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

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
1st of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 30 January 1895 - SS Elbe, a transatlantic ocean liner for the Norddeutscher Lloyd, foundered on the night of 30 January 1895 following a collision in the North Sea with the loss of 334 lives. SS Elbe was a transatlantic ocean liner...

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1668 – Launch of French La Royal Louis, a ship of the line of the French Royal Navy
The Royal Louis was a ship of the line of the French Royal Navy. She was constructed at Toulon between 1666 and 1669 under the direction of Rodolphe Gédéon and served as flagship of the French fleet in the Mediterranean.

1756 – Launch of Spanish Triunfante, 68 at Ferrol - Wrecked 5 January 1795

1800 - USS Constellation engages French frigate La Vengeance in a 5-hour battle
The USS Constellation vs La Vengeance, or the Action of 1 February 1800, was a single-ship action fought between frigates of the French Navy and the United States Navy during the Quasi-War. In the battle the American frigate USS Constellation tried to take the French frigate La Vengeance as a prize. Both ships were heavily damaged. Although the French frigate struck her colors twice, she managed to flee after the main mast of her opponent had fallen.
In 1798, an undeclared war had begun between the United States and France due to French seizures of American merchantmen. As part of an American effort to deter French attacks, Commodore Thomas Truxton led an American naval squadron that was dispatched to the Lesser Antilles. Learning that regular French naval forces were in the region, Truxton set out in his flagship Constellation and sailed to Guadeloupe to engage them. On 1 February 1800, while nearing the French colony, Constellation met François Marie Pitot's frigate La Vengeance of the French Navy. Despite Pitot's attempts to flee, his frigate was drawn into a heavy engagement with Constellation. Although the French frigate struck her colors (surrendered) twice, Constellation was unable to take La Vengeance as a prize. Eventually Pitot was able to escape with his frigate to Curaçao, though only after sustaining severe casualties and damage to his vessel. Truxton's ship sustained light damage and sailed to Jamaica for repairs before returning home to a hero's welcome.


1851 - Brandtaucher, the first german submarine, sank during acceptance trials in Kiel Harbour. The crew is able to escape.
Brandtaucher (German for Fire-diver) was a submersible designed by the Bavarian inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer and built by Schweffel & Howaldt in Kiel for Schleswig-Holstein's Flotilla (part of the Reichsflotte) in 1850.

1870 – Launch of Blackadder, a clipper ship
Blackadder was a clipper ship, a sister ship to Hallowe'en, built in 1870 by Maudslay, Sons & Field at Greenwich for Jock Willis & Sons.
Blackadder was dismasted on her maiden voyage due to failures in the mast fittings and rigging. She "was able to reach the Cape under jury rig 63 days out."[4] John Willis took legal action against the builders which dragged on to such an extent that her sister ship, Hallowe'en, was not handed over to Willis until nearly 18 months after her launch. After John Willis died in 1900, Blackadder was bought by J. Aalborg of Kragerø in Norway. On 5 November 1905 she was wrecked whilst on passage from Barry to Bahia loaded with coal.

1902 - Launch of USS Plunger (SS-2), the lead ship of the Plunger-class submarine and one of the earliest submarines of the United States Navy
USS Plunger (SS-2) was one of the earliest submarines of the United States Navy. She was the lead boat of her class and was later renamed A-1 when she was designated an A-type submarine. She is not to be confused with the experimental submarine Plunger which was evaluated by the U.S. Navy from 1898 to 1900.

1918 - The Cattaro mutiny or Kotor mutiny
The Cattaro mutiny or Kotor mutiny was an unsuccessful revolt by sailors of part of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in early 1918, inspired by the October Revolution. The mutiny took place in the Cattaro naval base.


1972 - SS V.A. Fogg, a modified T2 tanker built in 1943, as SS Four Lakes, exploded and sank
SS V.A. Fogg was a modified T2 tanker built in 1943, as SS Four Lakes. After service in World War II, she was eventually sold into private ownership. She was renamed V.A. Fogg in 1971, shortly before she exploded and sank off Freeport, Texas.

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
2nd of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 1 February 1918 - The Cattaro mutiny or Kotor mutiny The Cattaro mutiny or Kotor mutiny was an unsuccessful revolt by sailors of part of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in early 1918, inspired by the October Revolution. The mutiny took...

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1712 - George Anson entered the navy as a volunteer on board HMS Ruby (1708 - 54)
Admiral of the Fleet George Anson, 1st Baron Anson, PC, FRS (23 April 1697 – 6 June 1762) was a Royal Navy officer. Anson served as a junior officer during the War of the Spanish Succession and then saw active service against Spain at the Battle of Cape Passaro during the War of the Quadruple Alliance. He then undertook a circumnavigation of the globe during the War of Jenkins' Ear. Anson commanded the fleet that defeated the French Admiral de la Jonquière at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre during the War of the Austrian Succession.


1727 - Birth of Antoine Groignard
Antoine Groignard (born 1727, died 1799), was a French naval constructor who developed standard designs for French war ships, and built and improved the dry docks at the French naval bases in Toulon and Brest.


1798 – Launch of HMS Northumberland, a 74-gun America class third rate ship of the line
HMS Northumberland was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at the yards of Barnard, Deptford and launched on 2 February 1798

Destruction of the French Frigates Arianne & Andromache 22nd May 1812. Page 161 (PAD8661)
The image shows the last stages of the Action of 22 May 1812. From left to right: Mameluck, Ariane, Andromaque and Northumberland.

1799 - HMS Nautilus (16) wrecked off Filey Bay
HMS Nautilus (1784) was a 16-gun sloop launched in 1784 and wrecked in 1799. All 125 men of her crew were saved

Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail and stern quarter gallery decoration, and longitudinal half-breadth for Nautilus (1784), a 16 gun Ship Sloop, as built at Itchenor by Messrs Crookenden Taylor & Co.



1813 - Boats of HMS Kingfisher (1804 - 18), Merlin-class, took or destroyed 6 vessels at Corfu.
after a five-hour chase, her boats captured one trabaccolo and ran nine ashore at St. Catherine's, Corfu, of which five were destroyed. Kingfisher lost two men killed and seven severely wounded
HMS Kingfisher (or King's Fisher or Kingsfisher) was a Royal Navy 18-gun ship sloop, built by John King and launched in 1804 at Dover. She served during the Napoleonic Wars, first in the Caribbean and then in the Mediterranean before being broken up in 1816.


1839 - Capture of Kurrachee (modern: Karachi) by HMS Wellesley (1815 - 74), HMS Algerine (1829 - 10), Lt. William Sidney Thomas, and troops.
HMS Wellesley was a 74-gun third rate, named after the Duke of Wellington, and launched in 1815. She captured Karachi for the British, and participated in the First Opium War, which resulted in Britain gaining control of Hong Kong. Thereafter she served primarily as a training ship before gaining the distinction of being the last British ship of the line to be sunk by enemy action and the only one to have been sunk by an air-raid.

Wellesley sailing along a rocky coastline

1894 - USS Kearsarge, a Mohican-class sloop-of-war, wrecked
USS Kearsarge, a Mohican-class sloop-of-war, is best known for her defeat of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama during the American Civil War. Kearsarge was the only ship of the United States Navy named for Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire. Subsequent ships were later named Kearsarge in honor of the ship.


2012 – The ferry MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the coast of Papua New Guinea near the Finschhafen District, with an estimated 146-165 dead.
MV Rabaul Queen was a passenger ferry owned by the Papua New Guinea company Rabaul Shipping. The ship, built in Japan in 1983, operated on short runs in that country, before being brought to Papua New Guinea in 1998 and plying a regular weekly route between Kimbe, the capital of West New Britain, and Lae, the capital of the mainland province of Morobe.
In the early hours of 2 February 2012, the ferry capsized and later sank in rough conditions. The final death toll is unknown because the exact number of passengers is unknown; estimates range from 88 to 223, with the official Commission of Inquiry estimating the dead at 146 to 165

MV Rabaul Queen arriving at Kimbe Port in 2009

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
3rd of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 1 February 1918 - The Cattaro mutiny or Kotor mutiny The Cattaro mutiny or Kotor mutiny was an unsuccessful revolt by sailors of part of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in early 1918, inspired by the October Revolution. The mutiny took...

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1488 - Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.
Bartolomeu Dias (Anglicized: Bartholomew Diaz; c. 1450 – 29 May 1500), a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer. He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first to do so, setting up the route from Europe to Asia later on. Dias is the first European during the Age of Discovery to anchor at what is present-day South Africa.


1509 – The Battle of Diu
The Portuguese navy defeats a joint fleet of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Republic of Ragusa at the Battle of Diu in Diu, India.
The Battle of Diu was a naval battle fought on 3 February 1509 in the Arabian Sea, in the port of Diu, India, between the Portuguese Empire and a joint fleet of the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut with support of the Republic of Venice.
The Portuguese victory was critical: the great Muslim alliance were soundly defeated, easing the Portuguese strategy of controlling the Indian Ocean to route trade down the Cape of Good Hope, circumventing the traditional spice route controlled by the Arabs and the Venetians through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. After the battle, Portugal rapidly captured key ports in the Indian Ocean like Goa, Ceylon, Malacca and Ormuz, crippling the Mamluk Sultanate and the Gujarat Sultanate, greatly assisting the growth of the Portuguese Empire and establishing its trade dominance for almost a century, until it was lost at the Battle of Swally during the Dutch-Portuguese War, over a hundred years after.
The Battle of Diu was a battle of annihilation alike Lepanto and Trafalgar, and one of the most important of world naval history, for it marks the beginning of European dominance over Asian seas that would last until World War Two.


1663 – Launch of French La Saint Philippe, a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Royal Navy
The Saint Philippe was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Royal Navy. She was built at Brest Dockyard, designed and constructed by Laurent Hubac. She was nominally a three-decker, but in practice the upper deck was divided into armed sections aft and forward of the unarmed waist, making the upper deck equivalent to a quarterdeck and forecastle.


1762 - HMS Raisonable (64) lost of Martinique.
Raisonnable was a 64-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, launched in 1755 at Rochefort.
On 29 May 1758, she was captured in the Bay of Biscay by HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Achilles at the Action of 29 April 1758, and commissioned in the Royal Navy as the third rate HMS Raisonnable. She was lost off Martinique on 3 February 1762.


1783 – Launch of French Dryade, a 38-gun Hébé-class frigate of the French Navy

Saint Remi museum of Reims (Marne, France) ; miltary room, model of the Dryade

1794 – Launch of HMS Hornet, a 16-gun ship-rigged sloop of the Cormorant class
HMS Hornet was a 16-gun ship-rigged sloop of the Cormorant class in the Royal Navy, ordered 18 February 1793, built by Marmaduke Stalkart and launched 3 February 1794 at Rotherhithe.[Note 1] Hornet saw most of her active duty during the French Revolutionary Wars. During the Napoleonic Wars she served for about six years as a hospital ship before being laid up in 1811 and sold in 1817.

Lines (ZAZ4625)



1805 - HMS Arrow (28), Richard Budd Vincent, and HMS Acheron bomb (8), Cdr. Arthur Farquhar, escorting a convoy of 32 ships taken by French frigates Hortense (40) and Incorruptible (38) off Cape Caxine on the Algerian coast.
Arrow sank and Acheron was burnt as a result of their damage but only 3 of the convoy were taken.
Remark: Arrow was an experimental vessel with very special design!
The French frigates Hortense and Incorruptible were cruising off the coast of Algeria when on 1 February, they engaged a convoy, destroying seven ships. Two days later, they encountered another convoy.

Oil painting by Francis Sartorius, entitled 'Action of HMS ''Arrow'' and ''Acheron'' against the French frigates ''Hortense'' and ''Incorruptible'': beginning of the action, 4 February 1805'. The painting has been signed by the artist and dated, 1805.



1810 - HMS Valiant (74), Cptn. John Bligh, captured Confiance (14) off Belleisle.
Minerve was a 40-gun Minerve-class frigate of the French Navy. The British captured her twice and the French recaptured her once. She therefore served under four names before being broken up in 1814:

• Minerve, 1794–1795
• HMS Minerve, 1795–1803
• Canonnière, 1803–1810
• HMS Confiance, 1810–1814

1814 - HMS Majestic (1785 - 54), Cptn. John Hayes, took Terpsichore (44).
HMS Majestic was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line launched on 11 December 1785 at Deptford. She fought at the Battle of the Nile, where she engaged the French ships Tonnant and Heureux, helping to force their surrenders. She was captained by George Blagdon Westcott, who was killed in the battle.

1874 – Launch of SS Britannic, passenger ship for White Star Line
SS Britannic was an ocean liner of the White Star Line. It was the first of three ships of the White Star Line to sail with Britannic name.

1943 – The SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive.
The sinking of Dorchester was the worst single loss of American personnel of any American convoy during World War II
Dorchester was a War Shipping Administration troop ship operated by its agent Agwilines allocated to United States Army requirements that was sunk in the Labrador Sea by a torpedo from a German U-boat on February 3, 1943, during World War II. Of the 904 on board, 675 died (674 plus one of the 230 original survivors after being recovered). Dorchester had been sailing to Greenland as part of naval convoy SG 19 when the U-boat attacked.
The loss of the ship became especially famous because of the story of the death of four Army chaplains, known as the "Four Chaplains" or the "Immortal Chaplains," who all gave away their life jackets to save others before they died.

