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
4 June 1898 – Launch of HMS Highflyer, the lead ship of the Highflyer-class protected cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the 1890s


HMS Highflyer was the lead ship of the Highflyer-class protected cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the 1890s. She spent her early career as flagship for the East Indies and North America and West Indies Stations. She was reduced to reserve in 1908 before again becoming the flagship in the East Indies in 1911. She returned home two years later and became a training ship. When World War I began in August 1914, she was assigned to the 9th Cruiser Squadron in the Central Atlantic to intercept German commerce raiders and protect Allied shipping.



Days after the war began, she intercepted a Dutch ship carrying German troops and gold. She then sank the German armed merchant cruiser SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse off the coast of Spanish Sahara. Highflyer spent most of the rest of the war on convoy escort duties and was present in Halifax during the Halifax in late 1917. She became flagship of the East Indies Station after the war. The ship was sold for scrap in 1921.


Design and description

The two 6-inch guns on her sister ship Hermes's quarterdeck

Highflyer was designed to displace 5,650 long tons (5,740 t). The ship had an overall length of 372 feet (113.4 m), a beam of 54 feet (16.5 m) and a draught of 29 feet 6 inches (9.0 m). She was powered by two 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, which produced a total of 10,000 indicated horsepower(7,500 kW) designed to give a maximum speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph). Highflyer reached a speed of 20.1 knots (37.2 km/h; 23.1 mph) from 10,344 ihp (7,714 kW), during her sea trials. The engines were powered by 18 Belleville boilers. She carried a maximum of 1,125 long tons (1,143 t) of coal and her complement consisted of 470 officers and enlisted men.

Her main armament consisted of 11 quick-firing (QF) 6-inch (152 mm) Mk I guns. One gun was mounted on the forecastle and two others were positioned on the quarterdeck. The remaining eight guns were placed port and starboard amidships. They had a maximum range of approximately 10,000 yards (9,100 m) with their 100-pound (45 kg) shells. Eight quick-firing (QF)12-pounder 12 cwt guns were fitted for defence against torpedo boats. One additional 12-pounder 8 cwt gun could be dismounted for service ashore.[2]Highflyer also carried six 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns and two submerged 18-inch torpedo tubes.

The ship's protective deck armour ranged in thickness from 1.5 to 3 inches (38 to 76 mm). The engine hatches were protected by 5-inch (127 mm) of armour. The main guns were fitted with 3-inch gun shields and the conning tower had armour 6 inches thick.

Construction and service
Highflyer was laid down by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering at their shipyard in Govan, Scotland on 7 June 1897, and launched on 4 June 1898, when she was christened by Mrs. Elgar, wife of Francis Elgar, a director of the shipbuilding company, who held a speech. She was completed on 7 December 1899 and commissioned by Captain Frederic Brock for the Training squadron.

In February 1900 she was re-commissioned to serve in the Indian Ocean as the flagship of Rear-Admiral Day Bosanquet, Commander-in-Chief, East Indies Station.[8] Captain Arthur Christian was appointed in command of the ship in June 1902, as Flag captain to Rear-Admiral Charles Carter Drury, who succeeded Bosanquet as Commander-in-Chief of the Station. She was at Mauritius in August 1902 where she took part in local celebrations for the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and the following month visited Trincomalee.

She was transferred to the North America and West Indies Station in 1904 and served as its flagship until November 1906 when returned to the East Indies Station. Highflyer was placed in reserve at Devonport Royal Dockyard in 1908 and then assigned to the reserve Third Fleet in 1910. She was again assigned as the flagship of the East Indies Station in February 1911 until departing for home in April 1913. In August 1913 she became the training ship for Special Entry Cadets.

In August 1914 she was allocated to the 9th Cruiser Squadron, under Rear Admiral John de Robeck, on the Finisterre station. She left Plymouth on 4 August, in the company of the admiral on HMS Vindictive. The Dutch ocean liner Tubantia, was returning from South America when the war began with £500,000 in gold destined for banks in London, a large portion of which was intended for the German Bank of London. She was also carrying about 150 German reservists in steerage and a cargo of grain destined for Germany. She was stopped and boarded by an officer and crewmen from Highflyer, and escorted into port at Plymouth.

She was then transferred to the Cape Verde station, to support Rear Admiral Archibald Stoddart's 5th Cruiser Squadron in the hunt for the German armed merchant cruiser SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. She had been sighted at Río de Oro, a Spanish anchorage on the Saharan coast. On 26 August Highflyer found the German ship taking on coal from three colliers. Highflyer's captain demanded that the Germans surrender. The captain of Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse claimed the protection of neutral waters, but as he was breaking that neutrality himself by staying for more than a week, his claim was denied. Fighting broke out at 15:10, and lasted until 16:45, when the crew of Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse abandoned ship and escaped to the shore. The German ship was sunk, with the British losing one man killed (Richard James Lobb) and five injured in the engagement. In mid-1916 the Prize Court awarded the crew of Highflyer ₤2,680 for the sinking of the German ship.

On 15 October Highflyer briefly became the flagship of the Cape Verde station, when Stoddard was ordered to Pernambuco, Brazil. Later in the same month she was ordered to accompany the transport ships carrying the Cape garrison back to Britain and then searched the Atlantic coast of North Africa for the German light cruiser SMS Karlsruhe. After the Battle of Coronel in November, Highflyer came back under the control of Admiral de Robeck, as part of a squadron formed to guard West Africa against Admiral Maximilian von Spee. This squadron, consisting of the cruisers HMS Warrior, HMS Black Prince, HMS Donegal and Highflyer was in place off Sierra Leone from 12 November, but was soon dispersed after the battle of the Falklands in December. Highflyer then took part in the search for the commerce raider Kronprinz Wilhelm, coming close to catching her in January 1915. She remained on the West Africa station until she was transferred to the North America and West Indies Squadron in 1917.

This was the period of unrestricted submarine warfare, and the Admiralty eventually decided to operate a convoy system in the North Atlantic. On 10 July 1917 Highflyer provided the escort for convoy HS 1, the first convoy to sail from Canada to Britain. She was in Halifax for the Halifax on 6 December 1917 when the French ammunition ship SS Mont-Blanc exploded destroying much of the city. Highflyer launched a whaleboat before the explosion to investigate the fire aboard Mont-Blanc; the ship exploded before they reached her, killing nine of ten men in the boat. Many aboard the ship were injured by blast and she was lightly damaged herself. Her crew provided medical care to survivors and helped to clear debris. She departed Halifax on 11 December to escort a convoy to Plymouth.

Highflyer returned to the East Indies Station in 1918 and was paid off at Bombay in March 1919. She was recommissioned in July as the station flagship and served until she was paid off in early 1921 and sold for scrap there on 10 June.


The Highflyer-class cruisers were a group of three second-class protected cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the late 1890s.

Ships

• HMS Highflyer - launched on 4 June 1898, she served on numerous stations and hunted commerce raiders. She was sold for scrapping 10 June 1921, by then the last Victorian era cruiser in service with the Royal Navy.
• HMS Hermes - launched on 7 April 1898, she was converted to a seaplane carrier in 1913, and sunk on 31 October 1914 by U 27
• HMS Hyacinth - launched on 27 October 1898, she served on southern stations in the First World War, and assisted in the blockade of SMS Königsberg. She was sold for scrapping on 11 October 1923.

HMS Highflyer (1898) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Highflyer-class cruiser - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 June 1939 – The Holocaust: SS St Louis: The ship of Jewish refugees nobody wanted

The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, in the United States, after already being turned away from Cuba.
Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.


Motorschiff St. Louis was a German ocean liner infamously known for carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees from Germany in 1939 intending to debark in Cuba, where they were denied permission to land. The captain, Gustav Schröder, went to the United States and Canada, trying to find a nation to take them in, but both refused. He finally returned the ship to Europe, where various European countries, including the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, accepted some refugees. Many were later caught in Nazi roundups of Jews in occupied countries, and some historians have estimated that approximately a quarter of them died in death camps during World War II. These events, known as the "Voyage of the Damned" in one account, have inspired film, opera, and fiction.



Background
St. Louis was a diesel-powered ship (as opposed to a steamship) and properly referred to with the prefix MS or MV, built by the Bremer Vulkan shipyards in Bremen for HAPAG, better known in English as the Hamburg America Line. She is often known as SS St. Louis. The ship was named after the city of St. Louis, Missouri. (Her sister ship, MS Milwaukee, was also a diesel motor ship/motor vessel owned by the Hamburg America Line). St. Louis regularly sailed the trans-Atlantic route from Hamburg to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and New York City, and made cruises to the Canary Islands, Madeira, Spain; and Morocco. St. Louis was built for both transatlantic liner service and for leisure cruises.

"Voyage of the Damned"
The St. Louis set sail from Hamburg to Cuba on May 13, 1939. The vessel under command of Captain Gustav Schröder was carrying 937 passengers, most of them Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany.

Captain Schröder was a German who went to great lengths to ensure dignified treatment for his passengers. Food served included items subject to rationing in Germany, and childcare was available while parents dined. Dances and concerts were put on, and on Friday evenings, religious services were held in the dining room. A bust of Hitler was covered by a tablecloth. Swimming lessons took place in the pool. Lothar Molton, a boy traveling with his parents, said that the passengers thought of it as "a vacation cruise to freedom".

Bound for Cuba, the ship dropped anchor at 04:00 on May 27 at the far end of the Havana Harbor but was denied entry to the usual docking areas. The Cuban government, headed by President Federico Laredo Brú, refused to accept the foreign refugees. Although passengers had purchased legal travel visas, they could not enter Cuba either as tourists (as laws related to tourist visas had recently been changed) or as refugees seeking political asylum. On May 5, 1939, four months before World War II began, Havana abandoned its former pragmatic immigration policy and instead issued Decree 937, which "[clarification needed] restricted entry of all foreigners except U.S. citizens, requiring a bond of $500 and authorization by the Cuban secretaries of state and labor. Permits and visas issued before May 5 were invalidated retrospectively.[8] None of the passengers knew that the Cuban government had invalidated their landing permits.

After the ship had been in the harbor for five days, only 28 passengers were allowed to disembark in Cuba. Twenty-two were Jews who had valid US visas; four were Spanish citizens and two were Cuban nationals, all with valid entry documents. The last admitted was a medical evacuee; the passenger attempted to commit suicide on the ship and authorities allowed the person to be taken to a hospital in Havana.


Boarding at Hamburg Harbor

Telephone records show American officials Cordell Hull, Secretary of State and Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury had made some efforts to persuade Cuba to accept the refugees. Neither they nor the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which pleaded with the government, were successful. With his passengers prohibited from landing in Cuba, Captain Schröder directed St. Louis and the remaining 907 refugees towards the United States. He circled off the coast of Florida, hoping for permission from authorities to enter the United States. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, advised Roosevelt not to accept the Jews. Captain Schröder considered running aground along the coast to allow the refugees to escape but, acting on Cordell Hull's instructions, US Coast Guard vessels shadowed the ship and prevented such action.

After St. Louis was turned away from the United States, a group of academics and clergy in Canada tried to persuade Canada's Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, to provide sanctuary to the passengers. The ship could reach Halifax, Nova Scotia in two days. A Canadian immigration official Frederick Blair, hostile to Jewish immigration, persuaded the prime minister on June 9 not to intervene. In 2000, Blair's nephew apologized to the Jewish people for his uncle's action.

As Captain Schröder negotiated and schemed to find passengers a haven, conditions on the ship declined. At one point he made plans to wreck the ship on the British coast to force the government to take in the passengers as refugees. He refused to return the ship to Germany until all the passengers had been given entry to some other country. US officials worked with Britain and European nations to find refuge for the Jews in Europe. The ship returned to Europe, docking at the Port of Antwerp (Belgium) on June 17, 1939, with the 907 passengers.

