1.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
2.
Battle of the Atlantic
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The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, running from 1939 to the defeat of Germany in 1945. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war and it was at its height from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943. The convoys, coming mainly from North America and predominantly going to the United Kingdom and these forces were aided by ships and aircraft of the United States from September 13,1941. The Germans were joined by submarines of the Italian Royal Navy after their Axis ally Italy entered the war on June 10,1940, as an island nation, the United Kingdom was highly dependent on imported goods. Britain required more than a million tons of imported material per week in order to be able to survive and fight. In essence, the Battle of the Atlantic was a war, the Allied struggle to supply Britain. From 1942 onwards, the Axis also sought to prevent the build-up of Allied supplies, the defeat of the U-boat threat was a pre-requisite for pushing back the Axis. The outcome of the battle was a victory for the Allies—the German blockade failed—but at great cost,3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships were sunk for the loss of 783 U-boats. The name Battle of the Atlantic was coined by Winston Churchill in February 1941 and it has been called the longest, largest, and most complex naval battle in history. The campaign started immediately after the European war began, during the so-called Phoney War and it involved thousands of ships in more than 100 convoy battles and perhaps 1,000 single-ship encounters, in a theatre covering millions of square miles of ocean. The Allies gradually gained the hand, overcoming German surface raiders by the end of 1942 and defeating the U-boats by mid-1943. The first meeting of the Cabinets Battle of the Atlantic Committee was on March 19, Churchill claimed to have coined the phrase Battle of the Atlantic shortly before Alexanders speech, but there are several examples of earlier usage. Following the use of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany in the First World War, countries tried to limit, even abolish, the effort failed. or active resistance to visit or search. This made restrictions on submarines effectively moot, in 1939, the Kriegsmarine lacked the strength to challenge the combined British Royal Navy and French Navy for command of the sea. Instead, German naval strategy relied on commerce raiding using capital ships, armed merchant cruisers, submarines and these ships immediately attacked British and French shipping. U-30 sank the ocean liner SS Athenia within hours of the declaration of war—in breach of her orders not to sink passenger ships, much of the early German anti-shipping activity involved minelaying by destroyers, aircraft and U-boats off British ports. With the outbreak of war, the British and French immediately began a blockade of Germany, the Royal Navy quickly introduced a convoy system for the protection of trade that gradually extended out from the British Isles, eventually reaching as far as Panama, Bombay and Singapore. Convoys allowed the Royal Navy to concentrate its escorts near the one place the U-boats were guaranteed to be found, each convoy consisted of between 30 and 70 mostly unarmed merchant ships
3.
Galley (kitchen)
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The galley is the compartment of a ship, train, or aircraft where food is cooked and prepared. It can also refer to a kitchen on a naval base. A galley is the kitchen aboard a vessel, usually laid out in an efficient typical style with longitudinal units and this makes the best use of the usually limited space aboard ships. It also caters for the rolling and heaving nature of ships, for this reason galley stoves are often gimballed, so that the liquid in pans does not spill out. They are also equipped with bars, preventing the cook from falling against the hot stove. A small kitchen on deck was called a caboose or camboose, originating from the Dutch, kombuis, in English it is a defunct term used only for a cooking area that is abovedecks. The Douglas Aircraft DC-3 was the first airplane with a galley for food service. Aircraft in operation today mainly use the airline service trolley system. The first airplane kitchen was invented by Werner Sell of Germany in 1930, in 1955 Sell also began fitting train coaches with kitchens, from 1960 on with the newly developed convection oven. Such kitchens increase storage space by working vertically, with hanging pots, dish racks, strictly, the term refers to a kitchen with the units in two facing lines, but is often used to refer to U-shaped kitchens as well. 10,000 units were installed in Frankfurt, and it was the most successful, Chief cook Chief steward Stewards assistant
4.
Sick bay
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A sick bay is a compartment in a ship, or a section of another organisation, such as a school or college used for medical purposes. The sick bay and the medicine chest should be locked, with the keys only being available to the medical officer. The term is also applied ashore by the United States Navy and Marine Corps to treatment clinics on naval stations, sick bays appear in popular science fiction franchises, such as Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, as the medical facility on board a starship
5.
Tugboat
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A tug is a boat or ship that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugboats are powerful for their size and strongly built, and some are ocean-going, some tugboats serve as icebreakers or salvage boats. Early tugboats had steam engines, but today most have diesel engines, many tugboats have firefighting monitors, allowing them to assist in firefighting, especially in harbors. Seagoing tugs fall into four categories, The standard seagoing tug with model bow that tows its payload on a hawser. The notch tug which can be secured in a notch at the stern of a specially designed barge and this configuration is dangerous to use with a barge which is in ballast or in a head- or following sea. Therefore, notch tugs are usually built with a towing winch and these units stay combined under virtually any sea conditions and the tugs usually have poor sea-keeping designs for navigation without their barges attached. Vessels in this category are considered to be ships rather than tugboats. These vessels must show navigation lights compliant with those required of ships rather than required of tugboats. Articulated tug and barge units also utilize mechanical means to connect to their barges, the tug slips into a notch in the stern and is attached by a hinged connection. ATBs generally utilize Intercon and Bludworth connecting systems, aTBs are generally staffed as a large tugboat, with between seven and nine crew members. The typical American ATB operating on the east coast customarily displays navigational lights of a towing vessel pushing ahead, compared to seagoing tugboats, harbour tugboats are generally smaller and their width-to-length ratio is often higher, due to the need for a lower draught. In smaller harbours these are also termed lunch bucket boats, because they are only manned when needed and only at a minimum. The number of tugboats in a harbour varies with the harbour infrastructure, things to take into consideration includes ships with/without bow thrusters and forces like wind, current and waves and types of ship. River tugs are also referred to as towboats or pushboats and their hull designs would make open ocean operation dangerous. River tugs usually do not have any significant hawser or winch and their hulls feature a flat front or bow to line up with the rectangular stern of the barge, often with large pushing knees. Tugboat engines typically produce 500 to 2,500 kW, for safety, tugboats engines often feature two of each critical part for redundancy. A tugboats power is stated by its engines horsepower and its overall bollard pull. The largest commercial harbour tugboats in the 2000s-2010s, used for towing container ships or similar, had around 60-65 tons of bollard pull, Tugboats are highly maneuverable, and various propulsion systems have been developed to increase maneuverability and increase safety
6.