2006 - Egyptian Ro/Ro passenger ferry MS al-Salam Boccaccio 98 sank in the Red Sea with 1.414 people on board. Only 387 were rescued
The MS al-Salam Boccaccio 98 was an Egyptian Ro/Ro passenger ferry, operated by El Salam Maritime Transport, that sank on 3 February 2006 in the Red Sea en route from Duba, Saudi Arabia, to Safaga in southern Egypt.
The ship was carrying about 1400 passengers and crew. The majority are thought to have been Egyptians working in Saudi Arabia, but they included pilgrims returning from the Hajj in Mecca. The ship was also carrying about 220 vehicles. No Mayday had been heard from the ship and poor weather conditions hampered the search and rescue operation. 388 people were rescued.
The immediate cause of the sinking appears to have been a build-up of sea-water in the hull, when the fire-fighters were trying to extinguish a fire in the engine-room. This was compounded by design faults inherent in Ro/Ro vessels, where minor flooding of the deck can gain rapid momentum due to a mechanism known as the free surface effect. When the captain asked permission to return to port, the ship’s owners ordered him to continue, despite knowing that there had been a fire. The owners were jailed in 2009 after their original acquittal was overturned.

al-Salam Boccaccio 98 in Genoa, 2001

2017 - The aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise (CVN 65) is decommissioned in a ceremony held in the ship's hangar bay
The ceremony marks the end the ship's nearly 55-year career, and is the first decommissioning of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
USS Enterprise (CVN-65), formerly CVA(N)-65, is a decommissioned United States Navy aircraft carrier. She was the world's first nuclear-poweredaircraft carrier and the eighth United States naval vessel to bear the name. Like her predecessor of World War II fame, she is nicknamed "Big E". At 1,123 ft (342 m), she is the world's longest naval vessel ever built. Her 93,284-long-ton (94,781 tonnes) displacement ranks her as the 12th-heaviest carrier, after the 10 carriers of the Nimitz class and the USS Gerald R. Ford. Enterprise had a crew of some 4,600 service members.

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 3 February 1663 – Launch of French La Saint Philippe, a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Royal Navy The Saint Philippe was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Royal Navy. She was built at Brest Dockyard, designed and...

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1779 - John Paul Jones takes command of Bonhomme Richard, from this day a warship of the Continental Navy
Bonhomme Richard, formerly Duc de Duras, was a warship in the Continental Navy. She was originally an East Indiaman, a merchant ship built in France for the French East India Company in 1765, for service between France and the Orient. She was placed at the disposal of John Paul Jones on 4 February 1779, by King Louis XVI of France as a result of a loan to the United States by French shipping magnate, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray.


1781 - The Action of 4 February 1781
The Action of 4 February 1781 was a minor naval action that took place off the island of Sombero in the Caribbean during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch Warsoon after the British Capture of Sint Eustatius by Admiral George Rodney a day earlier.
St. Eustatius, a Dutch-controlled island in the West Indies, was an entrepot that operated as a major trading centre despite its relatively small size. The island was seized by a British force under Admiral George Rodney along with all the merchants ships in the harbour. Rodney received information that a fleet of about thirty large ships richly laden with sugar and other West India commodities had, just before his arrival, sailed from the island for the Netherlands under convoy of a flag ship of sixty guns. He immediately dispatched two ships of the line, the Monarch and Panther, with the frigate HMS Sybilin pursuit of them.

1783 - The Bourgogne, a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, wrecked
The Bourgogne was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. She was funded by a don des vaisseaux donation from the Estates of Bourgogne. She was designed by Noël Pomet, commissioned in 1772, and served in the squadron of the Mediterranean, with a refit in 1775, and another in 1778.
On 4 May 1779, off Gibraltar, she took part in a naval action with Victoire against the 32-gun frigates HMS Thetis and Montreal. Montreal was captured, while Thetis managed to escape.
British records largely agree, though they put the encounter on 1 May. When Thetis and Montreal saw two large ships approaching under Dutch colours, they suspected that the strange ships were French and attempted to sail away. Thetis succeeded, but at 9p.m., Bourgogne and Victoire caught up with Montreal, came alongside, and ordered Douglas to send over a boat. Captain Douglas sent over Lieutenant John Douglas, whom the French ordered to Douglas to hail Montreal and instruct her to strike. Captain Douglas attempted to escape, but after the French had fired several broadsides into Montreal he struck.


1804 - Boats of HMS Centaur (1797 - 74), Cpt. Murray Maxwell, cut out French corvette Curieux (16) as she lay under Fort Edward in Port Royal Harbour, Martinique
On 4 February, Centaur sent her boats to cut out the French 18-gun brig-corvette Curieux from the Carénage, under the guns of Fort Edward at Fort-Royal harbour, Martinique. In the fight, the French lost 40 men killed and wounded, and the British had nine men wounded, including all three officers leading the cutting out party. The British took Curieux into the navy as HMS Curieux. Her original commander was Lieutenant Robert Carthew Reynolds, who had led the cutting-out party, but he died of the wounds he had received in the attack. His replacement as her commander was Lieutenant George Bettesworth of Centaur, also a member of the cutting-out party.

Picturesque Views of the Diamond Rock... South East View of the Diamond Rock, with the Cannon being hauled up from the Centaur by the Cable (PAH9544)

1807 - HMS Lark (1794 - 16), Cptn. Robert Nicholas, and boats at Zispata Bay. Silenced a battery and engaged a convoy with 3 small escorts. 1 enemy was taken but 2 earlier prizes ran aground and were burnt.
HMS Lark was a 16-gun ship sloop of the Cormorant class, launched in 1794 at Northfleet. She served primarily in the Caribbean, where she took a number of prizes, some after quite intensive action. Lark foundered off San Domingo in August 1809, with the loss of her captain and almost all her crew.
Havana with 23 "new Negroes".

1820 – The Chilean Navy under the command of Lord Cochrane completes the 2-day long Capture of Valdivia with just 300 men and 2 ships.
The Capture of Valdivia was a battle in the Chilean War of Independence between Spanish forces commanded by Colonel Manuel Montoya and the Chilean forces under the command of Lord Cochrane, held on 3 and 4 February 1820.

A painting of the fall of Valdivia in the Chilean naval and maritime museum

1886 – Launch of Stromboli, a protected cruiser of the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy)
Stromboli was a protected cruiser of the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) built in the 1880s. She was the second member of the Etna class, which included three sister ships. She was named for the volcanic island of Stromboli, and was armed with a main battery of two 10-inch (254 mm) and six 6-inch (152 mm) guns, and could steam at a speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph). Her career was relatively uneventful; the only significant action in which she took part was the campaign against the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. She returned to Italy in 1901 and spent the rest of her career in reserve or as an ammunition ship, apart from a brief stint in active service in 1904. Stromboli was stricken from the naval register in 1907 and sold for scrapping in 1911.

1942 - The Battle of Makassar Strait, also known as the Action of Madura Strait
The Battle of Makassar Strait, also known as the Action of Madura Strait, the Action North of Lombok Strait and the Battle of the Flores Sea, was a naval battle of the Pacific theater of World War II. An American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) fleet—under Schout by-nacht (Rear Admiral) Karel Doorman—was on its way to intercept a Japanese invasion convoy reported as bound for Surabaya, (its destination was actually Makassar) when it was attacked by 36 Mitsubishi G4M1 "Betty" and 24 Mitsubishi G3M2 "Nell" medium bombers, which forced the fleet to retreat.
(The battle occurred in the Java Sea, closer to the Kangean Islands than to Makassar Strait. Also, this battle should not be confused with the Naval Battle of Balikpapan on 24 January 1942, which is also sometimes referred to as the "Battle of Makassar Strait".)

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 4 February 1807 - HMS Lark (1794 - 16), Cptn. Robert Nicholas, and boats at Zispata Bay. Silenced a battery and engaged a convoy with 3 small escorts. 1 enemy was taken but 2 earlier prizes ran aground and were burnt. HMS Lark was a...

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1782 – Spanish defeat British forces and capture Menorca.
The Franco-Spanish reconquest of Menorca (historically called "Minorca" by the British) from its British invaders in February 1782, after the Siege of Fort St. Philip lasting over five months, was an important step in the achievement of Spain's aims in its alliance with France against Britain during the American Revolutionary War. The ultimate result was the devolution of the island to Spain in the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

Plan of Fort St. Philip. (1780)

1800 - HMS Fairy (1778 - 16) and HMS Harpy (1796 - 18), Henry Bazely, engaged French frigate Pallas (1798 - 38) off Cape Frehel.
She struck to Harpy when HMS Loire (1796/1798 - 38), HMS Danae (1796/1798 - 20) and HMS Railleur (1797 - 14) came up.
Early in the morning of 5 February 1800, the sloops HMS Fairy and HMS Harpy left Saint Aubin's Bay, where they were attached to the Jersey squadron under the command of Captain Philippe d'Auvergne, (Prince of Bouillon), and reconnoitered the coast around Saint-Malo. In late morning they were some five or six miles from Cap Fréhel when they sighted a large vessel, which turned out to be a French frigate.

A representation of His Majesty's Sloops Fairy of 16 Guns... and Harpy of 18 Guns... engaging the French National Frigate La Pallas mounting 44 Guns... off St Maloes, 6th Feby 1800 (PAH7968)

1803 – Last seen - George Bass (30 January 1771 – after 5 February 1803) was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia.
George Bass (/bæs/; 30 January 1771 – after 5 February 1803) was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia.





1805 - the East Indiaman Earl of Abergavenny sank shortly after striking Shambles Bank near Portland Bill.
Of the 402 people aboard 263 were lost, including her captain John Wordsworth Jr, brother of the poet William Wordsworth.
Earl of Abergavenny was an East Indiaman launched in 1796 that was wrecked in Weymouth Bay, England in 1805. She was one of the largest ever built. The English poet William Wordsworth's brother John was her captain during her last two successful voyages to China. He was also her captain on her fifth voyage and lost his life when she wrecked. Earl of Abergavenny was built in Northfleet, Kent to carry cargo for the British East India Company(EIC). In 1804 she was one of the vessels at the Battle of Pulo Aura, though she did not participate in the action. She sank, with great loss of life, within days of leaving Portsmouth on the outward leg of her fifth voyage.

1807 – HMS Blenheim (1761 - 90) and HMS Java (1806 - 32) disappear off the coast of Rodrigues.
HMS Blenheim was a 90-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 5 July 1761 at Woolwich. In 1797 she participated in the Battle of Cape St Vincent. In 1801 Blenheim was razeed to a Third Rate. She disappeared off Madagascar with all hands in February 1807.
Service
Blenheim was first ordered to be built in November 1755 as part of an Admiralty program to expand the Royal Navy fleet ahead of the onset of the Seven Years' War with France. Construction was assigned to the Navy dockyard at Woolwich with an intended completion date of September 1759. However there were major delays arising from a lack of skilled workmen in the yard, and by Navy Board attempts to reduce waste and misuse in dockyard practices. In April 1757 Blenheim's shipwrights walked out in protest against a Navy Board reform that impacted on their traditional entitlement to remove spare timbers for personal use. Construction had fallen further behind schedule by the time they returned to work, with Blenheim not finally completed until July 1761.

Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile proposed (and approved) for Sandwich (1759) and Blenheim (1761), both 90-gun Second Rate, three-deckers.

1918 – SS Tuscania is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland; it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.
SS Tuscania was a luxury liner of the Cunard Line subsidiary Line, named after Tuscania, Italy. In 1918 the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat UB-77 while transporting American troops to Europe with the loss of 210 lives


1933 – Mutiny on Royal Netherlands Navy warship HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën off the coast of Sumatra, Dutch East Indies.
HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën was a Royal Netherlands Navy coastal defence ship in service from 1910 until 1942. It was a small cruiser-sized warship that sacrificed speed and range for armor and armament. She was armed with two 283 mm, four 150 mm, ten 75 mm, four 37 mm guns, in addition to a 75 mm mortar. She was 101.5 metres (333 ft) long, had a beam of 17.1 metres (56 ft) and a draft of 6.15 metres (20.2 ft), and displaced 6,530 tons. She had a crew of 448 and was able to reach 16 knots.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
6th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 4 February 1807 - HMS Lark (1794 - 16), Cptn. Robert Nicholas, and boats at Zispata Bay. Silenced a battery and engaged a convoy with 3 small escorts. 1 enemy was taken but 2 earlier prizes ran aground and were burnt. HMS Lark was a...

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1778 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic.
The Treaty of Amity and Commerce Between the United States and France, was the first of two treaties between the United States and France, signed on February 6, 1778, at the Hôtel de Coislin [fr] in Paris. Its sister treaty, the Treaty of Alliance (as well as a separate and secret clause related to the future inclusion of Spain into the alliance) were signed immediately thereafter. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce recognized the de facto independence of the United States and established a strictly commercial treaty between the two nations as an alternative to, and in direct defiance of, the British Acts of Trade and Navigation; the Treaty of Alliance, for mutual defense, was then signed "particularly in case Great Britain in Resentment of that connection and of the good correspondence which is the object of the [first] Treaty, should break the Peace with France, either by direct hostilities, or by hindering her commerce and navigation, in a manner contrary to the Rights of Nations, and the Peace subsisting between the two Crowns". These were the first treaties ever negotiated by the fledgling United States and signed in the midst of the American Revolutionary War. Due to later complications with the alliance treaty, America would not sign another military alliance until the Declaration by United Nations in 1942.

A depiction of the signing by Charles E. Mills

1799 - HMS Argo (1781 - 44), Capt James Bowen, captured Spanish frigate Santa Teresa (1787 - 34) off Majorca.
The Action of 6 February 1799 was a minor naval action that took place during the French Revolutionary Wars off the island of Majorca between two Royal Navy ships and two Spanish naval frigates.


1806 – Battle of San Domingo
British naval victory against the French in the Caribbean.
The Battle of San Domingo was a naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars fought on 6 February 1806 between squadrons of French and British ships of the line off the southern coast of the French-occupied Spanish colonial Captaincy General of Santo Domingo (San Domingo in contemporary British English) in the Caribbean.
All five of the French ships of the line commanded by Vice-Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissègues had been captured or destroyed. The Royal Navy led by Vice-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth lost no ships and suffered less than a hundred killed while the French lost approximately 1,500 men. Only a small number of the French squadron were able to escape.
The battle of San Domingo was the last fleet engagement of the war between French and British capital ships in open water.




