The first American-Japanese naval battle, 1863 July 1863 was recognised both at the time and afterwards as the turning point of the American Civil War. The Union victory at Gettysburg in the first three days of the month, and the surrender of the Confederate fortress of Vicksburg in the 4th, ensured that the days of [...]

The Royal Navy's End of Fighting Sail – Sidon, Beirut and Acre, 1840 Though steam propulsion was first applied to warships, on a small scale, in the late 1830s, it was to take over half a century more before sail was finally abandoned by the world’s navies. The process was paralleled with the replacement [...]

Miss Betty Mouat and the Colombine 1886 My blog posts often deal with blood and thunder, conflict and battle, but this present item deals with a middle-aged lady of poor background, a Miss Betty Mouat, who demonstrated great heroism in peacetime without having any prior warning that her courage and endurance would be called [...]

HMS Quebec off Nordeney: Small Boat Action 1811 When reading of the Royal Navy’s role in the Napoleonic Wars, one is always struck by the dogged determination with which a blockade of the French and French-controlled coasts of Europe was maintained for more than two decades. One imagines the blockade in terms of sealing [...]

I am very pleased today to host a guest blog by another author naval-fiction, Philip K. Allan, who sets his work in the Napoleonic Era. There's a short biographical sketch of him at the bottom of this blog, as well as a link to his published work. I've found his  article a fascinating and enjoyable [...]

HMS Flamborough and HMS Bideford, outgunned but defiant, 1760 The term “post ship” was applied in the Royal Navy to Sixth-Rate vessels, and referred to the fact that they were the smallest ships that could be commanded by a post-captain. They were in effect miniature frigates, ship-rigged, some hundred feet long and around 500 [...]

Penang– Britain's Early Foothold in South-East Asia Some three years ago I was visiting Malaysia, arriving via Penang, the island off Peninsular Malaysia’s west coast that’s now home to a city of 1.5 million and is linked to the mainland by two bridges, one of them 15 miles (24 Kms) long. Penang owed its development [...]

In the Dawn of Naval Aviation – HMS Ark Royal and HMS Argus  I am lucky to live near Britain’s Fleet Arm Museum at Yeovilton, Somerset, a splendid collection not only of naval aircraft but of models of aircraft carriers from their earliest days. A visit (a modestly-priced ticket gives unlimited access for a year) [...]

“I’d prefer to be blown up!” - van Speijk at Antwerp, 1831 The revolt that led to the creation of modern Belgium as an independent state was the background to an act of insane heroism by a young Dutch naval officer, Jan van Speijk, whose (alleged) last words were to become an expression still in [...]