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

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

7th of May

some of the events you will find here,
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1694 - Henry Every (also spelled Avery) leads a mutiny aboard the privateer Charles II anchored off La Coruna, Spain.
Henry Every, also Avery or Evory (20 August 1659 – time of death uncertain), sometimes erroneously given as Jack Avery or John Avery, was an English pirate who operated in the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the mid-1690s. He probably used several aliases throughout his career, including Benjamin Bridgeman, and was known as Long Ben to his crewmen and associates.

An 18th-century depiction of Henry Every, with the Fancy shown engaging its prey in the background

1765 – Launch of HMS Victory, a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, ordered in 1758, laid down in 1759 and launched in 1765.
She is best known for her role as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.

Scale: 1:60. A model of H.M.S Victory (1765) made entirely in wood that has been painted in realistic colours with metal fittings. The vessel is shown in a launching cradle on a slipway.

1773 – Launch of HMS Orpheus, a British Modified Lowestoffe-class fifth-rate frigate, ordered on 25 December 1770 as one of five fifth-rate frigates of 32 guns each contained in the emergency frigate-building programme inaugurated when the likelihood of war with Spain arose over the ownership of the Falkland Islands
Sir Thomas Slade's design for the Lowestoffe was approved, but was revised to produce a more rounded midships section; the amended design was approved on 3 January 1771 by Edward Hawke's outgoing Admiralty Board, just before it was replaced. The contract to build the Orpheus was awarded to John Barnard at Harwich, the keel being laid in May 1771, and the frigate was launched 7 May 1773, at a cost of £12,654.16.11d. She sailed from Harwich on 24 May for Sheerness Dockyard, where she was completed and fitted out to the Navy Board's needs (for £835.7.7d) by 11 June.

1779 - The Continental Navy sloop USS Providence, captures the British brig HMS Diligent off Sandy Hook and is later acquired for service in the Continental Navy.
USS Providence was a sloop-of-war in the Continental Navy, originally chartered by the Rhode Island General Assembly as Katy. The ship took part in a number of campaigns during the first half of the American Revolutionary War before being destroyed by her own crew in 1779 to prevent her falling into the hands of the British after the failed Penobscot Expedition.

Continental Sloop Providence (1775-1779) Painting in oils by W. Nowland Van Powell.

1794 - The Action of 7 May 1794 was a minor naval action fought between a British ship of the line and a French frigate early in the French Revolutionary Wars. HMS Swiftsure (74), Captain Charles Boyles, captured Atalante (36), Cptn. Charles-Alexandre-Leon Durand-Linois

1798 - Battle of the Îles Saint-Marcouf - HMS Badger (4) and HMS Sandfly gunbrig repulsed 52 gun brigs at Marcon.

Attack of St Marcou, I. Scatcherd

1803 – Launch of Russian Liogkii ("Лёгкий"), or Legkiy or Legkii, was a 38-gun Russian Speshni-class frigate
Liogkii ("Лёгкий"), or Legkiy or Legkii, was a 38-gun Russian Speshni-class frigate launched in 1803. She served in the Mediterranean during the Anglo-Russian war. The Russians sold her to the French Navy in 1809, which refitted her and put her into service in 1811, renaming her Corcyre. The British captured her in November 1811.

Model of the frigate O'Higgins from the Museo Naval y Marítimo of the Chilean Navy

1864 – The world's oldest surviving clipper ship, the City of Adelaide is launched by William Pile, Hay and Co. in Sunderland, England, for transporting passengers and goods between Britain and Australia.
City of Adelaide is a clipper ship, built in Sunderland, England, and launched on 7 May 1864. The ship was commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Carrick between 1923 and 1948 and, after decommissioning, was known as Carrick until 2001. At a conference convened by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in 2001, the decision was made to revert the ship's name to City of Adelaide, and the duke formally renamed her at a ceremony in 2013.

1872 – Launch of French La Galissonnière, lead ship of a class of wooden-hulled, armored corvettes built for the French Navy during the 1870s.
La Galissonnière was lead ship of a class of wooden-hulled, armored corvettes built for the French Navy during the 1870s. She was named after the victor of the Battle of Minorca in 1756, Marquis de la Galissonnière. She bombarded Sfax in 1881 as part of the French occupation of Tunisia and was present in Alexandria shortly before the British bombarded it before the beginning of the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War. The ship participated in a number of battles during the Sino-French War of 1884–85. La Galissonnière was condemned in 1894.

