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| Invincible Class Battlecruiser - HMS Invincible. Launched 1907 |
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| HMS Invincible blown up by SMS Lutsow and SMS Derffinger during the Battle of Jutland 1916 |
Sunday, 28 April 2019
HMS Invincible
HMS Chester
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| HMS Chester 1915 |
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| Damage to the starboard side of the forebridge of HMS Chester sustained during the Battle of Jutland. |
USS North Carolina (BB-55)
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| USS North Carolina - Fitting out stage, 17th April 1941 |
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| USS North Carolina (BB-55) photographed from an altitude of 300 feet. Image developed by NAS NYNY Photographic Laboratory. |
Thursday, 25 April 2019
HMS Hermes
HMS Hermes sinking after being torpedoed by U-27 in the Strait of Dover on October 31, 1914.
Monday, 22 April 2019
French cruiser Dupuy de Lome
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| French cruiser Dupuy de Lome, The first armoured cruiser, Brest arsenal drydock early 1890s The French navy suffered major defeats at the hands of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and subsequently looked for ways to remedy its inferiority. It was thought initially that steam power and iron-plated ships could equalize the field through 'Quality over quantity' but the British Naval Industry soon built ships with those same qualities and at a much faster rate, so this proved to be a blind alley. During the latter decades of the 19th century, officers of the so-called Jeune Ecole devised a strategy called Guerre de Course, according to which the best way to defeat Great Britan was to destroy its merchant fleet and isolate the British Isles from trade and from the resources of its colonies. As a result, France began to build a series of powerful commerce raiders, fast enough to evade the battleships of the time but with strong enough armour to overcome cruisers and smaller vessels. Dupuy de Lome was the first of this new breed of warship - The armoured Cruiser. |
IJN Battleship Yamashiro, trail launch of naval aircraft from 'B' Turret, 1921 - 1922
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| IJN Battleship Yamashiro, trail launch of naval aircraft from 'B' Turret, 1921 - 1922 |
Imperial Russian Navy Pre-Dreadnought battleship Oryol (Orel)
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| Imperial Russian Navy Pre-Dreadnought battleship Oryol (Orel), Krondstadt harbour, 1904 |
Argentine Navy Battleship Moreno
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| Argentine Navy Battleship Moreno, Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York City, October 1914 |
SMS Hessen taken from SMS Elsass
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| German Pre- Dreadnought battleships: SMS Hessen taken from SMS Elsass |
USS Georgia
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| Launch of the Pre-Dreadnought battleship USS Georgia, Bath Iron Works, Bath (Maine), October 11th 1904 |
HMS Lion
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| Battlecruiser HMS Lion featured in The Illustrated War News following the battle of Dogger Bank |
IJN Haguro
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| Imperial Japanese Navy heavy cruiser Haguro during the attack on Sampson Harbour, Rabaul, November 2nd 1943 |
In Memory, Always
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
Britannia mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
SMS Szent Istvan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pSiCjfhUUw
SMS Szent István (His Majesty's Ship Saint Stephen) was the last of four Tegetthoff-class dreadnought battleships built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Szent István was named for the 11th-century saint Stephen I, the first King of Hungary. Szent István was the only ship of her class to be built within the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a concession made to the Hungarian government in return for its support for the 1910 and 1911 naval budgets which funded the Tegetthoff class. She was built at the Ganz-Danubius shipyard in Fiume, where she was laid down in January 1912. Launched two years later in 1914, construction on Szent István was delayed due to the smaller shipyards in Fiume, and further delayed by the outbreak of World War I in July 1914. She was finally commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy in December 1915.
Armed with a main battery of twelve 30.5 cm (12.0 in) guns in four triple turrets, Szent István was assigned to the 1st Battleship Division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy upon her commissioning. Alongside the other ships of her class, she was stationed out of the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola. Szent István's commissioning into the fleet came too late for her to participate in the Bombardment of Ancona following Italy's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915, and she saw little combat for the rest of the war due to the Otranto Barrage, which prohibited the Austro-Hungarian Navy from leaving the Adriatic Sea.
In June 1918, in a bid to earn safer passage for German and Austro-Hungarian U-boats through the Strait of Otranto, the Austro-Hungarian Navy attempted to break the Barrage with a major attack on the strait. This attack was to be spearheaded by all four ships of the Tegetthoff class, but it was abandoned after Szent István and her sister ship, Tegetthoff was attacked by Italian motor torpedo boats on the morning of 10 June. While Tegetthoff was unharmed during the attack, Szent István was struck by two torpedoes launched from MAS-15, capsizing roughly three hours later off the island of Premuda. She is the only battleship whose sinking was filmed during World War I.
The wreck of Szent István was located in the mid-1970s by the Yugoslav Navy. She lies upside down at a depth of 66 metres (217 ft). Her bow broke off when it hit the seabed while the stern was still afloat, but is immediately adjacent to the rest of the heavily encrusted hull. She is a protected site of the Croatian Ministry of Culture.
My first post! Actually one of my favourite naval pictures.
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The 5th Battle Squadron |
Battle of Jutland
In 1916, the 5th Battle Squadron—under the command of Rear Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas—[2] was temporarily transferred to David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet. On 31 May, four ships of the Squadron served with distinction in the battle of Jutland. These were:
- HMS Barham Flagship of Rear Admiral H. Evan-Thomas; Captain A. W. Craig;
- HMS Valiant Captain M. Woollcombe;
- HMS Warspite Captain E. M. Philpotts;
- HMS Malaya Captain the Honourable A. D. E. H. Boyle;
In the clash with the German I Scouting Group under Admiral Franz von Hipper, the 5th Battle Squadron "fired with extraordinary rapidity and accuracy" (according to Reinhard Scheer), damaging the battlecruisers SMS Lützow and Seydlitz and a number of other German warships.
Three of the Queen Elizabeths received hits from German warships during the engagement, yet they all returned home, though Warspite—whose steering was jammed—was targeted by the German line, taking 15 hits and coming close to foundering.
After the battle, HMS Queen Elizabeth—which had missed the battle due to being in dock—rejoined the squadron.
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