Nineteen Keys and the Lure of a Furious Sea.

70 Years ago Today.

2011-05-27T21:21:00.006+02:00

In memory of the men in the Battleship Bismarck, sunk seventy years ago today, May 27th, 1941.

The magnificent story of HMS Glowworm

2010-06-25T22:43:00.011+02:00

HMS Glowworm (H92) was a G-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She entered service in the interwar period and initially served in the Mediterranean. She had a brief but distinguished career in the Second World War. She was an early war loss when she fought an unequal engagement with the German cruiser Admiral Hipper on 8 April 1940, being heavily damaged before ramming the Admiral Hipper, and then sinking.

HMS Glowworm

On the morning of 8 April 1940 Glowworm was on her way to rejoin the Renown when she encountered the German destroyers Z 11 Bernd von Arnim and then the Z 18 Hans Lüdemann in the heavy fog around 08:00. The destroyers were part of a German naval detachment, led by the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, on its way to land invasion troops at Trondheim as part of the German invasion of Norway (Operation Weserübung). A skirmish broke out and the German destroyers fled, signalling for help.

The request was soon answered by the Admiral Hipper. Although hopelessly outgunned, Glowworm accepted the fight and, while receiving several heavy hits, fired torpedoes at the German cruiser. They missed and, in a final desperate effort to sink or at least seriously damage her opponent, Glowworm then attempted to ram Admiral Hipper. One of the Hipper’s shells hit the Glowworm’s mast. As this crashed down, it caused a short circuit of the wiring, causing the ship's siren to start a banshee wail which nobody was able to stop.

As the ships collided, Admiral Hipper suffered major damage, with a large underwater gash in her bow. With the two ships locked together, Glowworm fired one last shot at point-blank range into the Hipper. Glowworm was pushed under the cruiser's bow and her entire forecastle was sheared off up to the bridge. For several minutes she drifted, on fire, alongside Admiral Hipper, then capsized and sank north-west of Trondheim. 111 of the ship's company were killed and 39 were taken prisoner.

During the engagement Glowworm had broken radio silence and informed the Admiralty of her situation. She was not able to complete her transmission, and all the Admiralty knew was that the Glowworm had been confronted by a large German ship, shots were fired, and contact with the destroyer could not be re-established. In response, the Admiralty ordered the Renown and her single destroyer escort (the other two had gone to friendly ports for fuel) to abandon its post at the Vestfjords and head to the Glowworm's last known location.

At 10:45, the remaining eight destroyers of the minelaying force were ordered to join as well. The Admiral Hipper had meanwhile departed the scene damaged, and made her way to Trondheim.

The Glowworm’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Gerard Broadmead Roope, killed when she sank, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, thus becoming the first VC recipient of the Second World War. The award was justified, in part, by the recommendation of his opponent, Captain Hellmuth Heye of the Admiral Hipper, who wrote to the British authorities via the Red Cross, giving a statement of the valiant courage Lt Cdr Roope had shown when engaging a much superior ship in close battle.

Ship position at sinking:64°27′N 06°28′E.

Whatever Happened to Midshipman Joe Brooks, RN?

2010-05-30T17:39:00.017+02:00

Click this link for an excellent article from the edition of LIFE Magazine, August 11, 1941.

Wonderful water colours painted by Joe Brooks in recollection of the Bismarck Action from his point of view in HMS Dorsetshire, along with articles by Joe Brooks and Lt. Cdr. Geoffrey Carver, RN, the Torpedo Officer in HMS Dorsetshire.

The Truth about Benjamin Martin, RN.

2010-05-27T12:23:00.024+02:00

HMS Dorsetshire was a gorgeous ship. A County Class, three-stack heavy cruiser. She was fast, very fast, and packed a wallop. She could lift her ten tons to clip at 32.5 knots if so inclined, but she had no ASW equipment, or anti-submarine warfare. As you might imagine, this would play heavily on the mind of anyone charged with the responsibility of commanding her.

In late May 1941, the Dorsetshire was one of the ships which engaged the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic. On 27 May, the Dorsetshire was ordered to torpedo the Bismarck, which had by that point been crippled by repeated aircraft and naval attacks. The Dorsetshire torpedoed the Bismarck, which then sank rapidly, either from the damage she had received from the British, or from the Bismarck's crew working to scuttle her. The Dorsetshire was able to recover only 110 of the Bismarck's crew from the ocean, before being forced to leave to evade a suspected U-boat.

So goes the official line.

Let's now take a closer look.

As with the Bismarck, it is important to develop a sense of the man who commanded this mighty British warship. His name was Benjamin Charles Stanley Martin, born July 18th, 1891.

Benjamin Martin was no stranger to the sea. He joined the Royal Navy as a boy sailor in 1907. He rose through the ranks of the lower deck, eventually rising to the rank of Warrant Officer, the highest non-commissioned rate in the Royal Navy. He saw action in the notorious Battle of Jutland during the first World War when serving in HMS Malaya. By the end of this infamous engagement, when Admirals Jellicoe and Sheer had their only direct head-to-head engagement, 24 ships would be on the bottom. 6000 British and 2500 German sailors would be dead.

Benjamin Martin knew a very great deal about battle at sea. He was there.

Much has been said about HMS Dorsetshire's failure to pick up more than the scant few of some 800 of Bismarck's survivors in the water after her sinking. I, too, for many years, found it unfathomable that he failed to do so. I believed he was a brutal man, so embittered by the sinking of HMS Hood that he used the pretext of a proximate submarine to abandon those men and boys, many still clinging to the ship's side. He steamed away and left them to die, one by one, in their hundreds.

Time plays tricks on the truth though. History merges with legend. Legend becomes myth, and in no time at all, the truth becomes obscured by the bullshit of opinion and diluted fact. I am as guilty as anyone in this regard and I now hold an entirely variant view of Captain Martin. I sincerely believe him to be a distinguished and highly experienced officer and warship commander who did the only feasible thing available to him at the time.

I have recently had the privilege of meeting a member of HMS Dorsetshire's ship's company. I cannot mention who, not because I think he would object to being mentioned here, but simply because I have not obtained his permission. To name him here without it would be quite improper, but suffice it to say, this sailor worked intimately with Captain Martin and knew him better than any other person onboard the ship.

Captain Martin was held in immensely high regard by the lower deck in HMS Dorsetshire. He was known, with tremendous affection, as "PINCHER" Martin and many of the survivors of her ultimate sinking would go on to offer the view that their ship would never have been sunk at all if "PINCHER" was still in command off Ceylon that Easter Sunday of 1942, rather than the show pony Augustus Agar, VC.

Martin was "stern when needed" and a "good humoured man" with a "strong sense of duty". According to my wonderful witness, Captain Martin was never further than shouting distance from his bridge when underway.

As to reports of brutality and suicides, it must be remembered that HMS Dorsetshire was based in Plymouth. As such she was, at that time, a Guz ship, in naval slang. 'Guz', or Plymouth, was repeatedly bombed during the war and suffered terrible destruction. There was rarely any news from home. No knowledge of whether loved ones, their children, were alive or dead. This played ferociously on the minds of all on board, but for two it became too much to bear. By May of 1941, HMS Dorsetshire had been away from home port for three years. She visited GUZ only once in all that time and then for only a month, permitting 2 weeks leave for each watch. Apart from this, there was no family contact, no mail, no news. The strain of it lead to two suicides under the Captain Martin's Command. One, a leading torpedoman, hanged himself and a junior gunnery officer shot himself. Both from abject despair at separation from those they loved.

As to the abandonment of those German men and boys in their hundreds.

An extract from 'Pursuit', by Ludovic Kennedy.

The Dorsetshire came round from the port side where she had fired her last torpedo, lay stopped in the sea a little way off; and survivors who had wondered if they were not escaping death by shellfire for death by drowning, felt a new surge of hope: even if it meant being taken prisoner, they were going to be rescued, they were going to live.

They struck out as well as they could towards the cruiser, though with the high seas and the oil from Bismarck's tanks and the wounds of many, it wasn't easy. Mullenheim-Rechberg, swimming along, passed a man who said, "I've no left leg any more". Staat remembered being told that when you died of cold, you first felt it in the testicles, but it was his feet and fingers that were getting numb. After more than an hour's swimming the first of them reached the Dorsetshire's side, where rafts, ropes, scrambling nets, fenders, lifelines of all kinds had been let down. Mullenheim-Rechberg noticed that many men, not seamen, didn't know how to grip a straight rope, urged them to get into ropes with bowlines. Staat's fingers were so frozen that he couldn't grip the rope at all, seized it with his teeth, was hauled on board that way. Mullenheim-Rechberg put his foot in a bowline rope, was pulled up by two sailors: when he reached deck level he tried to grab the guard-rail, was too exhausted and fell back into to sea. He got into the same rope again, was hauled up by the same two sailors, this time took no risks, said in immaculate English, "please help me on board", which they did. Midshipman Joe Brooks of the Dorsetshire went down one of the lifelines, tried to get a bowline round a German who had lost both arms and was gripping the lifeline with his teeth. The ship rolled heavily, they both went under. Brooks never saw him again.

The Dorsetshire had picked up some eighty men and the Maori some twenty, many more were in the process of being hauled up and hundreds more were waiting in the water when an unexpected thing happened. Dorsetshire's navigating officer, Lieutenant Commander Durant, sighted on the starboard bow two miles away a smoky discharge in the water. He pointed it out to Catpain Martin and others on the bridge. No one knew what it was but the most likely explanation was a U-boat. The Admiralty had sent a warning that U-boats were on the way and they were lucky not to have encountered any already. And if it was a U-boat, Dorsetshire, laying stopped in the water, was a sitting target. In the circumstances, Captain Martin had no choice but to ring down for full speed and in HMS Maori, Commander Armstrong did the same.

Bismarck survivors who were almost on board were bundled over the guard-rails on to the deck: those half-way up the ropes found themselves training astern, hung on as long as they could against the forward movement of the ship, dropped off one by one, others in the water clawed frantically at the paintwork as the side slipped by. In Dortsetshire they heard the thin cries of hundreds of Germans who had come within an inch of rescue, had believed that their long ordeal was at last over, cries that the British sailors, no less than survivors already on board, would always remember. From the water, Bismarck's men watched appalled as the cruiser's grey side swept past them, believed then that tales they'd heard about the British not caring much about survivors where true after all, presently found themselves alone in the sunshine on the empty, tossing sea. And during the day, as they floated about he Atlantic with only lifebelts between them and eternity, the cold came to their testicles and hands and feet and heads, and one by one they lost consciousness, and one by one they died.

My expert witness to these dreadful events, corroborates Kennedy's version of events. In fact it was he, my witness, who ran Captain Martin's order to the commander overseeing the rescue operation. Captain Martin further ordered denton rafts and anything that floated to be tossed overboard to provide whatever assistance he could. We should all remember that the principal responsibliity of ALL warship captains, is to his own ship and crew. A ten ton heavy cruiser, dead in the water, would have presented a tasty target indeed to a U-boat, none of whom knew the fate of Bismarck. They were racing to the scene to help her make Brest.

And now from the German point of view.

Baron Burkard von Müllenheim-Rechberg, refered to in the above extract from Ludovic Kennedy's book, was the senior ranking officer among the survivors of Bismarck, hauled aboard HMS Dorsetshire. I'm delighted to show you this.....

It is a note sent by Captain Martin to the German the day after his rescue.

von Müllenheim-Rechberg writes in his book 'Battleship Bismarck, a Survivor's Story'.....

Escorted by the first officer, Commander CW Byas, I went to see how our men were getting along. Everything was satisfactory; the ship's surgeon was taking care of the sick and injured, and they all felt they were being treated very well. They were getting five meals a day and eating the same excellent food as the crew. The smokers among them were being issued twenty cigarettes a day. I learned later that it was no different in the Maori, which picked up twenty-five men, bringing the number resuced by British ships to 110, about 5 per cent of the more than 2200 on board.

When Byas took me to the bridge, Captain Martin greeted me in a friendly enough manner and gave me a Scotch. The gesture was well meant but I was still too horrified at his leaving all those men in the water the day before to really appreciate it. "Why', I burst out, "did you suddently break off the rescue and leave hundreds of our men to drown?" Martin replied that a U-boat had been sighted, or at least reported, and he obviously could not endanger his ship by staying stopped any longer. The Bismarck's experiences on the night of 26 May and the morning of the 27th, I told him, indicated that there were no U-boats in the vicinity. Farther away, perhaps, but certianly not within firing range of the Dorsetshire. I added that in war one often sees what one expects to see. We argued the point back and forth until Martin said ubruptly: "Just leave that to me. I'm older than you are and have been at sea longer. I'm a better judge". What more could i say? He was the captain and was responsible for his ship.

Apparently, some floating object had been mistaken for a persiscope or a strip of foam on the water for the wake of a torpedo. No matter what it was, I am now convinced that, under the circumstances, Martin had to act as he did.

I would like to end by mentioinng Martin Smith, son of Allon Smith, observer on the Dorsetshire's Walrus. Martin has been a faithful correspondent here on this blog and has been equally faithful to the remembrances of his father. Martin Smith has written here that Allon Smith, Dorsetshire's observer aircrew member, thought of Captain Martin, "a proper bastard". I would like to wonder out loud that, if in the entire history of the fleet air arm, Mr. Smith is the only junior officer who though ill of his captain. For many, even today, it is de rigueur.

Finally, much has been written of Midshipman Brooks and his attempted rescue. My witness has reported that, whilst he was certainly reprimanded by Captain Martin, he was NOT confined to his cabin. I have, in my research, unearthed quite a bit of material about what became of Midshipman Brooks and will publish it in the days ahead.

In conclusion, I think Captain Martin has been inadequately remembered for his part in one of the great naval battles of history. His was an unenviable position on that late morning, sixty nine years ago today, but my research has revealed he was an honourable man, a brave and dutiful officer, first-rate warship captain, and a decent man possessed of a strong moral core and excellent qualities of leadership. His memory deserves to be dishonoured no longer.

Remembering the Battleship BISMARCK

2010-05-27T01:24:00.023+02:00

Any discussion about the Bismarck should begin, and end, with this man. Captain Ernst Lindemann. From his early days as a young gunnery officer in the Battleships Elsass and Schleswig-Holstein during World War 1, Lindemann went on to be a lecturer at the Naval Gunnery School. From 1936 he was an advisor to, and later head of, the construction department of the Naval High Command. If you were to choose your very best man to command your very best ship, Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann was an ideal choice. Such key people were crucial in the war at sea during those dark days of the 1940's. From the German point of view, it was a case of so few against so many. The "many" they referred to was, of course, His Majesty's Royal Navy, then the greatest sea power ever known.

The strategy was as brilliant as it was simple.

Sink enemy merchant shipping, avoid enemy warships and on NO account, engage Battleships of the Royal Navy.

By 1941, three million tons of allied merchant ships had been sunk by German U-boats and the impact was very nearly catastrophic. Since Britain is an island, the best way to bring her to her knees, then as now, is to interdict her trade routes. If you sink the ships bringing provisions to Britain, you will very soon starve her. It was for this purpose that the greatest Battleships of the the Kriegsmarine were built.

None greater than this one. None greater than BISMARCK. In fact, so massive was Bismarck, Captain Lindemann decided his ship was to be known and referred to as, a 'he', rather than in the female as is customary when it came to ships. Not for Bismarck, though. Bismarck was a 'he'.

Three days earlier, Bismarck not only engaged battleships of the Royal Navy, but sunk the very pride of their fleet during the Battle of the Denmark Strait. This unleashed a force of fury and determination that would lead to sinking of Bismarck. But she very, VERY nearly got away with it.

After sinking HMS Hood, Bismarck and Prince Eugen were relentlessly pursued by HMS Norfolk and Suffolk. In a brilliant tactic, the two German ships separated, causing the hounds to lose the scent, thus allowing their fox Bismarck to escape into the vastness of the Atlantic. It was only a long, rambling and completely unnecessary series of radio messages sent by Admiral Günther Lütjens that permitted the location of Bismarck to be triangulated by radio detection stations onshore in Britain.

HMS King George V was on her way at high speed though over 110 nautical miles away. HMS Rodney and Dorsetshire were to leave convoy duty for the hunt, and an attack force from Gibraltar, HMS Sheffield and the brand new carrier HMS Ark Royal was underway at high speed.

Flying his flag in HMS King George V, Admiral Jack Tovey ordered the aircraft from Ark Royal to find and attack Bismarck. She had to be slowed down somehow or they'd have no chance of catching her before she reached Brest and the safety of German air cover.

HMS Sheffield was between the Ark Royal and Bismarck and in their enthusiasm, the Swordfish torpedo bombers of HMS Ark Royal mistook HMS Sheffield for the Bismarck and launched a coordinated attack on their own ship! Fortunately for HMS Sheffield, a new type of contact detonator was being tried on the torpedoes and they were duds. No torpedo exploded and the Swordfish recovered to HMS Ark Royal for rearming with older, but effective detonators.

There was to be no mistake the second time and the subsequent attack disabled Bismarck's steering. It was only a matter of time now.

I think it useful to reflect upon the force gathered to hunt and sink the Bismarck. It required the collective efforts of a British fleet of five battleships, three battle cruisers, two aircraft carriers, four heavy and seven light cruisers, and twenty one destroyers to find an destroy her. In addition, more than fifty aircraft of the RAF's Coastal Command participated in her destruction. At ranges that diminished to 2,500 meters and brought a proportionalely high rate of hits, the following ordnance was fired at the Bismarck after the action off Iceland.

380 16 inch shells fired from HMS Rodney
716 6 inch shells fired from HMS Rodney
339 14 inch shells fired from from HMS KGV
660 5.25 inch shells fired from HMS KGV
527 8 inch shells fired from HMS Norfolk
254 8 inch shells fired from HMS Dorsetshire

In total, 2,876 shells fired at the Bismarck during a course of action that lasted ninety minutes.

Of the battle to sink the Bismarck, CINCHOME, Admiral Jack Tovey wrote:-

"The Bismarck had put up a most gallant fight against impossible odds, worthy of the old days of the Imperial German Navy, and she went down with her colours flying".

The admiral had wanted to say this publicly but the Admiralty informed him: "For political reasons it is essential that nothing of the nature of the sentiments expressed by you should be given publicity, however much we admire a gallant fight".

A final word about Captain Lindemann. This brief extract from 'Battleship Bismarck, a survivors story' by Baron Burkard Von Müllenheim-Rechberg, the Bismarck's top-ranking survivor.

When swimmers close to the bow of the ship looked back, they saw Lindemann standing on the forecastle in front of turret Anton. His messenger, a seaman, was with him. Soon, both men went forward and began climbing a steadily increasing slope. Lindemann's gestures showed that he was urging his companion to go overboard and save himself. The man refused and stayed with his commanding officer until they reached the jackstaff. Then Lindemann walked out on the starboard side of the stem which, though rising ever higher, was becoming more level as the ship lay over. There he stopped and raised his hand to his white cap. The Bismarck now lay completely on her side. Then, slowly, slowly, she and the saluting Lindemann went down.

Later a machineist wrote,

"I always thought such things happened only in books, but I saw it with my own eyes."

The Battleship Bismarck, sunk on this day, May 27th, 1941. Sixty nine years ago today. She sank slowly by the stern and slipped beneath the waves at 1039 am. Of her ship's company of 2200, 1995 would die.

Remembering HMS Hood, sunk on this day 69 years ago.

2010-05-22T21:00:00.041+02:00

THE MIGHTY HOOD

Some ships are ledgendary. So much more than mere metal and gunpowder. Some of them, by their beauty and power, became the very embodiment of Empire. Everything that was great and good about British sea power. So it was with HMS Hood.

Actually, she wasn't a Battleship in the strictest sense. HMS Hood was a battle cruiser. Battlecruisers were generally as large and costly as battleships of the same generation, often using the same large-calibre main armament, but they traded off armour or firepower for higher speed. The earliest battlecruisers carried significantly less armour than the equivalent battleship, meaning they were not intended to stand up against the guns they themselves carried. Thus ships of this type could inflict much more punishment than they could absorb.

The following is an extract from Ludovic Kennedy's excellent book 'Pursuit'. It describes the mighty HOOD so beautifully; and far better than I'm able.

She was an old lady now, one of the oldest in the Navy, laid down in 1916 in the Clydebank yards of John Brown, who later built the great Queens, named after a family who had given the Navy four famous admirals, Lord Hood who helped Rodney defeat the French in the West Indies in the eighteenth century, his brother Lord Bridport who was with Howe at the Glorious First of June, Sam Hood who helped Nelson win the battle of the Nile, Horace Hood killed at Jutland when his flagship Invincible blew up.

She was launched by his widow, Lady Hood, in August 1918, just three months before the Armistice, the biggest warship ever built, longer even that Bismarck (860 feet as compared to 828) though narrower in the beam, with - like Bismarck - eight fifteen inch guns mounted in pairs in four turrets. Her maximum speed of 32 knots made her the fastest warship of her size in the world, going flat out it took a ton of oil to drive her half a mile.

She was a beautiful ship, elegant and symmetrical like Bismarck, yet dignified and restrained, without the aggressive sweep of Bismarck's lines or the massiveness that spoke of held-back power. But she had one great defect, a lack of armour on her upper decks. Hood had been laid down before Jutland where three British battle cruisers were destroyed by German shells which, fired at long range, had plunged vertically through the lightly protected decks, exploding inside. All big ships built after Jutland had strengthened armour.

Hood's armour was strengthened on her sides but not on her decks: they were to be her Achilles heel.

The Admirals

2010-05-22T15:25:00.018+02:00

These three men are central to our story. 69 years ago, two of them had only days to live and with them, 4000 officers, men and boys would be lost in one of the greatest Battleship engagements of naval history. The fate of these men would materially effect the future of Battleships, for decades the capitol ship of all navies everywhere. It was, and still is, about power. Being able to project naval power. You could protect with a lesser ship, but in order to project, a Battleship was called for. But not for much longer.

Naval warfare was to change forever.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Cronyn Tovey, 1st Baron Tovey, GCB, KBE, DSO, DCL

Admiral Sir 'Jack' Tovey, Here is another of Jack Tovey, wearing the lace of a full Admiral, RN, when Commander in Chief Home Fleet (CINCHOME), and flying his flag in HMS King George V during the hunt for Bismarck.