1841 – Launch of French Sémillante, a Surveillante class 60-gun first rank frigate of the French Navy
The Sémillante was a Surveillante class 60-gun first rank frigate of the French Navy.


1862 - Union gunboat squadron captures Fort Henry, Tennessee River
The Battle of Fort Henry was fought on February 6, 1862, in western Middle Tennessee[, during the American Civil War. It was the first important victory for the Union and Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater.

1898 - SS Baltic, an ocean liner hit a derelict ship and sank, with all on board saved.
SS Baltic was an ocean liner owned and operated by the White Star Line. Baltic was one of the first four ships ordered by White Star from shipbuilders Harland and Wolff after Thomas Ismay bought the company, and the third of the ships to be delivered.
In 1889, after SS Teutonic entered service, Baltic was sold to the Holland America Line and renamed Veendam after the Dutch city of that name. On 6 February 1898, Veendam hit a derelict ship and sank, with all on board saved.

1922 - The world powers of the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy, sign the Washington Naval Treaty providing for limitation of naval armament.
The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, the Four-Power Treaty, and the Nine-Power Treaty, was a treaty signed during 1922 among the major nations that had won World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington Naval Conference, held in Washington, D.C., from November 1921 to February 1922, and it was signed by the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Italy, and Japan. It limited the construction of battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers by the signatories. The numbers of other categories of warships, including cruisers, destroyers and submarines, were not limited by the treaty, but those ships were limited to 10,000 tons displacement each.

1937 – Launch of german cruiser Admiral Hipper, the lead ship of the Admiral Hipper class of heavy Cruisers
Admiral Hipper, the first of five ships of her class, was the lead ship of the Admiral Hipper class of heavy cruisers which served with Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1935 and launched February 1937; Admiral Hipper entered service shortly before the outbreak of war, in April 1939. The ship was named after Admiral Franz von Hipper, commander of the German battlecruiser squadron during the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and later commander-in-chief of the German High Seas Fleet. She was armed with a main battery of eight 20.3 cm (8.0 in) guns and, although nominally under the 10,000-long-ton (10,000 t) limit set by the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, actually displaced over 16,000 long tons (16,000 t).

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
7th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 6 February 1806 – Battle of San Domingo - Part I British naval victory against the French in the Caribbean. The Battle of San Domingo was a naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars fought on 6 February 1806 between squadrons of French and...

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1813 – In the action of 7 February 1813 near the Îles de Los,
HMS Amelia (1796 - 38), Cptn. Frederick Paul Irby, engaged French frigate Arethuse (1812 - 46), Capt. Bouvet, off Sierra Leone
The Action of 7 February 1813 was a naval battle between two evenly matched frigates from the French Navy and the British Royal Navy, Aréthuse and HMS Amelia. The battle was fought during the night of 7 February 1813 at the Îles de Los, off Guinea. It lasted four hours, causing significant damage and casualties to both opponents, and resulted in a stalemate. The two ships parted and returned to their respective ports of call, both sides claiming victory.

The involved ships




1824 – Launch of HMS North Star, a 28-gun Atholl class corvette sixth-rate post ship
HMS North Star was a 28-gun Atholl class corvette sixth-rate post ship built to an 1817 design by the Surveyors of the Navy. She was launched in 1824.
North Star Bay, a bay in Greenland, was named in honour of this ship.
Suppressing the Atlantic slave trade
From 1826 to 1828 under Captain Arabin, North Star was stationed in the West Africa Squadron, whose task was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. In late 1828 she sailed to England, via the West Indies. From 1829 to 1832 she was stationed in Portsmouth; then from 1832-1833 she became part of the North America and West Indies Station before being paid off. In 1834 she was commissioned for service on the Pacific Station then known as the South American Station. She was in the Pacific off the coast of South and Central America until 1836, when she returned to Portsmouth.

1832 - The frigate USS Potomac, commanded by Capt. John Downes, shells a pirate stronghold at Qualla Battoo, Sumatra
The day before a Potomac landing party destroys four forts, killing 150 pirates and the pirate leader, Rajah Po Mohamet. The Malays agree not to make further attacks on American ships
USS Potomac was a Raritan-class frigate in the United States Navy laid down by the Washington Navy Yard in August 1819 and launched in March 1822. Fitting out was not completed until 1831, when Captain John Downes assumed command as first commanding officer. Although called a "44" 1st class, she was built to mount 32 carronades on her spar deck, 30 long guns on her gun deck, two bow and three stern chasers on each of these decks, significantly under-rating her on the rating system of the Royal Navy.

1863 - HMS Orpheus sank off the west coast of Auckland, New Zealand after grounding on a sand bar.
Of the 259 aboard 189 were lost making it the highest maritime loss of life in New Zealand waters
HMS Orpheus was a Jason-class Royal Navy corvette that served as the flagship of the Australian squadron. Orpheus sank off the west coast of Auckland, New Zealand on 7 February 1863: 189 crew out of the ship's complement of 259 died in the disaster, making it the worst maritime tragedy to occur in New Zealand waters.

1866 - Naval Battle of Abtao
The Battle of Abtao was a naval battle fought on February 7, 1866, during the Chincha Islands War, between a Spanish squadron and a combined Peruvian-Chilean fleet, at the island of Abtao in the Gulf of Ancud near Chiloé Archipelago in south-central Chile. It reduced to a long-range exchange of fire between the two squadrons, as the Allied ships, anchored behind the island, were protected by shallow waters impracticable for the Spanish ships, whose gunnery, nevertheless, proved more accurate and inflicted damage to the Chilean and Peruvian ships.

1905 - The French cruiser Sully, an armored cruiser of the Gloire class, wrecked
The French cruiser Sully was an armored cruiser of the Gloire class that was built for the French Navy in the early 1900s. She was named in honor of Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully, trusted minister of King Henry IV. The ship struck a rock in Hạ Long Bay, French Indochina in 1905, only eight months after she was completed, and was a total loss.

1917 - SS California (1907) was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine SM U-85
The twin screw steamer California was built by D & W Henderson Ltd, Glasgow for the Line Ltd in 1907 as a replacement for the aging ocean liner Astoria, which had been in continuous service since 1884. She worked the Glasgow to New York transatlantic route and was sunk by the German submarine SM U-85 on 7 February 1917.

California delivering war brides to New York in 1911

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
8th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 7 February 1866 - Naval Battle of Abtao The Battle of Abtao was a naval battle fought on February 7, 1866, during the Chincha Islands War, between a Spanish squadron and a combined...

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1794 - HMS Fortitude (1780 - 74), Cptn. William Young, and HMS Juno (1780 - 32) engaged tower on Mortella Point, Corsica an event which eventually led to the construction of 'Martello' towers on the south coast of England.
(some sources say 7th, some 8th February)

The resistance of the Torra di Mortella to the British in 1794 inspired Martello towers

1805 - HMS Curieux (1804 - 18), George Edmund Byron Bettesworth, captured French privateer brig Dame Ernouf (1805 - 16) some 60 miles east of Barbados.
HMS Seaforth was the French privateer Dame Ernouf, which HMS Curieux captured in 1805. The Royal Navy took her into service, but she foundered later that year.

HMS Curieux Captures Dame Ernouf, 8 February 1805, by Francis Sartorius Jr., National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

1809 – Launch of French La Golymin, a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy (of the Duquesne sub-class).
The Golymin was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy (of the Duquesne sub-class). Built in Lorient in 1804, she was launched in 1809. Wrecked on Mengam Rock in the roads of Brest on 23 March 1814, she is the source of the Obusier de vaisseau currently on display in the Musée national de la Marine in Paris and in Brest.

Scale model of Achille, sister ship of French ship Golymin (1809), on display at the Musée de la Marine in Paris.

1904 - The Battle of Port Arthur
A surprise torpedo attack by the Japanese at Port Arthur, China starts the Russo-Japanese War.
The Battle of Port Arthur (Japanese: 旅順口海戦 Hepburn: Ryojunkō Kaisen) of Monday 8 February – Tuesday 9 February 1904 marked the commencement of the Russo-Japanese War. It began with a surprise night attack by a squadron of Japanese destroyers on the Russian fleet anchored at Port Arthur, Manchuria, and continued with an engagement of major surface combatants the following morning; further skirmishing off Port Arthur would continue until May 1904. The battle ended inconclusively, though the war resulted in a decisive Japanese victory.

Japanese print displaying the destruction of a Russian ship

1916 - the French cruiser Amiral Charner was torpedoed by the Austro-Hungarian submarine U-36 in the Mediterranean Sea off Beirut and sunk in two minutes. There was only one survivor from her crew of 427.
Amiral Charner was an armored cruiser built for the French Navy in the 1890s, the name ship of her class. She spent most of her career in the Mediterranean, although she was sent to China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900–01. The ship was assigned to the International Squadron off the island of Crete during 1897-1898 revolt there and the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 to protect French interests and citizens. Amiral Charner spent most of the first decade of the 20th century as a training ship or in reserve. The ship was recommissioned when World War I began in 1914 and escorted convoys for several months before she was assigned to the Eastern Mediterranean to blockade the Ottoman-controlled coast. During this time, she helped to rescue several thousand Armenians from Syria during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Amiral Charnerwas sunk in early 1916 by a German submarine, with only a single survivor rescued.

1921 - Death of Colin Archer
Colin Archer (22 July 1832 – 8 February 1921) was a Norwegian naval architect and shipbuilder whose most famous ship, the Fram, was used on both Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen's polar expeditions

Model of RS 1 Colin Archer in the Fram Museum, Oslo, Norway

1943 - USS Snook (SS 279) attacks a Japanese convoy off the west coast of Kyushu and sinks the transport Lima Maru and survives depth charges about 30 miles southeast of Goto Retto.
The Japanese troopship sank quickly and as many as 2,765 lives were lost.
Lima Maru was a 6,989 -ton Japanese troop transport during World War II, which sank on 8 February 1944 with great loss of life.

1943 - the Japanese troopship Tatsuta Maru was torpedoed and sunk by the USS Tarpon 42 miles east of Mikurajima. Some 1,400 Japanese soldiers aboard were killed.
Tatsuta Maru (龍田丸), was a Japanese ocean liner owned by Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK). The ship was built in 1927–1929 by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. at Nagasaki, Japan. The vessel was named after Tatsuta Jinja an important Shinto shrine in Nara Prefecture.

Tatsuta Maru, marked with symbols of safe passage while working as a repatriation ship as seen through the periscope of the U.S. Navy submarine USS Kingfish (SS-234) in October 1942.

1944 - german SS Petrella (former Italian Capo Pino) torpedoed by the submarine HMS Sportsman, while transporting 3,173 Italian POWs from Crete to the mainland. 2,670 POWs were killed.
SS Petrella was a German merchant ship, which was torpedoed and sunk on 8 February 1944, north of Souda Bay, Crete, killing some 2,670 of the Italian POWs aboard.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
9th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 7 February 1866 - Naval Battle of Abtao The Battle of Abtao was a naval battle fought on February 7, 1866, during the Chincha Islands War, between a Spanish squadron and a combined...

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1695 - Battle of the Oinousses Islands
The Battle of the Oinousses Islands (Italian: Battaglia di Spalmadori) comprised two separate actions, on 9 and 19 February 1695 near the Oinousses(Turkish: Koyun Adaları), a small island group off Cape Karaburun in western Anatolia, between a Venetian fleet under Antonio Zeno and the Ottoman fleet under Mezzo Morto Hüseyin. The result of the first battle was a Venetian defeat, and although the second engagement ended in a draw, the Venetian position in Chios became untenable, forcing Zeno to abandon the island.

1746 - HMS Portland (1744 - 50), Cptn. Charles Stevens, captured French Auguste (1741 - 50) off Scilly
Auguste was a 50-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. Captured by HMS Portland on 9 February 1746 during the War of the Austrian Succession, she was taken into Royal Navy service as HMS Portland's Prize. She was broken up at 1749.
HMS Portland was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Limehouse according to the dimensions laid down in the 1741 proposals of the 1719 Establishment, and launched on 11 October 1744.
‘Magnanime’ (1744), a French 70-gun, two-decker ship of the line was captured by the ‘Nottingham’ and ‘Portland’ in 1747 and commissioned into the Royal Navy.
Portland served until 1763, when she was sold out of the navy.

1758 – Launch of HMS Maidstone, a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy
HMS Maidstone was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.

1799 - USS Constellation, (1797 - 38) Cptn. Thomas Truxtun, captures French l'Insurgente (36), Captain Barreaut, off the island of Nevis.
USS Constellation vs L'Insurgente, or the Action of 9 February 1799, was a single-ship action fought between frigates of the French Navy and the United States Navy during the Quasi-War, an undeclared war that lasted from 1798 to 1800. The battle resulted in USS Constellation's capture of L'Insurgente.

1799 - HMS Daedalus (32), Cptn. Henry Lidgbird Ball, captured Prudente (38) near the Cape of Good Hope.
The Prudente was a 32-gun Capricieuse-class frigate of the French Navy.

Cybèle and Prudente fighting HMS Centurion and HMS Diomede.