Convoy
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A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and it may also be used in a non-military sense, for example when driving through remote areas. Arriving at the scene of an emergency with a well-ordered unit. Naval convoys have been in use for centuries, with examples of merchant ships traveling under naval protection dating to the 12th century, the use of organized naval convoys dates from when ships began to be separated into specialist classes and national navies were established. By the French Revolutionary Wars of the late 18th century, effective naval tactics had been developed to ward off pirates. Some convoys contained several hundred merchant ships, the most enduring system of convoys were the Spanish treasure fleets, that sailed from the 1520s until 1790. When merchant ships sailed independently, a privateer could cruise a shipping lane, ships sailing in convoy presented a much smaller target, a convoy was as hard to find as a single ship. As a result of the convoy systems effectiveness, wartime insurance premiums were consistently lower for ships that sailed in convoys, losses of ships travelling out of convoy however were so high that no merchant ship was allowed to sail unescorted. In the early 20th century, the changed the balance of power in convoy battles. Steaming faster than merchant ships and firing at long ranges, a battleship could destroy many ships in a convoy before the others could scatter over the horizon. To protect a convoy against a ship required providing it with an escort of another capital ship. Battleships were the reason that the British Admiralty did not adopt convoy tactics at the start of the first Battle of the Atlantic in World War I. But the German capital ships had been bottled up in the North Sea, the Admiralty took a long time to respond to this change in the tactical position, and in April 1917 convoy was trialled, before being officially introduced in the Atlantic in September 1917. Other arguments against convoy were raised, further, large convoys were thought to overload port resources. Actual analysis of shipping losses in World War I disproved all these arguments, at least so far as they applied to transatlantic, ships sailing in convoys were far less likely to be sunk, even when not provided with any escort at all. The loss of productivity due to delays was small compared with the loss of productivity due to ships being sunk. Ports could deal more easily with convoys because they tended to arrive on schedule, Convoy duty also exposes the escorting warships to the sometimes hazardous conditions of the North Atlantic, with only rare occurrences of visible achievement. The British adopted a system, initially voluntary and later compulsory for almost all merchant ships
7.
Max Horton
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Horton joined the Royal Navy officer training ship, HMS Britannia on 15 September 1898. The outbreak of war saw Lieutenant-Commander Horton in command of one of the first British ocean-going submarines, at dawn on 13 September 1914, he torpedoed the German light cruiser SMS Hela six miles southwest of Heligoland. Hela was hit amidships with the two torpedoes, fired from a range of 600 yards, all but two of her crew were rescued by the U-18 and another German ship. Although pursued most of the day by German naval forces, E9 managed to reach Harwich safely, entering the port, Horton initiated the tradition of British submariners of hoisting the Jolly Roger after a successful patrol. Three weeks later, Horton sank the German destroyer S116 off the mouth of the river Ems, for sinking the cruiser and the destroyer, Horton was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Sent to the Baltic Sea as part of a British flotilla, Horton sank a number of merchant vessels and, on 2 July 1915, on 31 December 1914, Horton was promoted to Commander. In 1917, Horton was awarded the bar to his DSO for long, three years later, as a captain, he was awarded a second bar to his DSO for distinguished service in command of the Baltic submarine flotilla. During the 1920s, Horton served as captain of HMS Conquest, promoted to vice admiral in 1937, he was given command of the Reserve Fleet that year. With the onset of World War II, Horton was put in command of the Northern Patrol enforcing the distant maritime blockade of Germany in the seas between Orkney and the Faroes, in 1940, he was made Rear Admiral Submarines. He was responsible for the creation of rescue ships, which accompanied some Atlantic convoys to rescue survivors from ships sunk by enemy action. Rescue ships were typically small freighters with passenger accommodations, conversion to rescue service involved enlarging galley and food storage areas and providing berthing and sanitary facilities for approximately 150 men. The ships carried scrambling nets along the sides, and boats suitable for open sea work instead of normal lifeboats, rescue ships normally included a small operating room for an embarked naval doctor and sick bay staff. Having been promoted to full Admiral on 9 January 1941, Horton was appointed Commander-in-Chief, here he instituted a series of tactical changes in the way the escort ships were to be used. Hortons support groups proved to be decisive in the spring of 1943, taking the battle to the U-boats and crushing the morale of the U-boat arm with persistent. Horton is widely credited, along with his predecessor, Admiral Sir Percy Noble, in August 1945, Max Horton, at his own request, was placed on the retired list in order to facilitate the promotion of younger officers. He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, on 27 April 1941, German submarine U-552 sank HMS Commander Horton, an anti-submarine trawler. Max Horton and the Western Approaches, A biography of Admiral Sir Max Kennedy Horton
8.
Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches
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Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches was the commander of a major operational command of the Royal Navy during World War II. The admiral commanding, and his forces, sometimes known as Western Approaches Command, were responsible for the safety of British shipping in the Western Approaches. Admiral Martin Dunbar-Nasmith, who had been Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, also took responsibility for the Western Approaches from the start of World War II. After the fall of France in June 1940, the main North Atlantic convoy routes were diverted around the north of Ireland through the north-western approaches. By late 1940, the location of the Combined Operations headquarters at Plymouth was increasingly awkward, on 7 February 1941, the headquarters was established at Derby House, Liverpool, with a secondary control bunker built in Magee College, Derry. The headquarters of No.15 Group RAF moved to Liverpool at the same time, on 17 February 1941 Admiral Sir Percy Noble was appointed as the new Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches Command. On 19 November 1942, Admiral Max Horton replaced Admiral Noble, horton’s leadership played a vital role in the final defeat of the U-boat menace. Horton used the number of escorts that were available to the command to organize support groups that were used to reinforce convoys that came under attack. Unlike the regular escort groups, the groups were not directly responsible for the safety of any particular convoy. This freedom gave them much greater flexibility, allowing the support groups to detach ships to hunt submarines spotted by reconnaissance or picked up by high-frequency direction finding. In situations where the regular escorts would have had to return to their convoy, the museum is known as the Western Approaches - Liverpool War Museum. Commanders-in-Chief included, Anti-submarine warfare U-boat Battle of the Atlantic Western Approaches - Liverpool War Museum - official site
9.
Admiralty
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The new Admiralty Board meets only twice a year, and the day-to-day running of the Royal Navy is controlled by a Navy Board. It is common for the authorities now in charge of the Royal Navy to be referred to as simply The Admiralty. The title of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom was vested in the monarch from 1964 to 2011, the title was awarded to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh by Queen Elizabeth II on his 90th birthday. There also continues to be a Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom, the office of Admiral of England was created around 1400 although there had already been Admirals of the Northern and Western Seas. In 1546, King Henry VIII established the Council of the Marine, later to become the Navy Board, operational control of the Royal Navy remained the responsibility of the Lord High Admiral, who was one of the nine Great Officers of State. In 1628, Charles I put the office of Lord High Admiral into commission, the office of Lord High Admiral passed a number of times in and out of commission until 1709 after which the office was almost permanently in commission. In 1831, the first Navy Board was abolished as a separate entity, in 1964, the Admiralty along with the War Office and the Air Ministry as separate departments of state were abolished, and re-emerged under one single new Ministry of Defence. Within the expanded Ministry of Defence are the new Admiralty Board which has a separate Navy Board responsible for the running of the Royal Navy. The Army Board and the Air Force Board, each headed by the Secretary of State for Defence, the Board of Admiralty consisted of a number of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. The Lords Commissioners were always a mixture of admirals, known as Naval Lords or Sea Lords and Civil Lords, the quorum of the Board was two commissioners and a secretary. The president of the Board was known as the First Lord of the Admiralty, after 1806, the First Lord of the Admiralty was always a civilian while the professional head of the navy came to be known as the First Sea Lord. The first real concerted effort to organise the Admiralty was started by Henry VIII. Between 1860 and 1908 there was no study of strategy and of staff work conducted within the naval service. All the navys talent flowed to the great technical universitys and it was perceived by officials within the Admiralty at this time that the running of war was quite a simple matter for any flag officer who required no formal training. The new War Staff had hardly found its feet and it struggled with the opposition to its existence by senior officers they were categorically opposed to a staff. The deficiencies of the system within this department of state could be seen in the conduct of the Dardanelles campaign, there was no mechanisms in place to answer the big strategic questions in 1914 a Trade Division was created. In 1916, Sir John Jellicoe came to the Admiralty, he organized the staff as following, Chief of War Staff, Operations, Intelligence, Signal Section, Mobilization, Trade. This for the first time gave the naval staff direct representation on the Board, the would direct all operations and movements of the fleet, while the would be responsible for mercantile movements and anti-submarine operations
10.