Vice Admiral Lancelot Earnest Holland, flew his flag in HMS Hood

Admiral Günther Lütjens

In the 1960 film, Sink the Bismarck!, Lütjens is portrayed as egotistic, overconfident, and a Nazi enthusiast angered over Germany's humiliation and his own lack of recognition at the end of World War I. In reality, Lütjens, the grandson of a jew, was pessimistic of the chance of success of Bismarck's mission and did not agree with Nazi policies; he was one of the few officers who refused to give the Nazi salute when Hitler visited Bismarck before its first and final mission, deliberately using instead the traditional naval salute. Lütjens also wore by choice the dirk of the Kaiserliche Marine, rather than the more modern Kriegsmarine dirk which bore a swastika. The film also makes a mistake in the sequence of events aboard Bismarck, showing Lütjens ordering Captain Ernst Lindemann to open fire on Hood and Prince of Wales. In the event, Lütjens actually ordered Lindemann to avoid engaging Hood, but Lindemann disobeyed and ordered the ship's gun crews to open fire on Hood and Prince of Wales.

The Battle of Denmark Strait

2010-05-22T13:51:00.005+02:00

In two days, we will celebrate the 69th anniversary of one of the great battles in naval history.

Here is the story in the hope in will whet your appetite as to what will follow in the days ahead.

Sinking of the Kreuzer "Blücher"

2010-05-17T10:50:00.011+02:00

Today is May 17th, Norwegian Constitution Day, the National Day of Norway. In recognition of this auspicious date, here is a story of David versus Goliath from the pages of Naval History.

The Blücher was a German Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser. The Kriegsmarine's newest ship at the outbreak of World War II, having been in commission for just over six months, she was sunk by Norwegian shore defences at the Battle of Drøbak Sound on April 9, 1940, the first day of the invasion of Norway (Operation Weserübung).

Blücher was the flagship of the naval flotilla Marine Gruppen 5, with heavy cruiser Lützow (formerly Deutschland), light cruiser Emden, with three small torpedo boats and eight small minesweepers, commanded by Rear Admiral Oskar Kummetz, transporting troops to capture Oslo in the initial stages of the German invasion of Norway - Operation Weserübung ("Weser Exercise").

Blücher's sister ship, Hipper also took part in the invasion of Norway, landing troops at Trondheim (Norway's third largest city, roughly half way up Norway's west coast), despite being rammed and damaged by HMS Glowworm. The troops occupied the city in the early hours, flying the Nazi flag on the city's old Kristiansten Fortress and other municipal buildings before most of the inhabitants had even awoken.

The attack on the German fleet by the Norwegian guard vessel Pol III, just before midnight on April 8, 1940 had alerted the Norwegian defences. Blücher, carrying 1000 troops, led the line as the German flotilla approached the unlit Oscarsborg Fortress on South Kaholmen Island in the Drøbak narrows. The German squadron commander "kept his ship's main armament aligned fore and aft in a gesture of disdain for the Norwegian fortifications."

One of the two 28 cm guns in the main Oslo coastal fortress that took part in the sinking of Blücher
At 04.21 hours, (Norwegian time) the fortress' guns opened fire on the Blücher. The three German-made Krupp 280 mm (11 in) guns (only two were manned due to a lack of trained gunners) of the fortress, installed in 1893 (aptly named Moses, Aaron and Josva), were obsolete, so the defenders held fire until the warships were at point-blank range (most sources state that fire was opened at a range of 1,600 to 1,800 metres (about 1 mile). The first 28 cm shell hit the Blücher right in front of the aft mast, and created an inferno of flames and smoke in the midship area up to the fore mast.

The second Main Battery round shortly thereafter hit the base of the fore 20.3 cm gun turret, throwing large parts of it into the fjord and igniting further fires on board. There was only time for the Main Battery to fire these two rounds, due to their slow reload time with only 30 untrained recruits manning them at the time. There was not time to reload; there was not even time to fire a third gun, Josva (Joshua), which was loaded, but unmanned.

The return fire from Blücher was ineffective, with the light artillery mostly pointing too high and the main batteries, 20.3 cm guns, could not fire due the damage caused by the second 28 cm round from Oscarsborg's Main Battery.

While fire was raging aboard Blücher, the secondary Norwegian coastal batteries pelted her with guns ranging in calibre from the small 57 millimetre pieces at Husvik on the mainland, designed to protect the fortress' minefields (not laid at the time of the invasion), to the 15 cm guns of the Kopås battery on the eastern side of the fjord. The larger guns wrought havoc on board the cruiser while the 57 mm guns concentrated on the cruiser's superstructure and anti-aircraft weapons, and were partially successful in suppressing the fire from her light artillery as the Blücher slowly sailed past the fortress.

The Husvik Battery had to be abandoned when Blücher passed in front of it and fired her light AA guns directly down into the positions. One of the 15 cm rounds from Kopås disabled the Blücher's steering system and forced the cruiser's crew to steer her using the engines and propeller to avoid running aground.

The Germans were unaware of a torpedo battery near Oscarsborg's main gun battery at North Kaholmen Island. Built in 1901, it was equipped with three shore-mounted dual elevators firing the torpedoes via underwater tunnels. The torpedoes were Austro-Hungarian-built Whitehead torpedoes (in the torpedo factory of Fiume, Hungarian Kingdom, now Rijeka, Croatia) of the same turn-of-the-century vintage. These torpedoes had been practice-launched well over 200 times before being fired in anger, and no-one was certain if they would function or not. They did.

Blücher received two direct hits, one near her forward turret Anton and the second in the engine room, leaving her drifting out of control in the narrow fjord. The torpedoes sealed her fate. The rest of the flotilla, seeing the torpedo explosions, mistakently believed that the Blücher had hit mines. As a result, the flotilla reversed out of the narrows, thus ensuring that Oslo would not be invaded at dawn as intended. Before the remaining ships of the invasion force could withdraw, the Lützow was hit three times by the Kopaas battery and her Anton and Bruno turrets were disabled. The damaged Lützow steamed at full-speed astern, into mist and out of the Norwegian shore batteries' zone of fire.

Attempts were made to run Blücher aground on the Nesodden peninsula, but they failed. At 06.00 hours, the damaged and now sinking Blücher dropped anchor at Askholmen. The purpose was to let wind and current swing the stern closer to Askholmene to rescue more of the crew and soldiers onboard. Askholmene is 6 nautical miles (11 km) south of Oslo and out of the arc of fire from the Norwegian shore batteries. Her torpedoes were fired into the sides of the fjord to prevent them from exploding aboard the ship. At 06.23 the fires reached the 10.5 cm ammunition magazine which detonated, dooming the ship.

By 7.00 with no hope of containing the fires, the order to abandon ship was given. At 7.22 hours, the Blücher capsized and sank. Of the 2,202 crew and troops on board, some 830 died (at least 320 of them crewmen). Most either drowned or burnt to death in the flaming oil slick surrounding the wreck. The survivors came ashore on either side of the fjord. The Blücher's sailors were ordered to give up their life jackets (all sailors are expected to be able to swim) to the troops on board, thus saving the lives of a significant number of soldiers. Her Commanding Officer, Kapitan zur See Heinrich Woldag, survived the sinking, but was killed in a plane crash eight days later.

One of the Blücher's anchors at Aker Brygge.

The delay caused to the landings in Oslo allowed the Norwegian royal family, parliament and cabinet to escape.
Norway's gold reserves were also moved out of reach of the invaders and ultimately shipped abroad for Norway's use during the war.

HMS Dorsetshire, the Bismarck and the truth about Captain Benjamin Martin, Royal Navy.

2010-04-18T18:56:00.022+02:00

In May of 2008, I authored a post entitled "HMS Dorsetshire and the ignominy of Benjamin Martin". By clicking the underlined titled of that post you will be taken to what I wrote then.

In that post, I postulated the view that Captain Martin conducted himself in a less than honourable way in leaving so many survivors of the Bismarck to their fate in the Atlantic on that afternoon in late May, 1941. I offered in support of this theory the fact that Captain Martin was relieved of his command upon HMS Dorsetshire's arrival in Newcastle following the dispersal of the fleet returning from battle.

I further offered the colloquial information gathered about Midshipman Joe Brooks and his brutal treatment for attempting to assist Bismarck survivors. Finally, I suggested that Captain Martin's command style was brutal, even cruel on occasion, and suggested his command style was contributory to suicides by crew members in Dorsetshire during her convoy duties that preceded her joining the battle to sink the Bismarck.

That post, more than any other, has generated a polarised discussion in the comments section. It is reproduced for you at the end of this post. Let me conclude, for now, with my words from the end of the most recent comment. I'm hoping they will solicit a return visit here, one month from now.

One month from tomorrow, May 27th, 2010, marks the 69th anniversary of the sinking of the KMS Bismarck by an attack force of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. On that day, I shall publish a post here on my blog that lays bare the entire truth as I have learned it to be.

I am now certain that many of my previously held beliefs are wrong. I will explain myself more fully on May 27th, 2010 here with a brand new post on the subject.  

Thank you all, so very kindly, for your continuing interest and for visiting "Nineteen Keys and the Lure of a Furious Sea". It will be an honour, and indeed my duty, to present for you all, my findings in a month and a day from today.

Best wishes until then. 

Every Sailor

Anonymous said...

My father was an officer on the Dorsetshire and present when Martin announced he was going after the Bismarck. According to my father, Martin had received no order to go after Bismarck and therefore abandoned his convoy. That is the reason for him being relieved of his functions afterwards.
21 September 2008 17:53

Every Sailor said...

Hello Anonymous, and thank you very much indeed for your comment. I'm afraid, with every respect, that your Father is mistaken. Admiral Sir John Tovey flew his flag in HMS King George V, which was the flagship involved in the pursuit of Bismarck following the Battle of the Denmark Strait which culminated in the tragic loss of HMS Hood. After it was clear Bismarck was done for, Admiral Tovey ordered HMS Dorsetshire, under the command of Captain Benjamin Martin, Royal Navy, to finish her off with torpedoes. This done, his further orders were to recover Bismarck survivors. KGV was very low on fuel and needed to recover to Scapa Flow and left Dorsetshire on scene to carry out these orders. However, Captain Martin used the pretext of U-boats in the area to leave hundreds and hundreds of fellow sailors in the Altantic to die, no doubt informed by the still recent memory of the loss of HMS Hood. His disgraceful actions resulted in him losing his command on arrival in Newcastle days later, and not for the reasons your Father suggests. With best regards, and thanks again for your visit.
21 September 2008 18:13

Anonymous said...

I think we are both right. Dorsetshire was never ordered to leave her convoy and went off to the scene to join the fight without permission. She was then ordered to finish Bismarck off. My father was present when Martin made the decision to abandon his convoy. That is historical fact. I don't think he was relieved of his functions for leaving the survivors in the water, that must be pure speculation, unless you have documented proof.

I'm fascinated by the character of Joe Brooks. Have you got anything on him? It was my father who took him the news that he was accused of leaving the ship without permission. He just said, "Jesus". I know he left the Dorsetshire before she was sunk.

I don't want to sign up on Google. My name is Martin. I live just across the Rhine from you in Alsace.
2 October 2008 14:43

Anonymous said...

Thanks for removing the comment. I'm not condoning Martin's actions. He was a hothead and probably a lot more... All reports I have read back up the story of a submarine alert and he was only following procedure. He may well have been looking for a way to curtail his rescue mission. There was a U-Boot (U27?)somewhere near, but it had no more torpedoes. To give Martin credit, he gave the Bismarck sailors who died on Dorsetshire a full military funeral and allowed fellow sailors to make the Hitler salute.

We cannot place ourselves in the context of war. The Doresthire survivors were machine gunned in the water by the very Japanese planes that had sunk the ship. That is also against all the rules of war. It's too easy to condemn people retrospectively. You can even excuse Martin for abandoning his convoy to go and get a bit of action, the number of suicides on Dorsetshire during convoy patrol indicating the desperation caused by the boredom of nothing happening and the constant fear that a torpedo would send you to the bottom in a few minutes.

Let not our fascination for the War blind us into glorifying it.
12 October 2008 16:02

Every Sailor said...

Hello Martin, thanks again for your visits. I haven't removed any comment from this entry and don't know to what you refer. In the time since last writing I was waiting for academic friends to get back to me to confirm my understanding of Captain Martin's motivation and the real reasons for his removal from the command of HMS Dorsetshire, but to date I have no further information, nor do I have any further details of the career of Mid Brooks, although he was received as guest of honour at many Bismarck survivor reunions until well into the 70's. With respect, I think you're wide of the mark in accusing this site of glorifying war. I take the view that war is the apotheosis of vulgarity, hardly glorious, merely an often revisited reminder of our history as savages. My interest here is in ships, and the men who go down to the sea in them. All the very best, Martin, and thanks again for visiting.
12 October 2008 23:27

Anonymous said...

Sorry if I went a bit overboard (sorry about the pun) on my last comment about glorifying the war.
And I could have sworn there was a comment about Martin losing his command for leaving the Bismarck survivors in the water. My mistake. I was not accusing your site of doing anything of the sort. There is just a danger of getting out of touch with the reality. Lots of Brits are fascinated by the War. They tend to get disconnected from the horrors of war.
I'm waiting with baited breath for the information about Martin from your historian friends. I'm also sure Martin used the sub alert to get his revenge on the Bismarck sailors. But is there any historical proof? My father had a few brushes with him. Once my father's Walrus (he was the "observer" (navigator))was left in the middle of the ocean by Martin who suddenly decided to go and look at something. Luckily my father's training taught them to do square searches and he eventually found the ship. My father nearly got into deep trouble when he went at Martin for leaving the agreed position for pick-up.

You can look at my site. Sorry, there's nothing about Dorsetshire.
www.mollkirch.com

Greetings, Martin
13 October 2008 11:29

Anonymous said...

I am reading Robert Ballard's book about the Bismarck and just got through with the section about Martin's decision to leave the German survivors scraping at the sides of the Dorsetshire as it sailed away. Surely he didn't believe a German submarine would launch a torpedo at a ship rescuing it's own countrymen. I believe Martin should go to hell for leaving those men to die.
10 November 2008 06:05

Every Sailor said...

Hello anonymous, and thank you for your comment. I agree with you that Captain Martin's decision to leave all those hundreds of Bismarck survivors in the water is difficult to fathom. The impression I have formed of him is that he was, to put it mildly, a difficult man. It should be remembered that the sinking of HMS Hood only days earlier would have been fresh in his mind, though, and so perhaps he abandoned these men to the Atlantic as an act of revenge. No U-Boat ever fired upon a ship recovering survivors. What is certain, though, is that he was relieved of his command upon arrival at Newcastle days later. It is interesting to imagine what was going through the collective mind of HMS Dorsetshire's ship's company when she herself was sunk by the Japanese the following year, with hundreds of sailors spending the night in the water before being rescued!
10 November 2008 13:16

Anonymous said...

My last comment doesn't seem to have appeared on your site. Are you running out of space? I found this link which mentions the presence of U74 during the sinking of the Bismarck. So there was a U-Boot in the area.

http://www.uboat.net/articles/index.html?article=25

Greetings, Martin
10 January 2009 13:13

Anonymous said...

It's my again, Martin.

This video talks about Dorsetshire leaving its convoy "on its own initiative", in other words "abandoning it".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WubneHZBeic&NR=1

Most likely the reason for Martin's loss of command.
11 January 2009 19:54

Every Sailor said...

Hi Martin, this is your characterization, unsupported by the evidence. Leaving convoy duty in support of a larger action is within the purview of any warship captain in time of war unless he has explicit orders to the contrary. Your use of the words "abandoning it" are emotive, and using them to support what amounts to nothing more than your opinion is not valid. Your long post of some time ago was deleted because it rehashed your points of view made clearly in earlier entries. You're entitled to your opinions, Martin, but I reserve the right to remove them from my blog when, in my view, they offer nothing in pursuit of the truth. Once again, I put it to you that Captain Martin of HMS Dorsetshire was relieved of his command on arrival in Newcastle due, in part, to his dereliction of duty in abandoning (to borrow your word) Bismarck survivors to drown in the north Atlantic, when given explicit orders by Admiral Tovey embarked in HMS King George V to pick them up. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be glad to have it.
11 January 2009 20:51

Anonymous said...

Hello Every Sailor and Martin.
I have come across this sit by pure accident and find it quit disturbing. I am the great grandchild of Benjamin Martin, and a serving member of the Royal Navy. I Find this blog very one sided on behalf of yourself Every Sailor and find you do not seem to give credit to Martins opinion.

I am sure there is some form of evidence that reflects both your arguments and mine, though it will be one of those things that will never come to light but just think of these true facts that still ring true to this very day. Leaving your patrol (Convoy) is an act of “abandoning” and is an act that is punishable. At war the ship is first and life is second. Ask yourself this, if you were in the situation my great granddad found himself in, sitting in the water like a sitting duck with a possible U –Boat in the area. Would you not remove yourself to save your ship and the ships company? Or would you stay and risk your men and the fellow men they saved.

Every Sailor you say “No U-Boat ever fired upon a ship recovering survivors” but no one ever sank the Germans pride battle ship the Bismarck. War is a very unpredictable thing. I believe you should watch the link Martin put on your blog as this is view from both sides.

I also find you have not spoken about how the men were treated when they found themselves aboard HMS Dorsetshire. If he was such a heartless man would he have treated the Bismarck’s Crew with as much respect as he did. Please look into the faces about this, as this will show his true character and not a Captain of a ship doing the best for his ships company in the height of war.

Sailors were lost on both side, these men should be remembered. As should the crew of HMS Hood of witch 3 survived of 1418 crew members, of witch the Bismarck did not pick up one.

With Regards

Serving Sailor
8 February 2009 17:50

bob said...

dear sirs

i have read this feed with much interest. the differing opinions are fascinating to say the least.
the comment "Sailors were lost on both side, these men should be remembered. As should the crew of HMS Hood of witch 3 survived of 1418 crew members, of witch the Bismarck did not pick up one." (sic) made by serving sailor ,for instance. the hood sank in 3 minutes after her magazines and stores of her own torpedo's exploded as a result of a hit by one or more shells from the bismarck. . there basically were'nt any survivors to pick up!
as for capt. martin ( there isnt even agrrement as to his first name..benjamin in some articles,john on the history channel program shown on the you tube feed) and his leaving those men in the water....no matter what nationality or political beliefs you may have, it was indeed disgraceful.

there can be no doubt he was relieved of command so as not to be in a position of further embarrassment the royal navy .
with regards,
22 March 2009 08:18

Anonymous said...

Hello Every Sailor
I am the grand daughter of Benjamin C.S. Martin.

With respect to all stories being bantered about, a lot of of the comments made are not true to fact.

My grandfather did not lose his command of Dorsetshire at Tyneside.

Dorsetshire berthed at Tyneside on 30th May 1941. Dorsetshire was handed over to Captain Agar on 8th August 1941 at Scapa Flow. (Captain Martin having spent 2 years as Captain of the Dorsetshire at sea)
Thankyou Bob for your comments, but Captain Martin then went on to become Commadore at the Naval base in Durban South Africa. He was awarded the DSO in Oct 1941, CBE in Jan 1944 KBE in Jun 1946, He was the Admiral in charge of the landing Force in Rangoon in the Burma Campaign. Tell me where in these honours and further commands does it relate that he was a discrace to the Royal Navy. My father received a letter from a Bismarck survivor many years later,having nothing but praise for my grandfther and the way they were treated on board Dorsetshire upon their rescue.

I belong to H.M.S.Dorsetshire Association where a lot of the remaining survivors of the Dorsetshire's sinking still meet up every Easter to remember those they lost in 1942. One was his messenger boy and another his steward who also went on with him to South Africa.

I have read a lot of the memoirs that these wonderful gentlemen have written. They say my grandfather was a hard task master and didn't stand for any nonsence, but they say he was a fair Captain and had nothing but respect for him, they believe that had he still been their Captain in 1942, they probably wouldn't have been sunk by the Japanese as sailing into the sun was the worst senario. They went through hell when they lost their ship and still they were fired upon by the Japanese in the water.

By all accounts Dorsetshire saved as many as she safely could and Brooks' comments are probably a touch of 'sour grapes' because he had been reprimanded. War is a terrible and has many casualties, decisions have to be made that are not liked by all, but have to be made all the same for the safety of your crew. U boat or no U boat, if there had been one, what would the argument have been, Dorsetshire could have been crippled or even lost then and many more lives could have been lost and the brave and often forgotten men of this conflict wouldn't be alive today to tell the tale.
9 April 2010 03:28

Every Sailor said...

Dear Lady,

Thank you very much indeed for your kind visit and for your words in memory of a beloved Grandfather, Captain Martin of HMS Dorsetshire. I am deeply moved by what you have written and will respond appropriately in due course.

With sincere, best regards,

Every Sailor.
9 April 2010 06:44

Anonymous said...

The reason for his relief notwithstanding, Captain Martin got what he deserved. Frankly, I would not have promoted that man. As I recall, A midshipman on the Dorsetshire attempted to rescue a Bismarck crewman who lost his arms and was literally hanging onto the rope on the side of the ship with his teeth. The midshipman was placed under arrest by Martin and confined to his cabin, while the German sailor the midshipman bravely attempted to rescued fell into the Atlantic and perished with over 1,000 of his shipmates. Yes, that speaks volumes about Martin. And WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, none of you good people out there are going to change my perception of that man. I would have had him thrown out of the Navy or assigned to a bloody supply depot in a remote area of what was then known as the British Empire and kept him there until he had to retire for serving the maximum amount of time on active duty as a Captain.
25 April 2010 18:38

Richard said...

I respectfully disagree with Martin's Granddaughter. With all due respect to the lady, she can be perceived as someone who is lacking objectivity in assessing what her Grandfather did. Martin's actions can be construed by some as a War Crime. I would not go that far, but on the other hand I hardly consider him an admirable sort. Also, I agree with the previous comment: Martin should have been passed over for promotion. Furthermore, Martin's arrest of a Midshipman who bravely tried to save a Bismarck Sailor who lost his arms was absolutely shameful and reprehensible. He should have been brought before a court of inquiry and reprimanded.
25 April 2010 18:48

Every Sailor said...

Thank you to you both, Anonymous and Richard for your kind visit to the site and for your comments.

