The Death of the Adder 1882

It is well known that the USS Monitor, which can be argued to be the first modern warship, and which gave its name to a type of ship which would see service until the end of WW2, was lost off Cape Hatteras in late 1862. This resulted from a very low-freeboard vessel being exposed to heavy seas – conditions such ships were never intended for since they were designed as mobile and heavily-armoured batteries for service in sheltered waters such as river estuaries.  Sixteen men died when the Monitor sank but the scale of the tragedy was dwarfed by the much heavier loss of a later, more sophisticated, vessel of the same type in 1882, the Adder of the Royal Netherlands Navy.

The monitor concept proved to be a very attractive one for the Dutch Navy, tasked as it was in home waters with defence of the approaches to its two largest cities, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Netherlands coast in the mid-19^th looked significantly different to what it does today. The Zuiderzee, the huge and shallow sea inlet to the north-east of Amsterdam would not be closed off by an enormous dyke until 1932, and much of the area within it reclaimed. The Delta area in the south of the country, where the rivers Rhine, Maas and Schelde enter the sea, was a labyrinth of individual channels, some giving access to Rotterdam, and would remain so until the vast “Delta Works” were undertaken in the 1950s and 60s to close them off.

Longitudinal section of three types of Dutch monitor
Cerberus (1870, Adder (1875) and Luipard (1877)

With increasing sizes and draughts of ships in the 1860s and 70s access to Amsterdam and Rotterdam through the Zuider Zee and the Delta proved increasingly difficult. The solution was to build two large-scale ship canals, both running due west from these cities to new openings on the Netherlands West Coast. Opening in the 1870s, and engineering marvels of their time, both waterways have been regularly increased in dimensions and capacity in the years since. The two new waterways changed the pattern of sea-borne mercantile access to the Netherlands, and given their single points of access to the sea were easily defensible by shore batteries. In the event of war however – even though the Netherlands was not liable to any significant threat from other European powers in this period – the possibility of enemy access to the country’s heartland through the Zuiderzee and the Delta could not be ignored. Shallow-draught monitors represented an ideal mobile defence for these areas. Speed and sea-worthiness were not major requirements since the vessels would be required to operate over short-distances in largely land-locked conditions but heavy armouring and heavy weapons would make them formidable opponents to any invading force.

Between 1868 and 1878 thirteen monitors were completed for the Royal Netherlands Navy, substantial ships of around 1500 tons and when fully manned demanding a crew of some 115 men. Since a design requirement can be deduced as being not to exceed a draught of 3 meters (9.75 ft) very limited accommodation was provided, or indeed required, since the crews could be housed in barracks ashore when the vessels were not exercising. Long, narrow upperworks abaft the single turret seem to have been mainly designed to provide light and ventilation to the spaces below, as will be seen from the contemporary illustration above that shows three of these ships in profile.

Plan view of Luipard and cross-sections of her, Adder and other Dutch monitors

The Adder gave her name to a class of six vessels which was completed between 1870 and 1876. All fitted with ram bows as ramming was still regarded as a viable tactic, especially in confined waters. 192 ft. long and of 1555 tons, these vessels were heavily armoured with iron – 5.5” on the hull sides and between 8” and 11” on the turret. Two 9” muzzle-loading rifles were carried in the turret. Speed as low – maximum 7 to 8 knots and horsepower varied from ship to ship in the range 560 – 740 IHP.

By the nature of their design, and of their likely tactical use, such vessels spent little time in the open sea, their greatest exposure to such conditions being apparently when they moved parallel to the Netherlands coast when transferring from Ijmuiden or Den Helder in the north, to the base at Hellevoetsluis in the Delta region. 

It was on such a voyage south, a short one, that the Adder set off from Ijmuiden on the morning of 5^th July 1882. The stretch of coast involved consisted almost entirely of long open beaches. A difficult passage was expected as the vessel did not perform well with wind on the beam and in even moderately heavy waves the decks would be awash. By early afternoon a strong south-westerly was blowing on the starboard beam and the monitor was sighted close inshore, off the fishing village of Scheveningen, a suburb of the Hague and which did not then have a harbour which could have offered shelter. (The present harbour dates from 1904). 

Artist's impression: Adder at sea

Though the seas might have provided problems for the Adder they were not bad enough as to interrupt the activities of Scheveningen fishermen. At 1800 hrs a fishing skipper, Abraham Westerduin, sighted the Adder – seas were washing across her up as high the funnel – and he judged the situation to be sufficiently serious as to decide to stand by to render assistance if possible. Around 2030 the monitor, now obviously in desperate straits, began to shoot off red, white and green rockets. Some 40 minutes later there was one last flash – a large one – and a cloud of smoke, or perhaps steam, and then nothing more was to be seen of the monitor. She had disappeared with all 66 men on board at the time.

In the following days several bodies wearing life-belts were recovered. A note found in an officer’s pocket indicated that a decision had been taken at 1800 hrs to turn back to Ijmuiden, the nearest harbour, but the monitor proved incapable of responding to the helm in the conditions prevailing. This was confirmed when the wreck was examined by a diver two weeks later – it lay just over a mile to the north-west of the Scheveningen lighthouse (still in existence today) and in 60 ft of water depth. The bows were pointed southwards, and not north towards Ijmuiden. A flag signal calling for tug-assistance was also found but it does not appear to have been sighted from shore. The boiler was intact and but the cause of the loss appeared to be large volumes of water spilling down into the engine room through deck openings.

