SMS Fürst Bismarck

SMS Fürst Bismarck, Germany's first armored cruiser (Panzerkreuzer) and only ship of her class in foreign waters. She did duty as flagship in the famous East Asia Squadron for quite some time.


SMS Fürst Bismarck (Prince Bismarck) was Germany's first armored cruiser, built for the Kaiserliche Marine before the turn of the 20th century. The ship was named for the German statesman Otto von Bismarck. The design for Fürst Bismarck was an improvement over the previous Victoria Louise-class protected cruiser—Fürst Bismarck was significantly larger and better armed than her predecessors.

The ship was primarily intended for colonial duties, and she served in this capacity as part of the East Asia Squadron until she was relieved in 1909, at which point she returned to Germany. The ship was rebuilt between 1910 and 1914, and after the start of World War I, she was briefly used as a coastal defense ship. She proved inadequate to this task, and so she was withdrawn from active duty and served as a training ship for engineers until the end of the war. Fürst Bismarck was decommissioned in 1919 and sold for scrap.

HMS Danae

HMS Danae arrives at Malta in the late 20s or early 30s. The battleships Ramillies, Resolution and Royal Sovereign lie in the background:

HMS Edinburgh (1882)

The very odd ironclad battleship HMS Edinburgh (1882). She was broken up in 1910.

IJN Battleship Nagato

IJN Nisshin

Japanese armored cruiser Nisshin in Port Said, 1917

French Battleship Strasbourg

Strasbourg slips her moorings and makes for open water while under fire from the Royal Navy’s attack on Mers-el-Kébir

HMS Hood

 HMS Hood in Malta, 1924

IJN Battleship Musashi

The Japanese battleship Musashi fires her 18.1" guns.

The photo was provided by the family of BB Musashi's gun operator, Tameshige Nagahashi, and had never been published until 2015.

According to former JSDMF RAdm TUTSUMI Akira (Retired), this photo is authentic. Judging from records, this photo was took on July 26 or 29, 1942 at IYONADA. Just few days before her Commission on Aug. 5, 1942"

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only close-up photo of the Yamato-class firing its big guns. In this photo it appears that Musashi has just fired a 3-shot salvo with her rear "C" turret.

(Photograph and text courtesy of the Yamato and Musashi Internet Photo Archive.) [http://www.battleshipyamato.com](http://www.battleshipyamato.com/) )

IJN Battleships Yamato and Musashi

Yamato and Musashi anchored at Truk 1943

HMS Warspite

A sad end to a fighting ship. Even refusing to go quietly to the breakers yard. She slipped her tow cables and ran aground on Pussia Cove, Cornwall and was broken up nearby the job finally completed in 1955.

HMS Warspite

HMS Warspite.under attack in the Med.

HMS Duke of York

King George V-class battleship HMS Duke of York at Woolloomooloo Wharf 23rd November 1945.

HMS King George V

Iced up guns of HMS King George V - North Atlantic 1942. Heading towards Russia.

USS Des Moines (CA-134)

The heavy cruiser USS Des Moines (CA-134) underway with her crew manning the rails, December 15, 1959. Photo from the National Archives collection.

SMS Konigsberg

SMS Konigsberg, a light cruiser, trapped in the Rufiji Delta in what is now Tanzania in 1915.  After several failed attempts to sink her, the British brought in shallow-draft monitors which completed the destruction.

HMS Vanguard & HMS King George V

USS Flint (CL-97)

The light cruiser USS Flint (CL 97) probably at Ulithi Atoll, circa late March 1945, as the Fifth Fleet was departing for the Okinawa operation. Photo from the National Archives collection.

HMS Formidable

HMS Formidable flight deck shortly after a kamikaze attack on May 4th, 1945

IJN Battleship Kongo

It's Kongo's reconstruction nearing completion in Yokosuka, on July 20th 1931

HMS Iron Duke

HMS Iron Duke

USS Colorado (BB-45)

Port-bow view of the USS Colorado (BB-45) in Puget Sound on April 25, 1944

Bureau of Ships Photo #1426-44 courtesy of David Buell from NavSource.

Bismarck

Nice picture showing the detail of Bismarck's superstructure

HMS Ajax 1912

HMS Ajax - Note the paintwork on turret 'A'
This was for other ships in the formation to know the aiming angle when engaging targets.

