Naval/Maritime History - 14th of May - Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History (2024)

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

3rd of September

some of the events you will find here,
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1658 – The death of Oliver Cromwell; Richard Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England.
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) was an English military and political leader. He served as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1653 until his death, acting simultaneously as head of state and head of government of the new republic.

1691 - HMS Coronation (1685 - 90) and HMS Harwich (1674 - 70) sank in a storm whilst attempting to get into Plymouth Sound, appr. 1.000 of their crews drowned
Summer 1691. England was at war with her old enemy France, and the fleet were busy trying to lure the French and Dutch Navies out of the relative safety of the Channel Ports. The French however, knew when they were on to a good thing, and lay snug in their harbours whilst the English Fleet was battered by some of the worst summer storms anybody could remember. In late August, during a particularly bad gale, much of the Fleet retired to shelter in Torbay, and amongst those ships was the 90 gun second rate man of war, Coronation.

Unknown maker, model of the "Coronation,"

Van de Velde painting of the Harwich (NMM)

1777 - Launch of HMS Lion, a 64 gun Worcester-class Ship of the Line
HMS Lion was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, of the Worcester class, launched on 3 September 1777 at Portsmouth Dockyard.

Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan with sternboard outline and name on the counter, sheer lines with inboard detail and figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth for Lyon (1777), a 64-gun Third Rate, two-decker, as built at Portsmouth Dockyard

1777 – Launch of French Le Concorde, a 32 gun Concorde-class frigate, later HMS Concorde
Concorde (originally Le Concorde) was a 32-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. Built in Rochefort in 1777, she entered service with the French early in the American War of Independence, and was soon in action, capturing HMS Minerva in the West Indies. She survived almost until the end of the war, but was captured by HMS Magnificent in 1783. Not immediately brought into service due to the draw-down in the navy after the end of the war, she underwent repairs and returned to active service under the White Ensign with the outbreak of war with France in 1793 as the fifth-rate HMS Concorde.

Hand-coloured.; Technique includes pen and ink style lithograph. The identity of the vessel on the extreme left of the image is unknown. The other vessels depicted are, from left to right, the Engageante (French), the Concorde (British) and the Resolve (French).

1782 - The Ship of the Line USS America is given to France to replace the French ship, Magnifique, which ran aground and was destroyed Aug. 11 while attempting to enter Boston harbor. The ship symbolizes the appreciation for France's service to America and her sacrifices during the American Revolution.
USS America was the first ship of the line built for the Continental Navy, but she never saw service there, being given to France after launching.

Launching Day, USS America - (Geoff Hunt)

1782 - Battle of Trincomalee, the fourth action between Hughes and Suffren,
was fought between a British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes and a French fleet under the Bailli de Suffren off the coast of Trincomalee, then Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), on 3 September 1782. It was the fourth in a series of battles fought between the two fleets off the coast of the Indian subcontinent during the Anglo-French War.

1782 Battle of Trincomalee in the American Revolutionary War, painted for the British admiral Sir Edward Hughes, the leader of the British forces in the battle

HMS Hero, launched in 1759, flagship of Hughes

Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, stern board outline with some decoration, sheer lines with inboard detail and quarter gallery decorations, and longitudinal half-breadth for 'Hero' (1759), a 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker, possibly as built and launched at Plymouth Dockyard.

1783 - The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the American Revolution and the War of Independance.
The United States is acknowledged as a sovereign and independent nation.
The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War. The treaty set the boundaries between the British Empire in North America and the United States, on lines "exceedingly generous" to the latter. Details included fishing rights and restoration of property and prisoners of war.
This treaty and the separate peace treaties between Great Britain and the nations that supported the American cause — France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic — are known collectively as the Peace of Paris. Only Article 1 of the treaty, which acknowledges the United States' existence as free, sovereign, and independent states, remains in force.

The United States delegation at the Treaty of Paris included John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and William Temple Franklin. Here they are depicted by Benjamin West in his American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Agreement with Great Britain. The British delegation refused to pose, and the painting was never completed.

1803 – Launch of HMS Illustrious, a 74 gun Fame-class Ship of the Line
HMS Illustrious, a 74-gun third rate ship of the line and the second of that name, was built by Randall & Brent at Rotherhithe where her keel was laid in February 1801. Launched on 3 September 1803, she was completed at Woolwich.