The inevitable enquiry followed. Not unexpectedly the unsuitability of monitors for exposure to open-sea conditions was a major issue but the final responsibility was laid on the Adder’s officers. The vessel’s captain appears not to have had previous experience or training in handling monitors but the responsibility for assigning him – which must have been higher up in the naval hierarchy – appears to have been skated over.

The Reinier Claeszen - the Netherlands' last, and unlovely, monitor

The Adder disaster evoked an outpouring of sympathy throughout the nation and a fund was set up to support the crew’s widows and orphans. A further consequence was the spontaneous decision by a group of naval officers to set up the Royal Association of Naval Officers, which still exists today and is the oldest professional association in the Netherlands. The monitors continued in service, but one assumes in conditions that took account of the Adder experience, and only one further one was built for the Netherlands Navy, the Reinier Claeszen of 1891. The Wikipedia entry (in Dutch) on this vessel describes her as “not fully seaworthy: she steered badly and encountered serious maintenance problems.” This seems perhaps an appropriate epitaph for all these unfortunate vessels.

Britannia's Amazon

Mystery, Vice and Scandal in Victorian London

In Britannia's Spartan Captain Nichols Dawlish headed to unexpected dangers in the Far East in the cruiser HMS Leonidas. He left behind in Britain his indomitable wife Florence, who was determined to fill the months of separation with welfare efforts to support seamen's families. She expected it to be dull - if worthy - work but a chance encounter was to bring her into brutal contact with the squalid underside of complacent Victorian society. On home ground she faces hazards and betrayals every bit as deadly as her husband does in Korea and the powerful enemies she threatens are prepared to stop at nothing to frustrate her. Britannia's Amazon - strongly linked to actual events - tells her story.

Click here or on the image above to read the opening chapters

Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide 

To thank subscribers to the Dawlish Chronicles mailing list, a free, downloadable, copy of a new short story, Britannia's Eventide is sent to them as an e-mail attachment.

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The Farfadet Submarine Disaster 1905

Courage of the highest order was demanded of the officers and men of the navies that first employed submarines in the early twentieth centuries. Designs were still experimental and operating experience limited, so that every dive was an adventure. Accidents were frequent – and usually fatal when they did occur – and progress was achieved by learning very hard lessons.

The French navy was one of the first to commit to large-scale submarine construction. It looked to the new weapon, as it had looked to torpedo boats two decades before, as a cheap method of compensating for relative weakness in battleship numbers by comparison with potential rivals. At this stage submarines were primarily seen as suited to coastal and port-defence and the second –and so-far largest – design class, the four Farfadet units, launched between 1901 and 1903 were intended for this purpose.

The Farfadet in service

135-ft. long and of 185/ 202 tons (surface/submerged), the Farfadets craft were propelled by a single electric motor driving a variable-pitch propeller. The latter was an innovative item that dispensed with the need to provide reversing capability for the motor.  Range, determined by the batteries that had to be charged at the operating base, was limited to 115 miles surfaced and 28 submerged, and the maximum speeds attainable were 6.1 knots on the surface and 4.3 knots when submerged. Small as they were, these units packed a potentially powerful punch – four 18-inch torpedoes carried on external drop collars. The potency was proved when one unit of the class, the Korrigan, succeeded in hitting the monitor Tempete, serving as a harbour guard, with a practice torpedo while remaining unobserved. This was possibly the first time a target had been hit by a torpedo launched by a submarine. This considerable feat demanded the Korrigan and her sixteen-man crew remaining submerged for some twelve hours, somewhat of a record.  

A contemporary artist's impression of salvage operations
Shallowness of water is exaggerated

Both Korrigan and Farfadet were towed from La Rochelle, on the French Atlantic coast to the naval base at Bizerte, in Tunisia, in 1904 to provide port-defence. It was here that disaster was to overcome the Farfadet on July 6^th of the following year when the vessel was undertaking diving exercises some 500 yards from the arsenal. Commander Cyprien Ratier ordered water to be admitted to the ballast tanks and the craft began to settle very quickly – too quickly, for the hatch was not closed properly. (It will be seen from the photographs that the hatches were a point of vulnerability as they were very close to the waterline when surfaced and there was no tower as such). Ratier, his mate and the quartermaster struggled unsuccessfully to close the hatch. Large volumes of water where now cascading into the boat’s interior and Ratier and his two assistants were blasted out through the hatch by the escaping air. The Farfadet sank, head-foremost, and buried her bows in the mud. Ten men had gone down with her.

Immense public interest
in the salvage

The stricken craft was lying in approximately thirty feet of water and some salvage equipment was immediately available at the base. There were obviously still men alive inside, for they were hammering on the hull. By the following morning divers had managed to get four steel hawsers passed around the hull and a floating crane managed to lift it in the early afternoon so as to lash it to a pontoon.  Sufficient of the hull had been exposed for air-valves to be accessed and air passed in to the survivors. It was now attempted to move the craft into shallow water, so as to ground her. The process was a slow one and in the early hours of the following morning the hawsers parted and the Farfadet dropped again. Further efforts failed to lift her before the victims trapped inside died. No further sounds were heard after July 8^th, two days after the disaster. (One notices dreadful similarities to the HMS Thetis disaster in Liverpool Bay in 1939, when the stern of the sunken submarine had been raised above the surface).