U-boat
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U-boat is the anglicised version of the German word U-Boot, a shortening of Unterseeboot, literally undersea boat. While the German term refers to any submarine, the English one refers specifically to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role. Austro-Hungarian navy submarines were known as U-boats. The first submarine built in Germany, the three-man Brandtaucher, sank to the bottom of Kiel harbor on 1 February 1851 during a test dive, the inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer had designed this vessel in 1850, and Schweffel & Howaldt constructed it in Kiel. Dredging operations in 1887 rediscovered Brandtaucher, it was raised and put on display in Germany, there followed in 1890 the boats WW1 and WW2, built to a Nordenfelt design. The SM U-1 was a completely redesigned Karp-class submarine and only one was built, the Imperial German Navy commissioned it on 14 December 1906. It had a hull, a Körting kerosene engine. The 50%-larger SM U-2 had two torpedo tubes, the U-19 class of 1912–13 saw the first diesel engine installed in a German navy boat. At the start of World War I in 1914, Germany had 48 submarines of 13 classes in service or under construction, during that war the Imperial German Navy used SM U-1 for training. Retired in 1919, it remains on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, on 5 September 1914, HMS Pathfinder was sunk by SM U-21, the first ship to have been sunk by a submarine using a self-propelled torpedo. On 22 September, U-9 sank the obsolete British warships HMS Aboukir, HMS Cressy, for the first few months of the war, U-boat anticommerce actions observed the prize rules of the time, which governed the treatment of enemy civilian ships and their occupants. On 20 October 1914, SM U-17 sank the first merchant ship, surface commerce raiders were proving to be ineffective, and on 4 February 1915, the Kaiser assented to the declaration of a war zone in the waters around the British Isles. This was cited as a retaliation for British minefields and shipping blockades, under the instructions given to U-boat captains, they could sink merchant ships, even potentially neutral ones, without warning. In February 1915, a submarine U-6 was rammed and both periscopes were destroyed off Beachy Head by the collier SS Thordis commanded by Captain John Bell RNR after firing a torpedo, on 7 May 1915, SM U-20 sank the liner RMS Lusitania. The sinking claimed 1,198 lives,128 of them American civilians, munitions that it carried were thousands of crates full of ammunition for rifles, 3-inch artillery shells, and also various other standard ammunition used by infantry. The sinking of the Lusitania was widely used as propaganda against the German Empire, a widespread reaction in the U. S was not seen until the sinking of the ferry SS Sussex. The sinking occurred in 1915 and the United States entered the war in 1917, the initial U. S. response was to threaten to sever diplomatic ties, which persuaded the Germans to issue the Sussex pledge that reimposed restrictions on U-boat activity
11.
Aircraft
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An aircraft is a machine that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the lift of an airfoil. The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called aviation, crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard pilot, but unmanned aerial vehicles may be remotely controlled or self-controlled by onboard computers. Aircraft may be classified by different criteria, such as type, aircraft propulsion, usage. Each of the two World Wars led to technical advances. Consequently, the history of aircraft can be divided into five eras, Pioneers of flight, first World War,1914 to 1918. Aviation between the World Wars,1918 to 1939, Second World War,1939 to 1945. Postwar era, also called the jet age,1945 to the present day, aerostats use buoyancy to float in the air in much the same way that ships float on the water. They are characterized by one or more large gasbags or canopies, filled with a relatively low-density gas such as helium, hydrogen, or hot air, which is less dense than the surrounding air. When the weight of this is added to the weight of the aircraft structure, a balloon was originally any aerostat, while the term airship was used for large, powered aircraft designs – usually fixed-wing. In 1919 Frederick Handley Page was reported as referring to ships of the air, in the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to as ships of the air or flying-ships. – though none had yet been built, the advent of powered balloons, called dirigible balloons, and later of rigid hulls allowing a great increase in size, began to change the way these words were used. Huge powered aerostats, characterized by an outer framework and separate aerodynamic skin surrounding the gas bags, were produced. There were still no fixed-wing aircraft or non-rigid balloons large enough to be called airships, then several accidents, such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, led to the demise of these airships. Nowadays a balloon is an aerostat and an airship is a powered one. A powered, steerable aerostat is called a dirigible, sometimes this term is applied only to non-rigid balloons, and sometimes dirigible balloon is regarded as the definition of an airship. Non-rigid dirigibles are characterized by a moderately aerodynamic gasbag with stabilizing fins at the back and these soon became known as blimps. During the Second World War, this shape was adopted for tethered balloons, in windy weather
12.
Warship
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A warship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to damage and are usually faster. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries weapons, ammunition. Warships usually belong to a navy, though they have also operated by individuals, cooperatives. In wartime, the distinction between warships and merchant ships is often blurred, in war, merchant ships are often armed and used as auxiliary warships, such as the Q-ships of the First World War and the armed merchant cruisers of the Second World War. Until the 17th century it was common for merchant ships to be pressed into naval service, until the threat of piracy subsided in the 19th century, it was normal practice to arm larger merchant ships such as galleons. Warships have also often used as troop carriers or supply ships. The development of catapults in the 4th century BC and the subsequent refinement of technology enabled the first fleets of artillery-equipped warships by the Hellenistic age. During late antiquity, ramming fell out of use and the galley tactics against other ships used during the Middle Ages until the late 16th century focused on boarding. Naval artillery was redeveloped in the 14th century, but cannon did not become common at sea until the guns were capable of being reloaded quickly enough to be reused in the same battle. The size of a required to carry a large number of cannons made oar-based propulsion impossible. The sailing man-of-war emerged during the 16th century, by the middle of the 17th century, warships were carrying increasing numbers of cannon on their broadsides and tactics evolved to bring each ships firepower to bear in a line of battle. The man-of-war now evolved into the ship of the line, in the 18th century, the frigate and sloop-of-war – too small to stand in the line of battle – evolved to convoy trade, scout for enemy ships and blockade enemy coasts. During the 19th century a revolution took place in the means of propulsion, naval armament. Marine steam engines were introduced, at first as an auxiliary force, the Crimean War gave a great stimulus to the development of guns. The introduction of explosive shells soon led to the introduction of iron, the first ironclad warships, the French Gloire and British Warrior, made wooden vessels obsolete. Metal soon entirely replaced wood as the material for warship construction
13.