1811 - A Court of Inquiry began to sit, to investigate the conduct of Commodore Rodgers, USS President (1800 - 44) respecting his affair with HMS Little Belt (1807 - 20), Arthur Batt Bingham
Background of the Little Belt Affair
The Little Belt affair occurred four years after the Chesapeake–Leopard affair of 1807, in which HMS Leopard had attacked USS Chesapeake, killing three, wounding eighteen, and putting four of her sailors on trial for desertion. It was fifteen days after an incident involving HMS Guerriere, a frigate. On 1 May Guerriere had stopped the brig USS Spitfire off Sandy Hook in New Jersey and had impressed Maine citizen John Diggio, the apprentice sailing master of Spitfire. Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton had ordered President, along with USS Argus, to patrol the coastal areas from the Carolinas to New York.

President and HMS Little Belt

1878 – Over 640 die when the crowded pleasure boat Princess Alice collides with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames.
SS Princess Alice , formerly PS Bute, was a passenger paddle steamer. She was sunk in 1878 in a collision off Tripco*ck Point on the River Thames with the collier Bywell Castle that resulted in the loss of over 650 lives, the greatest loss of life of any British inland waterway shipping disaster.

Drawing of a collision between the Princess Alice and Bywell Castle Caption reads "The great disaster on the Thames--Collision between the Princess Alice and the Bywell Castle, near Wollwich Published in Harper's Weekly October 12, 1878.

Scale: Unknown. A scenic model of the depicting the aftermath of the collision on the River Thames, on the 3 September 1878, between the pleasure steamer Princess Alice (1875) and the cargo steamship Bywell Castle (1870).

1913 – Launch of HMS Erin, a Reşadiye-class dreadnought battleship, originaly designed for the Ottoman Navy
HMS Erin was a dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy, originally ordered by the Ottoman government from the British Vickers Company. The ship was to have been named Reşadiye when she entered service with the Ottoman Navy. The second of the two ships of the Reşadiye-class battleships would have been known as Fatih Sultan Mehmed. The class was designed to be at least the equal of any other ship afloat or building.

Photograph of British battleship HMS Erin underway in the Moray Firth, Scotland.

Erin in a floating drydock, about 1918

1939 - The SS Athenia was the first UK ship to be sunk by Germany, 117 civilian passengers and crew were killed with the sinking condemned as a war crime.
The SS Athenia was a steam turbine transatlantic passenger liner built in Glasgow in 1923 for the -Donaldson Line, which later became the Donaldson Atlantic Line. She worked between the United Kingdom and the east coast of Canada until September 1939, when a torpedo from a German submarine sank her in the Western Approaches.

SS ATHENIA seen in Montreal Harbour - 1933 Credit National Archives of Canada

1939 – World War II: The United Kingdom and France begin a naval blockade of Germany that lasts until the end of the war.
This also marks the beginning of the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, running from 1939 to the defeat of Germany in 1945, and was a major part of the Naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war, and Germany's subsequent counter-blockade. It was at its height from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943.

1943 – World War II: The Allied invasion of Italy begins on the same day that U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign the Armistice of Cassibile aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS Nelson off Malta.
The Armistice of Cassibile was an armistice signed on 3 September 1943 by Walter Bedell Smith and Giuseppe Castellano, and made public on 8 September, between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allies during World War II. It was signed at a conference of generals from both sides in an Allied military camp at Cassibile in Sicily, which had recently been occupied by the Allies. The armistice was approved by both King Victor Emmanuel III and Italian Prime MinisterPietro Badoglio. The armistice stipulated the surrender of Italy to the Allies.

IWM caption : The British battleship HMS NELSON off Spithead for the 1937 Fleet Review. ed in the background are two Queen Elizabeth Class battleships and two cruisers of the London Class.

1954 – The German submarine U-505 begins its move from a specially constructed dock to its site at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
U-505 is a German Type IXC U-boat built for Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was captured by the U.S. Navy on 4 June 1944.
In her uniquely unlucky career with the Kriegsmarine, she had the distinction of being the "most heavily damaged U-boat to successfully return to port" in World War II (on her fourth patrol) and the only submarine in which a commanding officer took his own life in combat conditions (on her tenth patrol, following six botched patrols).

Unterseeboot 505 shortly after being captured in 1944 by a task force headed by USS Guadalcanal off the coast of Africa.