Salvage efforts continued, a floating dock being used to lift the Farfadet – once again, the role of divers would have been crucial in passing hawsers under, and around, the hull. On July 9th, the Minister of Marine, Gaston Thomson, arrived from Paris to observe operations. On July 15th, the floating dock and the submarine suspended underneath were towed into a dry dock. The floating dock lowered the Farfadet, was then removed, and the dry dock was pumped out to expose the vessel.

The Farfadet - recovered and lying on her side in the dry dock.

Repatriation of the bodies

The distressing duty of retrieving the bodies was allocated to the crew of the sister submarine Korrigan. Four bodies were discovered in the bow compartment, and two in the centre, all probably killed during the initial inrush of water. Eight men had however managed to seal themselves in the compartment aft. These men – who had been beating for hours on the hull plating – had died dreadfully as seawater had reached the sulphuric acid of the batteries, thereby releasing poisonous chlorine gas. It appeared that the last of the crew had died after being trapped for 32 hours.

The long-drawn out agony of the Farfadet had kept France in horror-stricken fascination, the more so since submarines were a new concept, poorly understood by the general public. There was a massive outpouring of national grief and an imposing funeral service was held in Bizerte and the coffins returned to France thereafter for final burial. The salvaged submarine was towed across the Mediterranean to the naval base at Toulon, was reconditioned, and taken back into service. Cyprien Ratier continued as her commander for another two years.

The Lutin - Farfadet's sister and doomed to follow her in a year

The Farfadet was not the only one of her class to meet disaster. Her sister, the Lutin, was to sink, also near Bizerte, in October 1906. On this occasion structural failure of the hull occurred under external pressure. An expensive lesson was learned about design and an entire crew was lost. She too was salvaged. Already outmoded by the time of these disasters, and having served their purpose in introducing naval personnel to the science of submarine operation, all members of the Farfadet class were taken from service in the following years, to be replaced by more sophisticated and more reliable designs.

The Farfadet was not to be the last peacetime submarine disaster. They have continued up to our own time.

Britannia's Shark

The third of the Dawlish Chronicles series centres on the development - and role - of a prototype submarine. Based on actual events and personalities, Britannia's Shark paints a vivid picture of the skills and courage - bordering on madness - which was needed to operate such craft. Click on the image below to learn more and o read the opening chapters.

Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide 

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HMS Guardian 1789 – an epic battle for survival

In earlier posts I mentioned discovering the wonderful 1895 “Story of the Sea”, edited by “Q” (Sir Arthus Quiller Couch, with contributions from several luminaries of the era and with splendid illustrations. It dates from the period in which the British general public’s fascination with things nautical in general and with the Royal Navy in particular was at its zenith. One of the most impressive stories I found in it, and which I had not previously aware of, was of the survival, in appalling conditions, by HMS Guardian, en route to Australia in 1789. This epic of courage and seamanship is well worth sharing more widely.

The First Fleet entering Port Jackson, 26th January 1788, by E. le Bihan

British settlement of Australia commenced in 1788 when the “First Fleet”, consisting of two naval escorts, six convict transports and three stores ships, arrived from Britain at Port Jackson – Sydney Harbour. This was a vast and ambitious project, all the more impressive in that the ships had to voyage half the way around the world yet arrived safely within two days of each other after a passage lasting some 250 days. There is almost a “science-fiction” air about the project, aimed as it was at establishing a large-scale settlement from the start, albeit one relying on convict labour for its development. The First Fleet landed 1373 people, of whom 754 were convicts (including some 189 women and 22 children, some born at sea). Officials and marines, the latter to preserve order and discipline, amounted to 259 and the remainder were seamen, many of whom were to leave again with the ships.

Further support for the infant colony was provided the following year, 1789, with the despatch of HMS Guardian, a frigate converted to carry stores.  These consisted of seeds, plants, agricultural implements and livestock. She had a crew of 123, under the command of who proved to be the very capable Lieutenant Edward Riou, as well as a further 25 convicts. Her voyage from Britain to Cape Town, where she put in briefly, was uneventful, but twelve days after departure from there, on December 23^rd, about 1400 miles south east of the Cape, a large iceberg was sighted.

At this stage Lieutenant Riou was concerned about lack of water for the animals on board – one gets the impression that these needs had been underestimated, the more so since one would have expected water supplies to have been replenished at Cape Town. Hoping to replenish his water by taking on ice from the berg, Riou advanced cautiously towards it. Boats were swung out and the Guardian lay to for the ice to be brought on board.

Guardian aground - Victorian era illustration

The fact that the iceberg extended a large distance under water does not seem to have been suspected, since as the Guardian attempted to stand away her bows struck. She swung around and the bows, though damaged, came free, but the stern now smashed on to the ice. The rudder was sheared away and a serious breach was made in the hull. The ice mountain towering above was estimated as “twice was high as the mainmast of a first-rater” and there were fears of sections of it crashing down. Riou remained calm in all this and managed, by use of his sails, to get the vessel free.

