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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 31 October


1641 – Death of Cornelis Jol, Dutch admiral (b. 1597)

Cornelis Corneliszoon Jol (1597 – 31 October 1641), nicknamed Houtebeen ("pegleg"), was a 17th-century Dutch corsair and admiral in the Dutch West India Company during the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic. He was one of several early buccaneers to attack Campeche, looting the settlement in 1633, and was active against the Spanish in the Spanish Main and throughout the Caribbean during the 1630s and 40s.

Jol was really more of a pirate (or rather privateer) than an admiral, raiding Spanish and Portuguese fleets and gathering large amounts of loot. He was nicknamed Houtebeen (Perna de Pau in Portuguese and Pie de Palo in Spanish), because he lost a leg during battle and became one of the earliest documented pirates to use a wooden peg leg. The Spanish also nicknamed him El Pirata.

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


1745 - Squadron under Rear Admiral Isaac Townsend took great part of a large French convoy off Martinique.

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


1793 - HMS Quebec (1781 - 32) and consorts attacked Ostend and Nieuport.

HMS Quebec was a 32-gun fifth rate frigate launched in 1781 and broken up in 1816. She sailed under various captains, participating in the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. During these wars she captured many enemy merchantmen and smaller privateers in northern or Caribbean waters. She was built by George Parsons at Bursledon, Hampshire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Quebec_(1781)


1800 – Launch of French Clorinde at Basse-Indre – captured by the British Navy 30 November 1803, becoming HMS Clorinde.

Uranie class, (40-gun design of 1797 by Jean-François Gautier, with 28 x 18-pounder and 12 x 8-pounder guns; both ships built by Pierre Degay and Entreprise Crucy at Basse-Indre, near Nantes).

Clorinde was a 44-gun Uranie class frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1803 and took her into service as HMS Clorinde. She was sold in 1817.
French naval service
She was laid down as Havraise in 1796, and was renamed to Clorinde before her commissioning in Nantes. In 1801, she was under Emmanuel Halgan.
In February 1802, under frigate captain Pierre-Marie Le Bozec, she was sent on station at Santo Domingo. She was surrendered to the British at the surrender of Cap Francais, along with Surveillante. The Royal Navy took her into service under her existing name.

Royal Navy service
The Royal Navy commissioned Clorinde at Jamaica in May 1804 under Captain Robert O'Brien. She arrived at Plymouth on 23 July.
Between November 1807 and December 1808 Clorinde underwent repairs. In October, Captain Thomas Briggs recommissioned her. He sailed her to the East Indies on 17 February 1809.
On 28 January 1810 Clorinde captured the French privateer Henri. Henri was pierced for 14 gun, but mounted only eight 12-pounders. She had a crew of 57 men.
In November 1810, Clorinde was part of the squadron participating in the invasion of Isle de France.
In September 1814 Clorinde was under the command of Captain Samuel Pechell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Clorinde_(1801)


1803 - HMS Admiral Mitchell (12), Lt. Alexander Shippard, drove ashore a French gun-brig, and one vessel from the convoy he was escorting, under the battery at Patel.

His Majesty's hired armed cutter (or schooner) Admiral Mitchell served under two contracts for the British Royal Navy, one at the end of the French Revolutionary Wars and the second at the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. She participated in several notable small engagements and actions. In 1806 the Admiralty purchased her and took her into service as the Sir Andrew Mitchell in 1807.

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


1808 - HMS Circe (1804 - 32), Cptn. Hugh Pigott, captured La Palinure (16), Lt. Fourniers, off Diamond Rock, Martinique

HMS Circe was a Royal Navy 32-gun fifth-rate Thames-class frigate, built by Master Shipwright Joseph Tucker at Plymouth Dockyard, and launched in 1804. She served in the Caribbean during the Napoleonic Wars, and participated in an action and a campaign for which in 1847 in the Admiralty authorised the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal with clasps. The action, off the Pearl Rock, near Saint-Pierre, Martinique, was a debacle that cost Circe dearly. However, she also had some success in capturing privateers and a French brig. She was sold in 1814.

On 31 October 1808 Circe encountered a French brig near Diamond Rock. At Circe's approach the brig took shelter under the guns of a battery. Still, after an engagement of no more than 15 minutes, Circe captured the Palinure, which was under the command of M. Fourniers. Palinure was armed with fourteen 24-pounder carronades and two 6-pounder guns. She had 79 men aboard, most of whom were troops from the 83 Regiment. She had lost seven killed and eight wounded; Circe had lost one man killed and one wounded. The guns of the battery were so much higher than the vessels beneath them that they could not bring their guns to bear and fired few, if any shots. Earlier that month Palinure had recaptured the Cruizer-class brig-sloop Carnation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Circe_(1804)


1853 – Launch of French Tourville was a 90-gun sail and steam ship of the line of the French Navy, lead ship of her class.

She took part in the Baltic theatre of the Crimean War, shelling Sweaborg on 10 August 1855. She later took part in the French Intervention in Mexico as a troop ship.
Put in ordinary in 1864, she was hulked in Cherbourg in 1871 to serve as a prison for survivors of the Paris Commune. Struck the next year, she was renamed to Nestor and eventually broken up in 1878.

1280px-Lebreton_engraving-17.jpg
Duquesne, sister ship of Tourville. drawing by Louis Le Breton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Tourville_(1853)


1905 - The four-masted barque PAMIR started her maiden voyage from Hamburg to Chile for the nitrate trade

Pamir, a four-masted barque, was one of the famous Flying P-Liner sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz. She was the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, she had been outmoded by modern bulk carriers and could not operate at a profit. Her shipping consortium's inability to finance much-needed repairs or to recruit sufficient sail-trained officers caused severe technical difficulties. On 21 September 1957, she was caught in Hurricane Carrie and sank off the Azores, with only six survivors rescued after an extensive search.

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


1941 – World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 U.S. Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII.


USS Reuben James (DD-245)—a post-World War I, four-funnel Clemson-class destroyer—was the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action in the European theater of World War II and the first named for Boatswain's Mate Reuben James (c.1776–1838), who distinguished himself fighting in the First Barbary War.
Reuben James was laid down on 2 April 1919 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey, launched on 4 October 1919, and commissioned on 24 September 1920, with Commander Gordon W. Hines in command. The destroyer was sunk by a torpedo attack from German submarine U-552 near Iceland on 31 October 1941, before the U.S. had entered the war.

USS_Reuben_James_(DD-245)_on_29_April_1939.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Reuben_James_(DD-245)


1951 - HMS Eagle, an Audacious-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy, completed

HMS Eagle was an Audacious-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy, in service 1951–1972. With her sister ship Ark Royal, she was one of the two largest Royal Navy aircraft carriers built.
She was laid down on 24 October 1942 at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast as one of four ships of the Audacious class. These were laid down during World War II as part of the British naval buildup during that conflict. Two were cancelled at the end of hostilities, and the remaining two were suspended. Originally designated Audacious, she was renamed as Eagle (the fifteenth Royal Navy ship to receive this name), taking the name of the cancelled third ship of the class on 21 January 1946. She was finally launched by Princess Elizabeth on 19 March 1946.
Although Eagle was commissioned in October 1951 without an angled flight deck, one was added three years later. In 1952 she took part in the first large NATO naval exercise, Exercise Mainbrace.

09_HMS_Eagle_Mediterranean_Jan1970.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Eagle_(R05)


1956 – Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.

The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli War, also named the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and Operation Kadesh or Sinai War in Israel, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain Western control of the Suez Canal and to remove Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had just nationalized the canal. After the fighting had started, political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Unionand the United Nations led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated the United Kingdom and France and strengthened Nasser.

On 29 October, Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai. Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to cease fire, which was ignored. On 5 November, Britain and France landed paratroopers along the Suez Canal. The Egyptian forces were defeated, but they did block the canal to all shipping. It later became clear that the Israeli invasion and the subsequent Anglo-French attack had been planned beforehand by the three countries.

The three allies had attained a number of their military objectives, but the canal was useless. Heavy political pressure from the United States and the USSR led to a withdrawal. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had strongly warned Britain not to invade; he threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the US government's pound sterling bonds. Historians conclude the crisis "signified the end of Great Britain's role as one of the world's major powers". The Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 until March 1957. Israel fulfilled some of its objectives, such as attaining freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, which Egypt had blocked to Israeli shipping since 1950.

As a result of the conflict, the United Nations created the UNEF Peacekeepers to police the Egyptian–Israeli border, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned, Canadian Minister of External Affairs Lester Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the USSR may have been emboldened to invade Hungary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
1 November 1794 – Launch of French Régénérée, a 40-gun Cocarde-class frigate


Régénérée was a 40-gun Cocarde-class frigate of the French Navy. The British captured her in 1801 at the fall of Alexandria, named her HMS Alexandria, sailed her back to Britain, but never commissioned her. She was broken up in 1804.

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Engagement between His Majesty's Ship Brilliant... & the L' Vertue & Regenue French Frigates... off Santa Cruz, on the Coast of Barbary, the 26th of July 1798 (PAG7116)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/137064.html#AWKYl3sAfjcEc14C.99
Remark Uwe: In british NMM the ship is named "Regenue"

Service
In 1796, she was commanded by captain Willaumez, in a squadron under Sercey.

On 15 May 1796 Forte , Vertu, Seine, and Régénérée were cruising between St Helena and the Cape of Good Hope hoping to capture British East Indiamen when they encountered the British whaler Lord Hawkesbury on her way to Walvis Bay. The French took off her crew, except for two seamen and a boy, and put Forte's fourth officer and 13-man prize crew aboard Lord Hawkesbury with orders to sail to Île de France. On her way there one of the British seamen, who was at the helm, succeeded in running her aground on the east coast of Africa a little north of the Cape, wrecking her. There were no casualties, but the prize crew became British prisoners.

Régénérée reached Île de France where she took part in the Action of 8 September 1796.

On 26 April 1797 she captured the American ship Betsey and took her into Rochefort.

Between 24 and 27 April 1798, Régénérée and Vertu engaged the 32-gun sixth rate Pearl in an inconclusive action when Pearl had to pass between them before she could take refuge in St George's Bay, Sierra Leone. The action cost Pearl one man mortally wounded.

A second inconclusive action occurred on 27 July 1798 when Régénérée and Vertu engaged the 28-gun sixth rate Brilliant off Tenerife, The action resulted in Brilliant losing three men killed and ten wounded before she could make her escape.

HMS_Brilliant_(1779)_beating_off_two_French_frigates.jpg
Battle of Régénérée and Vertu against HMS Brilliant

In early 1800, Régénérée left Rochefort with Africaine to ferry supplies to Alexandria. At the Action of 19 February 1801, HMS Phoebe, under Captain Robert Barlow, captured Africaine east of Gibraltar. However, Régénérée managed to complete her mission, sailing into Alexandria on 2 March, having eluded the British blockade. The day before she had passed through the British fleet answering signals and without arousing any suspicion, until at last she hoisted the French flag as she headed into the harbor.

She remained there during the siege until the capitulation of Alexandria on 29 September 1801. The British discovered the French warships Cause, Égyptienne, Justice and Régénérée, and two Venetian frigates in the harbour of Alexandria at the capitulation. The British and their Turkish allies agreed a division of the spoils. The British received Egyptienne, Régénérée and "Venetian No. 2" - Léoben (aka Le Bion; ex-Venetian Medusa) - of 26 guns. Capitan Pacha (sic) received the 64-gun Causse (ex-Venetian Vulcano), Justice, of 46 guns, and "Venetian No. 1" - Mantoue (ex-Venetian Cerere, ex-French Cérės) - also of 26 guns. Additionally, the Turks received some Turkish corvettes that were in the harbour. Admiral Lord Keith commander of the naval forces, gave the value of Régénérée for prize money purposes at £16,771 13s 6d.

Fate
She was then temporarily brought into Royal Navy service as HMS Alexandria. Captain Alexander Wilson, who had brought Trusty to Alexandria and who had commanded the port, took command of Alexandria and sailed her back to Britain. She arrived in Portsmouth on 1 April 1802 from Malta. She sailed on 8 April for Chatham, where she was paid off; this was Wilson's last sea-going command. She was never commissioned and was broken up in 1804.


The Cocarde class was a class of three 40-gun/12-pounder frigates of the French Navy. They were designed by Pierre Duhamel in 1793.
Builder: St Malo
Ordered: 16 May 1793
Laid down: August 1793
Launched: 29 April 1794
Completed: July 1794
Fate: Deleted 14 June 1803

The Cocarde ("Cockade") was a 40-gun Cocarde class frigate of the French Navy.
Ordered as Cocarde nationale, she was launched on 29 April 1794 in Saint Malo and commissioned in July under Lieutenant Allanic. Under Captain Quérangal, she took part in the Battle of Groix. She later took part in the Expédition d'Irlande. She was renamed Cocarde in June 1796.
In 1802, she served in the Caribbean. A series of beachings damaged her direction and hull to the point where she had to be abandoned and dismantled.
Builder: St Malo
Ordered: 16 May 1793
Laid down: September 1793
Launched: 1 November 1794
Completed: April 1795
Fate: captured by British Navy 27 September 1801 at Alexandria, becoming HMS Alexandria.
Builder: St Servan
Ordered:
Laid down: October 1793
Launched: November 1795
Completed: November 1796
Fate: run ashore near Leghorn to avoid capture 1 September 1801.