High-frequency direction finding
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High-frequency direction finding, usually known by its abbreviation HF/DF or nickname huff-duff, is the common name for a type of radio direction finder introduced in World War II. High frequency refers to a band that can efficiently communicate over long distances, for example. HF/DF was primarily used to catch enemy radios while they transmitted, earlier systems used a mechanically rotated antenna and an operator listening for peaks or nulls in the signal, which took considerable time to determine, often on the order of a minute or more. HF/DFs display made the same measurement essentially instantaneously, which allowed it to catch fleeting signals, the system was initially developed by Robert Watson-Watt starting in 1926, as a system for locating lightning. Its role in intelligence was not developed until the late 1930s, in the early war period, HF/DF units were in very high demand, and there was considerable inter-service rivalry involved in their distribution. Between 1942 and 1944, smaller units became available and were common fixtures on Royal Navy ships. It is estimated HF/DF contributed to 24% of all U-boats sunk during the war, Radio direction finding was a widely used technique even before World War I, used for both naval and aerial navigation. The basic concept used an antenna, in its most basic form simply a circular loop of wire with a circumference decided by the frequency range of the signals to be detected. When the loop is aligned at right angles to the signal, early DF systems used a loop antenna that could be mechanically rotated. The operator would tune in a radio station and then rotate the antenna until the signal disappeared. This meant that the antenna was now at right angles to the broadcaster, by taking several such measurements, or using some other form of navigational information to eliminate one of the ambiguous directions, the bearing to the broadcaster could be determined. In 1907 an improvement was introduced by Ettore Bellini and Alessandro Tosi that greatly simplified the DF system in some setups, the single loop antenna was replaced by two antennas, arranged at right angles. The output of each was sent to its own looped wire, or as they are referred to in this system, two coils, one for each antenna, are arranged close together at right angles. The signals from the two antennas generated a magnetic field in the space between the coils, which was picked up by a solenoid, the search coil. The maximum signal was generated when the coil was aligned with the magnetic field from the field coils. This eliminated any need for the antennas to move, the Bellini–Tosi direction finder was widely used on ships, although mechanical systems tended to be used on aircraft as they were normally smaller. All of these took time to operate. Normally the radio operator would first use conventional radio tuners to find the signal in question, once tuned, the operator rotated the antennas or goniometer looking for peaks or nulls in the signal
14.
Castle-class corvette
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The Castle-class corvettes were an updated version of the much more numerous Flower-class corvettes of the Royal Navy, and started appearing during late 1943. They were equipped with radar as well as asdic, in particular, they were slow, poorly armed and rolled badly in rough seas, which quickly exhausted their crews. However, many shipyards were not large enough to build frigates, the Castle class was designed to be built on small slipways for about half the overall effort of a Loch-class frigate. The Loch-class frigate was similar to a River but built using the system of prefabrication, the appearance of Castle-class corvettes was much like the later long forecastle variant of the Flowers and they were a little larger. The most obvious difference, was the lattice mainmast instead of the pole version fitted to the Flowers. There was also a square cut look to the stern although it was still essentially a cruiser spoon type. The armament differed from the Flower class with the depth charge fitment replaced by one Squid anti-submarine mortar, the fact that Squid attacks required a fairly low speed only made matters worse. Most of the Castle-class corvettes had been discarded by the end of the 1950s, the last Castle was the Uruguayan training ship Montevideo, originally HMS Rising Castle, which was scrapped in 1975. Most were operated by the Royal Navy but twelve were transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy before completion, three Castles were sunk through enemy action and Castles participated in the sinking of seven U-boats. The following vessels were all built for the Royal Navy. All their pennant numbers, as well as their names, were changed when transferred. HMCS Arnprior HMCS Bowmanville, sold to Republic of China as cargo ship, the remaining eighty-one ships were all ordered for the RN under the 1943 War Programme, of which thirty were completed. Fifty-one of these ships which were cancelled late in 1943 are shown separately below. Fourteen ordered 19 January 1943, of which 3 were cancelled, Alnwick Castle, built by George Brown, at Greenock, begun 12 June 1943, launched 23 May 1944, paid off 1957 and broken up December 1958. Barnard Castle, built by George Brown, at Greenock, begun 1943, launched 3 October 1944, flint Castle, built by Henry Robb, at Leith, begun 20 April 1943, launched 1 September 1943 and completed 31 December 1943. Paid off March 1956 and broken up 10 July 1958, guildford Castle, built by Henry Robb, at Leith, begun 25 May 1943, launched 13 November 1943 and completed 11 March 1944, to Canada as HMCS Hespeler,1944. Sold for mercantile service 1946 Hedingham Castle, built by Henry Robb, at Leith, begun 23 July 1943, launched 26 January 1944 and completed 10 May 1944, sold for mercantile service 1947, to Republic of China Navy 1951 as Te An. Knaresborough Castle, built by Blyth Dry Dock, begun 22 April 1943, launched 1 September 1943, paid off 1947 and broken up 16 March 1956
15.
SS Empire Peacemaker
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SS Empire Peacemaker was a British convoy rescue ship that served at the end of World War II, originally laid down as the corvette HMS Scarborough Castle. Post-war she served as an Army transport ship before being scrapped in 1955, the ship was ordered from Fleming & Ferguson Ltd. of Paisley on 23 January 1943 as a Castle-class corvette. She was launched on 8 September 1944 as Scarborough Castle, but further work was then cancelled, and she was eventually completed as a convoy rescue ship in January 1945. Under the ownership of the Ministry of War Transport, and managed by the Ellerman City Line, during that time she rescued three survivors from an aircraft which had overrun the flight deck of the MAC ship MV Empire MacAlpine. Post-war she was transferred to the Transport Branch of the Royal Army Service Corps for service as a troop transport, in October 1945 she sailed from the Clyde to Arkhangelsk to repatriate a Royal Navy Shore Party. In January 1946 she made three voyages between Southampton and St. Helier, Jersey, carrying returning service personnel, Empire Peacemaker was finally laid up at Falmouth, Cornwall, in 1954. In July 1955 she was sold to a Belgian shipbreaker and was towed to Antwerp, and was broken up by Jos de Smedt in Burght in December
16.