1827 - Battle of Juncal
The naval Battle of Juncal took place between a squadron of the newly independent United Provinces of the River Plate under command of William Brown and a squadron belonging to the Brazilian Empire, commanded by Sena Pereira. It spanned two days, from 8 to 9 February 1827, in the waters of the Rio de la Plata.
The two squadrons were initially of roughly equal strength, but because of superior command and control, and gunnery training, the Argentines scored a decisive victory: out of 17 Brazilian vessels, 12—including the flagship with its admiral—were captured and 3 were burnt. Not a single Argentine vessel was lost.
In the aftermath of the battle, the Third Division, the arm of the Brazilian fleet tasked with controlling the Uruguay River and thus disrupting communications with the Argentine army then operating in the Banda Oriental, was completely destroyed. The result was the biggest naval victory for Argentina in the Cisplatine War

1864 – Launch of The seventh HMS Enterprise of the Royal Navy, an armoured sloop launched at Deptford Dockyard.
The seventh HMS Enterprise of the Royal Navy was an armoured sloop launched in 1864 at Deptford Dockyard. Originally laid down as a wooden screwsloop of the Camelion class, she was redesigned by Edward Reed and completed as a central battery ironclad. The ship spent the bulk of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet before returning to England in 1871 where she was paid off. Enterprise was sold for scrap in 1885.

Moonlit scene depicting the gunboat 'Comet' in the left foreground and 'Enterprise', an iron clad screw sloop, in the middle ground to the right. The scene is calm and serene, perhaps reflecting a period of peace for the Channel fleet.

1903 - Launch of Nisshin (日進), also transliterated as Nissin, a Kasuga-class armored cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy,
Nisshin (日進), also transliterated as Nissin, was a Kasuga-class armored cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy, built in the first decade of the 20th century by Gio. Ansaldo & C., Sestri Ponente, Italy, where the type was known as the Giuseppe Garibaldi class. The ship was originally ordered by the Argentine Navy during the Argentine–Chilean naval arms race, but the lessening of tensions with Chile and financial pressures caused the Argentinians to sell her before delivery. At this time tensions between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire were rising, and the ship was offered to both sides before she was purchased by the Japanese.

1904 - Battle of Chemulpo Bay
The Battle of Chemulpo Bay was a naval battle in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), which took place on 9 February 1904, off the coast of present-day Incheon, Korea.

1942 - While undergoing conversion at New York City pier 88, USS Lafayette (AP 53), ex SS Normandie, catches fire resulting in the total loss of the ship.
The SS Normandie was an ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France, for the French Line Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT). She entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat; she remains the most powerful steam turbo-electric-propelled passenger ship ever built.

SS Normandie at sea in the 1930s

2001 - submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) collided with the Japanese-fishery high-school training ship Ehime Maru
In a demonstration for some VIP civilian visitors, Greeneville performed an emergency ballast-blow surfacing maneuver. As the submarine shot to the surface, she struck Ehime Maru. Within 10 minutes of the collision, Ehime Maru sank.
On 9 February 2001, about 9 nautical miles (17 km) south of Oahu, Hawaii, the United States Navy (USN) Los Angeles-class submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) collided with the Japanese-fishery high-school training ship Ehime Maru (えひめ丸) from Ehime Prefecture. In a demonstration for some VIP civilian visitors, Greeneville performed an emergency ballast-blow surfacing maneuver. As the submarine shot to the surface, she struck Ehime Maru. Within 10 minutes of the collision, Ehime Maru sank. Nine of the people on board were killed: four high-school students, two teachers, and three crewmembers.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
10th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 9 February 1794 - Capture of british East Indiaman Pigot Pigot was an East Indiaman that made five voyages to India, China, and the East Indies for the British East India Company (EIC) between...

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As usual you find in the following some of the Events in a Pre-View -> for more details and additional events please use the link

1703 – Launch of HMS Swallow, a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy,
HMS Swallow was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford Dockyard and launched on 10 February 1703.
Swallow was rebuilt according to the 1706 Establishment at Chatham Dockyard, and was relaunched on 25 March 1719. Captain Chaloner Ogle commanded Swallow off the West African coast from 1721 and the following year engaged and defeated several pirate ships. Their commander Bartholomew Roberts was killed, and Ogle received a knighthood for his actions. Swallow continued to serve until 1728, when she was broken up

1744 – Birth of William Cornwallis, English admiral and politician (d. 1819)
Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, GCB (10 February 1744 – 5 July 1819) was a Royal Navy officer. He was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, the 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British commander at the siege of Yorktown. Cornwallis took part in a number of decisive battles including the Siege of Louisbourg in 1758 and the Battle of the Saintes but is best known as a friend of Lord Nelson and as the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. He is depicted in the Horatio Hornblower novel, Hornblower and the Hotspur.


1758 – Launch of HMS Liverpool, a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate
HMS Liverpool was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1758, she saw active service in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War. She was wrecked in Jamaica Bay, near New York, in 1778.

Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail and longitudinal half breadth as proposed for the Liverpool, 1756

1796 – Launch of French Diane, a 38-gun frigate of the French Navy,
Diane was a purpose built 38-gun frigate of the French Navy, launched in 10 February 1796 at Toulon. She participated in the battle of the Nile, but in August 1800 the Royal Navy captured her. She was taken into British service as HMS Niobe, and broken up in 1816.


1796 – Launch of French La Libre, a Romaine-class frigate of the French Navy.
The Libre was a Romaine-class frigate of the French Navy. She was commissioned in 1800 and remained in active service until captured by the Royal Navy in 1805.
sistership

French frigate Poursuivante, a detail of a larger canvas: Combat de la Poursuivante contre l'Hercule, 1803 ("Fight of the Poursuivante against the Hercule", 1803). Which shows the French frigate Poursuivante raking the British ship HMS Hercule, in the action of 28 June 1803.

1801 - HMS Success was captured Succès (1781 - 32) – Retaken by British Navy 10 December 1801.
HMS Success was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the British Royal Navy launched in 1781, which served during the American Revolutionary, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The French captured her in the Mediterranean on 10 February 1801, but she was recaptured by the British on 2 September. She continued to serve in the Mediterranean until 1811, and in North America until hulked in 1814, then serving as a prison ship and powder hulk, before being broken up in 1820.

1805 – Launch of French Pomone, a 40-gun Hortense-class frigate of the French Navy,
Pomone was a 40-gun Hortense-class frigate of the French Navy, built at Genoa for the puppet government of the Ligurian Republic, which was annexed as part of France in June 1805, a month after Pomone was completed. On 30 January 1807, she collided with the French frigate Muiron.

1809 - HMS Horatio (44), Cptn. George Scott, and HMS Latona (38), Cptn. Hugh Pigot, captured Junon (40), Cptn. Rousseau (Killed in Action), off the Virgin Islands
The Action of 10 February 1809 was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, in which a British Royal Navy squadron chased and captured the French frigate Junon in the Caribbean Sea. Junon was on a mission to carry trade goods from the Îles des Saintes near Guadeloupe back to Franceand was part of a succession of French warships sent during 1808 and the early months of 1809 in an effort to break the British blockade of the French Caribbean, which was destroying the economies and morale of the islands. Having landed supplies, Junon's return cargo was intended to improve the economic situation on Guadeloupe with much needed oceanic trade.


1816 – Launch of HMS Ariadne and HMS Valorous, both 20-gun Hermes-class sixth-rate post ships
HMS Ariadne was a 20-gun Hermes-class sixth-rate post ship built for the Royal Navy during the 1810s. The vessel was completed in 1816, modified in the early 1820s and only entered service in 1823. Ariadne was assigned to the Cape of Good Hope Station, followed by a stint in the Mediterranean Sea. The post ship was taken out of service in 1828, turned into a coal hulk and sold for scrap in 1841.


1862 - Battle of Elizabeth City
A flotilla under Cmdr. Stephen C. Rowan aboard USS Delaware engages the gunboats and batteries at Elizabeth City, N.C, capturing CSS Ellis and sinking CSS Seabird.
The Battle of Elizabeth City of the American Civil War was fought in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Roanoke Island. It took place on 10 February 1862, on the Pasquotank River near Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The participants were vessels of the U.S. Navy's North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, opposed by vessels of the Confederate Navy's Mosquito Fleet; the latter were supported by a shore-based battery of four guns at Cobb's Point (now called Cobb Point), near the southeastern border of the town. The battle was a part of the campaign in North Carolina that was led by Major GeneralAmbrose E. Burnside and known as the Burnside Expedition. The result was a Union victory, with Elizabeth City and its nearby waters in their possession, and the Confederate fleet captured, sunk, or dispersed.

1868 – Launch of HMS Hercules , a central-battery ironclad of the Royal Navy
HMS Hercules was a central-battery ironclad of the Royal Navy in the Victorian era, and was the first warship to mount a main armament of 10-inch (250 mm) calibre guns.

1906 – HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships is christened and launched by King Edward VII.
HMS Dreadnought was a Royal Navy battleship that revolutionised naval power. Her name and the type of the entire class of warships that was named after her stems from archaic English in which "dreadnought" means "a fearless person". Dreadnought's entry into service in 1906 represented such an advance in naval technology that its name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of ships named after it. Likewise, the generation of ships she made obsolete became known as "pre-dreadnoughts". Admiral Sir John "Jacky" Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Board of Admiralty, is credited as the father of Dreadnought. Shortly after he assumed office, he ordered design studies for a battleship armed solely with 12-inch (305 mm) guns and a speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). He convened a "Committee on Designs" to evaluate the alternative designs and to assist in the detailed design work.

1945 - SS General von Steuben torpedoed and sunk
An estimated 4,500 people died in the sinking. Thanks to the torpedo boat T-196, which hastily pulled up beside Steuben as she sank, about 300 survivors were pulled straight from Steuben's slanting decks and brought to Kolberg in Pomerania. A total of 650 people were rescued.
SS General von Steuben was a German passenger liner and later an armed transport ship of the German Navy that was sunk during World War II. She was launched as München (sometimes spelled Muenchen), renamed in 1930 as General von Steuben (after the famous German officer of the American Revolutionary War), and renamed again in 1938 as Steuben.

1964 – Melbourne–Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with and sinks the destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, killing 82.
The Melbourne–Voyager collision, also referred to as the "Melbourne–Voyager incident" or simply the "Voyager incident", was a collision between two warships of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN); the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and the destroyer HMAS Voyager.
On the evening of 10 February 1964, the two ships were performing manoeuvres off Jervis Bay. Melbourne's aircraft were performing flying exercises, and Voyager was tasked as plane guard, positioned behind and to port (left) of the carrier in order to rescue the crew of any ditching or crashing aircraft. After a series of turns effected to reverse the courses of the two ships, Voyager ended up ahead and to starboard (right) of the carrier. The destroyer was ordered to resume plane guard position, which would involve turning to starboard, away from the carrier, then looping around behind. Instead, Voyager began a starboard turn, but then came around to port. The bridge crew on Melbourne assumed that Voyager was zig-zagging to let the carrier overtake her, and would then assume her correct position. Senior personnel on Voyager were not paying attention to the manoeuvre. At 20:55, officers on both ships began desperate avoiding manoeuvres, but by then a collision was inevitable.

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
11th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 10 February 1758 – Launch of HMS Liverpool, a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate HMS Liverpool was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1758, she saw active service in the Seven Years' War...

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as usual in the following you will find some of the events in a Pre-view - for more please use the link.....

1586 – ending of The Battle of Cartagena de Indias or the Capture of Cartagena de Indias
The Battle of Cartagena de Indias (1586) or the Capture of Cartagena de Indias was a military and naval action fought on 9–11 February 1586, of the recently declared Anglo-Spanish War that resulted in the assault and capture by English soldiers and sailors of the Spanish city of Cartagena de Indias governed by Pedro de Bustos on the Spanish Main. The English were led by Francis Drake. The raid was part of his Great Expedition to the Spanish New World. The English soldiers then occupied the city for over two months and captured much booty along with a ransom before departing on 12 April.

1780 – Launch of French frigate Aigle as a privateer.
The French frigate Aigle was launched in 1780 as a privateer. The French navy purchased her in 1782, but the British captured her that same year and took her into the Royal Navy as a 38-gun fifth rate under her existing name. During the French Revolutionary Wars she served primarily in the Mediterranean, where she wrecked in 1798.

AIGLE FL.1782 [FRENCH] lines & profile This is the captured French Frigate. Not found in Progress Book. Something to do with July 1790, possibly at Sheerness Dockyard.

1796 - HMS Leda (36) foundered off Madeira
HMS Leda (1783), a 36-gun fifth rate launched in 1783 and foundered 1796

1873 – Launch of SMS Frundsberg, an Austro-Hungarian corvette built by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino.
SMS Frundsberg was an Austro-Hungarian Aurora-class corvette built by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino.

1884 - The Advance, a wooden topsail schooner built in 1872 at Terrigal, wrecked
The Advance was a wooden topsail schooner built in 1872 at Terrigal, that was wrecked when it missed stays whilst carrying ballast (vessel was used in the lime trade) between Botany Bay and Port Stephens under the command of Captain J. Delaney and was lost at Henry Head Bight, Botany Bay, New South Wales on 11 February 1884

1893 - White Star Line ship SS Naronic lost at sea after leaving Liverpool on 11 February 1893 bound for New York, with the loss of all 74 people aboard. The ship's fate remains a mystery.
SS Naronic was a steamship built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line. The ship was lost at sea after leaving Liverpool on February 11, 1893 bound for New York, with the loss of all 74 people on board. The ship's fate is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.

1897 – Launch of HSwMS Najaden, a Swedish Navy training ship - today a museum-ship
HSwMS Najaden is a Swedish Navy training ship launched in 1897, previously preserved as a museum ship in Halmstad and moored on the river Nissan by Halmstad Castle, since July 2014 in Fredrikstad, Norway.

1907 - french cruiser Jean Bart, a 4,800-ton first-class iron-hulled protected cruiser of the French Navy, wrecked
Jean Bart was a 4,800-ton first-class iron-hulled protected cruiser of the French Navy.

