Dawlish Chronicles

When reading about the Royal Navy in the 19 th Century one never ceases to be amazed by the degree of autonomy accorded to ships’ commande...

The island of Zanzibar, off the coast of modern Tanzania, was to be the scene in 1896 of what has been described as “The Shortest War in Hi...

A hundred years this month the sinking by German U-boats of three large ships, one civilian, two naval, alerted the world to the fact that ...

The aftermath of the wreck of the French frigate Medusa in 1816 is widely regarded as one of the most horrible events in maritime history....

In this blog, and later on my website, I have dealt several times with single-ship actions during the Age of Fighting Sail (see links at th...

For me Friday evening is the time of the week when I write my main blog, usually on a historical topic from the 18 th or 19 th Centuries,...

“Cutting out” operations were the SEAL or SBS-type operations of the Napoleonic era. Small boats carrying large numbers of armed seamen att...