During the coming weeks Noske actually managed to reduce the influence of the councils in Kiel, but he could not prevent the spreading of the revolution to all of Germany. The events had already spread far beyond the city limits.

Regarding Noske's role in Kiel, Wette noted: "What he [Noske] however did not bring about, and possibly because of his political basic position was not able and did not want to bring about, was the exemplary test of a future oriented republic reform programme. Such an experiment would have been quite possible in Kiel - at any rate, in the military-political area. Attempts regarding persons and structures were there. Noske didn't foster and didn't utilize them, but suffocated them before they could develop."

Aftermath: German revolution of 1918–19
Main article: German Revolution of 1918–19
Other seamen, soldiers and workers, in solidarity with the arrested, began electing workers' and soldiers' councils modeled after the Soviets of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and took over military and civil powers in many cities. On 7 November, the revolution had reached Munich, causing Ludwig III of Bavaria to flee.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiel_mutiny#The_Wilhelmshaven_mutiny

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 October 1942 - MV Abosso, built in 1935, sunk by German submarine U-575 in 1942, killing 362 of the 393 people aboard


MV Abosso was a passenger, mail, and cargo liner, the flagship of Elder Dempster Lines. In peacetime she ran scheduled services between Liverpool and West Africa. In the Second World War she was a troop ship, running between the United Kingdom, West Africa, and South Africa.

Abosso was built in 1935 and sunk by German submarine U-575 in 1942, killing 362 of the 393 people aboard. She carried the same name as an earlier Elder Dempster ship, SS Abosso, which had been built in 1912 and sunk by the submarine U-43 in 1917.



Building and service
Cammell Laird of Birkenhead, England, built Abosso for Elder Dempster Lines in 1935. She was launched on 19 June, completed on 8 September and began her maiden voyage on 16 October.

Abosso was a motor ship, with two eight-cylinder two-stroke single-acting marine diesel engines driving twin screws and a combined rating of 1,660 NHP. Her navigation equipment included wireless direction finding and an echo sounding device.

Abosso's accommodation had capacity for 250 1st class, 74 2nd class, and 332 3rd class passengers arranged over three decks. She had refrigeration equipment for carrying perishable cargo in her holds.

Abosso's regular peacetime route was between Liverpool and Apapa, Nigeria. By the standards of her era Abosso was a small ocean liner, but she was the largest ship in Elder Dempster's fleet.

On 27 June 1939 in dense fog 22 nautical miles (41 km) off Ushant in France, Abosso was involved in a collision with the 815 GRT British coaster Yewforest. Both ships survived the incident.

In the Second World War Abosso was converted into a Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship, and 20 DEMS gunners were added to her regular crew. She served primarily as a troop ship but also continued to carry civilian passengers between Africa and the UK.

On 24 May 1941 a Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft attacked Abosso, but the ship survived with only slight damage.

Final voyage and sinking
On 8 October 1942 Abosso left Cape Town, South Africa for Liverpool carrying 210 passengers: 149 military and 61 civilians, including 44 internees, 10 women with children and two or three British distressed seamen (the official term for seamen rescued from sinkings). Her DEMS gunners were 13 from the Royal Artillery Maritime Regiment and seven from the Royal Navy. She was also carrying 400 bags of mail in her mail room and 3,000 tons of wool in her holds.

Her military passengers included 50 or 51 Dutch conscripts, 44 newly trained pilots fresh from No 23 Service Flying Training School, X Flight, Advanced Training Squadron, at Heany, Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (40 for the RAF and four for the Fleet Air Arm), and 33 or 34 Dutch submariners being transferred to a new submarine. The submariners were from three Royal Netherlands Navy submarines: HNLMS K IX and HNLMS K XII, both of which had been transferred to the Royal Australian Navy; and HNLMS K X, which had been scuttled in the Dutch East Indies to prevent her capture by invading Japanese forces. They were travelling to take over a U-class submarine that Vickers-Armstrongs was building at Barrow-in-Furness and was intended to be launched as HNLMS Haai.