HMS Ajax was the third of four King George V-class dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the early 1910s. After commissioning in 1913, she spent the bulk of her career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets. Aside from participating in the failed attempt to intercept the German ships that had bombarded Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in late 1914, the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and the inconclusive Action of 19 August, her service during World War I generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea.

After the war, Ajax was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet, where she took part in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in the Black Sea in 1919–1920. The ship was deployed to Turkish waters during the Chanak Crisis of September–October 1922. Ajax was placed in reserve in 1924 before being sold for scrap two years later in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.

HMS Ajax in Malta 1919

Provisioning a Warship

Provisioning a Warship. A Royal Navy St Vincent-class or Bellerophon-class battleship represented. 'The Great War' by Ed. Wilson/Hammerton, 1918.

HMCS Moncton

Just a hardworking ship HMCS Moncton, Flower-class corvette. She sunk no U-Boats claimed no glory, however, she helped escort 52 Atlantic convoys from June 1942 to December 1943 before being transferred to Canada's west coast. From July 1944 to December 1945 she was tasked to Pacific Coast Command (unallocated). Decommissioned in December 1945 Moncton was sold by Crown Assets in 1955 into mercantile service and was re-flagged under the Netherlands as the whaling ship Willem Vinke, 718 GRT. She was scrapped September in 1966 at Santander, Cantabria, Spain by Recuparciones Submarinas S.A.

USS Iowa (BB-61)

USS Iowa (BB-61) is a retired battleship, the lead ship of its class, and the fourth in the United States Navy to be named after the state of Iowa. Owing to the cancellation of the Montana-class battleships, Iowa is the last lead ship of any class of United States battleships and was the only ship of its class to have served in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.

During World War II, it carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the Atlantic to Mers El Kébir, Algeria, en route to a meeting of vital importance in 1943 in Tehran with Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. 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. It also served as the Third Fleet flagship, flying Admiral William F. Halsey's flag at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay. During the Korean War, Iowa was involved in raids on the North Korean coast, after which it was decommissioned into the United States Navy reserve fleets, better known as the "mothball fleet." It 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 its No. 2 gun turret, killing 47 sailors.

A bow view of the battleship USS IOWA (BB-61) firing its Mark 7 16-inch/50-caliber guns off the starboard side during a fire power demonstration. 15th August 1984 after her modernisation.

Iowa was decommissioned for the last time in October 1990 after 19 total years of active service and was initially stricken from the Naval Vessel Register (NVR) in 1995. was reinstated from 1999 to 2006 to comply with federal laws that required retention and maintenance of two Iowa-class battleships. In 2011 Iowa was donated to the Los Angeles–based non-profit Pacific Battleship Center and was permanently moved to Berth 87 at the Port of Los Angeles in 2012, where it was opened to the public as the USS Iowa Museum.

HMS Diamond (D35)

HMS Diamond - July 1953

HMS Diamond was a Daring-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy. She was built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland, and launched on 14 June 1950. This ship was John Brown & Company's first all-welded ship (as opposed to the rivetted construction more commonly used up to that time).

In 1953 Diamond took part in the Fleet Review to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.[3] On 29 September 1953, she sustained severe bow damage in a collision with the cruiser Swiftsure during Exercise Mariner, held off the coast of Iceland.[4][5]

In 1956 Diamond was sent into Port Said to show the flag prior to the Franco-British assault, but the Egyptian government was unmoved and she sailed out to join the main attack force for the Suez landings at Port Said. She underwent a refit in 1959 at Chatham Dockyard. In 1964 she was involved in another collision, this time with the frigate Salisbury, in the English Channel during a naval demonstration.[6]

In 1970, she became a dockside training ship in Portsmouth and remained in this role until replaced by the destroyer Kent. She was scrapped in Rainham in Kent in 1981.

Daring-class destroyer HMS Diamond (D35) steaming past the Mayflower II.

Russian armoured cruiser Gromoboi.

Gromoboi (Russian: Громобой, meaning: "Thunderer") was an armoured cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the late 1890s. She was designed as a long-range commerce raider and served as such during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. When the war broke out, she was based in Vladivostok and made several sorties in search of Japanese shipping in the conflict's early months without much success.