The situation was desperate, with six feet of water already in the hold. It was now a question of “all hands to the pumps” while an attempt was made to patch the hole at the stern by a sail. The labour went on through the night and all through the entire next day, during which the weather deteriorated. Despite this efforts were in progress to lighten the ship, during which Riou’s hand was crushed by a falling cask. Some ground had however been gained against the leak when the starboard pump broke down around midnight on the 24^th. By Christmas morning not only was the water depth in the hold increasing once more but the night’s tempest had blown the fore- and top-mainsails to shreds, leaving the vessel at the mercy of the sea.

Some of the crew, exhausted and despairing, left the pumps and hid themselves and it was only by threatening to cast them overboard that they were brought back to work. By now the water had reached the orlop deck and was gaining two feet an hour. Some of the more self-reliant men came to the officers and asked for boats to be made ready. Riou agreed to this and those who wished to leave could do so. Masts, sails, compasses and water casks were placed in each boat.

Contemporary view of the boats leaving the stricken Guardian

Knowing that there was insufficient space in the boats, Riou determined to stay behind. 61 others remained with him. These included the officers and 21 of the convicts – it is unlikely that the latter had any say in the matter.  The five boats launched carried 259 – the overcrowding is almost unimaginable. Clements, the ship’s master, took charge of the launch, the largest boat. Riou handed him a letter which should be forwarded, in the event of Clements’ survival, to the Secretary of the Admiralty. It embodies all that is best of the Royal Navy of the period and is worth quoting in full as an example of calm dignity, honour and resolution in the face of almost certain death:

HMS Guardian, December 25^th, 1789

Sir – If any part of the officers or crew of the Guardian should ever survive to get home, I have only to say their conduct after the fatal stroke against an island of ice was admirable and wonderful in everything that related to their duties considered either as private men or on his Majesty's Service.

As there seems no possibility of my remaining many hours in this world, I beg leave to recommend to the consideration of the Admiralty a sister who if my conduct or service should be found deserving any memory their favour might be shown to her together with a widowed mother.

I am Sir remaining with great respect, your ever Obedt & humble servt,

                                                                                                                                         E. Riou

A contemporary depiction of the overcrowding in the boats
(With acknowledgement to the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, Australia)

With the boats gone, Riou’s efforts to save the ship continued undiminished. Though the Guardian was wholly unmanageable it appeared that she had sunk as far as she would go. This appears to have been due to empty casks in the hold pressing up against the lower deck, the hatchways of which had been firmly secured. In addition, as well as the damage at the stern, there was also a hole in the bows and through this iron and shingle ballast seems to have washed out. The vessel was however wholly unmanageable, and was drifting at the mercy of wind and wave. It was at this time that Riou’s leadership was most impressive. At one stage he had to face down a near mutiny when some of the men constructed a raft of the booms and were readying to leave the ship on it. Quite providentially a favourable breeze sprung up as they were launching it and Riou convinced them to stay with the Guardian.

The ship was to drift for almost two months, until February 22^nd 1790, when the flat top of Table Mountain was spotted on the horizon, for by a miracle the Guardian had drifted steadily towards Cape Town. A British ship sighted her and sent boats to tow her into the anchorage. Though Riou had brought his people (including one woman) to safety, his hopes of repairing the Guardian and getting her back to Britain were frustrated and she had to be abandoned.

In the meantime the Guardian’s launch – the only one of the five ship’s boats to survive – had been picked up by a French ship after twelve days at sea. There were only fifteen survivors on board, including Clements, the master, wo could now forward Riou’s letter to the Admiralty.

On arrival in Cape Town Riou now wrote another letter:

Table Bay, February 22^nd. 1790

Sir, - I hope this letter will reach you before any account arrives of the loss of His Majesty’s ship Guardian. If it should, I have to beg of your lordships that, on the 23^rd of December, the ship struck on an island of ice; and that on the 25^th all hope of her survival having vanished, I consented that as many of the officers and people should take the boats as thought proper. But it pleased Almighty God to assist my endeavours, with the remaining part of the crew, to arrive with His Majesty’s ship in this bay yesterday. A Dutch packet is now under sail for Europe, which prevents me from giving any further particulars, especially as at this instant I find it more necessary than ever to exert myself to prevent the ship from sinking at her anchors.

I am, sir, most respectfully

Your ever obedient servant, E. Riou

This letter arrived at the Admiralty on April 28^th, five days after Riou’s first letter and in this period Riou and his men had been mourned as dead. News was sent immediately to King George III, “who on reading it, expressed uncommon satisfaction.”

It is pleasing to know that though the 21 surviving convicts were sent on to Australia, 14 of them were pardoned as a result of Riou's report of their good conduct on the Guardian.

Thomas Pitt, 2nd Lord Camelford
- he seems to radiate pugnacity

Among the others who remained with Riou on the Guardian was a young midshipman named Thomas Pitt (1775-1804), son of Lord Camelford, brother of the ex-Prime Minister William Pitt. Undeterred by this experience Pitt, now 16, volunteered for the major exploration expedition due to leave under the command of Captain George Vancouver. With no positions left for officers, Pitt signed on as an able-seaman, a remarkable step for one of his background. His undisciplined behaviour on the voyage resulted however in his being flogged three times (once for consorting with native women on Tahiti, an activity regarded with great suspicion since the Bounty mutiny). While at sea Pitt’s father had died, making him Lord Camelford himself and also – perhaps – the only member of the House of Lords ever to be flogged as a common seaman. Back in Britain, and now commissioned as a lieutenant, Pitt (or Camelford as he now was) initiated a vendetta against Vancouver, going so far as to assault him in the street. His life continued to be violent to an extent to which insanity was suspected – when posted to the West Indies he shot dead a subordinate officer who hesitated to obey orders.  His end was to come after he left the navy when, in a dispute over a mistress, he challenged an ex-friend, a Captain Best, to a duel. Camelford was to die of wounds sustained in the encounter, though, to his credit, his will directed that Best not be prosecuted in the event of his death.

