Naval/Maritime History 25th of April - Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1785 – Launch of HMS Victorious, a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Blackwall Yard, London


HMS Victorious was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Blackwall Yard, London on 27 April 1785. She was the first ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name.



Career
In April 1795, Victorious ran aground on the Shipwash Sand, in the North Sea off the coast of Suffolk and was dismasted.

During the month of February 1796, Victorious encountered and captured the French privateer brig Hasard, formerly the British pilot ship Cartier, which was returning to Île de France (Mauritius) with a 10-man crew after having captured the East Indiaman Triton.

She took part in the Action of 8 September 1796.

Victorious participated in the capture of the Dutch colony of Cape Town, in which an invasion had been caused due to fears of France's expansion across the world. Britain seized the strategic Cape Town and thus secured the nation its routes to the East. The rest of her career was spent in the warm climates of the East Indies, patrolling the vast waters in that region.

In 1801 Captain Pulteney Malcolm took command as Victorous served as flagship for Admiral Peter Rainier.


Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for Thunderer (1783), Terrible (1785), Venerable (1784), Victorious (1785), Theseus (1786), Ramillies(1785), and Hannibal (1786), all 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers. The plan also records alterations dated January 1813 for cutting down 74-gun Third Rates to Frigates, relating specifically to Majestic (1785), Resolution (1770), and Culloden (1783), all 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers. Only the Majestic was cut down to a 58-gun Fourth Rate, as the other two were broken up in 1813.

Fate
On her homeward passage from the East Indies in 1803, Victorious proved exceedingly leaky. When she met with heavy weather in the North Atlantic, her crew had difficulty keeping her afloat till she reached the Tagus, where she was run ashore. Malcolm, with the officers and crew, returned to England in two vessels that he chartered at Lisbon. She was condemned and then broken up in August at Lisbon.

On 1 August Sir Andrew Mitchell arrived at Portsmouth, in company with Calpe, carrying Malcolm, his officers, and crew.[5] Sir Andrew Mitchell, R. Gilmore, master, was a 14-year old, 522-ton (bm) ship on the Cork-Lisbon trade.






The Culloden-class ships of the line were a class of eight 74-gun third rates, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir Thomas Slade. The Cullodens were the last class of 74s which Slade designed before his death in 1771.

Ships

• HMS Culloden

Builder: Deptford Dockyard
Ordered: 30 November 1769
Launched: 18 May 1776
Fate: Wrecked, 1781

• HMS Thunderer

Builder: Wells, Rotherhithe
Ordered: 23 August 1781
Launched: 13 November 1783
Fate: Broken up, 1814

• HMS Venerable

Builder: Perry, Wells & Green, Blackwall Yard
Ordered: 9 August 1781
Launched: 19 April 1784
Fate: Wrecked, 1804

• HMS Terrible

Builder: Wells, Rotherhithe
Ordered: 13 December 1781
Launched: 28 March 1785
Fate: Broken up, 1836

• HMS Victorious

Builder: Perry, Blackwall Yard
Ordered: 28 December 1781
Launched: 27 April 1785
Fate: Broken up, 1803

• HMS Ramillies

Builder: Randall, Rotherhithe
Ordered: 19 June 1782
Launched: 12 July 1785
Fate: Broken up, 1850

• HMS Hannibal

Builder: Perry, Blackwall Yard
Ordered: 19 June 1782
Launched: 15 April 1786
Fate: Captured, 1801

• HMS Theseus

Builder: Perry, Blackwall Yard
Ordered: 11 July 1780
Launched: 25 September 1786
Fate: Broken up, 1814



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

Culloden-class ship of the line - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/colle...el-357740;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=V

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1793 – Launch of French Insurgente, a 40-gun Sémillante-class frigate of the French Navy


Insurgente was a 40-gun Sémillante-class frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1793. USS Constellation, Captain Thomas Truxtun in command, captured her off the island of Nevis during the Quasi-War. After her capture she served in the US Navy, patrolling the waters in the West Indies. In September 1800 she was caught up in a severe storm and was presumed lost at sea






Naval encounter during the Quasi-War between USS Constellation and French ship Insurgente (right) on 9 February 1799.

French frigate Insurgente
Insurgente was built by Pierre-Joseph Pénétreau at Lorient and launched on 27 April 1793.

In January or February 1794, Insurgente captured Ann off Cape Clear Island as Ann was sailing from Newfoundland to Bristol. Insurgente put a prize crew aboard Ann, but left her mate and three other men on board. When Ann was in sight of the French coast, the British sailors succeeded in recapturing her from the prize crew; the British then took Ann into Vigo.

On 16 January 1794 Insurgente captured the American ship John and James and brought her into Brest. John and James had been built at Philadelphia for George Morrison of Petersburg, Virginia. She had left Petersburg with 450 hogsheads of tobacco and 12,000 staves. On 27 December 1794 the Tribunal of Commerce ordered John and James released to Captain James Johnson and the Committee of Public Safety awarded him a payment of 20,000 livres tournois.

On 25 April Insurgente captured Freundschaft Lourentz, Colandt, master, as Freundschaft Lourentz was sailing from Lisbon to London. However two "Scilly boats" (i.e., boats from the Isles of Scilly), recaptured her the next day and brought her into St Ives, Cornwall.

On 5 December 1797 Insurgente captured Prince Frederick as Prince Frederick was returning from Madras and Bengal. Prince Frederick was so badly damaged in the engagement that she sank soon afterwards. Her people, however, were saved. The EIC put a value of £59,981 on the cargo that it had lost.

Battle with Constellation
Main article: USS Constellation vs L'Insurgente
On 9 February 1799, after being at sea for three days, the USS Constellation spotted Insurgente approximately six leagues northeast off Nevis. Insurgente, a fully rigged frigate, was considered one of the fastest sailing vessels in the world at the time; three weeks earlier she had encountered Constellation but was able to outrun her and escape.[9] Shortly after being spotted by Constellation this second time the ships encountered a squall during which a violent gust of wind snapped Insurgente's topmast, impairing her speed. As Constellation approached, Captain Michael-Pierre Barreaut first attempted to seek haven by making for St. Eustatius, but to no avail, where Insurgente hauled wind and assumed a starboard tack. After being overtaken she hoisted American colors, at which time the Constellation hoisted the private signals. Unable to respond appropriately, she gave up her attempt at disguise and Captain Barreaut ordered the French tri-colors hoisted and a gun fired to windward to signal the challenge where Insurgente boldly sat in wait to be engaged. This was the first time since the American Revolution that a shot had been fired from an enemy vessel at an American ship. Truxtun gave the order to clear the deck of Constellation for action and the boatswain sounded the whistle. Both ships bore up to take positions to engage. The Constellation fired the first broadside, double-shotted, inflicting much damage to the French vessel's hull and killing many in the first minute of the engagement. Insurgente responded and fired a broadside, inflicting much damage to Constellation's rigging and top foremast, which was almost cut off. At 3:30 pm after an hour and a half of running battle and several raking broadsides from the Constellation the Insurgente struck her colors. First Lieutenant John Rodgers, Midshipman David Porter along with eleven men were put on board the captured vessel to take possession and to secure the prisoners who were sent to the lower hold. She had lost 70 men from a crew of 409, while Constellation, badly damaged also, only lost three out of a complement of 309. This was the first post-Revolutionary War American victory against a foreign naval vessel.

There were no handcuffs to be found and the prisoners seem disposed to rebel. Accordingly, Rodgers placed sentries at the hatch, armed with blunderbusses and under orders to open fire should the prisoners attempt to breach the hatch way.


Scene depicting the action of 9 February 1799, when the USS Constellation (left), commanded by Captain Thomas Truxtun, captured the French frigate Insurgente (right)

Service in US Navy
The US Navy considered Insurgent a prize in the Quasi-War with France. The frigate was taken to the West Indies and refitted for service in the young American navy. She cruised under Lt. John Rodgers in company with Constellation until May 1799. Ordered back to the United States, Insurgent was purchased by the Navy for $84,500. Commissioned with Captain Alexander Murray in command, Insurgent sailed from Hampton Roads for Europe on 14 August 1799. Cruising in European waters during the winter of 1799–1800, the frigate captured the French ship Vendémiaire and recaptured the American ships Margaret, Angora, Commerce, and William and Mary. Insurgent returned to the United States in March 1800 via the West Indies.

Loss
On 29 April 1800 Patrick Fletcher assumed command and was ordered to cruise between the West Indies and the American coast to protect American shipping interests and to capture any enemy vessels he encountered. Insurgent departed Baltimore 22 July and after a brief stop at Hampton Roads sailed for her station 8 August 1800. She was never heard from again, and the frigate and her crew were presumed lost during the severe storm that struck the West Indies on 20 September 1800. This storm is also thought to have sunk USS Pickering, which vanished without a trace.

USS Insurgent - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sémillante-class frigate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1804 – Launch of The French brig Néarque, an Abeille-class brig launched at Lorient in 1804.


The French brig Néarque was an Abeille-class brig launched at Lorient in 1804. She made a voyage to the Caribbean in 1805. After the frigate HMS Niobe captured her in March 1806, the Royal Navy took her into Plymouth, but apparently laid her up in ordinary. She then disappears from the records until her sale in 1814.






French career
From June 1803 lieutenant de vaisseau Jean-Philippe-Paul Jourdain remained at Lorient to supervise the construction of Néarque. He would remain her commander until the British captured her.

On 27 April 1805, Jourdain and Néarque captured the British 16-gun brig Heros after an engagement that lasted half an hour and in which Jourdain sustained two wounds.

Between early September 1805 and end-December, Néarque carried dispatches from Lorient to Martinique and back, then troops from Belle Île to Lorient, patrolled the southern coast of Brittany, and escorted a convoy from Lorient to Bénodet, returning to Lorient. Then in February 1806 she sailed from Groix to Concarneau.


1/36th scale model of Cygne, sister-ship of Néarque, on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris.

Capture and fate
On 28 March a French squadron composed of the two 40-gun frigates Revanche, Commodore Amand Leduc, and Guerrière, Captain Paul-Mathieu Hubert, 36-gun frigate Sirène, Captain Alexandre Lambert, and Néarque, sailed from Lorient, on a cruise off the coast of Iceland, Greenland, and Spitzbergen, for the purpose of destroying British and Russian whaling ships. It quickly became evident that Néarque was a far worse sailer than the frigates and that she could not follow; Leduc detached her so that she would carry out her orders independently.

At about 10a.m. Niobe, Captain John Wentworth Loring, cruising between the Glénans and the isle of Groix, discovered the French squadron. He followed and at 10p.m. was able to capture the sternmost, which was Nearque. He reported that she had 97 men on board and stores and provisions for a five-month cruise. James reports that although Nearque made signals, the three French frigates continued on their mission, leaving her to her fate. Furthermore, she surrendered after a volley of small arms fire from Niobe that "fortunately injured no one".

Lloyd's List reported Nearque's arrival at Plymouth, and gave her complement as 103 men. It further reported that Glory and Niobe had continued in pursuit of the rest of the French squadron.

Nearque arrived in Plymouth on 3 April 1806. The Royal Navy never commissioned her; instead, the Admiralty placed her in ordinary. The commissioners of the Navy put her up for sale at Plymouth in July 1814. She sold there on 21 July for £400.


The Abeille class was a type of 16-gun brig-corvette of the French Navy, designed by François Pestel[4] with some units refined by Pierre-Jacques-Nicolas Rolland. They were armed with either 24-pounder carronades, or a mixture of light 6-pounder long guns and lighter carronades. 21 ships of this type were built between 1801 and 1812, and served in the Napoleonic Wars.

The four first ships were ordered in bulk on 24 December 1800, but two (Mouche, Serin) could not be completed due to shortages of timbers. As the forerunner of the series, Abeille, is not always identified as such in British sources, the type is sometimes referred to as the Sylphe class, after Sylphe, which served as model for subsequent constructions.






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

Abeille-class brig - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1805 - US Naval forces capture Derne, Tripoli
With naval bombardment from USS Nautilus, USS Hornet, and USS Argus, Lt. Presley OBannon leads his Marines to attack Derne, Tripoli, and raises the first U.S. flag over foreign soil.
The Battle of Derna was the Marines' first battle on foreign soil, and is notably recalled in the first verse of the Marines Hymn.


The Battle of Derna at Derna, Cyrenaica, was the decisive victory in April–May 1805 of a mercenary army recruited and led by United States Marinesunder the command of U.S. Army Lieutenant William Eaton, diplomatic Consul to Tripoli, and U.S. Marine Corps First Lieutenant Presley Neville O'Bannon. The battle involved a forced 500-mile march through the North African desert from Alexandria, Egypt, to the eastern port city of Derna, Libya, which was defended by a much larger force. The USS O'Bannon (DD-450), the Fletcher-class destroyer nicknamed "Queen of the Tin Can Fleet", which was commissioned while in combat with Japanese naval forces, Solomon Islands, WWII Pacific campaigns, was named in honor of the same Marine officer, O'Bannon.




William Eaton leading the attack on Derne with the Marines, soldiers and mercenaries under his command


Background
In 1804, the former Consul to Tunis, William Eaton (1764–1811), returned to the Mediterranean Sea with the title of Naval Agent to the Barbary States. Eaton had been granted permission from the United States government and third President Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; served 1801–1809) to back the claim of Hamet Karamanli. Hamet Karamanli was the rightful heir to the throne of Tripoli and had been deposed by his brother Yusuf Karamanli. Yusuf had assassinated his older brother by shooting him in front of his mother. Yusuf was out of the country at the time and decided to remain away, in exile. Upon his return to the area, Eaton sought out Hamet Karamanli, who was in exile in Egypt. Upon locating him, Eaton made a proposal to reinstate him on the throne. The exile agreed to Eaton's plan.

Commodore Samuel Barron (1765–1810), the new naval commander in the Mediterranean Sea, provided Eaton with naval support from several small warships of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean squadron: USS Nautilus, commanded by Oliver Hazard Perry (1785–1819), USS Hornet, under Samuel Evans(c. 1785–1824), and USS Argus, captained by Isaac Hull (1773–1843). The three vessels were to provide offshore bombardment support. A small detachment of seven U.S. Marines was given to Consul Eaton commanded by First Lieutenant Presley Neville O'Bannon, USMC (1776–1850). Eaton and O'Bannon based their operations at Alexandria, Egypt. With the help of Hamet Karamanli, they recruited about 400 Arab, Turkish and Greekmercenaries. Eaton became self-appointed general and commander-in-chief of the combined multinational force.