Abosso sailed alone and unescorted, despite having a top speed of only 14.5 knots (26.9 km/h). A commander of the Dutch submariners, Luitenant ter zee der 1e klasse Henry Coumou, objected beforehand that this was an unreasonable risk to take, but British authorities overruled him.

At 22:13 on Thursday 29 October 1942 Abosso was in the Atlantic about 589 nautical miles (1,091 km) north of the Azores[5] when German submarine U-575, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Günther Heydemann, fired a spread of four torpedoes at her. One hit Abosso's port side abaft her bridge. The ship's engines stopped, all her lights failed, and she started to list heavily to port.[6]Heydemann survived the war and became a successful businessman in Germany.

Abosso had 12 lifeboats. The even-numbered boats were on her port side and it is not clear whether any of them was launched. The odd-numbered boats were on her starboard side. As No. 3 boat was being lowered, one of its falls was let go and all of the boat's occupants were thrown into the water. No. 3 boat seems to have been carrying most of the Dutch submariners. No. 5 boat was launched successfully and managed to rescue four of the Dutch from the water.[6] No. 9 boat was also launched successfully. It was a motor boat and moved around picking up survivors from the water.

As Abosso settled in the water, she temporarily righted herself, her crew got her emergency generator working, and her floodlights were switched on to help the evacuation. Almost immediately after this, U-575 fired a torpedo from one of her stern torpedo tubes, which hit Abosso at 22:28 (Berlin time) forward of her bridge.[4] At 2305 hrs (Berlin time) Abosso sank[4] bow first. The submarine then surfaced, approached the débris area, and scanned the boats with her searchlights. Kptlt.Heydemann reported about 10 lifeboats and 15 to 20 liferafts afloat and occupied. Heydemann did not try to question survivors to identify the ship, and claimed in his report that this was because the weather was poor.

Rescue of survivors

HMS Bideford rescued the only survivors from Abosso

No. 5 boat was leaking badly and her crew were busy using their seaboots and empty cans to bale water out of her. At about 01:30 (local time) on 30 October they lost contact with the other lifeboats. Overnight the boat's crew rowed to keep the boat headed into the sea; at daybreak they raised her mast and hoisted a sail. At about 16:00 (local time) they deployed the boat's sea anchor overnight. At daybreak on 31 October they resumed sailing, and a few hours later sailed into sight of an Allied convoy.

This was Convoy KMS-2, which was sailing from the UK to the Mediterranean for Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of Vichy French North Africa. One of the convoy's escorts, the Shoreham-class sloop HMS Bideford, sighted No. 5 boat and at 11:00 rescued its 31 occupants. HMS Biddeford, part of Operation Torch, stopped to pick up the survivors only after permission was given by the admiralty in London by radio communication. Normally stopping for survivors was forbidden. They were 17 military and civilian passengers, 12 crew, and two DEMS gunners. Among the survivors were one of the 10 women passengers, an RAMC Captain, and an RAF pilot officer, William Thomson. Bideford landed them at Gibraltar three days later. No. 5 boat's occupants were the only survivors: the other lifeboats and rafts were never found. A total of 362 people had died, including Abosso's Master, Reginald Tate and another Merchant Navy captain, Edward Davies.

Among the few survivors were Lieutenant Coumou and three of his fellow-submariners. The Dutch Navy was unable to replace its 30 lost men, so the U-class submarine at Barrow was launched not for the Dutch Navy but as the Royal Norwegian Navysubmarine HNoMS Ula.

Monuments
The 362 people killed in Abosso's sinking have no grave but the sea. The Second World War part of the Tower Hill Memorial in the City of London lists those who were members of her Merchant Navy crew. The Brookwood Memorial in Surrey lists those who were UK or Commonwealth military personnel, such as the newly qualified RAF and Fleet Air Arm pilots. 21 of the victims are commemorated at Singapore's War Memorial, 19 on the War Memorial at El Alamein in Egypt, and one on the Australian War Memorial at Canberra. Corporal Hendrik Roelof Drost is commemorated on the memorial of Dutch Citizens from South Africa which was erected in the gardens of the Dutch Embassy in Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Abosso
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-575