Since posting about Captain Martin and his involvement in the sinking of Bismarck, I have gone to great lengths in researching the truth. After such a long time, though, it is inevitable that the truth fades and is replaced, in varying degrees, by legend and myth. So it is with the Bismarck.  

Searching the service records of Her Majesty's Public Records Office in Kew is a long and thankless task, but I was determined to learn the truth, no matter what that may be.

  As a German, I was keen, even after all this time, to prove that Captain Martin was a beast. I wanted to establish, above all, that his refusal to collect all those boys and young men, the survivors of the Bismarck's sinking, from the sea was an inhuman act. I wanted very much to prove that he used the pretext of a submarine sighting to abandon those boys to their Atlantic deaths as one man's vengeance for Bismarck's sinking of HMS HOOD in very recent days.

  I wanted to prove that life in HMS Dorsetshire under his command was horrendously brutal and that Captain Martin drove men to suicide through frustration at his command style in a time of war. I wanted to establish that Benjamin Martin was a cruel man; one who willfully disobeyed orders to seek the aggrandisement that lay in the Bismarck engagement. I wanted to prove that he was relieved of his command on arrival at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne for dereliction of duty and for failing to carry out the orders of Admiral Tovey, that HMS Dorsetshire should rescue the Bismarck’s survivors.  

I wanted all of this and more to be true. I wanted it very much.  

HOWEVER.....  

There is nothing more important to me than the actual truth. The truth of what happened and why. It has been my privilege in very recent days to have struck research gold in my quest for the truth of HMS Dorsetshire and the command of Captain Martin.  

I must report to you now, that much of what I have learned has been personally explosive because it has compelled me to reassess long-held views and to re-examine that which, to my mind, was established as correct to a moral certainly.

However, in the interests of truth, and in order to more respectfully honour the memories of those no longer with us, on both sides of the war at sea, I am duty bound to faithfully report what I have learned about Captain Martin, HMS Dorsetshire, Midshipman Brooks and a lot more besides.  

One month from tomorrow, May 27th, 2010, marks the 69th anniversary of the sinking of the KMS Bismarck by an attack force of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. On that day, I shall publish a post here on my blog that lays bare the entire truth as I have learned it to be.

I am now certain that many of my previously held beliefs are wrong. I will explain myself more fully on May 27th, 2010 here with a brand new post on the subject.  

Thank you all, so very kindly, for your continuing interest and for visiting "Nineteen Keys and the Lure of a Furious Sea". It will be an honour, and indeed my duty, to present for you all, my findings in a month and a day from today.

Best wishes until then. 

Every Sailor.
26 April 2010 15:30

The Aussie Admiral, Sir John Augustine Collins, KBE, CB

2009-11-22T18:12:00.014+01:00

Remembering Vice Admiral Sir John Augustus Collins, Royal Australian Navy.

Vice Admiral Sir John Augustine Collins KBE, CB (7 January 1899 – 3 September 1989) was a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) officer who served in World War I and World War II, and who eventually rose to become a Vice Admiral and Chief of Staff of the RAN.

Collins was one of the first graduates of the Royal Australian Naval College to attain flag rank. During World War II, he commanded the cruiser HMAS Sydney in the Mediterranean campaign. He led the Australian Naval Squadron in the Pacific theatre and was wounded in the first recorded kamikaze attack, in 1944.

World War II

Collins' career advanced steadily between the world wars. At the outbreak of war in 1939 he held the positions of Assistant Chief of Naval Staff and Director of Military Intelligence.

In the early war years, Collins commanded HMAS Sydney in the Battle of the Mediterranean. HMAS Sydney led Allied ships which sank a state-of-the-art Italian cruiser, Bartolomeo Colleoni, in July 1940. For this action he was appointed a Companion of the Bath (CB).

Captain Collins left the command of HMAS Sydney for other posts and the famous ship left for Western Australia under the command of Captain Burnett, with men and boys from every major city and town in Australia embarked. HMAS Sydney was to be sunk by the German raider Kormoran in the Indian Ocean. The sinking of HMAS Sydney remains to this day, Australia's most tragic loss at sea.

Relations between the RAN and British Royal Navy were close at the time, with frequent exchanges of officers between the two and in June 1941, Collins was transferred to Singapore, as Assistant Chief of Staff to the British Naval Commander in Chief, China Command, Vice Admiral Geoffrey Layton.

Following the outbreak of war with Japan, Collins was appointed Commodore Commanding China Force, the RN-RAN cruiser and destroyer force based in Batavia, Dutch East Indies, under the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command.

After the fall of Singapore and the Allied defeat in the Battle of the Java Sea, it became clear that the Dutch East Indies would be occupied by Japan. Collins organised the evacuation of Allied civilians and military personnel from Batavia, and was on one of the last ships to leave, before the city fell, in March 1942. As a result he was Mentioned in Despatches, and was later made a Commander of the Dutch Order of Orange-Nassau.

Collins was then appointed Senior Naval Officer, Western Australia, based at Fremantle.

During 1943, Collins commanded HMAS Shropshire and took part in the Bougainville campaign, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and operations off the Admiralty Islands and Hollandia (Dutch New Guinea).
In mid-1944, Collins was made commander of the Australian-US Navy Task Force 74, and commander of the Australian Naval Squadron, with HMAS Australia as his flagship. He became the first graduate of the RAN College to command a naval squadron in action, during the bombardment of Noemfoor, on 2 July 1944.

Collins was badly wounded in the first kamikaze attack in history, which hit Australia on 21 October 1944, in the lead up to the Battle of Leyte Gulf. He did not resume his command until July 1945. When the war ended Collins was the RAN's representative at the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay.

Collins was appointed Chief of Naval Staff in 1948 and held the position until 1955. He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1951 New Year Honours. He later served as Australia's High Commissioner to New Zealand (1956–1962).

The latest class of Australian submarine, the Collins class bears his name. The lead submarine, HMAS Collins, was launched by his widow on 28 August 1993. Collins Road, a street in the Sydney suburb of St Ives was also named in his honour.

Collision in Fog. This sinking of The Empress of Ireland.

2009-10-30T23:09:00.009+01:00

RMS Empress of Ireland was an ocean liner built in 1905 by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland for Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP). This Empress was distinguished by the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) prefix in front of her name because the British government and Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) had decades earlier reached agreement on a mail subsidy contract between Britain and Hong Kong via Canada.
While steaming on the Saint Lawrence River in fog, the Empress was struck amidships by the Norwegian collier (coal freighter) SS Storstad; and the fatally damaged vessel sank very quickly in the early morning of 29 May 1914. This accident claimed 1,024 lives, making it the worst maritime disaster in Canadian history.

Collision
The Empress of Ireland departed Quebec City for Liverpool at 16:30 local time on 28 May 1914 with 1,477 passengers and crew. Henry George Kendall had just been promoted to captain of the Empress at the beginning of the month; and it was his first trip down the Saint Lawrence River in command of the vessel.

Early the next morning on 29 May 1914, the ship was proceeding down the channel near Pointe-au-Père, Quebec (eastern district of the town of Rimouski) in heavy fog. At 02:00 local time, the Norwegian collier Storstad crashed into the side of the Empress of Ireland. The Storstad did not sink, but Empress of Ireland, with severe damage to her starboard side, listed rapidly, taking on water. Most of the passengers and crew in the lower decks drowned quickly when water poured into the ship from the open portholes, some of which were only a few feet above the water line. However, many passengers and crew in the upper deck cabins, awakened by the collision, made it out onto the boat deck and into some of the lifeboats which were being loaded immediately. Within a few minutes after the collision, the Empress of Ireland had listed so far on its starboard side that it became impossible to launch any more lifeboats than the four that had already been launched.

Ten or eleven minutes after the collision, the ship lurched violently on its starboard side in which as many as 700 passengers and crew crawled out of the portholes and decks onto its side. For a minute or two, the Empress of Ireland lay on its side, while it seemed to the passengers and crew that the ship had run aground. But a few minutes later, about 14 minutes after the collision, the ship's stern rose briefly out of the water, and its hull sank out of sight, throwing the hundreds of people still on its port side into the near-freezing water. Exactly 1,024 people died. Of that number, 840 were passengers, eight more than the Titanic.

There were only 465 survivors, four of whom were children (the other 134 children were lost) and 42 of whom were women (the other 279 women were lost). One of the survivors was the ship's commander, Captain Henry George Kendall, who was on the bridge at the time and quickly ordered the lifeboats to be launched. When the Empress was thrown on its side, Kendall was thrown from the bridge into the water, and was taken down with the ship as it began to go under. Swimming to the surface, Kendall clung to a wooden grating long enough for a nearby lifeboat, with crew members aboard, pulled him in. Immediately, Kendall took command of the lifeboat as well as rescue operations, as he had the lifeboat crew pull as many people from the water into the boat. When the boat was full, Kendall ordered the crewmen to row to the lights of the mysterious vessel that had rammed them to drop off the survivors. After an hour or two of making a few trips back and forth from the nearby Storstad to the wreckage to look for survivors, Kendall gave up when there was no more hope of finding survivors as most had succumbed to drowning or hypothermia.

Amongst the dead were the English dramatist and novelist Laurence Irving. Amongst the survivors, "Lucky" Tower is improbably said to have been one of the few crewmen who survived this shipwreck and the sinking of the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania.

The passengers included a large contingent of Canadian members of the Salvation Army. These travellers, all of whom died, were all members of the Canadian Salvation Army Band who were travelling to London for an international conference. At Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, Ontario, there is a monument reading "167 officers and soldiers of the Salvation Army promoted to glory" in the sinking.
Ultimately, the immense loss of life can be attributed to three factors: the location in which Storstad made contact, failure to close her watertight doors, and failure to close all portholes aboard. It was later revealed in testimony from surviving passengers and crew that nearly all of the portholes on the ship were left open by the passengers and crew who craved fresh air from the cramped and poorly ventilated staterooms. Under maritime rules, all portholes on travelling ships were to be closed, but this rule was frequently broken, especially in sheltered waters like the St. Lawrence river.

When the Empress began to its list to starboard, the water poured through the open portholes, flooding parts of the ship that were not damaged by the collision, and once that water hit nearly all the decks and compartments, the ship's end was inevitable.
The fact that most passengers at the time of the sinking were asleep, most not even awakened by the collision, also contributed to the loss of life when they were drowned in their cabins, most of them from the starboard side of the ship where the collision happened.

Cut in Half. The sinking of HMS Punjabi

2009-10-24T23:58:00.009+02:00

HMS Punjabi was a Tribal Class destroyer of the Royal Navy that saw service in the Second World War, being sunk in a collision with the battleship HMS King George V. She has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Punjabi which in common with the other ships of the Tribal class, was named after an ethnic group of the British Empire. In this case, these were the Punjabi people, the inhabitants of the Punjab region between India and Pakistan.

A picture of the mighty battleship HMS King George the 5th. Note the massive damage to her bows after slicing HMS Punjabi in half.

Punjabi was deployed on 26 April as part of the screen providing distant cover for the passage of Convoy PQ-15. They sailed from Hvalfjörður on 29 April. On 1 May she was rammed and sunk in a collision with HMS King George V in foggy conditions. Punjabi was sliced in two by the battleship's bow. 169 of the ship’s company were rescued from the forward section, and another 40 were picked up from the sea by other escorts, including HMS Marne. Those crew left in the after section, which sank very quickly, were killed when her depth charges were detonated. 49 of her crew lost their lives in the accident.

She sank directly in the path of the US battleship USS Washington, which had to sail between the halves of the sinking destroyer. Washington suffered slight damage from the detonation of the depth charges. HMS King George V had sustained serious damage to her bows and was forced to return to port for repairs.

COLLISION AT SEA! The Sinking of the Andrea Doria.

2009-10-02T16:34:00.013+02:00

Captain of the Andrea Doria, Piero Calamai, 58, had been 40 years at sea and commanded his luxurious ship on 50 successful crossings of the Atlantic.

Captain Harry Gunnar Nordenson (left) with his third mate, Johan-Ernst Carstens-Johannsen. Nordenson was in his cabin when the young Carstens was in charge of the bridge at the moment of collision.

SS Andrea Doria was an ocean liner for the Italian Line (Società di navigazione Italia) home ported in Genoa, Italy, most famous for its sinking in 1956. Named after the 16th-century Genoese admiral Andrea Doria, the Andrea Doria had a gross register tonnage of 29,100 and a capacity of about 1,200 passengers and 500 crew. For a country attempting to rebuild its economy and reputation after World War II, Andrea Doria was an icon of Italian national pride. Of all Italy's ships at the time, Andrea Doria was the largest, fastest and supposedly safest. Launched on 16 June 1951, the ship undertook its maiden voyage on 14 January 1953.

On 25 July 1956, approaching the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts bound for New York City, Andrea Doria collided with the eastward-bound MS Stockholm of the Swedish American Line in what became one of history's most famous maritime disasters. Struck in the side, Andrea Doria immediately started to list severely to starboard, which left half of her lifeboats unusable. The consequent shortage of lifeboats might have resulted in significant loss of life, but improvements in communications and rapid responses by other ships averted a disaster similar in scale to the Titanic disaster of 1912. 1660 passengers and crew were rescued and survived, while 46 people died as a consequence of the collision. The evacuated luxury liner capsized and sank the following morning.

The incident and its aftermath were heavily covered by the news media. While the rescue efforts were both successful and commendable, the cause of the collision and the loss of Andrea Doria afterward generated much interest in the media and many lawsuits. Largely because of an out-of-court settlement agreement between the two shipping companies during hearings immediately after the disaster, no determination of the cause(s) was ever formally published. Although greater blame appeared initially to fall on the Italian liner, more recent discoveries have indicated that a misreading of radar on the Swedish ship may have initiated the collision course, leading to some errors on both ships and resulting in disaster. However, the news that the crew had abandoned the passengers to their own fate dealt a marketing blow to the Italian Line it found hard to recover from.

Andrea Doria was the last major transatlantic passenger vessel to sink before aircraft became the preferred method of travel.

A collision course
On the evening of Wednesday, 25 July 1956, Andrea Doria, commanded by Captain Piero Calamai, carrying 1,134 passengers and 572 crew members, was heading west toward New York. It was the last night out of a transatlantic crossing from Genoa that began on 17 July. The ship was expected to dock in New York the next morning. At the same time, MS Stockholm, a smaller passenger liner of the Swedish American Line, had departed New York about midday, heading east across the North Atlantic Ocean toward Gothenburg, Sweden. Stockholm was commanded by Captain Harry Gunnar Nordenson, though Third Officer Johan-Ernst Carstens-Johannsen was in command on the bridge at the time. Stockholm was following its usual course east to Nantucket Lightship, making about 18 knots (33 km/h) with clear skies. Carstens estimated visibility at 6 nautical miles (11 km).
As Stockholm and Andrea Doria were approaching each other head-on, in the heavily-used shipping corridor, the westbound Andrea Doria had been traveling in heavy fog for hours. The captain had reduced speed slightly from 23.0 to 21.8 knots (42.6 to 40.4 km/h), activated the ship's fog-warning whistle, and had closed the watertight doors, all customary precautions while sailing in such conditions. However, the eastbound Stockholm had yet to enter what was apparently the edge of a fog bank and was apparently unaware of it. (The waters of the North Atlantic south of Nantucket Island are frequently the site of intermittent fog as the cold Labrador Current encounters the Gulf Stream.)

As the two ships approached each other, at a combined speed of 40 knots (74 km/h), each was aware of the presence of another ship but was guided only by radar; they apparently misinterpreted each others' courses. There was no radio communication between the two ships.

The original inquiry established that in the critical minutes before the collision, Andrea Doria gradually steered to port, attempting a starboard-to-starboard passing, while Stockholm turned about 20 degrees to its starboard, an action intended to widen the passing distance of a port-to-port passing. In fact, they were actually steering towards each other — narrowing, rather than widening, the passing distance. Compounded by the extremely thick fog that enveloped the Doria as the ships approached each other, the ships were quite close by the time visual contact had been established. By then, the crews realized that they were on a collision course, but despite last-minute manoeuvres, they were unable to avoid the collision.
In the last moments before impact, Stockholm turned hard to the starboard and was in the process of reversing its propellers attempting to stop. The Doria, remaining at its cruising speed of almost 22 knots (41 km/h) engaged in a hard turn to port, its Captain hoping to outrun the collision. At approximately 11:10 PM, the two ships collided.

Impact and penetration

When Andrea Doria and Stockholm collided at almost a 90-degree angle, Stockholm's sharply raked ice breaking prow pierced Andrea Doria's port side approximately midway of its length. It penetrated three passenger cabins, numbered 52, 54, and 56 to a depth of nearly 40 feet (12 m), and the keel. The collision smashed many occupied passenger cabins and, at the lower levels, ripped open several of Andrea Doria's watertight compartments. The gash pierced five fuel tanks on Andrea Doria's starboard side and filled them with 500 tons of seawater. Meanwhile, air was trapped in the empty tanks on the port side, contributing to a severe, uncorrectable list. The ship's large fuel tanks were mostly empty at the time of the collision, since the ship was nearing the end of its voyage.

Meanwhile, on the bridge of Stockholm, immediately after the impact, engines were placed at ALL STOP, and all watertight doors were closed. The ships were intertwined for about 30 seconds. As they separated, the smashed bow of the stationary Stockholm was dragged aft along the starboard side of the Doria, which was still moving forward, adding more gashes along the side. The two ships then separated, and the Doria moved away into the heavy fog. Initial radio distress calls were sent out by each ship, and in that manner, they learned each others' identities.

The world soon became aware that two large ocean liners had collided.

This was the SOS sent by Andrea Doria:

"SOS DE ICEH SOS HERE AT 0320 GMT LAT. 40.30 N 69.53 W NEED IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE"

KNIGHT OF THE SEA, Admiral Miguel Grau Seminario of PERU and the Ironclad Huascar.

2009-10-02T13:02:00.010+02:00

Miguel María Grau Seminario (b. Paita, Peru, 27 July 1834 - d. Punta Angamos, Bolivia, 8 October 1879) was a renowned Peruvian naval officer and hero of the Naval Battle of Angamos during the War of the Pacific (1879-1884). He was known as the el Caballero de los Mares (Spanish for "Knight of the Seas") for his chivalry and is esteemed by both Peruvians and Chileans.

He is an iconic figure for the Peruvian Navy, and one of the most famous military leaders of the Americas.

Miguel Grau was born in Paita on 27 July 1834 in the house of Dr. Alexander Diamont Newel with the assistance of the midwife Tadea Castillo, also known as "The Morito," both prominent figures in Paita. His father was Don Juan Manuel Grau y Berrío, a former lieutenant colonel in the Colombian army who came to Peru with Bolivar in the fight for independence from Spain. Later, Don Juan bought property in Paita and worked at the Customs Office. His mother, Luisa Seminario y del Castillo, motivated Grau to love the sea from his youth. He entered the Paita Nautical School. He first went to sea when he was nine years old, going to Fortune, Colombia, aboard a merchant schooner.

The the schooner sank and he returned to Paita. Grau later went on various merchant ships to ports in Oceania, Asia, America and Europe. These voyages gave Grau strong the seagoing experience for his brilliant career as a naval officer.
In 1853, at the age of 19, he left the merchant marine and became an officer candidate of the Peruvian Navy, where he developed an outstanding professional reputation. In 1854, he was Alferez de Fragata of the steamer Rimac. His career was rapid and brilliant. In 1863, he was promoted to Teniente 2• and to Teniente 1• a year later.

In 1864, he was sent to Europe to oversee the construction of ships for the Peruvian fleet. Among these ships was the ironclad Huáscar, launched in 1865 by Laird at Birkenhead. Upon his return, Chile and Peru joined together in a binational fleet against Spainish attempts to reclaim their American colonies. In 1865, he was promoted to Capitán de Fragata. He left the navy briefly to serve as a member of congress representing Paita. In 1868, he was recalled to the Navy and was named commander of the Huáscar with the rank of Capitán de Navio. In 1876 he was again elected a congressman for Paita.

War of the Pacific

When the War of the Pacific against Chile began on 5 April 1879, Miguel Grau was a Capitán de Navio in the Peruvian Navy, in command of the ironclad Huáscar. Capitán Grau played an important role by interdicting Chilean lines of communication and supply, damaging, capturing or destroying several enemy vessels, and bombarding port installations. Grau's Huáscar became famed for moving stealthily, striking by surprise and then disappearing. These actions put off a Chilean invasion by sea for six months and resulted in his promotion to the rank of Contra-Almirante (Rear Admiral).

The Knight of the Seas

At the Battle of Iquique, after Huáscar sank the chilean corvette Esmeralda, Grau ordered the rescue of the surviving crew from the waters. When landed, the chileans survivors shouted in recognition to Grau "¡Viva el Perú generoso!" ("Viva the generous Peru!"). Grau also wrote condolences to the widow of his opponent Arturo Prat, returning his sword and personal effects.

Letter to Carmela Carvajal de Prat (Prat's widow)

Dear Madam:
I have a sacred duty that authorizes me to write you, despite knowing that this letter will deepen your profound pain, by reminding you of recent battles.

During the naval combat that took place in the waters of Iquique, between the Chilean and Peruvian ships, on the 21st day of the last month, your worthy and valiant husband Captain Mr. Arturo Prat, Commander of the Esmeralda, was, like you would not ignore any longer, victim of his reckless valor in defense and glory of his country’s flag.

While sincerely deploring this unfortunate event and sharing your sorrow, I comply with the sad duty of sending you some of his belongings, invaluable for you, which I list at the end of this letter. Undoubtedly, they will serve of small consolation in the middle of your misfortune, and I have hurried in remitting them to you.

Reiterating my feelings of condolence, I take the opportunity of offering you my services, considerations and respects and I render myself at your disposal.

At the port of Antofagasta, after sneaking up on an enemy ship, he courteously asked the crew to abandon ship before opening fire. These and other gestures earned him the nickname of el Caballero de los Mares ("Knight of the Seas" or "Gentleman of the Seas") from his Chilean opponents, acknowledging an extraordinary sense of chivalry and his gentlemanly behaviour, combined with his highly-efficient and brave combat career.