The Bravoure ("Bravery") was a 40-gun Cocarde class frigate of the French Navy.
She was launched in November 1795 in Saint Servan. She took part in the Expédition d'Irlande, and later served in Ganteaume's squadron. On 28 January 1801, she fought an indecisive battle against HMS Concorde. In June of the same year, under commander Dordelin, she ferried artillery pieces from Toulon to Elba with Succès; on the way back, she encountered HMS Concorde again, but this time accompanied by two other frigates. She beached herself to avoid capture and became a total loss.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Régénérée_(1794)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocarde-class_frigate
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
1 November 1809 - Boats of HMS Tigre (1793 - 80), HMS Cumberland (1808 - 74), HMS Volontaire (1796 - 40), HMS Apollo (1805 - 38), HMS Topaze (1793 - 38), HMS Philomel (18), HMS Scout (1804 - 18) and HMS Tuscan (1808 - 16) captured or destroyed all the vessels of a convoy in Rosas Bay.


Between 30 October and 1 November 1809 Admiral Benjamin Hallowell's squadron was at the Bay of Rosas. On 30 October, boats from Tigre joined with boats from Tuscan, Cumberland, Volontaire, Apollo, Topaz, Philomel, and Scout in a cutting out attack after a squadron off the south of France chased an enemy convoy into the Bay of Rosas. The convoy had lost its escorting ships of the line, Robuste and Lion, near Frontignan, where the squadron under Rear Admiral George Martin, of Collingwood's fleet, had burnt them, but were nevertheless heavily protected by an armed storeship of 18 guns, two bombards and a xebec. Some of the British boats took heavy casualties in the clash, but Tuscan had only one officer slightly wounded, and one seaman dangerously wounded. By the following morning the British had accounted for all eleven vessels in the bay, burning those they did not bring out. In January 1813 prize money was awarded to the British vessels that took part in the action for the capture of the ships of war Gromlire and Normande, and of the transports Dragon and Indien. A court declared Invincible a joint captor. Head money was also paid for the Grondire and Normande and for the destruction of Lemproye and Victoire. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "1 Nov. Boat Service 1809" to all surviving claimants from the action.


Tigre was a 74-gun Temeraire class ship of the line of the French Navy.

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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with stern board outline, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for 'Tigre' (1795), a captured French Third Rate, as taken off at Portsmouth Dockyard prior to being fitted as 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker. Later alterations sent to Portsmouth on 24 August 1797. Signed by Edward Tippet [Master Shipwright, Portsmouth Dockyard, 1793-1799].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81016.html#MAyEkJtvv2XufohJ.99


French service
Her first captain was Pierre Jean Van Stabel. When Van Stabel was promoted, she became the flagship of his 6-ship squadron. She notably fought in 1793 to rescue the Sémillante, along with the Jean Bart.

Under Jacques Bedout, she took part in the Battle of Groix where she was captured by the British. She was recommissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Tigre.

British service
Under the Royal Navy she assisted in the defence of Acre during Bonaparte's siege.

On 8 January 1801 Penelope captured the French bombard St. Roche, which was carrying wine, liqueurs, ironware, Delfth cloth, and various other merchandise, from Marseilles to Alexandria. Swiftsure, Tigre, Minotaur, Northumberland, Florentina, and the schooner Malta, were in sight and shared in the proceeds of the capture.

Because Tigre served in the Navy's Egyptian campaign between 8 March 1801 and 2 September, her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 for all surviving claimants.

After the battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, Tigre continued in the blockade of Cadiz. On 25 November, Thunderer detained the Ragusan ship Nemesis, which was sailing from Isle de France to Leghorn, Italy, with a cargo of spice, indigo dye, and other goods. Tigre shared the prize money with ten other British warships

She was eventually broken up in June 1817.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Tigre_(1793)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_brig_Ronco_(1808)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Cumberland_(1807)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Volontaire_(1796)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Apollo_(1805)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Scout_(1804)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Topaze_(1793)
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
1 November 1864 - CSS Chickamauga, commanded by Lt. John Wilkinson, captures schooners Goodspeed and Otter Rock off the northeast coast of the United States.


CSS Chickamauga, originally the blockade runner Edith, was purchased by the Confederate States Navy at Wilmington, North Carolina in September 1864. In September, when she was nearly ready for sea, the Confederate Army sought unsuccessfully to retain her at that place for use as a troop and supply transport. On October 28, 1864, she put to sea under Lieutenant John Wilkinson (CSN) for a cruise north to the entrance of Long Island Sound, thence to St. George, Bermuda, for repairs and coal. She took several prizes before returning to Wilmington on November 19.

CSSChickamauga.jpg
CSS Chickamauga, from the U.S. Naval Historical Center.

During the bombardment of Fort Fisher, December 24–25, 1864, a portion of Chickamauga's crew served the guns at the fort. Although not immediately engaged in defense of Fort Fisher, the ship rendered further aid in transporting ammunition. She lent support to the fort when it was bombarded again on January 15, 1865.

After the evacuation of Wilmington, Chickamauga went up the Cape Fear River where she was burned to prevent capture on February 25, 1865. Gregory, Mackenzie J. "Ahoy - Mac's Web Log." Ahoy - Mac's Web Log - CSS Chickamauga. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 May 2017. <http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/MaraudersCivilWar/CSSChickamauga.html>.

The sister ship, the Edith, from Tallahassee, Florida, became the new Confederate cruiser. Its name was the CSS Chickamauga. CSS stands for Confederate States Ship. Lieutenant John Wilkinson, who was a lieutenant of the new Confederate Navy, commanded the ship. Wilkinson as he was commanding the CSS Chickamauga, ran into the same problems faced by Woods, who was the previous commander. The ship had been a productive blockade runner, but it did not have the qualities needed for a Raider. She (CSS Chickamauga) was fast, but she could only be at sea as long as they had coal supply.

On October 26, the CSS Chickamauga set sail for the open sea. After she also grounded on the bar, backed herself free, tried once more again, she finally cleared the obstruction, and made it out into the open sea. The CSS Chickamauga was once seen by the USS Dumbarton. The USS Dumbarton as well as two more Union ships chased the CSS Chickamauga. However, speed sure saved the ship, and she sailed off into the ocean, once again. US ships reported that another ship, the Tallahassee, was sailing out and about again, and was searching for exactly the same thing as what the CSS Chickamauga was looking for.

The shooting star ship, Albion Lincoln, held prisoners Mark L. Potter and Emily L.Hall, who sent to the ship. Other prisoners were burned, instead of going to Fort Monroe as ordered. On the 4th of November, Secretary Welles learned that he had to search for another raider, but since he did not know anymore information, he telegraphed Rear Admiral Porter: "It is reported that four privateers are out of Wilmington. Three have actually committed depredations, namely, Tallahassee, Chickamauga, and Olustee." The Olustee was actually the Tallahassee, but just under a different new name. The next day, Porter ordered to find the Raiders, so therefore the nine Union warships could be reunited.

Lieutenant John Wilkinson kept busy, he captured the Goodspeed, Otter Rock, and Speedwell. While Porter’s ships were trying to find the CSS Chickamauga, she down down in the Bermuda Triangle looking for coal. Wilkinson, on the 15th of November, he left the Bermuda Triangle and set his course towards “home”. He arrived on the 18th waiting to anchor into safety. Before he reached the haven, four Union blockade runners, USS Clematis, USS Wilderness, USS Cherokee and USS Kansas all fired shots. The CSS Chickamauga herself got into the act, but not a single shot from either side ever found a target.

In three weeks Chickamauga had taken only seven ships, the Olustee only four. The Tallahassee was responsible for capturing more than 55 ships. How did these ships end their days? When the Feds stormed Fort Fisher, it was Chickamauga who took part in this final battle, she then had to retreat up river back to Wilmington, where her crew burned her. The Olustee also had another name change due to its duties as a blockade runner to the Chameleon. Lieutenant John Wilkinson took her out to the Bermuda Triangle to provide Lee’s armies with food and supplies. After that, he sailed off to Liverpool, and when he got there, Lee surrendered, and the British Government seized his ship.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Chickamauga
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
1 November 1914 – World War I: The first British Royal Navy defeat of the war with Germany, the Battle of Coronel, is fought off of the western coast of Chile, in the Pacific, with the loss of HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth. - Part I


The Battle of Coronel was a First World War Imperial German Naval victory over the Royal Navy on 1 November 1914, off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. The East Asia Squadron (Ostasiengeschwader or Kreuzergeschwader) of the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and defeated a British squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock.

Ostasiengeschwader_Graf_Spee_in_Chile.jpg
The German squadron leaving Valparaiso on 3 November 1914 after the battle, SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the lead, and SMS Nürnberg following. In the middle distance are the Chilean cruisers Esmeralda, O'Higgins and Blanco Encalada, and the battleship Capitán Prat.

The engagement probably took place as a result of misunderstandings. Neither admiral expected to meet the other in full force. Once the two met, Cradock understood his orders were to fight to the end, despite the odds being heavily against him. Although Spee had an easy victory, destroying two enemy armoured cruisers for just three men injured, the engagement also cost him almost half his supply of ammunition, which was irreplaceable. Shock at the British losses led the Admiralty to send more ships, including two modern battlecruisers, which in turn destroyed Spee and the majority of his squadron on 8 December at the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

Background
At the outbreak of war the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy, with assistance from other Allied naval and land forces in the Far East, had captured the German colonies of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, Yap, Nauru and Samoa early in the war, instead of searching for the German East Asiatic Squadron commanded by Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee, which had abandoned its base at the German concession at Tsingtao in the expectation of war breaking out with Japan. The East Asiatic Squadron rendezvoused at Pagan Island in the Marianas in early August 1914. Eventually, recognising the German squadron's potential for disrupting trade in the Pacific, the British Admiralty decided to destroy the squadron and searched the western Pacific Ocean after the East Asiatic Squadron had conducted the Bombardment of Papeete (22 September 1914), where a French steamer reported its presence.

Mariana_Islands_-_Pagan.PNG
Pagan Island, Marianas Archipelago

On 4 October 1914, the British learned from an intercepted radio message that Spee planned to attack shipping on the trade routes along the west coast of South America. Having correctly guessed the intention of the German commander, Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock patrolled the area with the a Squadron consisting of the armoured cruisers HMS Good Hope (flagship) and HMS Monmouth, the modern light cruiser HMS Glasgow, the armed merchantman HMS Otranto. The Admiralty had planned to reinforce the squadron by sending the newer and more powerful armoured cruiser HMS Defence from the Mediterranean but temporarily diverted this ship to patrol the western Atlantic. Defencereached Montevideo two days after the battle and instead, Cradock received the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Canopus.

The change of plan meant that the British squadron comprised obsolete or lightly armed vessels, crewed by inexperienced naval reservists.[citation needed] Monmouth and Good Hopehad a large number of 6-inch guns but only Good Hope was armed with two 9.2-inch guns mounted in single turrets. Spee had a superior force of five modern vessels (the armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the light cruisers SMS Dresden, Leipzig and Nürnberg), led by officers hand-picked by Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau carried eight 8.2-inch guns each, which gave them an overwhelming advantage in range and firepower; the crews of both ships had earned accolades for their gunnery before the war. The Admiralty ordered Cradock to "be prepared to meet them in company", with no effort being made to clarify what action he was expected to take should he find Spee. On receiving his orders, Cradock asked the Admiralty for permission to split his fleet into two forces, each able to face Spee independently. The two groups would operate on the east and west coasts of South America to counter the possibility of Spee slipping past Cradock into the Atlantic Ocean. The Admiralty agreed and established the east coast squadron under Rear-Admiral Archibald Stoddart, consisting of three cruisers and two armed merchantmen.

The remaining vessels formed the west coast squadron, which was reinforced by Canopus on 18 October. Reprieved from scrapping by the outbreak of war and badly in need of overhaul, Canopus was claimed to have a top speed of only 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph), about two-thirds her design speed and just over half that of the remainder of the squadron. (After the fleet sailed, it was found that the ship could make 16 kn (30 km/h; 18 mph) and that the senior engineer was mentally ill.) The Admiralty agreed that with Canopus the fleet would be too slow to force an engagement with the German cruisers and that without Canopus the west coast squadron stood no chance. Cradock sailed from the Falklands on 20 October, still under the impression that Defence would soon arrive and with Admiralty orders to attack German merchant ships and to seek out the East Asiatic Squadron. As the British squadron rounded Cape Horn, wireless transmissions from Leipzig increased in power and it seemed that the British would catch the ship while isolated, but Spee had made rendezvous with Leipzig on 14 October and had enforced wireless silence on the other ships.

Lines of communication
On 30 October, before the battle but due to communications delays too late to have any effect, Admiral Jackie Fisher was re-appointed First Sea Lord, replacing Prince Louis of Battenberg, who, along with Churchill, had been preoccupied with fighting to keep his position as First Sea Lord in the face of widespread concern over the senior British Admiral being of German descent. Battenberg was a proven and reliable admiral but was replaced to appease public opinion. The crisis drew the attention of the most senior members of the Admiralty away from the events in South America: Churchill later claimed that if he had not been distracted, he would have questioned the intentions of his admiral at sea more deeply.

A signal from Cradock was received by Churchill on 27 October, advising the Admiralty of his intention to leave Canopus behind because of her slow speed and, as previously instructed, to take his remaining ships in search of Spee. He re-stated that he was still expecting reinforcements in the form of Defence, which he had previously been told was coming and that he had given orders for her to follow him as soon as possible. Although Defence had once been sent to reinforce Cradock, it had then been recalled part way, returned to the Mediterranean and then been sent again to form part of a new squadron patrolling the eastern coast of South America. A misunderstanding had arisen between Cradock and the Admiralty over how ships were to be assigned and used. Cradock believed he was expected to advance against Spee with those forces he had, whereas the Admiralty expected him to exercise caution, using Canopus for defence and merely to scout for the enemy or take advantage of any situation where he might come across part of the enemy force. Churchill replied to the signal, telling Cradock that Defence was to remain on the east coast and that Cradock was considered to have sufficient forces for his task, making no comment about his plan to abandon Canopus. Churchill had passed on the message to the Admiralty staff, saying he did not properly understand what Cradock intended.