The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to take 288 (32 per cent) of the passengers[citation needed], who disembarked and traveled to the UK via other steamers. After much negotiation by Schröder, the remaining 619 passengers were also allowed to disembark at Antwerp. 224 (25 per cent) were accepted by France, 214 (23.59 per cent) by Belgium, and 181 (20 per cent) by the Netherlands. The ship returned to Hamburg without any passengers. The following year, after the Battle of France and the Nazi occupations of Belgium, France and the Netherlands in May 1940, all the Jews in those countries were subject to high risk, including the recent refugees.


St. Louis Captain Gustav Schröder negotiates landing permits for the passengers with Belgian officials in the Port of Antwerp.

Based on the survival rates for Jews in various countries during the war and deportations, historians estimate that 180 of St. Louis refugees in France, 152 of those in Belgium and 60 of those in the Netherlands survived the Holocaust. Including the passengers who landed in England, of the original 936 refugees (one man died during the voyage), roughly 709 survived the war and 227 died. Research tracing each passenger has determined that 254 of those who returned to continental Europe were murdered during the Holocaust,

Of the 620 St. Louis passengers who returned to continental Europe, we determined that eighty-seven were able to emigrate before Germany invaded western Europe on May 10, 1940. Two hundred fifty-four passengers in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands after that date died during the Holocaust. Most of these people were murdered in the killing centers of Auschwitz and Sobibór; the rest died in internment camps, in hiding or attempting to evade the Nazis. Three hundred sixty-five of the 620 passengers who returned to continental Europe survived the war. Of the 288 passengers sent to Britain, the vast majority were alive at war's end.

Legacy
After the war, the Federal Republic of Germany awarded Captain Gustav Schröder the Order of Merit. In 1993, Schröder was posthumously named as one of the Righteous among the Nations at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel.

A display at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC tells the story of the voyage of the MS St. Louis. The Hamburg Museum features a display and a video about St. Louis in its exhibits about the history of shipping in the city. In 2009, a special exhibit at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, entitled Ship of Fate, explored the Canadian connection to the tragic voyage. The display is now a traveling exhibit in Canada.

In 2011 a memorial monument called the Wheel of Conscience, was produced by the Canadian Jewish Congress, designed by Daniel Libeskind with graphic design by David Berman and Trevor Johnston. The memorial is a polished stainless steel wheel. Symbolizing the policies that turned away more than 900 Jewish refugees, the wheel incorporates four inter-meshing gears, each showing a word to represent factors of exclusion: antisemitism, xenophobia, racism, and hatred. The back of the memorial is inscribed with the passenger list. It was first exhibited in 2011 at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, Canada's national immigration museum in Halifax. After a display period, the sculpture was shipped to its fabricators, Soheil Mosun Limited, in Toronto for repair and refurbishment.

In 2012, the United States Department of State formally apologized in a ceremony attended by Deputy Secretary Bill Burns and 14 survivors of the incident. The survivors presented a proclamation of gratitude to various European countries for accepting some of the ship's passengers. A signed copy of Senate Resolution 111, recognizing June 6, 2009 as the 70th anniversary of the incident, was delivered to the Department of State Archives.

In May 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the Government of Canada would offer a formal apology in the country's House of Commons for its role in the fate of the ship's passengers. The apology was issued on November 7.

Later career
MS St. Louis was adapted as a German naval accommodation ship from 1940 to 1944. She was heavily damaged by the Allied bombings at Kiel on August 30, 1944. The ship was repaired and used as a hotel ship in Hamburg in 1946. She was later sold and was scrapped in 1952

MS St. Louis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Saving The Jews

Historian Robert Rosen disputes long held notions about FDR's abandonment of the Jews.

www.savingthejews.com

SS St Louis: The ship of Jewish refugees nobody wanted

In 1939, a ship carrying more than 900 German Jews sailed from Hamburg to Cuba but was turned away by authorities in Havana and had to return to Europe.

www.bbc.com

The Story of the S.S. St. Louis (1939) | JDC Archives

archives.jdc.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 June 1942 - The Battle of Midway begins.
During that morning, after sending planes to attack the U.S. base at Midway, the Japanese carriers Akagi, Kaga and Soryu are fatally damaged by dive bombers from USS Enterprise (CV 6) and USS Yorktown (CV 5). Later in the day, USS Yorktown is abandoned after bomb and torpedo hits by planes from Hiryu. The latter is, in turn, knocked out by U.S. carrier planes. Compelled by their losses to abandon their plans to capture Midway, the Japanese retire westward. The battle is a decisive win for the U.S, bringing an end to Japanese naval superiority in the Pacific.







The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare".

The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific. Luring the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway was part of an overall "barrier" strategy to extend Japan's defensive perimeter, in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself.


Akagi, the flagship of the Japanese carrier striking force which attacked Pearl Harbor, as well as Darwin, Rabaul, and Colombo, in April 1942 prior to the battle

The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions. Most significantly, American cryptographers were able to determine the date and location of the planned attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to prepare its own ambush. Four Japanese and three American aircraft carriers participated in the battle. The four Japanese fleet carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū, part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier—were all sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The U.S. lost the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann.

After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's capacity to replace its losses in materiel (particularly aircraft carriers) and men (especially well-trained pilots and maintenance crewmen) rapidly became insufficient to cope with mounting casualties, while the United States' massive industrial and training capabilities made losses far easier to replace. The Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal Campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific War.


Yorktown at the moment of impact of a torpedo from a Nakajima B5N of Lieutenant Hashimoto's 2nd chūtai[


Timeline of the Battle of Midway (acc. to William Koenig)

4 June

04:30 First Japanese takeoff against Midway Islands 04:30 10 planes (Yorktown) begin to search for the Japanese ships 05:34 Japanese ships detected by a PBY from Midway I. 07:10 6 TBF Avengers and 4 USAAF B-26 (from Midway I.) attack 07:50 67 dive bombers, 29 torpedo bombers, 20 Wildcats take off (Spruance) 07:55 16 dive bombers of the US Navy (from Midway I.) attack 08:10 17 B-17s (from Midway Islands) attack 08:20 11 bombers of the US Navy (from Midway I.) attack 09:06 12 torpedo bombers, 17 dive bombers, 6 Wildcats take off (Yorktown) 09:18 Nagumo to Northeast 09:25 15 torpedo bombers (Hornet) attack 09:30 14 torpedo bombers (Enterprise) attack 10:00 12 torpedo bombers (Yorktown) attack 10:25 30 dive bombers (Enterprise) attack Akagi and Kaga 10:25 17 dive bombers (Yorktown) attack Soryū 11:00 18 Vals and 6 Zekes take off from Hiryū 11:30 10 planes (Yorktown) take off to search for remaining Japanese ships 12:05 First attack on Yorktown 13:30 Hiryū detected by a Yorktown plane; 24 dive bombers take off against Hiryū (Spruance) 13:31 10 Kates and 6 Zekes take off from Hiryū 13:40 Yorktown again in service, making 18 knots 14:30 Second attack on Yorktown 15:00 Yorktown abandoned 16:10 Soryū sunk 17:00 Dive bombers attack on Hiryū 19:25 Kaga sunk

5 June

05:00 Akagi sunk 09:00 Hiryū sunk

Mikuma shortly before sinking


..... read about all details in wikipedia ......

Battle of Midway - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 June 1942 - The Battle of Midway - Lost ships


USS Yorktown (CV-5) was an aircraft carrier commissioned in the United States Navy from 1937 until she was sunk at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Yorktown played an important part in the battle, assisting in the destruction of multiple enemy aircraft carriers, and absorbing the majority of enemy counter attacks. She was named after the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 and the lead ship of the Yorktown class which was designed after lessons learned from operations with the large converted battlecruiser Lexington class and the smaller purpose-built USS Ranger. She was sunk by Japanese submarine I-68 on 6 June 1942 during the Battle of Midway.


USS Yorktown in July 1937


Yorktown in drydock after the Battle of the Coral Sea


Sōryū (蒼龍 Sōryū, meaning "Blue (or Green) Dragon") was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the mid-1930s. A sister ship, Hiryū, was intended to follow Sōryū, but Hiryū's design was heavily modified and she is often considered to be a separate class.[Note 1] Sōryū's aircraft were employed in operations during the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s and supported the Japanese invasion of French Indochinain mid-1940. During the first months of the Pacific War, she took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Wake Island, and supported the conquest of the Dutch East Indies. In February 1942, her aircraft bombed Darwin, Australia, and she continued on to assist in the Dutch East Indies campaign. In April, Sōryū's aircraft helped sink two British heavy cruisers and several merchant ships during the Indian Ocean raid.



After a brief refit, Sōryū and three other carriers of the 1st Air Fleet (Kidō Butai) participated in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. After bombarding American forces on Midway Atoll, the carriers were attacked by aircraft from the island and the carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown. Dive bombers from Yorktown crippled Sōryū and set her afire. Japanese destroyers rescued the survivors but the ship could not be salvaged and was ordered to be scuttled so as to allow her attendant destroyers to be released for further operations. She sank with the loss of 711 officers and enlisted men of the 1,103 aboard. The loss of Sōryū and three other IJN carriers at Midway was a crucial strategic defeat for Japan and contributed significantly to the Allies' ultimate victory in the Pacific.


Aerial photograph of Sōryū and its circular wake on the morning of 4 June 1942. The ship was circling to evade bombs dropped from high altitude by US B-17 aircraft. The photograph was taken from one of the B17s.


Kaga (加賀) was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and was named after the former Kaga Province in present-day Ishikawa Prefecture. Originally intended to be one of two Tosa-class battleships, Kaga was converted under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty to an aircraft carrier as the replacement for the battlecruiser Amagi, which had been damaged during the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. Kaga was rebuilt in 1933–35, increasing her top speed, improving her exhaust systems, and adapting her flight decks to more modern, heavier aircraft.

The ship figured prominently in the development of the IJN's carrier striking force doctrine, which grouped carriers together to give greater mass and concentration to their air power. A revolutionary strategic concept at the time, the employment of the doctrine was crucial in enabling Japan to attain its initial strategic goals during the first six months of the Pacific War.



Kaga's aircraft first supported Japanese troops in China during the Shanghai Incident of 1932 and participated in the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s. With other carriers, she took part in the Pearl Harbor raid in December 1941 and the invasion of Rabaul in the Southwest Pacific in January 1942. The following month her aircraft participated in a combined carrier airstrike on Darwin, Australia, helping secure the conquest of the Dutch East Indies by Japanese forces. She missed the Indian Ocean raid in April as she had to return to Japan for repairs after hitting a reef in February.

Following repairs, Kaga rejoined the 1st Air Fleet for the Battle of Midway in June 1942. After bombarding American forces on Midway Atoll, Kaga and three other IJN carriers were attacked by American aircraft from Midway and the carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown. Dive bombers from Enterpriseseverely damaged Kaga; when it became obvious she could not be saved, she was scuttled by Japanese destroyers to prevent her from falling into enemy hands. The loss of four large attack carriers, including Kaga at Midway, was a crucial setback for Japan, and contributed significantly to Japan's ultimate defeat. In 1999, debris from Kaga including a large section of the hull was located on the ocean floor at a depth in excess of 5,000 meters (16,404 ft); 350 miles (560 km) northwest of Midway Island. The main part of the carrier's wreck has not been found.


Akagi (Japanese: 赤城 "Red Castle") was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), named after Mount Akagi in present-day Gunma Prefecture. Though she was laid down as an Amagi-class battlecruiser, Akagi was converted to an aircraft carrier while still under construction to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. The ship was rebuilt from 1935 to 1938 with her original three flight decks consolidated into a single enlarged flight deck and an island superstructure. The second Japanese aircraft carrier to enter service, and the first large or "fleet" carrier, Akagi and the related Kaga figured prominently in the development of the IJN's new carrier striking force doctrine that grouped carriers together, concentrating their air power. This doctrine enabled Japan to attain its strategic goals during the early stages of the Pacific War from December 1941 until mid-1942.