Death at Battle of Angamos

Almirante Grau was killed by an armour-piercing shell during the Naval Battle of Angamos on 8 October 1879. Huáscar was captured by the Chileans after incurring severe casualties in the close-range artillery duel. Although most of Grau's body was not recovered, his remains were buried with military honours in Chile, which were returned to Peru in 1958. For many years after his death, his name was called in a ceremonial roll-call of the Peruvian Navy. He posthumously received the rank of Gran Almirante del Perú (Grand Admiral of Peru) in 1967 by order of the Peruvian Congress. A portrait of Almirante Grau is on
display in the museum ship Huáscar.

Legacy

In the year 2000, Miguel Grau was recognized as the "Peruvian of the Millennium" by popular vote.

Three Years Ago, TODAY. Remembering Michael Monsoor, United States Navy. Valour Unequalled.

2009-09-29T22:12:00.016+02:00

Today is September 29th, the day three years ago when naval men across the world, and for all time, were made known of an act of courage barely without parallel.

Michael Monsoor died on this day three years ago; in late September, 2006.

"O Eternal Lord God, who alone spreadest out the heavens and rulest the raging of the sea; who has compassed the waters with bounds until day and night come to an end; be pleased to receive into thy Almighty and most gracious protection the persons of us thy servants, and the Fleet in which we serve. Preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of the enemy, that we may be a safeguard unto our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth, and her Dominions, and a security for such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions; that the inhabitants of our Empire may in peace and quietness serve thee our God; and that we may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land, with the fruits of our labours, and with a thankful remembrance fo thy mercies to praise and glorify thy holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

The Naval Prayer is offered by me, your unworthy correspondent, in memory of Master at Arms Michael Monsoor, United States Navy. The naval prayer, you will note, has at it's core, a devotion to the crown of England. This is meant as no disrespect.

On the contrary, The Royal Navy was the principal ruler of the seas for centuries, and though no longer the service of greatest strength upon the Oceans of our world, The Senior Service exists in perpetuity of that, it's greatest legacy; the strength, courage, selflessness and devotion of the men who go down to the sea in ships. Men like Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor.

MICHAEL ANTHONY MONSOOR
UNITED STATES NAVY

FOR VALOUR.

They that go down to the sea in ships and occupy their business in great waters: these men see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For at his word the stormy wind ariseth which lifteth up the waves thereof. They are carried up to the heaven, and down again to the deep: their souls melteth away because of the trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. So when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, he delivereth them out of their distress. For he maketh the storm to cease so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they are at rest; and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.

Michael Monsoor, USN. Unimaginable Bravery and Valour; upon Saint Michael's Day. September 29th, 2006

2009-09-21T10:30:00.038+02:00

Michael Anthony Monsoor (April 5, 1981 – September 29, 2006) was a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during the Iraq War and posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Monsoor enlisted in the United States Navy in 2001 and graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training in 2004. After further training he was assigned to Delta Platoon, SEAL Team Three.
Delta Platoon was sent to Iraq in April 2006 and assigned to train Iraqi Army soldiers in Ramadi. Over the next five months, Monsoor and his platoon frequently engaged in combat with insurgent forces.

On September 29, 2006 an insurgent threw a grenade onto a rooftop where Monsoor and several other SEAL and Iraqi soldiers were positioned. Monsoor quickly smothered the grenade with his body, absorbing the resulting explosion and most likely saving his comrades from serious injury or death. Monsoor died 30 minutes later from serious wounds caused by the grenade explosion.

On March 31, 2008, the United States Department of Defense confirmed that Michael Monsoor would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor from the President of the United States, George W. Bush. Bush presented the medal to Monsoor's parents on April 8, 2008.

In October 2008, United States Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter announced that DDG-1001, the second ship in the Zumwalt class of destroyers, would be named Michael Monsoor in honor of Monsoor.

Petty Officer Michael A. Monsoor, United States Navy, distinguished himself through conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a Combat Advisor and Automatic Weapons Gunner for Naval Special Warfare Task Group Arabian Peninsula in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom on 29 September 2006. He displayed great personal courage and exceptional bravery while conducting operations in enemy held territory at Ar Ramadi Iraq.

During Operation Kentucky Jumper, a combined Coalition battalion clearance and isolation operation in southern Ar Ramadi, he served as automatic weapons gunner in a combined SEAL and Iraqi Army (IA) sniper overwatch element positioned on a residential rooftop in a violent sector and historical stronghold for insurgents. In the morning, his team observed four enemy fighters armed with AK-47s reconnoitering from roads in the sector to conduct follow-on attacks. SEAL snipers from his roof engaged two of them which resulted in one enemy wounded in action and one enemy killed in action. A mutually supporting SEAL/IA position also killed an enemy fighter during the morning hours. After the engagements, the local populace blocked off the roads in the area with rocks to keep civilians away and to warn insurgents of the presence of his Coalition sniper element. Additionally, a nearby mosque called insurgents to arms to fight Coalition Forces.

In the early afternoon, enemy fighters attacked his position with automatic weapons fire from a moving vehicle. The SEALs fired back and stood their ground. Shortly thereafter, an enemy fighter shot a rocket-propelled grenade at his building. Though well-acquainted with enemy tactics in Ar Ramadi, and keenly aware that the enemy would continue to attack, the SEALs remained on the battlefield in order to carry out the mission of guarding the western flank of the main effort.

Due to expected enemy action, the officer in charge repositioned him with his automatic heavy machine gun in the direction of the enemy’s most likely avenue of approach. He placed him in a small, confined sniper hide-sight between two SEAL snipers on an outcropping of the roof, which allowed the three SEALs maximum coverage of the area. He was located closest to the egress route out of the sniper hide-sight watching for enemy activity through a tactical periscope over the parapet wall. While vigilantly watching for enemy activity, an enemy fighter hurled a hand grenade onto the roof from an unseen location. The grenade hit him in the chest and bounced onto the deck. He immediately leapt to his feet and yelled “grenade” to alert his teammates of impending danger, but they could not evacuate the sniper hide-sight in time to escape harm. Without hesitation and showing no regard for his own life, he threw himself onto the grenade, smothering it to protect his teammates who were lying in close proximity. The grenade detonated as he came down on top of it, mortally wounding him.

Petty Officer Monsoor’s actions could not have been more selfless or clearly intentional. Of the three SEALs on that rooftop corner, he had the only avenue of escape away from the blast, and if he had so chosen, he could have easily escaped. Instead, Monsoor chose to protect his comrades by the sacrifice of his own life. By his courageous and selfless actions, he saved the lives of his two fellow SEALs and he is the most deserving of the special recognition afforded by awarding the Medal of Honor.

CITATION:

FOR CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY AND INTREPIDITY AT THE RISK OF HIS LIFE ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY AS AUTOMATIC WEAPONS GUNNER FOR NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE TASK GROUP ARABIAN PENINSULA, IN SUPPORT OF OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM ON 29 SEPTEMBER 2006. AS A MEMBER OF A COMBINED SEAL AND IRAQI ARMY SNIPER OVERWATCH ELEMENT, TASKED WITH PROVIDING EARLY WARNING AND STAND-OFF PROTECTION FROM A ROOFTOP IN AN INSURGENT HELD SECTOR OF AR RAMADI, IRAQ, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR DISTINGUISHED HIMSELF BY HIS EXCEPTIONAL BRAVERY IN THE FACE OF GRAVE DANGER. IN THE EARLY MORNING, INSURGENTS PREPARED TO EXECUTE A COORDINATED ATTACK BY RECONNOITERING THE AREA AROUND THE ELEMENT’S POSITION. ELEMENT SNIPERS THWARTED THE ENEMY’S INITIAL ATTEMPT BY ELIMINATING TWO INSURGENTS. THE ENEMY CONTINUED TO ASSAULT THE ELEMENT, ENGAGING THEM WITH A ROCKET-PROPELLED GRENADE AND SMALL ARMS FIRE. AS ENEMY ACTIVITY INCREASED, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR TOOK POSITION WITH HIS MACHINE GUN BETWEEN TWO TEAMMATES ON AN OUTCROPPING OF THE ROOF. WHILE THE SEALS VIGILANTLY WATCHED FOR ENEMY ACTIVITY, AN INSURGENT THREW A HAND GRENADE FROM AN UNSEEN LOCATION, WHICH BOUNCED OFF PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR’S CHEST AND LANDED IN FRONT OF HIM. ALTHOUGH ONLY HE COULD HAVE ESCAPED THE BLAST, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR CHOSE INSTEAD TO PROTECT HIS TEAMMATES. INSTANTLY AND WITHOUT REGARD FOR HIS OWN SAFETY, HE THREW HIMSELF ONTO THE GRENADE TO ABSORB THE FORCE OF THE EXPLOSION WITH HIS BODY, SAVING THE LIVES OF HIS TWO TEAMMATES. BY HIS UNDAUNTED COURAGE, FIGHTING SPIRIT, AND UNWAVERING DEVOTION TO DUTY IN THE FACE OF CERTAIN DEATH, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR GALLANTLY GAVE HIS LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY, THEREBY REFLECTING GREAT CREDIT UPON HIMSELF AND UPHOLDING THE HIGHEST TRADITIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE.

SIGNED GEORGE W. BUSH

United States Navy and The Devil's Jaw, September 1924.

2009-09-21T09:04:00.012+02:00

The United States Navy's greatest navigational tragedy took place in September 1923 at an isolated California coastal headland locally known as Honda Point, or The Devil's Jaw. Officially called Point Pedernales, Honda is a few miles from the northern entrance of the heavily-traveled Santa Barbara Channel. Completely exposed to wind and wave, and often obscured by fog, this rocky shore has claimed many vessels, but never more at one stroke than at about 9 PM on the dark evening of 8 September 1923, when seven nearly new U.S. Navy destroyers and twenty-three lives were lost there.

Just over twelve hours earlier Destroyer Squadron ELEVEN left San Francisco Bay and formed up for a morning of combat manoeuvres. In an important test of engineering efficiency, this was followed by a twenty-knot run south, including a night passage through the Santa Barbara Channel. In late afternoon the fourteen destroyers fell into column formation, led by their flagship, USS Delphy. Poor visibility ensured that squadron commander Captain Edward H. Watson and two other experienced navigators on board Delphy had to work largely by the time-honored, if imprecise, technique of dead reckoning.

Soundings could not be taken at twenty knots, but they checked their chartwork against bearings obtained from the radio direction finding (RDF) station at Point Arguello, a few miles south of Honda. At the time they expected to turn into the Channel, the Point Arguello station reported they were still to the northward. However, RDF was still new and not completely trusted, so this information was discounted, and DesRon 11 was ordered to turn eastward, with each ship following Delphy.

However, the Squadron was actually several miles north, and further east, than Delphy's navigators believed. It was very dark, and almost immediately the ships entered a dense fog. About five minutes after making her turn, the manoeuvre forced the Delphy straight into the jagged rocks of Point Pedernales, known to sailors as the Devil's Jaw. Delphy slammed into the Honda shore and stuck fast. A few hundred yards astern, USS S.P. Lee saw the flagship's sudden stop and turned sharply to port, but quickly struck the hidden coast to the north of Delphy. Following her, USS Young had no time to turn before she ripped her hull open on submerged rocks, came to a stop just south of Delphy and rapidly turned over on her starboard side.

The next two destroyers in line, Woodbury and Nicholas, turned right and left respectively, but also hit the rocks. Steaming behind them, USS Farragut backed away with relatively minor damage, USS Fuller piled up near Woodbury, USS Percival and Somers both narrowly evaded the catastrophe, but USS Chauncey tried to rescue the men clinging to the capsized Young and herself went aground nearby. The last four destroyers, Kennedy, Paul Hamilton, Stoddert and Thompson successfully turned clear of the coast and were unharmed. In the darkness and fog enveloping the seven stranded ships, several hundred crewmen were suddenly thrown into a battle for survival against crashing waves and a hostile shore.

The entire incident took only seven minutes and left hundreds of men stranded on the rocks, exposed to a pounding surf and frigid temperatures in a thick fog. Twenty three men drowned or died of injuries. Of fourteen ships, eight ran aground. A nearby railroad employee heard the collisions and saw the ships run aground. He sent an SOS through the telegraph service, and within a few hours, thousands of civilians from nearby towns descended on the scene, bringing blankets and warm food and drinks to the stranded sailors.

The crews of Delphy, Lee, and Woodbury fought desperately to free their ships from the rocks, but all were too badly damaged. By the next day the seven remaining beached ships had all been abandoned. In total, of the fourteen ships in the squadron, 9 were damaged, 8 beached, and 7 declared lost. What became known as the Honda Point Disaster was the worst peace-time disaster in all the Navy's history.

Several days after the incident, the Navy opened a 19-day series of hearings. Captain Watson and 10 more officers were court-martialed and charged with negligence. Blame was also assigned to each captain, following the tradition that a captain's first responsibility is to his own ship, even when part of a formation.

The lost ships

DD 261 USS DELPHY

DD 296 USS CHAUNCEY

DD 297 USS FULLER

DD 309 USS WOODBURY

DD 310 USS S. P. LEE

DD 311 USS NICHOLAS

DD 312 USS YOUNG

Of the heroes of Honda, Chief Boatswain's Mate Arthur Peterson, who swam from the Young (DD-312) to the Chauncey (DD-296) to set up a line for his shipmates to ferry themselves across to the Chauncey which was is substantially better condition. Ultimately, 11 trips were made allowing nearly 70 sailors to escape the Young. He was recommended for a citation for his bravery.

The Battleship SCHARNHORST

2009-09-15T23:18:00.014+02:00

Scharnhorst was a famous World War II capital ship, the lead of her class, referred to as either a battleship or a battlecruiser of the German Kriegsmarine. This 31,500 tonne ship was named after the Prussian general and army reformer Gerhard von Scharnhorst and to commemorate the World War I armoured cruiser SMS Scharnhorst that was sunk in the Battle at the Falkland Islands in December 1914. Scharnhorst often sailed into battle accompanied by her sister-ship, Gneisenau. S
he was sunk after being engaged by Allied forces at the Battle of North Cape in December 1943.

The sisters - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

The ship was built at Wilhelmshaven, Germany, launched on 3 October 1936, and commissioned on 7 January 1939. The first commander was Otto Ciliax (until 23 September 1939). After initial service, she was modified in mid-1939, with a new mainmast located further aft and her straight bow replaced by an "Atlantic bow" to improve her seaworthiness. However, her relatively low freeboard ensured that she was always "wet" when at heavy seas. The gunnery report after the engagement with HMS Renown reports serious flooding in the "A" turret that severely reduced its effectiveness.

Her armour was equal to that of a battleship and if it had not been for her relatively small-calibre guns she would have been classified as a battleship by the British. The German navy always classified Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as Schlachtschiffe (battleships). These two ships, considered handsome and fast (with a top speed of 31.5 knots), were invariably mentioned at the same time, often fondly being referred to as "the ugly sisters" because they prowled together and wrought havoc on British shipping.

Scharnhorst

Scharnhorst's nine 28 cm (11 inch; in fact 283 mm - 11.1 inch), main guns, though possessing long range and quite good armour-penetration power because of their high muzzle velocity, were no match for the larger calibre guns of most of the battleships of her day, particularly with the flooding and technical problems that were experienced. The choice of armament was a result of their hasty commissioning. If a later proposal to upgrade the main armament to six 38 cm (15-inch) guns in three twin turrets had been implemented, Scharnhorst might have been a very formidable opponent, faster than any British capital ship and nearly as well armoured. But due to priorities and constraints imposed by World War II and later the war situation, she retained her 28 cm (11 inch) guns throughout her career. Both Scharnhorst and her sister were designed for an extended range to allow for commerce raiding.

Operation Ostfront and Battle of North Cape

On Christmas Day 1943, Scharnhorst and several destroyers, under the command of Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Erich Bey, put to sea with the purpose of attacking the Russia-bound Arctic convoys JW 55B and RA 55A north of Norway. Unfortunately for the Germans, their orders had been decoded by the British codebreakers and the Admiralty were able to direct their forces to intercept. The next day, in heavy weather and unable to locate the convoy, Bey detached the destroyers and sent them south, leaving Scharnhorst alone. Less than two hours later, the ship encountered the convoy's escort force of the cruisers HMS Belfast, Norfolk, and Sheffield. Belfast had picked up Scharnhorst at 08:40 and 35,000 yards (32,000 m) using her Type 273 radar and by 09:41, Sheffield had made visual contact.

Under cover of snow, the British cruisers opened fire. Belfast attempted to illuminate Scharnhorst with starshell, but was unsuccessful. Norfolk, however, opened fire using her radar to spot the fall of shot and scored two hits. One of these demolished Scharnhorst's main radar aerial, disabling the set and leaving her unable to return accurate fire in low visibility. Norfolk suffered minor damage.

In order to try to get around the cruisers to the convoy, Bey ordered Scharnhorst to take a southeast course away from the cruisers. In the late afternoon, the convoy's covering force, including the British battleship HMS Duke of York, made contact and opened fire. Despite suffering the loss of its hangar and a turret, Scharnhorst temporarily increased its distance from its pursuers. The Duke of York caught up again and fired again - the second salvo wrecked the "A" turret, detonating the charges in "A" magazine which led to the same in "B" magazine. Partial flooding of the magazines quenched the explosions. No Royal Navy ship received any serious damage, though the flagship was frequently straddled, and one of her masts was smashed by an 11-inch (280 mm) shell.

At 18:00 Scharnhorst's main battery went silent; at 18:20 another round from Duke of York destroyed a boiler room, reducing Scharnhorst's speed to about 22 knots (41 km/h) and leaving her open to attacks from the destroyers. Duke of York fired her 77th salvo at 19:28. Battered and crippled as she was, her secondary armament was still firing wildly as the cruiser HMS Jamaica and the destroyers Musketeer, Matchless, Opportune, and Virago closed and launched torpedoes at 19:32. The last three torpedoes, fired by Jamaica at 19:37 from under two miles (3 km) range, were the final crippling blow.

A total of 55 torpedoes and 2,195 shells had been fired at Scharnhorst.

Oberbootsmannsmaat (Petty Officer) Wilhelm Gödde described the scene:
On the deck, all was calm and orderly. There was hardly any shouting. I saw the way the First Petty Officer helped hundreds of men over the rails. The Captain (Fritz Hintze) checked our life-jackets. Once again before he and the Admiral (Erich Bey) took leave of each other with a handshake. They said to us, "If any of you get out of this alive, say hello to the folks back home, and tell them we did our duty to the last."

Matrosenobergefreiter (Sailor) Helmut Backhaus describes the moment of sinking:
I stopped and turned in the water to get my bearings. It was then that I saw the keel and propellers. She had capsized and was going down stern first.

Blindfolded Scharnhorst survivors come ashore at Scapa Flow on 2 January 1944

Scharnhorst sank at 19:45 hours on 26 December 1943 with her propellers still turning. Of a total complement of 1,968 men, only 36 survivors - none an officer - were rescued from the frigid seas; 30 by HMS Scorpion and 6 by Matchless. Later that evening, Admiral Bruce Fraser briefed his officers on board Duke of York:

"Gentlemen, the battle against Scharnhorst has ended in victory for us. I hope that if any of you are ever called upon to lead a ship into action against an opponent many times superior, you will command your ship as gallantly as Scharnhorst was commanded today".

The Russian Admiral

2009-09-15T13:34:00.006+02:00

Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union
Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov

Called by some the twentieth-century Alfred Thayer Mahan, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov managed to survive Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev to become one of the dominant figures in the Soviet military. More than a theorist, he was the architect of a new, assertive Soviet navy. Russians historically considered themselves a land power, with the navy’s primary role that of supporting the army. Gorshkov influenced the army-dominated Kremlin to think in terms of sea power. During the 1950s the Soviet Navy was primarily a coastal defense force, with few major surface combatants. Under the leardership of Gorshkov in the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviets undertoook a major ship construction program, and began deploying their ships around the world.

Sergey Georgiyevich Gorshkov, commander-in-chief navy USSR, deputy minister of defense USSR, the Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, was born on 26 February 1910, in the city Kameneq-Podolskiy (now Khmel'nitskiy region of the Ukraine) in the family of teachers. Russian. He joined the Navy in 1927. In 1931 he graduated from naval school, in 1937 he graduated from courses of the commanders of torpedo boats, in 1941 he graduated from advance courses of executive body with the Naval Academy.

He joined the vKP(b)/KPSS in 1942. During the defense of Odessa S.G. Gorshkov led the first debarkation of the Black Sea Fleet amphibious force in region Grigor6evki (now Kominternovski1. From October 1941 he commanded Azov military flotilla. From August 1942 he was the deputy commander novorossiyskiy defensive region, from November of the same year - commanding of 47-1 army, from February 1943 newly commanding of Azov flotilla, while from April 1944 he led the Danube military flotilla. On 25 September, 1944, Gorshkov was promoted from rear admiral to the service rank of Vice Admiral.

During November 1944 the ships of Danube military flotilla were moved upward on Danube for the participation in the assault of Budapest. Commanding Vice Admiral S. G. Gorshkov considered flotilla that the key component of this operation must become the landing in Ger'ene, since these are an ideal bridgehead for the offensive to the lake Balaton, whose landing force members locked the ring around the capital of Hungary. The landing was delivered to the touchdown point without the losses, and on 01 December, 1944, after the bitter three-hour battle with the Soviet marines, the enemy left Ger'en. This was the last front operation which was led S. G. Gorshkov. During January 1945 Vice Admiral Gorshkov was assigned as the commander by the squadron of Black Sea fleet. In this post he met the victory above Hitlerite Germany.

In 1948-51 years S. G. Gorshkov was chief of staff of the Black Sea fleet and 1951-55 commander of the Black Sea fleet. From July 1955 Admiral Gorshkov was the first deputy of commander-in-chief, and from January 1956 up to 1985 the commander-in-chief of the Navy of the USSR, and the deputy minister of defense of the USSR.

By the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 7 May, 1965, "for skillful management by troops, personal courage, appeared in the fight with the Fascist-German aggressors, and in the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the victory of Soviet people in the World War II" to the Admiral of the Fleet Sergey Georgiyevich Gorshkov was awarded the Title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and medal "gold star" (? 10684). On 26 October, 1967, S. G. Gorshkov was awarded the high service rank "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union".