Gromoboi, with the other armoured cruisers of the Vladivostok Cruiser Squadron, attempted to rendezvous in the Strait of Tsushima with the main portion of the Russian Pacific Fleet sailing from Port Arthur in August 1904. The Fleet was delayed, and the squadron returned to port alone. On the return, the squadron encountered a Japanese squadron of four armoured cruisers blocking their passage to base. The Japanese sank the oldest Russian ship, Rurik, and damaged Gromoboi and Rossia during the subsequent Battle off Ulsan. Both Russian ships were repaired within two months. Gromoboi ran aground immediately after completing her repairs and was out of action for four months. Three months after the damage from the grounding incident was repaired, she struck a mine, but successfully returned to port. Her armament was reinforced while under repair, but she saw no further action during the war.

Gromoboi was transferred to the Russian Baltic Fleet after the end of the war and began a lengthy refit that was completed in 1911. She was mostly inactive during World War I, but had her armament and protection upgraded during the war. She was placed into reserve in 1918 and sold to a German company in 1922 for scrapping. She was forced aground near Liepāja during a storm en route to Germany and was scrapped in place.

SMS Viribus Unitis

The sinking of SMS Viribus Unitis, the first Tegetthoff-class dreadnought battleship of Austria-Hungary. 1st November1918.

USS Idaho

Rare Battle photo of USS Idaho firing main batteries at Okinawa.

HMS Vanguard

HMS VANGUARD with a Dragonfly helicopter during refuelling on a fleet exercise. (1953, Northern Sea)

HMS Centurion

British WWI Dreadnought HMS Centurion in disguise as HMS Anson as a decoy during Arctic convoy missions in 1943

Jean Bart

This is what French Battleship Jean Bart looked like after taking numerous 16" shells from USS Massachusetts BB59 and two direct bomb hits from USS Ranger aircraft in November 1942.  One round from Big Mamie jammed her No. 1 turret while another armour-piercing round penetrated her main deck armour and exploded in that turrets magazine.

That round would have been catastrophic if Jean Bart had been complete with a full complement of ammunition.

.

Jean Bart was a French battleship of World War II, named for the 17th-century seaman, privateer, and corsair Jean Bart. She was the second Richelieu-class battleship. Derived from the Dunkerque class, Jean Bart (and her sister ship Richelieu) were designed to fight the new battleships of the Italian Navy. Their speed, shielding, armament, and overall technology were state of the art, but they had a rather unusual main battery armament arrangement, with two 4-gun turrets forward and none aft.

Jean Bart was incomplete when France surrendered to Germany in June 1940. She sailed from Saint-Nazaire to Casablanca just before the Armistice. She was sunk in the harbour in 1942. After the war, she was re-floated, completed with an updated anti-aircraft battery, and entered service in 1955. She had a very short career: Jean Bart was put into reserve in 1957, decommissioned in 1961, and scrapped in 1969.

The French battleship Jean Bart, armed with an "all forward" main battery of 8 15" guns in two quadruple turrets. This arrangement reduced the length of the side armoured belt and the general armour weight

SMS Schleswig-Holstein

SMS Schleswig-Holstein firing her main battery in the port of Danzig during the Battle of Westerplatte  on September 1st, 1939. The first shots have been fired in the War in Europe.

USS Gayety (AM-239) / BRP Magat Salamat (PS-20)

BRP Magat Salamat (PS-20) is one of several Miguel Malvar class of patrol corvettes in service with the Philippine Navy. She was originally built as USS Gayety (AM-239), an Admirable-class minesweeper with a similar hull to the PCE-842-class patrol craft produced during World War II. Along with other ex-World War II veteran ships of the Philippine Navy, she is considered as one of the oldest active fighting ships in the world today.

Commissioned in the US Navy as USS Gayety (AM-239) in 1945, she was assigned in the Pacific theatre of operations, specifically around the Japanese home islands providing minefield sweeping and anti-submarine warfare patrols in the Ryukyus and off Okinawa. May 27, 1945, She suffered a near-miss from a 500-pound bomb and was damaged with several casualties that were buried at Zamami Shima, Okinawa although she was quickly put back to fighting shape. After the war, she was decommissioned on June 1946 and placed under the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

Gayety was recommissioned on 11 May 1951 as a training ship, and was again decommissioned on 1 March 1954, and re-entered Atlantic Reserve Fleet. As part of the reserves, she was reclassified as MSF-239 on 7 February 1955.

Republic of Vietnam Navy
She was then transferred to the Republic of Vietnam on 17 April 1962. She served the Vietnamese Navy as RVN Chi Lăng II (HQ-08) up until her escape to the Philippines in 1975, together with other South Vietnamese Navy ships and their respective crew.