SS Empire Rest
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SS Empire Rest was a British convoy rescue ship that served at the end of World War II, originally laid down as the corvette HMS Rayleigh Castle. Post-war she served as a ship until 1948, was sold in 1951. The ship was ordered from Ferguson Brothers of Port Glasgow on 9 December 1942 as a Castle-class corvette and she was launched on 19 June 1944 as Rayleigh Castle, but further work was then cancelled, and she was eventually completed as a convoy rescue ship on 26 October 1944. Under the ownership of the Ministry of War Transport, and managed by the Ellerman City Line, in July 1948 she was laid up at Falmouth, Cornwall, and offered for sale in October 1949. She was eventually bought by Lloyds Albert Yard & Motor Boat Packet Services Ltd. in October 1951 and she arrived at Thos W Ward of Briton Ferry, Wales, for scrapping on 6 June 1952
17.
SS Empire Explorer
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She was hired by the Royal Navy in 1940 for use as an ocean boarding vessel but was sunk in an air raid London in September 1940. She was salvaged, rebuilt as a ship, passed to the Ministry of War Transport. She served until 9 July 1942, when she was torpedoed, the ship was built in 1925 by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland. The ship was 407 feet 0 inches long, with a beam of 52 feet 2 inches and she had a depth of 28 feet 5 inches, and a draught of 25 feet 7 1⁄4 inches. She was assessed at 5,985 GRT,3,746 NRT,6,900 DWT. The ship was propelled by a 606 nhp quadruple expansion steam engine, the engine was built by the Wallsend Slipway Co Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne. It drove a screw propeller, and could propel the ship at 13 knots. Inanda was launched on 24 February 1925, and was completed in May and she was built for the Charente Steamship Co Ltd and placed under the management of T & J Harrison Ltd. Her port of registry was Liverpool and she was allocated the United Kingdom Official Number 137410 and Code Letters KSNF. On 3 February 1932, Inanda was on a voyage from London to the West Indies when she suffered a broken propellor and she put into Swansea, Glamorgan for repairs. Following the changes to Code Letters in 1934, Inanda was allocated GLMB, Inanda was a member of Convoy OA7, which departed from Southend, Essex on 19 September 1939 and dispersed at sea on 22 September. She was bound for Antigua, where she arrived on 3 October and she departed that day and sailed to Saint Kitts, arriving later that day. On 4 October, Inanda sailed for Grenada, arriving on 6 October and departing that day for Trinidad, on 9 October, she sailed for Demarara, British Guiana, arriving the next day and departing on 14 October for Trinidad, where she arrived on 15 October. Departing on 20 October, Saint Vincent and Grenada were visited before Inanda arrived at Saint Lucia, from where she sailed on 25 October for Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She arrived on 2 November, sailing on 8 November as a member of Convoy HXF8, Inanda was carrying general cargo, rum and sugar. She then sailed to Southend to join Convoy FN46, which departed on 1 December and arrived at Methil and she left the convoy at Middlesbrough, Yorkshire on 2 December. Inanda sailed from Middlesbrough on 11 December to join Convoy FS53 and she then joined Convoy OA53, which sailed on 14 December and dispersed at sea on 16 December. She was carrying a cargo of sulphite as well as a number of passengers, Inanda was bound for Demerara, which was reached on 9 January 1940 via Barbados and Trinidad
18.
Convoy SC 121
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Convoy SC-121 was the 121st of the numbered series of World War II Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island to Liverpool. Three of the escorts had defective sonar and three had unserviceable radar, only 20 percent of the 180 trans-Atlantic convoys, from the end of July 1942 until the end of April 1943, lost ships to U-boat attack. On 6 March U-405 sighted the convoy, which had been scattered by nine days of northwesterly Force 10 gales. The storm damaged the communication system aboard the escort commanders ship Spencer. U-230 torpedoed the British freighter Egyptian on the night of 6–7 March, the British freighter Empire Impala stopped to rescue survivors and was torpedoed after dawn by U-591. U-190 torpedoed the British freighter Empire Lakeland when the gale subsided on 8 March and four more stragglers were sunk by U-526, U-527, U-591, u-530 torpedoed straggling Swedish freighter Milos on the evening of 9 March. The Flower-class corvettes HMS Campion and Mallow reinforced the escort on 10 March. Only 76 of the 275 crewmen of the ships were rescued. Convoy Battles of World War II Hague, Arnold, history of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume I The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1943. Rohwer, J. Hummelchen, G. Chronology of the War at Sea 1939-1945
19.