On March 8, 1805, Lieutenant Eaton (as self-designated general and commander in chief) began to lead his forces on a 500 miles (800 km) trek westward across the Libyan North African desert from Egypt.[6] Their objective was the port city of Derne, capital of the Ottoman Empire province of Cyrenaica (in eastern modern Libya). The mercenary forces were promised supplies and money when they reached the city. During the 50-day trek, Eaton became worried over the strained relationship between the Greek Orthodox-Christian Greeks and the roughly 200 to 300 Muslim Arab and Turkish mercenaries. The expeditions supplies were dwindling with Eaton reporting in 1805 that, "Our only provisions [are] a handful of rice and two biscuits a day". At one point, some of the Arabs in the expedition made a desperate attempt to raid the supply wagon, but were beaten back by the Marines and a few Greek artilleryman, who used the expedition's lone cannon. Mutiny continuously threatened the success of the expedition on several occasions. Between March 10 and March 18, several Arab camel drivers mutinied before reaching the sanctuary of the Massouah Castle. From March 22 to March 30, several Arab mercenaries under the command of Sheik el Tahib staged mutinies. By April 8, when he crossed the border into Libya / Tripoli, Eaton had quelled the Arab mutinies. In late April, his army finally reached the port city of Bomba, on the Gulf of Bomba, some miles up the coast from Derne, where U.S. Navy warships Argus, Nautilus and Hornet with Commodore Barron and Captain Hull were waiting for him. Eaton received fresh supplies and the money to pay his mercenaries.

The battle
On the morning of April 26, Eaton sent a letter to Mustafa Bey, the governor of Derne, asking for safe passage through the city and additional supplies, though Eaton realized the governor probably would not agree. Mustafa reportedly wrote back, "My head or yours!". On the morning of April 27, Eaton observed a fort in Derne with eight guns. The brig USS Argus sent a cannon ashore to use in the attack. Captain Hull's ships then opened fire and bombarded Derne's batteries for an hour. Meanwhile, Eaton divided his army into two separate attacking parties. Hamet was to lead the Arab mercenaries southwest to cut the road to Tripoli, then attack the city's left flank and storm the weakly defended governor's palace. Eaton with the rest of the mercenaries and the squad of Marines would attack the harbor fortress. Hull and the ships would fire on the heavily defended port batteries. The attack began at 2:45 p.m., with Lt. O'Bannon and his Marines leading the advance. O'Bannon led his Marines and 50 Greek gunners with the field piece from the Argus, though the gun's effectiveness was lessened after the firing crew carelessly left the ramrod in the barrel and fired it down range. The harbor defenses had been reinforced, and the attackers were temporarily halted. But this had weakened the defenses elsewhere and allowed the Arab mercenaries to ride unopposed into the western section of the city.

Eaton's mercenary army was hesitant under the enemy's musket fire, and he realized a charge was the only way to regain the initiative. Leading the charge, he was seriously wounded in the wrist by a musketball. On the Argus, Captain Hull saw the Americans and mercenaries were "gaining ground very fast though a heavy fire of Musquetry [sic] was constantly kept upon them." The ships ceased fire to allow the charge to continue. Eaton would report that O'Bannon with his Marines and Greeks "pass'd through a shower of Musketry from the Walls of houses, took possession of the Battery". The defenders fled in haste, leaving their cannons loaded and ready to fire. O'Bannon raised the American flag over the battery (the unique 15 stars - 15 stripes emblem used 1795-1818, later made famous in the War of 1812 as the "Star-Spangled Banner"), and Eaton turned the captured guns on the city. Hamet's force had seized the governor's palace and secured the western part of the city. Many of the defenders of the harbor fortress fled through the town and ran into Hamet's force. By 4:00 p.m. the entire city had fallen, and for the first time in history, an American flag flew over fortifications on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean. According to Tucker, casualties during the fighting for the Americans were two killed and three wounded, while those among the Christian / Greek mercenaries were nine killed or wounded. Muslim Turkish / Arab mercenary casualties are unknown, as are those of the defenders.

Yusuf in Tripoli to the west was aware of the attack on Derne and had sent reinforcements to the city. By the time this force arrived, however, the city had fallen. His men dug in and prepared to recapture the city. Eaton fortified his new position, while Hamet took up residence in the governor's palace and had his Arabs patrolling the outer areas of the city. Yusuf's men dug in south of the city and waited. On May 13, they attacked the city and drove Hamet's Arabs back, almost recapturing the governor's palace. USS Argus and Eaton's captured batteries pounded the attackers, who finally fled under heavy fire. Nightfall found both sides back in their original positions. Skirmishes and several other minor attempts were made on the city in the following weeks, but the city remained in American control. From Derne, Eaton now planned to march across the desert and attack Tripoli from the land. During his march he was informed of the treaty signed on June 10, 1805, between American emissary Tobias Lear (1762-1816) from the U.S. Department of State and Yusuf Karamanli. In the middle of his trek Eaton was ordered to return to Egypt with Hamet.

Aftermath
The Battle of Derna was the first land battle of the United States on foreign soil, after the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). It was the decisive action of the First Barbary War (1801-1805), although Eaton was furious over what he called a 'sell-out' between State Department diplomat Tobias Lear and the bey. Hamet returned to Egypt and the mercenaries were never fully paid.

William Eaton returned to the United States as a national hero. Legend holds that O'Bannon was presented a Mameluke sword by Hamet, the Ottoman Empire viceroy. No evidence supports this claim. The first mention of Hamet giving O'Bannon a bejeweled sword seems to be in a lengthy article, "Kentucky Officer First to Carry Stars and Stripes to Victory in Foreign Country," by John Presley Cain in the 29 July 1917 edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal. One sword that was purported to be the sword in question turned out to be a late-Victorian era forgery. He was later awarded a sword of honor by his home state of Virginia. A further legend holds that O'Bannon's exploits in North Africa inspired the Marine Corps officers to adopt Mameluke swords, but this is also uncorroborated by any contemporaneous sources. Swords of this style were very popular in Europe and a more likely scenario is that the Marines were imitating the influential military leaders who were wearing them.

The attack on Derna was the inspiration for the lyrics of the Marines' Hymn in the line - "to the shores of Tripoli". The 1950 American film Tripoli starring John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, Howard da Silva is a fictionalized account of the Battle of Derne.


Nautilus was a schooner launched in 1799. The United States Navy purchased her in May 1803, renaming her the USS Nautilus; she thus became the first ship to bear that name. She served in the First Barbary War. She was altered to a brigantine. The British captured Nautilus early in the War of 1812and renamed her HMS Emulous. After her service with the Royal Navy, the Admiralty sold her in 1817.

The second USS Hornet, was a single-masted, wooden-hulled sailing sloop-of-war of the United States Navy [Notes 1] that saw service in the First Barbary War in the Mediterranean Sea along the shores of North Africa. The ship was formerly the merchant ship Traveller of Massachusetts and was purchased at Malta by the U.S. Navy to join in the American blockade at Tripoli.

The first USS Argus, originally named USS Merrimack, was a brig in the United States Navy commissioned in 1803. She enforced the Embargo Act of 1807 and fought in the First Barbary War – taking part in the blockade of Tripoli and the capture of Derna – and the War of 1812. During the latter inflict, she had been audaciously raiding British merchant shipping in British home waters for a month, when the heavier British Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Pelican intercepted her. After a sharp fight during which Argus's captain, Master Commandant William Henry Allen, was mortally wounded, Argussur rendered when the crew of Pelican were about to board.


Argus during the War of 1812

Battle of Derna (1805) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nautilus_(1799)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hornet_(1805_sloop)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Argus_(1803)

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1813 – The Battle of York was fought on April 27, 1813, in York (present-day Toronto), the capital of the colonial province of Upper Canada (present-day Ontario), during the Anglo-American War of 1812.
A U.S. naval squadron under the command of Commodore Isaac Chauncey supports an attack on York (now Toronto), Canada, of nearly 1,800 troops under Gen. Zebulon Pike during the War of 1812.


The Battle of York was fought on April 27, 1813, in York (present-day Toronto), the capital of the colonial province of Upper Canada (present-day Ontario), during the Anglo-American War of 1812. An American force supported by a naval flotilla landed on the lake shore to the west and advanced against the town, which was defended by an outnumbered force of regulars, militia and Ojibway natives under the overall command of Major General Roger Hale Sheaffe, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada.


Battle of York by Owen Staples, 1914. The American fleet before the capture of York.

Sheaffe's forces were defeated and Sheaffe retreated with his surviving regulars to Kingston, abandoning the militia and civilians. The Americans captured the fort, town and the dockyard. They themselves suffered heavy casualties, including force leader Brigadier General Zebulon Pike and others killed when the retreating British blew up the fort's magazine. The American forces subsequently carried out several acts of arson and looting in the town before withdrawing.

Though the Americans won a clear victory, it did not have decisive strategic results as York was a less important objective in military terms than Kingston, where the British armed vessels on Lake Ontario were based.



Background
York, the provincial capital of Upper Canada, stood on the north shore of Lake Ontario. During the War of 1812, the lake was both the front line between Upper Canada and the United States, and also part of the principal British supply line from Quebec to the various armies and outposts to the west. At the start of the war, the British had a small naval force, the Provincial Marine, with which they seized control of the lake, and also of Lake Erie. This made it possible for Major General Isaac Brock, leading the British forces in Upper Canada, to gain several important victories during 1812 by shifting his small force rapidly between threatened points to defeat disjointed American attacks individually.


HMS Sir Issac Brock was a sloop-of-war being built in York. Both sides engaged in building freshwater fleets in an effort to gain naval supremacy in Lake Ontario.

The United States Navy appointed Commodore Isaac Chauncey to regain control of the lakes. He created a squadron of fighting ships at Sackett's Harbor, New York by purchasing and arming several lake schooners and laying down new purpose-built fighting vessels. However, no decisive action was possible before the onset of winter, during which the ships of both sides were confined to harbour by ice. To match Chauncey's ships, the British laid down a sloop of war at Kingston, and another in the York Naval Shipyards. This vessel was named Sir Isaac Brock after the general, who had been killed at the Battle of Queenston Heights the previous October.

American planning
On January 13, 1813, John Armstrong, Jr. was appointed United States Secretary of War. Having been a serving soldier, he quickly appreciated the situation on Lake Ontario, and devised a plan by which a force of 7,000 regular soldiers would be concentrated at Sackett's Harbor on April 1. Working together with Chauncey's squadron, this force would capture Kingston before the Saint Lawrence River thawed and substantial British reinforcements could arrive in Upper Canada. The capture of Kingston and the destruction of the Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard together with most of the vessels of the Provincial Marine, would make almost every British post west of Kingston vulnerable if not untenable. After Kingston was captured, the Americans would then capture the British positions at York and Fort George, at the mouth of the Niagara River.


Appointed as the United States Secretary of War in January 1813, John Armstrong, Jr. originally planned for an attack on Kingston, but later acquiesced to changes that made York the attack's target.

Armstrong conferred with Major General Henry Dearborn, commander of the American Army of the North, at Albany, New York during February. Both Dearborn and Chauncey agreed with Armstrong's plan at this point, but they subsequently had second thoughts. That month, Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost, the British Governor General of Canada, travelled up the frozen Saint Lawrence to visit Upper Canada. This visit was made necessary because Major General Roger Hale Sheaffe, who had succeeded Brock as Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, was ill and unable to perform his various duties. Prevost was accompanied only by a few small detachments of reinforcements, which participated in the Battle of Ogdensburg en route. Nevertheless, both Chauncey and Dearborn believed that Prevost's arrival indicated an imminent attack on Sackett's Harbor, and reported that Kingston now had a garrison of 6,000 or more British regulars.

Even though Prevost soon returned to Lower Canada, and deserters and pro-American Canadian civilians reported that the true size of Kingston's garrison was 600 regulars and 1,400 militia, Chauncey and Dearborn chose to accept the earlier inflated figure. Furthermore, even after two brigades of troops under Brigadier General Zebulon Pike reinforced the troops at Sackett's Harbor after a gruelling winter march from Plattsburgh, the number of effective troops available to Dearborn fell far short of the 7,000 planned, mainly as a result of sickness and exposure. During March, Chauncey and Dearborn recommended to Armstrong that when the ice on the lake thawed, they should attack the less well-defended town of York instead of Kingston. After capturing York, they would then attack Fort George.

Although York was the Provincial capital of Upper Canada, it was far less important than Kingston as a military objective. Armstrong, by now back in Washington, nevertheless acquiesced in this change of plan as Dearborn might well have better local information. Historians such as John R. Elting have pointed out that this effectively reversed Armstrong's original strategy. Also, by committing the bulk of the American forces at the western end of Lake Ontario, it would leave Sackett's Harbor vulnerable to an attack by British reinforcements arriving from Lower Canada.

Battle
The Americans appeared off York late on April 26, 1813. Chauncey's squadron consisted of a ship-rigged corvette, a brig and twelve schooners. The embarked force commanded by Brigadier General Zebulon Pike numbered between 1,600 and 1,800, mainly from the 6th, 15th, 16th and 21st U.S. Infantry, and the 3rd U.S. Artillery fighting as infantry. Dearborn, the overall army commander, remained aboard the corvette Madison during the action.


Position of the American and British forces at York prior to battle.

The town's defences included Fort York, a short distance west of the settlement, with the nearby "Government House Battery" mounting two 12-pounder guns. A mile west was the crude "Western Battery", with two obsolete 18-pounder guns. (These weapons were veterans of earlier wars and had been disabled by having their trunnions removed, but they were fixed to crude log carriages and could still be fired.) Further west were the ruins of Fort Rouillé and another disused fortification, the "Half Moon Battery", neither of which was in use. Major General Sheaffe, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, was present at York to transact public business. He had under his command only four companies of regulars. The Militia was ordered to assemble, but only 300 of the 1st and 3rd Regiments of the York Militia could be mustered at short notice. There were also about 40 to 50 natives (Mississaugas and Ojibwa) in the area.

Early on April 27, the first American wave of boats, carrying Major Benjamin Forsyth's company of the U.S. 1st Rifle Regiment, landed about 4 miles (6.4 km) west of the town, supported by some of Chauncey's schooners firing grapeshot. Because Sheaffe could not know where the Americans would land, Forsyth's riflemen were opposed only by some of the Natives led by Indian Agent James Givins, who were outflanked and retreated into the woods after a stiff resistance. Sheaffe had ordered a company of the Glengarry Light Infantry to support the Natives, but they became lost in the outskirts of the town, having been misdirected by Major-General Æneas Shaw, the Adjutant General of the Canadian Militia, who took some of the militia north onto Dundas Street to prevent any wide American outflanking move.

As three more companies of American infantry landed accompanied by General Pike, the grenadier company of the 8th (The King's) Regiment of Foot charged them with the bayonet. The grenadiers were already outnumbered and were repulsed with heavy loss. Pike ordered an advance by platoons, supported by two 6-pounder field guns, which steadily drove back the other two companies of Sheaffe's redcoats (another company of the 8th regiment, and one from the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles).


Brig. Gen. Zebulon Pike was mortally wounded near the end of the battle, struck by debris from an explosion set off at the fort's magazine.

The British tried to rally around the Western battery, but the battery's travelling magazine (a portable chest containing cartridges) exploded, apparently as the result of an accident. This caused further loss (including 20 killed) and confusion among the British regulars, and they fell back to a ravine north of the fort, where the militia were forming up. Meanwhile, Chauncey's schooners, most of which carried a long 24-pounder or 32-pounder cannon, were bombarding the fort and Government House battery. (Chauncey himself was directing them from a small boat). British return fire was ineffective.