Heading the Soviet navy, he made major contributions to its postwar development and building contemporary ships. It is considered rightfully that the Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union S. G. Gorshkov - creator of quite important and powerful fleet during entire history of the fatherland. By the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 21 December, 1982, "for the large contribution to the alert of navy, the equipment with its warships and the skillful management of it" Gorshkov was rewarded with the second medal "gold star". Since 1985 S. G. Gorshkov was in the group of the general inspectors of the Defense Ministry of the USSR. Since 1961 he was a member of the CC CPSU (Cand. since 1956). Deputy to the Supreme Soviet OF THE USSR 4-11- GO of convocations. Laureate of Leninist and the USSR State Prize.

He died on 13 May 1988, and was buried in Moscow at the Novodevich'em cemetery.

"Doomed from the Outset!" The sinking of HMS Repulse.

2009-09-15T12:31:00.012+02:00

HMS Repulse was a Renown-class battlecruiser, the second to last battlecruiser built by John Brown and Company, Clydebank, Scotland, for the Royal Navy. She was originally intended to be a unit of the R class battleships, but was ordered to a modified design. She was launched in 1916, too late to take part in the Battle of Jutland, but also too early to incorporate the lessons of that battle. Still in time to take part in the First World War, in September 1916, she joined the Grand Fleet as flagship of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron.

Considered a high-maintenance ship, she was given the unflattering nickname HMS Repair. Her sister, Renown, was nicknamed HMS Refit. Repulse's first re-build took place from 1918 to 1920. The major element of refit was the replacement of her 6 inch (152 mm) armour belt with 9 inches (229 mm) and a further 6 inch (152 mm) section above it protecting what had previously been unarmoured. Together with improved anti-torpedo bulges, this meant an additional 4,300 tons of armour. Her torpedo tubes were moved from underwater to on the deck.

In 1924-1925, the mixture of low angle 4 inch (102 mm) and high angle 3 inch (76 mm) guns were changed to 4 inch (102 mm) high angle guns. Also included were improvements to the anti-aircraft armament, and facilities for a spotter aircraft. From 1929 to 1931, Repulse was commanded by Captain Gerald Charles Dickens.

The last major refit was 1933-1936, when she received more armour, more anti-aircraft guns (2 pdr pom-poms (40 mm) and 0.5 inch (12.7 mm) Vickers machine guns) and an aircraft catapult with two hangars. Initially, the aircraft were Blackburn Shark floatplanes (replaced by 1939 with Fairey Swordfish and again in 1941 by the Supermarine Walrus). After the refit, she went on the Mediterranean, participating in Spanish Neutrality Patrol duties. In July 1938, she was present at Haifa, during the Palestinian uprisings that summer. John Henry Godfrey was her Captain from 1936 until he was appointed Director of Naval Intelligence in 1939.

Second World War

After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Repulse operated in various hunting groups that were formed to hunt down German commerce raiders. However, she did not engage any. In December, she performed escort duty for troop carriers between Canada and Britain. The start of the Allied campaign in Norway saw Repulse covering minelaying by British forces. In July, 1940, when HMS Glowworm was lost attacking Admiral Hipper, Repulse took part in the search, but failed to make contact. Towards the end of the campaign, during the evacuation of British troops, due to concern that an invasion of Iceland was in process, Repulse was detached from protecting Norway convoys to search for the invasion force. In fact, no invasion was under way. Subsequently Repulse returned to convoy protection through early 1941.

In January 1941, Repulse participated in the hunt for the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. In May, she took part in the chase of Bismarck. Originally scheduled to escort convoy WS-8B to the Middle East around Africa, Repulse operated as part of the Home Fleet, but was detached from the main body prior to the last engagement due to fears of a repeat of the loss of HMS Hood and to lack of fuel. In August, she was transferred to Cape Town, South Africa, and in October, she was transferred to India, arriving on 28 October.

At the end of 1941, as the threat of war with Japan loomed ever larger, Repulse was detached to the Far East as a deterrent to Japanese aggression. This force, long envisioned in Admiralty strategic planning as a large battle fleet designed to act as a Fleet-in-being and as a counter to Japanese intentions, eventually was dispatched to Singapore as an under-strength squadron. Its inability to act as a deterrent would soon be exposed.

Initially designated as Force G, this squadron was sent without the planned for aircraft carrier to Singapore. Shortly after the outbreak of war in the Pacific on 8 December 1941, Repulse left Singapore in company with the other major element of the Eastern Fleet, the fast battleship HMS Prince of Wales, and four destroyers, to try and intercept Japanese invasion convoys heading towards Malaya. The commander of the fleet (known as Force Z), Admiral Sir Tom Philips, flying his flag in Prince of Wales, knew that British forces could not guarantee to provide air cover for his forces, but elected to proceed anyway because he thought that Japanese forces could not operate so far from land, and he also thought that his ships were relatively immune from fatal damage via air attack, since up to that point, no capital ship at sea had ever been sunk by air attack. The largest unit which had been sunk solely by aircraft up to this time was a heavy cruiser.

However, on 10 December 1941, after failing to find any Japanese invasion forces, and turning south, the Force spotted Japanese aircraft. The fleet was attacked by 86 Japanese aircraft from the 22nd Air Flotilla based in Saigon, which attacked both Prince of Wales and Repulse. In the ensuing attacks, Repulse was ably handled by her Captain, Bill Tennant, who managed to comb several torpedo attacks. However, Repulse's luck was not to hold out and she was caught by a skilfully synchronised Japanese pincer attack and hit by four or even five torpedoes in rapid succession.

Repulse was fatally hit and soon developed a severe list to port over a period of about six minutes. It was clear that she was sinking, and sinking fast, resulting in Tennant ordering abandon ship. Repulse finally rolled over and sank at 12:23. The story of the sinking of Repulse was told in the 1942 book, Suez to Singapore, written by CBS Radio war correspondent Cecil Brown.
Although an older ship than Prince of Wales, Repulse survived a bomb hit and managed to dodge 19 torpedoes before being sunk in 20 minutes after receiving 5 torpedo hits. However unlike Prince of Wales, when Repulse's end came it was far quicker and resulted in a greater loss of life.

Prince of Wales (left, front) and Repulse (left, behind) under Japanese air attack on 10 December 1941. A destroyer, either Electra or Express, is manoeuvring in the foreground.

The destroyers HMS Electra and HMAS Vampire moved in to rescue survivors of Repulse, while Express rescued survivors of Prince of Wales. Even after they were rescued, some survivors of Repulse manned Action Stations on Electra, to free her sailors to rescue more survivors. In particular, Repulse gunners manned the 'X' and 'Y' 4.7 inch mounts, and the ship's dentist of Repulse assisted the Electra's medical teams with the wounded. In total, 1,285 survivors of Repulse were rescued, of which Electra saved 571; 327 died. Electra and the other destroyers then returned to Singapore to drop off the survivors.

The sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales by aerial attack demonstrated that capital ships were vulnerable unless properly protected by aircraft from shore or aircraft carriers. The wreck site was designated as a 'Protected Place' in 2001 under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, just prior to the 60th anniversary of her sinking.

The sinking of the Pocket Battleship ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE.

2009-09-13T14:39:00.017+02:00

"Bigger than anything faster. Faster than anything bigger."

Admiral Graf Spee at the 1937 Fleet Review at Spithead. In the background are the battleship HMS Resolution and the battlecruiser HMS Hood.

The Admiral Graf Spee was one of the most famous German naval warships of World War II, along with the Bismarck. Her size was limited to that of a cruiser by the Treaty of Versailles, but she was as heavily armed as a small battleship due to innovative weight-saving techniques employed in her construction.

She was sent to the Atlantic Ocean as a commerce raider in 1939, where she sank nine Allied merchant ships. Numerous British hunting groups were assigned to find her, with three British ships finally tracking her down in December 1939. The Battle of the River Plate ensued, during which the Graf Spee was damaged. She docked for repairs in the neutral port of Montevideo, but was forced by international law to leave within 72 hours. Faced with what he believed to be overwhelming odds, the captain scuttled his ship rather than risk the lives of his crew.

Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class cruiser. Launched in 1934, she was named after the World War I Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee who died, along with two of his sons, in the first Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914. She was the second vessel to be named after him, the first being the uncompleted World War I German battlecruiser SMS Graf Spee.

The launching took place on 30 June 1934 with Admiral Erich Raeder delivering a pre-launch speech, and the christening performed by Grafin Huberta von Spee, daughter of the late Vice Admiral von Spee.
Before Admiral Graf Spee was given her official name, she was referred to as Panzerschiff C and Ersatz Braunschweig, as she would be replacing the old battleship Braunschweig in the fleet inventory. She cost 82 million Reichsmark to build.

After World War I, replacement capital ships for the German Navy were limited by the Treaty of Versailles to 10,000 tons and 11 inch (280 mm) guns. Electric arc welding was used in her construction instead of conventional rivets, thereby saving considerable weight by not requiring overlapping steel plates. Furthermore, Graf Spee’s eight main engines used diesel fuel, an unconventional configuration at the time that also contributed to weight saving. The weight saving allowed her carry a main gun of the same calibre as a battleship, while remaining near the displacement limit of the Treaty of Versailles, hence the classification by the British of her and her two sisters, Deutschland (later renamed Lützow) and Admiral Scheer, as pocket battleships. A year after the Graf Spee’s loss, her sisters were reclassified as heavy cruisers.

Technologically, Admiral Graf Spee was ahead of her time, being the first ship in the Kriegsmarine to be equipped with Seetakt radar. Unlike steam engines, raw low-grade bunker fuel needed treatment before it could be used in her diesel engines. A separating system routinely pre-cleaned the fuel and deposited it in six ready tanks situated close to the engines. The separators used high pressure steam produced in a boiler room lying between decks, aft of the funnel and above the armoured deck.

History

After commissioning in 1936, Admiral Graf Spee served as fleet flagship until 1938 and performed international maritime control duties off the coast of Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Graf Spee's last captain was Hans Langsdorff, a longstanding naval officer who had seen action at the Battle of Jutland, and who assumed command of the ship on 1 November 1938.

Prior to the invasion of Poland plans were made to deploy the Panzerschiffe as raiders in the Atlantic Ocean. Admiral Graf Spee sailed from Wilhelmshaven on 21 August 1939, to act as a commerce raider in the South Atlantic. Langsdorff plotted a course to cross major shipping lanes at night to avoid detection. Supported by her supply ship, the tanker Altmark, her orders were to sink British merchant ships, but to avoid combat with superior enemy forces, thus threatening vital Allied supply lines and drawing British naval units off their stations in other parts of the world. Graf Spee received orders on 26 September 1939 to "commence active participation in the trade war."

On 30 September the 5050-ton British tramp steamer Clement was stopped and sunk off Brazil with twenty thousand cases of kerosene bound from New York to Salvador, Brazil. Graf Spee radioed the location of Clement’s lifeboats and Clement’s captain and first officer were placed aboard the neutral Greek steamer Papalemos a few days later. Graf Spee stopped the 4,650-ton British tramp steamer Newton Beach on 5 October with a cargo of maize. Newton Beach served as a prison ship with a prize crew until 8 October. The 4,222-ton British steamer Ashlea with a cargo of sugar was stopped and sunk on 7 October.

The 8,196-ton British liner Huntsman with a cargo of tea was stopped on 10 October, and became a replacement prison ship. Graf Spee used Huntsman’s radio to transmit a deceptive message indicating Huntsman had been attacked by a submarine at a different location. Huntsman was sunk after transferring the prisoners to Altmark on 17 October. Graf Spee machine-gunned the bridge and upper deck of the 5,299-ton British steamer Trevanion (loaded with ore concentrates) on 22 October when that ship tried to radio a distress message.

Graf Spee moved into the Indian Ocean on 28 October and sank the motor tanker Africa Shell (in ballast) in the Mozambique channel in 15 November. Graf Spee returned to the South Atlantic and sank the 10,086-ton Blue Star liner Doric Star on 2 December with a cargo of meat, dairy products, and wool. Doric Star radioed a distress message; and sabotaged its engines so it could not be taken as a prize. Graf Spee sank Tairoa with a cargo of meat, wool, and lead on 3 December after the 7,983-ton steamer radioed a distress call. The 3,895-ton steamer Streonshalh with a cargo of wheat was sunk on 9 December.

Captain Hans Langsdorff strictly adhered to the rules of mercantile warfare at the time and saved all of the crew members of these ships; not a life was lost in these sinkings. The captured crews were transferred to the tanker Altmark. Later, these 303 crew members were freed by force in neutral Norwegian territorial waters by the British destroyer HMS Cossack.

While deployed as a commerce raider, Graf Spee was often disguised by the ship's carpenters with a fake "B" turret superposed over the forward "A" main turret, a false funnel aft of the float plane catapult and by painting the pyramidal superstructure to appear to be a tripod mast.

Battle of the River Plate

Britain formed eight hunting groups in the Atlantic and one in the Indian Ocean to look for Admiral Graf Spee, totalling three battleships, two battlecruisers, four aircraft carriers, and 16 cruisers (including several French ships). More groups were assembled later. On 13 December 1939, she was located by the British Hunting Group G, consisting of the 8 inch (203 mm) gunned cruiser HMS Exeter and the 6 inch (152 mm) gunned light cruisers HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles (of the New Zealand Division), and the Battle of the River Plate ensued. During the battle, the Graf Spee inflicted heavy damage upon the Exeter, forcing the latter to break off the engagement. Later in the exchange, one of Graf Spee’s shells caused some casualties on the Achilles. In return, the Graf Spee was hit repeatedly by the 6-inch shells of the light cruisers, which could not penetrate her armour but nonetheless inflicted significant topside damage.

On the other hand, Exeter’s 8-inch hits ran through the armour easily. About 06:38 an 8-inch shell penetrated two decks and exploded in Graf Spee’s funnel area, causing crippling internal damage. Exeter’s early 8-inch hit wrecked the boiler room, shutting down the fuel-separating system. Chief Engineer Commander Klepp advised the captain they could not repair the damage at sea. Klepp estimated the ship had about sixteen hours of running time, using pre-cleaned fuel from the day tanks. They could not replace the rapidly depleting fuel, so the ship was denied the possibility of outrunning her pursuers on the open sea.

Final docking

Admiral Graf Spee entered the neutral port of Montevideo, Uruguay for repairs. The exterior damage was surveyed by a British observer on 14 December 1939, who reported that the port midship 6" gun was unserviceable, the starboard anti-aircraft guns appeared out of action, rangefinders were out of action, the aircraft was wrecked, there were shell holes in the control tower and two holes below the waterline. In total, there was evidence of 30–60 hits. The most critical damage was the destruction of the desalination unit. Fresh water was essential for the running of diesels. Captain Langsdorff and the Chief Engineer carefully kept this problem secret. Although the specific details were signalled to SKL (Seekriegsleitung: Naval Warfare Command) in January 1940 this vital information lay buried from public knowledge for sixty years.

One of Langsdorff's first actions when he entered Montevideo was to release the 62 crew of the merchant ships he had sunk during her most recent voyage. Out of nine merchant ships sunk, none of the crews had been killed. All of those released spoke highly of their treatment and of Langsdorff, who spoke perfect English and lent them English books to pass the time. Captain Dove of the Africa Shell had already become friends with Langsdorff.

Under the Hague Convention of 1907, the Graf Spee was not entitled to remain in the port for more than 24 hours, without risking internment. In addition, and notwithstanding the rule already mentioned, under the same convention, the Graf Spee had to give British merchant ships 24 hours start if they left port, and the British Consul arranged for the merchant ships in port to sail at 24 hour intervals, effectively locking the Spee in the port whilst at the same time spreading propaganda about the vast fleet of British warships converging on the area. On 14 December, British Minister Millington-Drake officially requested that the Uruguayan government intern the ship if she stayed in port longer than 24 hours, on grounds that she was still seaworthy. The Uruguayan government obliged, announcing that if the Graf Spee did not sail within 72 hours of its arrival, she would be interned.

On 15 December, the ship's 36 dead were buried with full military honours in the German cemetery in Montevideo. At the funeral ceremony, Captain Hans Langsdorff used the naval salute, while all others around him used the Nazi salute. Many officers of the sunk ships attended the burial of those killed in the battle.

A ruse by the British intelligence encouraged the captain to think that he was out-numbered, with aircraft carriers and battleships on their way and that his escape route was cut off. In fact, only the Cumberland arrived in time to reinforce the existing ships. There were three possible channels that the Graf Spee could use in order to escape to the open sea, and the waiting British warships had to cover all of them. Captain Langsdorff had been in discussion with the Kriegsmarine over the various options available to him, which included fighting on, internment at Montevideo or scuttling the ship. Adolf Hitler responded personally, writing the following in his own handwriting...

“Attempt by all means to extend time in neutral waters in order to guarantee freedom of action as long as possible. Fight your way through to Buenos Aires, using remaining ammunition. No internment at Uruguay. Attempt effective destruction of ship if scuttled. ”

Graf Spee wreck in 1940

At 6:15pm on 17 December 1939, the German warship left Montevideo harbour, with the British 6-inch (152 mm) gunned cruisers Ajax, Achilles, and the 8-inch (203 mm) gunned Cumberland waiting nearby in international waters. However, instead of trying to fight through the blockade, the German warship sailed just outside the harbour, and at 7:52, was scuttled in the estuary at 34°58′18″S 56°18′4″W by her crew in order to avoid risking the crew in what Captain Langsdorff expected to be a losing battle. Captain Langsdorff committed suicide three days later by shooting himself, possibly in order to prove he had not acted out of fear for his own life. The fact that he wrapped himself in the Imperial flag before shooting himself may have been a mute admission that he had not fought in the tradition and spirit of the proud commander whose name his ship bore.

Many German commentators considered it to have been an error of judgement to have accepted combat against an arguably equal or superior force: he made a poor showing in the battle (his medium guns scored no hits on the enemy cruisers): his attack on the Doric Star which betrayed his location to Admiral Harwood's squadron had begun from such long range that his judgment was called into question, and most of the crew wanted to attempt the breakout to Buenos Aires where "a change of flag sale" had probably been negotiated with the Argentines.

Crew internment

The majority of the Graf Spee crew were interned in Argentina. Langsdorff feared that the pro-British Uruguayans might hand over his men in breach of neutrality, and upon reporting this to Berlin he was ordered to get the crew out of Uruguay. A ruse was attempted in which the men were set adrift in the international waters of the River Plate and picked up by three Argentine flag vessels under local German ownership. The German naval attaché then argued that since the thousand or so men were "mariners from the wreck of the 'Admiral Graf Spee'" they should not be interned but returned by neutral steamer to Germany as "survivors". Argentina was not satisfied that they fitted into this category and interned them. Between April 1940 and the end of 1941, all but six of the officers, and about 200 technical NCOs, absconded from internment and were back in Germany where the majority served in the U-boat Arm. Argentine naval connivance was suspected but never proved.

Some of the wounded crewmen were retained at Montevideo, and together with internees from the German merchant ship Tacoma, were subsequently transferred to the Cuartel Paso del Rey (English: "Barracks Quarter of the Passage of the King") in Sarandí del Yí, Durazno where the Military District II infantry guarded them. They remained here until transferred back to Montevideo and repatriated to Germany in 1946. Numerous objects pertaining to the Graf Spee remain at the Cuartel Paso del Rey museum in Sarandí del Yí.

The Germans' behaviour during their stay in Montevideo, especially Langsdorff's action when faced with possible defeat at British hands, was held in high regard in Uruguay. Many locals feared that their city could become directly endangered during any hostilities. After the Uruguayan Government turned down the German request for the ship to be allowed two weeks in harbour for repairs, the German diplomats present suggested to Langsdorff that the ship's guns be used to demolish the port installations, the battleship then being sunk across the harbour exit. This would be in retaliation for Uruguayan "favouritism" towards the British which was not entirely without foundation (the Uruguayan Government refused to concede more than 72 hours 'under any circumstances' whereas they had given a British warship fourteen days to repair in the First World War, a clear breach of their own neutrality.)

Langsdorff was opposed to the idea of demolishing the port and his decision to seek international waters to scuttle his ship was seen as partly motivated by a desire not to cause such harm. After the war the British and US Governments insisted that all Admiral Graf Spee crewmen, irrespective of whether they had been recently married to local girls or not, should be repatriated to Germany, and the refrigerator ship Highland Monarch arrived at Buenos Aires and Montevideo on 16 February 1946 to ship them out. There now ensued a total fiasco, again possibly engineered by the Argentine Navy in collusion with the German secret service. By then the total of Admiral Graf Spee crewmen who had not escaped was 811 men at Buenos Aires and 90 or so at Montevideo.

Amongst much lamentation and distress from the women and children ashore, the men plus six wives were paraded at the gangplank five hours before sailing time. At the last moment Argentine Army officers arrived carrying a large bag containing over 900 identity books. It was thus impossible to check the identity of each man against his document as he went aboard, and the British naval attaché watching the pantomime reported his fear that "some substitutions might have occurred".

Since all the men of U-530 and U-977, the two submarines which surrendered to Argentina in 1945, had been given into United States custody and flown out for interrogation before 31 August 1945, there were officially no U-boat men in captivity anywhere in Argentina, Chile or Uruguay. During the voyage of the Highland Monarch northwards it was discovered that 86 U-boat men had been smuggled aboard amidst the Admiral Graf Spee crewmen. Neither the British, US nor Argentine Governments were able to explain subsequently how the 86 U-boat men had got to Argentina in order to be repatriated from there. The most likely explanation is that they arrived aboard U-boats which unloaded on Argentine beaches postwar.

By 1948 all former Admiral Graf Spee men who wanted to emigrate to Argentina to rejoin family there had been allowed to do so. Most of their descendants are to be found in the town of Villa General Belgrano in Córdoba province.

Courage Under Fire! Able Seaman Kate Nesbitt, MC.

2009-09-13T14:22:00.006+02:00

A Military Cross has been awarded to 20 year old Able Seaman Kate Nesbitt of the Royal Navy.

A 20-year-old medic who repeatedly rushed forward to save colleagues while under attack from the Taleban has become the first woman in the Royal Navy to be awarded the Military Cross and only the second in the Armed Forces.

Able Seaman Class 1 Kate Nesbitt tended wounded colleagues from 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines several times when they came under fire while on patrol in Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence said: “Able Seaman Nesbitt’s actions throughout a series of offensive operations were exemplary. Under fire and under pressure her commitment and courage were inspirational and made the difference between life and death. She performed in the highest traditions of her service.”