"The Caning in Conduit Street"
James Gilray's cartoon of Camelford attacking Vancouver

And the splendid Edward Riou, the hero of the Guardian, what became of him? 

It is sad to record that he was to die at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. As captain of HMS Amazon, Riou was entrusted with command of the frigate squadron, which he brought in close to the Danish forts.  Undeterred by a splinter-inflicted head wound, and surrounded by dead and dying, he was still encouraging his men when he was killed by a roundshot while– a death he himself might have wished for. Nelson, on learning of Riou's death, called the loss 'irreparable'.

 Had Riou survived there is little doubt that he would have advanced to the highest levels of command and would be better remembered today. He was a magnificent man.

Britannia's Amazon

Mystery, Vice and Scandal in Victorian London

In Britannia's Spartan Captain Nichols Dawlish headed to unexpected dangers in the Far East in the cruiser HMS Leonidas. He left behind in Britain his indomitable wife Florence, who was determined to fill the months of separation with welfare efforts to support seamen's families. She expected it to be dull - if worthy - work but a chance encounter was to bring her into brutal contact with the squalid underside of complacent Victorian society. On home ground she faces hazards and betrayals every bit as deadly as her husband does in Korea and the powerful enemies she threatens are prepared to stop at nothing to frustrate her. Britannia's Amazon - strongly linked to actual events - tells her story.

Click here or on the image above to read the opening chapters

Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide 

To thank subscribers to the Dawlish Chronicles mailing list, a free, downloadable, copy of a new short story, Britannia's Eventide is sent to them as an e-mail attachment.

If you have not already subscribed to the mailing list, you can do so by clicking here or on the banner image above. 

The loss of HMS Vanguard 1875

The name HMS Vanguard is associated today with the Royal Navy’s last battleship, scrapped in 1960. An earlier Vanguard was however to meet an even more unpleasant fate, and arguably a wholly avoidable one.

HMS Vanguard

The HMS Vanguard launched in 1870 was one of a class of four ironclads, her sisters being Audacious, Invincible and Iron Duke. The concept of a sea-going ironclad capital ship was only ten years old. HMS Warrior, the first of the type, and which was as revolutionary in her time as HMS Dreadnought four decades later, had become the starting point for a new type of warship. The Vanguard and her sisters represented a second generation of such ships. Their most notable departure from the Warrior configuration was that although Warrior carried her many guns in broadside mountings, as warships had done for centuries, the Vanguard’s armament of much heavier weapons was concentrated in a two-storey armoured box amidships. 

HMS Warrior - obsolescent in 1875 but today restored to her former glory at Portsmouth

Vanguard and her sisters (see table) were rated as “second-class”, of moderate dimensions that were well suited for deployment on foreign stations, most likely singly. Iron Duke was to serve as flagship of the China Station for four years form 1871 and was one of the largest ships to transit the Suez Canal up to that time. Her sailing rig made her particularly suitable for operations in areas, such as the Pacific Ocean, where coaling opportunities were limited. All four vessels of the class were described as “good and steady seaboats but slow under sail”.

By 1875 Iron Duke had returned to home waters and was assigned, with her three sisters, with the ironclads Hector, Defence, Penelope and Achilles, and the by-then obsolescent Warrior, to the First Reserve Squadron.  In late August the squadron was based at Kingstown (now Dun Laoighaire) the large artificial harbour on the southern side of Dublin Bay. On the morning of September 1^st the Squadron left Kingstown in line, the majority of the vessels headed for Queenstown (now Cobh) further south on the Irish Coast. This enormous force, splendid with their black hulls and buff funnels and masts,  must have been a magnificent sight as they passed, one by one, through the narrow-gap between Kingstown’s two projecting mile-long piers.

HMS Vanguard at sea under sail and steam power

Six miles out, off the Kish Bank  lightship, the Achilles broke away to head for Liverpool and the remaining ships turned south. The sea was moderate, but a fog came on, its density increasing. The ships had been proceeding at some twelve knots, but speed was reduced to half this as the fog persisted.  By a half-hour after noon the lookouts on Vanguard could not see more than fifty yards ahead, and the officers on her bridge could not see the bowsprit.  It is unlikely that the situation was any better on the other ships.

Contemporary illustration - Vanguard sinking and Iron Duke's damaged bows (l)

The Vanguard’s watch suddenly reported a sail ahead, and the helm was put over to prevent running it down. The Iron Duke was then following close in the wake of the Vanguard, whose action brought the two vessels closer, presenting Vanguard’s port broadside-on to Iron Duke’s bow. Unaware of any change, and blinded by the fog, the Iron Duke ploughed on. Only at the last moment did her commander, Captain Hickley, who was on the bridge, see Vanguard emerging from the mist. He ordered reversing of his engines, but it was already too late. The Iron Duke’s ram struck the Vanguard below the armour-plates, on the port side, abreast of the engine-room. The rent made was very large—amounting, as the divers afterwards found, to four feet length —and the water poured into the hold in torrents. It was immediately obvious that Vanguard was doomed for this was still an age when compartalisation and damage-control of iron vessels were in their infancy.