1918 - French submarine Diane suffered an internal explosion in the Bay of Biscay off La Pallice, Vendée, France, and sank with the loss of her entire crew of 43.
The French submarine Diane was the lead boat of the class of two submarines built for the French Navy during World War I.
On 11 February 1918, Diane suffered an internal explosion in the Bay of Biscay off La Pallice, Vendée, France, and sank with the loss of her entire crew of 43

1992 - The Submarine Incident off Kildin Island was a collision between USS Baton Rouge and the Russian B-276 Kostroma near the Russian naval base of Severomorsk
The Submarine Incident off Kildin Island was a collision between the US Navy nuclear submarine USS Baton Rouge and the Russian Navy nuclear submarine B-276 Kostroma near the Russian naval base of Severomorsk on 11 February 1992. The incident occurred while the US unit was engaged in a covert mission, apparently aimed at intercepting Russian military communications. Although a majority of sources claim that the American submarine was trailing her Russian counterpart, some authors believe that neither Kostroma nor Baton Rouge had been able to locate each other before the collision.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
12th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 11 February 1884 - The Advance, a wooden topsail schooner built in 1872 at Terrigal, wrecked The Advance was a wooden topsail schooner built in 1872 at Terrigal, that was wrecked when it missed stays whilst carrying ballast (vessel...

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1759 – Launch of french Modeste, a 64-gun Vaillant class third rate ship of the line of the French Navy and captured later that year by the british.
HMS Modeste was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was previously the Modeste, of the French Navy, launched in 1759 and captured later that year.


1793 - HMS Alligator (28), Cptn. William Affleck, captures the French privateer Sans Peur in the North Sea
HMS Alligator was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was originally ordered during the American War of Independence but was completed too late to see service during the conflict. Instead she had an active career during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Commissioned during the last few years of peace prior to the outbreak of war with France, Alligator served in British waters, making trips as far afield as the Mediterranean and the North American coast. During the period of conflict that began in 1793, Alligator spent a considerable amount of time in the West Indies under a number of commanders, and was effective in anti-privateer operations. Despite this she was laid up for a period starting in 1795, and was reduced to a 16-gun troopship in 1800. Further service followed in the West Indies, supporting the fleet and army movements around the islands, and taking part in the capture of several French frigates. She was again laid up, and as the end of hostilities approached, was deemed surplus and was sold in 1814.


1807 - HMS Atalante (16), Lt. John Bowker, wrecked when running aground on La Grande Blanche, Island of Rhe, France
HMS Atalante was a 16-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was formerly the French Atalante, captured in 1797. She served with the British during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and was wrecked in 1807.


1811 - HMS Cerberus (1794 - 32), Cptn. Henry Whitby, and HMS Active (1799 - 38), Cptn. James Alexander Gordon, take or destroy, under the town of Ortano, Italy, a Venetian trabaccolo and 9 transports.
On 12 February boats from Cerberus and Active set out to secure a number of vessels spotted moored at Ortano. As the boats attempted this, they came under heavy fire from shore positions but cleared all opposition. A party of marines and small arms men under the command of Active's lieutenant of marines landed to secure the shore to protect the cutting out operation. The carronades on Active's launches also provided cover. British casualties amounted to four men wounded. The British captured 11 Venetian vessels in all, most of which were from Ancona, bound for Corfu. The ones the British didn't burn they sent to Lissa.


1841 – Launch of HMS Ardent, a wooden Alecto-class paddle sloop,
HMS Ardent was a wooden Alecto-class paddle sloop, and the fourth ship of the Royal Navy to use the name. She was launched on 12 February 1841 at Chatham and spent much of her career on the West Coast of Africa engaged in anti-slavery operations. One of the ship's company, Gunner John Robarts, was awarded the Victoria Cross for the destruction of Russian food stores in the Crimean War. She was scrapped in 1865.


1876 – Launch of HMS Belleisle was one of the four ships currently under construction for foreign navies in British shipyards which were purchased by the British government for the Royal Navy in 1878, at the time of the Russian war scare.
HMS Belleisle was one of the four ships currently under construction for foreign navies in British shipyards which were purchased by the British government for the Royal Navy in 1878, at the time of the Russian war scare.
She was one of the two ironclads of the Belleisle class, the other being HMS Orion. She was built in the Samuda Brothers shipyard at Cubitt Town, London, for service with the Ottoman Navy, under the name of Peik-i-Sheref, and was taken over for the Royal Navy in a completed condition. She was, however, not regarded as fit to serve as a British warship until a number of extensive and expensive modifications were carried out.

1880 - HMS Juno – a training ship - disappeared with her entire crew after setting sail from Bermuda for Falmouth, England on 31 January 1880. It was presumed that she sank in a powerful storm which crossed her route a couple of weeks after she sailed between 12 and 16 February 1880.
HMS Juno was a 26-gun Spartan-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1844 at Pembroke. As HMS Juno, she carried out the historic role in 1857 of annexing the Cocos (Keeling) Islands to the British Empire. She was renamed HMS Mariner in January 1878 and then HMS Atalanta two weeks later.
Atalanta was serving as a training ship when in 1880 she disappeared with her entire crew after setting sail from Bermuda for Falmouth, England on 31 January 1880. It was presumed that she sank in a powerful stormwhich crossed her route a couple of weeks after she sailed. The search for evidence of her fate attracted worldwide attention, and the Admiralty received more than 150 telegrams and 200 personal calls from anxious friends and relatives after it was announced that the ship was missing, and possibly lost.

1903 - expedition ship Antarctic, damaged and leaking by trapped in pack ice, sank - the crew was rescued in November
Antarctic was a Swedish steamship built in Drammen, Norway in 1871. She was used on several research expeditions to the Arctic region and to Antarctica through 1898-1903. In 1895 the first confirmed landing on the mainland of Antarctica was made from this ship.


1944 - SS Oria – while carrying Germany's flag, 4,096 Italian POWs (after Italy left the Axis), from the Dodecanese to Athens, Oria entered a thunderstorm some 50 mi (80 km) from her intended destination, Piraeus harbour.
The ship cracked and sank - an estimated 4,074 were killed. 28 people were saved
SS Oria was a Norwegian steamboat that sank on 12 February 1944, causing the death of some 4,095 Italian prisoners of war 21 Greeks and 15 Germans. This was one of the worst maritime disasters ever, probably the fourth worst loss of life caused by the sinking of a single ship in the world and the worst in the Mediterranean Sea

1944 - Khedive Ismail, an Egyptian-owned troopship in a convoy from Mombasa to Colombo, was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-27 on 12 February 1944.
Of the 1,507 people aboard, 1,302 were killed, including 79 of the 87 women.
Some survivors in the water were killed when the destroyer escorts dropped depth charges to bring the submarine to the surface.
SS Khedive Ismail, formerly SS Aconcagua, was a turbine steamship that was built in 1922 as an ocean liner, converted into a troop ship in 1940 and sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1944 with great loss of life. She was owned by the Chilean company CSAV 1922–32, the Scottish William Hamilton & Co (1932–35), the Egyptian company KML 1935–40 and the British Ministry of War Transport 1940–44.

1946 – Ending of Operation Deadlight, the code name for the Royal Navy operation to scuttle German U-boats surrendered to the Allies
Operation Deadlight was the code name for the Royal Navy operation to scuttle German U-boats surrendered to the Allies after the defeat of Germany near the end of World War II.

1988 – Cold War: The 1988 Black Sea bumping incident: The U.S. missile cruiser USS Yorktown (CG-48) is intentionally rammed by the Soviet frigate Bezzavetnyy in the Soviet territorial waters, while Yorktown claims innocent passage.
The Black Sea bumping incident of 12 February 1988 occurred when American cruiser USS Yorktown tried to exercise the right of innocent passage through Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea during the Cold War. The cruiser was bumped by the Soviet frigate Bezzavetny with the intention of pushing Yorktown into international waters. This incident also involved the destroyer USS Caron, sailing in company with USS Yorktown and claiming the right of innocent passage, which was intentionally shouldered by a Soviet Mirka-class frigate SKR-6. Yorktown reported minor damage to its hull, with no holing or risk of flooding. Caron was not damaged.
At the time, the Soviet Union recognized the right of innocent passage for warships in its territorial waters solely in designated sea lanes. The United States believed that there was no legal basis for a coastal nation to limit warship transits to sea lanes only. Subsequently, the U.S. Department of State found that the Russian-language text of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 22, paragraph 1 allowed the coastal state to regulate the right of innocent passage whenever necessary, while the English-language text did not. Following the incident, the Soviet Union expressed a commitment to resolve the issue of innocent passage in Soviet territorial waters.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
13th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 12 February 1988 – Cold War: The 1988 Black Sea bumping incident: The U.S. missile cruiser USS Yorktown (CG-48) is intentionally rammed by the Soviet frigate Bezzavetnyy in the Soviet territorial waters, while Yorktown claims innocent...

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1707 – Launch of HMS Colchester, a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy
HMS Colchester was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford Dockyard and launched on 13 February 1707.




1718 – Birth of George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, English admiral and politician (d. 1792)
George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, KB (bap. 13 February 1718 – 24 May 1792), was a British naval officer. He is best known for his commands in the American War of Independence, particularly his victory over the French at the Battle of the Saintes in 1782. It is often claimed that he was the commander to have pioneered the tactic of "breaking the line".


1720 - HMS Blandford launched
HMS Blandford, launched 13.th February 1720, a 20-gun frigate, was one of the first ships of all together 22 frigates which were built based on the so called 1719 Establishment

1779 – Launch of French Jason, 64 gun Caton-class at Toulon – Captured by the British in the Caribbean on 19 April 1782 and added to the RN as HMS Argonaut, sold February 1831.
HMS Argonaut was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line, in Royal Navy service during the French Revolutionary Wars and the American Revolution. Launched in 1779 as the French ship Jason, she was captured by the British in 1782 and commissioned by them in the same year. After active service against the French, she was converted to a hospital ship in 1804 and permanently moored off Chatham Dockyard.
Argonaut was removed from navy service in 1828 and broken up in 1831.


1782 – Launch of HMS Atlas, a 98-gun Duke-class second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy,
HMS Atlas was a 98-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 13 February 1782. She was a Duke-class ship of the line built at Chatham Dockyard by Nicholas Phillips.


1797 – Launch of HMS Cambrian, a Royal Navy 40-gun fifth-rate frigate.
HMS Cambrian was a Royal Navy 40-gun fifth-rate frigate. She was built and launched at Bursledon in 1797 and served in the English Channel, off North America, and in the Mediterranean. She was briefly flagship of both Admiral Mark Milbanke and Vice-Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell during her career, and was present at the Battle of Navarino. Cambrian was wrecked off the coast of Grabusa in 1828.


1807 - HMS Woodcock and HMS Wagtail, both Cuckoo-class schooners (both launched at the same day) of four 12-pounder carronades, wrecked
HMS Wagtail was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by James Lovewell at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.
HMS Woodcock was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. Crane & Holmes built and launched her at Great Yarmouth in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.


1808 - Boats of HMS Confiance (20), Cptn. James Lucas Yeo, cut out a French gunboat, Enseigne Gaudolphe, off the Tagus.
Confiance, launched in 1797, was a privateer corvette from Bordeaux, famous for being Robert Surcouf's ship during the capture of the British East India Company's East Indiaman Kent. The British Royal Navy captured Confiance in 1805, took her into service under her existing name, and sold her in 1810. Before she was sold, Confiance took part in two notable actions.

Capture of Kent by Confiance. Painting by Ambroise Louis Garneray. - Musée municipal de La Roche-sur-Yon

1809 – Launch of French 16-gun sloop brig Basque, later captured by the british and commissioned as HMS Foxhound
HMS Foxhound was the French Navy's brig Basque, launched in 1809, that the British Royal Navy captured in 1809 and took into service as a 16-gun sloop. She had a relatively brief naval career in which she captured a number of merchant vessels. After the Navy sold her in 1816, she made some 10 or 11 whaling voyages between 1817 and 1848.




1814 - HMS Boyne (1810 - 98), Cptn. Burton, and HMS Caledonia (1808 - 120), Cptn. Jeremiah Coghlan, engaged Le Romulus (1812 - 74) and Adrienne (1809 - 44) off Toulon




1858 – Launch of HMS Challenger, a steam-assisted Royal Navy Pearl-class corvette
HMS Challenger was a steam-assisted Royal Navy Pearl-class corvette launched on 13 February 1858 at the Woolwich Dockyard. She was the flagship of the Australia Station between 1866 and 1870.


1944 – Norwegian SS Irma, a 1,322-ton steamship, was attacked and sunk by two MTBs belonging to the Royal Norwegian Navy – 61 people died
SS Irma was a 1,322-ton steamship built by the British shipyard Sir Raylton Dixon & Co. Ltd. in Middlesbrough in the north-east of England. She was delivered to the Norwegian passenger ship company Det Bergenske Dampskibsselskab of Bergen in 1905. Irma sailed for the company until she was attacked and sunk by two MTBs belonging to the Royal Norwegian Navy on 13 February 1944.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
14th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 13 February 1944 – Norwegian SS Irma, a 1,322-ton steamship, was attacked and sunk by two MTBs belonging to the Royal Norwegian Navy – 61 people died SS Irma was a 1,322-ton steamship built by the British shipyard Sir Raylton Dixon &...

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1719 - HMS Burford was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy wrecked
HMS Burford was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Woolwich Dockyard in 1679 as part of the Thirty Ships Programme of 1677. She fought in the War of English Succession, including the Battle of Barfleur, before being rebuilt at Deptford in 1699, remaining as a 70-gun third rate. During the War of Spanish Succession she was mostly in the Mediterranean fleet and fought at the capture of Gibraltar and the Battle of Málaga in 1704 before being extensively repaired between 1710 and 1712 at Portsmouth Dockyard. Burford served in the Baltic in 1715 and 1717 before returning to the Mediterranean to fight the Spanish at the Battle of Cape Passaro in 1718. She was wrecked on the Italian coast in a storm on 14 February 1719.