Cradock probably received Churchill's reply on 1 November with the messages collected by Glasgow at Coronel, giving him time to read it before the battle. Thus, Cradock would have taken the message as final confirmation that he was doing what was expected. Departing from Stanley he had left behind a letter to be forwarded to Admiral of the Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux in the event of his death. In this, he commented that he did not intend to suffer the fate of Rear Admiral Ernest Troubridge, a friend of Cradock, who at the time was awaiting court-martial for failing to engage the enemy. The governor of the Falklands reported that Cradock had not expected to survive, as did the governor's aide. Luce reported that "Cradock was constitutionally incapable of refusing or even postponing action if there was the smallest chance of success".

On 3 November, Fisher in London received news from Valparaiso that Spee had been sighted. He urgently gave orders for Defence to join Cradock and stressed the need to keep Canopus together with the other ships. On 4 November, German reports of the battle started to reach London.

British preparations


Rear Admiral Cradock and Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee

On 22 October, Cradock cabled the Admiralty that he was going to round Cape Horn and was leaving Canopus behind to escort his colliers. Admiral John Fisher replaced Battenberg as First Sea Lord on 27 October, and the following day Fisher ordered Cradock not to engage Spee without Canopus. He then ordered HMS Defence to reinforce Cradock. The previous week Cradock had sent Glasgow to Montevideo to pick up any messages the Admiralty might have sent. Spee, having learned of the presence of Glasgowoff Coronel, sailed south from Valparaíso with all five warships with the intention of destroying her. Glasgow intercepted radio traffic from one of the German cruisers and informed Cradock, who turned his fleet north to intercept the cruiser.

Given the German superiority in speed, firepower, efficiency and numbers, why Cradock chose to engage puzzles historians. At the time Rear Admiral Ernest Troubridge, a friend of Cradock, was awaiting court-martial for failing to engage the enemy, and he had been told by the Admiralty that his force was "sufficient". The accepted view among Cradock's colleagues was that he was "constitutionally incapable of refusing action". On 31 October, he ordered his squadron to adopt an attacking formation. Both sides are thought to have expected to encounter a single ship until they sighted each other at 16:40 on 1 November.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Coronel
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
1 November 1914 – World War I: The first British Royal Navy defeat of the war with Germany, the Battle of Coronel, is fought off of the western coast of Chile, in the Pacific, with the loss of HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth. - Part II

Battle

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Ship movements during the Battle of Coronel. British ships are shown in red; German ships are shown in blue.

On 31 October, Glasgow entered Coronel harbour to collect messages and news from the British consul. Also in harbour was a supply ship—Göttingen—working for Spee, which immediately radioed with the news of the British ship entering harbour. Glasgow was listening to radio traffic, which suggested that German warships were close. Matters were confused, because the German ships had been instructed to all use the same call sign, that of Leipzig. Spee decided to move his ships to Coronel, to trap Glasgow, while Admiral Cradock hurried north to catch Leipzig. Neither side realised the other's main force was nearby.

At 09:15 on 1 November, Glasgow left port to meet Cradock at noon, 40 mi (34.8 nmi; 64.4 km) west of Coronel. Seas were rough so that it was impossible to send a boat between the ships to deliver the messages, which had to be transferred on a line floated in the sea. At 13:5, the ships formed into a line abreast formation 15 mi (13.0 nmi; 24.1 km) apart, with Glasgow at the eastern end, and started to steam north at 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi) searching for Leipzig. At 16:17 Leipzig, accompanied by the other German ships, spotted smoke from the line of British ships. Spee ordered full speed so that Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Leipzig were approaching the British at 20 nautical miles (37 km; 23 mi), with the slower light cruisers Dresden and Nürnberg some way behind.

At 16:20, Glasgow and Otranto saw smoke to the north and then three ships at a range of 12 mi (10.4 nmi; 19.3 km). The British reversed direction, so that both fleets were moving south, and a chase began which lasted 90 minutes. Cradock was faced with a choice; he could either take his three cruisers capable of 20 kn (23 mph; 37 km/h), abandon Otranto and run from the Germans, or stay and fight with Otranto, which could only manage 16 kn (18 mph; 30 km/h). The German ships slowed at a range of 15,000 yd (13,720 m) to reorganise themselves for best positions, and to await best visibility, when the British to their west would be outlined against the setting sun.

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SMS Scharnhorst

At 17:10, Cradock decided he must fight, and drew his ships closer together. He changed course to south-east and attempted to close upon the German ships while the sun remained high. Spee declined to engage and turned his faster ships away, maintaining the distance between the forces which sailed roughly parallel at a distance of 14,000 yd (12,800 m). At 18:18, Cradock again attempted to close, steering directly towards the enemy, which once again turned away to a greater range of 18,000 yd (16,460 m). At 18:50, the sun set; Spee closed to 12,000 yd (10,970 m) and commenced firing.

The German ships had sixteen 21 cm (8 in) guns of comparable range to the two 9.2 in (234 mm) guns on Good Hope. One of these was hit within five minutes of the engagement's starting. Of the remaining 6 in (152 mm) guns on the British ships, most were in casemates along the sides of the ships, which continually flooded if the gun doors were opened to fire in heavy seas. The merchant cruiser Otranto—having only 4 in (100 mm) guns and being a much larger target than the other ships—retired west at full speed.

Since the British 6 in (152 mm) guns had insufficient range to match the German 21 cm (8 in) guns, Cradock attempted to close on the German ships. By 19:30, he had reached 6,000 yd (5,490 m) but as he closed, the German fire became correspondingly more accurate. Good Hope and Monmouth caught fire, presenting easy targets to the German gunners now that darkness had fallen, whereas the German ships had disappeared into the dark. Monmouth was first to be silenced. Good Hope continued firing, continuing to close on the German ships and receiving more and more fire. By 19:50, she had also ceased firing; subsequently her forward section exploded, then she broke apart and sank, with no-one witness to the sinking.

Scharnhorst switched her fire to Monmouth, while Gneisenau joined Leipzig and Dresden which had been engaging Glasgow. The German light cruisers had only 10.5 cm (4 in) guns, which had left Glasgow almost unscathed, but these were now joined by the 21 cm (8 in) guns of Gneisenau. John Luce, captain of Glasgow, determined that nothing would be gained by staying and attempting to fight. It was noticed that each time he fired, the flash of his guns was used by the Germans to aim a new salvo, so he also ceased firing. One compartment of the ship was flooded but she could still manage 24 kn (28 mph; 44 km/h). He returned first to Monmouth, which was now dark but still afloat. Nothing was to be done for the ship, which was sinking slowly but would attempt to beach on the Chilean coast. Glasgow turned south and departed.

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HMS Good Hope

There was some confusion amongst the German ships as to the fate of the two armoured cruisers, which had disappeared into the dark once they ceased firing, and a hunt began. Leipzig saw something burning, but on approaching found only wreckage. Nürnberg—slower than the other German ships—arrived late at the battle and sighted Monmouth, listing and badly damaged but still moving. After pointedly directing his searchlights at the ship's ensign, an invitation to surrender—which was declined—he opened fire, finally sinking the ship. Without firm information, Spee decided that Good Hope had escaped and called off the search at 22:15. Mindful of the reports that a British battleship was around somewhere, he turned north.

With no survivors from either Good Hope or Monmouth, 1,600 British officers and men were dead, including Admiral Cradock. Glasgow and Otranto both escaped (the former suffering five hits and five wounded men). Just two shells had struck Scharnhorst, neither of which exploded: one 6-inch shell hit above the armour belt and penetrated to a storeroom where, in Spee's words, "the creature just lay there as a kind of greeting." Another struck a funnel. In return, Scharnhorst had managed at least 35 hits on Good Hope, but at the expense of 422 21 cm (8 in) shells, leaving her with 350. Four shells had struck Gneisenau, one of which nearly flooded the officers' wardroom. A shell from Glasgow struck her after turret and temporarily knocked it out.[24] Three of Gneisenau's men were wounded; she expended 244 of her shells and had 528 left.

Aftermath
Main article: Battle of the Falkland Islands

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HMS Canopus; beached at Stanley, she was later re-floated and took part in the Gallipoli Campaign.

This was Britain's first naval defeat since the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812 and the first of a British naval squadron since the Battle of Grand Port in 1810. Once news of the defeat and reached the Admiralty a new naval force was assembled under Vice-Admiral Doveton Sturdee, including the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and her sister-ship Inflexible. This found and destroyed Spee's force at the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

Glasgow, having escaped the battle, steamed south for three days at 20 kn (23 mph; 37 km/h), passing through the Straits of Magellan. Canopus—warned by Glasgow's messages—turned about and headed back at the best speed she could manage, 9 kn (10 mph; 17 km/h). On 6 November, the two ships met and proceeded slowly towards the Falklands. Twice during the voyage Canopus had to report that she was not under control. After coaling, both ships were ordered north but again Canopus broke down. She was finally ordered to be beached in the inner part of Stanley Harbour, where she could serve as a defensive battery.[26]

Otranto steamed 200 nmi (370 km; 230 mi) out into the Pacific Ocean before turning south and rounding Cape Horn. On 4 November the Admiralty issued orders for the surviving ships to go to the Abrolhos Rocks, where a new force was being assembled. Rear-Admiral Archibald Stoddart, with the armoured cruisers HMS Carnarvon and Cornwall, were to meet them there and await the arrival of Defence. Sturdee was ordered to travel with the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and Inflexible—then attached to the Grand Fleet in the North Sea—to command a new squadron with clear superiority over Spee.

Die_Seeschlacht_bei_Coronel._Gemälde_von_Hans_Bohrdt.jpg
Die Seeschlacht bei Coronel by Hans Bohrdt

Despite his victory Spee was pessimistic about his own chances of survival and dismissive with regard to the harm done to the British navy The official explanation of the defeat as presented to the House of Commons by Winston Churchill was: "feeling he could not bring the enemy immediately to action as long as he kept with Canopus, he decided to attack them with his fast ships alone, in the belief that even if he himself were destroyed... he would inflict damage on them which ...would lead to their certain subsequent destruction."

On 3 November Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Nürnberg entered Valparaiso harbour to a welcome by the German population. Spee refused to join in the celebrations; when presented with a bouquet of flowers, he refused them, commenting that "these will do nicely for my grave". He was to die with most of the men on his ships on 8 December 1914, at the Battle of the Falkland Islands.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Coronel
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
1 November 1918 – SMS Viribus Unitis was sunk by a limpet mine planted by Raffaele Rossetti, an Italian engineer and military naval officer of the Regia Marina


SMS Viribus Unitis was an Austro-Hungarian dreadnought battleship, the first of the Tegetthoff class. "Viribus Unitis", meaning "With United Forces", was the personal motto of Emperor Franz Joseph I.

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Battleship SMS Viribus Unitis of the Austro-Hungarian Navy

Viribus Unitis was ordered by the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1908 and was laid down in Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste on 24 July 1910. Viribus Unitis was launched from the shipyard on 24 June 1911 and was formally commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 5 December 1912.

During World War I, Viribus Unitis took part in the flight of the German warships SMS Goeben and Breslau. In May 1915, she also took part in the bombardment of the Italian port city of Ancona. Viribus Unitis was sunk by a limpet mine planted by Raffaele Rossetti, an Italian engineer and military naval officer of the Regia Marina on 1 November 1918

Construction and design
Main article: Tegetthoff-class battleship

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A line drawing of Viribus Unitis, lead ship of the Tegetthoff class

Construction
Viribus Unitis was ordered in 1908 as the first of a class of four, the first dreadnoughts to be built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Initially intended to be named Tegetthoff, she was renamed on the personal order of Emperor Franz Josef; following this, the second ship of the class was named Tegetthoff. The ship was laid down in the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste on 24 July 1910. Following eleven months of construction, Viribus Unitis was launched on 24 June 1911. Following her fitting out, she was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 5 December 1912.

Characteristics

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Model of Viribus Unitis in the Museum of Military History, Vienna

Detailed photos from the museum model in scale 1:25 you can find in this post:
https://www.shipsofscale.com/sosfor...ory-museum-in-vienna-austria.1846/#post-29806

Viribus Unitis had an overall length of 152 metres (498 ft 8 in), a beam of 27.9 metres (91 ft 6 in), and a draught of 8.7 metres (28 ft 7 in) at deep load. She displaced 20,000 tonnes (19,684 long tons) at load and 21,689 tonnes (21,346 long tons) at deep load.

Viribus Unitis had four Parsons steam turbines, each of which was housed in a separate engine-room. The turbines were powered by twelve Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 27,000 shaft horsepower (20,134 kW), which was theoretically enough to attain her designed speed of 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h), but no figures from her speed trials are known to exist. She carried 1,844.5 tonnes (1,815.4 long tons) of coal, and an additional 267.2 tonnes (263.0 long tons) of fuel oil that was to be sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. At full capacity, she could steam for 4,200 nautical miles (7,800 km) at a speed of 10 knots (12 mph; 19 km/h).

Viribus Unitis mounted twelve 30.5-centimetre (12 in) Škoda 30.5 cm K10 guns in four triple turrets. Her secondary armament consisted of a dozen 15-centimetre (5.9 in) Škoda 15 cm K10 guns mounted in casemates amidships. Twelve 7-centimetre (2.8 in) Škoda K10 guns were mounted on open pivot mounts on the upper deck, above the casemates. Three more 7 cm K10 guns were mounted on the upper turrets for anti-aircraft duties. Four 21-inch (530 mm) submerged torpedo tubes were fitted, one each in the bow, stern and on each broadside; twelve torpedoes were carried.

Service history
Archduke Franz Ferdinand's visit to Sarajevo
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria travelled aboard Viribus Unitis in late June 1914 en route to Bosnia to observe military manoeuvres. On 25 June, he boarded the ship in Trieste Harbour and travelled to the mouth of the NeretvaRiver, where he transferred to another vessel. On 30 June, two days after Ferdinand and his wife were killed by Gavrilo Princip in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, Viribus Unitis transported their bodies back to Trieste.