Akagi on trials off the coast of Iyo, 17 June 1927, with all three flight decks visible

Akagi's aircraft served in the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s. Upon the formation of the First Air Fleet or Kido Butai (Striking Force) in early 1941, she became its flagship, and remained so for the duration of her service. With other fleet carriers, she took part in the Attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the invasion of Rabaul in the Southwest Pacific in January 1942. The following month, her aircraft bombed Darwin, Australia, and assisted in the conquest of the Dutch East Indies. In March and April 1942, Akagi's aircraft helped sink a British heavy cruiser and an Australian destroyerin the Indian Ocean Raid.

After a brief refit, Akagi and three other fleet carriers of the Kido Butai participated in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. After bombarding American forces on the atoll, Akagi and the other carriers were attacked by aircraft from Midway and the carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown. Dive bombers from Enterprise severely damaged Akagi. When it became obvious she could not be saved, she was scuttled by Japanese destroyers to prevent her from falling into enemy hands. The loss of Akagi and three other IJN carriers at Midway was a crucial strategic defeat for Japan and contributed significantly to the Allies' ultimate victory in the Pacific.


Hiryū (飛龍, "Flying Dragon") was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the 1930s. The only ship of her class, she was built to a modified Sōryū design.[Note 1] Her aircraft supported the Japanese invasion of French Indochina in mid-1940. She took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Wake Island. During the first few months of the Pacific War, the ship supported the conquest of the Dutch East Indies in January 1942. The following month, her aircraft bombed Darwin, Australia, and continued to assist in the Dutch East Indies campaign. In April, Hiryū's aircraft helped sink two British heavy cruisers and several merchant ships during the Indian Ocean raid.



After a brief refit, Hiryū and three other fleet carriers of the First Air Fleet (Kido Butai) participated in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. After bombarding American forces on the atoll, the carriers were attacked by aircraft from Midway and the carriers USS Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown. Dive bombers from Yorktown and Enterprise crippled Hiryū and set her afire. She was scuttled the following day after it became clear that she could not be salvaged. The loss of Hiryū and three other IJN carriers at Midway was a crucial strategic defeat for Japan and contributed significantly to the Allies' ultimate victory in the Pacific.

USS Yorktown (CV-5) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Japanese aircraft carrier Sōryū - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi - Wikipedia

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Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
4 June 1944 - The hunter-killer group comprises of five destroyer escorts and USS Guadalcanal (CVE 60) captures German submarine, (U 505).
This marks the first time a U.S. Navy vessel captures an enemy vessel since the early 19th century. The feat earns Lt. Albert L. David, who led the team to board the sub, the Medal of Honor.


U-505 is a German German Type IXC submarine built for Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was captured by the U.S. Navy on 4 June 1944.

In her uniquely unlucky career with the Kriegsmarine, she had the distinction of being the "most heavily damaged U-boat to successfully return to port" in World War II on her fourth patrol, and the only submarine in which a commanding officer took his own life in combat conditions on her tenth patrol, following six botched patrols. She was one of six U-boats that were captured by Allied forces during World War II, captured on 4 June 1944 by United States Navy Task Group 22.3 (TG 22.3). All but one of U-505's crew were rescued by the Navy task group. The submarine was towed to Bermuda in secret and her crew were interned at a US prisoner of war camp, where they were denied access to International Red Cross visits. The Navy classified the capture as top secret and prevented the Germans from discovering it. Her codebooks, Enigma machine, and other secret materials found on board helped the Allies to break Germany's top secret codes.

In 1954, U-505 was donated to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. She is now one of four German World War II U-boats that survive as museum ships, and just one of two Type IXCs still in existence with U-534.


A boarding party from the U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS bury (DE-133) working to secure a tow line to the bow of the captured German submarine U-505, 4 June 1944. Note the large U.S. flag flying from the submarine's periscope.

Twelfth patrol and capture
Anti-sub task force
The Allies had learned from decrypted German messages that U-boats were operating near Cape Verde, but not their exact locations. The US Navy dispatched Task Group 22.3 to the area, a "Hunter-Killer" group commanded by Captain Daniel V. Gallery. TG 22.3 consisted of escort aircraft carrier Guadalcanal and destroyer escorts under Commander Frederick S. Hall: bury, Pope, Flaherty, Chatelain, and Jenks. The group sailed from Norfolk, Virginia on 15 May 1944 and began searching for U-boats in the area in late May, using high-frequency direction-finding fixes ("Huff-Duff") and air and surface reconnaissance.

Detection and attack
At 11:09 on 4 June 1944, TG 22.3 made sonar (ASDIC) contact with U-505 at 21°30′N 19°20′W, about 150 nmi (280 km; 170 mi) off the coast of Río de Oro,[23] only 800 yards (700 m) from Chatelain's starboard bow. The escorts immediately moved towards the contact, while Guadalcanal moved away at top speed and launched a Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter to join another Wildcat and a Grumman TBM Avenger which were already airborne.

Chatelain was so close to U-505 that depth charges would not sink fast enough to intercept the U-boat, so she fired Hedgehog mortars before passing the submarine and turning to make a follow-up attack with depth charges. One of the aircraft sighted U-505 and fired into the water to mark the position while Chatelain dropped depth charges. Immediately after the detonation of the charges, a large oil slick spread on the water and the fighter pilot radioed: "You struck oil! Sub is surfacing!" Less than seven minutes after Chatelain's first attack began, the badly damaged submarine surfaced less than 600 metres (700 yd) away.[26] Chatelain immediately opened fire on it with all available weapons, joined by other ships of the task force and the two Wildcats.

Lange believed U-505 to be seriously damaged and ordered his crew to abandon ship. They obeyed the order promptly, but they did not scuttle the boat; they opened some valves but left the engines running. The rudder had been damaged by depth charges, so the submarine circled clockwise at approximately 7 knots (13 km/h; 8.1 mph). The commanding officer of Chatelain saw the submarine turning toward his ship and thought that she was about to attack, so he ordered a single torpedo to be fired at it; the torpedo missed, passing ahead of the abandoned U-505.

Salvage operations

USS Guadalcanal lying alongside the captured U-505

Chatelain and Jenks collected survivors while an eight-man party from bury led by Lt. Albert David came alongside the submarine in a boat and entered through the conning tower. They found the body of Signalman First Class Gottfried Fischer on the deck, the only fatality of the combat, and U-505 was deserted. They secured charts and codebooks, closed scuttling valves, and disarmed demolition charges. They stopped the water coming in and the submarine remained afloat, although it was low in the water and down by the stern, and they also stopped her engines.

bury attempted to take the submarine in tow but repeatedly collided with her and had to move away with three compartments flooded. A second boarding party from Guadalcanal then rigged a towline from the aircraft carrier to the U-boat. Guadalcanal's chief engineer Commander Earl Trosino joined the salvage party. He disconnected the submarine's diesels from her electric driving motors while leaving them clutched to the propeller shafts. With the U-boat moving under tow by Guadalcanal, the propellers "windmilled" as they passed through the water, turning the shafts and the drive motors. This caused the motors to act as electrical generators charging the batteries. With power from the batteries, U-505's pumps cleared out the water let in by the attempted scuttling, and her air compressors blew out the ballast tanks, bringing her up to full surface trim.

After three days of towing, Guadalcanal transferred U-505 to the fleet tug Abnaki. On 19 June, the submarine entered Port Royal Bay, Bermuda, after a tow of 1,700 nautical miles (3,150 km; 1,960 mi). The US Navy took 58 prisoners from U-505, three of them wounded. The crew were interned at Camp Ruston, near Ruston, Louisiana.

Enigma codes
The cipher materials captured on U-505 included the special "coordinate" code, the regular and officer Enigma settings for June 1944, the current short weather codebook, the short signal codebook, and bigram tables due to come into effect in July and August. The material arrived at the decryption establishment at Bletchley Park on 20 June 1944, and the Allies were able to break most of the Enigma settings by intense cryptanalysis, including heavy use of the electromechanical "bombes". It saved work and time to have the Enigma settings for the U-boats which could be applied to other keys. The settings break was only valid until the end of June and therefore had an extremely limited influence on the eventual cracking of the Enigma code, but having the weather and short signal codebooks and bigram tables made the work easier.

The "coordinate" code was used in German messages as an added layer of security for locations. Allied commanders sent Hunter-Killer task groups to these known U-boat locations, and re-routed shipping away from the areas. A more lasting benefit came from the intact capture of the U-boat's two G7es (Zaunkönig T-5) acoustic homing torpedoes. These were thoroughly analyzed and then tested on the range, giving information that was invaluable in improving the Foxer and FXR countermeasures systems, as well as the doctrine for using them to protect escorts.

Awards
US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest King considered court-martialling Captain Gallery because he towed U-505 instead of sinking it after capturing the code books. The submarine's crewmen were isolated from other prisoners of war, and the Red Cross were denied access to them. The Kriegsmarine finally declared the crew dead and informed the families to that effect, and the crew were not returned until 1947.

LTJG Albert David received the Medal of Honor for leading the boarding party, the only time that it was awarded to an Atlantic Fleet sailor in World War II. Torpedoman's Mate Third Class Arthur W. Knispel and Radioman Second Class Stanley E. Wdowiak were the first two to follow David into the submarine, and they received the Navy Cross. Seaman First Class Earnest James Beaver received the Silver Starand Commander Trosino received the Legion of Merit. Captain Gallery conceived and executed the operation, and he received the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. The Task Group was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll, Commander in Chief, US Atlantic Fleet, cited the Task Group for "outstanding performance during anti-submarine operations in the eastern Atlantic" and stated that it was "a feat unprecedented in individual and group bravery, execution, and accomplishment in the Naval History of the United States".

Final journey
The US Navy kept U-505 at the navy base in Bermuda, and Navy intelligence officers and engineers studied it intensively. To maintain the illusion that she had been sunk rather than captured, she was painted to look like a US submarine and renamed as the USS Nemo. At the end of the war in Europe, she was used to promote E War Bond sales as part of the "Mighty 7th" War Loan drive. Anyone who purchased a bond could also purchase a ticket to board and inspect her. In June 1945, she visited New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Captain Gallery was present for the opening of the exhibition in Washington, D.C.


U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois


Marker at the Museum of Science and Industry

The Navy had no further use for U-505 after the war. Experts had thoroughly examined her in Bermuda, and she was moored derelict at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, so the Navy decided to use her as a target for gunnery and torpedo practice until she sank. In 1946, Rear Admiral Gallery told his brother Father John Gallery about this plan, and Father John contacted President Lenox Lohr of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) to see if they would be interested in it. The museum already planned to display a submarine, and the acquisition of U-505 seemed ideal. The US government donated the submarine to the museum in September 1954, and Chicago residents raised $250,000 for transporting and installing the boat. Coast Guard tugs and cutters towed the boat through the Great Lakes, making a stop in Detroit, Michigan in July 1954. The museum dedicated it on 25 September 1954 as a permanent exhibit and a war memorial to all the sailors who lost their lives in the first and second Battle of the Atlantic.

Museum ship
Nearly every removable part had been stripped from the boat's interior by the time she went to the museum; she was in no condition to serve as an exhibit, so Museum director Lohr asked for replacements from the German manufacturers who had supplied the boat's original components and parts. Admiral Gallery reports in his autobiography Eight Bells and All's Well that every company supplied the requested parts without charge. Most included letters to the effect that the manufacturers wanted her to be a credit to German technology.