1755 -Launch of HMS Medway, a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line
HMS Medway was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford Dockyard to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment, and launched on 14 February 1755.
In 1787 Medway was converted to serve as a receiving ship, and remained in this role until 1811, when she was broken up.


1771 – Launch of French Roland, a 64-gun Artesien-class ship of the line, at Brest
The Artésien class was a type of 64-gun ships of the line of the French Navy. A highly detailed and accurate model of Artésien, lead ship of the class, was part of the Trianon model collection and is now on display at Paris naval museum.

1778 – The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
The first USS Ranger was a sloop-of-war in the Continental Navy in active service in 1777–1780; she received the second salute to an American fighting vessel by a foreign power (the first salute was received by the USS Andrew Doria when on 16 November 1776 she arrived at St. Eustatius and the Dutchisland returned her 11-gun salute). She was captured in 1780, and brought into the Royal Navy as HMS Halifax. She was decommissioned in 1781.

1779 – Captain James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.
Captain James Cook FRS (7 November 1728[NB 1] – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.


1794 – Launch of HMS Lynx, a 16-gun ship-rigged sloop of the Cormorant-class
HMS Lynx was a 16-gun ship-rigged sloop of the Cormorant-class in the Royal Navy, launched in 1794 at Gravesend. In 1795 she was the cause of an international incident when she fired on the USRC Eagle. She was at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, and during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars took numerous prizes, mostly merchant vessels but also including some privateers. She was also at the second Battle of Copenhagen in 1807. She was sold in April 1813. She then became the whaler Recovery. She made 12 whaling voyages, the last one ending in 1843, at which time her owner had her broken up.

HMS Lynx and HMS Monkey capturing three Danish luggers, 12 August 1809, oil on canvas, 19th century

1797 – French Revolutionary Wars - Battle of Cape St. Vincent
John Jervis, (later 1st Earl of St Vincent) and Horatio Nelson (later 1st Viscount Nelson) lead the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in action near Gibraltar.
The Battle of Cape St Vincent (14 February 1797) was one of the opening battles of the Anglo-Spanish War (1796–1808), as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, where a British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeated a larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba y Ramos near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal.

Salvador del Mundo receiving raking fire from HMS Victory by Robert Clevely

HMS Captain capturing the San Nicolas and the San Josef by Nicholas Pocock

1805 - HMS San Fiorenzo (38), Cptn. Henry Lambert, captured French frigate Psyche, Capt. Bergeret, off Vishakhapatnam in the Indian Ocean.
Psyché was a 36-gun vessel built between February 1798 and 1799 at Basse-Indre (Nantes) as a privateer. As a privateer she had an inconclusive but bloody encounter with HMS Wilhelmina of the Royal Navy, commanded by Commander Henry Lambert, off the Indian coast in April 1804. The French then brought her into service in June 1804 as the frigate Psyché. In February 1805 she encountered San Fiorenzo, under the command of the same Henry Lambert, now an acting captain. After a sanguinary engagement of over three hours, Psyché surrendered. The British took her into service as HMS Psyche. In British service she captured several prizes and took part in the capture of Mauritius and in an operation in Java. She was broken up at Ferrol in 1812.

San Fiorenzo (far left) and Nymphe (second from right) capture Résistance and Constance, 9 March 1797. Oil painting by Nicholas Pocock.

1807 - HMS Ajax (74), Cptn. Henry Blackwood, burnt by accident off the Island of Tenedos in the Dardanelles.
In the Dardanelles Operation a fire destroyed the third-rate. It broke out on 14 February 1807 in the bread-room, where the Purser and his assistant had negligently left a light burning, while Ajax was anchored off Tenedos. As the fire burned out of control the officers and crew were forced to take to the water. 250 men were lost; 380 were rescued.

1812 – Launch of HMS Chatham, a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy.
HMS Chatham was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She had been planned as the Royal-Hollandais for the French Navy, but was captured while under construction during the Walcheren Campaign.


1862 – Launch of USS Galena, a wooden-hulled broadside ironclad
USS Galena was a wooden-hulled broadside ironclad built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship was initially assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and supported Union forces during the Peninsula Campaignin 1862. She was damaged during the Battle of Drewry's Bluff because her armor was too thin to prevent Confederate shots from penetrating. Widely regarded as a failure, Galena was reconstructed without most of her armor in 1863 and transferred to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in 1864. The ship participated in the Battle of Mobile Bay and the subsequent Siege of Fort Morgan in August. She was briefly transferred to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron in September before she was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for repairs in November.


1885 Battle of Shipu
The Battle of Shipu (Chinese:石浦沉船事件) was a French naval victory during the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885). The battle took place on the night of 14 February 1885 in Shipu Bay (石浦灣), near Ningbo, China.

Éclaireur (scale model on display at Toulon naval museum)

1939 – Launch of battleship Bismarck, the first of two Bismarck-class battleships (The Tirpitz was launched in April of the same year)
Bismarck was the first of two Bismarck-class battleships built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched in February 1939. Work was completed in August 1940, when she was commissioned into the German fleet. Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz were the largest battleships ever built by Germany, and two of the largest built by any European power.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
15th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 15 February 1760 - HMS Ramillies (90) driven ashore and wrecked in what is today Ramillies Cove near Salcombe, Devon HMS Royal Katherine (HMS Ramilles after 1706) was an 84-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched...

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1760 - HMS Ramillies (90) driven ashore and wrecked in what is today Ramillies Cove near Salcombe, Devon
HMS Royal Katherine (HMS Ramilles after 1706) was an 84-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1664 at Woolwich Dockyard. Her launching was conducted by Charles II and attended by Samuel Pepys. Royal Katherine fought in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars and the War of the Grand Alliance before entering the dockyard at Portsmouth for rebuilding in 1702. She was upgraded to carry 90 guns and served in the War of the Spanish Succession during which she was renamed Ramillies in honour of John Churchill's victory at the Battle of Ramillies. She was rebuilt again in 1742–3 before serving as the flagship of the ill-fated Admiral John Byng in the Seven Years' War. Ramillies was wrecked at Bolt Tail near Hope Cove on 15 February 1760.


1775 - HMS Halifax schooner (10) wrecked.
HMS Halifax was a schooner built for merchant service at Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1765 that the British Royal Navy purchased in 1768 for coastal patrol in North America in the years just prior to the American Revolution. She is one of the best documented schooners from early North America.

1782 - The Action of 15 January 1782
The Action of 15 January 1782 was a minor naval engagement that took place near the island of Jamaica during the American Revolutionary War. A Royal Naval frigate HMS Fox intercepted and engaged two small Spanish Navy frigates.

1783 - Action of 15 February 1783
The Action of 15 February 1783 was a small naval engagement of the American Revolutionary War, involving the 36-gun French Navy frigate Concorde and the Royal Navy 74-gun ship of the line Magnificent. The British were victorious when Concorde was overhauled and captured.

1794 – Launch of HMS Lark, a 16-gun ship sloop of the Cormorant class,
HMS Lark was a 16-gun ship sloop of the Cormorant class, launched in 1794 at Northfleet. She served primarily in the Caribbean, where she took a number of prizes, some after quite intensive action. Lark foundered off San Domingo in August 1809, with the loss of her captain and almost all her crew.


1804 - Battle of Pulo Aura
The Battle of Pulo Aura was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, fought on 14 February 1804, in which a large convoy of Honourable East India Company (HEIC) East Indiamen, well-armed merchant ships, intimidated, drove off and chased a powerful French naval squadron. Although the French force was much stronger than the British convoy, Commodore Nathaniel Dance's aggressive tactics persuaded Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois to retire after only a brief exchange of shot. Dance then chased the French warships until his convoy was out of danger, whereupon he resumed his passage toward British India. Linois later claimed that the unescorted British merchant fleet was defended by eight ships of the line, a claim criticised by contemporary officers and later historians.


1809 - HMS Belle Poule (38), Cptn. James Brisbane, captured French frigate Var (26) in the Gulf of Valona, Adriatic
Var was a corvette of the French Navy, launched in 1806 as the name-ship of her class of flutes. She served as a storeship until the British captured her in 1809. She became the transport HMS Chichester, and was wrecked in 1811.
HMS Belle Poule was a Royal Navy fifth rate frigate, formerly Belle Poule, a Virginie-class frigate of the French Navy, which was built by the Crucy family's shipyard at Basse-Indre to a design by Jacques-Noël Sané. She was launched on 17 April 1802, and saw active service in the East, but in 1806 a British squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren captured her off La Palma in the Canary Islands. The Admiralty commissioned her into the Royal Navy as HMS Belle Poule. She was sold in 1816.


1854 – Launch of French Le Donawerth, a 90-gun Suffren class ship of the line of the French Navy.




1898 – The battleship USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba.
Of the 374 officers and men aboard, 266 died immediately, another eight died later from their injuries. The ship's sinking precipitated the Spanish–American War.
USS Maine (ACR-1) was a US Navy ship that sank in Havana Harbor during the Cuban revolt against Spain, an event that became a major political issue in the United States.

1944 - japanese cruiser Agano (阿賀野), the lead ship of the Agano-class cruisers, sunk by USS Skate
Agano (阿賀野) was the lead ship of the Agano-class cruisers which served with the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II. She was named after the Agano River in Fukushima and Niigata prefectures in Japan.

Japanese light cruiser Agano off Sasebo in October 1942

1982 – The drilling rig Ocean Ranger sinks during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing 84 workers.
Ocean Ranger was a semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit that sank in Canadian waters on 15 February 1982. It was drilling an exploration well on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, 267 kilometres (166 mi) east of St. John's, Newfoundland, for Mobil Oil of Canada, Ltd. (MOCAN) with 84 crew members on board when it sank. There were no survivors.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 15 February 1760 - HMS Ramillies (90) driven ashore and wrecked in what is today Ramillies Cove near Salcombe, Devon HMS Royal Katherine (HMS Ramilles after 1706) was an 84-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched...

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1669 – Launch of French Lys, a 70-gun 3-decker ship of the line of the French Navy, designed by Audibert.
The Lys was a 70-gun 3-decker ship of the line of the French Navy, designed by Audibert. She was the first ship of the line to feature suspended lamps instead of candels.

1745 - HMS Weymouth (60), Cptn. Warwick Calmady, grounded and wrecked off English Harbour, Antigua
HMS Weymouth was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1736 and in service during the War of the Austrian Succession. Initially stationed in the Mediterranean, she was assigned to the Navy's Caribbean fleet in 1740 and participated in Battle of Cartagena de Indias in 1741. Decommissioned later that year, she was restored to active service in the Caribbean in 1744. A navigational error on 16 February 1745 brought her too close to the shore of Antigua, where she was wrecked upon a submerged reef. Three of Weymouth's officers were subsequently found guilty of negligence, with two required to pay substantial fines and the third sentenced to a two-year jail term.


1782 – Launch of french Dictateur, a 74-gun Pégase-class ship of the line of the French Navy
The Dictateur was a 74-gun Pégase-class ship of the line of the French Navy, launched in 1782. She served during the last months of the American War of Independence, and survived to see action in the French Revolutionary Wars.


1798 - Boats of HMS Alfred (74), Cptn. T. Totty, captured Scipion (20) at Basse Terre
HMS Alfred was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 22 October 1778 at Chatham Dockyard.


1804 – First Barbary War: Lt. Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate USS Philadelphia.
Lt. Stephen Decatur, with volunteers from frigate Constitution and schooner Enterprise, enters Tripoli harbor in the ketch Intrepid under the stealth of darkness to burn the captured frigate Philadelphia. Decatur's raid succeeds without American losses.

1813 – Launch of HMS Grasshopper, a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig sloop
HMS Grasshopper was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig sloop launched in 1813. She was the second ship of the class to bear the name; the first Grasshopper had been stranded at Texel and surrendered to the Batavian Republic on Christmas Day 1811. The present Grasshopper remained in service until sold in 1832


1855 – Launch of USS Santee (1855), a wooden-hulled, three-masted sailing frigate of the United States Navy.
USS Santee (1855) was a wooden-hulled, three-masted sailing frigate of the United States Navy. She was the first U.S. Navy ship to be so named and was one of its last sailing frigates in service. She was acquired by the Union Navy at the start of the American Civil War, outfitted with heavy guns and a crew of 480, and was assigned as a gunboat in the Union blockade of the Confederate States. She later became a training ship for the U.S. Naval Academy.

1940 – World War II: Altmark Incident: The German tanker Altmark is boarded by sailors from the British destroyer HMS Cossack. 299 British prisoners are freed.
Altmark was a German oil tanker and supply vessel, one of five of a class built between 1937 and 1939. She is best known for her support of the German commerce raider, the "pocket battleship" Admiral Graf Spee and her subsequent involvement in the "Altmark Incident".

1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.
Operation Sandblast was the code name for the first submerged circumnavigation of the world, executed by the United States Navy nuclear-poweredradar picket submarine USS Triton (SSRN-586) in 1960 under the command of Captain Edward L. Beach. The New York Times described Triton's submerged circumnavigation of the Earth as "a triumph of human prowess and engineering skill, a feat which the United States Navy can rank as one of its bright victories in man's ultimate conquest of the seas."

1986 – The Soviet liner MS Mikhail Lermontov runs aground in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand.
MS Mikhail Lermontov was an ocean liner owned by the Soviet Union's Baltic Shipping Company, built in 1972 by V.E.B. Mathias-Thesen Werft, Wismar, East Germany. It was later converted into a cruise ship. On 16 February 1986 she collided with rocks near Port Gore in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand, and sank, claiming the life of one of her crew members.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17th of February

please use the following link and you will find the details and all events of this day .....

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 16 February 1794 – Launch of French Preneuse, a 44-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. The Preneuse was a 44-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She served as a commerce raider at Île de France...

