HMS Fowey, 1710 – Officers were not always Gentlemen! I’ve mentioned before in my blogs some of the unusual stories I’ve found in an 1889 book by W.Clark Russell entitled “Betwixt the Forelands” – an informal history if the narrowest section of the English Channel. Part of the book focusses on smuggling in the [...]
The painful transition from Sail to Steam Admiral John Moresby I’m fascinated by the way that navies – and most especially the Royal Navy – adapted organisationally and professionally to the advent of steam power from the 1840s onwards. Many officers who had served in the Napoleonic Wars - including [...]
The Crimean War’s North Pacific Theatre: Petropavlovsk, August 1854 The most common image of the Crimean War (1854 – 56) is of Britain’s Light Brigade charging to death and glory against Russian guns at Balaclava. Almost equally well known are the epics of the ”Thin Red Line” and of the Storming of the Redan, [...]
Hospital Ships in U-Boat Sights 1917-18 There can be few more dreadful predicaments in warfare at sea than to be a patient in a hospital ship attacked by the enemy. The vulnerability of such ships was recognised in The Hague Convention of 1907 which specified that they should be immune to attack but clearly [...]