The Navy had removed the periscope and placed it in a water tank used for research at its Arctic Submarine Laboratory in Point Loma, California; they demolished that lab in 2003 and found it. The Navy donated it to the museum to be displayed along with the submarine. By 2004, the U-boat's exterior had suffered noticeable damage from the weather, so the museum moved it to a new climate-controlled location in April 2004. They restored it and reopened it to the public on 5 June 2005.

U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry

German submarine U-505 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 4 June


1709 - Action of 1709/06/04, 4th June 1709 – HMS Portland

HMS Portland (1693) - Wikipedia

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Action of 1709/06/04, 4th June 1709

Description and participants : Action of 1709-06-04, 4th June 1709 (1709/06/15 NS)

threedecks.org

1765 – Launch of HMS Prince of Wales was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 4 June 1765 at Milford Haven.

HMS Prince of Wales was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 4 June 1765 at Milford Haven. She was part of the Ramillies class of ships of the line designed by Sir Thomas Slade.
She was broken up in 1783.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for 'Ramillies' (1763); 'Terrible' (1762); 'Russell' (1764); 'Invincible' (1765); 'Magnificent' (1766); 'Prince of Wales' (1765); 'Marlborough' (1767); 'Robust' (1764), all 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers. Note the pencil annotations of chain channels and gunports. An annotation on the reverse states that the class was similar to the 'Superb' (1760), specifically mentioning 'Monarch', 'Magnificent', and Marlborough'

HMS Prince of Wales (1765) - Wikipedia

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Ramillies-class ship of the line - Wikipedia

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1770 - June 4 - Minor Russians vs Turks south of Athens


1792 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.

George Vancouver - Wikipedia

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1794 - Operations against San Domingo, 4th January 1794 - 4th June

On January 2nd, 1794, Commodore Ford detached the Penelope, 32, Captain Bartholomew Samuel Rowley offering terms of capitulation to Port au Prince. These were refused; and, in consequence, the Commodore blockaded the harbour. On February 3rd, Cape Tiburon was taken, after slight resistance; and on the llth Aoul was carried. On May 31st, the Europa, 50, Commodore Ford, Captain George Gregory; Irresistible, 74, Captain John Henry; Belliqueux 64, Captain James Brine; Sceptre, 64, Captain James Richard Dacres (1), and three frigates and three sloops, with 1465 effective troops on board under Brigadier-General White, arrived in the Bay of Port au Prince from Cape Nicolas Mole. On June 1st, the Belliqueux, Sceptre and Penelope opened fire on Fort Brissoton, the Europa and Irresistible, under sail, lending occasional assistance; and, in the course of the day, troops were disembarked under the direction of Commander Thomas Affleck, of the Fly, sloop. The operations were interrupted at 6 P.M. by a most tremendous storm; but, in the consequent confusion and obscurity, the fort was rushed and carried. On the 3rd, the Hermione, 32, Captain John Hills, and the Iphigenia, 32, Captain Patrick Sinclair, bombarded a work at Bernadou to make a diversion during the advance of the troops; and, on the 4th, Port au Prince was taken possession of. There was little loss, the Hermione having 5 killed and 6 wounded, and the Belliqueux 10 wounded.

Operations against San Domingo, 4th January 1794 - 4th June 1794

Description and participants : Operations against San Domingo, 4th January 1794 - 4th June 1794

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1800 HMS Thames (32), Cptn. Lukin, and HMS Cynthia (18) silenced the forts at Quiberon which were afterwards destroyed by a party of troops.

On 4 June 1800, Cynthia was part of a squadron under Captain Edward Pellew in Impetueux. The 32-gun frigate Thames, Captain William Lukin, Cynthia, and some small-craft, attacked the south-west end of Quiberon and silenced the forts. Troops under Major Ramsey then landed and destroyed the forts. The attack resulted in the British taking several vessels and scuttling others. The only casualties were in Cynthia, which lost two men killed and one wounded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Thames_(1758)

HMS Cynthia (1796) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1808 4 Danish gunboats, under Lt. Christian Wulff, defeats the British gun-brig HMS Tickler, Lieut. John W. Skinner (Killed in Action), off Taars.


1808 - HMS Tickler captured

A 14-gun Archer class brig built in 1804. Captured by Danish gunboats in the Great Belt. Operated under the same name by the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy until sold off in 1815.


1812 Boats of HMS Medusa (32), Cptn. Bouverie, cut out and destroyed Dorade (14) at Arcasson near Bourdeaux.

HMS Medusa was a 32-gun 5th rate frigate of the Royal Navy that served in the Napoleonic Wars. Launched on 14 April 1801, she took part in the Action of 5 October 1804 against a Spanish squadron, in the River Plate Expedition in 1807, and made several captures of enemy ships, before being converted to a hospital ship in 1813. She was broken up in 1816.

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


1824 The Danish Navy's first steamship, the paddle steamer Kiel, arrives at Copenhagen from England.


1901 – Launch of French cruiser Sully was an armored cruiser of the Gloire class that was built for the French Navy in the early 1900s.

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.[1] 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.

French cruiser Sully - Wikipedia

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1934 - USS Ranger (CV 4), the first U.S. Navy ship designed from the keel up as a carrier, is commissioned at Norfolk, Va. During World War II, she participates in Operation Torch and Operation Leader.


1941 - HNLMS Van Meerlant – On 4 June 1941 the Dutch minelayer HNLMS Van Meerlant struck a mine and sunk off Minster Abbey, Thames Estuary. Of the crew aboard 42 were killed.

HNLMS Van Meerlant (ML 36) was a minelayer of the Royal Netherlands Navy built in the Gusto shipyard at Schiedam as part of the Douwe Aukes class.

On the general mobilisation of the Dutch military on 28 August 1939, Van Meerlant was deployed to lay minefields, including ones at IJmuiden and the Hook of Holland. She sailed for the United Kingdom from Vlissingen alongside the gunboat Flores, arriving on 18 May 1940. She was first stationed at Falmouth, alongside her sister ship Douwe Aukes and the Dutch ship Medusa. Later that year Van Meerlant was posted to Chatham and assigned to the Thames Local Defence Flotilla, responsible for maintaining the boom defences in the Thames Estuary. On 14 March she was transferred to the Royal Navy, retaining her name as HMS Van Meerlant. She was sunk on 4 June 1941 by a mine, with 42 hands killed.

HNLMS Van Meerlant - Wikipedia

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1943 - TBF aircraft from USS Bogue (CVE 9) attack German submarine U 603 in the Atlantic. Though U 603 is not sunk, its forced to submerge, sparing a nearby LCI convoy from attack. USS Bronstein (DE 189) finally sinks U 603 in the North Atlantic on March 1, 1944.


1944 - USS Flier (SS 250) sinks Japanese troopship Hakusan Maru about 375 miles southwest of Chichi Jima, Bonin Islands. Also on this date USS Golet (SS 361) sinks Japanese guardboat No.10 Shinko Maru east of Japan.

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1284 – Battle of the Gulf of Naples
Aragonese-Sicilians under Roger of Lauria defeat Neapolitans and capture Charles of Salerno (later Charles II of Naples)


The naval Battle of the Gulf of Naples took place on 5 June 1284 in the south of the Gulf of Naples, Italy, when an Aragonese-Sicilian galley fleet commanded by Roger of Lauria defeated a Neapolitan galley fleet commanded by Charles of Salerno (later Charles II of Naples) and captured Charles.



Charles' Genoese allies had collected several large fleets of galleys, and Lauria determined to attack Charles' galleys which were at Naples before these could join them and hunt down Lauria. He used the cover of darkness to arrive off Naples, where he made several raids ashore to try to tempt Charles out where he could be fought. On the night before the battle, Lauria captured two Provençal galleys sent ahead by Charles' ally and father Charles I of Naples who was heading south from Genoa. Charles had definite orders to stay in port and wait for his allies, but his impetuousness overcame his initial reluctance and after Lauria's galleys approached closely the Neapolitans came out in single file and chased them in a disorganised manner southward. Lauria feigned retreat and kept ahead of them until he drew close to ten or so galleys he had left near Castellammare, then turned and formed a crescent formation, with the galleys that had joined at the rear, and attacked Charles' fleet from the sides, where galleys were the most vulnerable. Charles' fifteen to eighteen Regno galleys fled back to Naples, leaving the nine to thirteen French-crewed galleys to be captured. Charles' galley was the last to be captured, and surrendered only when Lauria sent divers overboard in order to sink it. Charles was kept prisoner until Edward I of England intervened in 1288.



Ships involved:

Aragon-Sicily (Roger of Lauria)

• about 29 galleys
• some transports
• some small vessels

Neapolitans (Charles of Salerno)

• 15-18 Regno galleys
• 9-13 French-crewed galleys
• (about 28 galleys total, possibly more)

Battle of the Gulf of Naples - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1758 - Raid on Saint/Malo, 5th June 1758 - 12th June 1758


A squadron of ships under Lord Anson and Admiral Hawke, totalling 24 ships of the line with support vessels and including an escort squadron under Commodore Howe escorted 130 transports carrying 13,000 troops. The target was Saint Malo and the expedition anchored in Cancale Bay and landed the troops. Saint Malo was not taken, although much other damage was inflicted. The fleet then spent the rest of June looking at other possible landing places including Le Havre, Caen and Cherbourg, but no landings were undertaken due to poor weather and French resistance and the whole enterprise abandoned in early July.

Description
At 8 A.M. on June 2nd, after a stormy but not unfavourable night, Howe sighted Cape La Hougue. The French were quickly alarmed, and, from his course, probably formed a shrewd guess as to his destination. The tides, and the frequent calms which supervened, compelled the British to anchor repeatedly, but on June 5th the entire force stood into Cancale Bay, six miles east of St. Malo. At 11 A.M. the Duke of Marlborough went in shore in a cutter to reconnoitre and was fired at. By 2 P.M. all the fleet was at anchor, and the signal was made for the flat-bottomed boats to be hoisted out. Howe shifted his broad pennant to the Success, 24, Captain Paul Henry Ourry, and stood in with the Rose, 24, Captain Benjamin Clive, Flamborough, 28, Captain Edward Jekyll, and Diligence, 16, Commander Joseph Eastwood, to silence the batteries, clear the beach, and cover the landing. This he did, and then signalled for part of the troops to disembark. The landing was effected in good order and without loss, in spite of some musketry fire from the enemy posted on a hill behind Cancale. These sharpshooters, however, soon fled as the troops advanced. More soldiers were afterwards landed, and before dark a large force was ashore. It lay on its arms for the night. The rest of the army, with the guns and stores, was landed on the 6th; and, at dawn on the 7th, the whole of it except one brigade, that of Major-General the Hon. George Boscawen, marched away in two columns. It is not intended here to follow the military movements on shore : it is only necessary to say that it was ultimately considered impracticable to attempt St. Malo, and that, after doing a great deal of damage, the army returned and re-embarked on the 11th and 12th. The loss up to that time had not been more than thirty killed and wounded.






HMS Royal Charles was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, designed and built by Sir Anthony Deane at Portsmouth Dockyard, where she was launched and completed by his successor as Master Shipwright, Daniel Furzer, in March 1673. She was one of only three Royal Navy ships to be equipped with the Rupertinoe naval gun.





She was Prince Rupert of the Rhine's flagship at the Battles of Schooneveld; two naval battles of the Franco-Dutch War, fought off the coast of the Netherlands on 7 June and 14 June 1673 against the fleet of the United Provinces, commanded by Michiel de Ruyter.

She was rebuilt at Woolwich Dockyard between 1691 and 1693, and renamed HMS Queen on 27 January 1693. The Queen became the flagship of Sir George Rooke and was captained by James Wishart. She was rebuilt for a second time at Woolwich, relaunching on 20 September 1715, and renamed once more, this time as HMS Royal George.