Boats from both ships rescuing Vanguard's crew

There was nothing more to be done but to save lives. The Vanguard’s Captain Dawkins ordered abandonment and officers and men behaved calmly. At the risk of his life one of the mechanics returned to the engine-room to blow down the boilers, so preventing an explosion,. The water rose quickly in the after-part, and rushed into the engine and boiler rooms, eventually finding its way into the provision-room flat, through imperfectly fastened “water-tight” doors – which proved anything but. Discipline was superb, the crew standing on deck as if at an inspection and not moving until ordered. Boats were lowered by both Vanguard and Iron Duke and in the process of transfer the only casualty of the disaster was sustained – a finger crushed between a boat’s gunwale and a ships’ hull. The actual transfer to Iron Duke of Vanguard’s entire crew was achieved in twenty minutes and Captain Dawkins was the last man to leave her.

Vanguard heeled gradually over until the whole of her enormous flank and bottom, down to her keel, was above water. Then she sank gradually, righting herself as she went down, stern first, the water being blown from hawse-holes in huge spouts by the force of the air rushing up from below. She disappeared some ninety minutes after the collision.

The court-martial

The inevitable court-martial was to prove remarkable for the statement by the then First Lord of the Admiralty – the minister responsible for the Navy – that “we ought to be rather satisfied than otherwise with the occurrence”.  Edward Reed, the designer of both ships, and by 1875 a Liberal Member of Parliament, stated that ironclads were in more danger in times of peace than in times of war. In peacetime, he said, they were residences for several hundred men, and many of the water-tight doors could not be kept closed without inconvenience. In wartime however they were fortresses, and the doors would be closed for safety.  Even more remarkably, close station-keeping in a fog was not considered as contributing to the disaster. The Court commented negatively on the conduct of the Iron Duke’s officers and indirectly blamed the admiral in command of the squadron. The Admiralty could find nothing wrong in either case and visited their wrath on the unfortunate lieutenant on deck at the time.

Vanguard still lies, largely intact, in some 150 feet of water off Ireland’s Wicklow coast. She is reachable by experienced air-divers – and reaching her must be a magnificent experience.

And Vanguard’s Captain Dawkins? It's sad to report that, well as he behaved after the collision, his career was at an end.

If you want to read about adventure in the age of transition from sail to steam,  then try The Dawlish Chronicles, which so far stretch to five volumes. Start the adventure with "Britannia's Wolf" which features ironclads in combat, desperate land action in the depths of a savage winter, and murderous political intrigue. You can get it in Kindle or paperback format. Click on the image below for details.

Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide 

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More Privateer Action: HMS Wolverine, 1799

 My blog of February 10th of this year – accessible through the bar to the right – dealt with privateering action in the English Channel in 1793, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. It demonstrated that even at this very early stage the naval warfare in the “Narrow Seas” between Britain and the European coastline was to be of a quite savage nature, not unlike the battles that were to be fought by British and German coastal forces in the same waters in World War 2. The pace of action was not to let up in the years that followed as French privateers, often of very small size, darted out to prey on British coastal traffic and retired quickly to well-defended bases such as Calais. The war against them was to be waged not by the mighty battle-fleets or their supporting frigates but by small handy craft such as brigs and cutters, heavily armed for their size. The following account, drawing largely on information in the same W. Clark Russell book of 1889 as my previous blog, relates to another small-scale but epic battle that was typical of this aspect of the larger conflict.

HMS Wolverine 1798 - her rounded civilian bows
betray her civilian origin

HMS Wolverine was a civilian-owned collier before being purchased by the Royal Navy in 1798 for conversion to an armed brig. Her armament was powerful – only two of her guns were long 18-pounders and her others were all carronades, six of them 24-pounders and six 12-pounders. The carronades were murderously efficient weapons at short range and gave a craft such as the Wolverine a “punch” out of all proportion to their size. She was to see service immediately after commissioning by Commander Lewis Mortlock when she supported a “Dieppe 1942” type raid on the port of Ostend. On January 3^rd 1799 she was cruising off the French port of Boulogne, some twenty miles from the English coast. Weather conditions were poor but two large French armed luggers were spotted. These were later identified as the fourteen-gun Le Furet and the eight-gun Rusé, all weapons being four-pounders. Their combined crews were roughly four times the 70 men carried by Wolverine – a potentially decisive factor should it come to boarding. These were typical privateers of the English Channel and such craft usually fled from confrontation with naval units – their objective was capture of rich commercial prizes rather than combat – and Mortlock realised that to bring them to action it would be necessary to play the role of a merchantman, a ruse that Wolverine’s civilian lines would assist. He accordingly hoisted Danish colours and, as expected, the luggers bore down on him and hailed. Asked for his identity, Mortlock answered that he was en-route from Plymouth to Copenhagen.  All his guns were manned, their crews out of sight and to all appearances Wolverine looked like an unarmed and attractive commercial prize.