Sheaffe decided that the battle was lost and ordered the regulars to retreat, setting fire to the wooden bridge over the River Don east of the town to thwart pursuit. The militia and several prominent citizens were left "standing in the street like a parcel of sheep". Sheaffe instructed the militia to make the best terms they could with the Americans, but without informing the senior militia officers or any official of the legislature, he also dispatched Captain Tito LeLièvre of the Royal Newfoundland to set fire to the sloop of war HMS Sir Isaac Brock under construction at York's Naval Shipyard, and to blow up the fort's magazine.

When the fort's magazine exploded, Pike and the leading American troops were only 200 yards (180 m) away, or even closer. The flag had been left flying over the fort as a ruse, and Pike was questioning a prisoner as to how many troops were defending it. Pike was mortally injured by flying stones and debris. The explosion killed 38 American soldiers and wounded 222.

Surrender

Captain John Robinson of the York Militia. Robinson assisted two other officers from the militia during their negotiations for surrender.

Colonel William Chewett and Major William Allen of the 3rd York Regiment of militia tried to arrange a capitulation, assisted by Captain John Beverley Robinson, the acting Attorney General of Upper Canada. The process took time. The Americans were angry over their losses, particularly because they believed that the ship and fort had been destroyed after negotiations for surrender had already begun. Nevertheless, Colonel Mitchell of the 3rd U.S. Artillery agreed to terms. While they waited for Dearborn and Chauncey to ratify the terms, the surrendered militia were held prisoner in a blockhouse without food or medical attention for the few wounded. Forsyth's company of the 1st U.S. Rifle Regiment was left as guard in the town. At this stage, few Americans had entered the town.

The next morning, the terms had still not been ratified, since Dearborn had refused to leave the corvette Madison. When he eventually did, Reverend John Strachan (who held no official position other than Rector of York at the time) first brusquely tried to force him to sign the articles for capitulation on the spot, then accused Chauncey to his face of delaying the capitulation to allow the American troops licence to commit outrages. Eventually, Dearborn formally agreed to the articles for surrender. The Americans took over the dockyard, where they captured a brig (Duke of Gloucester) in poor state of repair, and twenty 24-pounder carronades and other stores intended for the British squadron on Lake Erie. Sir Isaac Brock was beyond salvage. The Americans had missed another ship-rigged vessel, Prince Regent, which carried 16 guns, as she sailed for Kingston to collect ordnance two days before the Americans had been sighted. The Americans also demanded and received several thousand pounds in Army Bills, which had been in the keeping of Prideaux Selby, the Receiver General of Upper Canada, who was mortally ill.

Aftermath
Casualties
The American loss for the entire battle was officially reported as 52 killed and 254 wounded for the Army and 3 killed and 11 wounded for the Navy, for a total of 55 killed and 265 wounded.

The British loss was officially reported by Sheaffe as 59 killed, 34 wounded, 43 wounded prisoners, 10 captured and 7 missing, for a total of 153 casualties. However, historian Robert Malcomson has found this return to be inaccurate: it did not include militia, sailors, dockyard workers or Native Americans and was incorrect even as to the casualties of the regulars. Malcomson demonstrates that the actual British loss was 82 killed, 43 wounded, 69 wounded prisoners, 274 captured and 7 missing, for a total of 475 casualties.

Battle of York - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1826 – Launch of USS Vincennes (1826), a 703-ton Boston-class sloop of war in the United States Navy from 1826 to 1865.


USS Vincennes (1826) was a 703-ton Boston-class sloop of war in the United States Navy from 1826 to 1865. During her service, Vincennes patrolled the Pacific, explored the Antarctic, and blockaded the Confederate Gulf coast in the Civil War. Named for the Revolutionary War Battle of Vincennes, she was the first U.S. warship to circumnavigate the globe.


19th-century painting (based on a sketch by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, USN), depicting USS Vincennes in Disappointment Bay, Antarctica, circa January–February 1840.



Built in Brooklyn
Vincennes—the first American ship to be so named—was one of ten sloops of war whose construction was authorized by Congress on 3 March 1825. She was laid down at New York in 1825, launched on 27 April 1826, and commissioned on 27 August 1826, with Master Commandant William Compton Bolton in command.

First world cruise
The ship set sail for the first time on 3 September 1826, from New York bound for the Pacific by way of Cape Horn. She cruised extensively in that ocean, visiting the Hawaiian islands in 1829 and made her way to Macau by 1830, under Commander William B. Finch. Her return voyage was made by way of China, the Philippines, the Indian Ocean, and the Cape of Good Hope. Ship chaplain Charles Samuel Stewart published a book about the voyage. After nearly four years, Vincennes arrived back in New York on 8 June 1830, becoming the first U.S. Navy ship to circumnavigate the Earth. Two days later the ship was decommissioned.

West Indies and Guam operations
Following repairs and recommissioned, Vincennes then operated in the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico as part of the West Indies Squadron in 1831–32. After a long bout of yellow fever, she was decommissioned again for a time in 1833 before sailing once more.

She departed for a second Pacific deployment in 1833, becoming the first American warship to call at Guam. She again sailed around the globe to return to the U.S. East Coast in June 1836.

Supporting the Wilkes Expedition

Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander of the United States Exploring Expedition 1838 - 1842

Decommissioned once again in 1836, while she underwent remodeling, she was refitted with a light spar deck and declared the flagship of the South Sea Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Antarctic region.

Commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, the expedition sailed from Hampton Roads in August 1838, and made surveys along the South American coast before making a brief survey of Antarctica in early 1839. Entering into the South Pacific in August and September 1839, her cartographers drafted charts of that area that are still used today.

Following survey operations and other scientific work along the west coast of South America and in the South Pacific during the rest of the year, in late 1839 Vincennes arrived at Sydney, Australia, her base for a pioneering cruise to Antarctica. She un-intentionally exposed the lack of defences and security at Sydney Harbour when she slipped un-noticed into Sydney Harbour on 30 November 1839 under the cover of darkness. Between mid-January and mid-February 1840, she operated along the icy coast of the southernmost continent. The coast along which the ship sailed is today known as Wilkes Land, a name given on maps as early as 1841.

The remainder of her deployment included visits to the islands of the South Pacific, Hawaii, the Columbia River area, Puget Sound, California, Wake Island, the Philippines and South Africa. This third voyage around the world ended at New York in June 1842.

1842–1847 operations
Vincennes was next assigned to the Home Squadron and placed under the command of Commander Franklin Buchanan, a distinguished officer destined to become the first Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy. She sailed to the West Indies and cruised off the Mexican coast until the summer of 1844. Though this duty proved relatively uneventful, Vincennes did rescue two grounded English brigs off the coast of Texas and received the thanks of the British government for this service. Buchanan was also ordered to prevent any attempted invasion by Mexico of the new Republic of Texas. This eventuality never materialized; and Vincennes returned to Hampton Roads on 15 August to enter dry dock.

On 4 June 1845, Vincennes sailed for the Far East under command of Captain Hiram Paulding. She was accompanied by the ship-of-the-line Columbus, under the command of Captain Thomas Wyman; and the two vessels formed a little squadron under the command of Commodore James Biddle, who carried a letter from Secretary of State John C. Calhoun to Caleb Cushing, American commissioner in China, authorizing Cushing to make the first official contact with the Japanese Government.


The Vincennes and Columbus in Japan.

The squadron sailed for Macau by way of Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope. Commodore Biddle arrived safely in Macau only to find that Cushing had already left for home and that his successor, Alexander H. Everett, was too ill to make the trip. Therefore, Biddle determined to conduct the negotiations himself.

Accordingly, Vincennes and Columbus sailed for Japan on 7 July 1846 and anchored off Uraga on 19 July. The Japanese surrounded the vessels and allowed no one to land. Otherwise the visitors were treated with courtesy. However, Commodore Biddle's attempts to force the opening of feudal Japan to multinational trade were politely rebuffed, and the vessels weighed anchor on 29 July. Columbus returned to the United States by way of Cape Horn, but Vincennes remained on the China Station for another year before returning to New York on 1 April 1847. Here, she was decommissioned on the 9th, dry-docked, and laid up.

1849–1860 operations
Vincennes remained in ordinary until 1849. Recommissioned on 12 November 1849, she sailed from New York exactly one month later, bound for Cape Horn and the west coast of South America. On 2 July 1850, while lying off Guayaquil, Ecuador, she harbored the Ecuadoran revolutionary General Elizalde for three days during one of that country's frequent civil disturbances. Sailing on to San Francisco, California, the vessel lost 36 members of her crew to the gold fever sweeping California at the time. Turning south, Vincennes cruised off South America until late 1851, closely monitoring the activities of revolutionaries ashore.

She made a courtesy call to the Hawaiian Islands at the end of the year and proceeded thence to Puget Sound where she arrived on 2 February 1852. She anchored briefly there and returned via San Francisco and the Horn to New York where she arrived on 21 September and was decommissioned on the 24th.

Following repairs and a period in ordinary, Vincennes was recommissioned on 21 March 1853 and sailed into Norfolk, Virginia on 13 May to join her second exploratory expedition, serving as flagship to Commander Cadwalader Ringgold's survey of the China Sea, the North Pacific, and the Bering Strait. Comdr. Ringgold was a veteran of the Wilkes expedition. The squadron stood out of Norfolk on 11 June 1853, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and charted numerous islands and shoals in the Indian Ocean before arriving in China in March 1854. Here Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry relieved Ringgold for medical reasons and gave command of the expedition to Lt. John Rodgers.

Vincennes sailed on to survey the Bonin and Ladrone Islands and returned to Hong Kong in February 1855. The expedition sailed again in March and surveyed the islands between the Ryūkyū chain and Japan, and then the Kurils. Vincennes left the squadron at Petropavlovsk, Russia, and entered the Bering Strait, sailing through to the northwest towards Wrangel Island. Ice barriers prevented the vessel from reaching this destination, but she came closer than any other previous ship. Vincennes returned to San Francisco in early October and later sailed for the Horn and New York, where she arrived on 13 July 1856 to complete yet another circumnavigation of the globe.

Vincennes operated with the African Squadron in 1857–1860.

American Civil War service


A colored lithograph of the USS Vincennes

After the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Vincennes was recommissioned on 29 June and assigned to duty in the Gulf Blockading Squadron. She arrived off Fort Pickens, Florida, on 3 September, and was ordered to assist in the occupation of Head of Passes, Mississippi River, and remain there on blockade duty. Though the Federal warships did successfully deploy, on 12 October 1861 the Confederate metal-sheathed ram Manassas and armed steamers Ivy and James L. Day drove the Union blockaders from Head of Passes in the Battle of the Head of Passes, forcing the Screw sloop-of-war Richmond and Vincennes aground. Vincennes was ordered abandoned and destroyed to prevent her capture, and her engineer set a slow match to the vessel's magazine while her men took refuge on other ships. However, her engineer cut the burning fuse and threw it overboard before the magazine could explode and, after the Confederate vessels withdrew early in the afternoon, Vincennes was refloated.

After the Confederate attack, the Union sloop-of-war continued on blockade duty off the Passes of the Mississippi, capturing the blockade-running British bark Empress, aground at North East Pass with a large cargo of coffee on 27 November. On 4 March 1862, she was ordered to proceed to Pensacola, Florida, to relieve Mississippi and spent the next six months shuttling between Pensacola and Mobile, Alabama, performing routine patrol and reconnaissance duty. On 4 October, she was ordered to assume command of the blockade off Ship Island, Mississippi, and to guard the pass out of Mississippi Sound. While so deployed, boat crews from the vessel and Clifton captured the barge H. McGuin in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on 18 July 1863. Vincennes also reported the capture of two boats laden with food on 24 December.

End-of-war service and decommissioning

Monument to USS Vincennes in Vincennes, Indiana's Patrick Henry Square

Vincennes remained off Ship Island for the duration of the war and was laid up in ordinary at the Boston Navy Yard on 28 August 1865. The veteran world traveler was decommissioned in August 1865 and sold at public auction at Boston on 5 October 1867 for approximately $5,000.00, completing a career that made her one of the Navy's most widely traveled ships.

USS Vincennes (1826) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1863 - the steamship Anglo Saxon ran aground north of Cape Race, killing 237 people.


SS Anglo Saxon was an iron screw steam ship belonging to the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company which was wrecked with great loss of life on the Newfoundland coast on 27 April 1863.



Ship history
Anglo Saxon was built by William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1856, and operated on the Liverpool-Canada route.

On her final voyage she was commanded by Captain William Burgess. She sailed from Liverpool for Quebec on 16 April 1863, with a total of 445 aboard; 360 passengers and 85 crew. On 27 April, in dense fog, she ran aground in Clam Cove about four miles north of Cape Race. The ship broke up within an hour of hitting the rocks, and sank. Of those on board 237 people died, making this one of Canada's worst shipwrecks.

Among those saved was Anne Bertram, sister of John Bertram and George Hope Bertram, both later Canadian Members of Parliament, who was travelling with Charlotte Hope, daughter of Scots agriculturalist, George Hope.


The stranding of the Anglo Saxon (PAH0293)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Anglo_Saxon_(1856)
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/colle...el-291385;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=A
http://www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/ANGLOSAXON.html

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1865 - Mississippi riverboat Sultana, steaming north with an excessive number of passengers on board, suffered a series of boiler explosions.
1,168 of her 2,137 passengers (designed with a capacity of only 376 passengers) died in the ensuing fire or of drowning in the freezing river.


Sultana was a Mississippi River side-wheel steamboat, which exploded on April 27, 1865, in the worst maritime disaster in United States history.

Constructed of wood in 1863 by the John Litherbury Boatyard in Cincinnati, she was intended for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. The steamer registered 1,719 tons and normally carried a crew of 85. For two years, she ran a regular route between St. Louis and New Orleans, and was frequently commissioned to carry troops.


Whole plate tintype, which appears to be a period enlargement made from a carte de visite of the Sultana taken at Helena, AR, on April 26, 1865, a day before she was destroyed. The view captures a large crowd of paroled Union prisoners packed tightly together on the steamboat's decks.

Although only designed with a capacity of only 376 passengers, she was carrying 2,137 when three of the boat's four boilers exploded and she burned to the waterline and sank near Memphis, Tennessee, killing 1,168. The disaster was overshadowed in the press by events surrounding the end of the American Civil War, including the killing of President Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth just the day before, and no one was ever held accountable for the tragedy.


Sultana Disaster

Historic marker in Memphis

Background
Under the command of Captain James Cass Mason of St. Louis, Sultana left St. Louis on April 13, 1865 bound for New Orleans, Louisiana. On the morning of April 15, she was tied up at Cairo, Illinois, when word reached the city that President Abraham Lincoln had been shot at Ford's Theater. Immediately, Captain Mason grabbed an armload of Cairo newspapers and headed south to spread the news, knowing that telegraphic communication with the South had been almost totally cut off because of the war.