The much-rebuilt Royal George was renamed HMS Royal Anne in 1756, and was broken up in 1767.



Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with sternboard outline, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for Royal George (1715), a 100-gun, First Rate, three-decker. The Royal George was rebuilt from the Queen (1693) at Chatham Dockyard, having her keel laid in May 1709 and being launched in September 1715. The plan gives the dimensions as 171ft 9in on the gun deck, 139ft 7in lenght of keel for tonnage, 49ft 3in extreme breadth, 19ft 6in depth in hold, and 1801 burthen tons. In 1735 she underwent a great repair, completed in 1737 before she was commissioned into service for the first time in 1741, when it joined Admiral Norris's Fleet. Because of this, it is possible that the ship looked quite different to this design. Notable alterations by this period included raising the height of the channels. In 1756 she was renamed the 'Royal Anne' upon the launched of a new 100-gun 'Royal George' that year






Scale: 1:42.6. A contemporary full hull model of a 100-gun three-decker first-rate ship of the line (circa 1715), built in the Georgian style. The model is decked, equipped and rigged. Much of the rigging is contemporary while the remainder was restored and completed in the Museum in 1936. The unusual scale has been calculated by the vessel’s draught marks. At this scale, it represents a ship measuring 174 feet along the gun deck by 47 feet in the beam with an approximate tonnage of 1750 burden. The vessel has the length of a 100-gun ship with the beam of a 90-gunner. This, together with other inconsistencies and the personal nature of the decoration (the arms of Montagu and Buccleuch appear in several places) indicate this may be an imaginary ship and the model made for presentation purposes. In some respects it resembles the ‘Royal George’ of 1715 but the solid middle and upper wales would suggest a date later than 1719






Scale: 1:48. A Navy Board full hull model of a 100-gun, three-decker, first-rate ship of the line (circa 1725). The model is decked and equipped. The finely carved group figurehead with the ‘G.R.’ monogram suggests that the model should have a ‘royal’ name. The model bears a resemblance to both the ‘Royal William’ (SLR0408, SLR0409) and ‘Royal George’ but was probably intended to represent a typical first rate of the period. In its 100-gun incarnation, it would have been 175 feet long in the gun deck with a beam of 50 feet, and weighed 1895 tons burden. It would have carried twenty-eight 32-pound guns on its gun deck, twenty-eight 24-pounders on its middle deck, twenty-eight 12-pounders on its upper deck, along with twelve 6-pounders on its quarterdeck and four on its forecastle. Its complement would have been 800 men. The ‘Royal George’, linked to this model by the monogram, was launched in 1715, but reduced to a 90-gun second rate in 1745. Renamed the ‘Royal Anne’ in 1756, it was broken up in 1767

Raid on Saint/Malo, 5th June 1758 - 12th June 1758

Description and participants : Raid on Saint-Malo, 5th June 1758 - 12th June 1758

threedecks.org

Collections - National Maritime Museum

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1761 – Launch of HMS Lowestoffe, a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.


HMS Lowestoffe was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Built during the latter part of the Seven Years' War, she went on to see action in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary War, and served often in the Caribbean. A young Horatio Nelson served aboard her shortly after passing his lieutenant's examination.



Originally commissioned near the end of the Seven Years' War, Lowestoffe patrolled in British waters until 1773, when it underwent repairs. She was recommissioned in 1777 and served throughout the American War of Independence, including at the Battle of San Fernando de Omoa. After the bulk of the fighting ended, she returned home to Portsmouth in 1782, and did not see battle for the next decade. She spent most of her later years in British and Mediterranean waters, winning particular glory for her part in an engagement with two French frigates in 1795. Her final duties were back in the familiar waters of the West Indies, where she was wrecked in 1801 while escorting a convoy in the Caicos Islands.




Construction and commissioning
Sir Thomas Slade based his design for Lowestoffe on that of HMS Aurora, which was a former French vessel named Abenakise. (The Admiralty routinely "took the lines", i.e., drew up blueprints, of captured vessels, and these blueprints were available to designers such as Slade.)

Lowestoffe was the only ship built to her design, though over a decade later the Navy would have two more frigates, HMS Orpheus and HMS Diamond, built to a modification of the design of Lowestoffe and Abenakise. She was ordered on 15 February 1760 from Thomas West, Deptford Dockyard, with West contracted to launch her within 12 months, at a cost of £11.0.0d per ton. Lowestoffe was laid down on 9 May 1760, launched on 5 June 1761 and completed by 1 August 1761. She officially received the name Lowestoffe on 28 October 1760. She had cost a total of £7,715 1s 10¾d to build, coming in just slightly under the contracted price of £7887. The Navy spent a further £4,281 7s 8d on having her fitted out.


Depicts a confrontation between two British and two French naval ships. Cannon smoke hangs between the vessels. The French La Minerve, in the centre foreground, in port broadside view, has lost the top section of her mainmast and her entire foremast. Her bow is badly damaged with the bowsprit and figurehead gone. Figures can be seen crowding the deck. Behind La Minerve, passing on the opposite tack, the starboard stern quarter of a British naval vessel can be seen through the smoke. This vessel has lost her mizzen mast overboard, but is still carrying three courses of sails on her remaining masts and flying the Red Ensign on her main mast. On the right of the picture, further away, two vessels, one French, one British, both on the same tack, are seen in port stern quarter view exchanging cannon fire. Their sails are intact, but holed; otherwise, both vessels appear to be in better condition than those in the foreground. The scene depicts the capture of La Minerve by the British Dido and Lowestoffe off Toulon on 24th June 1795. The French L'Artemise was also involved in the action

HMS Lowestoffe (1761) - Wikipedia

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Collections - National Maritime Museum

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1780 – Launch of HMS Belliqueux (Eng. warlike), a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, at Blackwall Yard, London.


HMS Belliqueux (Eng. warlike) was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 5 June 1780 at Blackwall Yard, London. She was named after the French ship Belliqueux captured in 1758.



In 1781 Belliqueux took part at the Battle of Fort Royal, and in 1782 she was at the Battle of the Saintes.

In 1796 she came under the command of Captain John Inglis who commanded her bravely during the Battle of Camperdown in October 1797.

At the Action of 4 August 1800, Belliqueux captured the French frigate Concorde.

After the Dutch Governor Jansens signed a capitulation on 18 January 1806, and the British established control of the Cape Colony, Belliqueux escorted the East Indiamen William Pitt, Jane, Duchess of Gordon, Sir William Pulteney, Comet to Madras. The convoy included the Northampton, Streatham, Europe, Union, Glory, and Sarah Christiana.

At Madras, the captains of the eight East Indiamen in the convoy joined together to present Captain George Byng, of Belliqueux, a piece of silver plate worth £100 as a token of appreciation for his conduct while they were under his orders. Byng wrote his thank you letter to them on 24 April.

Philip Dundas, Lieutenant-Governor of Penang died on-board Belliqueux on 8 April 1807, while Belliqueux was in the Bay of Bengal.

Belliqueux was employed as a prison ship from 1814, and was broken up in 1816.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for Raisonnable (1768), and later for Agamemnon (1781) and Belliqueux (1780), all 64-gun Third Rate, two-deckers. Signed by Thomas Slade [Surveyor of the Navy, 1755-1771], and John Williams [Surveyor of the Navy, 1765-1784]


sistership

Capture of HMS Ardent by the frigates Junon and Chantil

The Ardent-class ships of the line were a class of seven 64-gun third rates, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir Thomas Slade.

Design
Slade based the design of the Ardent class on the captured French ship Fougueux.

Ships

• HMS Ardent

Builder: Blades, Hull
Ordered: 16 December 1761
Launched: 13 August 1764
Fate: Sold out of the service, 1784

• HMS Raisonnable

Builder: Chatham Dockyard
Ordered: 11 January 1763
Launched: 10 December 1768
Fate: Broken up, 1815

• HMS Agamemnon

Builder: Adams, Bucklers Hard
Ordered: 8 April 1777
Launched: 10 April 1781
Fate: Wrecked, 1809

• HMS Belliqueux

Builder: Perry, Blackwall Yard
Ordered: 19 February 1778
Launched: 5 June 1780
Fate: Broken up, 1816

• HMS Stately

Builder: Raymond, Northam
Ordered: 10 December 1778
Launched: 27 December 1784
Fate: Broken up, 1814

• HMS Indefatigable

Builder: Adams, Bucklers Hard
Ordered: 3 August 1780
Launched: July 1784
Fate: Broken up, 1816

• HMS Nassau

Builder: Hilhouse, Bristol
Ordered: 14 November 1782
Launched: 28 September 1785
Fate: Wrecked, 1799

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1781 – Launch of French Argonaute, a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, lead ship of her class


The Argonaute was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, lead ship of her class.



Argonaute served in Suffren's campaign in the Indian Ocean, taking part in the Battle of Cuddalore.
In 1794, she was razéed and renamed to Flibustier, recommissioned as a 42-gun frigate.
She was decommissioned in December 1795.


The Argonaute class was a class of two 74-gun ships of the French Navy, built to a common design by naval constructor François-Guillaume Clairin-Deslauriers. The design was lengthened by 4feet 9½ inches (4½ pieds) from the designer's previous Scipion class, which had been found to lack stability. The designer died on 10 October 1780, and the construction of these ships was completed by Jean-Denis Chevillard, who was appointed his successor as ingénieur-constructeur en chef at that dockyard in July 1781.

Ships

• Argonaute

Builder: Rochefort Dockyard
Ordered: June 1779
Begun: August 1779
Launched: 5 June 1781
Completed: December 1781
Fate: Cut down (raséed) to a 'heavy' frigate 1793-94 and renamed Flibustier; disarmed in December 1795 and later taken to pieces.

• Brave

Builder: Lorient Dockyard
Ordered: June 1779
Begun: October 1779
Launched: 6 June 1781
Completed: November 1781
Fate: Cut down (raséed) to a 'heavy' frigate 1793-94 (but not renamed); reduced to a hulk at Brest in January 1798, and later taken to pieces.



Scipion raking HMS London during the Action of 18 October 1782.

The Scipion class was a class of three 74-gun ships built to a design by François-Guillaume Clairin-Deslauriers, the ingénieur-constructeur en chef at Rochefort Dockyard. These were the shortest 74-gun ships built by France since the 1750s, and they were found to lack stability as a consequence. The third ship - originally the Pluton - was 'girdled' (sheathed) with 32 cm of pine at Rochefort in 1799 to overcome her instability, and the design of two further ships ordered at the same dockyard in 1779 were lengthened.

• Scipion

Builder: Rochefort Dockyard
Ordered: early 1778
Begun: 10 April 1778
Launched: 19 September 1778
Completed: February 1779
Fate: Wrecked in Samana Bay, off San Domingo on 19 October 1782.

• Hercule

Builder: Rochefort Dockyard
Ordered: early 1778
Begun: 1 April 1778
Launched: 5 October 1778
Completed: February 1779
Fate: Razéed to 50-gun frigate in February to June 1794, and renamed Hydre in May 1795; discarded 1797.

• Pluton

Builder: Rochefort Dockyard
Ordered: early 1778
Begun: 10 April 1778
Launched: 5 November 1778
Completed: February 1779
Fate: Renamed Dugommier on 17 December 1797. Taken to pieces at Brest in 1805.

French ship Argonaute (1781) - Wikipedia

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Argonaute-class ship of the line - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1814 - Decatur, an American schooner built in Charleston, South Carolina, was captured by HMS Rhin


Decatur was an American schooner built in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1813 for privateering during the Atlantic Ocean theater of the War of 1812. She was named for the United States Navy Commodore Stephen Decatur, who served with distinction in many of America's earliest conflicts. She was the largest privateer out of Charleston. The Royal Navy captured Decatur in 1814.