Philippine Navy
She was formally acquired by the Philippine Navy on 5 April 1976, and was commissioned into the Philippine Navy on 7 February 1977 and was renamed RPS Magat Salamat (PS-20). She was renamed to BRP Magat Salamat (PS-20) in June 1980 using a new localized prefix.

Between 1996 and 1997 Magat Salamat underwent major overhaul, weapons and radar systems refit, and upgrade of communications gear.

She is currently assigned with the Patrol Force of the Philippine Fleet, under the jurisdiction of Naval Forces Eastern Mindanao.

Notable deployments/exercises
On February 2011, Magat Salamat, together with BRP Felix Apolinario, BRP Teotimo Figuracion, and other Philippine Navy ships and units participated in Exercise PAGSISIKAP 2011 held in Davao Gulf.

Magat Salamat was one of the participating ships in the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) 2012 - Philippines exercises from 2 July to 10 July 2012.[11]

Technical details
There is slight a difference between BRP Magat Salamat as compared to some of her sister ships in the Philippine Navy since her previous configuration was as a minesweeper (Admirable class) while the others are configured as rescue patrol craft escort (PCER) and patrol craft escort (PCE) ships.

Armaments
Originally the ship was armed with one 3"/50 caliber dual-purpose gun, one twin Bofors 40 mm guns, six single 20 mm gun mounts, one Hedgehog depth charge projector, four depth charge projectiles (K-guns) and two depth charge tracks. Changes were made during its transfer to the South Vietnamese Navy, as it appears in photos show the removal of her anti-submarine weapons, removal of two Oerlikon 20 mm guns, and addition of single Bofors 40 mm guns. This made the ship lighter and ideal for surface patrols but losing her limited anti-submarine warfare capability. The same configuration applies when she was transferred to the Philippine Navy in 1975 up until around 1996-1997.

During its overhaul and refit between 1996 and 1997, the Philippine Navy made some changes in the armament set-up. Some sources claim the loss of its Bofors 40 mm cannons during the 1990-1991 overhaul and refit period, but photos at of 2011 show the Bofors guns still present. Final armaments fitted to the ship are one Mk.26 3"/50-caliber gun (fore), three single Bofors 40 mm cannons (aft), four Mk.10 Oerlikon 20 mm cannons (two each on bridge wings), and four M2 Browning 12.7 mm/50 caliber machine guns (two besides main bridge, two aft near the lower Bofors gun tub).

Electronics
Also during the refit, the ship's Sperry SPS-53A surface search radar and RCA SPN-18 navigation radar was replaced by a Raytheon AN/SPS-64(V)11 surface search and navigation radar system.[2] Later modifications included the installation of an additional Furuno navigation radar, long-range and satellite communications system, and GPS system standard to all Philippine Navy ships.

Machinery
The ship is originally powered by two Cooper Bessemer GSB-8 diesel engines, but was replaced by two GM 12-567ATL diesel engines, then later by two GM 12-278A diesel engines, with a combined rating of around 2,200 bhp (1,600 kW) driving two propellers. The main engines can propel the 914 tons (full load) ship to a maximum speed of around 16 knots (30 km/h).

HMS Abercrombie (F109)

HMS Abercrombie was a Royal Navy Roberts-class monitor of the Second World War. She was the second monitor to be named after General Sir Ralph Abercrombie.

Abercrombie was built by Vickers Armstrong, Tyne. She was laid down on 26 April 1941, launched on 31 March 1942 and completed on 5 May 1943. She used a 15-inch gun turret originally built as a spare for Furious. (Although Furious was designed to be fitted with two single 18-inch gun turrets, twin 15-inch turrets were constructed as a standby in case the 18-inch turret proved to be unsuccessful.)

On completion, Abercrombie deployed to the Mediterranean and in July 1943, she provided support at the Amphibious Battle of Gela during the Allied invasion of Sicily. On 9 September, Abercrombie was supporting the Allied landings near Salerno (Operation Avalanche), when she was damaged by a contact mine. She was repaired at the dockyard at Taranto in October and on completion, Abercombie arrived at Malta on 15 August 1944. On 21 August 1944, whilst on an exercise southeast of Malta, she struck two mines and was again damaged.