Upon reaching Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mason was approached by Capt. Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermaster at Vicksburg. Hatch had a deal for Mason. Thousands of recently released Union prisoners of war that had been held by the Confederacy at the prison camps of Cahaba near Selma, Alabama, and Andersonville, in southwest Georgia, had been brought to a small parole camp outside of Vicksburg to await release to the North. The U.S. government would pay $2.75 per enlisted man and $8 per officer to any steamboat captain who would take a group north. Knowing that Mason was in need of money, Hatch suggested that he could guarantee Mason a full load of about 1,400 prisoners if Mason would agree to give him a kickback. Hoping to gain much money through this deal, Mason quickly agreed to the offered bribe.

Leaving Vicksburg, Sultana traveled down river to New Orleans, continuing to spread the news of Lincoln's assassination. On April 21, 1865 the Sultana left New Orleans with about 70 cabin and deck passengers, and a small amount of livestock. She also carried a crew of 85. About ten hours south of Vicksburg, one of the Sultana's four boilers sprang a leak. Under reduced pressure, the steamboat limped into Vicksburg to get the boiler repaired and to pick up her promised load of prisoners.


Sultana on fire, from Harpers Weekly.

Faulty boiler repair
While the paroled prisoners, primarily from the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, were brought from the parole camp to Sultana, a mechanic was brought down to work on the leaky boiler. Although the mechanic wanted to cut out and replace a ruptured seam, Mason knew that such a job would take a few days and cost him his precious load of prisoners. By the time the repairs would be completed, the prisoners would have been sent home on other boats. Instead, Mason and his chief engineer, Nathan Wintringer, convinced the mechanic to make temporary repairs, hammering back the bulged boiler plate and riveting a patch of lesser thickness over the seam. Instead of taking two or three days, the temporary repair took only one. During her time in port, and while the repairs were being made, Sultana took on the paroled prisoners.

Overloaded
Although Hatch had suggested that Mason might get as many as 1,400 released Union prisoners, a mix-up with the parole camp books and suspicion of bribery from other steamboat captains caused the Union officer in charge of the loading, Capt. George Augustus Williams, to place every man at the parole camp on board Sultana, believing the number to be less than 1,500. Although Sultana had a legal capacity of only 376, by the time she backed away from Vicksburg on the night of April 24, 1865 she was severely overcrowded with 1,960 paroled prisoners, 22 guards from the 58th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, 70 paying cabin passengers, and 85 crew members, a total of 2,137 people. Many of the paroled prisoners had been weakened by their incarceration in the Confederate prison camps and associated illnesses but had managed to gain some strength while waiting at the parole camp to be officially released. The men were packed into every available space, and the overflow was so severe that in some places, the decks began to creak and sag and had to be supported with heavy wooden beams.

Sultana spent two days traveling upriver, fighting against one of the worst spring floods in the river's history. At some places, the river overflowed the banks and spread out three miles wide. Trees along the river bank were almost completely covered, until only the very tops of the trees were visible above the swirling, powerful water. On April 26, Sultana stopped at Helena, Arkansas, where photographer Thomas W. Bankes took a picture of the grossly overcrowded vessel. Near 7:00 pm, Sultana reached Memphis, Tennessee and the crew began unloading 120 tons of sugar from the hold. Near midnight, Sultana left Memphis, perhaps leaving behind about 200 men. She then went a short distance upriver to take on a new load of coal from some coal barges and then about 1:00 A.M. started north again.


Near 2:00 A.M. on April 27, 1865 when Sultana was just seven miles north of Memphis, her boilers suddenly exploded. First one boiler exploded, followed a split second later by two more. The cause of the explosions was too much pressure and low water in the boilers. There was reason to believe allowable working steam pressure had been exceeded in an attempt to overcome the spring river current. Also the Sultana's tubular boilers were made of Charcoal Hammered No. 1, a poor choice since the metal tended to crack and get brittle when heated and cooled repeatedly. (Charcoal Hammered No 1 was soon discarded for use in boilers.)

The enormous explosion of steam came from the top rear of the boilers and went upward at a 45-degree angle, tearing through the crowded decks above, and completely demolishing the pilothouse. Without a pilot to steer the boat, Sultana became a drifting, burning hulk. The terrific explosion flung some of the deck passengers into the water and destroyed a large section of the boat. The twin smokestacks toppled over, the left-hand one backwards into the blasted hole, and the right-hand one forward onto the crowded forward section of the upper deck. The forward part of the upper decks collapsed into the exposed furnace boxes, shoving kindling into the open fire boxes which soon caught fire and turned the remaining superstructure into an inferno. Survivors of the explosion panicked and raced for the safety of the water but in their weakened condition soon ran out of strength and began to cling to each other. Whole groups went down together.

Rescue attempts
While this fight for survival was taking place, the southbound steamer Bostona (No. 2), built in 1860 but coming downriver on her maiden voyage after being refurbished, arrived at about 3:00 am, an hour after the explosion, and arrived at the site of the burning wreck to rescue scores of survivors. At the same time, dozens of people began to float past the Memphis waterfront, calling for help until they were noticed by the crews of docked steamboats and U.S. warships who immediately set about rescuing the half-drowned victims. Eventually, the hulk of Sultana drifted about six miles to the west bank of the river, and sank at around 9:00 a.m. near Mound City and present-day Marion, Arkansas about seven hours after the explosion. Other vessels joined the rescue, including the steamers Silver Spray, Jenny Lind, and Pocohontas, the navy ironclad Essex and the sidewheel gunboat USS Tyler.

Passengers who survived the initial explosion had to risk their lives in the icy spring runoff of the Mississippi or burn with the boat. Many died of drowning or hypothermia. Some survivors were plucked from the tops of semi-submerged trees along the Arkansas shore. Bodies of victims continued to be found downriver for months, some as far as Vicksburg. Many bodies were never recovered. Most of Sultana's officers, including Captain Mason, were among those who perished.

Casualties
The exact death toll is unknown, although the most recent evidence indicates 1,168. On May 19, 1865, less than a month after the disaster, Brig. Gen. William Hoffman, Commissary General of Prisoners, who investigated the disaster, reported an overall loss of soldiers, passengers, and crew of 1,238. In February 1867, the Bureau of Military Justice placed the death toll at 1,100. In 1880, the 51st Congress of the United States, in conjunction with the War Department, Pensions and Records Department, reported the loss of life aboard the Sultana as 1,259. The official count by the United States Customs Service was 1,547. In 1880, the War Department, Pensions and Records Department, placed the number of survivors at 931 but the most recent research places the number at 969. Many of the dead were interred at the Memphis National Cemetery. Three victims of the wreck of the Sultana are interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee.

Survivors
About 760 survivors were transported to hospitals in Memphis. Fortunately, since Memphis had been captured by Federal forces in 1862 and turned into a supply and recuperation city, there were numerous hospitals in the city with the latest medical equipment and trained personnel. Of the roughly 760 people taken to Memphis hospitals, there were only 31 deaths between April 28 and June 28. paper accounts indicate that the people of Memphis had sympathy for the victims despite the fact that they were an occupied city. The Chicago Opera Troupe, a minstrel group that had traveled upriver on the Sultana before getting off at Memphis, staged a benefit, while the crew of the gunboat Essex raised $1,000.

In December 1885, the survivors living in the northern states of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio began attending annual reunions, forming the National Sultana Survivors' Association. Eventually, the group settled on meeting in the Toledo, Ohio, area. Perhaps inspired by their Northern comrades, a Southern group of survivors, men from Kentucky and Tennessee began meeting in 1889 around Knoxville, Tennessee. Both groups met as close to the April 27 anniversary date as possible, corresponded with each other, and shared the title National Sultana Survivors' Association.

By the mid-1920s, only a handful of survivors were able to attend the reunions. In 1929, only two men attended the Southern reunion. The next year, only one man showed up. The last Northern survivor, Private Jordan Barr of the 15th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment, died on May 16, 1938 at age 93. The last of the Southern survivors, and last overall survivor, was Private Charles M. Eldridge of the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry, who died at his home at age 96 on September 8, 1941, more than 76 years after the Sultana disaster.

Causes
The official cause of the Sultana disaster was determined to be mismanagement of water levels in the boiler, exacerbated by the fact that the vessel was severely overcrowded and top heavy. As the steamboat made her way north following the twists and turns of the river, she listed severely to one side then to the other. Her four boilers were interconnected and mounted side-by-side, so that if the boat tipped sideways, water would tend to run out of the highest boiler. With the fires still going against the empty boiler, this created hot spots. When the boat tipped the other way, water rushing back into the empty boiler would hit the hot spots and flash instantly to steam, creating a sudden surge in pressure. This effect of careening could have been minimized by maintaining high water levels in the boilers. The official inquiry found that the boat's boilers exploded due to the combined effects of careening, low water level, and a faulty repair to a leaky boiler made a few days earlier.

The most recent investigation into the cause of the disaster by Pat Jennings, Principal Engineer of Harford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company, which came into existence in 1866 because of the Sultana explosion, has determined that three main factors led to the explosion. No. 1) The type of metal used in the construction of the boilers – Charcoal Hammered No. 1, which tends to become brittle with prolonged heating and cooling. Charcoal Hammered No. 1 was no longer used for the manufacture of boilers after 1879. No. 2) The use of the dirty Mississippi River water to feed the boilers. The dirt tended to settle on the bottom of the boilers or clog between the flues and leave hotspots. No. 3) The design of the boilers. The Sultana had tubular boilers filled with 24 horizontal 5-inch flues. Being so closely packed within the 48-inch diameter boilers tended to cause the muddy sediment to form hot pockets. They were extremely difficult to clean. Tubular boilers were pulled from use on steamboats plying the Lower Mississippi after two more steamboats with tubular boilers exploded shortly after the Sultana.

In 1888, a St. Louis resident named William Streetor claimed that his former business partner, Robert Louden, made a confession while they were drinking in a saloon of having sabotaged Sultana by a coal torpedo. Louden, a former Confederate agent and saboteur who operated in and around St. Louis, had been responsible for the burning of the steamboat Ruth. (Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay, the inventor of the coal torpedo, was a former resident of St. Louis and was involved in similar acts of sabotage against Union shipping interests. However, Courtenay's great-great-grandson, Joseph Thatcher, who wrote a book on Thomas Courtenay and the Coal Torpedo, denies that a coal torpedo was used. "If you read my book... you will note that we do not claim the Sultana, nor did Courtenay.") Still, supporting Louden's claim was the fact that what appeared to be a piece of an artillery shell was recovered from the sunken wreck. Louden's claim is controversial, however, and most scholars support the official explanation. The location of the explosion, from the top rear of the boilers, far away from the fireboxes, tends to indicate that Louden's claim of sabotage of an exploding coal torpedo in the firebox was pure bravado.

Two years before William Streeter's claim that Louden sabotaged the Sultana, there was a claim that 2nd Lt. James Worthington Barrett, Co. B, 12th Kentucky Inf., an ex-prisoner and passenger on the steamboat, had caused the explosion. Barrett was a veteran of the War with Mexico and had fought bravely with his regiment until captured at Franklin, TN. He was injured on the Sultana and was honorably discharged in May 1865. There is no reason for him to have blown up the boat, especially with himself on board.

Then, in 1903, another person came out with a report that the Sultana had been sabotaged by a Tennessee farmer who lived along the river and cut wood for passing steamboats. After a few Union gunboats filled up their bunkers but refused to pay, the farmer supposedly hollowed out a log, filled it with gunpowder and then left the lethal log on his woodpile. As stated in the 1903 newspaper article, the log was mistakenly taken by the Sultana. Unfortunately for the story, the Sultana was a coal burning boat, not a wood burner.

The episode of History Detectives, which aired on July 2, 2014, reviewed the known evidence, thoroughly disputing the sabotage theory, and then focused on the question of why the steamboat was allowed to be crowded to several times its normal capacity before departure. The report blamed quartermaster Hatch, an individual with a long history of corruption and incompetence, who was able to keep his job due to political connections: he was the younger brother of Illinois politician Ozias M. Hatch, an advisor and close friend of President Lincoln. Throughout the war, Reuben Hatch had shown incompetence as a quartermaster and competence as a thief, bilking the government out of thousands of dollars. Although brought up on courts-martial charges, Hatch managed to get letters of recommendation from such noted authorities as President Abraham Lincoln and General of the Army Ulysses S. Grant. The letters reside in the National Archives in Washington DC. After the disaster, Hatch refused three separate subpoenas to appear before Captain Speed's trial and give testimony. Hatch died in 1871, having escaped justice due to his numerous highly placed patrons—including two presidents.

Lack of accountability
In spite of the magnitude of the disaster, no one was ever held accountable. Capt. Frederic Speed, a Union officer who sent the 1,960 paroled prisoners into Vicksburg from the parole camp, was charged with grossly overcrowding Sultana and found guilty. However, the guilty verdict was overturned by the judge advocate general of the army on grounds that Speed had been at the parole camp all day and had never placed one single soldier on board the Sultana. Captain Williams, who had placed the men on board, was a regular army officer and 1852 graduate of West Point, so the military refused to go after one of their own. And Captain Hatch, who had concocted a bribe with Captain Mason to crowd as many men onto the Sultana as possible, had quickly quit the service and was now a civilian, no longer accountable to a military court. The master of the Sultana, Captain Mason, who was ultimately responsible for dangerously overloading his vessel and ordering the faulty repairs to her leaky boiler, had died in the explosion. In the end, no one was ever held accountable for the greatest maritime disaster in United States history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat)

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1876 – Launch of HMS Inflexible, a Victorian ironclad battleship carrying her main armament in centrally placed turrets.


HMS Inflexible was a Victorian ironclad battleship carrying her main armament in centrally placed turrets. The ship was constructed in the 1870s for the Royal Navy to oppose the perceived growing threat from the Italian Regia Marina in the Mediterranean.

The Italian Navy had started constructing a pair of battleships, Caio Duilio and Enrico Dandolo, equipped with four Armstrong 17.7-inch (450 mm) guns weighing 100 tons each. These were superior to the armament of any ship in the British Mediterranean Squadron, and Inflexible was designed as a counter to them.


HMS Inflexible with the pole masts fitted in 1885,[1]replacing the original full sailing rig

Inflexible mounted larger guns than those of any previous British warship and had the thickest armour ever to be fitted to a Royal Navy ship. Controversially, she was designed so that if her un-armoured ends should be seriously damaged in action and become water-logged, the buoyancy of the armoured centre section of the ship would keep her afloat and upright.

The ship was the first major warship to depend in part for the protection of her buoyancy on a horizontal armoured deck below the water-line rather than armoured sides along the waterline.


Design

Plans of Inflexible as shown in Brassey's Naval Annual, 1888

The original concept was based upon an outline design similar to that for HMS Dreadnought, but with improved armament. The ship was conceptually constructed from three components, several outline studies being produced by Nathaniel Barnaby.