The Military Cross is given to members of the Armed Forces “for exemplary gallantry during active operations against the enemy”, and ranks below only the Victoria Cross and Conspicuous Gallantry Cross as a recognition of bravery in battle.

Private Michelle Norris, 18, a medic with the Royal Army Medical Corps, was the first woman to win the Military Cross. She braved heavy sniper and machinegun fire from 200 insurgents during a fierce battle in southern Iraq in 2006. She climbed on top of an armoured vehicle to give life-saving treatment to a comrade.

Able Seaman Nesbitt’s award was one of more than 100 announced by the MoD yesterday in relation to 3 Commando Brigade’s tour of duty in Helmand between October and March. She was one of 14 to receive the Military Cross. Two were awarded to members of the special forces; their names were not published.

Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, said the servicemen and women recognised were the pride of Britain.

Bloody Marvellous! A tribute to HMS Exeter (68)

2009-09-10T16:12:00.011+02:00

HMS Exeter (68) was a York class heavy cruiser of the Royal Navy that served in World War II. She was laid down on 1 August 1928 at the Devonport Dockyard, Plymouth, Devon. She was launched on 18 July 1929 and completed on 27 July 1931. She fought against the German pocket battleship Graf Spee at the 1939 Battle of the River Plate, suffering extensive damage that caused a long refit. Having been rebuilt, she was sent to the East Indies where she was sunk by the Japanese in 1942.

Exeter was ordered two years after her sister York and therefore her design incorporated improvements in the light of experience with the latter. Her beam was increased by 1-foot (30 cm) to cater for increases in topweight, and the boiler uptakes were trunked backwards from the boiler rooms, allowing for straight funnels removed from the bridge rather than the raked funnels necessary in York to ensure adequate dispersal of the flue gasses. As a result, the masts were stepped straight, and the after funnel was thickened, to aid appearance. As the roof of the 8-inch (203 mm) gun turret had proved to be inadequately strong to accommodate the catapult intended for York, Exeter had a pair of catapults angled out from amidships, with the associated crane stepped to starboard. Consequently, the bridge could be lowered (that of York being tall to give command over the intended aircraft arrangements), and was of a modern, enclosed design that was incorporated into later cruiser designs.

Modifications

In 1932, Exeter had side plating added amidships to the upper deck to enclose her open main deck as far as the after funnel (unlike the County class, the Yorks were not flush-deckers). This provided additional enclosed spaces for accommodation and working. In 1935, the intended multiple Vickers machine guns were finally added, single QF 2-pounder guns having been fitted in lieu. Early war modifications saw the replacement of the single 4-inch (102 mm) guns with modern twin Mark XVI models on the ubiquitous mounting Mark XIX and a single 20 mm Oerlikon gun added to the roof of both 'B' and 'X' turrets. Radar Type 286 air warning was added requiring the pole masts to be replaced by tripods, this primitive metric set had separate transmitting (Tx) and receiving (Rx) aerials, one at each masthead. Radar Type 284 was fitted to the director control tower atop the bridge to provide ranging information and spot fall of shot.

Service

On completion, Exeter joined the 2nd Cruiser Squadron with the Atlantic Fleet, where she served between 1931 and 1935. In 1934 she was assigned to the America and West Indies Station and remained there, with a temporary deployment to the Mediterranean during the Abyssinian crisis of 1935 and 1936, until 1939.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, she formed part of the South American Division with Cumberland. Together with the Leander class light cruisers Ajax and Achilles she engaged the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee in the Battle of the River Plate on 13 December 1939, which culminated in the scuttling of the Admiral Graf Spee several days later. Exeter operated as a division on her own, Achilles and Ajax as the other, in order to split the fire of Graf Spee. Exeter was hit by seven 11-inch shells and several near misses caused significant splinter damage. Sixty-one of her crew were killed and another twenty-three wounded. All three 8 inch turrets were put out of action and her speed was reduced to 18 knots (33 km/h), forcing her to withdraw from battle.

Exeter made for Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands for emergency repairs which took until January 1940, then returned to Devonport without assistance for full repairs between February 1940 and March 1941. On 10 March, 1941, during the repair and refit period, her commanding officer, Captain W.N.T. Beckett MVO DSC died at Saltash Hospital, from complications resulting from surgery related to injuries received earlier in his career. He died the day Exeter was due to be re-commissioned. His replacement was Captain Oliver Loudon Gordon.

On returning to the fleet in 1941 she was engaged on escort duty for Atlantic convoys, including the escort of convoy WS-8B to the Middle East during the Bismarck episode. After this, she went on to the Far East. On the entry of the Empire of Japan into the war in December 1941, Exeter formed part of the ABDACOM naval force intended to defend the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) from Japanese invasion.

Exeter under attack in the First Battle of the Java Sea.

Fate

On 27 February 1942, Exeter was damaged in the Battle of the Java Sea when she received an 8-inch shell hit to a boiler room and was subsequently ordered to Surabaya for repairs. The destroyer HMS Electra was sunk covering her withdrawal. Two days later, when she attempted to reach the Sunda Strait, she was intercepted by the Japanese heavy cruisers Nachi, Haguro, Myoko and Ashigara and the destroyers Akebono, Ikazuchi, Inazuma, Yamakaze and Kawakaze on the morning of 1 March 1942.

The Second Battle of the Java Sea ensued, now more appropriately called The Battle of Bawean Island, and Exeter was soon badly damaged by gunfire, one hit causing the loss of all power to the ship. Scuttling charges were set and she soon began sinking, initially listing to port only to be hit to starboard by a torpedo from the destroyer Inazuma which sat her back upright and rolled her to starboard before she finally sank about noon. Her escorting destroyers, HMS Encounter and USS Pope were also lost; Pope temporarily escaped the initial melee, only to be sunk by aerial attack a few hours later. About 800 Allied seamen, including the commander of Exeter, Captain Oliver Gordon, were picked up by the Japanese and became prisoners of war.

The wreck was located and positively identified in February 2007. Exeter lies in Indonesian waters, at a depth of about 200 ft (60 m), 90 miles north of Bawean Island - some 60 miles from the sinking position given by her captain.

Death of the Droggy. OBITUARY for Rear Admiral Sir David Haslam, Royal Navy

2009-09-09T17:23:00.013+02:00

Rear-Admiral Sir David Haslam

Rear-Admiral Sir David Haslam, who has died aged 86, was for 10 years Hydrographer of the Navy, responsible for the charts and nautical publications used by the Royal Navy, Merchant Navy and others worldwide.

As "Droggy", he commanded a fleet of a dozen survey ships while supervising, from his headquarters at Taunton, a staff of more than 1,000 civilians and retired hydrographers. These drew on the most recent information from the sea as well as an archive dating back to Captain Cook, maintaining 4,200 charts and 150 publications which are distributed by agents in 130 countries.

In Haslam's first few years chart sales earned some £3,300,000 and books a further £600,000, winning his office the Queen's Award for Export Achievement – a unique honour for a government department. But his success encouraged accountants to turn the Hydrographic Office into a self-funding, revenue-earning department which, unlike those of other navies, guarded its copyright jealously. As demand grew for ever more charts for yachtsmen and deeper draft ships, Haslam found himself fighting what were to become increasing demands for privatisation.

David William Haslam was born at Derby on June 26 1923 and educated at Bromsgrove School. He joined the Navy as a special entry in 1941 and spent two terms at Dartmouth before training at sea as a midshipman in the cruiser Birmingham, and the destroyers Quickmatch and Vivien. During Operation Ironclad, the British occupation of Madagascar, he was local control officer of a battery of three six-inch guns in the battleship Resolution.

Specialising in hydrography in 1944, he sounded the unexplored estuaries of Burma and Malaya from the survey ship White Bear (formerly Sir Thomas Lipton's steam yacht Iolanda) in preparation for the aborted Zipper landings.
When consulted 50 years later by the Burmese government about deep-water routes for tankers, he said that the charts which bore his signature were still the most up-to-date available, but cautioned that he had produced them for shallow-draft landing craft using a leadline at night behind Japanese lines.

In 1946 Haslam surveyed other routes in the South China Sea to ensure they were obstruction-free, and a year later commanded Survey Launch 325 in locating wartime wrecks in the North Sea for clearance by explosives. Over the next 30 years he served in or commanded the survey ships Scott, Dalrymple, Dampier, Vidal, Owen, Hecla, Hydra and the Australian Tallarook in the Great Barrier Reef, the Indian Ocean, the West Indies as well as the Pacific and North Atlantic. Often he spent weeks in small boats away from his parent ship and sleeping under canvas on shore.

His work was not without incident. In 1957 he was responsible for security at the meeting between Harold Macmillan and President Eisenhower on Bermuda. While commanding Owen seven years later he found evidence on the sea floor for the theory of continental drift. In 1964 he evacuated women and children from Zanzibar after a coup. In command of Hecla in 1969, he landed a party which hoisted the Union flag over Rockall to reinforce Britain's claim to the island and its surrounding seas.

Five years later he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's medal for finding shorter sea routes through the previously uncharted seas off the Solomon Islands. He also discovered a series of coral pinnacles in the Persian Gulf, known as Haslam's Patches, and an underwater mountain north-west of the Seychelles, Haslam Seamount.

He was loaned to the Royal Australian Navy from 1947 to 1949, and returned 18 years later as its hydrographer to draw, print and collect more than 300 charts as well as to represent Australia at the International Hydrographic Conference in 1967. After retiring as Hydrographer of the Navy in 1985 Haslam was, for five years, president of the directing committee of the International Hydrographic Office based in Monaco. He was president of the English Schools Basketball Association, president of Derbyshire County Cricket Club and chairman of the international committee of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Although he never married, he had numerous nephews and nieces as well as 32 godchildren. He was devoted to Bromsgrove School, serving as chairman of governors from 1991 to 1996. Recently he took the salute at the CCF passing-out parade, a ceremony in which he had participated more than 70 years earlier.

As an admiral Haslam eschewed the trappings of high office, rejecting his official car to be driven to functions by his PA in her purple Mini or to travel second-class by train, when he might meet sailors and discover their concerns. He was an inveterate pipe smoker who always seemed to run out of tobacco at the start of any official visit, and his flag lieutenant was well advised to have acquired a tin of Three Nuns beforehand to forestall the inevitable crisis.

David Haslam was appointed OBE in 1964, CB in 1979 and KBE in 1984. He died on August 4 with his pipe in hand while watching sport on television.

The Biggest of them all. Sinking of the Battleship YAMATO

2009-09-07T23:41:00.016+02:00

By any measure, the Japanese Battleship YAMATO is a beautiful creation of man's dreadful hand. Created in war, meant for one purpose and one purpose alone; the sinking of enemy combatants and the killing of the enemy's men.

Yamato (大和), named after the ancient Japanese Yamato Province, was a battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II.

Flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet, she was lead ship of the Yamato class. She and her sister ship, Musashi, were the largest and heaviest battleships ever constructed, displacing 72,800 tonnes at full load, and armed with nine 46 cm (18.1 inch) main guns.

Constructed from 1937 – 1940 and formally commissioned in late 1941, Yamato served as the flagship of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto throughout 1942, first sailing as part of the Combined Fleet during the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Throughout 1943, Yamato continually transferred between Truk, Kure and Brunei in response to American airstrikes on Japanese island bases. The only time Yamato fired her main guns at enemy targets was in October 1944, but was ordered to turn back after attacks by destroyers and aircraft of the "Taffy" light escort carrier task groups managed to sink three heavy cruisers during the Battle off Samar. Yamato was sunk in April 1945 during Operation Ten-Go.

Yamato was the lead ship of the Yamato class of heavy-battleships, designed by the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1937. The class of battleship was designed to be capable of engaging multiple enemy targets, as a method of compensating for Japan's incapability to industrially compete with the United States Navy.

With the vessels of the Yamato class displacing over 70,000 tons each, it was hoped that the firepower of the constructed battleships could offset American industrial power. The keel of Yamato was laid down at Kure Naval Arsenal on 4 November 1937, in a specially designed dockyard. Throughout construction, large canvases prevented observation of the construction from elsewhere in the Kure Dockyards. Due to the size of the vessel, upgraded gantry cranes—each capable of lifting 150 and 350 tonnes—had to be designed and built for use during construction.

Yamato was launched 8 August 1940, with Captain (later Vice Admiral) Miyazato Shutoku in command.

Armament

Yamato's main battery consisted of nine 18.1-inch 40 cm/45 Type 94 naval guns—the largest caliber of naval artillery ever fitted to a warship. Each gun was 21.13 metres (69.3 ft) long, weighed 147.3 metric tons (162.4 short tons), and was capable of firing high-explosive or armour-piercing shells 42.0 kilometres (26.1 mi).

Her secondary battery comprised twelve 6.1-inch (15 cm) guns mounted in four triple turrets (one forward, one aft, two midships), and twelve 5-inch (13 cm) guns in six double-turrets (three on each side amidships). In addition, Yamato carried twenty-four 1-inch (2.5 cm) anti-aircraft guns, primarily mounted amidships. When refitted in 1944, the secondary battery configuration was changed to six 6.1-inch (15 cm) guns, twenty-four 5-inch (13 cm) guns, and one hundred sixty-two 1-inch (2.5 cm) antiaircraft guns, in preparation for naval engagements in the South Pacific.

Yamato's magazines finally explode, sending the mighty Battleship to the bottom.

1944: Combat

On 16 January 1944, Yamato arrived at Kure for repairs, and was drydocked until 3 February 1944. While drydocked, Captain Nobuei Morishita—former Captain of the battleship Haruna—assumed command of Yamato. On 25 February, both Yamato and Musashi were reassigned from the 1st Battleship Division to the Second Fleet. Yamato was again drydocked for upgrades to her radar and antiaircraft systems throughout March 1944, with a final AA suite of one hundred sixty-two 1-inch (25 mm) antiaircraft guns and twenty-four 5-inch (13 cm) medium guns. The radar suite was also upgraded to include infrared identification systems, aircraft-search and gunnery-control radar systems.

Following a short transport mission to the South Pacific in April, Yamato departed for Lingga alongside Jisaburo Ozawa's Mobile Fleet. In early June 1944, Yamato and Musashi departed as troop transports for Biak, with the intention of reinforcing both the garrison and naval defenses of the island. When word reached Ozawa's headquarters of American carrier attacks on the Mariana Islands, the mission was aborted.

From 19–23 June 1944, Yamato escorted forces of Ozawa's Mobile Fleet during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, dubbed by American pilots as "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". Japanese aircraft losses exceeded 400, while three aircraft carriers were lost to submarines and airstrikes. Yamato's only major engagement throughout the operation was mistakenly opening fire on returning Japanese aircraft. Following the battle, Yamato and the Mobile Fleet withdrew to Brunei to refuel and rearm.

Yamato hit by a bomb on 24 October 1944 during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea; this hit did little damage, however.

From 22–25 October 1944, Yamato joined Admiral Takeo Kurita's Centre force in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval engagement in history. While en route, the force was attacked in Palawan Passage by the submarines USS Darter and Dace. With torpedoes, they sank Maya and Atago (Kurita's flagship), and damaged Takao. This forced Kurita to transfer his flag to Yamato. During the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, Yamato was hit with three armour-piercing bombs from aircraft of the USS Essex. Her sister-ship Musashi sank after being hit with seventeen torpedoes and nineteen bombs. On the evening of 24 October, Kurita's Centre Force navigated the San Bernardino Strait, attacking a small force of escort carriers and destroyers shortly after dawn.

In the initial stages of the Battle off Samar, Yamato engaged enemy surface forces for the first and last time, confirming hits on an escort carrier, a destroyer, and a destroyer escort. After confirming primary battery hits on USS Gambier Bay, a spread of American torpedoes heading for Yamato were spotted; the battleship was forced to withdraw from the fighting, and was unable to rejoin the battle. The task force disengaged later after three heavy cruisers were sunk, and the entire force was only able to sink one escort carrier and three destroyers.

Following the engagement off Samar, Yamato and the remainder of Force A returned to Brunei. On 15 November 1944, the 1st Battleship Division was disbanded, and Yamato became the flagship of the Second Fleet. On 21 November, while transiting the East China Sea in a withdrawal to Kure Naval Base, Yamato's battlegroup was attacked by the submarine USS Sealion, with the battleship Kongo and several destroyers lost. Upon returning to Kure, Yamato was immediately drydocked for repairs and antiaircraft upgrades, with several older antiaircraft guns being replaced. On 25 November, Captain Aruga Kosaku was named commander of Yamato.

Please click here for a most atmospheric rendering of the story yet to unfold.

With the sinking of the Bismarck in the Atlantic, the strategic value of the once almighty naval battleship was called into question. With the sinking of the Yamato, the fate of this class of ship was sealed, and so too the previously unquestioned precepts of naval warfare. From Nelson to the Yamato, the ensign had been stretched to breaking point. New thinking was urgently needed. It came from the air.

1945: Final operations and sinking

On 1 January 1945, Yamato, Haruna and Nagato were all transferred to the newly reactivated 1st Battleship Division; Yamato left drydock two days later. When the 1st Battleship Division was deactivated once again on 10 February, Yamato was reassigned to the 1st Carrier Division. On 19 March 1945 Yamato came under heavy attack when American carrier aircraft from Enterprise, Yorktown and Intrepid raided the major naval base of Kure where she was docked. Damage to the battleship, however, was light, due in part to the base being defended by elite veteran Japanese fighter instructors flying Kawanishi N1K "Shiden" or "George" fighters

Led by the man who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, Minoru Genda, the appearance of these fighters, which were equal or superior to the F6F Hellcat in performance, surprised the attackers, and several American planes were shot down. Heavy antiaircraft defensive fire and the heavy upper-deck armour plating on Yamato also prevented any significant damage to the vessel. On 29 March, Yamato took on a full stock of ammunition, in preparation for combat off Okinawa in Operation Ten-Go.

Operation Ten-Go was a deliberate suicide attack against American forces off Okinawa by Yamato and nine escorts, beginning on 6 April 1945. Embarking from Kure, Yamato was to beach herself near Okinawa, and act as an unsinkable gun-emplacement—bombarding American forces on Okinawa with her 18.1-inch heavy-guns.

Yamato carried only enough fuel to reach Okinawa, as the fuel stocks available were insufficient to provide enough fuel to reach Okinawa and return. While navigating the Bungo Strait, Yamato and her escorts were spotted by the American submarines Threadfin and Hackleback, both of which notified Task Force 58 of Yamato's position. At 12:32 on 7 April 1945, Yamato was attacked by a first wave of 280 aircraft from Task Force 58, taking three hits (two bombs, one torpedo).

By 14:00, two of Yamato's escorts had been sunk. Shortly afterward, a second strike of 100 aircraft attacked Yamato and her remaining escorts. At 14:23, having taken 10 torpedo and 7 bomb hits, Yamato's forward ammunition magazines detonated. The smoke from the explosion—over 4 miles (6.4 km) high—was seen 100 miles (160 km) away on Kyūshū. An estimated 2,498 of the 2,700 crew members on Yamato were lost, including Vice-Admiral Seiichi Itō, the fleet commander.

The Bone Wreck. Sinking of the SS Armenian

2009-09-07T01:54:00.013+02:00

The SS Armenian was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast in 1895 and served with the Leyland Line until 1903. She spend a year chartered by the White Star Line and finished her life as a freighter. She was sunk by German Submarine of the Cornish coast in June of 1914

Search for the Bone Wreck

In June 1915, the SS Armenian, a large steamship managed by the White Star Line, the owners of the Titanic, heads into the Bristol Channel from the United States. She is carrying over 1400 mules destined for the Western Front. As the unarmed vessel nears the British coast, a German submarine spots the former liner and fires warning shots. To avoid capture, the Armenian makes a run for it. As the U-boat continually pounds her with shells, the captain orders the crew to abandon ship.

Once the remaining crew is safely off in lifeboats, the German U-boat fires a torpedo into the stern of the steamship. It only takes minutes for the Armenian to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic, with her unfortunate cargo of 1400 mules still on board. 29 American crewmembers also die, causing controversy as the United States have not yet officially entered the war.

More than 90 years later, the infamous White Star Line vessel has still not been found. Many have searched the waters off the coast of Cornwall, but the Armenian has proved to be elusive. Now, a new expedition of international divers is hunting for the ship known as the Bone Wreck. Using state-of-the-art dive and survey equipment, the team aims to be the first to find this long-lost vessel.

Underwater surveys have revealed several possibilities, and the divers’ first objective is to go down to two large wrecks near the point the captain of the Armenian noted as the location where he believed the ship went down. But even though one of those wrecks is full of bones, neither proves to be the Armenian. The expedition is forced to follow other lines of enquiry in order to locate the missing ship.

Unexpectedly, German archives reveal the actual log from the German U-boat that sank the mule transport. The German commander’s coordinates are at least 20 miles from where the ship was reported to have sunk and where the team has been searching. The final resting place of the Armenian has been found, with her sad cargo of thousands of mule bones aboard.

The sinking of the Ferry ILINDEN

2009-09-06T14:38:00.007+02:00

Drownings in Lake Ohrid in Southwest Macedonia whilst ferrying tourists to an Orthodox Monastery.

Mined off the Donegal Coast, the sinking of HMS Audacious

2009-08-24T10:40:00.006+02:00

HMS Audacious was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy.
The vessel did not survive its first conflict, being sunk by a naval mine off the northern coast of Donegal in Ireland in 1914.

At the beginning of World War I Audacious was part of the Second Battle Squadron of the British Grand Fleet. On 27 October 1914 the Second Battle Squadron, consisting of the 'super-dreadnoughts' HMS King George V, HMS Ajax, HMS Centurion, Audacious, HMS Monarch, HMS Thunderer and HMS Orion, left Lough Swilly to conduct gunnery exercises at Loch na Keal.

In a middle of a turn at 08:05 Audacious ran upon a mine laid by the German auxiliary mine-layer Berlin. The port engine room was flooded immediately, and Audacious began to list heavily and settle by the stern. Captain Cecil F. Dampier, thinking that the ship had been attacked by a submarine, hoisted the submarine warning and the rest of the squadorn steamed away from possible danger. Audacious, though unmanageable, was still capable of making 9 knots (17 km/h) on her starboard engine. Dampier believed that he had a chance of making the 25 miles (40 km) to land and beach the ship.