After repair in July 1945, Abercrombie was dispatched to the Indian Ocean to support Operation Mailfist, the planned liberation of Singapore. She was near Aden at the time of the Japanese surrender on 15 August but was not recalled until 11 September, by which time she was approaching the Seychelles Islands. Abercrombie returned to Sheerness on 2 November 1945. Abercrombie was subsequently used for gunnery training and also as an accommodation ship through 1954. She was scrapped at Barrow on 24 December 1954.

USS Newark (C-1)

Newark was laid down by William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia on 12 June 1888. She was launched on 19 March 1890, sponsored by Miss Annie Boutelle, daughter of Congressman Boutelle of Maine.

Newark was commissioned on 2 February 1891, Captain Silas Casey in command. She operated off the Atlantic coast for ten months, taking part in manoeuvres and exercises until detached 8 December at Norfolk Navy Yard. There she remained, undergoing post-shakedown overhaul until being assigned 11 March 1892 to the North Atlantic Squadron and sailing on the 14th for the West Indies. The cruiser operated in Caribbean waters and off the south-east coast, showing the flag in West Indies ports until returning to Norfolk on 5 June where she was made flagship of Rear Admiral Andrew E. K. Benham, Commander of the newly formed South Atlantic Squadron, 25 June. She departed 17 July for Cadiz, Spain to participate in the ceremonies commemorating the 400th Anniversary of Columbus' sailing. Arriving on the 30th, she remained until 2 August then sailed for Genoa, Columbus' birthplace, arriving one month later to continue the celebration. Putting out from Genoa on the 25th, Newark cruised the Mediterranean and the Adriatic and various ports until arriving again at Cadiz on 11 February 1893 to tow a full-sized reproduction of caravel Niña and sailing on the 18th for home.

Newark was transferred to the Naval Review Fleet for temporary duty on 1 March. After arriving at Havana on 21 March she parted company with the Niña and sailed to Hampton Roads and then to New York, where she picked up the caravel once more and proceeded down the St. Lawrence River to Quebec, leaving the little ship there on 11 June and returning to Norfolk, where she arrived on 22 June. Newark next sailed on 20 September, this time for Rio de Janeiro, to protect American interests, arriving 20 October and remaining there until 1 April 1894. Newark then operated off the South American coast with the South Atlantic Squadron, making one cruise to South Africa from August to October 1894 and another the same time the following year, before returning to Norfolk on 27 April 1896. Assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron on 4 May, she joined the squadron at New York on 25 June and engaged in patrol duty and exercises off the southeastern coast until she was decommissioned at Norfolk on 6 March 1897.

Following extensive overhaul, Newark recommissioned on 23 May 1898, shortly after the declaration of the Spanish-American War with Captain Albert S. Barker in command. She sailed on 13 June for Key West and then Cuba, joining the blockade 30 June. Cruising in Cuban waters throughout the summer, the warship bombarded the port of Manzanillo on 12 August and on the following day accepted its surrender. After the Battle of Santiago, she participated in the final destruction of Admiral Cervera's fleet through the bombardment of the burned hulks. With major naval operations over and the end of the war in sight, Newark returned to New York on 26 November 1898.

Newark departed New York on 23 March 1899 and steamed down the coast of South America on patrol, stopping at numerous ports along the way. On 7 April she was ordered to proceed through the Straits of Magellan to San Francisco. Low on coal, Newark was forced to put into Port Low, Chile, from 31 May to 22 June to cut wood for fuel. Finally arriving at Mare Island Navy Yard on 4 September, Newark underwent repairs and then sailed 17 October via Honolulu for the Philippines, arriving at Cavite on 25 November. She took station off Vigan, Luzon and landed troops for garrison duty. Landing operations at Vigan over, Newark moved on to Aparri 10 December, where she received the surrender of Filipino nationalist insurgents in the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, and Bataan.
Newark sailed for Hong Kong on 19 March 1900 to rendezvous with the monitor Monadnock. The two ships rendezvoused on 22 March and Newark convoyed the low-freeboard monitor to Cavite, arriving on 3 April. Newark stayed at Cavite until sailing for Yokohama on 24 April, arriving three days later. She then hoisted the flag of Rear Admiral Louis Kempff, Assistant Commander of the Asiatic Station and sailed on 20 May for China to help land reinforcements to relieve the legations tinder siege by the Boxers at Peking. Arriving at Tientsin on 22 May, Newark operated in that port and out of Taku and Chefoo, protecting American interests and aiding the relief expedition under Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Seymour, until mid-July when she sailed for Kure and then Cavite. At Cavite, she hoisted the pennant of the Senior Squadron Commander in the Philippines.