A heavily armoured citadel 75 feet (23 m) wide and 110 feet (34 m) long was located amidships, which would keep the ship afloat and stable regardless of what happened to the ends. This citadel contained the main guns, the boilers and the engines. The ends were unarmoured, but with a 3-inch-thick (76 mm) armoured deck 6–8 ft below the waterline to limit damage to the underwater section to keep them buoyant. Coal bunkers were located over the armoured deck and surrounded by 4-foot-wide (1.2 m) compartments filled with cork. The ship had bunker capacity for 400 tons of coal below the deck for use during combat, when the above-deck bunkers would be inaccessible and possibly flooded. The structure above the armoured deck also contained a large number of watertight compartments to further preserve buoyancy. There was also light superstructure to provide crew accommodation, and freeboard in rough weather, although anticipated to be seriously damaged in any major engagement.

Barnaby wanted a ship both broader than existing designs to mimimise rolling and as short as possible to reduce its size as a target. Making a ship broader compared to its length was known to reduce its speed, so the innovative technique of water tank tests on models, pioneered by William Froude, was used to finalise a design. This was ten feet wider than Duillo and twenty-one feet shorter, the smallest ever ratio of length to breadth in a metal first class warship.

Once the outline design was agreed, the detailed architectural design was done by William White and she was laid down at Portsmouth Dockyard on 24 February 1874.

Controversy
Inflexible was launched 27 April 1876. Later that year the MP Edward Reed, formerly Director of Naval Construction, visited the Italian ships and subsequently questioned their stability if the unarmoured ends were flooded.

As Inflexible was of similar design, he raised grave concerns about it too. When he failed to persuade the Admiralty, in June 1877 he publicised his charges in The Times. An editorial in the same edition, 18 June, said "it is said that the unarmoured ends are, in fact, the corks on which she floats, that she cannot swim without them, and it would appear that if she lost one she would capsize".

Further exchanges followed until in July, construction was halted on Inflexible (and two other smaller ships, HMS Ajax and HMS Agamemnon whilst a hastily convened committee examined the design. In their report published in December 1877, they concluded that it would be hard for gunfire to completely flood the unarmoured but heavily compartmentalised and partially cork-filled ends. However, if this was managed then the ship would just be stable, capsizing at about 35 degrees heel.

Work restarted on the ship in December 1877, and the ship was commissioned 5 July 1881, under Captain John Fisher, although she was not completed until 18 October. Her eventual cost was £812,000 .

Main armament
Main guns

Drawing depicting one of the gun turrets


Turret cross-section showing guns pointing downwards for reloading

To counter the perceived threat from the Italians, Inflexible was to be equipped with four of the largest guns available, weighing 60 tons each. In October 1874 it was decided to modify the design of Inflexible to use an even bigger gun which Armstrongs was producing, a 16-inch (406 mm) gun weighing 81 tons. The Italians responded by changing their design to take even larger 100-ton 17.7-inch (450 mm) Armstrongs guns. As these could not be fitted to Inflexible, four examples were ordered by the British Government, two each for the coastal defences around Gibraltar and Malta respectively. Two of these guns still exist, at Fort Rinnella on Malta and at the Napier of Magdala Battery on Gibraltar.

The four 81-ton muzzle-loading rifles were mounted in two 33-foot-10-inch-diameter (10.31 m) turrets mounted en echelon, with the forward turret mounted on the port side of the ship and the after turret on the starboard side. The superstructure both fore and aft was very narrow to allow one gun in each turret to fire axially, i.e. directly forward or directly aft. In practice, as in previous ships, it was found that axial fire led to so much blast damage to the ship's superstructure that it was impractical. However, the en-echelon arrangement also meant that at least three guns could fire on bearings close to fore and aft. All four guns could be fired broadside.

The en-echelon configuration was retained for the two ships of the Colossus class, but subsequently abandoned in the Royal Navy in favour of centreline mounts at either end of the ship. The en-echelon configuration did not reappear in Royal Navy capital ships until HMS Neptune launched in 1909.

Each turret weighed 750 tons and was protected by an outer layer of 9 inches (230 mm) of compound armour, an inner layer of 7-inch-thick (180 mm) wrought iron, with a total of 18 inches (460 mm) of teak backing. The turrets were rotated hydraulically, taking around a minute to perform a complete rotation.

Inflexible's guns were muzzle loaded, and because of their length could not be reloaded from inside the turrets. Consequently reloading was done using hydraulic rams fitted outside the two turrets underneath an armoured glacis. To reload the guns, the turret was rotated to align the guns with the rams, and the guns depressed so that the rams could push the gunpowder charge and 1,684-pound shell into it. The rams had to be extended twice: First, to extinguish any burning material remaining inside the gun using a sponge and water jet fixed to the end of the ram, and then again after charge, shell and wadding had been placed on a loading tray in front of it to be driven into the gun. The shell had a copper disk at its base which engaged with rifled grooves cut into the barrel to spin the shell, rather than zinc studs used on earlier designs. Tests showed that the normal full charge of 450 pounds of brown prismatic gunpowder would produce a muzzle velocity of 1,590 feet per second (480 m/s), which could penetrate 23 inches (580 mm) of wrought iron armour at 1,000 yards (910 m). The muzzle loading took between 2.5 and four minutes.



Ram
She was also equipped with a ram – ramming was considered a practical means of sinking an enemy battleship at that time. The Italian Re d'Italia had been rammed and sunk by the Austrian flagship, Ferdinand Max, at the Battle of Lissa in 1866. This had started a vogue for ramming (which persisted until the 1890s), and many naval experts even believed this was the most effective weapon a ship could have. For example Gerard Noel won the 1874 Royal United Services Institute essay contest with an article that asserted that "n a general action I do not hold that the guns will be the principal weapon".

This was less surprising than it might seem to modern eyes, because it was expected that naval battles would be fought at a range of only a couple of thousand metres. The advent of steam power meant that ships were no longer restricted in manoeuvring by wind direction and had led to a belief that it would be possible to steer into enemy ships. Rams turned out to be a handicap in retrospect, as several warships were accidentally sunk by them – for example HMS Vanguard by HMS Iron Duke in 1875, and HMS Victoria by HMS Camperdown in 1893. Whilst this showed the considerable potency of a ram, it also demonstrated the inadequate manoeuvring characteristics of many of the ships equipped with them. The ram was designed to be removable to avoid damage during accidental collisions, but although other ships customarily carried theirs detached, Inflexible seems to have kept hers in place. The ram was a solid iron forging supported by an extension of the 3-inch (76 mm) armoured deck which turned downwards behind it.



Torpedoes
The ship was fitted with two underwater torpedo tubes. These were cast-iron cylinders attached to a swivel joint in the hull, one on each bow. Inside the ship the opposite end was attached to a graduated scale for targeting. There was a watertight door at either end of the tube. The 14-inch (360 mm) torpedoes were loaded inside a brass cylinder which slid into the iron casting. To fire the torpedo, the outer door was opened and a 10-foot (3.0 m) guide was extended which helped the torpedo clear the currents around the ship. A piston in the brass cylinder forced out the torpedo when it was to be fired, and at the same time its own compressed air motor was started.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Inflexible_(1876)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:HMS_Inflexible_(ship,_1876)

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1882 – Launch of French Courbet, an Dévastation-class ironclad central battery battleship of the French Navy


Courbet was an Dévastation-class ironclad central battery battleship of the French Navy.



The ship was laid down at Toulon on 19 July 1875, and was launched on 27 April 1882. Originally named Foudroyant ("Lightning"), she was renamed to honour Admiral Amédée Courbet on 25 June 1885. Courbet was commissioned on 20 October 1886 and assigned to the l'escadre d'évolution ("Squadron of Evolution") at Toulon on 1 November 1886.

In August 1887 she represented France at the International Maritime Exhibition at Cadiz, before visiting Tangier. In 1893, she sailed to the eastern Mediterranean, and visited Tunisia and Algeria in 1895. She was decommissioned in February 1898 to refit, then in October 1898 sailed from Toulon to Cherbourg, where she joined the l'escadre du Nord ("Northern Squadron"). In 1899, she visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Vigo and Ferrol, and in 1901, was at Vigo, Lagos, Toulon and Ajaccio.

After a final voyage to Algeria in 1902, she sailed from Toulon to Brest, where she was put into reserve on 4 January 1903. Disarmed in February 1908, she was struck on 5 February 1909, and sold for scrap on 25 August 1910.


French ironclad Dévastation (in the middle of the photo) in Brest, 1912

The Dévastation-class ironclads were a class of ironclad battleships that were laid down as part of the 1872 programme. They were a development of the 1876 ironclad Redoutable. The class consisted of:

• Dévastation (1879)
• Courbet (1882)

A very interesting book in french language:





Dévastation









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

Dévastation-class ironclad - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1896 – Launch of French Bouvet, a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy that was built in the 1890s.


Bouvet was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy that was built in the 1890s. She was a member of a group of five broadly similar battleships, along with Charles Martel, Jauréguiberry, Carnot, and Masséna, which were ordered in response to the British Royal Sovereign class. Bouvet was the last vessel of the group to be built, and her design was based on that of Charles Martel. Like her half-sisters, she was armed with a main battery of two 305 mm (12.0 in) guns and two 274 mm (10.8 in) guns in individual turrets. She had a top speed of 18 kn (33 km/h; 21 mph), which made her one of the fastest battleships in the world at the time. Bouvet proved to be the most successful design of the five, and she was used as the basis for the subsequent Charlemagne class. She nevertheless suffered from design flaws that reduced her stability and contributed to her loss in 1915.



Bouvet spent the majority of her peacetime career in the Mediterranean Squadron conducting routine training exercises. This period was relatively uneventful, though she was involved in a collision with the battleship Gaulois in 1903 that saw both ships' captains relieved of command. In 1906, she assisted in the response to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy. Bouvet was withdrawn from front-line service in 1907 and thereafter used as part of the training fleet. The ship was the only vessel of her group of five half-sisters still in service at the outbreak of World War I in July 1914.

A significant portion of the French Army was stationed in French North Africa, so at the start of the war, Bouvet and much of the rest of the fleet was tasked with escorting troop convoys across to southern France. With this work done by late August, Bouvet and several other battleships were used to patrol for contraband shipments in the central Mediterranean. From November to late December, she was stationed as a guard ship at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal. The ship thereafter joined the naval operations off the Dardanelles, where she participated in a series of attacks on the Ottoman fortifications guarding the straits. These culminated in a major assault on 18 March 1915; during the attack, she was hit approximately eight times by shellfire but was not seriously damaged. While turning to withdraw, she struck a mine and sank within two minutes; only 75 men were rescued from a complement of 710. Two British battleships were also sunk by mines that day, and the disaster convinced the Allies to abandon the naval campaign in favor of an amphibious assault on Gallipoli.


Design
In 1889, the British Royal Navy passed the Naval Defence Act that resulted in the construction of the eight Royal Sovereign-class battleships; this major expansion of naval power led the French government to pass its reply, the Statut Naval (Naval Law) of 1890. The law called for a total of twenty-four "cuirasses d'escadre" (squadron battleships) and a host of other vessels, including coastal defense battleships, cruisers, and torpedo boats. The first stage of the program was to be a group of four squadron battleships that were built to different designs but met the same basic characteristics, including armor, armament, and displacement. The naval high command issued the basic requirements on 24 December 1889; displacement would not exceed 14,000 metric tons (14,000 long tons; 15,000 short tons), the primary armament was to consist of 34-centimeter (13 in) and 27 cm (11 in) guns, the belt armor should be 45 cm (18 in), and the ships should maintain a top speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph). The secondary battery was to be either 14 cm (5.5 in) or 16 cm (6.3 in) caliber, with as many guns fitted as space would allow.


Charles Martel, which formed the basis for Bouvet's design

The basic design for the ships was based on the previous battleship Brennus, but instead of mounting the main battery all on the centerline, the ships used the lozenge arrangement of the earlier vessel Magenta, which moved two of the main battery guns to single turrets on the wings. Although the navy had stipulated that displacement could be up to 14,000 tons, political considerations, namely parliamentary objections to increases in naval expenditures, led the designers to limit displacement to around 12,000 metric tons (12,000 long tons; 13,000 short tons). Five naval architects submitted proposals to the competition; Charles Ernest Huin prepared the design for Bouvet. He had also designed her half-sister Charles Martel, upon which the design for Bouvet was based. Before work on Charles Martel had begun, the naval command asked Huin to design an improved version. He completed the plans for the ship, which was slightly larger than her half-sisters, on 20 May, and the navy awarded the contract for the ship on 8 October 1892.

Bouvet proved to be the most successful of the five ships, and she was the only one still in active service at the outbreak of World War I. She also provided the basis for the next class of French battleships, the three Charlemagnes built in the mid-1890s. She and her half-sisters nevertheless were disappointments in service; Bouvet suffered from stability problems that ultimately contributed to her loss in 1915, and all five of the vessels compared poorly to their British counterparts, particularly their contemporaries of the Majestic class. The ships suffered from a lack of uniformity of equipment, which made them hard to maintain in service, and their mixed gun batteries comprising several calibers made gunnery in combat conditions difficult, since shell splashes were hard to differentiate. Many of the problems that plagued the ships in service were a result of the limitation on their displacement, particularly their stability and seakeeping.

General characteristics and machinery
Bouvet was 117.9 meters (386 ft 10 in) long between perpendiculars, 121.01 m (397 ft 0 in) long at the waterline, and 122.4 m (401 ft 7 in) long overall. She had a beam of 21.4 m (70 ft 3 in) and an average draft of 8 m (26 ft 3 in). She had a displacement of 12,200 tonnes (12,007 long tons) as designed. Unlike her half-sisters, which had a cut down quarterdeck, Bouvet retained a full flush deck. Her superstructure was reduced in size compared to her half-sisters, and she had a pair of short military masts; these changes were made to reduce the top-heaviness experienced with the earlier vessels. She kept the pronounced tumblehome to give the 27 cm guns wide fields of fire. Bouvet had a standard crew of 31 officers and 591 enlisted men, though her as a flagship her crew grew to 41 officers and 651 enlisted men.

Bouvet had three vertical triple expansion engines each driving a single three-bladed screw; the outboard screws were 4.5 m (15 ft) wide, while the center shaft was slightly smaller, at 4.4 m (14 ft) in diameter. The engines were powered with steam supplied by thirty-two Belleville water-tube boilers that were license-built by Indret. The boilers were divided into four boiler rooms, which were placed in two pairs on either end of the magazines for the wing turrets, and divided by a central bulkhead. The boilers were ducted into a pair of funnels. Her three engines were placed side-by-side and also divided by longitudinal bulkheads.

Her propulsion system was rated at 14,000 metric horsepower (13,808 ihp), which allowed the ship to steam at a maximum speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) on speed trials with a light loading, though while on a 24-hour test using normal displacement, she cruised at 17 to 17.5 knots (31.5 to 32.4 km/h; 19.6 to 20.1 mph). Using forced draft, she reached 18.2 knots (33.7 km/h; 20.9 mph) from 15,462 metric horsepower (15,250 ihp) during the tests. Bouvet was fast by the standards of the day; the only British battleship that approached her in speed was the second-class battleship HMS Renown. As built, Bouvetcould carry 610 t (600 long tons; 670 short tons) of coal, though additional space allowed for up to 980 t (960 long tons; 1,080 short tons) in total. at a cruising speed of 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph), the ship could steam for 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi).