World War I
Prior to the war, Viribus Unitis was assigned to the 1st Battleship Division of Austro-Hungarian Navy. During World War I, the battleship saw limited service due to the Otranto Barrage which prohibited Austro-Hungarian battleships from leaving the Adriatic sea. As a result, she hardly ever left Pola.

Viribus Unitis, along with her sister ships Tegetthoff, Prinz Eugen and the remainder of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was mobilized on the eve of World War I to support the flight of SMS Goeben and Breslau. The two German ships were stationed in the Mediterranean and were attempting to break out of the strait of Messina, which was surrounded by British troops and vessels and make their way to Turkey. After the Germans successfully broke out of Messina, the navy was recalled. The fleet had by that time advanced as far south as Brindisi in south eastern Italy. Viribus Unitis also participated in the bombardment of the Italian city of Ancona in May 1915. Following these operations Viribus Unitis remained in Pola for most of the remainder of the war.

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Viribus Unitis in 1914

Her tenure in Pola was livened up by a visit from the new Emperor Charles I on 15 December 1916 and another by Kaiser Wilhelm II on 12 December 1917 during his inspection of the German submarine base there. The Italians conducted eighty air raids on Pola between 1915 and 1917.

The Otranto Raid
By 1918, the new commander of the Austrian fleet, Konteradmiral Miklós Horthy, decided to conduct another attack on the Otranto Barrage to allow more German and Austro-Hungarian U-boats to safely get through the heavily defended strait. During the night of 8 June, Horthy left the naval base of Pola with Viribus Unitis and Prinz Eugen. The other two dreadnoughts, Szent Istvánand Tegetthoff, along with one destroyer and six torpedo boats departed Pola on 9 June. At about 3:15 on the morning of 10 June, two Italian MAS boats, MAS 15 and MAS 21, spotted the Austrian fleet. The MAS platoon was commanded by Capitano di fregata Luigi Rizzo while the individual boats were commanded by Capo timoniere Armando Gori and Guardiamarina di complemento Giuseppe Aonzo respectively. Both boats successfully penetrated the escort screen and split to engage each of the dreadnoughts. MAS 21 attacked Tegetthoff, but her torpedoes failed. MAS 15 managed to hit Szent István with her torpedoes at about 3:25 am. Both boats were then chased away from the scene by the Austrian escort vessels.

Despite attempts to take the crippled Szent István into tow by Tegetthoff, the ship continued to sink and the attempt was abandoned. A few minutes after 6:00 am Szent István sank. Admiral Horthy, commander of the proposed attack, soon canceled the attack because he thought that the Italians had discovered his plan and ordered the ships to return to Pola. On the contrary, the Italians did not even discover that the Austrian dreadnoughts had departed Pola until later on 10 June when aerial reconnaissance photos revealed that they were no longer there. This was the last military operation that the Viribus Unitis was to take part in and she spent the rest of her career at port in Pola.

Italian attack and sinking
Main article: Raid on Pula
By October 1918 it had become clear that Austria-Hungary was facing defeat in the war. The Austrian government decided to give Viribus Unitis, along with much of the fleet, to the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. This was considered preferential to handing the fleet to the Allies, as the new state had declared its neutrality. The transfer to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs took place in the evening of 31 October, and Viribus Unitis was renamed Jugoslavija.

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Jugoslavija, the former Viribus Unitis, sinking

On 1 November 1918, two men of the Italian Navy, Raffaele Paolucci and Raffaele Rossetti, rode a primitive manned torpedo (nicknamed Mignatta or "leech") into the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola. They had sailed from an Italian port some time before, and were unaware of the transfer of the Austro-Hungarian fleet the previous day.

Traveling down the rows of Austrian battleships, the two men encountered Jugoslavija at around 4:40 am. Rossetti placed one canister of TNT on the hull of the battleship, timed to explode at 6:30 am. He then flooded the second canister, sinking it on the harbour floor close to the ship. The men had no breathing sets, and therefore had to keep their heads above water. They were discovered and taken prisoner just after placing the explosives under the battleship's hull. Taken aboard Jugoslavija, they informed the new captain of the battleship of what they had done but did not reveal the exact position of the explosives. Admiral Janko Vuković arranged for the two prisoners to be taken to Tegetthoff, and ordered Jugoslavija to be evacuated. The explosion did not happen at 6:30 as predicted and Vuković returned to the ship with many sailors, mistakenly believing that the Italians had lied. The mines exploded at 6:44, sinking Jugoslavija in 15 minutes. Vuković and 300–400 of her crew were killed in the sinking. The explosion of the second canister also sank the Austrian freighter Wien

Paolucci and Rossetti were interned until the end of the war a few days later, and were honoured by the Kingdom of Italy with the Gold Medal of Military Valor.

Commemorations

Bow of Viribus Unitis on display at the Venetian Arsenal

SMS Viribus Unitis was selected as the main motif of a high value collectors' coin: the Austrian SMS Viribus Unitis commemorative coin, minted on 13 September 2006. The obverse side shows the flagship Viribus Unitis as seen from the deck of an accompanying ship in the fleet. Two other ships of an older class can be seen in the background. The reverse of the coin is a tribute to the old Austro-Hungarian Imperial Navy, showing SMS Viribus Unitis from a front angle. A naval biplane circles overhead and a submarine surfaces in the foreground. The coin commemorates not only the ship Viribus Unitis, but also the three main arms of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the First World War. The coin was the last of the series "Austria on the High Seas".

There is a cutaway model of Viribus Unitis in the Museum of Military History in Vienna. The model is at a scale of 1:25 and has a total length of 6 metres. It was built between 1913 and 1917 by eight craftsmen of the shipyard Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino.

something else - some crazy modelers with big size working models



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Viribus_Unitis
 
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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
1 November 1920 – American fishing schooner Esperanto defeats the Canadian fishing schooner Delawana in the First International Fishing Schooner Championship Races in Halifax, Nova Scotia.


International Fishing Vessel Championship, 1920
Under command of Captain Martin Leander Welch, Esperanto became the first winner of the International Fishing Vessel Championship on November 1, 1920, when she beat the Canadian fishing schooner Delawana of Riverportunder command of Capt. Thomas Himmelman. In the next race, in 1921, the Canadian sailing ship Bluenose won against the schooner Elsie from Gloucester, Massachusetts.

esperant.jpg

The Esperanto was a fishing schooner based in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Esperanto was designed by Tom McManus of Boston and built by Tarr and James Shipbuilders of Essex, Massachusetts. She was launched on June 27, 1906, and measured 107 feet (33 m) in length, 25 feet (7.6 m) in beam, and a draft of 11 feet (3.4 m) with gross tonnage of 140.
The Esperanto was used in several races and is one of only two undefeated champions at the International Fishing Vessel Championship.

Sinking
On May 30, 1921, Esperanto struck a submerged wreck near Sable Island and sank. The crew was rescued.

Very good page about the Esperanto and the race:
https://sites.google.com/site/schooneresperanto/home

The Delawana was a fishing schooner based in Riverport, Nova Scotia.

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International Fishing Vessel Championship, 1920
Delawana was the first schooner to represent Canada at the first International Fishing Vessel Championship races in 1920 under command of Capt. Thomas Himmelman from Riverport, Nova Scotia. On 11 October 1920, Delawana defeated the Canadian schooner Gilbert B. Walters, sailed by Capt. Angus Walters, when the topmast of the Gilbert B. Walters broke during one of the races.

Much to the dismay of the crew, the Delawana then lost in two straight races to the American Gloucester fishing schooner Esperanto under Capt. Marty Welch. Despite the loss, the crew from Riverport did represent Canada at the first International Fishing Vessel Championship and built a pride in labour that would sustain the community and much of Lunenburg County for over a century.


https://sites.google.com/site/schooneresperanto/home
https://caxinas-a-freguesia.blogs.sapo.pt/12811.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_(schooner)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delawana_(schooner)
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
1 November 1940 – Launch of japanese battleship Musashi


Musashi (武蔵), named after the former Japanese province, was one of two Yamato-class battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), beginning in the late 1930s. The Yamato-class ships were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed, displacing almost 72,000 long tons (73,000 t) fully loaded and armed with nine 46-centimetre (18.1 in) main guns. Their secondary armament consisted of four 15.5-centimetre (6.1 in) triple-gun turrets formerly used by the Mogami-class cruisers. They were equipped with six or seven floatplanes to conduct reconnaissance.

YamatoClassBattleships.jpg
Musashi and Yamato in Truk Lagoon in early 1943.

Commissioned in mid-1942, Musashi was modified to serve as the flagship of the Combined Fleet, and spent the rest of the year working up. The ship was transferred to Truk in early 1943 and sortied several times that year with the fleet in unsuccessful searches for American forces. She was used to transfer forces and equipment between Japan and various occupied islands several times in 1944. Torpedoed in early 1944 by an American submarine, Musashi was forced to return to Japan for repairs, during which the navy greatly augmented her anti-aircraft armament. She was present during the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June, but did not come in contact with American surface forces. Musashi was sunk by an estimated 19 torpedo and 17 bomb hits from American carrier-based aircraft on 24 October 1944 during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Over half of her crew was rescued. Her wreck was located in March 2015 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his team of researchers.

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Right elevation drawing of Musashi as she appeared in 1942

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Musashi
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 1 November


1520 – The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, is first discovered and navigated by European explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the first recorded circumnavigation voyage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Magellan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan


1670 – Launch of French Oriflamme 50 at Brest – wrecked February 1691

Bourbon Class Designed and built by Laurent Hubac.


1720 Birth of Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte, French admiral (d. 1791)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint-Guillaume_Picquet_de_la_Motte


1777 - During the American Revolution, the Continental sloop Ranger, commanded by Capt. John Paul Jones, departs for France carrying dispatches British Gen. John Burgoyne's surrender in the Saratoga, N.Y., campaign. The news helps solidify Frances support of the patriots. During the voyage, Ranger captures two British prizes, Mary and George, and sends them to France.

The first USS Ranger was a sloop-of-war in the Continental Navy in active service in 1777–1780; she received the second salute to an American fighting vessel by a foreign power (the first salute was received by the USS Andrew Doria when on 16 November 1776 she arrived at St. Eustatius and the Dutch island returned her 11-gun salute). She was captured in 1780, and brought into the Royal Navy as HMS Halifax. She was decommissioned in 1781.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ranger_(1777)


1806 - Boats of HMS Pique (40), Charles Bayne Hodgson Ross, in Carbaret Bay, Puerto Rico.

HMS Pique was formerly the French ship Pallas, a 36-gun fifth rate, captured in 1800 by a squadron off the coast of France. She was initially named HMS Aeolus but renamed to Pique in 1801. Because Pique served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (2 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal, which the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants. She was sold for breaking up in 1819.


1811 - HMS Imperieuse (38), Cptn, Hon. Henry Duncan, HMS Thames and army units took Palinuro Heights and, in the harbour, sank 2 gunboats, took 6 gunboats and took 22 feluccas in 3 day engagement.

HMS Imperieuse was a 38-gun fifth-rate, previously the Spanish ship Medea (1797). She was captured in 1804 and taken into service as HMS Iphigenia but renamed Imperieuse in 1805, placed on harbour service in 1818, and sold in 1838.


1813 - HMS Snap (12), William Bateman Dashwood, captured the French privateer lugger Lion (16) off St. Valery

HMS Snap (1812), a 12-gun gun-brig launched in 1812, converted to a survey ship in 1823 and a powder hulk in 1827. Sold in 1832.


1827 - While in the Aegean Sea, the sloop-of-war Warren, commanded by Commodore Lawrence Kearney, burns the pirate town of Mykonos in the Cyclades Islands, recovers equipment and stores from captured merchant ships, and seizes a pirate boat.

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


1841 - The "Mosquito Fleet", commanded by Lt. Cmdr. J. T. McLaughlin, carries 750 Sailors and Marines into the Everglades to fight the Seminole Indians.


1864 - Esmeralda, captured 1 November 1864 off Loango, West Coast of Africa, by HMS 'Rattler' (1864) and Taken to St. Helena to prize court by C.G. Nelson midshipman in command.


1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelts Executive Order 8929 transfers the U.S. Coast Guard to Navy Department control for the duration of a national emergency in order to perform anti-submarine patrols and escort high-value convoys.


1943 - USS Borie (DD 215) rams and sinks the German submarine U-405 in the Atlantic. As a result from the ramming, she is so badly damaged that she is scuttled the following day after a failed attempt to tow her to port. Twenty-seven crewmen lose their lives in this engagement.

Ussborie_dd215_dht.jpg

USS Borie (DD-215) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was the first ship named for Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Navy, Adolph E. Borie. She served in the Black Sea, the Asiatic Fleet and the Caribbean between the wars, and in the Battle of the Atlantic, the long campaign to protect Allied shipping from German U-boats during World War II. As part of the antisubmarine Hunter-killer Group unit Task Group 21.14, the crew earned a Presidential Unit Citation for its "extraordinary performance." Borie also earned distinction in her final battle with U-405 in November 1943, and was sunk by friendly forces due to damage sustained by ramming the surfaced U-boat and engaging her crew with small arms fire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Borie_(DD-215)


1943 – World War II: In the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, United States Marines, the 3rd Marine Division, land on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.

The Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, on 1–2 November 1943 – also known as the Battle of Gazelle Bay, Operation Cherry Blossom, and in Japanese sources as the Sea Battle off Bougainville Island (ブーゲンビル島沖海戦) – was a naval battle fought near the island of Bougainville in Empress Augusta Bay. The naval battle was a result of Alliedlandings on nearby Bougainville in the first action in the Bougainville campaign of World War II and may also be seen as part of the Solomons and New Guinea campaigns. The battle was significant as part of a broader Allied strategy – known as Operation Cartwheel – aimed at isolating and surrounding the major Japanese base at Rabaul. The intention was to establish a beachhead on Bougainville, within which an airfield would be built.