The light cruiser Liverpool stood by, while Audacious broadcast distress signals by wireless. The Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, Sir John Jellicoe ordered every available destroyer and tug out to assist, but did not dare send out battleships to tow Audacious in because of the apparent submarine threat. Meanwhile the White Star liner Olympic arrived on the scene.

At 10:50, with flooding worsening in the starboard engine room, Audacious stopped. Dampier brought the head of the ship round to sea and ordered all non-essential crew off. Boats from Liverpool and Olympic assisted until all but 250 men were taken off. At 13:30 the captain of Olympic, Commodore Haddock, suggested that his ship attempt to take Audacious in tow. Dampier agreed and with the assistance of the destroyer Fury a tow line was passed within half an hour. The ships began moving toward Lough Swilly, but Audacious was so unmanageable that the tow line parted. Liverpool and the collier Thornhill attempted to take the battleship in tow, but to no avail. In the mean time, at 13:08 a message had arrived from the coastguard station at Mulroy that the steamer Manchester Commerce had been mined in the same area the day before.

At 16:60 Malin Head reported that the sailing vessel Cardiff had also been mined the previous night. Upon learning this, at 17:00 Jellicoe ordered the pre-dreadnought battleship Exmouth out to attempt to tow Audacious in. In case the ship was saved he also requested an officer from the Construction Department at the Admiralty in anticipation of major repairs.

Vice-Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, commander of the First Battle Squadron, arrived on the scene in the boarding vessel Cambria and took over the rescue operation. With dark approaching, Bayly, Dampier and the remaining men on Audacious were taken off at 19:15. At 21:00 Audacious capsized and exploded, sending débris into the air. A piece of armour plate fell on and killed a petty officer on Liverpool, which was 800 yards (730 m) distant. This was the only casualty in connection with the sinking.

Jellicoe immediately proposed that the sinking be kept a secret, which the Board of Admiralty and the British Cabinet agreed to, an act open to ridicule later on. For the rest of the war Audacious' name remained on all public lists of ship movements and activities. Many Americans on board Olympic were beyond British jurisdiction and discussed the sinking. Many photos had been taken and even one moving film. By 19 November the loss of the ship was accepted in Germany. Jellicoe's opposing number in Germany, Reinhard Scheer, wrote after the war: "In the case of the Audacious we can but approve the English attitude of not revealing a weakness to the enemy, because accurate information about the other side's strength has a decisive effect on the decisions taken.

Just give me a ship; a tall, tall ship, and a star to steer her by.

2009-08-20T20:50:00.005+02:00

For about seventy years, from 1830, clipper ships were the racehorses of the sea. Sail has given way to steam and all the technological enhancements that have followed, but there is nothing at all more glorious than the sight of one of these magnificent vessels in full sail upon a shining ocean.

Fire at Sea. The sinking of Achille Lauro

2009-06-24T18:52:00.008+02:00

In 1964, she was sold to the Flotta Lauro Line, or Star Lauro, (now MSC Cruises) and renamed the Achille Lauro (after the company owner). Extensively rebuilt and modernized after an August 1965 onboard explosion, the Achille Lauro entered service in 1966 carrying passengers to Sydney, Australia. The ship played a role in evacuating the families of British servicemen caught up in the Six Day War, arriving in Cairo on June 1, 1967.

The Achille Lauro was converted to a cruise ship in early 1972, during which time she suffered a disastrous fire. A 1975 collision with the cargo ship Youseff resulted in the sinking of the latter, and another onboard fire in 1981 took her out of service for a time. She was laid up in Tenerife when the Lauro Lines went bankrupt in 1982. The Chandris Line took possession of her in 1985, shortly before the hijacking.

1985 hijacking

On October 7, 1985, four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) took control of the liner off Egypt as she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said.

The hijackers had been surprised by a crew member and acted prematurely. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons. After being refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers murdered wheelchair-bound American passenger Leon Klinghoffer and threw his body overboard. The ship headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner in exchange for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner.

United States President Ronald Reagan ordered that the plane be intercepted by F-14A Tomcats from the VF-74 "BeDevilers" and the VF-103 "Sluggers" of Airwing 17, based on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, on October 10 and directed to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella, a N.A.T.O. base in Sicily, where the hijackers were arrested by the Italians after a disagreement between American and Italian authorities.

The other passengers on the plane (possibly including the hijackers' leader, Abu Abbas) were allowed to continue on to their destination, despite protests by the United States. Egypt demanded an apology from the U.S. for forcing the airplane off course.

Disagreement between Italy and U.S.

Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi claimed Italian territorial rights over the NATO base and Italian Air Force and Carabinieri lined up facing the American Navy SEALs which had arrived with two C-141's. Other Carabinieri were sent from Catania to reinforce the Italians. It was the gravest diplomatic crisis between Italy and United States and was resolved five hours later.

The ship continued in service; she was reflagged in 1987 when the Lauro Line was taken over by the Mediterranean Shipping Company to become StarLauro. On November 30, 1994, she caught fire off the coast of Somalia while enroute to South Africa. Abandoned, the vessel sank on December 2.

Click here for a brief video of the shocking fire that sank the Lauro.

The sinking of the Empress of Canada.

2009-05-19T18:26:00.009+02:00

RMS Empress of Canada was an ocean liner built in 1920 for the Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP) by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland. This ship -- the first of two CP vessels to be named Empress of Canada -- regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Far East until 1939. This Empress was distinguished by the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) prefix in front of her name while in commercial service with Canadian Pacific. When not carrying mail, the ship would have been identified as SS Empress of Canada.

In 1920, Canadian Pacific Steamships ordered a new ship to be built by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan near Glasgow in Scotland. This Empress was a 21,517 ton, 653 foot ocean liner. She undertook her maiden voyage on 5 May 1922. Based at the port of Vancouver, British Columbia, the first Empress of Canada was intended to provided service to Japan, Hong Kong, and China. Her sister ships included Empress of France and Empress of Britain.

Great Kantō earthquake
On 34 September 1923, the Empress of Canada arrived at Tokyo harbor -- just three days after the devastating Great Kantō Earthquake struck the city. She found that the Empress of Australia had been converted to a command post from which the British consul was directing relief work; and the Empress of Canada transported refugees to Kobe -- 587 Europeans, 31 Japanese, and 362 Chinese.

World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she was converted for use as a troopship. She carried ANZAC troops from New Zealand and from Australia to the war zones in Europe.

SS Empress of Australia's ballroom was cleared for sleeping as ANZAC troops are transported from the Antipodes to the war zones in the Northern Hemisphere. This specific image was captured at sea in January 1940 near Fremantle, Western Australia.

The return voyage from Europe was not less dangerous than the trip north had been. On 13 March 1943, while en route from Durban, South Africa to Takoradi carrying Italian prisoners of war along with Polish and Greek refugees, the SS Empress of Canada was torpedoed and sunk by the Italian submarine Leonardo Da Vinci approximately 400 miles (640 km) south of Cape Palmas off the coast of Africa. Of the approximate 1800 people on board, 392 died. Nearly half of the fatalities reported were Italian prisoners.

Fire on the River. The Steamboat SS Sutlana

2009-05-18T23:46:00.006+02:00

The steamboat Sultana was a Mississippi River paddlewheeler destroyed in an explosion on 27 April 1865. This resulted in the greatest maritime disaster in United States history until that time. An estimated 1,800 of the 2,400 passengers were killed when one of the ship's four boilers exploded and the Sultana sank not far from Memphis, Tennessee. This disaster received somewhat diminished attention as it took place soon after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and during the closing weeks of the Civil War.

Under the command of Captain J.C. Mason of St. Louis, the Sultana left New Orleans on April 21, 1865, with 75 to 100 cabin passengers, deck passengers, and numerous heads of livestock bound for market in St. Louis. At Vicksburg, Mississippi, the steamship stopped for a series of hasty repairs to the boilers and to take on more passengers. Rather than have a bad boiler replaced, a small patch weld job was done to reinforce a leaking area. A section of bulged boiler plate was removed, and a patch of less thickness than the parent plate was riveted in its place.

This repair only took about a day, whereas to replace the boiler completely would have taken about three days. Captain Mason was itching to be on his way and had the patch job done because it was faster. During the Sultana's time in port, men tried to muscle, bribe, and threaten their way on board, until the ship was bursting at the seams with soldiers. More than two thousand men crowded aboard.

Most of the new passengers were Union soldiers, chiefly from Ohio and just released from Confederate prison camps such as Cahawba and Andersonville. The US government had contracted with the Sultana to transport these former prisoners of war back to their homes. With a legal capacity of only 376, the Sultana was severely overcrowded. Many of Sultana's passengers had been weakened by their incarceration and associated illnesses. Passengers were packed into every available berth, and the overflow was so severe that the decks were completely packed.

The cause of the explosion was a leaky and poorly repaired steam boiler. There was reason to believe allowable working steam pressure was exceeded attempting to overcome the spring river current. The boiler (or "boilers") gave way when the steamer was about 7 to 9 miles north of Memphis at 2:00 A.M. There was a terrific explosion that sent some of the passengers on deck into the water while destroying a good portion of the ship. Hot coals scattered by the explosion soon turned the remaining superstructure into an inferno, the glare of which could be seen in Memphis.

The first boat on the scene at about 3:00 A.M. (an hour after the explosion) was the southbound steamer Bostonia II which overtook the burning wreck and rescued scores of survivors. The hulk drifted to the west bank and sank about dawn off the tiny settlement of Mound City, Arkansas. Other vessels joined the rescue, including the steamer Arkansas, the Jenny Lind, the Essex, and the Navy sidewheel gunboat USS Tyler, manned by volunteers. The ship's regular crew had been discharged days before.

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

About 500 survivors, many with horrible burns, were transported to hospitals in Memphis. Up to 300 of them died later from burns or exposure. Newspaper accounts indicate that the people of Memphis had sympathy for the victims despite the fact that they had recently been enemies. The Chicago Opera Troupe staged a benefit, the crew of the Essex raised $1,000, and the mayor took in three survivors.

Monuments and historical markers to the Sultana and its victims have been erected at Memphis, Tennessee; Muncie, Indiana; Marion, Arkansas; Vicksburg, Mississippi; Cincinnati, Ohio; Knoxville, Tennessee; Hillsdale, Michigan; and Mansfield, Ohio.

The Pamyat Azova and a rotten egg.

2009-05-16T16:40:00.009+02:00

The Pamiat Azova (Память Азовa meaning Memory of Azov) was a unique armoured cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the late 1880s. She was decommissioned from front line service in 1909, converted into a depot ship and sunk by British torpedo boats during the British Campaign in the Baltic 1918-19, in the Russian Civil War.

The ship served with the Baltic Fleet and took part in a round the World Cruise with Crown Prince Nicholas on board. This led to a Fabergé egg, the Memory of Azov being made to commemorate this event. There was a mutiny aboard the cruiser in 1906 near Reval and the ship was placed in reserve. In 1909 she was converted into a torpedo boat depot ship and renamed Dvina. She was sunk by the British torpedo boat CMB79 in Kronstadt Harbour on 18 August 1919. The wreck was raised and scrapped.

The egg commemorates the voyage made by then-Tsarevitch Nicholas and Grand Duke George to the Far East in 1890.
The trip was made after a suggestion by their parents to broaden the outlook of the future Tsar and his brother. At the time, Grand Duke George was suffering from tuberculosis and the voyage only exacerbated it. Tsarevitch Nicholas was also the victim of an attempted assassination whilst in Japan and sustained a serious head wound. The Tsarina was presented with the egg before these events occurred and it was never one of her favourite eggs.

Remembering RMS TITANIC

2009-04-13T15:55:00.012+02:00

It took 4000 proud Irish men to build her, and one fated Englishman to sink her.

The magnificent White Star Liner TITANIC sank on this day, ninety seven years ago. This blog is a testament to her enduring mystique in the collective mind of human kind ever since. For those who may be interested, kindly refer here to an astonishing interview with survivor Edith Russell, and if you listen closely, you will learn the reason for the decision to title my blog Nineteen Keys.

The Royal Mail Ship TITANIC sank on this day, 97 years ago.

Survivors, victims and statistics

Category, Number Aboard, Number of Survivors, Percentage That Survived, Number Lost, Percentage That Were Lost

First Class 329 199 60.5 % 130 39.5 %
Second Class 285 119 41.7 % 166 58.3 %
Third Class 710 174 24.5 % 536 75.5 %
Crew 899 214 23.8 % 685 76.2 %
Total 2,223 706 31.8 % 1,517 68.2 %

U-Boat Ace Of The Deep! Kretchmer and U-99

2009-04-04T05:01:00.014+02:00

The Brilliance of Otto Kretchmer.

In the U-Boat war in the Atlantic, there were only a handful of captains who were responsible for the sinking of over 150,000 tonnes of enemy shipping. Otto Kretchmer was chief among them all.

Commodore Otto Kretschmer (May 1, 1912 – August 5, 1998) was a German U-boat commander of the Second World War, and was the most successful Ace of the Deep. From September 1939 until being captured in March 1941, he sank 47 ships for a total of 274,333 tons. For this he received the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, among other commendations. He earned the nickname "Silent Otto" both for his successful use of the "silent running" capability of the U-boats as well as for his reluctance to make radio broadcasts during patrols.

The German invasion of Poland found Kretschmer still in command of U-23, and he was soon sent into action along with the rest of the Kriegsmarine's U-Boat fleet. His first war patrols ranged across the North Sea and around the British coast. Kretschmer's first success came in Moray Firth where he attacked and sunk the Danish 10,517 ton tanker Danmark on January 12, 1940 using torpedoes. The British admiralty at that time thought that the tanker had struck a mine as they did not locate any U-boat in the area. A month later on 18 February, Kretschmer sank the 1,300 ton British fleet destroyer HMS Daring off the Pentland Firth while she was escorting convoy HN-12 from Norway. U-Boat crews almost always avoided deliberately engaging enemy destroyers, so the Daring's destruction was rightly seen as a very skillful attack by both Kretschmer and the U-23.

In April 1940, after eight patrols, Kretschmer left the U-23 and was transferred to the newly-completed Type VIIB U-99, and in a sense started his legacy. After two months' training and shakedown maneuvers in German waters, U-99 went into action in June 1940. During the first four patrols of the U-99, Kretschmer started attacking convoys at night on the surface, taking down merchant ships with highly accurate shots, using only one torpedo per target ship in order to save ammunition, and the quote "One torpedo ... one ship" is attributed to Kretschmer from around this time. Kretschmer's tactics were widely copied throughout the U-Boat force, although they achieved mixed results in practice.

His most successful patrol occurred in November-December 1940. During that patrol, Kretschmer and U-99 sank three British armed merchant cruisers, HMS Laurentic (18,724 tons), HMS Patroclus (11,314 tons) and HMS Forfar (16,402 tons). Laurentic and Patroclus were sunk on the night of 3-4 November after they responded to distress calls from the 5,376 ton British freighter Casanare, which U-99 had mortally wounded about 250 miles west of Ireland. Forfar was sunk a month later on 2 December while steaming to join up with and escort outbound convoy OB-251. Put together, the three AMCs totalled over 46,000 gross tons. These three successes earned Kretschmer the number-one spot on the Aces list, and was never surpassed. Klaus Bargsten served aboard U-99 under Kretschmer, before being promoted to captain himself and becoming the sole survivor of U-521 on June 2, 1942.

Kretschmer was also meticulous in his conduct towards the crews of torpedoed ships. When attacking lone merchant ships in the days before wolfpack tactics began in earnest, he had been known to hand down bottles of spirits and blankets into lifeboats and give them the course to the nearest land. On one patrol in September 1940, Kretschmer had also retrieved a survivor of another torpedo attack who was alone in the Atlantic on a small raft and took him aboard, transferring him later to a lifeboat after his next successful attack.

On his last patrol in March 1941, he sank 10 more ships, but these were to be Kretschmer's last victims. On March 17 1941, during a counterattack by British escorts of Convoy HX-112, U-99 was disabled after repeated depth charge attacks by the British destroyers HMS Walker and HMS Vanoc. Kretschmer surfaced and, under fire from the British vessels, scuttled his boat. Three of his men were lost, but Kretschmer and the remainder of U-99's crew were captured by the British. The same day saw the British escorts scored another success against the Kriegsmarine: another noted U-Boat skipper, Joachim Schepke, was killed aboard U-100 when that boat was rammed and sunk in heavy fog by Vanoc.

Kretschmer's usual standards of conduct were evident during the sinking of his boat; he signaled HMS Walker asking for rescue for his men, took pains to ensure as many left the submarine as possible, and assisted some of his crew towards the rescue nets hung from the British destroyer. Kretschmer's strength was evidently failing in the cold water and his own rescue was at the hands of a British sailor who climbed down the nets and plucked him from the water, in a gesture characteristic of the excellence and finest qualities of the Royal Navy.

3 Swords of the Emperor. The true story of Captain Bernhard Rogge and the Raider ATLANTIS

2008-12-06T20:00:00.013+01:00

During WW2, Emperor Hirohito of Japan awarded only 3 ceremonial swords in his personal gift to officers of the German Military. One to Hermann Goering in his capacity as commanding officer of the Luftwaffe, one to Field Marshall Irwin Romel, and one to Captain Bernhard Rogge.

This is a picture of Captain Bernhard Rogge, master of the German Raider, ATLANTIS during the second World War.

Like many officers of the Kriegsmarine, or German Navy, he was of Jewish descent. Unlike many, though, he saw distinguished service in WW2 as commanding officer of the raider ATLANTIS. He rose to the rank of Vice Admiral in the Kriegsmarine, and served as Rear Admiral in the West German navy. Following the war's end, Captain Rogge was one of very few senior officers not arrested, due in large part to the conduct of his command of the ATLANTIS. In fact, in the words of Captain J. Armstrong-White, master of City Of Baghdad, sunk by the ATLANTIS in July, 1941, "His treatment of prisoners left respect, instead of hatred".

There is much to come in the days ahead, including the secret dossier that led to the downfall of Singapore and laid the way for the Japanese invasion of Singapore. The master of the German Raider Atlantis is central to the dye of the second world war, events that unfolded due to the actions, in many respects, of a single German Naval Officer, and a man of singular high warrant as a man and as a sailor. Captain Bernhard Rogge.

SO LONG OLD GAL. QE2 arrives in Dubai.

2008-11-27T14:24:00.006+01:00

QE2 approaches her final home.

2008-11-24T22:31:00.007+01:00

LISTEN.....

LOOK.

Remembering HMAS SYDNEY, sunk 67 years ago today.

2008-11-19T19:13:00.014+01:00

On 5 November 1941 at Albany, Western Australia, HMAS Sydney began escorting the troopship Zealandia, which was bound for Singapore. HMAS Sydney and Zealandia arrived at Fremantle on 9 November. They were delayed by a labour dispute on board Zealandia, but left Fremantle on 11 November. On 17 November, HMAS Sydney handed over escort duties of Zealandia to HMS Durban at Sunda Strait, then turned around to head back to Fremantle.

HMAS Sydney was scheduled to arrive back in Fremantle in the afternoon or evening of 20 November. Axis submarines and surface raiders had already been active in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and it was expected that any Australian naval vessel on such a voyage might have to investigate reported sightings or suspicious vessels.

At about 4pm on 19 November, somewhere west of Shark Bay, Western Australia, HMAS Sydney sighted what she believed to be a merchant ship about 11 nautical miles away and challenged her. The other ship identified herself as the Dutch ship Straat Malakka. She was, in fact, the German merchant raider Kormoran, disguised and sailing under a false flag. According to survivors from Kormoran, the ill-prepared HMAS Sydney closed to within 1,000 metres (1,100 yd), and was surprised and overwhelmed when the crew of the heavily armed raider opened fire at nearly point-blank range with concealed artillery and torpedoes.

Kormoran was also badly damaged in the ensuing battle and had to be abandoned and scuttled due to engine failure and a fire that was burning out of control. Survivors from Kormoran were rescued by the ships Koolinda, the Cunard liner Aquitania, Trocas and HMAS Yandra, while a further 103 reached Carnarvon by lifeboat. The Germans reported that Sydney was last seen down by the bow and on fire as she disappeared over the horizon.

HMAS Sydney was sunk by the German raider Kormoran 67 years ago today.

She was lost with all hands.

COLLISION IN FOG! The sinking of the SS Mendi.

2008-11-19T13:48:00.007+01:00

SS Mendi was a steamship of the Elder Dempster Line, chartered by the British government as a troopship, which sank off the Isle of Wight in 1917 with the loss of 646 lives. The Mendi sinking is considered one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the South African military, and was one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century in British waters.

On 21 February 1917, during World War I, the Mendi was transporting 823 members of the 5th Battalion, South African Native Labour Corps to France. She had sailed from Cape Town via Lagos, where a gun was fitted to her stern, to Plymouth, before proceeding towards Le Havre. At 5am, while under escort of the destroyer HMS Brisk, she was struck amidships and cut almost in half by the, SS Darro (11,000 BRT), an empty meat ship that was bound for Argentina. SS Mendi sank within twenty minutes.

616 South Africans (607 of them black troops) plus 30 British crew members died in the disaster.

An excellent BBC description of the Sinking and it's resonance to this day, can be listened to HERE.

Oral history records that the men met their fate with great dignity. Their chaplain, Reverend Isaac Dyobha, is reported to have calmed the panicked men by raising his arms aloft and crying out in a loud voice:-

"Be quiet and calm, my countrymen. What is happening now is what you came to do...you are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers...Swazis, Pondos, Basotho...so let us die like brothers. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war-cries, brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais in the kraal, our voices are left with our bodies."

An investigation into the accident found the captain of the Darro to be at fault for "having travelled at a dangerously high speed in thick fog, and of having failed to ensure that his ship emitted the necessary fog sound signals."

The incident remains a largely forgotten aspect of World War I, both in terms of the loss of life and in relation to the role of African labourers in the war.

The wreck was located 11.3 nautical miles from Saint Catherine's Light in 1945, but was not positively identified until 1974.

The ship is sitting upright on the ocean floor, but has started to break up, exposing her boilers. In 2006, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission launched an education resource called "Let us die like brothers" to highlight the role played by black South Africans during the World War I. Although they were treated as inferior while alive, in death they are afforded the same level of commemoration as all other Commonwealth war dead.