Convoy PQ 17
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PQ17 was the code name for an Allied convoy in the Arctic Ocean during the Second World War. In July 1942, the Arctic convoys suffered severe losses when Convoy PQ17 lost 24 of its 35 merchant ships during a series of heavy enemy daylight attacks which lasted a week, the German success was possible through German signals intelligence and cryptological analysis. On 27 June, the ships sailed eastbound from Hvalfjord, Iceland for the port of Arkhangelsk, the convoy was located by German forces on 1 July, after which it was shadowed continuously and attacked. The convoys progress was being observed by the British Admiralty, however, due to vacillation by the German high command, the Tirpitz raid never materialised. The convoy was the first joint Anglo-American naval operation under British command in the war, as the close escort and the covering cruiser forces withdrew westward to intercept the presumed German raiders, the individual merchant ships were left without their escorting destroyers. In their ensuing attempts to reach the appointed Russian ports, the merchant ships were attacked by Luftwaffe aeroplanes. Of the initial 35 ships, only 11 reached their destination, the disastrous outcome of the convoy demonstrated the difficulty of passing adequate supplies through the Arctic, especially during the summer period of perpetual daylight. With the entry of the Soviet Union in the war, the British, the Beaverbrook-Harriman Anglo-American Mission visited Moscow in October 1941, agreeing to a series of munitions deliveries to the Soviet Union. The most direct way to carry these supplies was by sea around the North Cape, the agreement stated that the Soviet government was responsible for receiving the supplies in Soviet ships at British or American ports. The first convoy sailed from the United Kingdom in August 1941, by the spring of 1942, twelve more convoys had made the passage with the loss of only one out of 103 ships. In 1941, the Kriegsmarine had already begun concentrating its strength in Norway in winter, the battleship Tirpitz was moved to Trondheim in January, where she was joined by the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer and in March by the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper. British naval intelligence in June reported the Germans intention to bring out major naval units to attack the next eastbound convoy, east of Bear Island. Allied covering forces, on the hand, would be without air support, one thousand miles from their base. To prevent such a situation, the Admiralty issued instructions on 27 June, in the event, enemy surface movements took place later than expected, making these instructions unnecessary. A decoy convoy was organised to divert enemy forces, consisting of the First Minelaying Squadron and four colliers, escorted by HMS Sirius and Curacoa, five destroyers. This diversionary force assembled at Scapa Flow for a week, sailing two days after the convoy, German reconnaissance of Scapa during the period of assembly failed to notice the diversion, which was also not sighted on its passage. The operation was repeated on 1 July, again without success, additionally on 26 June the Admiralty took the opportunity to pass a westbound convoy QP13, in conjunction with PQ17. The former was made up of returning merchant ships from Arkhangelsk and it consisted of 35 ships and was escorted by five destroyers, three corvettes, one anti-aircraft ship, three minesweepers, two trawlers and, as far as the Bear Island area, one submarine
20.
Convoy SC 107
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Convoy SC107 was the 107th of the numbered series of World War II Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island to Liverpool. The ships departed New York City on 24 October 1942 and were found and it was the heaviest loss of ships from any trans-Atlantic convoy through the winter of 1942–43. However, only 20 percent of the 180 trans-Atlantic convoys sailing from the end of July 1942 until the end of April 1943 lost ships to U-boat attack. B-Dienst decrypted message traffic detailing routing and composition of convoy SC107, soon after, a No.10 Squadron RCAF Digby bomber sunk U-520, patrolling in the area of the convoy. As the boats of Veilchen were sailing towards their assembly point, wolfpack boat U-438 found the convoy and released U-522 to sail off for other prey. At sunset Flower-class corvette HMS Celandine was sent to investigate the closest HF/DF fix eight miles off the port quarter, after sunset, a clearing sky revealed the flickering aurora borealis to port silhouetting the convoy and its three remaining escorts. As Restgouche engaged an ASDIC contact six miles behind the convoy with depth charges and star shells, while Restigouche pursued another U-boat, U-boat Ace Kapitänleutnant Siegfried von Forstners U-402 passed the destroyer at 22,40 while overtaking the silhouetted convoy from astern. When corvette HMCS Arvida had a RADAR malfunction, U-402 went undetected as it penetrated the side on the convoy screen about midnight to torpedo the British freighter Empire Sunrise. Empire Sunrise fired two flares and most of the ships in convoy fired snowflake mortars, U-402 dived to avoid the rapidly approaching Restigouche whose depth charges were comfortably distant. Restigouche narrowly avoided torpedoes launched a short time later by U-381 as the convoy changed course 40 degrees to port to confuse the U-boats, U-402 was lightly damaged by machine-gun fire from corvette HMCS Amherst and by a 3-inch projectile from a merchant ship. Kapitänleutnant von Forstner would receive the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross for his work in U-402 during this convoy, U-522 torpedoed the Greek freighter Mount Pelion and British freighters Hartington and Maratima. Rain and misty weather caused the U-boats to lose contact after U-522 torpedoed Greek freighter Parthenon in a daylight attack, escort Group C-4 was reinforced by the V class destroyer Vanessa from convoy HX-213 before nine U-boats regained contact when visibility improved on 3 November. Celandine, Amherst and Vanessa attacked the gathering U-boats unsuccessfully while the convoy reassembled after losing cohesion in the fog, one of the straggling merchant ships avoided two torpedoes launched by U-438. U-521 torpedoed the American tanker Hahira shortly after dawn on 3 November, Stockport was carrying 350 survivors by the time she picked up those from Hahira. Harbor tugs USS Uncas and Pessacus had been attached to the convoy for passage to Iceland, the little tugs were ordered to keep their running lights on in their assigned rescue positions astern of the convoy to minimize chances they might be mistaken for U-boats. Corvettes HMCS Algoma and HMCS Moosejaw made unsuccessful counterattacks before U-132 torpedoed the Dutch freighter SS Hobbema and British freighters Empire Lynx, the entire convoy and nearby U-boats were shaken thirty minutes later by a heavy explosion believed to have been one of the largest prior to atomic bomb testing. The magnitude of the explosion temporarily stopped the engine of the rescue tug six miles astern of the convoy, titus was abandoned before the captain realized she was undamaged and returned with a skeleton crew including survivors from other ships. U-boats submerged at a depth of 200 feet reported being severely jolted, the cause of the explosion was undetermined, but assumed to have resulted from detonation of the ammunition cargo of either Hobbema or Hatimura while they were sinking
21.