A_Japanese_plane_crashes_into_the_sea_ahead_of_USS_Columbia_(CL-56),_in_November_1943_(80-G-44...jpg
A Japanese aircraft crashes (upper center) into the ocean near the US cruiser Columbia on 2 November 1943, during air attacks on Allied ships off Bougainville, a few hours after the Naval Battle of Empress Augusta Bay.

The naval battle took place at the end of the first day of the landings around Cape Torokina, as the Japanese sortied a large force from Rabaul in an effort to replicate the success they had achieved at Savo Island in August 1942, in response to Allied amphibious landings in the eastern Solomon Islands. Ultimately, the covering force of US warships was able to turn back the Japanese force and the landings around Cape Torokina were successful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Empress_Augusta_Bay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bougainville_Campaign


1944 - USS Blackfin (SS 322) attacks a Japanese convoy and sinks auxiliary vessel Caroline Maru and transport No.12 Unkai Maru in Mindoro Strait. Meanwhile, USS Ray (SS 271) sinks the Japanese merchant tanker No.7 Horai Maru and lands a party of three men, together with two tons of supplies, at Mamburao on the west coast of Mindoro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Blackfin_(SS-322)


1948 – Six thousand people die when a Chinese merchant ship explodes and sinks off southern Manchuria.

Boiler and ammunition explosion aboard an unidentified merchant ship evacuating troops of the Republic of China Army from Yingkou for Taiwan
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
2 November 1758 - HMS Antelope (1703 - 50), Cptn. Thomas Saumarez, captured French ship Belliqueux (1758 - 64) off Ilfracombe


HMS Antelope was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Rotherhithe on 13 March 1703. She was rebuilt once during her career, and served in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War.

large.jpg
Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan from midships to bow, body plan from midships to stern with stern board decoration, sheer lines with some inboard detail and figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth with some lower deck detail for Antelope (1703), a 50-gun Fourth Rate two-decker. This may be the ship as she was when in Plymouth Dockyard in 1713. An attached letter (not scanned) lays out the dimensions of the ship, as taken at Plymouth on 7 March 1713.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81491.html#x0QzKvlTWq8Mf7K1.99


Orders were issued on 9 January 1738 for Antelope to be taken to pieces and rebuilt according to the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment at Woolwich, from where she was relaunched on 27 January 1741.

On 16 June 1756, she sailed from England for Gibraltar with Vice Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke and Rear Admiral Charles Saunders. She arrived there on 3 July with an order to supersede Admiral John Byng. Antelope returned to England with Byng, sailing on 9 July and arriving at Spithead on 26 July, where Byng was arrested before being landed on 19 August. His trial started on board St George on 27 December.

On 30 April 1757, Captain Samuel Hood took command of Antelope. On 15 May, after a short action off Brest, France, the French Aquilon, 50, was driven on to the rocks in Audierne Bay where she was wrecked. Then, on 31 October 1758, in the Kingroad off Portishead, Antelope took Belliqueux, 64, one of a French squadron returning from Quebec, that had anchored off Ilfracombe, Antelope opened fire but the French ship surrendered without having fired a shot in return.

Not every action was a success. In 1759, under the command of Captain James Webb, Antelope was attached to Commodore William Boys' squadron, which had been blockading François Thurot in Dunkirk throughout the summer and early autumn. On 15 October, when the squadron had been driven off station during a gale, Thurot made his escape with six frigates and corvettes carrying 1300 troops and sailed to Gothenburg.

In 1762, Antelope was stationed in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, under the command of Commodore Thomas Graves, who was the Colony's Naval Governor. A French fleet from Brest, under M. de Ternay, with 1500 troops commanded by the Comte d'Haussonville, sailed into St. John's and captured the town on 24 June. Captain Graves immediately sent word to Commodore Lord Colville at Halifax who joined him in blockading the French, and brought troops over from Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island on 11 September. During a gale on 16 September de Ternay evaded the blockade and, abandoning the troops, sailed back to France.

On her way home to England Antelope encountered Marlborough, under Captain Thomas Burnett, which had sailed from Havana as part of the escort of a convoy of prizes and transports, but had become separated in very heavy weather. She was leaking so badly that her guns had to be thrown overboard and the pumps kept working. Antelope took all her people off on 29 November when she started to founder and she was allowed to sink.

Later, in 1780, Antelope was again patrolling the Labrador coast and intercepted the American ship Mercury. As the vessels came to close quarters, a package was thrown overboard from the latter. One of the sailors on Antelope dived from the deck and rescued the package, which contained details of secret negotiations then being conducted between the United States and the United Provinces. Antelope Harbour, Labrador, is named for this incident.

Antelope was sold out of the service on 30 October 1783.

General characteristics as built
Class and type: 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line
Tons burthen: 68480⁄94 (bm)
Length: 131 ft 5 in (40.1 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 34 ft 4 1⁄2 in (10.5 m)
Depth of hold: 13 ft 9 in (4.2 m)
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament: 50 guns of various weights of shot

General characteristics after 1741 rebuild
Class and type: 1733 proposals 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line
Tons burthen: 86044⁄94 (bm)
Length: 134 ft (40.8 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 38 ft 6 in (11.7 m)
Depth of hold: 15 ft 9 in (4.8 m)
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament:
  • 50 guns:
  • Gundeck: 22 × 18-pounders
  • Upper gundeck: 22 × 9-pounders
  • Quarterdeck: 4 × 6-pounders
  • Forecastle: 2 × 6-pounders



Belliqueux was a 64-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, launched in 1756.

She was captured on 2 November 1758 by HMS Antelope in the Irish Sea. She was found by Antelope anchored off Ilfracombe, Antelope opened fire but the French ship surrendered without having fired a shot in return. The crew of 500 was captured. She was taken into the Royal Navy and commissioned as the third rate HMS Belliqueux.

The captains were:
  • from November 1758: captain Thomas Saumarez (fr), in the West Indies (quit due to ill health)
  • from 1761: captain Richard Edwards, in the Mediterranean.
Belliqueux was broken up in September 1772.

Class and type: 64-gun third rate ship of the line
Tons burthen: 137180⁄94 (bm)
Length: 157 ft 10 1⁄2 in (48.1 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 44 ft 10 1⁄2 in (13.7 m)
Depth of hold:1 9 ft 10 in (6.05 m)
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament: 64 guns of various weights of shot



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Antelope_(1703)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Belliqueux_(1758)
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
2 November 1773 – Launch of HMS Siren (or Syren) was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.


HMS Siren (or Syren) was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Siren was first commissioned in August 1775 under the command of Captain Tobias Furneaux, her only commanding officer.

large (1).jpg
Scale 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with stern board decoration and name on the stern counter, sheer lines with inboard detail and figurehead, and longitudinal half breadth for Syren/Siren (1773), a 28-gun, Sixth Rate Frigate, as built by Henri at Chatham. The plan also includes pencil modifications for converting a troop ship for 300 troops and 105 ships company. This may not be for Siren (1773), could be for another member of the Enterprize Class. NMM, Progress Book, volume 5, folio 303, states that 'Syren' was launched at Hennicker's Yard, Chatham on 2 November, arriving at Chatham Dockyard on the same day. She was docked on 16 August 1775 and undocked on 8 September 1775,sailing on 5 October 1775 having been fitted for foreign service.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/83190.html#2EeTrYgdjkQBFkiM.99


Service
She took part in the Battle of the Rice Boats on 2-3 March 1776 on the border between the Province of Georgia and the Province of South Carolina and in the Battle of Sullivan's Island of 28 June 1776 upon Charleston, South Carolina.

Fate
Siren, escorting a convoy in poor visibility, ran aground at about 6:00 am on 6 November 1777 near Point Judith, along with two other ships. Efforts were made to bring her off, but American forces ashore brought up field artillery and prevented salvage operations. Siren was abandoned with the loss of 2 killed and 5 wounded.

Class and type: 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-ratefrigate
Tons burthen: 603 40⁄94 bm
Length:
  • 120 ft 10 in (36.83 m) (overall)
  • 99 ft 7.5 in (30.366 m) (keel)
Beam: 33 ft 9 in (10.3 m)
Depth of hold: 10 ft 9 in (3.28 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 200 officers and men
Armament:
large (2).jpg
Scale 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines and longitudinal half breadth as proposed and approved for building Siren [Syren] (1773) and Fox (1773), and later for building Enterprize (1773), and Surprize (1774), all 28-gun, Sixth Rate Frigates. The plan includes a table of the mast and yard dimensions. Signed by John Williams [Surveyor of the Navy, 1765-1784].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/83189.html#EJhYsv4ddaTcSx5t.99


large (3).jpg
Scale 1:96. Plan showing the quarter deck and forecastle, upper deck, lower deck and fore and aft platforms for Siren/Syren (1773), a 28-gun, Sixth Rate Frigate as taken off at Chatham Dockyard in 1775. NMM, Progress Book, volume 5, folio 303, states that 'Syren' was launched at Hennicker's Yard, Chatham on 2 November, arriving at Chatham Dockyard on the same day. She was docked on 16 August 1775 and undocked on 8 September 1775,sailing on 5 October 1775 having been fitted for foreign service.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/83191.html#wjU4kQMriVxKfQ72.99


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Siren_(1773)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-352164;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=S
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
2 November 1778 - HMS Somerset (1748 -70) ran aground and wrecked


HMS Somerset was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment, and launched on 18 July 1748. She was the third vessel of the Royal Navy to bear the name. Somerset was involved in several notable battles of the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War. She was wrecked in a storm in 1778 when she ran aground off of Provincetown, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

large.jpg
Scale: 1:48. A plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for a 70-gun Second Rate, two-decker, as prepared by the Master Shipwrights of Chatham Dockyard, Deptford Dockyard, Portsmouth Dockyard, Woolwich Dockyard, and Sheerness Dockyard, and approved by Sir John Norris and other flag officers. Later used for 'Grafton' (1750), 'Somerset' (1748), 'Northumberland' (1750), 'Orford' (1749), 'Swiftsure' (1750), 'Vanguard' (1748), and 'Buckingham' (1751), all 70-gun (later 68-gun) Third Rate, two-deckers.

Seven Years' War
HMS Somerset saw action at the capture of the fortress of Louisbourg and Cape Breton Island during the Seven Years' War (a theatre known in the United States as the French and Indian War). In 1758, a British expedition under General Jeffery Amherst besieged the fortress at Louisbourg, beginning on 8 June. The British had 39 ships with about 14,000 sailors, and a further landing force of 12,870 soldiers. The fortress was defended by 10 French ships with 3,870 sailors, and another 3,920 soldiers inside the fortress itself. The 48-day siege by Admiral Edward Boscawen and General Amherst ended with the French surrender on 26 July, clearing the way for a British expedition to sail up the Saint Lawrence River to take Quebec City the following summer.

The expedition against Quebec City, led by General James Wolfe, was landed by a force that included HMS Somerset. The British were victorious at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on 13 September 1759 giving Britain control of Canada and North America's Atlantic seaboard.

American Revolutionary War
HMS Somerset went on to play a well documented part in the American Revolutionary War, where she served from 1774 to 1776 and again from 1777 up until her loss in 1778.

Battle of Lexington and Concord
Events might have unfolded differently on the night of 18 April 1775 had the duty watch of HMS Somerset been more alert. Colonel Paul Revere had set out that night to ride to Lexington to warn two prominent Colonial leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, that their lives might be in danger. Having departed Boston by rowboat to cross the Back Bayinto Charlestown, he narrowly avoided being noticed by HMS Somerset, which was anchored there. Had he been stopped, the militias of many towns would not have arrived in Concord, and the next day's battle of Lexington and Concord might have had a different outcome. As it was, Somerset's gun crews were able to keep rebel forces from following the retreating British troops to Charlestown on the evening of 19 April.

Revere's exploits led to HMS Somerset’s immortalisation in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem 'The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere':

Then he said 'Good-night!' and with muffled oarSilently rowed to the Charlestown shore,Just as the moon rose over the bay,Where swinging wide at her moorings layThe Somerset, British man-of-war;A phantom ship, with each mast and sparAcross the moon like a prison bar,And a huge black hulk, that was magnifiedBy its own reflection in the tide.​
Battle of Chelsea Creek
Somerset was the backdrop to another brief but important incident during the war, the Battle of Chelsea Creek. On the night of Saturday 27 May 1775, HMS Armed Schooner Diana, under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Graves, ran aground in Chelsea Creek while attempting to keep Americans from driving British livestock from Noddle's Island in Boston Harbor, at which point the American rebels set fire to the ship. HMS Somerset's tender, Britannia (under the command of Thomas Graves' brother Lieutenant John Graves), was able to rescue the Diana's company.

Lt Thomas Graves went on to serve under Lord Rodney at the Battle of the Saintes, eventually becoming Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Graves and Nelson’s second-in-command at the Battle of Copenhagen. He was permanently scarred by the burns he received at Noddle’s Island. He was a cousin of Admiral Thomas Graves, 1st Baron Graves who would command at the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781 and the nephew of Admiral Samuel Graves.

Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill)
Shortly after those events, HMS Somerset served as the flagship of Admiral Samuel Graves at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Boston, under British control since 1768, was under siege by between 8,000 and 12,000 militia. On the night of 16 June 1775, several thousand militia forces began occupying the strategically important Charlestown Peninsula and fortified Breed's Hill, a position from which they would be able to bombard the British in Boston. At dawn, HMS Livelywas first to spot the new fortification and the ship opened fire, temporarily halting the Americans' work. Admiral Graves, in HMS Somerset, awoke to the sound of gunfire he hadn't ordered. He ordered it stopped, only to reverse his order when he saw the works. He ordered all 128 guns in the harbour to open fire on the American position. The broadsides proved largely ineffective, since the ships were unable to elevate their guns sufficiently to reach the hilltop. The position was eventually taken by British troops, ferried across the bay under protection of the navy’s guns, but at considerable cost.