Newark sailed for home in mid-April 1901, via Hong Kong, Ceylon and Suez, arriving in Boston late in July of 1901. She decommissioned there on 29 July.

Newark recommissioned 3 November 1902, with Commander Richard Wainwright in command. She sailed on 14 December for duty in southern waters. For the next two years, she operated in the West Indies and off the coast of South America as part of the North Atlantic Fleet. She returned to Norfolk on 27 October 1904 and remained there through 9 January 1905. Newarkresumed her duties in the West Indies for the first six months of the year and then in June, following exercises off Virginia, was assigned as a training ship to the U.S. Naval Academy. Placed in reserve at Annapolis on 15 September, she was restored to full duty 3 May 1906 for her second east coast training cruise. Following this duty she put into Norfolk on 13 September where she embarked a Marine detachment, sailing for Cuba on the 17th. Newark returned home on 19 October and decommissioned at New York Navy Yard on 9 November.

Newark was loaned to the New York Naval Militia on 23 March 1907. She recommissioned exactly one year later for duty as a station ship at the Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay. Arriving 2 April 1908, she served on this duty until returning to Norfolk on 5 December 1912 to be placed in reserve on the 31 December. Newark decommissioned 16 June 1909 and was stricken from the Navy List on 26 June.

The old cruiser was turned over to the Public Health Service and served as quarantine hulk for the hospital in Providence, Rhode Island until 1918, when she was returned to the Navy to serve throughout World War I as an annexe to the Naval Hospital, Newport. Later transferred to New York, she returned to the Public Health Service at Providence in May 1919. On 7 July 1926, she was again returned to the Navy Department for disposal and was sold 7 September.

Admiral Hugh Evan Thomas

Admiral Hugh Evan Thomas GCB, KCMG, MVO (27 October 1862 – 30 August 1928) - one of the Heroes of Jutland. Had Beatty allowed the 5th Battle Squadron to take the lead in the initial contact with Hipper's Battle Cruisers, it is unlikely that either Indefatigable or Queen Mary would have been lost. Beatty though basically Seymour failed to signal Evan Thomas in time of the turn to North and the 5th Battle Squadron took the brunt of the German Battle Cruisers. Even then the German's were far more concerned with the quality of gunnery from the 5th B/S than from Beatty's Battle Cruisers.

HMS Erebus(I02)

The monitor HMS Erebus (I02) seen from HMS Rodney

                                                                                      Creator: Coote, R G G (Lt) Source: © IWM (A 197)
The Erebus class of warships was a class of 20th century Royal Navy monitors armed with a main battery of two 15-inch /42 Mk 1 guns in a single turret.

It consisted of two vessels, Erebus and Terror. Both were launched in 1916 and saw active service in World War I off the Belgian coast.

being placed in reserve between the wars, they served in World War II, with Terror being lost in 1941 and Erebus surviving to be scrapped in 1946.

HMS Glorious

RN Battlecruiser HMS Glorious before her conversion to carrier

HMS Glorious was the second of the three Courageous-class battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by the First Sea Lord, Lord Fisher, they were relatively lightly armed and armoured. Glorious was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later.

Glorious was paid off after the war but was rebuilt as an aircraft carrier during the late 1920s. She could carry 30 per cent more aircraft than her half-sister Furious which had a similar tonnage. After re-commissioning in 1930, she spent most of her career operating in the Mediterranean Sea. After the start of the Second World War, Glorious spent the rest of 1939 unsuccessfully hunting for the commerce-raiding German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee in the Indian Ocean before returning to the Mediterranean. She was recalled home in April 1940 to support operations in Norway. While evacuating British aircraft from Norway in June, the ship was sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the North Sea with the loss of over 1,200 lives.

HMS Glorious with H.M.S. Bulldog, Socotra, November 1939.

Fairey Swordfish from HMS Glorious

French destroyer Le Terrible

Le Terrible ("The terrible one") was one of six Le Fantasque-class large destroyers (contre-torpilleur, "Torpedo-boat destroyer") built for the Marine Nationale (French Navy) during the 1930s. The ship entered service in 1936 and participated in the Second World War. When war was declared in September 1939, all of the Le Fantasques were assigned to the Force de Raid which was tasked to hunt down German commerce raiders and blockade runners. Le Fantasque and two of her sister ships were based in Dakar, French West Africa, to patrol the Central Atlantic for several months in late 1939. They returned to Metropolitan France before the end of the year and were transferred to French Algeria in late April 1940 in case Italy decided to enter the war. She screened French cruisers once as they unsuccessfully hunted for Italian ships after Italy declared war in June.