Decatur & HMS Dominica, 1812

Career
Decatur is best known for being commanded by Captain Dominique Diron, who captured several British ships during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Captain Diron defeated the stronger Royal Navy schooner HMS Dominica in an action off Bermuda on 5 August 1813. After a long engagement the Americans chased down Dominica and boarded, forcing down her colors and killing her commander in the process.

Main article: Capture of HMS Dominica
The next day, Decatur captured the merchantman London Trader and sent her into Charleston, where she arrived on 20 August. London Trader, Sinclair, master, had been carrying a cargo of 200Hhds of sugar, 120Hhds of molasses, 70 bags of coffee, rum, cotton, and the like from Surinam to London.

London Trader may have been in company with Dominica, and though armed, had taken no part in the battle. Similarly, the merchantman Princess Charlotte, also in company and also armed, had observed the battle and when she saw that Dominica had surrendered, had herself escaped.

Decatur also captured General Hodgson, sailing from Surinam to Cayenne, and sent her into Charleston.

In November Decatur went to sea again. However, after cruising for 80 days without success, returned to Charleston.

On 22 May 1814, Majestic recaptured Dominica, and brought her into Halifax. Dominica was lost in 1815.

Fate
On 5 June 1814 HMS Rhin sighted and gave chase to an American privateer schooner. After an eleven-hour chase Rhin captured the privateer, in the Mona Passage about four leagues from Cape Engaño. She turned out to be Decatur, still under Diron's command. Decatur, of four guns and 90 men, had sailed from Charleston on 30 March and had made no captures


Rhin was a 40-gun Virginie-class frigate of the French Navy launched in 1802. She was present at two major battles while in French service. The Royal Navy captured her in 1806. Thereafter HMS Rhin served until 1815 capturing numerous vessels. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars she was laid up and then served as a hospital for many years. She was finally broken up in 1884.




lines & profile NMM, Progress Book, volume 6, folio 361, states that 'Rhin' (1806) arrived at Sheerness Dockyard on 17 August 1815 and docked on 3 May 1817. She was undocked on 9 August 1820 having undergone 'large repairs' that cost £29,204, of which £22,039 was spent on the hull. The ship was then laid up and roofed ove

Decatur (1813 ship) - Wikipedia

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French frigate Rhin (1802) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1817 – The first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, is launched.


Frontenac was a steamboat, the first paddle steamer launched on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes, in 1816.



Built in Ernesttown, Ontario, by American contractors for Kingston businessmen during 1816 at a cost of ₤15,000, she entered service in spring 1817. Frontenac conducted regular runs across Lake Ontario between Kingston, York (now Toronto), and Niagara-on-the-Lake. The round trip fare between Kingston and York was $18 ($12 one way) in cabin class.

Frontenac typically generated about 50 horsepower (using the original Boulton and Watt formula), which was too little for a ship of her size, and she was often outperformed by sailing craft. She rarely managed to make money in eight years; the provincial population was simply too small.

Frontenac was sold for ₤1550 to John Hamilton in 1824, who persisted two more unsuccessful years before selling her for scrap at Niagara in 1827. Before she could be scrapped, she burned to the waterline due to arson. Parts of her engines were salvaged and used later in the Alciope on Lake Ontario and Adelaide on Lake Erie.


Line drawings of the engines of the FRONTENAC from the Archives Division, Birmingham Central Library, Boulton & Watt Collection, Portfolios 1213-14

PS Frontenac - Wikipedia

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: Maritime History of the Great Lakes

A Great Lakes digital collection containing text and images featuring shipbuilding, shipwrecks and the working lives of steamboats, schooners and the people who sailed them.

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1855 – Launch of French Lave was an ironclad floating battery of the French Navy during the 19th century. She was part of the Dévastation-class of floating batteries


Lave was an ironclad floating battery of the French Navy during the 19th century. She was part of the Dévastation-class of floating batteries.




Lave, one of the first ironclad floating batteries

In the 1850s, the British and French navies deployed iron-armoured floating batteries as a supplement to the wooden steam battlefleet in the Crimean War. The role of the battery was to assist unarmoured mortar and gunboats bombarding shore fortifications. The French used three of their ironclad batteries (Lave, Tonnante, and Dévastation) in 1855 against the defences at the Battle of Kinburn (1855) on the Black Sea, where they were effective against Russian shore defences. They would later be used again during the Italian war in the Adriatic in 1859.


Ironclad floating battery of the Dévastation class, spending the winter in Crimea, winter of 1855-1856.

The ships were flat-bottomed, and commonly nicknamed "soapboxes". They were towed from France to Crimea to participate in the conflict. Lave was towed by the paddle frigate Magellan.


The Dévastation-class ironclad floating batteries were built for the attack of Russian coastal fortifications during the Crimean War. France had intended to build ten of these vessels, but in the time available was only able to construct five in French shipyards, of which the first three took part in the attack on Kinburn in 1855, and served in the Adriatic in June–July 1859 during the Italian war.

• The Dévastation left Cherbourg for the Black Sea towed by the paddle-frigate l'Albatros on 10 August 1855. On 17 October 1855 she took part in the bombardment of the Russian fortress at Kinburn, firing 1,265 projectiles (including 82 shells) in four hours, and sustained 72 hits (including 31 on the armour), resulting in 2 of the crew being killed and 12 wounded. In June and July 1859 she was part of the siege flotilla in the Adriatic during the Italian war. In 1866 she became a gunnery school as a tender to the Louis-XIV at Toulon.
• The Tonnante was armed at Rochefort on 2 June 1855. She left Brest for the Black Sea towed by the paddle-frigate Darien. On 17 October 1855 she took part in the bombardment of the Russian fortress at Kinburn, firing 1,012 projectiles in four hours, and sustained 66 hits on her armour, and nine of her crew were wounded. She spent the winter of 1855-56 iced in on the Dnieper. She was rearmed on 5 June 1856, and commissioned at Brest on 5 July 1856. She went into reserve at Brest on 18 September 1857. She was recommissioned at Brest on 3 June 1859, and in June and July 1859 she was part of the siege flotilla in the Adriatic during the Italian war. She went into reserve on 6 March 1860.
• The Lave was armed at Lorient on 18 May 1855, and left Lorient for the Black Sea towed by the paddle-frigate Magellan. On 17 October 1855 she took part in the bombardment of the Russian fortress at Kinburn, firing 900 projectiles in four hours, and received no injuries. She was disarmed at Toulon on 10 July 1856. She was rearmed at Toulon on 22 April 1859, and in June and July 1859 she was part of the siege flotilla in the Adriatic during the Italian war. She was disarmed again at Toulon on 1 September 1859. She was rearmed on 26 October 1867 and disarmed 3 December 1867 at Toulon. She was again rearmed on 1 September 1870, until she was disarmed at Toulon on 1 April 1871.
• The Foudroyante was ordered to the Baltic in 1856, but the peace intervened, so she remained at Cherbourg. She was armed on 10 June 1859, and disarmed in 1865-67.
• The Congrève was armed for war in 1855, and it was planned to send the Congrève to the Baltic, but she did not go. She was in reserve in 1861-65, and disarmed in 1866.

The Congrève was retired in 1867 and the other four in 1871.



The Dévastation's armour consisted of 183 plates of 110 mm (4.3 in) thick wrought iron made by Creusot Rive-de-Gier, which weighed in total 297.5 metric tons (292.8 long tons).

In total, the five Dévastation-class ironclad floating batteries cost 6,580,000 Francs (an average of 1,316,000 Francs each). The Dévastation cost 1,146,489 Francs.

French ironclad floating battery Lave - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1867 – Launch of HMS Myrmidon, a Cormorant-class gunvessel of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard


HMS Myrmidon was a Cormorant-class gunvessel of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard and launched in 1867. She served on the North America and West Indies Station and surveyed parts of the Australian coast before being sold at Hong Kong in 1889.





Design
Propulsion
The first 6 ships had a 2-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine provided by Robert Napier and Sons and rated at 200 nominal horsepower, driving a single screw. Sylvia and Nassau were completed as survey ships and were powered by 150 nhp Humphreys and Tennant engines, and Myrmidon, the last of the completed Cormorants, received a more powerful 200 nhp Humphreys and Tennant engine.

Armament
The main armament, which was principally intended for shore bombardment, was originally designed with two 68-pounder and two 32-pounder muzzle-loading smoothbore guns. They were finished, however, with a single 7-inch/110-pounder Armstrong breech-loading gun and a 68-pounder muzzle-loading smoothbore gun. A pair of broadside 20-pounder Armstrong breech-loading guns were also fitted. The 68-pounders were later replaced by a pair of 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns.


HMS Cormorant, name ship of the class

Sail plan
In common with all other Royal Navy wooden screw gunvessels, the Cormorants were rigged as barques, that is with three masts, with the fore and main masts square rigged, and the mizzen fore-and-aft rigged.

Construction
The first 6 ships were ordered from commercial yards (Money Wigram & Son, C J Mare & Co and J Scott Russell). A further batch of 4 ships (including Myrmidon) were ordered on 5 March 1860 and the final batch of 3 (Pegasus - Guernsey) on 25 March 1862. The first completed ships had a draught of 11–12 feet (3.4–3.7 m), exceeding the intended 8 feet (2.4 m) by a considerable margin. Since gunvessels were intended to work in shallow water while bombarding the shore, work on the later two batches was suspended. Sylvia, Nassau and Myrmidon were suspended in 1862 or 1863, but were resumed, being finished as survey vessels. She was launched on 5 June 1867 and commissioned in October 1867.

Operational service
Myrmidon commenced service on the North America and West Indies Station. She served on the Australia Station from 14 March 1885 and undertook hydrographic surveys along the Australian coastline until she left the Australia Station in 1888. In April 1887 she was involved in a collison with the troopship HMS Tyne near Sydney.

Fate
She sailed to Hong Kong and was sold in April 1889 for £3000. Her eventual fate is unknown.


The Cormorant-class gunvessels (sometimes known as Eclipse-class gunvessels) were a class of 4-gun first-class gunvessels built for the Royal Navy in the 1860s. They were somewhat unsuccessful; intended for shore bombardment in shallow water, they exceeded their design draft by 50%. Seven of the 13 ships ordered were suspended, with 3 finished or converted as survey ships and the other 4 cancelled. Racehorse was wrecked after only 4 years, and those ships that were completed as planned had short operational lives, in some cases less than 10 years. The survey vessels (Myrmidon, Sylvia and Nassau) lasted longest, with the last ship of the class, Sylvia, being broken up in 1890.

HMS Myrmidon (1867) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1883 – Launch of French Amiral Baudin, an early battleship of the French Navy, lead ship of her class.


Amiral Baudin was an early battleship of the French Navy, lead ship of her class.





sistership

Launch of Formidable





Formidable displayed beside an antique galley for size comparison

The Amiral Baudin class was a type of ironclad battleship of the French Navy. The class comprised two ships; Amiral Baudin and Formidable.

Design and history

Right elevation, deck plan and hull section of the Amiral Baudin class as depicted in Brassey's Naval Annual 1896

The two ships of the class were built to a design similar to that of Amiral Duperré, enlarged and designed from the start to use steam propulsion only. They were upgraded with armoured masts carrying small guns.

Ships

• Amiral Baudin

Builder: Brest
Launched: 5 June 1883
Fate: Broken up in 1910

• Formidable

Builder: Lorient
Ordered: 13 December 1878
Launched: 16 April 1885
Fate: Broken up 1910



Formidable testing ballons as naval observation platform

French ironclad Amiral Baudin - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1916 - the cruiser HMS Hampshire was in a heavy sea about 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km) off Orkney between Brough of Birsay and Marwick Head, when she suffered an explosion that holed her between her bows and bridge.
She heeled to starboard. When her lifeboats were lowered, the heavy sea smashed them against her side. About 15 minutes after the explosion she sank by her bow. Of more than 600 men, only 12 on two Carley floats reached the shore.