The ship's electrical system consisted of four 400 amp/80 volt dynamos that had a combined output of 128 kilowatts (172 hp). The dynamos were placed on the platform deck between the ducting for the boilers. Several smaller electric motors, rated at 29 kW (39 hp), powered the ship's ventilation system, and 9 kW (12 hp) motors drove the ash hoists for the boiler rooms. Bouvet was fitted with six searchlights: four on the battery deck (two amidships and one each forward and aft) and the remaining two on the masts.

Armament

Bouvet at anchor, c. June 1912

Bouvet's main armament consisted of two Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1893 guns in two single-gun turrets, one each fore and aft and two Canon de 274 mm Modèle 1893 guns in two single-gun turrets, one amidships on each side, sponsoned out over the tumblehome of the ship's sides.[7] Both types of guns were experimental 45 caliber variants of the guns fitted in her half-sister Masséna. The 305 mm guns had a muzzle velocity of 815 meters per second (2,670 ft/s), which produced a muzzle energy of 136.78 kilonewtons (15.375 STf) and allowed the shells to penetrate up to 610 mm (24 in) of iron armor at a range of 1,800 m (2,000 yd). This was sufficiently powerful to allow Bouvet's main guns to easily penetrate the armor of most contemporary battleships at the common battle ranges of the day. The 274 mm guns, which were also 45 calibers long, had the same muzzle velocity, but being significantly smaller than the 305 mm guns, produced a muzzle energy of 101.20 kilonewtons (11.375 STf) and 460 millimeters (18 in) of iron penetration. The gun turrets were hydraulically operated and required the guns to be depressed to -4° to be loaded. They both had a rate of fire of one shell per minute. Both types of mounts allowed elevation to 14°; for the 305 mm guns, this produced a maximum range of 12,400 m (40,700 ft), and for the 274 mm guns, their maximum range was 11,700 m (38,400 ft).

Her secondary armament consisted of eight Canon de 138 mm Modèle 1891 naval guns, which were mounted in single turrets in the hull; two were placed just aft of the forward 305 mm turret, four were placed on either sides of the 274 mm guns, and the remaining two were just aft of the rear 305 mm turret. These guns had a firing rate of 4 rounds per minute, with a maximum range of 11,000 m (36,000 ft) from up to 20° elevation. For defense against torpedo boats, Bouvet carried eight 100 mm (3.9 in) quick-firing (QF) guns in individual pedestal mounts with gun shields on the upper deck. Four were located between the funnels, two were placed abreast of the forward bridge, and the remaining two were similarly arranged on either side of the aft bridge. They had a rate of fire of between 7 and 15 shots per minute and they could engage targets out to 5,000 m (16,000 ft). She also had twelve 47 mm (1.9 in) 3-pounder guns, and eight 37 mm (1.5 in) 1-pounder guns, all in individual mounts. Of the 37 mm guns, three were Hotchkiss revolver cannon and the remaining five were single-barrel QF guns. Four of the 47 mm guns were mounted on the lower platforms of the military masts and the remainder, along with the 37 mm guns, were distributed along the length of the superstructure.

As was customary for capital ships of the period, her armament suite was rounded out by four 450 mm (18 in) torpedo tubes, two of which were submerged in the ship's hull; both were located on the broadside close to the bow; they were aimed directly perpendicular to the centerline. The other two tubes were mounted above water, in trainable launchers placed amidships. The fire of these tubes was directed either by armored sights located abreast of the conning tower or unprotected sights on the battery deck. Bouvet carried a total of ten torpedoes of the Modèle 1892 Toulon/Fiume type; six were allocated to the submerged tubes, with the other four for the deck launchers. Bouvet also carried twenty Modèle 1892 naval mines that could be laid by the ship's pinnaces.





Top: Bouvet's last moments after striking a mine in the Dardanelles
Bottom: Bouvet capsizing

French battleship Bouvet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1896 – Launch of SMS Budapest , a Monarch-class coastal defense ship built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy


SMS Budapest  ("His Majesty's Ship Budapest") was a Monarch-class coastal defense ship built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the 1890s. After their commissioning, Budapest and the two other Monarch-class ships made several training cruises in the Mediterranean Sea in the early 1900s. Budapestand her sisters formed the 1st Capital Ship Division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy until they were replaced by the newly commissioned Habsburg-classpre-dreadnought battleships at the turn of the century. In 1906 the three Monarchs were placed in reserve and only recommissioned during the annual summer training exercises. After the start of World War I, Budapest was recommissioned and assigned to 5th Division together with her sisters.


A model of Budapest at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna

The division was sent to Cattaro in August 1914 to attack Montenegrin and French artillery that was bombarding the port, and they remained there until mid-1917. Budapest and her sister Wien were sent to Trieste in August and bombarded Italian fortifications in the Gulf of Trieste. The ship was briefly decommissioned in early 1918 and became an accommodation ship, but she was fitted with a large siege howitzer for shore bombardment shortly afterwards and recommissioned. A shortage of ammunition caused the gun to be removed before it could be used, and Budapest reverted to her previous role. The ship was awarded to Great Britain by the Paris Peace Conference in 1920. The British sold her for scrap, and she was broken up in Italy beginning in 1921.

Description and construction
Main article: Monarch-class coastal defense ship


Right elevation and plan of the Monarch class; the shaded area is armored.

At only 5,785 tonnes (5,694 long tons) maximum displacement, the Monarch class was less than half the size of the battleships of other major navies at the time and were officially designated as coast defense ships. The Austro-Hungarian government believed that the role of its navy was solely to defend her coast.

Budapest had an overall length of 99.22 meters (325 ft 6 in), a beam of 17 meters (55 ft 9 in) and a draft of 6.4 meters (21 ft 0 in). Her two 4-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines produced a total of 9,100 indicated horsepower (6,800 kW) using steam from 16 Belleville boilers. These gave the ship a maximum speed of 17.8 knots (33.0 km/h; 20.5 mph). Budapest's maximum load of 500 metric tons (490 LT) of coal gave her a range of 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) at a speed of 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph). She was manned by 26 officers and 397 enlisted men, a total of 423 personnel.

The armament of the Monarch class consisted of four 240-millimeter (9.4 in) Krupp K/94 guns mounted in two twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. The ships carried 80 rounds for each gun. Their secondary armament was six 150-millimeter (6 in) Škoda guns located in casemates in the superstructure. Defense against torpedo boats was provided by ten quick-firing (QF) 47 mm (1.9 in) Škoda guns and four 47-millimeter QF Hotchkiss guns. The ships also mounted two 450-millimeter (18 in) torpedo tubes, one on each broadside. Each torpedo tube was provided with two torpedoes. After 1917 refits one Škoda 7 cm K16 anti-aircraft gun was installed.

The ship's nickel-steel waterline armor belt was 120–270 millimeters (4.7–10.6 in) thick, and the gun turrets were protected by 250 millimeters (9.8 in) of armor. The casemates had 80 millimeters (3.1 in) thick sides while the conning tower had 220 millimeters (8.7 in) of armor. Budapest's deck armor was 40 millimeters (1.6 in) thick.

The Monarch-class ships were ordered in May 1892[8] with Budapest and Wien to be built at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste. Both ships were laid down on 16 February 1893, the first ships in the class to be laid down. Budapest was launched on 27 April 1896 by Countess Marie Széchényí-Andrássy, wife of the Governor of Fiume, and commissioned on 12 May 1898.


The battleship Monarch before World War I


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Budapest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch-class_coastal_defense_ship

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1912 – Launch of SMS König Albert, the fourth vessel of the Kaiser class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy.


SMS König Albert was the fourth vessel of the Kaiser class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_König_Albert#cite_note-completion_order-2 König Albert's keel was laid on 17 July 1910 at the Schichau-Werke dockyard in Danzig. She was launched on 27 April 1912 and was commissioned into the fleet on 31 July 1913. The ship was equipped with ten 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns in five twin turrets, and had a top speed of 22.1 knots (40.9 km/h; 25.4 mph). König Albert was assigned to III Battle Squadron and later IV Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of her career, including World War I.


SMS König Albert; the diagonal lines along the side of the hull are anti-torpedo net booms.

Along with her four sister ships, Kaiser, Friedrich der Grosse, Kaiserin, and Prinzregent Luitpold, König Albert participated in most of the major fleet operations of World War I, though she was in drydock for maintenance during the Battle of Jutland between 31 May and 1 June 1916. As a result, she was the only battleship actively serving with the fleet that missed the largest naval battle of the war. The ship was also involved in Operation Albion, an amphibious assault on the Russian-held islands in the Gulf of Riga, in late 1917.

After Germany's defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, König Albert and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow. The ships were disarmed and reduced to skeleton crews while the Allied powers negotiated the final version of the Treaty of Versailles. On 21 June 1919, days before the treaty was signed, the commander of the interned fleet, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, ordered the fleet to be scuttled to ensure that the British would not be able to seize the ships. König Albert was raised in July 1935 and subsequently broken up for scrap in 1936.


Design
Main article: Kaiser-class battleship


A line-drawing of the Kaiser class; the shaded areas represent the portions of the ship protected by armor

The ship was 172.40 m (565 ft 7 in) long overall and displaced a maximum of 27,000 metric tons (26,570 long tons). She had a beam of 29 m (95 ft 2 in) and a draft of 9.10 m (29 ft 10 in) forward and 8.80 m (28 ft 10 in) aft. König Albert was powered by three sets of Schichau turbines, supplied with steam by 16 coal-fired boilers. The powerplant produced a top speed of 22.1 knots (40.9 km/h; 25.4 mph). She carried 3,600 metric tons (3,500 long tons) of coal, which enabled a maximum range of 7,900 nautical miles (14,600 km; 9,100 mi) at a cruising speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). She had a crew of 41 officers and 1,043 enlisted.

König Albert was armed with a main battery of ten 30.5 cm SK L/50 guns in five twin turrets. The ship disposed of the inefficient hexagonal turret arrangement of previous German battleships; instead, three of the five turrets were mounted on the centerline, with two of them arranged in a superfiring pair aft. The other two turrets were placed en echelon amidships, such that both could fire on the broadside. The ship was also armed with fourteen 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns in casemates amidships, eight 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns in casemates and four 8.8 cm L/45 anti-aircraft guns. The ship's armament was rounded out by five 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes, all mounted in the hull.

Her main armored belt was 350 mm (14 in) thick in the central portion, and was composed of Krupp cemented armor (KCA). Her main battery gun turrets were protected by 300 mm (12 in) of KCA armor on the sides and faces. König Albert's conning tower was heavily armored, with 400 mm (16 in) sides.


SMS Kaiser


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

Kaiser-class battleship - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1915 - Léon Gambetta – On the night of 27 April 1915 the French cruiser was patrolling in the Ionian Sea 15 nautical miles (28 km) south of Santa Maria di Leuca.
The Austro-Hungarian U-5 hit her with two torpedoes and she sank in 10 minutes.
Of 821 men aboard 684 including Contre-amiral Victor Baptistin Sénès were lost along with all officers. There were 137 survivors.


Léon Gambetta was a French Navy armoured cruiser of 12,400 tons, the lead ship of the class of that name. The Léon Gambettas were larger than previous armoured cruisers of the class, but they lacked the heavier firepower. They also were vulnerable to underwater attacks.




Early history
She was launched on 26 October 1901 at the Arsenal de Brest. While on steam trial in December 1903, she struck an unknown pinnacle of rock off Black Rock Islands near Brest in fog and suffered considerable damage. Repairs were not complete until mid-1904.



Sinking
On the night of 27 April 1915, when 15 miles (24 km) south of Santa Maria di Leuca (the south-eastern tip of Italy in the Ionian Sea) in position 39°30′N 18°15′ECoordinates:

39°30′N 18°15′E, she was torpedoed twice by Austro-Hungarian submarine U-5 under the command of Korvettenkapitän Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp (later to be known as patriarch of the Von Trapp Family Singers).

Léon Gambetta was part of the French fleet based at Malta blockading the Austrian Navy in the Adriatic, usually from a position south of the Strait of Otranto. At this time the blockade line was moved further north because of expected Austrian naval activity – the Allies were negotiating with the Italians which shortly led to them declaring war on Austria-Hungary. In spite of the growing threat from Austrian and now German U-boats in the Mediterranean, the armoured cruiser was patrolling unescorted at a reported 7 knots (13 km/h) on a clear, calm night just to the south of the Otranto Straits when she was torpedoed by the U-5.

Léon Gambetta sank in just 10 minutes. Out of 821 men on board, 684 including Rear Admiral Victor Baptistin Senes, commander of the 2nd Light Division, were lost along with all commissioned officers. There were 137 survivors. The French cruiser patrol line was moved South to the longitude of Cephalonia, western Greece. Other sources place her loss 20 miles (32 km) off Cape Leuca.


Victor-Baptistin Senès (Toulon, 31 May 1857 - Léon Gambetta, 27 April 1915) was a French naval officer and admiral.



Career
Senès entered the École Navale in October 1874. He reached the rank of enseigne de vaisseau 2nd class in August 1876, and joined the battleship Richelieu. He reached the rank of enseigne de vaisseau first class the following year and was promoted in October 1879 to Lieutenant de vaisseau.

He served as Maneuvering Officer on Orne from 1881, and he participated in the campaign of Tunisia. Three years later, when in command of the ship's machine guns at Tonkin, he distinguished himself during operations in the River Claire (Sông Lô River, also called the Lo River).

Injured in February 1885, he was promoted to Lieutenant de vaisseau in March of that same year. He then headed the Secrétariat Général majority in Toulon in 1886, and later attended the School of Submarine Defence on the Algésiras.

Commissioned as a destroyer commander, he was finally ordered in 1890 to Destroyer Squadron 127 in the Mediterranean and, in 1891, took command of torpedo boat Éclair. In 1897, he took part in the operations of the International Squadron sent to Crete during the Christian uprising against rule by the Ottoman Empire there in 1897-1898.

He was promoted to Frigate captain in 1898, served as aide to the Ministry, and eventually rose to personal secretary of the Minister of War. He became chief of the first section of the General Staff in Toulon, and he was conspicuous in 1899 during the explosion of the powder magazine at La Goubran near Toulon. Sénès became a Captain in 1905 and took command of the battleship Charles Martel, in the Mediterranean Squadron.

