Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
9th of April
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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 8 April 1807 – Launch of Charlemagne, a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, part of the shorter Borée subtype. Charlemagne was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, part of the shorter...
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1782 - The Battle of the Saintes (known to the French as the Bataille de la Dominique), or Battle of Dominica,
was an important naval battle in the Caribbean between the British and the French that took place 9 April 1782 – 12 April 1782, during the American Revolutionary War.
British under Rodney decisively defeat French under de Grasse in the West Indies
The
Battle of the Saintes (known to the French as the
Bataille de la Dominique), or
Battle of Dominica, was an important naval battle in the Caribbean between the British and the French that took place 9 April 1782 – 12 April 1782, during the
American Revolutionary War.
[1] The
British fleet under Admiral Sir
George Rodney defeated a
French fleet under the
Comte de Grasse, forcing the French and Spanish to abandon a planned invasion of
Jamaica.
[5]
The battle is named after the
Saintes (or Saints), a group of islands between
Guadeloupe and
Dominica in the
West Indies. The French fleet had the year before blockaded the
British Army at Chesapeake Bay during the
Siege of Yorktown and supported the eventual American victory in their revolution.
The French suffered heavy casualties at the Saintes and many were taken prisoner, including the admiral, Comte de Grasse. Four French ships of the line were captured (including the
flagship) and one was destroyed. Rodney was credited with pioneering the tactic of "
breaking the line" in the battle, though this is disputed.
The end of the César, by
François Aimé Louis Dumoulin
The view from
Lady Juliana on the morning after the hurricane, featuring
Glorieux along with
HMS Centaur and
HMS Ville de Paris
1796 – Launch of HMS Ardent, a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, at Northfleet.
HMS Ardent was a 64-gun
third rate ship of the line of the
Royal Navy, launched on 9 April 1796 at
Northfleet. She had been designed and laid down for the British
East India Company who was going to name her
Princess Royal, but the Navy purchased her before launching, for service as a warship in the
French Revolutionary War.
1799 - HMS San Fiorenzo (38), and HMS Amelia (38), engaged three French frigates, Cornelie, Vengeance and Semillante, off Belle Isle.
On 9 April 1799, after reconnoitering two French frigates in L'Orient, St Fiorenzo and HMS Amelia sailed towards Belle Île. Conditions were hazy and although Neale had sighted some vessels, it was only when he had passed the island that he discovered three French frigates and a large gun vessel. At that instant a sudden squall carried away Amelia's main-top-mast and fore and mizzen top-gallant masts; the fall of the main-top-mast tore away much of the mainsail from the yard. Neale shortened St Fiorenzo's sail and ordered Amelia to keep close to St Fiorenzo to maintain the weather gage, and to prepare for battle. An action commenced but the French vessels avoided close-quarter action and, although the British ships came under fire from shore batteries, they had to bear down on the French three times to engage them. After nearly two hours the French wore ship and sailed away to take refuge in the Loire, with the gun-vessel returning to Belle Île.
Amelia lost two killed and 17 wounded in the engagement. St Fiorenzo lost one man killed and eighteen wounded.
That evening St Fiorenzo captured a French brig and learned that the French frigates were the Vengeance, Sémillante and Cornélie. The British further learned that Cornélie had lost some 100 men dead and wounded, with one of the wounded being her commodore. Later reports mentioned that Captain Caro of Vengeance had been mortally wounded and that Sémillante had 15 dead.
1807 – Launch of French Commerce de Lyon, a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy
1868 – Launch of French ironclad Atalante, a wooden-hulled armored corvette built for the French Navy in the mid-1860s.
The
French ironclad Atalante was a wooden-hulled armored
corvette built for the
French Navy in the mid-1860s. She played a minor role in the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870, bombarded Vietnamese forts during the
Battle of Thuận An in 1884 and participated in the
Sino-French War of 1884–85.
Atalante was reduced to reserve in Saigon in 1885 and sank there two years later after having been condemned.
1887 – Launch of HMS Victoria, the lead ship in her class of two battleships of the Royal Navy.
On 22 June 1893, she collided with HMS Camperdown near Tripoli, Lebanon, during manoeuvres and quickly sank, killing 358 crew members, including the commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon.