Loss
In the autumn of 1777, HMS Somerset took part in the Siege of Fort Mifflin in which the British successfully captured the river forts on the Delaware River. HMS Somerset’s luck ran out at the end of 1778. She was battered by gales in August. While pursuing a French squadron, she ran aground in a 2 November 1778 gale on Peaked Hill Bars off Provincetown, Massachusetts. By the time the Somerset wrecked, Cape Codders had suffered greatly from the British blockade during the American Revolution. Commercial fishing and whaling were virtually shut down. Some local people engaged in privateering and smuggling along the coast, while others turned to the land for subsistence. When the giant Somerset wrecked on the Cape, there likely was a strong emotional reaction by the local populace. According to the official account of the ship’s captain, George Ourry, only 21 men were lost during the wreck.

Captain Ourry was forced to walk under guard to Providence, Rhode Island, where he was exchanged for two American officers. The officers and crew, numbering over 400, were escorted to Boston. Towns along the route provided militia to escort and support the prisoners. A tremendous amount of scarce war material was chopped or pried away from the wreck by local residents before the state put a guard over what remained. Eleven 18-pound and five 9-pound cannon and powder were entrusted to Colonel Revere to be used in fortifying Castle Island in Boston Harbor. Salvage of the Somerset's cargo was dangerous and difficult. Provisions in the lower hold were only accessible for a few hours a day at low tide. Severe winter storms in December finally broke the remains of the ship apart, moved it closer to shore, and eventually buried it under tons of sand at an area known locally as Dead Man's Hollow. It took several more months of bitter court proceedings to sort out who owned what in the aftermath of salvage operations.

The Somerset's wreckage has been partially exposed, albeit briefly, only three times since 1788 – in 1886, 1973 and 2010 – by storm currents that caused part of the wreckage to be uncovered. In 2010 the National Park Service commissioned a digital survey using 3D imaging technology to accurately record the exposed timbers that were visible. It was estimated that only the lower ten percent of the ship remains, buried once again under the sand. The Somerset is protected under international law, and is the sovereign property of the United Kingdom.

Remembrance
The National Park Service preserves some of the large timbers from the wreck. In 2005, the park superintendent presented a few pieces of the Somerset to the commander and crew of the British navy’s modern HMS Somerset (IV). HMS Somerset is remembered by a historical re-enactment society in Boston, called 'His Majesty’s Ship Somerset'.

large (1).jpg
Scale: 1:48. A plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for a 70-gun Second Rate, two-decker, resolved on 5 and 8 July, and 5 August 1745 by Sir John Norris and other flag officers and gentlemen appointed to settle a new establishement for building ships of the Royal Navy. Later used for 'Grafton' (1750), 'Somerset' (1748), 'Northumberland' (1750), 'Orford' (1749), 'Swiftsure' (1750), 'Vanguard' (1748), and 'Buckingham' (1751), all 70-gun (later 68-gun) Third Rate, two-deckers. Signed by Joseph Allin/Allen [Master Shipwright, Deptford Dockyard, 1742-1746], John Ward [Master Shipwright Chatham Dockyard, 1732-1752], Pierson Lock [Master Shipwright, Portsmouth Dockyard, 1742-1755 (died)], John Holland [Master Shipwright, Woolwich Dockyard, 1742-1746], and John Pooke [Master Shipwright, Sheerness Dockyard, 1742-1751].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81186.html#5qLb5zkywbooWTEY.99




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Somerset_(1748)
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
2 November 1809 - HMS Victor (1807/1808 - 18) captured by French frigate Bellone (1807 – 40) in the Bay of Bengal.

HMS Victor (1808) was an 18-gun brig-sloop, formerly the privateer Revenant of Robert Surcouf, and French corvette Iéna. She was captured in 1808, recaptured by the French in 1809, retaken by the British in 1810 and sold.


Revenant was a 20-gun privateer corvette, launched in 1807, and designed by Robert Surcouf for commerce raiding. The French Navy later requisitioned her and renamed her Iéna, after Napoleon's then-recent victory. The British captured her and she served in the Royal Navy as HMS Victor. The French Navy recaptured her in 1809, and she served for a year under her original name. The British again captured her when they captured Isle de France (now Mauritius) in December 1810. They did not restore her to service and she was subsequently broken up.

Type: Corvette
Displacement: 300 tons (French)
Tons burthen: c.400
Length: 36 meters
Beam: 9 meters
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Speed:up to 12 knots
Armament:

Career
Her coppered hull allowed her to sail at up to 12 knots. Her cost was of 277,761 francs-or. One of hers owners was the banker Jacques Récamier.

Indian ocean cruises (1807 - 1808)
In February 1807,[2] Surcouf enlisted Potier as first officer on his new privateer Revenant. Revenant then departed from Saint-Malo on 2 March, and sailed for Isle de France.Revenant arrived there on 10 June, along with several prizes she had taken during her journey. She cruised the Bay of Bengal from September to 31 January 1808 under Surcouf, capturing the rice ships Trafalgar, Mangles, Admiral Alpin, Susannah Hunter, Success, Fortune, New Endeavour, Colonel Macauley, William Burroughs, Oriente and Jean Labdam. Trafalgar, of about 800 tos (bm), was a copper-sheathed three-master, carrying 10,000 sacks of rice from Bengal. Maingless (Mangles) was also a copper-sheathed three-master, in this case carrying 8,000 sacks of rice from Bengal, but also books, mirrors, and furniture. Lastly, Suzanne, of 400 tons (bm), copper-sheathed three-master, was carrying rice and sailcloth. They had been captured on 11, 18, and 25 November, and arrived at Port-Louis on 2 and 16 December.

After Revenant returned to Port-Louis from her first campaign Surcouf gave Potier command of the ship on 2 April.

In late April, as Revenant was completing her preparations and plotting her route, a prize taken by the privateer Adèle gave news of the new war between France and Portugal; Adèle also brought intelligence about the Conceçáo-de-Santo-Antonio, a 64-gun ship of the line armed en flûte, which was in Goa preparatory to sailing for Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon. Surcouf sent Portier to intercept, and Revenant departed Port-Louis on 30 April. She arrived in her patrol zone on 17 May and sighted her prey on the 24th. Revenant captured Conceçáo-de-Santo-Antonio after a one-hour battle. Potier gave Conceçáo a prize crew under First Lieutenant Fonroc, and returned to Mauritius one month later with his prize.

Surcouf then planned to send Revenant back to France en aventurier with colonial goods.

French naval service
General Charles Decaen, governor of Isle de France, requisitioned Revenant on 4 July. The government renamed her Iéna, and gave command of her to Lieutenant Nicolas Morice, with Lieutenant de vaisseau Albin Roussin as second officer. Surcouf had an altercation with Decaen but had to accept the requisitioning of his ship. Surcouf eventually purchased Sémillante, which he renamed Charles, to return to France with his goods.

800px-Grand_Port_mg6978.jpg
Detail of Battle of Grand Port: From left to right: French frigate Minerve, Victor (background) and Ceylon Oil on canvas

Capture by the Royal Navy
Iéna set sail to cruise the Persian Gulf and Bay of Bengal. On 8 October 1808, off the Sandheads near the mouth of the Ganges river, she was chased by the 44-gun HMS Modeste, under Captain George Elliot, which caught the Iéna after 9 hours. A night battle followed at musket range; after two and a half hours, Iéna was crippled, dismasted and leaking water, and struck her colours. Iéna had no casualties, while Modeste had her master killed and a seaman wounded. The Royal Navy commissioned Iéna as the 18-gun ship sloop HMS Victor, initially under Commander Thomas Grout and subsequently under Captain Edward Stopford.

On 2 May 1809, under Stopford's command, she departed from the Sandheads with a convoy of five Indiamen and several smaller vessels. On 24 May a storm split the convoy and Victor and the small ships separately lost touch with the Indiamen. Two of the Indiamen, Monarch and Earl Spencer, deviated to Penang with Earl Spencer accompanying Monarch, which had developed a bad leak and needed to reach a port to repair. The three remaining Indiamen, Streatham, Europe, and Lord Keith continued on their way while hoping to meet up with Victor. They did not and the French frigate Caroline captured Streatham and Europe in the action of 31 May 1809; Lord Keith escaped.

Recapture by the French Navy
On 2 November 1809, Victor, still under Stopford's command, encountered the 44-gun frigate Bellone, under Guy-Victor Duperré; Victor struck after a long chase and a brief but spirited resistance that cost her two men wounded. Bellone took her to Isle de France, where she was repaired and recommissioned as Victor in the French Navy, under Lieutenant Nicolas Morice.

On 21 February, she sailed for a cruise in the Indian Ocean and the Mozambique Channel in a squadron comprised Bellone and Minerve] under Pierre Bouvet. There, she took part in the Action of 3 July 1810, contributing to the capture of the East Indiamen Windham and Ceylon.

Upon their return to Île de France, the French squadron encountered a British frigate squadron attempting to seize the island. In the ensuing Battle of Grand Port, Revenant was used as a support ship, behind the French line of battle, as her armament was weaker than that of the more powerful frigates.

On 17–18 September 1810, along with Vénus, she captured the 40-gun HMS Ceylon. Vénus and Ceylon were damaged in the battle, and the next day a British squadron composed of HMS Boadicea, HMS Otter, and the brig HMS Staunch captured Vénus and Ceylon; Revenant managed to escape.

Fate
The British again captured Revenant when Isle de France fell on 3 December 1810. She was not restored to service but instead was broken up.


Bellone was a 44-gun Consolante-class frigate of the French Navy.

Class and type: Consolante-class frigate
Displacement: 1320 tonnes
Tons burthen: 109183⁄94 (bm)
Length: 48.75 metres (159.9 ft)
Beam: 12.2 metres (40 ft)
Draught: 5.9 metres (19 ft)
Armament:
1280px-Grand_Port_mg6974.jpg
Bellone at the Battle of Grand Port.

French service
Bellone, under the command of Guy-Victor Duperré, departed Saint-Malo on 18 January 1809, bound for the Indian Ocean. She sailed from La Réunion for a combat patrol in August. On 2 November she captured HMS Victor. Twenty days later, she captured the 48-gun Portuguese Minerva after a 2-hour battle. Bellone sailed back to La Réunion with her prize, arriving on 2 January 1810.

In April 1810, the squadron comprising Bellone, Minerve and Victor departed for another patrol, during which they fought the Action of 3 July 1810 and the Battle of Grand Port.

Bellone was surrendered to the British when Île de France fell, on 4 December 1810.

British service
Bellone was recommissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Junon.

In June 1812, Junon escorted a convoy from Portsmouth to India.

On 8 February 1813, nine boats and 200 men of the squadron of which Junon was part captured the letter of marque schooner Lottery. Lottery was of 210 tons burthen (bm), copper-bottomed and fastened, and carried six 12-pounder carronades, though she was pierced for 16 cannon. Her crew put up a strong defense with the result that the British cutting out party suffered six men wounded, half severely or dangerously, one of whom died later; Junon herself suffered two men wounded. The Americans suffered 19 men wounded, including their captain, John Southcomb, before they struck. Southcomb died of his wounds and his body was taken ashore. Lottery had been carrying a cargo of coffee, sugar and lumber from Baltimore to Bordeaux. A week later Lottery convoyed several prizes to Bermuda. The Royal Navy took Lottery into service as HMS Canso.

In June, Bellone's boats raided the James River, and she sustained attack by US gunboats.

On 3 April 1814, as she sailed with HMS Tenedos, she encountered the USS Constitution, which fled at all sail, dropping drinking water and food overboard, and eventually making it to Marblehead harbour.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_corvette_Revenant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Bellone_(1807)
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
2 November 1865 – Launch of Ville du Havre, a French iron steamship that operated round trips between the northern coast of France and New York City.


Ville du Havre was a French iron steamship that operated round trips between the northern coast of France and New York City. Launched in November 1865 under her original name of Napoléon III, she was converted from a paddle steamer to single propeller propulsion in 1871 and, in recognition of the recent defeat of her imperial namesake, the Emperor Napoleon III, was renamed Ville du Havre.

In the early hours of 22 November 1873, Ville du Havre collided with the Scottish three-masted iron clipper, Loch Earn and sank in 12 minutes with the loss of 226 lives. Only 61 passengers and 26 crew members survived, rescued by Loch Earn and subsequently, an American vessel, the Tremountain.

Ville_du_Havre.jpg

Ville du Havre.jpg
SS Ville du Havre

History and description
The Napoleon III was originally built as a paddle steamer by Thames Ironworks, London (engines by Ravenshill & Salked, London) in late 1865 for the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique (French Line). She was a 3,950 gross ton ship, length 365.9ft with 45.9ft beam, straight stem, two funnels, two masts, iron construction, paddle wheel propulsion and a cruising speed of 11.5 knots.

There was accommodation for 170 first class, 100 second class and 50 third class passengers. Launched in November 1865, she sailed on her maiden voyage from Havre for Brestand New York City on 26 April 1866. She made five round voyages on this service, the last commencing in August 1869.

In September 1871, she sailed from Havre to Tyneside in Northern England where she was lengthened to 421.7ft by A. Leslie and Company, Hebburn-on-Tyne and her tonnage increased to 5,065 tons. She was also fitted with compound steam engines and rebuilt with single screw propulsion, and the paddle wheels were removed. A third mast was also fitted and after completion of the works she was renamed Ville du Havre. Following sea trials, she recommenced her Havre – Brest – New York service in early 1873.