An armed French lugger of the period
Le Furet and Rusé possibly looked similar

Mortlock’s deception paid off. As the unsuspecting Le Furet drew close, British colours were run up in place of the Danish and a full broadside unleashed. Given the disparity in firepower the only French hope now lay in boarding. Le Furet accordingly ploughed on towards Wolverine’s starboard quarter and crashed her bowsprit between the mizzen-shrouds and the mast while small-arms fire were poured on to her decks from the British tops. Close on Le Furet’s heels the Rusé came in on Wolverine’s port bow. From both luggers French boarders now poured across and Wolverine’s gunners had to abandon their weapons to join in the close combat on deck. The four-to one disparity in crew numbers was firmly in favour of the French and the fighting was now of a close, hand to hand, nature. According to Russell’s account, one Frenchman in particular “was observed to be cheering his men and beating them forward with the flat of his sword. The plucky rascal sprung to the top of the round house, where he stood hysterically yelling to his people and flourishing his weapon. Mortlock, supposing him to be the captain of the privateer, rushed at him. The Frenchman snapped a pistol in his face; it missed fire; he drew out another pistol but before he could level it Mortlock had plunged his half-pike into his body and he went overboard.” The resistance seems to have been so resolute that the French did not press their advantage with any great enthusiasm. A diversion was created by men from Le Furet throwing bags full of incendiary material through Wolverine’s stern windows and starting a fire. This drew the British crew away to fight the conflagration and in the confusion the French boarders withdrew, cut the lashings that bound their luggers to the Wolverine, and made off. Wolverine, scarred but triumphant, retired to Portsmouth.

Lewis Mortlock - young, handsome and doomed

Reading of such close actions one is often struck by how light the casualties could be. Wolverine lost two men, one of them Commander Mortlock, who had been badly wounded. He died in his mother’s arms a week later and his funeral was attended by every captain then in Portsmouth. A touching footnote is that his Newfoundland dog, who had been on board Wolverine throughout the action, survived unscathed.  French losses were heavier – a total of nineteen killed or dying of wounds shortly afterwards, plus many wounded who survived. Among the dead were Le Furet’s captain – possibly the “plucky rascal” whom Mortlock had slain – and three officers from the Rusé. The disproportion in losses may be partly explained by the surprise Wolverine unleashed on her unsuspecting attackers and another factor is almost certainly that the British crew’s stricter discipline and better training made them more effective than the privateersmen.

Commander Lewis Mortlock’s name is a forgotten one today, yet he was one of the thousands of brave, promising, splendid men whose professionalism was to save Britain and Europe from French domination. We owe him, and those like him, a debt.

Britannia's Reach

Click here or on the image below to plunge yourself into a world of danger, betrayal and merciless conflict in which neither side has clean hands and one man battles to maintain his integrity. One click gives you access to the opening chapters...

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Dynamite Guns: Brilliant Technical Dead-Ends!

A major role is played in the Dawlish Chronicles novel Britannia’s Shark, set in 1881, by an experimental “pneumatic projector” – essentially a gun from which the projectile is launched by compressed air. Such weapons were considered very promising in the 1880s and 1890s and indeed the inventor John Phillip Holland, who also features in “Britannia’s Shark”, built a 9-inch projector into his 1882 Fenian Ram, arguably the first successful submarine.

15-inch  Dynamite Gun at Fort Winfield Scott, San Francisco

Though forgotten today, the concept was very attractive in its own day and the spur to its development was the recent invention of dynamite, an explosive of considerably greater power than any other previously available. Filling conventional artillery shells with dynamite would obviously increase their potency but the concern was that dynamite was sufficiently unstable as to be incapable of resisting the rapid acceleration involved in discharge from a conventional gun. A method of propulsion which would give slower acceleration, but comparable range, was what was required. The answer was to eject the shell from a giant blow-pipe by means of compressed air.

There were other advantages. Lighter gauge metal could be used for the discharge tube than would be needed for a conventional gun-barrel and larger-calibre weapons could be carried for the same weight. Also the lack of flame and smoke when the projectile was discharged would reduce visibility, and chance of location, particularly at night. The greatest  potential was as an anti-shipping weapon. A direct hit would not be necessary if a large enough projectile could be dropped into the water close to the ship. Exploding underwater, the shock waves would rupture the hull. Recognition of the effectiveness of below-waterline attack had already led to the development of the self-propelled torpedo. At a time however when torpedo speeds, ranges and sizes were still low a pneumatic projector offered the opportunity of landing a larger charge close to a moving ship more quickly and accurately, and at greater ranges.

8-inch Zalinski gun on trial - note barrel built up of flanged tubes

Credit for proving the concept went to a Mr.D.M.Melford of Toledo, Ohio, who demonstrated a 2-inch prototype to the US Military in 1884, firing a 5-pound solid shot over half-a-mile and driving it through a 26-inch thick concrete target. Mefford seems to have faded from the scene thereafter but one of the observers at the trial, an artillery lieutenant called Edmund Zalinski picked up the idea and formed the “pneumatic Dynamite gun Company”. By 1885 Zalinski had an operational prototype with an 8-inch bore which could fire a projectile with a 100 pound dynamite charge over two miles. The projector was at least as accurate as conventional cannon of the same calibre and, though the range was less, could carry a much larger explosive charge,

The US Navy was now interested – not least because such weapons could be mounted in smaller, lighter ships. A test in 1887 completely destroyed a target ship and the publicity this got led to the decision to build a "dynamite cruiser" armed with three such weapons. Zalinski, by now US Naval attaché to Russia, returned to supervise development of these projectors as well as the construction of similar ones for mounting in coastal-defence fortifications.