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1782 - Battle of Sadras
British fleet of 9 ships of the line, under Sir Edward Hughes, engaged a French fleet of 11 ships of the line, under Bailli de Suffren, off the East coast of India.
The Battle of Sadras was the first of five largely indecisive naval battles fought between a British fleet (under Admiral Sir Edward Hughes) and a French fleet (under the Bailli de Suffren) off the east coast of India during the Anglo-French War. Fought on 17 February 1782 near present-day Kalpakkam, the battle was tactically indecisive, but the British fleet suffered the most damage. Under Suffren's protection, French troop transports were able to land at Porto Novo.

Scale: unknown. A contemporary full hull model of the French 74-gun, two-decker ‘Le Heros’ (1770). This unusually large-scale model is constructed plank on frame using wood, with the addition of horn for the wales. The name ‘Le Heros’ is inscribed on the stern. As is typical with POW models, the masts and bowsprit are slightly over-scaled in height and rake. The deck is complete with numerous fittings including the hammocks stowed in the netting on top of the bulwarks, which has then been covered by a white painted canvas as protection against the weather. Built in 1770, the ‘Le Heros’ was present on the 16 April 1781, as one of the squadron commanded by De Suffren in the action at Porto Praya. On 20 June 1783, it was in action off Cuddalore and later in the year, when in the East Indies in company with the 64 gun ‘Artesian’, it pursued and engaged ‘HMS Hanibal’, 50 guns, compelling it to strike. The ‘Le Horos’ was finally destroyed by Captain Sir W. Sidney Smith at the evacuation of Toulon in 1793.

1783 - The Action of 17 February 1783 was a minor naval engagement fought in between Jamaica & Cuba in the Caribbean sea between a Royal Navy frigate HMS Fox and a Spanish Navy frigate Santa Catalina.

1794 - French naval corvette Vengeur, ex-privateer Marseillaise, was captured during the battle for Martinique in 1794
HMS Avenger was a 16-gun ship-sloop of the British Royal Navy. Previously she was the French privateer Marseillaise and then naval corvette Vengeur, which the British Army captured during the battle for Martinique in 1794. The Admiralty sold her 1802.

1805 - French frigate Ville de Milan (38), Cptn. Jean-Marie Renaud (Killed in Action), was captured by HMS Cleopatra (32), Cptn. Sir Robert Lawrie, off Bermuda.
HMS Milan was a 38-gun fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had previously been the Ville de Milan, a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, but served for only a year before being chased down and engaged by the smaller 32-gun frigate HMS Cleopatra. Ville de Milan defeated and captured her opponent, but suffered so much damage that she was forced to surrender without a fight several days later when both ships encountered HMS Leander, a British fourth rate. Milan went on to serve with the Royal Navy for another ten years, before being broken up in 1815, after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars.

Battle between Ville de Milan and HMS Cleopatra, depicted in a contemporary print



1806 – Launch of HMS Racehorse, a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop
HMS Racehorse was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Hamilton & Breeds and launched in 1806 at Hastings. She served in the Channel, where she captured a small privateer, and in the East Indies, where she participated in the capture of Isle de France (now Mauritius) and the operations around it. She was wrecked in 1822.


1817- Launch of HMS Melville, a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy,
HMS Melville was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 February 1817 at Bombay Dockyard.

1828 – Launch of HMS Bombay, an 84-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy,
HMS Bombay was an 84-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 February 1828 at Bombay Dockyard.

The Bombay on fire 1861 (actually 14 December 1864)

1836 – Launch of French Néréide, a 52-gun frigate of the French Navy.
The Néréide was a 52-gun frigate of the French Navy. She took part in the Battle of Veracruz soon after her commissioning.


1855 – Launch of French Bretagne, a fast 130-gun three-decker of the French Navy, designed by engineer Jules Marielle.
The Bretagne was a fast 130-gun three-decker of the French Navy, designed by engineer Jules Marielle. Built as a new capital ship meant to improve upon the very successful Océan class while avoiding the weaknesses found on Valmy, she retained most of the Océan design but ended up incorporating the philosophy of "fast ship of the line" pioneered by Napoléon, with a rounded stern and a two-cylinder, 8-boiler steam engine allowing her a speed of 13.5 knots. The propeller could be retracted to streamline the hull when sailing under sail only.

1864 - USS Housatonic sank by torpedo
The H. L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.
USS Housatonic was a screw sloop-of-war of the United States Navy, gaining its namesake from the Housatonic River of New England.
Housatonic was launched on 20 November 1861, by the Boston Navy Yard at Charlestown, Massachusetts, sponsored by Miss Jane Coffin Colby and Miss Susan Paters Hudson; and commissioned there on 29 August 1862, with Commander William Rogers Taylor in command. Housatonic was one of four sister ships which included USS Adirondack, USS Ossipee, and USS Juniata. Housatonic is recognized as being the first ship sunk in combat by a submarine when she was attacked and sunk by H.L. Hunley in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

1864 painting of H. L. Hunley by Conrad Wise Chapman

1886 – Launch of HMS Anson, the last of six Admiral-class ironclad battleships built for the Royal Navy
HMS Anson was the last of six Admiral-class ironclad battleships built for the Royal Navy during the 1880s. The ship was completed, except for her armament, in 1887, but had to wait two years for her guns to be installed. She was assigned to the Channel Fleet in mid-1889 as a flagship for the fleet's second-in-command. Two years later, the passenger ship SS Utopia sank with the loss of 562 lives after colliding with Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar. In mid-1893, Anson was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet, subsequently returning home in 1900 when she was assigned to the Reserve Fleet. She recommissioned for the Home Fleet in early 1901. Anson was paid off three years later and then sold for scrap in 1909.

1912 - Launch of SMS Prinzregent Luitpold, the fifth and final vessel of the Kaiser class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy.
SMS Prinzregent Luitpold was the fifth and final vessel of the Kaiser class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy. Prinzregent Luitpold's keel was laid in October 1910 at the Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel. She was launched on 17 February 1912 and was commissioned into the navy on 19 August 1913. The ship was equipped with ten 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns in five twin turrets, and had a top speed of 21.7 knots (40.2 km/h; 25.0 mph).

1915 - SMS Bremen ("His Majesty's Ship Bremen"), the lead ship of the seven-vessel Bremen class, sunk by russian mine field
SMS Bremen ("His Majesty's Ship Bremen") was the lead ship of the seven-vessel Bremen class, built by the Imperial German Navy. She was built by the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen, her namesake city. She was laid down in 1902, launched in July 1903, and commissioned into the High Seas Fleet in May 1904. Armed with a main battery of ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two 45 cm (18 in) torpedo tubes, Bremen was capable of a top speed of 22 knots(41 km/h; 25 mph).

1917 - SS Athos – torpedoed on 17 February 1917 by U-65, 180 nautical miles (330 km) south east of Malta. The ship sank in 14 minutes, killing 754 of the 1,950 aboard.
SS Athos was a French cargo-passenger ship of the Messageries Maritimes, launched in 1915, that was sunk in the Mediterranean by the German submarine SM U-65 during World War I.

1944 – World War II: The Battle of Eniwetok begins: The battle ends in an American victory on February 22.
The Battle of Eniwetok was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought between 17 February 1944 and 23 February 1944, on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The invasion of Eniwetok followed the American success in the Battle of Kwajalein to the southeast. Capture of Eniwetok would provide an airfield and harbor to support attacks on the Mariana Islands to the northwest. The operation was officially known as "Operation Catchpole", and was a three-phase operation involving the invasion of the three main islands in the Eniwetok Atoll.
Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance preceded the invasion with Operation Hailstone, a carrier strike against the Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands.[1]:67 This raid destroyed 39 warships and more than 200 planes.

Landing craft heading for Eniwetok Island on 19 February 1944

1944 – World War II: Operation Hailstone begins: U.S. naval air, surface, and submarine attack against Truk Lagoon, Japan's main base in the central Pacific, in support of the Eniwetok invasion.
Operation Hailstone (Japanese: トラック島空襲, translit. Torakku-tō Kūshū), lit. "the airstrike on Truk Island"), 17–18 February 1944, was a massive United States Navy air and surface attack on Truk Lagoon conducted as part of the American offensive drive against the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) through the Central Pacific Ocean during World War II.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 17 February 1836 – Launch of French Néréide, a 52-gun frigate of the French Navy. The Néréide was a 52-gun frigate of the French Navy. She took part in the Battle of Veracruz soon after her commissioning. As a transport, she took...

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1637 – Eighty Years' War: The Battle off Lizard Point
Off the coast of Cornwall, England, a Spanish fleet intercepts an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by six warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them.
The Battle off Lizard Point was a naval action which took place on 18 February 1637 off the coast of Cornwall, England, during the Eighty Years' War. The Spanish admiral Miguel de Horna, commander of the Armada of Flanders, intercepted an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by six warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them, and returned safely to his base in Dunkirk.

1639 - Action of 18 February 1639
The Action of 18 February 1639 was a naval battle of the Eighty Years' War fought off Dunkirk between a Dutch fleet under the command of Admiral Maarten Tromp and the Spanish Dunkirk Squadron under Miguel de Horna. Horna, who had orders to join with his ships Admiral Antonio de Oquendo's fleet at A Coruña, escorted at the same time a transport convoy carrying 2,000 Walloon soldiers to Spain, where they were needed. The attempt to exit Dunkirk was done in sight of the Dutch blockading squadron of Maarten Tromp. A 4-hour battle ensued and Horna was forced to retreat into Dunkirk leaving behind two of his galleons, whilst another ran aground. Despite his success in stopping the sortie, many of Tromp's ships suffered heavy damage, and the Dutch Admiral was forced to abandon the blockade. Therefore, De Horna, after repairing his squadron, was able to accomplish his mission.

The naval battle against the Spaniards near Dunkerque, 18 february 1639. Oil and ink on canvas by Willem van de Velde the Elder.

1653 - Start of 3 day Battle of Portland.
English fleet, under Robert Blake, was attacked by a Dutch fleet escorting a large convoy, under Lt.-Admiral Maarten Tromp. Figures are unclear but each fleet had 70-80 warships and whilst the British lost 1-3 warships the Dutch lost 8-12 and 40- 50 merchantmen.
The naval Battle of Portland, or Three Days' Battle took place during 18–20 February 1653 (28 February – 2 March 1653 (Gregorian calendar)),during the First Anglo-Dutch War, when the fleet of the Commonwealth of England under General at Sea Robert Blake was attacked by a fleet of the Dutch Republic under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp escorting merchant shipping through the English Channel. The battle failed to settle supremacy of the English Channel, although both sides claimed victory, and ultimate control over the Channel would only be decided at the Battle of the Gabbard which allowed the English to blockade the Dutch coast until the Battle of Scheveningen, where Admiral Maarten Tromp would meet his fate at the hands of an English musket ball. As such, it can be considered a slight setback for the English nation and another example of Dutch superiority regarding pure seamanship at the time. It also illustrated England's drive to control the seas, which would ultimately allow it to become the prime maritime power of the world.


1740 - Birth of Jacques-Noël Sané , a French naval engineer
Jacques-Noël Sané (18 February 1740, Brest – 22 August 1831, Paris) was a French naval engineer. He was the conceptor of standardised designs for ships of the line and frigates fielded by the French Navy in the 1780s, which served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars and in some cases remained in service into the 1860s. Captured ships of his design were commissioned in the Royal Navy and even copied.
His achievements earned Sané the nickname of "naval Vauban".
Work
Sané was responsible for

• 9 118-gun ships of the line of the Océan class
• 5 110-gun ships of the Commerce de Paris class
• 27 80-guns of the Tonnant and Bucentaure classes
• 107 74-guns of the Annibal and Téméraire classes, between 1783 and as late as 1841
• 65 18-pounder frigates of the Hébé, Virginie, Hortense and Pallas classes, built between 1781 and 1814.

1756 - Launch of HMS Royal George
HMS Royal George was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Woolwich Dockyard and launched on 18 February 1756. The largest warship in the world at the time of launching, she saw service during the Seven Years' War including being Admiral Sir Edward Hawke's flagship at the Battle of Quiberon Bay and later taking part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent. She sank undergoing routine maintenance work whilst anchored off Portsmouth on 29 August 1782 with the loss of more than 800 lives, one of the most serious maritime losses to occur in British waters.

HMS Royal George, right, shown fictitiously at the launch of HMS Cambridge in 1755 by John Cleveley the Elder (1757)







1766 – A mutiny by captive Malagasy begins at sea on the slave ship Meermin, leading to the ship's destruction on Cape Agulhas in present-day South Africa and the recapture of the instigators.
The Meermin slave mutiny took place in February 1766 and lasted for three weeks. Meermin was one of the Dutch East India Company's fleet of slave ships. Her final voyage was cut short by the mutiny of her cargo of Malagasy people, who had been sold to Dutch East India Company officials on Madagascar to be used as company slaves in its Cape Colony in southern Africa. During the mutiny half the ship's crew and almost 30 Malagasy lost their lives.

1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: Sir Ralph Abercromby and a fleet of 18 British warships invade Trinidad.
On February 18, 1797, a fleet of 18 warships under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby invaded and took the Island of Trinidad. Within a few days the last Spanish Governor, Don José María Chacón surrendered the island to Abercromby.

The Capture of Trinidad, 17 February 1797 by Nicholas Pocock

1800 - The Battle of the Malta Convoy
HMS Alexander (74), Lt. William Harrington (Acting), and HMS Success (32), Cptn. Shuldham Peard, captured Genereux (74) off Malta.
Généreux was a French Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line. After capture she completed her career as part of the Royal Navy as HMS Généreux.

1801 - HMS Penguin (16), Robert Mansel, engaged a French corvette (24) and two merchantmen (16) in the South Atlantic.
The Dutch brig Komeet was launched in 1789 at Amsterdam. HMS Unicorn captured her on the Irish station in 1795. The British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Comeet; it renamed her HMS Penguin in 1798. It sold her in 1808.