Final voyage and sinking
On 15 November 1873, the Ville du Havre sailed from New York with 313 passengers and crew on board, under the command of captain Marino Surmonte. After a week's steaming across the Atlantic ocean, she collided with the iron clipper, Loch Earn at about 2 am in the morning of Saturday, 22 November at the position 47°21′N 35°31′W. At the time of the collision, Ville du Havre was proceeding under both steam and sail at about 12 knots.

Sinking.jpg
The sinking of Ville du Havre

The captain of the Loch Earn, after first sighting the Ville du Havre and realising she was dangerously close, rang the ship's bell and ported his helm. The helm of the Loch Earn was put to starboard, but Ville du Havre came right across the Loch Earn's bow. The Ville du Havre was violently shaken by the collision and noise, and woke all the passengers. Confused, most passengers went on deck, only to discover the ship was rapidly sinking. The captain assured them that all was fine, but in reality the cruiser had been nearly broken in two, and it didn't take long for passengers to realize the situation was desperate. Commotion and chaos overtook panicked passengers. They started grabbing life preservers and trying to push lifeboats into the water. Unfortunately, these had recently been painted, and they were now stuck fast to the deck. Finally a few of them were yanked loose, and passengers fought desperately to be one of the few travelers to board those rescue boats.

Shortly after the collision, Ville du Havre's main and mizzen masts collapsed, smashing two of the liner's life boats and killing several people. The time for saving life was very short as the ship sank in less than 12 minutes, and finally broke into two pieces as she went.[8] Captain Robertson of the Loch Earn did all he possibly could to rescue the drowning and eventually 61 passengers and 26 of the crew were rescued and taken on board that ship. However, 226 passengers and crew perished.

The Loch Earn, herself in danger of sinking, was subsequently rescued by the American cargo ship, Tremountain and all Ville du Havre passengers and crew were transferred to that ship. The Loch Earn, with its bow smashed in, commenced to sink as the bulkheads gave way, so she was abandoned at sea by her crew and sank shortly afterwards.

Notable passengers

Inscription on Peckham's cenotaph at Albany Rural Cemetery

Rufus Wheeler Peckham, a judge and Democratic Congressman from New York, was on board and lost his life. Travelling with his second wife, Mary, the couple were en route to southern France to improve his failing health. Peckham's last words were reported to be "Wife, we have to die, let us die bravely." His remains were never recovered, and his cenotaph (pictured) was erected at Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York.

Also on the ship was young Princeton graduate Hamilton Murray, his sister Martha, and their friend, Mrs. Catherine Woolsey Platt, a niece of Commodore Melancthon Taylor Woolsey. All three were lost. The Hamilton Murray theater at Princeton (longtime home of Theatre Intime) is named in his honor.

Ville-du-Havre,_from_Robert_N._Dennis_collection_of_stereoscopic_views.jpg

Spafford family tragedy
Chicago lawyer and Presbyterian elder Horatio Spafford was to have been a passenger on board Ville du Havre. At the last moment, however, Spafford was detained by real estate business, so his Norwegian-born wife, Anna Spafford, went on ahead for Paris. The couple's four daughters: Anna “Annie” (born June 11, 1862), Margaret Lee “Maggie” (born May 31, 1864), Elizabeth “Bessie” (born June 19, 1868), and Tanetta (born July 24, 1871) accompanied her.

After the collision, only Mrs. Spafford was rescued. She was picked up unconscious and floating upon a plank of wood and then taken aboard the Loch Earn.

A fellow survivor, Pastor Weiss, later quoted Mrs. Spafford as saying, "God gave me four daughters. Now they have been taken from me. Someday I will understand why".

Nine days after the shipwreck, the survivors landed at Cardiff, Wales. Mrs. Spafford telegraphed her husband, "Saved alone. What shall I do . . .". Upon receiving her telegram, Horatio Spafford immediately left Chicago to bring his wife home. During the Atlantic crossing, the Captain called Spafford into his cabin to tell him that they were passing over the spot where his four daughters had drowned.

Spafford later wrote to Rachel, his wife's half-sister, "On Thursday last we passed over the spot where she went down, in mid-ocean, the waters three miles deep. But I do not think of our dear ones there. They are safe, folded, the dear lambs". During that same voyage, Spafford composed the beloved Protestant hymn It Is Well with My Soul. Philip Bliss, who composed the music for the hymn, called his tune Ville du Havre, after the sunken vessel.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Ville_du_Havre
http://undereverytombstone.blogspot.com/2016/04/lost-at-sea-on-ville-du-havre-william.html
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
2 November 1899 - The protected cruiser USS Charleston runs aground on an uncharted reef near Camiguin Island north of Luzon. Wrecked beyond salvage, she is abandoned by her crew who make camp on a nearby island. Charleston was the first steel-hulled ship lost by the US Navy.


The second USS Charleston (C-2) was a United States Navy protected cruiser — the fourth US protected cruiser to be built. Lacking experience in building steel cruisers, the design was purchased from the British company Armstrong, Mitchell and Co. of Newcastle, the construction to be by an American shipyard. In design, she succeeded the "ABC" cruisers Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago with better protection, higher speed, and similar armament.

She was launched on 19 July 1888 by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, California, sponsored by Mrs. A. S. Smith, and commissioned on 26 December 1889, Captain George C. Remey in command

c0201.jpg

Design and construction
Charleston was built with plans purchased from Armstrong, a British manufacturer, which were similar to the Armstrong-built Japanese cruiser Naniwa and launched in 1885. USS Baltimore was also built to Armstrong plans. Building Charleston's propulsion machinery proved troublesome; apparently it was a combination of components of several different plants. Union Iron Works had to make costly changes in order to build the ship.

Charleston was armed with two 8-inch (203 mm)/35 caliber Mark 3 guns, one each in bow and stern barbettes, and six 6-inch (152 mm)/30 caliber Mark 3 guns[5] in sponsons along the sides. The 8-inch guns were initially unavailable, so from her commissioning in 1889 until a refit in 1891 they were replaced by four additional 6-inch guns. Secondary armament was four 6-pounder (2.2 in (57 mm)) guns, two 3-pounder (1.85 in (47 mm)) Hotchkiss revolving cannon, two 1-pounder (1.5 in (37 mm)) Hotchkiss revolving cannon, and two .45 caliber (11.4 mm) Gatling guns. Four 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo tubes were included in the design but never mounted

Charleston had 3 in (76 mm) gun shields, 2 in (51 mm) barbettes, and a 2 in (51 mm) conning tower. The complete armored deck was up to 3 in (76 mm) on its sloped sides and 2 in (51 mm) in the middle.

The engineering plant included six coal-fired cylindrical boilers producing steam for two horizontal compound engines totaling 7,500 ihp (5,600 kW) for a speed of 18.2 knots(33.7 km/h; 20.9 mph) on trials. Charleston was the last US Navy ship with the older compound engine design; later ships had more powerful and efficient triple expansion engines. Unlike some contemporary designs, no sails were fitted. Charleston carried 328 tons of coal for a range of 2,990 nmi (5,540 km; 3,440 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph); this could be increased to 682 tons for 7,477 nmi (13,847 km; 8,604 mi).

c2.jpg

Service history
Pacific, 1890–96
Charleston cleared Mare Island Navy Yard on 10 April 1890 to join the Pacific Squadron as flagship, cruising in the eastern Pacific. She carried the remains of King David Kalakaua of Hawaii to Honolulu after his death in San Francisco, and between 8 May and 4 June 1891, took part in the search for the Chilean steamer Itata which had fled San Diego in violation of the American neutrality laws, enforced strictly during the 1891 Chilean Civil War. Between 19 August and 31 December 1891, Charleston cruised in the Far East as flagship of the Asiatic Squadron, rejoining the Pacific Squadron in 1892 until 7 October, when she departed for the east coast, calling at a number of South American ports en route.

Charleston arrived in Hampton Roads on 23 February 1893. From here she sailed with other American and foreign ships to the International Naval Review conducted at New York City on 26 April 1893 as part of the Columbian Exposition. Taking the review was President Grover Cleveland in despatch vessel USS Dolphin. In the fall of 1893, Charleston turned south to join the strong force patrolling the east coast of South America to protect American interests and shipping from disturbance during the Brazilian Revolution. After a leisurely cruise from Montevideo, Uruguay, she arrived in San Francisco on 8 July 1894 to prepare for a return to the Asiatic Station. She cruised in the Far East until 6 June 1896, when she steamed from Yokohama for San Francisco where she was placed out of commission on 27 July 1896.

c0212.jpg

Spanish–American War, 1898–99
Upon the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Charleston was quickly made ready for service, and was recommissioned on 5 May 1898, Captain Henry Glass, Commanding. Sixteen days later, she sailed for Honolulu, where she was joined by three chartered steamers transporting troops, including City of Peking.

Charleston was sent to raise the American flag over Guam, then a Spanish possession. At daybreak on 20 June, the little convoy arrived off the north end of Guam. Charlestoninvestigated the harbor at Agana, then proceeded to Apra Harbor. Leaving the transports safely anchored outside, Charleston sailed boldly into the harbor, firing a challenge at Fort Santa Cruz. Almost at once, a boatload of Spanish authorities came out to apologize for having no gunpowder with which to return the presumed salute. They were astounded to learn that a state of war existed, and that the American ships had come to take the island. The next day the surrender was received by a landing party sent ashore from Charleston. With the Spanish governor and the island's garrison of 69 as prisoners in one of the transports, Charleston then sailed to join Admiral George Dewey's fleet in Manila Bay.

She arrived Manila on 30 June 1898 to reinforce the victors of the previous month's great naval battle in their close blockade of the Bay. Charleston joined in the final bombardment of 13 August, which brought about the surrender of the city of Manila. She remained in the Philippines through 1898 and 1899, bombarding insurgent positions to aid Army forces advancing ashore, and taking part in the naval expedition that captured Subic Bay in September 1899.

c0203.jpg

Loss by wrecking, November 1899
Charleston grounded on an uncharted reef near Camiguin Island north of Luzon on 2 November 1899. Wrecked beyond salvage, she was abandoned by all her crew, who made camp on a nearby island, later moving on to Camiguin while the ship's sailing launch was sent for help. On 12 November, gunboat Helena (PG-9) arrived to rescue the shipwrecked men. Charleston was the first steel-hulled ship lost by the US Navy


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Charleston_(C-2)
http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/c2/c2.htm
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other EVENTS on 2 November


1678 – Launch of French Ecueil 40–44 at Le Havre – sold 1689

Ecueil, 40–44 guns, design by Etienne Salicon, launched 2 November 1678 at Le Havre – sold 1689.


1780 - HMS Zephyr (1779 - 14), Cptn, John Inglis, took French corvette Senegal (18), Lt. D'Allery, off Barra Point at the entrance of the River Gambia. The French set fire to an armed transport and two sloops before the engagement.

HMS Zephyr (1779), launched in 1779, was a 14-gun sloop. She was renamed Navy Transport in 1782, and then Dispatch in 1783 before being sold in 1798.

1790 – Completion of HMS Circe, a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.

HMS Circe was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1785 but not completed or commissioned until 1790. She then served in the English Channel on the blockade of French ports before she was wrecked in 1803.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Circe_(1785)


1806 - Boats of HMS Pique (40), Charles Bayne Hodgson Ross, took one privateer and destroyed another off Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rica.

HMS Pique was formerly the French ship Pallas, a 36-gun fifth rate, captured in 1800 by a squadron off the coast of France. She was initially named HMS Aeolus but renamed to Pique in 1801. Because Pique served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (2 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal, which the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants. She was sold for breaking up in 1819.


1846 – Death of Guy-Victor Duperré (20 February 1775, La Rochelle – 2 November 1846, Paris) was a French naval officer and Admiral of France

Guy-Victor Duperré (20 February 1775, La Rochelle – 2 November 1846, Paris) was a French naval officer and Admiral of France.[1]

Duperré famously commanded naval forces in the Mauritius Campaign and was victorious in the Battle of Grand Port, where he was wounded. Later he had a command in the Mediterranean and continued to serve during and after the Bourbon Restoration. He commanded the naval elements of the expeditionary force that carried out the Invasion of Algiers in 1830 and went on to become Minister of the Navy three times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy-Victor_Duperré


1856 - French passenger steamer Lyonnais collided with a barque near Nantucket and sunk the following day. 130 out of 146 on board died.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyonnais_(Schiff)


1864 - During the Civil War, Union paddle-wheelers Key West and Tawah encounter transports Undine and Venus, which the Confederates captured three days earlier on the Tennessee River. After a heated running engagement, Venus is retaken. Undine is badly damaged but manages to escape and gains the protection of Confederate batteries at Reynoldsburg Island, near Johnsonville, Tenn.

Tawah, Key West and Elfin lose a duel with superior Confederate batteries

Mississippi_Squadron_Gunboats.jpg
USS Key West at left

On 2 November at Johnsonville, Tennessee, Key West assisted Tawah in recapturing transport Venus, taken along with Undine and Cheeseman by the Confederates there 30 October. On 4 November Key West, Tawah, and Elfin were caught in a narrow, shallow section of the river near Johnsonville by a Confederate force under General Nathan B. Forrest. After a vigorous action in which Key West was hit 19 times by rifled artillery, the three Union gunboats, riddled and almost out of ammunition, were set afire and scuttled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Key_West_(1862)


1899 - Launch of HMS Venerable, a ship of line of Formidable-class of Royal Navy.