USS Vesuvius on contemporary postcard. Note the three black projector barrels on foredeck

The Vesuvius – an unarmoured  246 ft, 930 ton vessel, with two 2200 hp engines giving her a top speed of 21 knots – was fitted with three fixed 15-inch bore projectors. To aim them the entire ship needed to be aimed at the target –this was to prove the main operational drawback – and range was varied by adjusting air pressure. They offered the capability of hurling quarter-ton dynamite charges up to a mile, while with a reduced charge of 200 lbs the respectable range of two and a half miles was achievable. In one test fifteen projectiles were fired by the Vesuvius in just over sixteen minutes.  The projectiles themselves looked like huge darts, with sheet meal tails carried on an extensions behind the charge proper, the fins being angled to as to impart a spin – and stability – in flight. Once the projectile had dropped into the water, and had begun to sink, salt-covered fuses were exposed which, when fully exposed to sea-water, completed an electric circuit and detonated the charge.

15-inch Zalinski projectile - note the twisted fins

USS Vesuvius - the projector barrels could only be aimed
by aligning teh ship's bows on the target

Despite extensive trials, which revealed many operational problems,  the Vesuvius did not enter active service until the Spanish-American War in 1898. She was to bombard a Spanish fortification at Santiago, Cuba, but the results, though visually spectacular, seem to have been meagre, doing little more than plough up the fort’s glacis. She was converted to a torpedo-trials vessel thereafter (an ironic fate, in that the Zalinski guns once had once promised to replace the torpedo) and, with her pneumatic projectors removed, she lasted to 1922.

One other Zalinski gun was mounted on a warship. This was a single 15-inch unit mounted on a Brazilian auxiliary cruiser, the Nictheroy, a 7080-ton (displacement) Brazilian auxiliary cruiser. She was originally a coastal passenger and cargo operated under the name El Cid by the Morgan Lines company. Faced with a large-scale naval mutiny in 1894, the Brazilian government looked frantically for ships overseas, bought El Cid, and had a Zalinski weapons similar to those of the Vesuvius installed. Though she reached Brazil the mutiny was suppressed without the Nictheroy needing to open fire. She was purchased back by the US Navy at the time of the Spanish-American War and had a worthy career thereafter in various support roles as the USS Buffalo. She was sold in 1927.

"Battery Dynamite" at Fort Winfield Scott, San Francisco

15-inch Zalinski guns were also evaluated by the US Army’s coastal artillery, offering enough promise for two such weapons, and a small 8-inch gun, to be mounted Fort Hancock, New Jersey, in 1894. These were regarded as sufficiently successful for three more 15-inch guns to be located at San Francisco in 1898 to protect the Golden Gate, followed by individual weapons at  Hilton Head, South Carolina and Fishers Island, New York.  in 1901. By then they were being made obsolete by the development of more stable explosives – such as cordite – which were stable enough to be fired from conventional guns over much greater ranges. All US Army batteries were scrapped well before WW1.

USS Holland - note inclined Zalinski guns
with torpedo tube below that at the bow

The concept still had sufficient promised for John Phillip Holland, built two 8.4-inch Zalinski guns into the first commissioned US submarine USS Holland (SS-1), no doubt remembering his first attempt to do so in the early 1880s. They were however removed afterwards.

USS Holland - note projector tube.
The cover is missing, so weapon presumably no longer in use

One other pneumatic gun was to enter service. This was the bizarre Sims-Dudley gun for use as mobile field artillery. This duty precluded use of steam-driven compressors, as installed on ships or at fixed shore batteries. Instead, a separate cylinder was placed below the projector tube and a smokeless-powder charge was detonated in it to send compressed air – presumably on the other side of a piston, to the launching tube. This seems to have been an example of having the worst of both worlds in design terms, and the age-old principle of Occams’s Razor, as valid in technology as in philosophy, must have been unknown to the inventors. Despite this the US Army bought sixteen of these guns, firing 2.5 inch calibre, 10-pound projectiles with 5-pound bursting charges. The projectiles seem to have been smaller versions of the Zalinski missiles, as shown in teh illustration below.

Sims-Dudley gun - note projectile and smokeless-powder charge on sheet

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders used a Sims-Dudley gun during the siege of Santiago. Its greatest advantage appears to have been its lack of a loud report and the fact that its smokeless-power charges did not reveal the weapon’s location to the enemy. It seems however to have been mechanically unreliable. The Sims-Dudley faded from history afterwards – probably deservedly so!

Though considerable ingenuity was expended in making pneumatic guns work, and though the American Government was prepared to invest large sums in their development, they ultimately represented one of history’s technological dead-ends. The advent of more stable explosives, and of longer-ranged and faster torpedoes, quickly sidelined them. Pneumatic guns do not however deserve to be forgotten, and for me, in Britannia’s Shark, it has been a delight to write about the period when they still held such promise.

Britannia's Shark

Click on the image below to learn more about Britannia's Shark. This will allow you to read the opening chapters - including the testing of a pneumatic gun.

Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide 

To thank subscribers to the Dawlish Chronicles mailing list, a free, downloadable, copy of a new short story, Britannia's Eventide has been sent to them as an e-mail attachment.

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