Le Terrible was present when the British attacked French ships in July, but was not damaged. She was sent to Dakar at the beginning of 1941 but was being refitted in French Morocco when the Allies invaded French North Africa in late 1942. The ship was badly damaged and was sent the United States for repairs and to be modernized in mid-1943. Le Terrible was sent to the Mediterranean at the beginning of 1944 where she spent the rest of the year searching for Axis shipping with two of her sisters. In between raids, the ship provided naval gunfire support during Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France, in mid-1944. She was badly damaged in a collision in December and spent the next year under repair.

The ship was only intermittently active for the rest of the 1940s, but was modernized to serve as an escort for French aircraft carriers in 1952–1953. She was decommissioned in mid-1955 after which she briefly became a training ship and was reduced to reserve at the end of 1956. Le Terrible was stricken in 1962 and scrapped the following year.

Even after she was scrapped she held the title of the fastest military ship of more than 2500 tons until 2010! She achieved  45.02kn on trials (83.4km/h)
Faster than her sister ships as when she was built the shipyard had a shortage on some of the transmission parts and replaced them with Vauquelin class parts instead. This somehow made her faster by 2 knots.

Caio Duilio

Caio Duilio was an Italian Andrea Doria-class battleship that served in the Regia Marina during World War I and World War II. She was named after the Roman fleet commander Gaius Duilius. Caio Duilio was laid down in February 1912, launched in April 1913, and completed in May 1916. She was initially armed with a main battery of thirteen 305 mm (12.0 in) guns, but a major reconstruction in the late 1930s replaced these with ten 320 mm (13 in) guns. Caio Duilio saw no action during World War I owing to the inactivity of the Austro-Hungarian fleet during the conflict. She cruised the Mediterranean in the 1920s and was involved in the Corfu incident in 1923.

During World War II, she participated in numerous patrols and sorties into the Mediterranean, both to escort Italian convoys to North Africa and in attempts to catch the British Mediterranean Fleet. In November 1940, the British launched an air raid on Taranto; Caio Duilio was hit by one torpedo launched by a Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber, which caused significant damage. Repairs lasted some five months, after which the ship returned to convoy escort duties. A fuel shortage immobilized the bulk of the Italian surface fleet in 1942, and Caio Duilio remained out of service until the Italian surrender in September 1943. She was thereafter interned at Malta until 1944 when the Allies permitted her return to Italian waters. She survived the war and continued to serve in the post-war Italian navy, primarily as a training ship. Caio Duilio was placed in reserve for a final time in 1953; she remained in the Italian navy's inventory for another three years before she was stricken from the naval register in late 1956 and sold for scrapping the following year.

USS Mississippi (BB-41)

The U.S. Navy battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41) transiting the Panama Canal during the 1920s

USS Mississippi (BB-41/AG-128), the second of three members of the New Mexico class, was the third ship of the United States Navy named in honour of the 20th state. The ship was built at the Newport News Shipbuilding Company of Newport News, Virginia, from her keel laying in April 1915, her launching in January 1917, and her commissioning in December that year. She was armed with a battery of twelve 14-inch (356 mm) guns in four three-gun turrets and was protected by heavy armour plate, with her main belt armour being 13.5 inches (343 mm) thick.

The ship remained in North American waters during World War I, conducting training exercises to work up the crew. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the ship served in the Pacific Fleet. In May 1941, with World War II and the Battle of the Atlantic raging, Mississippi and her two sister ships were transferred to the Atlantic Fleet to help protect American shipping through the Neutrality Patrols. Two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mississippi departed the Atlantic to return to the Pacific Fleet; throughout her participation in World War II, she supported amphibious operations in the Pacific. She shelled Japanese forces during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands and the Philippines campaigns and the invasions of Peleliu and Okinawa. The Japanese fleet attacked American forces during the Philippines campaign, and in the ensuing Battle of Leyte Gulf, Mississippi took part in the Battle of Surigao Strait, the last battleship engagement in history.

After the war, Mississippi was converted into a gunnery training ship and was also used to test new weapons systems. These included the RIM-2 Terrier missile and the AUM-N-2 Petrel missile. She was eventually decommissioned in 1956 and sold to shipbreakers in November that year.