He was promoted to Rear-Admiral in 1911, and took command of the 2nd Division of the 1st Light Wing, on the armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta. At the beginning of the First World War, he took part in cruiser operations in the Mediterranean and Adriatic. On 27 April 1915, the Léon Gambetta was torpedoed by the Austrian-Hungarian submarine U-5 off Cape Santa Maria di Leuca. Senès sank with his vessel.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cruiser_Léon_Gambetta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor-Baptistin_Senès

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1916 - HMS Russell – The pre-dreadnought battleship was off Malta early on 27 April 1916 when she struck two mines laid by SM U-73. Fire broke out in her after part and the order abandon ship was given.
There was an explosion near her after 12 inches (300 mm) turret and she took on a dangerous list, but she sank slowly letting most of her crew escape. 27 officers and 98 ratings were lost


After the conclusion of the Dardanelles campaign, Russell stayed on in the eastern Mediterranean. Russell was steaming off Malta early on the morning of 27 April 1916 when she struck two naval mines that had been laid by the German submarine U-73. A fire broke out in the after part of the ship and the order to abandon ship was passed; after an explosion near the after 12-inch (305 mm) turret, she took on a dangerous list. However, she sank slowly, allowing most of her crew to escape. A total of 27 officers and 98 ratings were lost. John H. D. Cunningham served aboard her at the time as a lieutenant commander and survived her sinking; he would one day become First Sea Lord.



According to the naval historian R. A. Burt, insufficient internal subdivision, which limited the ability of the crew to counter-flood to offset underwater damage, contributed significantly to the loss of Russell and her sister Cornwallis, both of which listed badly before sinking.

The wreck was examined for the first time in 2003 by a British dive team; the ship lies at a depth of 63 fathoms (115 m) about 3.2 nautical miles (6 km) from the Delimara Peninsula. Her stern was blown off by the mine




HMS Russell was a Duncan-class pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy commissioned in 1903. Built to counter a group of fast Russian battleships, Russell and her sister ships were capable of steaming at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph), making them the fastest battleships in the world. The Duncan-class battleships were armed with a main battery of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns and they were broadly similar to the London-class battleships, though of a slightly reduced displacement and thinner armour layout. As such, they reflected a development of the lighter second-class ships of the Canopus-class battleship. Russell was built between her keel laying in March 1899 and her completion in February 1903.

Russell served with the Mediterranean Fleet until 1904, at which time she was transferred to the Home Fleet; in 1905 the Home Fleet became the Channel Fleet. She moved to the Atlantic Fleet in early 1907 before returning to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1909. In another fleet reorganisation in 1912, the Mediterranean Fleet became part of the Home Fleet and it was later transferred to British waters. Russell served as the flagship of the 6th Battle Squadron from late 1913 until the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.

After the start of the war, Russell was assigned to the Grand Fleet and worked with the fleet's cruisers on the Northern Patrol, and in November, she bombarded German-occupied Zeebrugge. In November 1915 she was sent to the Mediterranean to support the Dardanelles Campaign, though she did not see extensive use there. On 27 April 1916 she was sailing off Malta when she struck two mines laid by a German U-boat. Most of her crew survived the sinking, though 125 men were killed.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Russell_(1901)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan-class_battleship

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1930 – Launch of Fiume and of Zara, both Zara-class heavy cruisers of the Italian Regia Marina


Zara was a heavy cruiser built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy), the lead ship of the Zara class. Named after the Italian city of Zara (now Zadar, Croatia), the ship was built at the Odero-Terni-Orlando shipyard beginning with her keel laying in July 1928, launching in April 1930, and commissioning in October 1931. Armed with a main battery of eight 8-inch (200 mm) guns, she was nominally within the 10,000-long-ton (10,000 t) limit imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty, though in reality she significantly exceeded this figure.



Zara saw extensive service during the first two years of Italy's participation in World War II, having taken part in several sorties to catch British convoys in the Mediterranean as the flagship of the 1st Division. She was present during the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, the Battle of Taranto in November 1940, and the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941. In the last engagement, Zara and her sister ships Fiume and Pola were sunk in a close-range night engagement with three British battleships. Most of her crew, 783 officers and sailors, including the divisional commander Admiral Carlo Cattaneo, were killed in the sinking.


Fiume was a Zara-class heavy cruiser of the Italian Regia Marina. She was the second of four ships in the class, and was built between April 1929 and November 1931. Armed with a main battery of eight 8-inch (200 mm) guns, she was nominally within the 10,000-long-ton (10,000 t) limit imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty, though in reality she significantly exceeded this figure.

Fiume saw extensive service during World War II, having participated in several sorties to catch British convoys in the Mediterranean. She was present during the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, Battle of Cape Spartivento in November, and ultimately the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941. In the last engagement, Fiume and her sister ships Zara and Pola were sunk in a close-range night engagement with three British battleships.


Fiume in Taranto in 1933


Design

Line-drawing of Pola; Zara was similar in appearance
Main article: Zara-class cruiser

Zara was 182.8 meters (600 ft) long overall, with a beam of 20.62 m (67.7 ft) and a draft of 7.2 m (24 ft). She displaced 14,300 long tons (14,500 t) at full load, though her displacement was nominally within the 10,000-long-ton (10,000 t) restriction set in place by the Washington Naval Treaty. Her power plant consisted of two Parsonssteam turbines powered by eight oil-fired Yarrow boilers, which were trunked into two funnels amidships. Her engines were rated at 95,000 shaft horsepower (71,000 kW) and produced a top speed of 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph). She had a crew of 841 officers and enlisted men.

She was protected with an armored belt that was 150 mm (5.9 in) thick amidships. Her main deck was 70 mm (2.8 in) thick and there was a secondary deck 20 mm (0.79 in) thick over the main one. The gun turrets had 150 mm thick plating on the faces and the barbettes they sat in were also 150 mm thick. The main conning tower had 150 mm thick sides.

Zara was armed with a main battery of eight 203 mm (8.0 in) Mod 29 53-caliber guns in four gun turrets. The turrets were arranged in superfiring pairsforward and aft. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by a battery of sixteen 100 mm (4 in) 47-cal. guns in twin mounts, four Vickers-Terni 40 mm/39 guns in single mounts and eight 12.7 mm (0.50 in) guns in twin mounts. She carried a pair of IMAM Ro.43 seaplanes for aerial reconnaissance; the hangar was located in under the forecastle and a fixed catapult was mounted on the centerline at the bow.

Zara's secondary battery was revised several times during her career. Two of the 100 mm guns and all of the 40 mm and 12.7 mm guns were removed in the late 1930s, and eight 37 mm (1.5 in) 54-cal. guns and eight 13.2 mm (0.52 in) guns were installed in their place. Two 120 mm (4.7 in) 15-cal. star shellguns were added in 1940.


Zara (second from right) along with Fiume and Polain Naples



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

Italian cruiser Zara - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Zara-class cruiser - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 1941 - HMS Wryneck & HMS Diamond – On 27 April 1941, in the Battle of Greece, the two destroyers went to rescue survivors from the Dutch troopship Slamat which had been disabled in air attacks.
After picking up 700 crew and troops the two ships came under sustained air attack from Ju 87 Stukas of JG 77.
Wryneck and Diamond were both sunk about 20 nautical miles (37 km) east of Cape Maleas, Greece. Of the 983 men from all three ships, 66 survived.


The Slamat disaster is a succession of three related shipwrecks during the Battle of Greece on 27 April 1941. The Dutch troopship Slamat and the Royal Navydestroyers HMS Diamond and HMS Wryneck sank as a result of air attacks by Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers. The three ships sank off the east coast of the Peloponnese during Operation Demon, which was the evacuation of British, Australian and New Zealand troops from Greece after their defeat by invading German and Italian forces.

The loss of the three ships caused an estimated 983 deaths. Only 66 men survived.



Operation Demon
On 6 April 1941 Germany and Italy invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. An expeditionary force of British, Australian and New Zealand troops was already in Greece, but they and Greek defenders lost ground to the invaders and by 17 April the British Empire was starting to plan the evacuation of 60,000 troops.

Slamat was a 11,406 GRT Dutch troop ship, converted from a Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd ("Royal Dutch Lloyd") ocean liner. Since October 1940 she had been operating in the Indian Ocean, but in April 1941 she was ordered through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea to join Operation Demon.

Convoy AG 14

HMS Calcutta led the evacuation flotilla from Nauplia and carried 960 British, Australian and New Zealand troops

Slamat was in the Mediterranean by 23 April, and on the 24th she was one of six merchant ships that left Alexandria with Convoy AG 14 for Greece. British, Australian and New Zealand forces were spread over much of Greece, so on 26 April when AG 14 reached Greek waters, it split to reach different embarkation points. Slamatand a smaller troop ship, the 7,513 GRT Khedive Ismail managed by British-India Line, were ordered with the cruiser HMS Calcutta and a number of destroyers to Nauplia and Tolon on the Argolic Gulf in the eastern Peloponnese. The corvette HMS Salvia swept Nauplia Bay for mines before the ships arrived.

Luftwaffe air reconnaissance found AG 14 at noon on 26 April. The invaders had air superiority, and Royal Air Force capacity to resist was being reduced daily. On 24 April the Belfast Steamship Company troop ship Ulster Prince had grounded in the fairway in Nauplia Bay, blocking ship access to the port. The next day an air attack turned the grounded ship into a total loss. Ships would now have to anchor in the bay and tenders would be needed to bring troops and equipment out to them from the shore, so the landing ship, infantry Glenearn (a converted Glen Line merchant ship) was sent to deliver several Landing Craft Assault to Nauplia. However, on 26 April a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka attack disabled Glenearn, so she put her LCAs ashore for use at Monemvasia and was towed to Souda Bay. En routeto Nauplia the convoy was attacked by aircraft and a number of bombs hit Slamat, causing heavy damage on B and C decks, destroying two of her lifeboats and wounding one crewman. The Germans recognised that the ships would embark troops overnight and leave early the next morning (27 April), so General der Flieger Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, commander of the VIII. Fliegerkorps, planned to attack the ships as they left their various embarkation points.


HMS Diamond patrolled against submarines off Nauplia, rescued survivors from Slamat, but was then sunk by aircraft.

At 2340 hrs on 26 April the light cruisers Orion and HMAS Perth joined Khedive Ismail, Slamat, Calcutta and four destroyers in the Bay of Nauplia. The destroyer HMS Diamond patrolled against the risk of submarines while the other ships took turns to embark troops. The only available tenders were landing craft A5, local caïques and the ships' own boats. One caïque, Agios Giorgios, was a large boat with capacity for 600 men. There was a swell and a light wind, and in the dark there were one or two accidents and one ship's whaler capsized. Calcutta and Orion embarked 960 and 600 troops respectively; the destroyers HMS Hotspur and Isis 500 and 408. The slow rate of embarkation meant that Khedive Ismail did not get her turn and did not embark any troops.

At 0300 hrs Calcutta ordered all ships to sail, but Slamat disobeyed and continued embarking troops. Calcutta and Khedive Ismail sailed at 0400 hrs; Slamat followed at 0415 hrs, by which time she had embarked about 500 troops: about half her capacity. An estimated 700–2,000 men were left behind, but Hotspur remained at Nauplia to embark as many of them as possible.

Loss of Slamat
The convoy steamed south down the Argolic Gulf; Calcutta and Khedive Ismail at 12 knots (22 km/h) and Slamat full ahead at 16 knots (30 km/h) to catch up. At 0645 or 0715 hrs Luftwaffe aircraft attacked the convoy off Leonidion near the mouth of the gulf. Three Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters attacked first, followed by a Staffel of nine Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers from Sturzkampfgeschwader 77 at Almyros, Junkers Ju 88 and Dornier Do 17 bombers and more Bf 109s. The attackers mainly targeted the troop ships, but anti-aircraft fire from Calcutta and Diamond at first prevented aircraft from hitting Slamat. Then a SC250 250 kg (550 lb) bomb exploded between her bridge and forward funnel, setting the bridge, control room and Master's cabin afire. Her water system became disabled, hampering her crew's ability to fight the fire. Another bomb also hit the ship and she listed to starboard.

Slamat's Master, Tjalling Luidinga, gave the order to abandon ship. The bombing and fire had destroyed some of her lifeboats and life rafts, and her remaining boats and rafts were launched under a second Stuka attack.[7] Hotspur reported seeing four bombs hit Slamat. At least two lifeboats capsized; No. 10 from overloading and No. 4 when, in the midst of transferring survivors, Diamond had to speed away from her to evade an air attack. One Stuka pilot, Bertold Jung, saw "one or two" fellow-pilots machine-gunning survivors in the boats. Jung had served in the German navy, and back at Almyros airfield he complained very strongly that people in lifeboats had suffered enough so in future they should be spared.


HMS Wryneck came to Diamond's aid, rescued survivors from Slamat but was then sunk along with Diamond.

Orion, Isis and Khedive Ismail kept moving to reach Souda Bay, while Calcutta rescued some survivors and ordered the destroyer Diamond to go alongside Slamat to rescue more. At 0815 hrs Diamond reported that she was still rescuing survivors and still under air attack. At 0916 hrs the destroyers HMAS Vendetta, HMAS Waterhen and HMS Wryneck arrived from Souda Bay in Crete to reinforce the convoy, so Calcutta sent Wryneck to assist Diamond. At 0925 hrs Diamond reported that she had rescued most of the survivors and was proceeding to Souda Bay. She left several people behind on life rafts, where aircraft machine-gunned them. Calcutta's captain said the attack continued until about 1000 hrs. Wryneck reached Diamond about 1000 hrs and signalled a request for aircraft cover at 1025 hrs.

Diamond accompanied by Wryneck returned to Slamat, arriving about 1100 hrs. The destroyers found Slamat's No. 10 and No. 4 lifeboats, both of which had been righted. They rescued 30 troops and two Dutch crew from No. 10 and Slamat's Second Officer and several other survivors from No. 4. Slamat was afire from stem to stern, and Diamond fired a torpedo at her port side that sank her in a coup de grâce. By now Diamond carried about 600 of Slamat's survivors, including Captain Luidinga.

Loss of Diamond and Wryneck
About 1315 hrs a Staffel of between four and nine Ju 87 bombers came out of the sun in a surprise attack on the two destroyers.

One bomb hit Diamond's engine room, stopping her engines and bringing down her funnel, mast and radio aerial. Another exploded in the sea off her port side, holing her hull below her foredeck. Her engine room petty officer, H.T. Davis, had been on deck, but rushed below and released the pressure from her No. 3 boiler to prevent the risk of a boiler explosion. She sank in eight minutes. Both of her lifeboats were destroyed, but her crew launched her three Carley floats.

Three bombs hit Wryneck. The first exploded on her port side and damaged her hull; the second and third hit her engine room and bridge. Her Commissioned Engineer, Maurice Waldron, shut down her boilers and brought on deck a wounded Australian officer whom he had been looking after and put him in a Carley float. Wryneck capsized to port but managed to launch her whaler and three Carley floats before she sank in 10–15 minutes.

Lt Cdr Philip Cartwright, who commanded Diamond, was on a Carley float but gave his place to a sailor who was in the water. Cartwright was not seen again. Several men in the Carley floats died either from wounds or from drowning in the swell. They included Lt Cdr Robert Lane who commanded Wryneck, and Dr G.H. Brand who was the civilian ship's doctor on Slamat.