HMS Victoria was the lead ship in her class of two battleships of the Royal Navy. On 22 June 1893, she collided with HMS
Camperdown near Tripoli, Lebanon, during manoeuvres and quickly sank, killing 358 crew members, including the commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon. One of the survivors was executive officer John Jellicoe, later commander-in-chief of the British Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland.
Victoria sinking after the collision, taken from HMS
Collingwood. HMS
Nile on the left.
1906 – Launch of French Ernest Renan, an armored cruiser built for the French Navy in the first decade of the 20th century.
Ernest Renan was an
armored cruiser built for the
French Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. At the outbreak of
World War I in August 1914, she participated in the hunt for the German
battlecruiser SMS Goeben and then joined the
blockade of the
Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic. She took part in the
Battle of Antivari later in August, and the seizure of
Corfu in January 1916, but saw no further action during the war. After the war, the British and French
intervened in the Russian Civil War; this included a major naval deployment to the
Black Sea, which included
Ernest Renan. She served as a
training ship in the late 1920s before she was sunk as a
target ship in the 1930s.
1910 – Launch of HMS Colossus, the lead ship of her class of two dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy at the end of the first decade of the 20th century.
HMS Colossus was the
lead ship of
her class of two
dreadnought battleships built for the
Royal Navy at the end of the first decade of the 20th century. She spent her whole career assigned to the
Home and
Grand Fleets, often serving as a
flagship. Aside from participating in the
Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and the inconclusive
Action of 19 August, her service during World War I generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the
North Sea.
Colossus was the only dreadnought from the main body of the Grand Fleet to be hit during the Battle of Jutland, although she suffered only minor damage.
[1] The ship was deemed obsolete after the war and was reduced to
reserve and then became a
training ship.
Colossus was
hulked in 1923 and sold for
scrap in 1928.
1914 – Mexican Revolution: One of the world's first naval/air skirmishes takes place off the coast of western Mexico.
The Action of 9 April 1914 was an important turning point in naval and aviation history. On the said date one of the first naval/air skirmishes took place.
The
Action of 9 April 1914 was an important turning point in
naval and
aviation history. On the said date one of the first naval/air skirmishes took place. This engagement took place off the coast of western
Mexicoduring the
Mexican Revolution. The action was part of the naval campaign off
Topolobampo at the edge of the
Gulf of California. A
Constitutionalist biplane dropped bombs on two
Huertista gunboats; they all missed.
Captain Camina and his biplane which attacked
Guerrero and
Morelos in Topolobampo Bay
1940 – Launch of HMS Howe (pennant number 32), the last of the five British King George V-class battleships of the Royal Navy. Built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company,
HMS Howe (
pennant number 32) was the last of the five British
King George V-class battleships of the
Royal Navy. Built by
Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, she was laid down on 1 June 1937 and launched 9 April 1940. She was originally to have been named
Beatty but this was changed to
Howe, after
Admiral Richard Howe.
Howe was completed on 29 August 1942 after her building time was extended, as needed war supplies were diverted to work of a higher priority such as the construction and repair of both merchant ships and escort ships. Like her sister-ship
Anson,
Howe spent most of her career in the Arctic providing cover for Russian convoys.
In 1943
Howe took part in
Operation Husky and bombarded
Trapani naval base and
Favignana in support of the allied invasions. Along with
King George V,
Howe escorted two surrendered Italian battleships to
Alexandria.
Howe was also sent to the Pacific and attached to
Task Force 113, where she provided naval bombardments for the Allied landings at
Okinawa on 1 April 1945.
Following the end of the war,
Howe spent four years as flagship of the Training Squadron at
Portland, before she was placed in reserve in 1950. The battleship was marked for disposal in 1957, sold for scrap in 1958, and completely broken up by 1961.
1940 - The Action off Lofoten was a naval battle fought between the German Kriegsmarine and the British Royal Navy off the southern coast of the Lofoten Islands, Norway during World War II.
The
Action off Lofoten was a
naval battle fought between the German
Kriegsmarine and the
British Royal Navy off the southern coast of the
Lofoten Islands,
Norway during
World War II.