HMS Venerable (1899) was a London-class pre-dreadnought battleship, a sub-class of the Formidable-class battleships, and the third ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name. Built at Chatham Dockyard, her keel was laid down in January 1899 and she was launched eleven months later. Her main battery consisted of four 12-inch (305-mm) guns, and she had top speed of 18 knots. Commissioned in November 1902, Venerable served in the Mediterranean Fleet until 1908, and was subsequently recommissioned into the Channel Fleet. Following a major refit in 1909, she served with the Atlantic and Home Fleets. After the outbreak of World War I, she took part in defensive and offensive operations with the Channel Fleet. She saw service in the Dardanelles in 1915, and then in the Adriatic through 1916. That December, she returned to England, and was refitted as a depot ship in 1918. She was sold for scrap in 1921.

HMS_Venerable.jpg

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Venerable_(1899)


1942 - MV Zaandam, 1939–1942 — With passengers and 9200 tons of cargo was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean 300 nautical miles (560 km) north of Cape Sao Roque, Brazil, with the loss of 134 of the 299 people on board

ZAANDAM_JPG.jpg
M S Zaandam, torpedoed in 1943

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaandam_(schip,_1939)


1943 - In the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, U.S. cruisers and destroyers of Task Force 39, commanded by Rear Adm. Aaron S. Merrill, turn back Japanese forces as they try to attack invasion shipping off Bougainville. This action, with its successful use of radar to manage U.S. forces, marks the end of Japan's previous advantage in night engagement.


1943 - USS Halibut (SS 232), USS Seahorse (SS 304), and USS Trigger (SS 237), all operating independently of each other, attack a Japanese convoy south of Honshu and sink five enemy vessels.


1983 – Launch of Rossiya (Russian: Россия), a Russian Arktika-class nuclear-powered icebreaker

Rossiya (Russian: Россия) is a Russian Arktika-class nuclear-powered icebreaker.
During the winter of 2012-2013, Rossiya was stationed in the Gulf of Finland.
According to Bellona, Rossiya was taken out of service in 2013 and is currently in "cold lay-up" awaiting disposal

1024px-Ледокол_Россия_в_плавучем_доке.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossiya_(icebreaker)
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
3 November 1758 – Launch of HMS Temple, a 68-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy,


HMS Temple was a 68-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 3 November 1758 at Hull.

large.jpg
Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for 'Conqueror' (1758) and 'Temple' (1758), both 68-gun Third Rate, two-deckers, based on the design for 'Vanguard' (1748), a 1745 Establishment 68-gun Third Rate, two-decker.

Commissioned in January 1759 under the command of Washington Shirley, she saw service at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in November.

The following year, in March 1760, she sailed for the West Indies under Captain Lucius O'Brien. With the aid of the cutter Griffin, in September of that year she recaptured the sloop Virgin off Grenada.

Temple operated as part of the fleet at the capture of Havana in 1762, under the command of Julian Legge. However, in December of that year, she foundered at sea and was lost.

large (1).jpg
Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile for 'Vanguard' (1748), a 1745 Establishment 68-gun Third Rate, two-decker, and later altered in September 1757 for building 'Temple' (1758) and 'Conqueror' (1758), both 68-gun Third Rate, two-deckers.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81218.html#ieqwLuwlSQL0McQ7.99



The Temple class ships were two 68-gun third rates designed for the Royal Navy to the lines of the Vanguard of 1748, i.e. to the outdated 1745 Establishment. The Temple class ships were the last 68-gun ships to be built - both by commercial contract - to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment.

Type: 68-gun third rate ship of the line
Tons burthen: 1422 bm
Length:
  • 160 ft 0 in (48.8 m) (gundeck)
  • 132 ft 0 in (40.2 m) (keel)
Beam: 45 ft 0 in (13.7 m)
Depth of hold: 19 ft 4 in (5.9 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 520 officers and men
Armament:
  • 68 guns:
  • Gundeck: 26 × 32 pdrs
  • Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs
  • Quarterdeck: 12 × 9 pdrs
  • Forecastle: 2 × 9 pdrs


Ships
Builder: Hugh Blaydes, Hull
Ordered: 9 September 1756
Laid down: 17 November 1755
Launched: 3 November 1758
Completed: 11 March 1759
Fate: Foundered off Cape Clear, 18 December 1762
Builder: John Barnard & John Turner, Harwich
Ordered: 11 January 1757
Laid down: 9 February 1757
Launched: 24 May 1758
Completed: 3 February 1759 at Harwich, then 15 March 1759 at Portsmouth
Fate:Wrecked in Plymouth Sound, 26 October 1760


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Temple
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-353306;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=T
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple-class_ship_of_the_line
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
3 November 1839 - The First Battle of Chuenpi


The First Battle of Chuenpi was a naval engagement fought between British and Chinese ships at the entrance of the Humen strait (Bogue), Guangdong province, China, on 3 November 1839 during the First Opium War. The battle began when the British frigates HMS Hyacinth and HMS Volage opened fire on Chinese ships they perceived as being hostile.

Volage_&_Hyacinth_in_Chuenpee.jpg
Watercolor of HMS Volage and HMS Hyacinth confront Chinese war junks at Chuenpee, 3 November 1839.

Background
For foreign ships to be allowed to dock in Canton (Guangzhou) for trade, Chinese authorities required a signed bond agreeing not to trade opium. Captain Charles Elliot, Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China, ordered British ships not to sign the bond because if opium was found, the cargo would be confiscated and the perpetrators executed. This in turn interfered with the trade of British merchantmen in China. In October 1839 a cargo ship, the Thomas Coutts, arrived in Canton from Singapore. The ship carried cotton from Bombay, and, since the captain was not trading opium, he defied Elliot's request and signed the Chinese bond. He held a legal view that Elliot's ban on the signing was not valid under English law.

Indiaman_Thomas_Coutts.jpg
Thomas Coutts in 1836

Before Warner left China, Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu gave him a letter addressed to Queen Victoria in which he disapproved the use of opium and requested the opium trade to stop. After arriving in London, he handed the letter to a co-owner of the Thomas Coutts, who asked for an appointment with Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston. After Palmerston's office refused to see him, Warner forwarded the letter to The Times, which published it.[5] Viewing Warner's defiance as a threat to his authority, Elliot ordered HMS Hyacinth and HMS Volage to be positioned 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the Chuenpi battery on 27 October to blockade any other British ships bound for Canton.

Battle

First_Battle_of_Chuanbi.jpg
Volage and Hyacinth in Chuenpi

After a second British ship, Royal Saxon, tried to defy Elliot's blockade on 3 November 1839, Volage under Captain Henry Smith fired a warning shot across the Royal Saxon's bow. In response, Chinese war junks under Admiral Guan Tianpei moved out to protect Royal Saxon. After Elliot gave in to Smith's pressure for an attack, the more maneuverable British ships approached the Chinese vessels and fired broadsides at them from starboard.

Chuenpee_battle_1839.jpg
Depiction of the battle by Captain Peter William Hamilton

Smith wrote, "I did not conceive that it would be becoming the dignity of our flag, the safety of the merchant shipping below, and my own character, to retire before such an imposing force, sent out at that moment evidently for the purpose of intimidation."[6] According to a Chinese account by Wei Yuan, "five of our war-ships went to preserve order on the sea-board" and "the English mistook our red flags for a declaration of war, and opened fire;—for in Europe a red flag means war, and a white one peace."

One Chinese fire raft immediately sank, and a war junk exploded after its magazine was struck. After the first run, the Volage and Hyacinth turned and repeated the same maneuver using their port broadsides. The stationary guns on the Chinese vessels could not be aimed effectively. One junk was blown up, three were sunk, and several others were damaged. Faced with superior firepower, the Chinese fleet sailed away except for Kuan's 12-cannon flagship, which returned fire. Since it posed a minimal threat, Elliot ordered Smith to stop firing, allowing the damaged flagship to sail off. The Volage sustained light damage on its sails and rigging, and the mizzen-mast of the Hyacinth was hit by a 12-pound (5.4 kg) ball. One British sailor was wounded and 15 Chinese were killed.

Aftermath
The Royal Saxon sailed on to Canton and Elliot returned to Macau. Historian Bruce A. Elleman wrote, "the origin of this battle was not even between the British and the Chinese, but was really as a result of the British Navy fighting to stop one of Elliot's own British ships that had refused to uphold his free-trade principles. The 'Battle of Chuanbi,' perhaps more than any other conflict during the Opium War, vividly revealed the underlying free-trade tensions."


Royal Saxon was a British merchant ship built at Liverpool in 1829. She carried cargo and passengers to India, Australia, and the Far East.[2][3] In 1839 Royal Saxon attempted to violate a Royal Navy blockade of Canton and inadvertently became the direct cause of the Battle of Chuenpi and consequently the First Opium War.[4] She is last listed in Lloyd's Register in 1857.

First Opium War
By 1839 the opium trade was causing great tension between the British Empire and the Qing dynasty. The Chinese were concerned with the effects of opium on the general population and as such banned the substance. This action lead to the destruction of opium at Humen, an event which caused relations between Britain and China to deteriorate further. Charles Elliot, Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China, ordered British ships trading in opium to avoid Chinese ports or face sanction. However, when the Qing government issued a bond that required foreign merchants to not deal in opium if they wanted to do business in China, Elliot ordered all British shipping out of Chinese waters. Many merchants (especially those who did not participate in the opium trade) reacted negatively to Elliot's decision, feeling that the decree infringed upon their rights to trade freely. One merchant ship, the Quaker-owned Thomas Coutts, arrived in China and successfully unloaded its cargo at Canton. The Chinese allowed the merchant ship to conduct its business as it was known that the Quakers refused to deal in opium. In response to this violation, Elliot ordered a blockade of the Pearl River.

On 3 November 1839 Royal Saxon attempted to sail past the blockade and into Canton. The British warships HMS Volage and HMS Hyacinth moved to intercept the merchant, and Volage fired a warning shot across Saxon's bow. In response to this action, a fleet of Chinese war junks under the command of Guan Tianpeisailed out to protect Royal Saxon. The Chinese and British ships fired on each other, beginning what would be known as the First Battle of Chuenpi. Royal Saxonherself was not involved in the action and slipped into Canton under the cover provided by the Chinese fleet.

Later service
Royal Saxon continued her career as a merchant and passenger ship. From 1841 to 1844 she transported colonists and freight to Australia.[2][3][7] She is last listed in 1857 with homeport Sydney, H. Jackson, master, Towns, owner, and trade London_Sydney.


HMS Hyacinth was an 18-gun Royal Navy ship sloop. She was launched in 1829 and surveyed the north-eastern coast of Australia under Francis Price Blackwood during the mid-1830s. She took part in the First Opium War, destroying, with HMS Volage, 29 Chinese junks. She became a coal hulk at Portland in 1860 and was broken up in 1871.

HMS Volage was a Sixth-rate Sailing frigate launched in 1825 for the British Royal Navy.
Volage served as the lead ship in the Aden Expedition due to her being the largest and best armed of the ships assembled.
In 1831, Volage was docked in Rio de Janeiro (at the time capital of the Empire of Brazil) alongside HMS Warspite. Volage was the vessel that took Dom Pedro I, who had just abdicated the Brazilian throne, to Portugal, in order to face his brother Dom Miguel in the context of the ongoing Portuguese Civil War of 1828-1834.
Volage fought in the Battle of Chuenpi during the First Opium War under the command of Captain Henry Smith. In 1847 she was converted into a survey ship. Volage was deployed to the Baltic during the Crimean War. At one point geologist Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt served aboard her.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chuenpi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Saxon_(1829_ship)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hyacinth_(1829)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Volage_(1825)
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
3 November 1883 – Launch of SMS Adler, a gunboat of the Imperial German Navy.


SMS Adler was a gunboat of the Imperial German Navy. She was launched 3 November 1883 in the Imperial shipyard in Kiel. On 5 September 1888, she shelled Manono Islandand Apolima, Samoa, which were strongholds of Malietoa’s forces. She was wrecked together with the German gunboat SMS Eber, the German corvette SMS Olga, the United States Navy gunboat USS Nipsic, the U.S. Navy screw steamer USS Trenton, and the U.S. Navy sloop-of-war USS Vandalia on 16 March 1889 in a hurricane at Apia, Samoa, during the Samoan crisis. Twenty crew members lost their lives.

Adlerbeforestorm.jpg
The German ship Adler before being destroyed by a hurricane

Class and type: Habicht Klasse (Hawk class)
Displacement: 880 tonnes (870 long tons)/1,040 tonnes (1,020 long tons)
Length: 61.8 m (202 ft 9 in) o/a
Beam: 8.8 m (28 ft 10 in)
Draught: 3.11–4.02 m (10 ft 2 in–13 ft 2 in) (bow-stern)
Propulsion: 4 cylinder, coal-fired, double expansion steam engine
Speed: 11 kn (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Range: 2,000 nmi (3,700 km; 2,300 mi) at 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph)
Complement: 7 officers, 126 men
Armament:
  • 5 × 12.5 cm (4.9 in) built-up guns
  • 5 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) revolver guns

German gunboat Adler. Overturned on the reef, on the western side of Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, soon after the storm. Note her battered hull, the well for her hoisting propeller, a rescue buoy mounted on her stern, and decorative windows painted on her quarters.
SMS_Adler_1889_1.jpg

SMS_Adler_1889_2.jpg

The wreck around 1938
SMS_Adler_1889_3.jpg

The 1889 Apia cyclone was a tropical cyclone in the South Pacific Ocean, which swept across Apia, Samoa on March 15, 1889, during the Samoan crisis. The effect on shipping in the harbour was devastating, largely because of what has been described as 'an error of judgement that will forever remain a paradox in human psychology'.

SMS_Eber_1889_1.jpg
Wrecked ships in Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa soon after the storm. The view looks northwestward, with the shattered bow of the German gunboat Eber on the beach in the foreground. The stern of USS Trenton is at right, with the sunken USS Vandaliaalongside. The German gunboat SMS Adler is on her side in the center distance. Trenton 's starboard quarter gallery has been largely ripped away.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Adler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889_Apia_cyclone
 
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