Rescues
Wryneck's whaler suffered two holes but was repaired. Her occupants were wet through, her compass was damaged and her drinking water contaminated. Her four oars were serviceable, so Commissioned Engineer Waldron took command and she set off east past Cape Maleas, towing two Carley floats and their occupants. In the evening the wind increased, causing the floats to strike the boat, so Waldron reluctantly cast them adrift. Waldron was also nursing a Leading Seaman, George Fuller, who had bullet wounds in his belly and thigh.

At 1900 the cruiser HMS Phoebe and seven destroyers reached Souda Bay and disembarked evacuated troops. The Vice Admiral, Light Forces, Henry Pridham-Wippell, became concerned that Diamondwas not among them. Between 1922 and 1955 hrs repeated attempts to radio Diamond drew no reply. Wryneck had been ordered to keep radio silence so no attempt was made to radio her. Instead Phoebe and Calcutta were asked if they had seen her, but their replies at 2235 and 2245 hrs were indefinite.


HMS Griffin rescued survivors from Wryneck and Diamond, some of whom were survivors from Slamat. She later took the survivors from Souda Bay to Port Said.

Pridham-Wippell sent the destroyer HMS Griffin to the position in the Argolic Gulf where Slamat had been lost. Griffin found 14 survivors in two Carley floats. At 0240 hrs she reported the rescue, said both destroyers had been sunk about 1330 hrs and she was still looking for Wryneck's whaler. In the morning she found more floats and another four survivors. She took the survivors to Crete.

The last living survivor from Slamat, Royal Army Service Corps veteran George Dexter, states that after Wryneck was sunk he and three other men were rescued by Orion.

On the morning of 28 April the whaler was about 30 nautical miles (56 km) off Milos in the Aegean Sea, so she set course for the island. At noon she sighted Ananes Rock, about 13 nautical miles (24 km) southeast of Milos, so Waldron decided to land there as everyone was exhausted. The rock has a bay, where the whaler found a caïque full of Greek refugees and British soldiers who had set out from Piraeus, were headed for Crete, but were sailing only by night to avoid detection. In the evening the caïque left Ananes and headed south for Crete. As many as possible of the survivors transferred to the caïque, but she was very full so she towed the whaler with five men still in it. On the morning of 29 April the caïque sighted a small landing craft, A6, which had set out from Porto Rafti near Athens. She took aboard everyone from the caïque and whaler, and the next day they reached Souda Bay. After a short stay the survivors from Slamat, Diamond and Wryneck were taken on HMS Hotspur to Port Said, Egypt.

Casualties
Nearly 1,000 people were killed in the loss of Slamat, Diamond and Wryneck. Of the 500 or so soldiers that Slamat embarked, eight survived. Of her complement of 193 crew and 21 Australian and New Zealand DEMS gunners, 11 survived. Of Diamond's 166 complement, 20 survived. Of Wryneck's 106 crew, 27 survived. Slamat had a mixed crew of 84 Goans, 74 Dutch, 24 Chinese, 10 Australians and a Norwegian. The 11 survivors were six Goans, four Dutch and one other.

The bodies of three of Slamat's crew washed ashore far from the wreck: apprentice helmsman J Pille on the Greek island of Stamperia, Second Officer G van der Woude at Alexandria in Egypt, and lamp trimmer J van der Brugge at Gaza in Palestine.


HMS Wryneck was an Admiralty W-class destroyer of the Royal Navy, which was sunk during the Battle of Greece on 27 April 1941.


HMS Diamond was a D-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. The ship spent the bulk of her career on the China Station. She was briefly assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1939 before she was transferred to West Africa for convoy escort duties. Diamond returned to the Mediterranean Fleet in early 1940 where she generally escorted convoys to and from Malta. The ship participated in the Battle of Cape Spartivento in November. Diamond was sunk by German aircraft on 27 April 1941 whilst evacuating Allied troops from Greece.


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

HMS Wryneck (D21) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

HMS Diamond (H22) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 April 2017 - Liman (Russian: Лиман) was a Russian naval intelligence vessel that sunk after a collision in 2017 which resulted in no casualties.


Liman (Russian: Лиман) was a Russian naval intelligence vessel that sunk after a collision in 2017 which resulted in no casualties.




Description
The ship was 73.32 metres (240 ft 7 in) long, with a beam of 10.80 metres (35 ft 5 in) and a draught of 3.85 metres (12 ft 8 in). It displaced 1,542 tons at full load. The vessel was propelled by two Zgoda-Sulzer 6TD-48 diesel engines, rated at 1,800 horsepower (1,300 kW) each. The ship had a speed of 17.3 knots (32.0 km/h). Armament was sixteen Strela-2 surface-to-air missiles.

History
The ship was built in 1970 by Stocznia Polnocna, Gdansk as a hydrographic survey vessel and converted to military use in 1989. It was outfitted for signals intelligence (SIGINT) purposes. It initially served with the Northern Fleet and was transferred to the Black Sea Fleet in 1974. In April 1999, Liman was deployed in the Adriatic Sea at the request of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević to monitor NATO operations against Yugoslavia. It also saw service during the Russian intervention in the Syrian Civil War.

Sinking
On 27 April 2017, the vessel sank in the Black Sea following a collision with Youzarsif H, a Togo-flagged livestock freighter. The location of the collision was 29 kilometres (16 nmi) off Kilyos. At the time it sank, the ship carried a crew of 78, all of whom were rescued: – by the Turkish Coast Guard and 15 – by the Youzarsif H itself. Later all crew were transferred to the Russian cargo ship Ulus Star. Youzarsif H proceeded to Capu Midia, Romania due to concerns about the welfare of the livestock she was carrying.

On 3 May, Russia sent the rescue ships SB-739 and Seliger to the area where Liman sank to try to salvage sensitive equipment from the ship or even raise the vessel, which sank in international waters.

Russian ship Liman - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 27 April


1698 – Launch of HMS Orford was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Deptford

HMS Orford was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Deptford in 1698.[1] She carried twenty-two 24-pounder guns and four (18-pounder) culverins on the lower deck; twenty-six 12-pounder guns on the upper deck; fourteen (5-pounder) sakers on the quarter-deck and forecastle; and four 3-pounder guns on the poop or roundhouse.

In 1704, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Orford served in Admiral Sir George Rooke's fleet in the Mediterranean; she was present as a member of the naval bombardment force at the Capture of Gibraltar. Shortly thereafter, at the Battle of Malaga, commanded by Captain John Norris, Orford was a member of the vanguard division of Rooke's fleet under Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and Vice-Admiral John Leake; all these officers but the latter, who himself became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1710, were future admirals of the fleet.

In 1707, she belonged to Admiral Shovell's fleet. She saw action during the unsuccessful Battle of Toulon and was present during the great naval disaster off the Isles of Scilly when Shovell and four of his ships (Association, Firebrand, Romney and Eagle) were lost, claiming the lives of nearly 2,000[3] sailors. Orford suffered little to no damage and finally managed to reach Portsmouth.

She was rebuilt for the first time according to the 1706 Establishment at Limehouse, relaunching on 17 March 1713. She underwent a second rebuild in 1727.[2]
In 1718 she was present at the Battle of Cape Passaro, and in 1736 she brought John Harrison and his first marine clock back from Lisbon.
Orford was wrecked on 13 February 1745 in the Windward Passage, though all her crew were saved.


Scale 1:48. A contemporary full hull block model of the ‘Orford’ (circa 1698), a 70-gun two-decker third rate ship. The model is painted showing the upper and lower wales in black, the bulwark screens are a dark blue with a buff beading leading from the waist towards the stern. The only decoration on the model appears on the stern and quarter galleries which have been painted onto what looks like a layer of card and applied to the hull. The figurehead has been represented by a flat wooden outline while the headrails of the bow have been omitted for clarity to allow for inspection of the hull and shape of the bow. The model is mounted on an original wooden baseboard supported by two keel blocks at bow and stern, and brass rods amidships. It is likely that this model was made for the rebuilt of the 'Orford' in 1713

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Orford_(1698)
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.html#!csearch;searchTerm=Orford_(1698


1796 HMS Niger (33), Cptn. Edward J. Foote, and boats destroyed Eaireuil.

HMS Niger was a 32-gun Niger-class fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy.


Body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for Alarm (1758), Aeolus (1758), Montreal (1761), Niger (1759), Quebec (1760), Stag (1758), and Winchelsea (1764), all 32-gun Fifth Rate Frigates. The plan includes alterations, dated 1769, to the main channels and deadeyes.

HMS Niger (1759) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1805 – Launch of HMS Redbreast was a 12 gun Archer-class brig of the British Royal Navy

HMS Redbreast was a 12 gun Archer-class brig of the British Royal Navy.

She operated in the channel until 1808, when she took part in the Baltic expedition. Detachments from her crew and other ships manned two gunboats in August 1808 on the Jade and Weser rivers where they captured a Danish privateer, Mosin, and a Dutch gunboat. In 1811 she was part of a squadron sent to support a Russian attack on Fort Napoleon at Cuxhaven. In 1814 the ship was rerated as a sloop, so that her captain since 1808, Sir George Mouat Keith, could continue to command her on his promotion from lieutenant to commander.

In 1815 she was converted to a customs hulk,[2] and in 1830 a lazaretto for the Quarantine Service at Liverpool. Redbreast was sold in 1850.



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

List of gun-brigs of the Royal Navy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1811 The monument to the memory of Lord Nelson, in Guildhall, opened for public inspection.

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1812 – Launch of French Conquérant was a Bucentaure-class 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, designed by Sané.

The Conquérant was a Bucentaure-class 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, designed by Sané.
She was commissioned in Anvers under Captain Lafond in the Scheldt squadron. Following the Bourbon Restoration, she was sent to Brest, where she underwent a refit in 1821, and was sent to Toulon in 1824. She took part in the Morea expedition in 1827, and in the Invasion of Algiers in 1830.
In November 1830, she was disarmed in Toulon, and was struck the next year. From 1830, she was used as a barracks hulk, until 1842, when she was broken up.


Portrait of Conquérantby François Roux

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Conquérant_(1812)

Bucentaure-class ship of the line - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1862 – Bermuda, a large iron-hulled screw steamer of 1,238 tons built in 1861 at Stockton-on-Tees, England as a blockade runner for transporting military supplies to the Confederacy, commanded by Charles W. Westendorff, was captured by USS Mercedita, commanded by Henry S. Stellwage

USS Bermuda (1861) was a large steamer captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a cargo and general transport ship in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways, primarily in Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. However, despite being a valuable cargo ship, she proved very adept at capturing blockade runners as her record proves.

USS Mercedita (1861) was a wooden steamer that served as a gunboat in the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
Mercedita was built at Brooklyn, New York in 1861. She was purchased by the Union Navy on 31 July 1861 from J. C. Jewett & Co., and commissioned at New York on 8 December 1861, Commander Henry S. Stellwagen in command.


USS Mercedita

USS Bermuda - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mercedita_(1861)


1892 – Launch of HMS Gibraltar, an Edgar-class cruiser launched in 1892 for service in the Royal Navy.

HMS Gibraltar, was an Edgar-class cruiser launched in 1892 for service in the Royal Navy. She was built and engineered by Messrs Napier of Glasgow. Of 7,700 loaded displacement, she was coal-fired with four double-ended cylindrical boilers driving two shafts. She could make 20 knots (37 km/h) with forced draught and 18 knots (33 km/h) with natural draught. She was a very good sea boat and an exceptional steamer.


HMS Gibraltar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Gibraltar_(1892)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar-class_cruiser


1897 – Launch of SMS Freya was a protected cruiser of the Victoria Louise class, built for the German Imperial Navy

SMS Freya was a protected cruiser of the Victoria Louise class, built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the 1890s, along with her sister ships Victoria Louise, Hertha, Vineta, and Hansa. Freya was laid down at the Imperial Dockyard in Danzig in 1895, launched in April 1897, and commissioned into the Navy in October 1898. The ship was armed with a battery of two 21 cm guns and eight 15 cm guns and had a top speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph).

Freya served in the German fleet for the initial years of her career, unlike her sister ships, all of which served abroad on foreign stations. As a result, she led a fairly uneventful career in the fleet. After a modernization in 1905–1907, Freya was used as a school ship for cadets. At the outbreak of World War I, Freya was mobilized into the 5th Scouting Group, but served in front-line duty only briefly. She was used as a barracks ship after 1915, and ultimately sold for scrapping in 1921.



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

Victoria Louise-class cruiser - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1944 - USS Bluegill (SS 242) torpedoes the Japanese light cruiser Yubari west of Sonsorol Island, while USS Halibut (SS 232) sinks Japanese minelayer off Okinawa.

Yūbari was sighted on 27 April 1944 off Palau by the USN submarine Bluegill on her first war patrol. Bluegill fired six torpedoes, of which Yūbari managed to evade four, but two hit on her starboard side near her Number 1 boiler room. Soon afterwards, her Number 2 boiler room was also flooded. She attempted to get underway using only her middle shaft, but the attempt failed, as did an attempt by the accompanying destroyer Samidare to take her in tow. Yūbari sank almost 24 hours after being torpedoed, at position 05°20′N 132°16′E, with the loss of 19 crewmen. She was officially removed from the navy list on 10 June 1944.

USS Bluegill (SS-242), a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the bluegill.

Yūbari (夕張) was an experimental light cruiser built between 1922 and 1923 for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Although a test bed for various new designs and technologies, she was commissioned as a front-line warship and participated in numerous combat operations during World War II before she was sunk by the U.S. Navy. Designs pioneered on Yūbari had a major impact on future Japanese warship designs.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bluegill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cruiser_Yūbari


1980 - United Kingdom, London, Thames River: the 1934 built paddle steamer "Old Caledonia" used as a floating public house caught fire

PS Caledonia was a paddle steamer built in 1934. She principally provided an Upper Clyde ferry service, later moving to Ayr and then Craigendoran. Her final days were as a floating pub in London until destroyed by fire in 1980.


Caledonia at Rothesay in 1960

In 1969 she was retired from service and sold for scrap. Saved by subsequent sale to Bass-Charrington, she served as a floating pub and restaurant named Old Caledonia on the Victoria Embankment of the River Thames. Badly damaged by fire in 1980, she was beyond economic repair and was scrapped in July 1980 at Milton Creek on The Swale near Sittingbourne, Kent. Her place in London was later taken by stable mate TS Queen Mary, until 2009. Caledonia's engines were saved and are preserved at the Hollycombe Steam Collection near Liphook, Hampshire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Caledonia_(1934)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
28 April 1693 - HMS Windsor Castle, a 90-gun second rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, built by Thomas Shish at Woolwich Dockyard, wrecked on the Goodwin Sands


HMS Windsor Castle was a 90-gun second rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, built by Thomas Shish at Woolwich Dockyard, and launched in 1679.



Windsor Castle commissioned in 1690 under Captain George Churchill and took part in the Battle of Beachy Head on 30 June 1690. In 1692 she was under the command of Captain Peregrine Osborne, and took part in the Battle of Barfleur on 19–24 May 1692. In 1693 she was commanded by Captain John Munden, but was wrecked on the Goodwin Sands in April 1693.

HMS Windsor Castle (1679) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org