A German
squadron under
Vizeadmiral Günther Lütjens consisting of the
battleships Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau met and engaged a British squadron under
Admiral Sir
William Whitworth consisting of the
battlecruiser HMS Renown and 9
destroyers. After a short engagement,
Gneisenau suffered moderate damage and the Germans withdrew.
The capital ships that fought during the Action off Lofoten:
Scharnhorst (top),
HMS Renown (middle), and
Gneisenau (bottom).
1940 - The Battle of Drøbak Sound took place in Drøbak Sound, the northernmost part of the outer Oslofjord in southern Norway.
German cruiser Blücher was sunk by Norwegian shore defences, killing 830 of 2,202 troops and crew aboard.
The
Battle of Drøbak Sound took place in Drøbak Sound, the northernmost part of the outer Oslofjord in southern Norway, on 9 April 1940. It marked the end of the "Phoney War" and the beginning of World War II in Western Europe.
A German fleet led by the cruiser
Blücher was dispatched up the Oslofjord to begin the German invasion of Norway, with the objective of seizing the Norwegian capital of Oslo and capturing
King Haakon VII and his government. The fleet was engaged in the fjord by Oscarsborg Fortress, an ageing coastal installation near Drøbak, that had been relegated to training coastal artillery servicemen, leading the Germans to disregard its defensive value. However, unbeknownst to German military intelligence, the fortress' most powerful weapon was a torpedo battery, which would be used to great effect against the German invaders.
The fortress' armaments worked flawlessly despite their age, sinking the
Blücher in the sound and forcing the German fleet to fall back. The loss of the German flagship, which carried most of the troops and Gestapo agents intended to occupy Oslo, delayed the
German occupation long enough for King Haakon VII and his government to escape from the capital.
Blücher on fire and sinking in Drøbak Sound
1940 - Heroic, but wholly ineffective, stand by the Norwegian armoured coastal defence ships Norge and Eidsvold at Narvik.
Both ships torpedoed and sunk with great loss of life.
Operation Weserübung (
German:
Unternehmen Weserübung [ˈveːsɐˌʔyːbʊŋ]) was the code name for
Germany's assault on
Denmark and
Norway during the
Second World War and the opening operation of the
Norwegian Campaign. The name comes from the German for "Operation Weser-Exercise", the
Weser being a German river.
In the early morning of 9 April 1940 (
Wesertag, "Weser Day"), Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, ostensibly as a preventive manoeuvre against a planned, and openly discussed,
Franco-British
occupation of Norway known as
Plan R 4. After the invasions, envoys of the Germans informed the governments of Denmark and Norway that the
Wehrmacht had come to protect the countries'
neutrality against Franco-British aggression. Significant differences in
geography, location and
climate between the two nations made the actual military operations very dissimilar.
The invasion fleet's nominal landing time,
Weserzeit ("Weser Time"), was set to 05:15.
1942 - the British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and her escorting Australian destroyer HMAS Vampire were sunk south-east of Trincomalee, Ceylon by Japanese aircraft.
Hermes sank with the loss of 307 men. Most of the survivors were rescued by the hospital ship Vita
A close-up view of
Hermes sinking
1945 - while unloading a shipment of munitions at the Bari, Italy port, the Liberty ship SS Charles Henderson suffered an explosion that killed all on board along with 267 Italian nationals
1945 – World War II: The German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer is sunk by the Royal Air Force
Admiral Scheer was a
Deutschland-class heavy cruiser (often termed a pocket battleship) which served with the
Kriegsmarine of
Nazi Germany during
World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral
Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the
Battle of Jutland. She was laid down at the
Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in
Wilhelmshaven in June 1931 and completed by November 1934. Originally classified as an armored ship (
Panzerschiff) by the Reichsmarine, in February 1940 the Germans reclassified the remaining two ships of this class as heavy cruisers.
1981 – The U.S. Navy nuclear submarine USS George Washington accidentally collides with the Nissho Maru, a Japanese cargo ship, sinking it.
USS George Washington (SSBN-598) was the United States's first operational
ballistic missile submarine. It was the
lead ship of
her class of nuclear ballistic missile submarines, was the third
[5] United States Navyship of the name, in honor of
George Washington (1732–1799), first President of the United States, and the first of that name to be purpose-built as a warship.
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