HMS Hampshire was one of six Devonshire-class armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She was assigned to the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet upon completion. After a refit she was assigned to the reserve Third Fleet in 1909 before going to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1911. She was transferred to the China Station in 1912 and remained there until the start of the First World Warin August 1914.

The ship hunted for German commerce raiders until she was transferred to the Grand Fleet at the end of 1914. She was assigned to the 7th Cruiser Squadron upon her return home. She was transferred to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron in 1916 and was present at the Battle of Jutland. Several days later she was sailing to Russia, carrying the Secretary of State for War, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, when she is believed to have struck a mine laid by a German submarine on 5 June. She sank with heavy loss of life, including Kitchener and his staff. Rumours later circulated of German spies and sabotage being involved in the sinking. Her wreck is listed under the Protection of Military Remains Act, though part was later salvaged. Several films have been made exploring the circumstances of her loss.



Design and description
Hampshire was designed to displace 10,850 long tons (11,020 t). The ship had an overall length of 473 feet 6 inches (144.3 m), a beam of 68 feet 6 inches (20.9 m) and a deep draught of 24 feet (7.3 m). She was powered by two 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, which produced a total of 21,000 indicated horsepower (16,000 kW) and gave a maximum speed of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph). The engines were powered by seventeen Yarrow and six cylindrical boilers. She carried a maximum of 1,033 long tons (1,050 t) of coal and her complement consisted of 610 officers and ratings.

Her main armament consisted of four breech-loading (BL) 7.5-inch Mk I guns mounted in four single-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure and one on each side. The guns fired their 200-pound (91 kg) shells to a range of about 13,800 yards (12,600 m). Her secondary armament of six BL 6-inch Mk VII guns was arranged in casemates amidships. Four of these were mounted on the main deck and were only usable in calm weather. They had a maximum range of approximately 12,200 yards (11,200 m) with their 100-pound (45 kg) shells.[6] Hampshire also carried 18 quick-firing (QF) 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns and two submerged 18-inch torpedo tubes. Her two 12-pounder 8 cwt guns could be dismounted for service ashore.

At some point in the war, the main deck six-inch guns of the Devonshire-class ships were moved to the upper deck and given gun shields. Their casemates were plated over to improve seakeeping and the four 3-pounder guns displaced by the transfer were landed.

The ship's waterline armour belt had a maximum thickness of six inches (152 mm) and was closed off by five-inch (127 mm) transverse bulkheads. The armour of the gun turrets was also five inches thick whilst that of their barbettes was six inches thick. The protective deck armour ranged in thickness from .75–2 inches (19–51 mm) and the conning tower was protected by twelve inches (305 mm) of armour.

Construction and service
Hampshire, named to commemorate the English county, was laid down by Armstrong Whitworth at their Elswick shipyard on 1 September 1902 and launched on 24 September 1903. She was completed on 15 July 1905 and was initially assigned to the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet together with most of her sister ships. She began a refit at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard in December 1908 and was then assigned to the reserve Third Fleet in August 1909. She recommissioned in December 1911 for her assignment with the 6th Cruiser Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet and was transferred to the China Station in 1912.

When the war began, she was in Wei Hai Wei, and was assigned to the small squadron led by Vice Admiral Martyn Jerram, commander-in-chief of the China Station. She was ordered to destroy the German radio station at Yap together with the armoured cruiser Minotaur and the light cruiser Newcastle. En route the ships captured the collier SS Elspeth on 11 August and sank her; Hampshire was too short on coal by then to make the island so Jerram ordered her back to Hong Kong with the crew of the Elspeth. At the end of the month, she was ordered down to the Dutch East Indies to search for any German ships at sea, narrowly missing the German light cruiser Emden. The German ship had not been reported since the war began and she sailed into the Bay of Bengal and began preying upon unsuspecting British shipping beginning on 14 September. Hampshire was ordered there to search for Emden and remained there through October and November, together with the armed merchant cruiser Empress of Asia, looking for the raider until she was destroyed on 9 November by HMAS Sydney. Hampshire then escorted an ANZAC troop convoy through the Indian Ocean and Red Sea to Egypt. Hampshire was refitted in Gibraltar in December before returning home to serve with the Grand Fleet. She was assigned the 7th Cruiser Squadron in January 1915 and was detached in November to escort shipping in the White Sea. She returned home in time to participate in the Battle of Jutlandon 31 May 1916 with the 2nd Cruiser Squadron. During the battle she was never actually engaged and only fired four salvos at the German II Scouting Group that fell well short of their targets in addition to shooting at illusory submarine periscopes throughout the day.

Last voyage and sinking
Immediately after the battle, she was ordered to carry Lord Kitchener from Scapa Flow on a diplomatic mission to Russia via the port of Arkhangelsk. Due to the gale-force conditions, it was decided that Hampshire would sail through the Pentland Firth, then turn north along the western coast of the Orkney Islands. This course would provide a lee from the strong winds, allowing escorting destroyers to keep pace with her. She departed Scapa Flow at 16:45 and about an hour later rendezvoused with her two escorts, the Acasta-class destroyers Unity and Victor. As the ships turned to the northwest the gale increased and shifted direction so that the ships were facing it head on. This caused the destroyers to fall behind Hampshire. As it was considered unlikely that enemy submarines would be active in such conditions, Captain Savill of the Hampshire ordered Unity and Victor to return to Scapa Flow.

Sailing alone in heavy seas, Hampshire was approximately 1.5 mi (2.4 km) off the mainland of Orkney between Brough of Birsay and Marwick Head at 19:40 on 5 June when an explosion occurred and she heeled to starboard. She had struck one of several mines laid by the German minelaying submarine U-75 on 28/29 May, just before the Battle of Jutland. The detonation had holed the cruiser between bows and bridge, and the lifeboats were smashed against the side of the ship by the heavy seas when they were lowered. About 15 minutes after the explosion, Hampshire sank by the bow. Of the 735 crewmembers and 14 passengers aboard, only 12 crew survived after coming ashore on three Carley floats. A total of 737 were lost including Kitchener and all the members of the mission to Russia.

Fritz Joubert Duquesne, a Boer and German spy, claimed to have assumed the identity of Russian Count Boris Zakrevsky and joined Kitchener in Scotland. Duquesne supposedly signalled a German U-boat shortly after departing Scapa Flow to alert them that Kitchener's ship was approaching. He was then rescued by the submarine as Hampshire sank. In the 1930s and '40s, he ran the Duquesne Spy Ring and was captured by the FBI along with 32 other Nazi agents in the largest espionage conviction in U.S. history.

Wreck

Salvaged propeller and shaft from Hampshire


Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Winchester War Memorial outside Winchester Cathedral

The wreck is designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act at coordinates 59°7.065′N 3°23.843′WCoordinates:

59°7.065′N 3°23.843′W and diving is forbidden without a licence. The ship is upside down at a depth of 55–70 metres (180–230 ft) of water.

Memorials
In 1983 one propeller and part of HMS Hampshire's drive shaft were salvaged from the wreck. They are now on view at the Scapa Flow Visitor Centre and Museum, Lyness, Hoy, Orkney.

The 737 HMS Hampshire dead are commemorated on the right-hand side of the base at the Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Winchester War Memorial outside Winchester Cathedral.

A tower was erected on Marwick Head, in 1924 by the people of Orkney to the memory of Lord Kitchener and the officers and men of HMS Hampshire.

Media
The sinking of the ship and the events surrounding Kitchener's death are portrayed in the 1969 film Fraulein Doktor about a female spy, and the 1921 film How Kitchener Was Betrayed.

The ship also features prominently in the novel Crescent Dawn by Clive Cussler, in which the ship is destroyed by a bomb inside the ship, placed there by the Church of England to eliminate Lord Kitchener, who in the story had insulted church beliefs.

The Final Voyage of HMS Hampshire Concert Version

Fraulein Doktor (1969) complete: Suzy Kendall, Capucine in WW1 spy classic

How Kitchener Was Betrayed (1921) | BFI National Archive
This film exploiting rumours surrounding the death of Lord Kitchener was banned by the authorities on its release. Only reel one survives, showing the setting up of the story with the sensationalist premise that Kitchener was betrayed by a German spy and his ship, the HMS Hampshire, sunk deliberately. Unfortunately we never get to the exciting part, but it appears well-made with Fred Paul a convincing Kitchener. The death of Lord Kitchener, one of the most capable and popular British Army commanders, amounted to a national tragedy. He had raised a massive volunteer army in 1914 on pure charisma, and the famous poster with the slogan 'Lord Kitchener Wants You' is one of the enduring images of the Great War. His biographer Sir George Arthur even said that "the men came because Kitchener asked them". The conspiracy theory turned out to be just that: the Hampshire really sank because she hit a mine in a force nine gale off the coast of Orkney. This video is part of the Orphan Works collection. When the rights-holder for a film cannot be found, that film is classified as an Orphan Work. Find out more about Orphan Works: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/c.... This is in line with the EU Orphan Works Directive of 2012. The results of our search for the rights holder of this film can be found in the EU Orphan Works Database: https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en...

HMS Hampshire (1903) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1942 - Heavy cruiser Mikuma sunk on 5 June 1942 in the Battle of Midway, with the loss of 650 of her crew.


Mikuma (三隈 Mikuma) was the second vessel in the four-vessel Mogami class of heavy cruisers in the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was named after the Mikuma river in Oita prefecture, Japan. Commissioned in 1935, it participated in the Battle of Sunda Strait in February 1942 and the Battle of Midway in June 1942. It was sunk the last day of the battle, June 6.





Background
Built under the 1931 Fleet Replenishment Program, the Mogami-class cruisers were designed to the maximum limits allowed by the Washington Naval Treaty, using the latest technology. This resulted in the choice of a 155 mm dual purpose (DP) main battery in five triple turrets capable of 55° elevation. To save weight, electric welding was used, as was aluminum in the superstructure, and the use of a single funnel stack. New impulse geared turbine engines, coupled with very heavy anti-aircraft protection, gave the class a very high speed and protection. However, the Mogami class was also plagued with technical problems due to its untested equipment and proved to be unstable and top-heavy as well, due to cramming too much equipment into a comparatively small hull.

Port side view of Mikuma's smokestack, Aug 1938; dual stripes indicate memberships in Sentai 7

Battle of Midway
On 5 June, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, CINC of the Combined Fleet ordered Cruiser Division 7 to shell Midway in preparation for a Japanese landing. Cruiser Division 7 and DesDiv 8 were 410 miles (660 km) away from the island, so they made a high-speed dash at 35 knots (65 km/h). The sea was choppy and the destroyers lagged behind. At 2120, the order was canceled; however, due to a mixup, Cruiser Division 7 did not receive the order till 0210 the following day, when it was just 50 miles (80 km) off Midway. This placed Cruiser Division 7 within range of the submarine USS Tambor, which was spotted by the cruiser Kumano. Kumanosignaled a 45° simultaneous turn to starboard to avoid possible torpedoes. The emergency turn was correctly executed by the flagship and Suzuya, but the third ship in the line, Mikuma, erroneously made a 90° turn. Behind her, Mogami turned 45° as commanded. This resulted in a collision in which Mogami rammed Mikuma's portside, below the bridge. Mogami's bow caved in and she was badly damaged. Mikuma's portside oil tanks ruptured and she began to spill oil, but otherwise her damage was slight. The destroyers Arashio and Asashio were ordered to stay behind and escort Mogami and Mikuma. At 0534, retiring Mikuma and Mogamiwere bombed from high altitude by eight Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses from Midway, but they scored no hits. At 0805, six USMC Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bombers and six Vought SB2U Vindicators from Midway attacked Mikuma and Mogami but they did not achieve any direct hits. A Vindicator flown by Capt. Richard E. Fleming attacked after being set ablaze by anti-aircraft fire. His bomb missed and he attempted to ram the bridge of the ship. He missed the bridge but hit the after turret instead. The resulting fire was drawn into the air intakes for the engine room, causing an explosion of gas fumes below which killed all hands in the engine room.