1875 - SS Schiller – the ship sank after hitting the Retarrier Ledges in the Isles of Scilly. Most of her crew and passengers were lost, totalling 335 fatalities.
SS Schiller was a 3,421 ton German ocean liner, one of the largest vessels of her time. Launched in 1873, she plied her trade across the Atlantic Ocean, carrying passengers between New York and Hamburg for the German Transatlantic Steam Navigation Line. She became notorious on 7 May 1875, while operating on her normal route, when she hit the Retarrier Ledges in the Isles of Scilly, causing her to sink with the loss of most of her crew and passengers, totalling 335 fatalities.

1885 – Launch of SMS Arcona, a member of the Carola class of steam corvettes built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the 1880s.
SMS Arcona was a member of the Carola class of steam corvettes built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the 1880s. Intended for service in the German colonial empire, the ship was designed with a combination of steam and sail power for extended range, and was equipped with a battery of ten 15-centimeter (5.9 in) guns. Arcona was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Danzig in 1881, she was launched in May 1885, and she was completed in December 1886.

Arcona in Nagasaki, Japan, c. 1897

1887 – Launch of French Neptune, an ironclad battleship of the French Navy

The Neptune on Penfeld river, c. 1892, by Edmond Chagot

1902 – Launch of Preußen (usually Preussen in English) (PROY-sin), a German steel-hulled five-masted ship-rigged windjammer built in 1902 for the F. Laeisz shipping company and named after the German state and kingdom of Prussia.
It was the world's only ship of this class with five masts carrying six square sails on each mast.
Until the 2000 launch of the Royal Clipper, a sail cruise liner, she was the only five-masted full-rigged ship ever built.

1913 – Launch of spanish Alfonso XIII, a Spanish dreadnought battleship, the second member of the España class.
Alfonso XIII was a Spanish dreadnought battleship, the second member of the España class. She had two sister ships, España and Jaime I. Alfonso XIII was built by the SECN shipyard; she was laid down in February 1910, launched in May 1913, and completed in August 1915. Named after King Alfonso XIII of Spain, she was renamed España in 1931 after the king was exiled following the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic. The new name was the namesake of her earlier sister ship, the España that served in the Spanish fleet from 1913 to 1923.

1915 - RMS Lusitania torpedoed and sunk
The passenger liner was torpedoed by U-20 on 7 May 1915. She sank in just 18 minutes 8 nmi (15 km) off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland killing 1,198 out of over 1,900 of the people aboard.
RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner and briefly the world's largest passenger ship. The ship was sunk on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat 11 mi (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland. The sinking presaged the United States declaration of war on Germany (1917).

1934 - The frigate USS Constitution completes her 3-year tour of 76 port cities along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts and then returns to Boston, Mass. Prior to her journey that began July 1931, the 137-year-old frigate undergoes a refit and overhaul. Congress authorized the restoration of Constitution in March 1925.

1942 – World War II: During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō;
the battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
Shōhō (Japanese: 祥鳳, "Auspicious Phoenix" or "Happy Phoenix") was a light aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Originally built as the submarine support ship Tsurugizaki in the late 1930s, she was converted before the Pacific War into an aircraft carrier and renamed. Completed in early 1942, the ship supported the invasion forces in Operation MO, the invasion of Port Moresby, New Guinea, and was sunk by American carrier aircraft on her first combat operation during the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7 May. Shōhō was the first Japanese aircraft carrier to be sunk during World War II.

1945 – World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document takes effect the next day.
Jodl and Keitel surrender all German armed forces unconditionally:
Thirty minutes after the fall of "Festung Breslau" (Fortress Breslau), General Alfred Jodl arrived in Reims and, following Dönitz's instructions, offered to surrender all forces fighting the Western Allies. This was exactly the same negotiating position that von Friedeburg had initially made to Montgomery, and like Montgomery the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, threatened to break off all negotiations unless the Germans agreed to a complete unconditional surrender to all the Allies on all fronts. Eisenhower explicitly told Jodl that he would order western lines closed to German soldiers, thus forcing them to surrender to the Soviets. Jodl sent a signal to Dönitz, who was in Flensburg, informing him of Eisenhower's declaration. Shortly after midnight, Dönitz, accepting the inevitable, sent a signal to Jodl authorizing the complete and total surrender of all German forces.

The first instrument of unconditional surrender signed at Reims on 7 May 1945.