In December 2006, English Heritage commissioned Wessex Archaeology to undertake an initial desk-based appraisal of the wreck. The project will identify a range of areas for potential future research and serve as the basis for a possible non-intrusive survey of the wreck itself in the near future.

SS DARRO, commanded by Captain Henry Winchester Stump, which plowed into SS Mendi at high speed whilst steaming in thick fog.

NEW HOPE, and the pursuit of unity.

2008-11-17T21:22:00.010+01:00

And the sea will grant each man new hope; his sleep brings dreams of home.

The Remorseful Day.

2008-11-16T23:05:00.006+01:00

It is the season of remembrance here in Europe, and soon to be the season of Thanks Giving in the United States. I offer this marvellous reflection on the going down of the sun. For things lost; for things that never were; in the memory of all those who have fallen under the spell of that Siren call that continues to draw men to the lure of a furious sea.

Watch and Listen from minute one onwards.

USS IOWA, Kendall Truitt, Clayton Hartwig and Firepower of a bygone era.

2008-11-16T15:27:00.022+01:00

Captain Fred Moosally, USN presenting Seaman Clayton Hartwig with a Duty Award at Norfolk in the summer of 1988.

USS Iowa (BB-61) ("The Big Stick") was the lead ship of her class of battleship, and was the fourth ship of in the United States Navy to be named in honour of the 29th state. USS Iowa is the only ship of the class to have served a combat tour in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.

During World War II, Iowa served in the Atlantic fleet as a countermeasure against the German battleship Tirpitz. When transferred to the Pacific fleet in 1944, Iowa shelled beachheads at Kwajalein and Eniwetok in advance of Allied amphibious landings and screened aircraft carriers operating in the Marshall Islands. During the Korean War, Iowa was involved in raids up and down the North Korean coast, after which she was decommissioned into the United States Navy reserve fleets, better known as the "mothball fleet". She was reactivated in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan, and operated in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets to counter the recently expanded Soviet Navy.

In April 1989 an explosion of undetermined origin wrecked her #2 gun turret, killing 47 sailors.

Iowa was decommissioned for the last time in 1990, and was initially struck from the Naval Vessel Register in 1995; however, she was reinstated in 1999 to allow her sister ship New Jersey to be donated to her namesake state for use as a museum. Iowa is currently berthed with the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, near San Francisco, California, and is awaiting donation to a not-for-profit entity for use as a museum ship.

At present, Iowa is the only member of her class not open to the public.

At 9:55 AM on 19 April 1989, an explosion ripped through the Number Two 16 inch gun turret, killing 47 crewmen. A sailor in the powder magazine room quickly flooded it, thereby preventing catastrophic damage to the ship. At first, the NCIS investigators theorized that one of the dead crewman, Clayton Hartwig, had detonated an explosive device in a suicide attempt after the end of an alleged homosexual affair with another sailor.

To support this claim naval officials pointed to several different factors, including Hartwig's life insurance policy, which named Kendall Truitt as the sole beneficiary in the event of his death, the presence of certain unexplained materials inside Turret II, and his mental state, which was alleged to be unstable. Although the Navy was satisfied with the investigation and its results, others were unimpressed with the NCIS investigation, and in October 1991, amid increasing criticism over what was seen as a very poor investigation with little or no real forensic proof, Congress relented and forced the Navy to reopen the investigation.

This second investigation, handled by independent investigators, was hampered by the fact that most of original debris from Iowa had been cleaned up or otherwise disposed of by the Navy before and after the first investigation, but the investigation did manage to uncover evidence pointing to an accidental powder explosion rather than an intentional act of sabotage by sailors, homosexual or otherwise.

While Iowa was undergoing modernization, sister ship USS New Jersey (BB-62) had been dispatched to Lebanon to aid the peacekeeping forces by providing offshore fire support. Unfortunately, New Jersey was at the time the only commissioned battleship anywhere in the world, and in an effort to get another battleship commissioned to relieve New Jersey, the modernization of Iowa was stepped up, leaving her in poor condition when she recommissioned in 1984. In May 1988, Captain Fred Mosally, USN replaced Captain Larry Seaquist, USN as captain of the Iowa. Unlike Captain Seaquist, who had placed emphasis on the training and manning of guns, Captain Mosally was more concerned with the maintenance of the missiles on Iowa.

It transpires the Navy had improperly stored the gunpowder used aboard the battleship; it had been placed aboard a barge where sunlight and other elemental factors contributed to its degradation. Powder from the same lot as the one under investigation was tested at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. Spontaneous combustion was achieved with the powder, which had been originally milled in the 1930s and improperly stored in a barge at the Navy's Yorktown, Virginia Naval Weapons Station during a 1988 dry-docking of the Iowa.

Gun powder gives off ether gas as it degrades; the ether is highly flammable, and could be ignited by a spark. This revelation resulted in a shift in the Navy's position on the incident, and Admiral Frank Kelso, the Chief of Naval Operations at the time, publicly apologized to the Hartwig family, concluding that there was no real evidence to support the claim that he had intentionally killed the other sailors. The captain of the Iowa, Captain Fred Moosally, was severely criticized for his handling of the matter, and as a result of the incident the Navy changed the powder-handling procedures for its battleships.

The incident remains the surface Navy's worst loss of life during peace time operations, surpassing the loss of life incurred from the attack of an Iraqi Air Force jet on the Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate USS Stark (FFG-31).

My personal pictures of the Grand Old Queen in June of this year.

2008-11-12T13:40:00.004+01:00

Click HERE to see the bridgecam of her final voyage from Southampton to Dubai.

All but the last of these were taken from the 11 deck Observation area in Queen Mary 2 as she left Southampton for New York, the day of the Queen's final visit to the ship she named forty years earlier. Isn't she lovely?

QE 2 Runs Aground on her final day.

2008-11-12T01:58:00.007+01:00

Two and a half million passengers, 800 Atlantic crossings, five and a half million miles and this beloved old girl of the sea reminded us she's not going easily.
Queen Elizabeth 2 ran aground this morning as she was coming into Southampton Water. She has departed for Dubai to a tumultuous farewell from her home port of forty years.

So long, old gal.

HEARTBREAK of the last Scottish Ship. The retirement of the Cunard Liner Queen Elizabeth 2.

2008-11-08T21:29:00.022+01:00

Where do I begin with such a glorious Ocean Liner?

Perhaps here, with her whistle, one of the most sonorous in the history of maritime navigation.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Oceans, a ROYAL QUEEN is about to retire.

Look at her bows; look at her pennant; look at her!!!

And a fitting farewell from the NEW Cunard Flagship.

There are few ocean liners left in the world, and fewer still with the reputation and sheer glory of the Queen Elizabeth 2. For those not in the know of such things, including (perhaps ?) the Sovereign who named her, the QE2 was intended to be named after the Cunard Liner Queen Elizabeth, and not after the present QUEEN of England. In her naming of the ship on the Clyde in 1968, Her Majesty named the ship "Queen Elizabeth the second", and so she is. It was the purpose of Cunard that she be named as the second of the stable in the name Queen Elizabeth, an ocean liner named after Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon; later to become Queen Elizabeth, the mother of the present Queen. If you pay attention to sailors, though, her REAL name is the name she was given by the Sovereign at her christening, regardless of what Cunard, or anyone else for that matter, would have you believe.

No matter, either of Queen Elizabeth 2, or Queen Elizabeth the second; whether she be named after a ship, a Monarch, a Monarch's mother or all three, one thing is for certain. QE2, built of Scottish sweat, tears and blood at the John Brown Shipyard on Clydeside, is a glorious Ocean Liner not likely to be seen again in a very long time.

RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) is a Cunard Line ocean liner named after the earlier Cunard liner RMS Queen Elizabeth, which in turn was named after Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the Queen consort of George VI; the Queen Mother . She was the flagship of the Cunard line from 1969 until succeeded by RMS Queen Mary 2 in 2004. Built in Clydebank, Scotland, she was considered the last of the great transatlantic ocean liners prior to the construction of the QM2. Before she was refitted with a diesel power plant in 1986, she was also the last oil-fired passenger steamship to cross the Atlantic in scheduled liner service. During almost 40 years of service, the QE2 has travelled the world and now operates predominantly as a cruise ship, sailing out of Southampton, England.

She will be retired from active service in late 2008, to become a floating hotel at Palm Jumeirah, Dubai.

Retirement

As Queen Elizabeth 2 approached her 40th anniversary with Cunard, questions begun to circulate as to how much longer the ship could stay in service. Cunard had to consider the economics of maintaining a 40-year-old liner in operation, particularly with regard to new SOLAS safety regulations that would apply from 2010 onward.

Both Southampton and Clydebank had offered to take over QE2 after her retirement, but on 18 June 2007 it was announced that the ship has been purchased by the Dubai investment company Istithmar for $100 million. Her final voyage will be from Southampton to Dubai, leaving on 11 November 2008.

After arrival, she will be refurbished and berthed permanently at the Palm Jumeirah from 2009 as a "a luxury floating hotel, retail, museum and entertainment destination", or in other words, a painted harlot. What an ignominious end for so glorious a ship. I'd sooner see her sunk.

Farewell, QE2. Your forty years upon the oceans of the world will not soon be forgotten.

The sinking of the Montevideo Maru

2008-11-08T11:30:00.020+01:00

On July 1st, 1942 the Montevideo Maru, a passenger ship accutomed to Asian waters, was sunk off the northern coast of Luzon by an American submarine, the USS Sturgeon, under the command of Lt. Cdr Wright, USN.

1,050 Australians were lost in the greatest single maritime tragedy in Australia's history. I don't mean by this to apportion blame to the Americans, nor to the brave crew of the submarine USS Sturgeon who sank her in slack waters with four torpedoes, but I do wish to draw attention to the loss of this ship, and the death of her mainly Australian passengers.

There is a bleak brotherhood among those who have died upon the sea, and those of you familiar with my little blog here will know that I spend a bit of extra time with those nautical losses and sunken ships that help in some way to define a nation in its greatest, most terrible hour, and those scurilous combatants who seek since to obscure the truth, long after the war has ended. There are few nations who define these parameters so perfectly as the Australians and the Japanese, as extant upon their relationship during the 2nd World War.

An excellent description of the sinking and its aftermath can be listened to here.

On 22 June 1942, some weeks after the fall of Rabaul to the Japanese, 1,053 Australians, including 845 prisoners of war and 208 civilian internees, were embarked from that port onto the ship. She was proceeding without escort to the Chinese island of Hainan, when she was sighted by the American submarine USS Sturgeon near the northern Philippine coast on 30 June.

The Sturgeon pursued, but was unable to fire, as the target was traveling at 17 knots. However, it slowed to about 12 knots at midnight; according to crewman Yosiaki Yamaji, it was to rendezvous with an escort of two destroyers. Unaware that it was carrying Allied prisoners of war and civilians, the Sturgeon then fired four torpedoes at the Montevideo Maru, sinking it before dawn of 1 July. According to Yamaji, Australians in the water sang "Auld Lang Syne" to their trapped mates as the ship sank beneath the waves.

The sinking is the worst maritime disaster in Australia's history. Of the ship's total complement of about 1,140 (including 88 crew), there were reportedly only 18 survivors (all crewmen), one of whom died soon afterwards. Among the missing was Reverend Syd Beazley of the Methodist Mission, the uncle of former ALP opposition leader Kim Beazley. Another was grandfather of former Midnight Oil lead singer and current Rudd government minister Peter Garrett. The story is retold in the Midnight Oil song "In the Valley".

DISASTER! The sinking of the RMS REPUBLIC

2008-11-02T21:44:00.030+01:00

The Royal Mail Steamer REPUBLIC was a gorgeous White Star Liner.

The ship was originally built in Belfast, for the International Mercantile Marine's Dominion Line (a sister company to the White Star Line) and was named SS Columbus. After two voyages with Dominion, she was sold to White Star and renamed Republic (the White Star's original Republic of 1872 had been sold over a decade earlier).

Superstitious sailors will tell you that changing the keel name of a ship is an unwise thing to do.

Collision with SS Florida

In early morning of January 23, 1909, while sailing from New York City to Gibraltar and Mediterranean ports with 742 passengers and crew, Captain Inman Sealby in command, the Royal Mail Steamer Republic entered a thick fog off the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, inamous for whaling ship disasters I shall cover here in the fullness of time

Among the passengers were any amount of the great and the good, illustrious people such as Mrs. Sophie Curtis, wife of George M. Curtis, Mrs. Mary Severance, wife of Cordenio A. Severance, Professor John M. Coulter, and Lady Katherine Van Loo. Travelling in first class were also Mr. Leonard L. McMurray, who, in 1915, would survive the sinking of the Cunard liner Lusitania, and Mrs. John T. Davis, daughter-in-law of senator Henry G. Davis of West Virginia with two children.

The steamer reduced speed and regularly signalled its presence by whistle. At 5:47 a.m., another whistle was heard and the Republic's engines were ordered to full reverse, and the helm put "hard-a-port". Out of the fog, the Lloyd Italiano liner Florida appeared and hit Republic amidships, at about ninety degrees. Two passengers asleep in their cabins on Republic were killed when Florida's bow sliced into her, including liquor wholesale manager Eugene Lynch's wife Mary and banker W. J. Mooney.

Eugene Lynch was critically injured and died as a result of his injuries at Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn, January 26, 1909. On the Florida, three black crewmen were also killed when the bow was crushed back to a collision bulkhead.

The engine and boiler rooms on RMS Republic began to flood, and the ship listed. Captain Sealby led the crew in calmly organizing the passengers on deck for evacuation. RMS Republic was equipped with the new Marconi wireless telegraph system, and became......

the first ship in history to issue a CQD distress signal.

Florida came about to rescue Republic's complement, and the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Gresham responded to the distress signal. Passengers were distributed between the two ships, with Florida taking the bulk of them, but with 900 Italian immigrants already on board, this left the ship dangerously overloaded.

The White Star liner Baltic, commanded by Captain J. B. Ranson, also responded to the CQD call, but due to the persistent fog, it was not until the evening that Baltic was able to locate the drifting RMS Republic. Once on-scene, the rescued passengers were transferred from Gresham and Florida to Baltic. Because of the damage to Florida, that ship's immigrant passengers were also transferred to Baltic, but a riot nearly broke out when they had to wait until first-class Republic passengers were transferred. Once everyone was on board, Baltic sailed for New York.

Captain Sealby and a skeleton crew remained on board Republic to make an effort to save her. Crewmen from the Gresham tried using collision mats to stem the flooding, but to no avail. By this time the steamers New York and Lucania (from Cunard) had also arrived, and waited while an attempt was made by Gresham to take Republic under tow. This effort, too was futile, and on January 24, the mighty Royal Mail Steamer REPUBLIC sank.

At 15,378 tons, she was the largest ship to have sunk up to that time. The remaining crew were evacuated before she sank.

The Republic sank on January 24th, 1909 when she collided in a dense fog with an immigrant ship named SS Florida. The approximate location of her sinking is about 50 miles south of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. The RMS Republic was reportedly carrying a fortune of 5 tons of newly minted American Gold Eagle coins valued at $3 million in 1909, 15 tons of gold bars, a Navy payroll with estimated current value around $70 million and several tons of silver, as well as passengers' jewelry. Additionally, it was reported to have on board JP Morgan's rare library of documents and books.

"A DATE WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY" The sinking of USS ARIZONA

2008-10-29T00:00:00.040+01:00

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives: yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The USS Arizona (BB-39) was a Pennsylvania-class battleship of the United States Navy.

The vessel was the third to be named in honour of the 48th state, though the first since its statehood was actually achieved. She was commissioned in 1916 and saw action in World War I. The USS Arizona is best known for her cataclysmic and dramatic sinking, with the loss of 1,177 lives, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, the event that brought about U.S. involvement in World War II. The wreck was not salvaged, and continues to lie at the floor of the harbour. It is the site of a memorial to those who perished on that day.

Captain Isaac Kidd, USN, pictured prior to his promotion to Rear Admiral.

Acts of heroism on the part of Arizona's officers and men were many, headed by those of Lieutenant Commander Samuel G. Fuqua, the ship's damage control officer, whose coolness in attempting to quell the fires and get survivors off the ship earned him the Medal of Honour. Posthumous awards of the Medal of Honour also went to Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, the first flag officer killed in the Pacific war, and to Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh, who reached the bridge and was attempting to defend his ship when the bomb hit on the magazines destroyed her.

The blast that destroyed Arizona and sank her at her berth alongside of Ford Island took a total of 1,177 lives of the 1,400 crewmen on board at the time—over half of the casualties suffered by the entire fleet in the attack.

"No, there is no boat here." The Sinking of the Ferry ESTONIA.

2008-10-25T12:34:00.013+02:00

"NO, THERE IS NO BOAT HERE."
These are the haunting words uttered by the captain of the Mariella, the lead rescue ship, one of many, who raced to the last reported position of the massive Ferry Estonia, on a cold night on the Baltic in late September of 1994.

MS Estonia, previously MS Viking Sally (1980–1990), MS Silja Star (–1991), and MS Wasa King (–1993), was a cruiseferry built in 1980 at the German shipyard Meyer Werft in Papenburg. The ship sank in the Baltic Sea on September 28, 1994, claiming 852 lives and was one of the deadliest maritime disasters in the late 20th century. Superstitious sailors will tell you that changing the keel name of a ship is an unwise thing to do.

Here's what this beautiful ship looked like in happier times.

The loss of the Estonia was a terrible accident, and one which would have implications for open-bow ferries for the rest of time. The story is best told in moving pictures.

Here is a startling video demonstrating the physics of what happened to the ramp housing of the bow visor of the ESTONIA, the failure of which lead to her sinking.

Unusually, here are the actual recordings of bridge communications between the ESTONIA and the Finnish Coast she was communicating with during her transit of the Baltic on that fateful night. They are chilling.

Anatoly Babkin and the day naval warfare changed forever.

2008-10-16T13:06:00.022+02:00

INTRODUCING THE SHKVAL.

Anatoly Babkin, brilliant Russian scientist and most recently head of the rocket engine faculty at the Bauman Technical University in Moscow, designed a weapon the Russians called Shkval. The Shkval is a supercavitation torpedo, which is capable of being fired by air, surface or underwater, and is known to achieve underwater speeds of at least 300 knots, or aproximately 330 miles per hour, and possibly even more. It achieves this by bleeding some of the gasses produced by its rocket powered propulsion device, expelling these gasses through special apertures on the nose of the torpedo, thus enveloping it in a bubble of gas enabling it to 'fly' underwater.

In this way, the torpedo behaves more like a missile, rather than a conventional torpedo. For those of you who recall your high school physics, force equals mass times acceleration. Since acceleration is a square function, the speed squared is reflected in the resultant force. Thus, any object weighing around 3 tonnes, travelling underwater at 330 mph, will cause catastrophic damage to any ship or submarine it impacts with, without the need for a conventional warhead. Were such a weapon conventionally, or even nuclear armed, the SHKVAL represents a fundamental shift in the balance of power within the context of Naval Warfare, and will change the playing field forever.

The Russian SHKVAL weighs 2700 kilograms, is 8.5 meters in length, has an effective operational range of between 7 and 13 kilometers and costs twelve million US dollars each, if able to locate a compliant source.

Naval strategy has changed dramatically over the past one hundred years, with capitol ship importance passing from Battleships, to Aircraft Carriers and then onto Nuclear submarines, but all are in grave danger before the threat represented by the SHKVAL supercavitation torpedo.

First of all, what is cavitation?
Cavitation is defined as the formation of an empty space within a solid object or body. In the underwater case, It is the phenomena whereby rotating underwater machinery, like propellors, release the gasses contained within the molecular structure of water, beyond a certain speed of rotation, angular displacement of propellor blades, temperature, salinity and pressure, by virtue of its rotation through the water. This is important in the submarine world, because cavitation is a hugely noisy phenomenon and can easily betray the location of a previously undetected submarine.

Here is a brief video demonstrating the phenomena of cavitation.

Typical of the Russians, though, they took this unwanted aspect of underwater operations, this potential liability, and experimented with it in order to obtain a tactical advantage. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in the development of SHKVAL.

Below is a rather longwinded video, of tabloid instincts in large parts, but one which has some important tactical information about SHKVAL along with some background information on the submarine KURSK and her tragic loss. This is a Canadian production, rather tedious in the beginning, and I recommend you commence viewing at minute 16. It advances the theory that it was a SHKVAL explosion in the Torpedo room of the Kursk, possibly whilst within a firing tube, which lead to her sinking. There is no firm evidence in support of this, as there is for the involvement of USS Toledo and USS Memphis, particularly the protracted visit of the former to a sealed dry dock in Bergen for 3 days immediately following the loss of the Kursk, but information as it pertains to the weapon itself, is somewhat valuable.

In case there is any doubt as to the effectiveness of torpedoes, here is a brief demonstration of what old technology torpedoes can do. This is the handiwork of a Mark 48, conventional torpedo, fired at conventional speeds with a conventional warhead. the SHKVAL is anything but conventional, in every imaginable way.

The Oceans Most Wicked Tragedy: Russian Submarine KURSK

2008-10-14T23:31:00.017+02:00

K-141 Kursk was an Oscar II class nuclear cruise missile submarine of the Russian Navy, lost with all hands when it sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000.

Kursk, full name Атомная подводная лодка "Курск" [АПЛ "Курск"] in Russian, was a Project 949A Антей (Antey, Antaeus but was also known by its NATO reporting name of Oscar II). It was named after the Russian city Kursk, around which the largest tank battle in military history, the Battle of Kursk, took place in 1943. One of the first vessels built after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was commissioned into the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet.

Despite all information to the contrary, this submarine was lost because it was involved in the test firing of a previously TOP SECRET weapon, know in the west as SQWALA. Submarine units of the USN and RN were in close proximity when the test firing took place. As you will see from the video below, US Submarines USS Toledo and USS Memphis have a lot to answer for. In some circles, it has been suggested that the test weapon struck its launch ship KURSK, and although not fatally damaged, the Russian Navy forbade any and all attempts to save her surviving sailors. These men sat in frozen darkness for hours, dying one by one, hour after frozen hour, because of the weapon that I shall reveal here on my site very shortly, in the coming days.

This excellent video describes it detail the events of that dreadful day. For those of you limited in time, begin at minute 23.