Mikuma shortly before sinking


Mikuma burning after being bombed by American carrier planes, just before sinking. Note her completely destroyed midsection.

The following morning, 6 June 1942, Mikuma and Mogami were heading for Wake Island when they were attacked by three waves of SBD Dauntless dive-bombers, comprising 31 aircraft, from the aircraft carriers USS Enterpriseand Hornet. Arashio and Asashio were each hit by a bomb. Mogami was hit by six bombs. Mikuma was hit by at least five bombs in the forecastle, bridge area and amidships and set afire. The hit on the forecastle put the forward guns out of commission. The hit near the bridge area set off some AA shells and caused considerable damage to the bridge and personnel. The hit amidships set off several torpedoes and the resulting explosions destroyed the ship. Captain Sakiyama was severely wounded. Mikuma rolled to port and sank at 29°20′N 173°30′E. (It has also been suggested that either Asashio or Suzuya scuttled Mikuma the following day).

Asashio rescued Captain Sakiyama, who was transferred to Suzuya for medical attention, but he died four days later. Mogami, Asashio and Arashio rescued 240 survivors, but 650 men went down with the ship. On 9 June 1942, the submarine USS Trout rescued two survivors from Mikuma and took them to Pearl Harbor as POWs.

Mikuma was removed from the Navy List on 10 August 1942.

Japanese cruiser Mikuma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mogami-class cruiser - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mogami-class Heavy Cruiser | Nihon Kaigun

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
5 June 1983 -177 people are killed when the Russian river cruise ship Aleksandr Suvorov collides with a girder of the Ulyanovsk Railway Bridge.
The collision caused a freight train to derail, further damaging the vessel yet the ship remained afloat and was eventually restored and returned to service


Aleksandr Suvorov (Russian: Александр Суворов) is a Valerian Kuybyshev-class (92-016, OL400) Soviet/Russian river cruise ship, cruising in the Volga–Don basin. On 5 June 1983 Aleksandr Suvorov crashed into a girder of the Ulyanovsk railway bridge. The catastrophe led to 176 deaths yet the ship stayed afloat, was restored and still navigates. Her home port is currently Nizhny Novgorod.





History
The ship was built at Slovenské Lodenice in Komárno, Czechoslovakia in 1981 and was named after the 18th century Russian generalissimo Alexander Suvorov. Her length is 135.7 m, width 16.8 m, draft 2.9 m, and power 3 × 736 kW (2208). She has three engines and four decks. Her cruising speed is 26 km/h (16 mph; 14 kn), and her passenger capacity is 400. During the 1980s Aleksandr Suvorov was a flagship of the Volga-Don Lines and was based at Rostov-on-Don.

1983 accident
On 5 June 1983 Aleksandr Suvorov sailed from Rostov to Moscow. There were 330 passengers, 30 crew and 35 service personnel aboard. It is believed that some unregistered passengers were also aboard the ship. At approximately 22:00 an auction was advertised as taking place in the cinema hall on the upper deck. A TV translation was to take place at 22:45, which attracted many passengers to the upper deck. The chief mate Vladimir Mitenkov and helmsman Uvarov operated the ship from the wheelhouse, which was also on the upper deck. Captain Vladimir Kleymenov was resting in his cabin. The ship was sailing at 25 km/h (16 mph; 13 kn), the maximum speed. The ship reached the sixth span of the bridge (instead of passable second span) which was lower than the main deck. At that moment a freight train went over the bridge. Controllers at the bank had noticed that Aleksandr Suvorov had come to the wrong span. They sent a radio message to the ship, but there was no reply. They then launched a warning flare, but it was too late. The span cut the deck house and the cinema hall, whilst the lowest deck was undamaged. The impact damaged the bridge, derailed some cars, and some of their contents fell onto the ship. Aleksandr Suvorov continued for another 300 metres (1000 ft) after the bridge. The rescue boats reached Aleksandr Suvorov 40 minutes later.

Soon after the tragedy Ulyanovsk was declared[clarification needed] a closed city. Volunteers became blood donors and made makeshift coffins. Most of the injured survivors had avulsed wounds as a result of being hit by grain and coal from the train cars.





Investigation
mmediately after the catastrophe different versions of events circulated amongst the population, varying from the drunkenness of the crew to criminal activity. A special commission under Heydar Aliyev investigated the disaster.

The commission proposed four official versions:

1. criminal negligence of chief mate Mitenkov
2. criminal negligence of helmsman Uvarov
3. criminal negligence of the railwaymen, who did not set up the illumination of the bridge
4. there was no illumination at the bridge

There was a switch tower on the bridge which looked similar to the navigation sign which was there to indicate the right span to use for passing under the bridge. Railwaymen and sailors had previously argued about the illumination of the bridge, but there was speculation that Aliyev protected the Soviet Railways minister Boris Beshchev and the crew of the Suvorov were accused. An expert proved that Mitenkov and Uvarov, who were killed in the accident, were sober.

After the accident, Captain Kleymenov was picked up at the dam near the bridge footing. He was in swimming trunks and was distraught. As he had failed to prevent the accident and had not provided a proper order, he was condemned to ten years imprisonment, but was released six years later. He died of an infarction in 1990.

Aleksandr Suvorov (ship) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Riverfleet.ru - Архив происшествий - 1983 год - Катастрофа пассажирского теплохода "Александр Суворов"

Riverfleet.ru - Cайт по речному флоту России

web.archive.org

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 5 June


1779 - Capture of the HMS Revenge (24) by USS Minerva (20), Charming Sally (18) and Cadwallader (14)

HMS Revenge (1778) was a 14-gun brig-sloop in service in 1778 and captured by the Americans in 1779.

Capture of the Revenge, 5th June 1779

Description and participants : Capture of the Revenge, 5th June 1779

threedecks.org

1794 - The first officers of the U.S. Navy under the new United States Constitution are appointed:
John Barry, Samuel Nicholson, Silas Talbot, Joshua Barney, Richard Dale, and Thomas Truxtun. They are also asked to supervise the construction of new ships.


1799 – Launch of The first USS John Adams was originally built in 1799 as a frigate for the United States Navy, converted to a corvette in 1809, and later converted back to a frigate in 1830.

The first John Adams was originally built in 1799 as a frigate for the United States Navy, converted to a corvette in 1809, and later converted back to a frigate in 1830. Named for President John Adams, she fought in the Quasi-War, the First and Second Barbary Wars, the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. At the end of her career, she participated in the Union blockade of South Carolina's ports. She then participated in a historic raid that Harriet Tubman, the former slave and Union operative, organized with Union colonel Montgomery. John Adams led three steam-powered gunboats up the Harbor River to Port Royal. The squadron relied on local black mariners to guide it past mines and fortifications. The squadron freed 750+ slaves and unsettled the Confederacy. Tubman was the first woman in U.S. history to plan and execute an armed expedition.

This John Adams should not be confused with the frigate USS Adams.

USS John Adams (1799) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1807 Boats of HMS Pomone (38), Cptn. Robert Barrie, captured gun-brig and 14 sail south of the Ile d'Yeu

HMS Pomone was a 38-gun Leda-class fifth rate of the Royal Navy launched in 1805. She saw action during the Napoleonic Wars, primarily in the Mediterranean while under the command of Captain Robert Barrie. She was wrecked off The Needles, part of the Isle of Wight, in 1811.


HMS Pomone, from a colour lithograph by T. G. Dutton, after a painting by G.F. St.John



Scale 1:60. A contemporary full hull model of ‘Pomone’ (1805) a 38-gun frigate fifth-rate ship of the line. The model is decked, equipped and partially rigged, and represents a ship measuring 150 feet along the lower deck by 40 feet in the beam and a tonnage of 1076 builder’s old measurement. The upper deck was armed with twenty eight 18-pounder guns, eight 9-pounders on the quarterdeck and two 12-pounder guns on the forecastle. It was originally thought that this model depicted the French ‘Pomone’, a 44-gun frigate launched in 1785 and later captured by the British in 1794. However, at this scale, the beam is too great and it is doubtful as to whether any French frigate of this date would have had the rounded forecastle bulkhead. The model dimensions do fit almost exactly the British ‘Pomone’ that was built by Brindley of Frinsburg, Kent, and launched in 1805. This ship spent most of its career off the French Atlantic coast and is credited with the capture of the Neapolitan privateer ‘Lucien Charles’ in 1809, as well as taking part in the action in Rosas Bay in the same year. She was eventually wrecked off the Needles in 1811. This model is complete with a number of interesting features such as the full set of ship’s boats in the waist and on the stern davits, covered hammock netting on the bulwarks, and rather uniquely, the ship is shown ‘in ordinary’ or laid up with the topmasts and bowsprit struck and stored in their lowered position. The model was once in the possession of Sir Edward Reynell Anson (1902-51), 6th Baronet

HMS Pomone (1805) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Leda-class frigate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Collections - National Maritime Museum

1812 - schooner HMS Lord Nelson commanded by Robert Percy, captured by USS Oneida, commanded by Commodore M.T. Woolsey, while enforcing the Embargo Law. Captured a second time in 1815 by USS Constitution, commanded by Charles Stewart

USS Oneida (1809) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1813 - Attack at Chiliodromia, 5th June 1813

More than once in the course of 1812 and 1813 did Lieutenant George Canning, acting Commander of the Kite, 16, come into conflict in the Mediterranean with Turkish subjects, whom, rightly or wrongly, he believed to be pirates, but whom he failed to prove to be so. His proceedings, dictated no doubt by somewhat mis-directed zeal, ended on June 5th, 1813, in a serious catastrophe. He attacked some supposed pirates on the island of Chiliodromia, in the northern Sporades, and sent in his boats to destroy their vessels. The natives, who had taken up positions on commanding heights, attacked the party by rolling down huge boulders on it, the result being that, out of 40 officers and men employed, no fewer than 20 were killed and 18 wounded, among the former being Lieutenant C Williams. Canning was superseded on July 23rd, but promoted on June 15th, 1814.

Attack at Chiliodromia, 5th June 1813

Description and participants : Attack at Chiliodromia, 5th June 1813

threedecks.org

1829 – HMS Pickle captures the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba.

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


1917 - USS Jupiter (AC 3), which transports the First Naval Aeronautical Detachment, arrives at Pauillac, France prior to World War I.
The men are commanded by Lt. Kenneth Whiting. Offloading is completed by June 10. USS Jupiter (AC 1) is later converted into the Navys first aircraft carrier USS Langley (CV 1).


1942 Japanese aircraft carriers Akagi and Hiryū sunk

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

Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1944 - USS Puffer (SS 268) attacks a Japanese convoy in the Sulu Sea and sinks underway replenishment vessel Ashizuri and oiler Takasaki while also damaging tanker No.2 Hishi Maru, north-east of Borneo. Also on this date, USS Shark (SS 314) sinks Japanese transport Tamahime Maru and army transport Takaoka Maru west of the Mariana Islands.


1945 - A typhoon hits while Task Group 38.1 and Task Group 30.8 are off the coast of Okinawa. Task Group 38.1 passes through the eye of the storm at 7 a.m. that morning. Hurricane force winds of 70 knots (80.5 miles per hour), with gusts up to 100 knots (115 per hour) damage almost every ship in the task groups.