1807 - HMS Magpie, a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner, grounded on the coast of France, which led to her capture
HMS Magpie was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner that William Rowe of Newcastle built and launched on 17 May 1806. Like all her class, she was armed with four 12-pounder carronades and had a crew of 20. She had been in British service for less than a year when she grounded on the coast of France, which led to her capture. She then served in the French navy until 1828, including a few years as a prison ship.


1817 - HMS Alceste (1806 - 38), Cptn. Murray Maxwell, wrecked off Island of Pulo Leat, China Seas.
HMS Alceste was built at Rochefort in 1804 for the French Navy as Minerve, an Armide-class frigate. In the spring of 1806, prior to her capture, she engaged HMS Pallas, then under Lord Cochrane. During the duel she ran aground but Cochrane had to abort his attack when French reinforcements appeared.

1846 - Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft issues the General Order to change Larboard to Port for identification of the left side of a sailing vessel.
Port and starboard are nautical and aeronautical terms of orientation that deal unambiguously with the structure of vessels and aircraft. Their structures are largely bilaterally symmetrical, meaning they have mirror-image left and right halves if divided long-ways down the middle.

1858 - It is believed that the HMS Sappho foundered with all hands off the southeast coast of Australia.
HMS Sappho was a Royal Navy brig that gained public notoriety for causing a diplomatic incident over the slave trade with the United States of America and then went missing off the Australian coast in 1857–58.

1865 - In order for CSS Charleston, CSS Chicora, and CSS Palmetto State not to be captured by Rear Adm. John A. Dahlgren's squadron during the evacuation of Charleston, S.C., Confederate Capt. John R. Tucker, orders the ships be set afire and blown up.

1874 – Launch of James Craig, a three-masted, iron-hulled barque restored and sailed by the Sydney Heritage Fleet, Sydney, Australia
James Craig is a three-masted, iron-hulled barque restored and sailed by the Sydney Heritage Fleet, Sydney, Australia.

1915 – Launch of SMS Bayern, the lead ship of the Bayern class of battleships in the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy)
SMS Bayern was the lead ship of the Bayern class of battleships in the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). The vessel was launched in February 1915 and entered service in July 1916, too late to take part in the Battle of Jutland. Her main armament consisted of eight 38 cm (15 in) guns in four turrets, which was a significant improvement over the preceding König's ten 30.5 cm (12 inch) guns. The ship was to have formed the nucleus for a fourth battle squadron in the High Seas Fleet, along with three of her sister ships. Of the other ships only one—Baden—was completed; the other two were canceled later in the war when production requirements shifted to U-boat construction.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19th of February

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 18 February 1800 - The Battle of the Malta Convoy HMS Alexander (74), Lt. William Harrington (Acting), and HMS Success (32), Cptn. Shuldham Peard, captured Genereux (74) off Malta. Généreux was a French Téméraire-class 74-gun ship...

shipsofscale.com

1694 - HMS Sussex (80), Ad. Sir Francis Wheler, and HMS Cambridge (70) Capt. John WARD, lost in a hurricane off Gibraltar - in total 13 ships were lost with 1,200 casualties in total
HMS Sussex was an 80-gun third-rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, lost in a severe storm on 19 February 1694 off Gibraltar. On board were possibly 10 tons of gold coins. This could now be worth more than $500 million, including the bullion and antiquity values, making it one of the most valuable wrecks ever.

Model of HMS Sussex, starboard

A wonderful model of the Sussex in scale 1:60 was built by our member @ramonolivenza I was able to see in reality during my visit in Rochefort last year:

1741 – Launch of HMS Drake, an 8-gun snow-rigged sloop of the Royal Navy,
HMS Drake was an 8-gun snow-rigged sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1741 as the first of three Drake class sloops constructed for convoy duty during the Anglo-Spanish War of Jenkins' Ear from 1739 to 1742. After limited service off the Channel Islands, she was sailed to Gibraltar where she was wrecked in 1742 while under the temporary command of her first lieutenant.


1758 - HMS Invincible (74) lost on the Owers.
The Invincible was originally a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy launched in October 1744. Captured on 14 October 1747, she was taken into Royal Navy service as the third rate HMS Invincible.

1760 - Launch of HMS Bellona, a 74-gun Bellona-class third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy
HMS Bellona was a 74-gun Bellona-class third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Designed by Sir Thomas Slade, she was a prototype for the iconic 74-gun ships of the latter part of the 18th century. "The design of the Bellona class was never repeated precisely, but Slade experimented slightly with the lines, and the Arrogant, Ramillies, Egmont, and Elizabeth classes were almost identical in size, layout, and structure, and had only slight variations in the shape of the underwater hull. The Culloden class ship of the line was also similar, but slightly larger. Thus over forty ships were near-sisters of the Bellona." Bellona was built at Chatham, starting on 10 May 1758, launched on 19 February 1760, and commissioned three days later. She was the second ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name, and saw service in the Seven Years' War, American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars.


1794 - British squadron under Commodore Robert Linzee captured Minerve.
Minerve was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She operated in the Mediterranean during the French Revolutionary Wars. Her crew scuttled her at Saint-Florent to avoid capture when the British invaded Corsica in 1794, but the British managed to raise her and recommissioned her in the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS St Fiorenzo (also San Fiorenzo).

1801 - Action of 19 February 1801
HMS Phoebe (36), Cptn. Robert Barlow took French frigate Africaine (44), Cptn. Majendie, off Ceuta in Morocco.
The Action of 19 February 1801 was a minor naval battle fought off Ceuta in Spanish North Africa in February 1801 between frigates of the French and Royal Navies during the French Revolutionary Wars. The engagement formed part of a series of actions fought to prevent the French from resupplying their garrison in Egypt, which had been trapped there without significant reinforcement since the defeat of the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of the Nile two and a half years earlier. The leader of the Egyptian expedition, General Napoleon Bonaparte, had returned to France in 1799 and promised aid to the troops left behind, prompting several expeditions to the region carrying reinforcements.
The frigate Africaine had been sent from Rochefort early in 1801 with more than 400 soldiers for the Egyptian garrison, and by February had reached the Mediterranean Sea, Commodore Saulnier seeking to pass along the North African coast to avoid patrolling Royal Navy warships. On the afternoon of 19 February however the overladen French warship was discovered by the British HMS Phoebe and rapidly chased down and brought to action. In an engagement lasting two hours, the French ship was reduced to a wallowing wreck as broadsides from Phoebe tore through the hull, rigging and the soldiers packed on the decks: by the time Africaine surrendered, 200 men were dead and another 143 wounded. The captured ship was brought into the base at Port Mahon in Menorca and subsequently served in the Royal Navy.


1804 - Gun-brig HMS Cerbere, Lt. Joseph Patey, wrecked on rocks near Berry Head, Torbey
HMS Cerbere was the French naval brig Cerbère, ex-Chalier, which the British captured in 1800. She was wrecked in 1804.


1829 – Launch of HMS Eurotas, a Seringapatam-class frigate
The Seringapatam-class frigates, were a class of British Royal Navy 46-gun sailing frigates. The first vessel of the class was HMS Seringapatam. Seringapatam's design was based on the French frigate Président, which the British had captured in 1806. Seringapatam was originally ordered as a 38-gun frigate, but the re-classification of British warships which took effect in February 1817 raised this rating to 46-gun.




1860 - transatlantic steamship of the Canadian Allan Line SS Hungarian was wrecked at Cape Sable Island, off Nova Scotia, with the loss of all aboard.
SS Hungarian was a transatlantic steamship of the Canadian Allan Line that was launched in 1858, completed in 1859 and sank in 1860.
William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton, Scotland launched her on September 25, 1858. She was powered by a 400 nhp direct-acting steam engine that drove a single screw. She was completed in 1859. Hungarian's maiden voyage began on May 18, 1859 when she left Liverpool for Quebec. She was wrecked in 1860 at Cape Sable Island, off Nova Scotia, with the loss of all aboard.

Vectorized picture of steamer Hungarian

1901 – Launch of HMS Russell, a Duncan-class pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy
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.

1915 – World War I: The first naval attack on the Dardanelles begins when a strong Anglo-French task force bombards Ottoman artillery along the coast of Gallipoli.
The Naval Operations in the Dardanelles Campaign (17 February 1915 – 9 January 1916) took place against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Ships of the Royal Navy, French Marine nationale, Imperial Russian Navy (Российский императорский флот) and the Royal Australian Navy, attempted to force the defences of the Dardanelles Straits. The straits are a narrow waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Black Sea, via the Aegean, Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a naval operation but the success of the Ottoman defence led to the Gallipoli Campaign, an attempt to occupy the Gallipoli peninsula with land forces supported by the navies, to open the sea route to Constantinople. The Allies also tried to pass submarines through the Dardanelles to attack Ottoman shipping in the Sea of Marmara.


1929 - TSS Kanowna, an Australian steamer built during 1902, ran aground and sank
TSS Kanowna, was an Australian steamer built during 1902. The 6,993-ton, 126-metre (413 ft)[citation needed] long Kanowna was constructed by William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton, Scotland, and had a twin screw design

1942 - The Japanese attack Darwin, Australia in the largest attack by a foreign power on that country.
USS Peary (DD 226), as well as an Army transport and freighter sink in the raid, as well as a number of Australian and British vessels.
The Bombing of Darwin, also known as the Battle of Darwin, on 19 February 1942 was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. On that day, 242 Japanese aircraft, in two separate raids, attacked the town, ships in Darwin's harbour and the town's two airfields in an attempt to prevent the Allies from using them as bases to contest the invasion of Timor and Java during World War II.
Darwin was lightly defended relative to the size of the attack, and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses upon Allied forces at little cost to themselves. The urban areas of Darwin also suffered some damage from the raids and there were a number of civilian casualties. More than half of Darwin's civilian population left the area permanently, before or immediately after the attack.
The two Japanese air raids were the first, and largest, of more than 100 air raids against Australia during 1942–43.


1942 – French Surcouf, the largest French cruiser submarine, disappeared
Surcouf was the largest French cruiser submarine. She served in both the French Navy and the Free French Naval Forces during the Second World War. She was lost during the night of 18/19 February 1942 in the Caribbean Sea, possibly after colliding with an American freighter. Surcouf was named after the French privateer Robert Surcouf. She was the largest submarine built until surpassed by the first Japanese I-400-class submarine in 1943.

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
20th of February

please use the following link and you will find the details and all events of this day .....

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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History 19 February 1804 - Gun-brig HMS Cerbere, Lt. Joseph Patey, wrecked on rocks near Berry Head, Torbey HMS Cerbere was the French naval brig Cerbère, ex-Chalier, which the British captured in 1800. She was wrecked in 1804. Design...

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1685 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle establishes Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas.
The French colonization of Texas began with the establishment of a fort in present-day southeastern Texas. It was established in 1685 near Arenosa Creek and Matagorda Bay by explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle. He intended to found the colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River, but inaccurate maps and navigational errors caused his ships to anchor instead 400 miles (640 km) to the west, off the coast of Texas. The colony survived until 1688. The present-day town of Inez is near the fort's site.

La Salle's Expedition to Louisiana in 1684, painted in 1844 by Theodore Gudin. La Belle is on the left, Le Joly is in the middle, and L'Aimable is grounded in the distance, right.

1745 - HMS Chester (1743 - 50), Cptn. Francis Geary, and HMS Sutherland (1741 - 50) captured privateer Elephant (1740 – 16).
HMS Chester was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford to the dimensions laid down in the 1741 proposals of the 1719 Establishment, and launched on 18 February 1743.
Chester was sold out of the navy in 1767.

1815 - USS Constitution (44), Cptn. Charles Stewart, captures HMS Cyane (22), Cptn. Gordon Falcon, and sloop-of-war HMS Levant (20), Hon. George Douglas, east of Madeira.
The capture of HMS Cyane and HMS Levant was an action which took place at the end of the Anglo-American War of 1812. The British warships HMS Cyane and HMS Levant fought USS Constitution on 20 February 1815 about 100 miles east of Madeira. Following exchanges of broadsides and musket fire, both Cyane and Levant surrendered. The war had actually finished a few days before the action with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent by both sides, but the combatants were not aware of this.

Constitution vs. Cyane

1857 - Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) (North German Lloyd), a German shipping company, was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen.
It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) (North German Lloyd) was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on 20 February 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was instrumental in the economic development of Bremen and Bremerhaven. On 1 September 1970, the company merged with Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) to form Hapag-Lloyd AG.


1897 – Launch of HMS Niobe, a ship of the Diadem class of protected cruisers in the Royal Navy
HMS Niobe was a ship of the Diadem class of protected cruisers in the Royal Navy. She served in the Boer War and was then given to Canada as the second ship of the newly created Naval Service of Canada as HMCS Niobe. The Naval Service of Canada became the Royal Canadian Navy in August 1911. The ship was nearly lost when she went aground off Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia overnight 30–31 July 1911. Repairs were completed at the end of 1912 and the ship returned to service in late 1914. During the First World War, Niobe patrolled the approaches to the St. Lawrence River and then joined the Royal Navy's 4th Cruiser Squadron to patrol off New York City. The cruiser returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia on 17 July 1915 and never put to sea again. Niobe was paid off in September and served as a depot ship in Halifax. Damaged in the 1917 Halifax , she was sold for scrap and broken up in the 1920s.

1920 – Death of Robert Peary, American admiral and explorer (b. 1856)
Rear Admiral Robert Edwin Peary Sr. (/ˈpɪəri/; May 6, 1856 – February 20, 1920) was an American explorer and United States Navy officer who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for claiming to have reached the geographic North Pole with his expedition on April 6, 1909.