Convoy ON 166
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Convoy ON166 was the 166th of the numbered ON series of merchant ship convoys Outbound from the British Isles to North America. However, only 20 percent of the 180 trans-Atlantic convoys sailing from the end of July 1942 until the end of April 1943 lost ships to U-boat attack, on 20 February U-604 sighted the convoy scattered by sailing eight days in a northwesterly gale. U-332 torpedoed the straggling Norwegian Stigstad on the morning of 21 February, u-623 was sunk by a No.120 Squadron RAF B-24 Liberator that afternoon, and Campbell attacked a U-boat that evening. Postwar analysis concluded that Campbell sank U-225, but more recent re-evaluation indicates the attack may have destroyed U-529, u-92 torpedoed the British Empire Trader at 2032 and the Norwegian NT Nielsen Alonso at 0153 on the night of February 21–22. Both ships were hit by a torpedo on the port side, flooding the forward hold. ORP Burza from the following convoy ONS167 was ordered to reinforce the convoy escort, U-606 torpedoed the British Empire Redshank and American Chattanooga City and Expositor after sunset 22 February, but was damaged by depth charges from the recently arrived Burza. Campbell was disabled in a collision with U-606, twelve men were rescued from the crew of the sinking U-boat. Burza left the convoy to tow Campbell back to port, the convoy rescue ship Stockport was sunk by U-604 while returning to the convoy after rescuing men from the three ships torpedoed by U-606. U-628 torpedoed the Panamanian Winkler at 0420 and Norwegian Glittre at 0425, u-186 torpedoed the American Hastings about 0430 and British Eulima at 0458 on 23 February. Spencer, Rosthern and Chilliwack remained with the convoy and Dianthus left to refuel, u-600 torpedoed the Norwegian Ingria at 0520 before dawn on 24 February. U-653 torpedoed the straggling American Liberty ship Jonathan Sturges, u-628 hit the British Manchester Merchant with two torpedoes on the starboard side at 0527 before dawn 25 February. The U-boats discontinued the attack on 26 February, the surviving ships in the convoy were joined by Empire Cavalier from Halifax, Nova Scotia on 28 February with escorts New Westminster, Blairmore and Rimouski. They reached New York City on 3 March 1943, convoy Battles of World War II Hague, Arnold. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume I The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1943, rohwer, J. Hummelchen, G. Chronology of the War at Sea 1939-1945
22.
Convoy SC 118
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Convoy SC-118 was the 118th of the numbered series of World War II Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island to Liverpool. However, only 20 percent of the 180 trans-Atlantic convoys sailing from the end of July 1942 until the end of April 1943 lost ships to U-boat attack, on 2 February U-456 sank three ships from convoy HX224. A survivor of one of the ships was picked up by U-632. A careless merchant seaman of convoy SC-118 accidentally fired a pyrotechnic snowflake projector aboard the Norwegian freighter SS Vannik in the darkness of 4 February. The destroyers rescued 44 of the submarines crew, the Polish freighter Zagloba was torpedoed on the unprotected side of the convoy by U-262 and U-413 torpedoed the straggling American freighter West Portal. On 5 February the convoy escort was reinforced by the USCG Treasury Class Cutter Ingham, the reinforced escort damaged U-262 and U-267. Hopkins, American cargo liner Henry R. Mallory, and Convoy rescue ship Toward, Henry R. Mallory was capable of 14 knots but had been straggling well astern of the convoy for several days and was not zig-zagging in that exposed position. Mallory would normally have been assigned to one of the faster HX convoys, No commands came from the bridge after Mallory was torpedoed, no flares were sent up, no radio distress message was sent out, and no orders were given to abandon ship. There were heavy casualties from Mallorys crew of 77,34 Navy gunners, and the 136 American soldiers,172 American sailors, U-614 sank the straggling British freighter Harmala while Lobelia sank U-609. B-17 Flying Fortress J of No.220 Squadron RAF sank U-614 on 7 February, U-402 sank British freighter Newton Ash that night. On 9 February Kapitänleutnant von Forstner was awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross for ships sunk by U-402 from this convoy, SC-118 reached Liverpool without further loss on 12 February. Convoy Battles of World War II Edwards, Bernard, dönitz and the Wolf Packs - The U-boats at War. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume I The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1943, rohwer, J. Hummelchen, G. Chronology of the War at Sea 1939-1945. Waters, John M. Jr. CAPT USCG, cS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list
23.
Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor
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The Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, also known as Kurier to the Allies was a German all-metal four-engined monoplane originally developed by Focke-Wulf as a long-range airliner. The Luftwaffe also made use of the Fw 200 as a transport. It achieved success as a commerce raider before the advent of long-range RAF Coastal Command aircraft, the Fw 200 resulted from a proposal by Kurt Tank of Focke-Wulf to Dr. Rudolf Stuessel of Deutsche Lufthansa to develop a landplane to carry passengers across the Atlantic Ocean to the USA. At that time this was unusual, as airlines used seaplanes on long over-water routes, to fly long distances economically, the Fw 200 was designed to cruise at an altitude of over 3,000 m - as high as possible without a pressure cabin. Existing airliners were designed to cruise at altitudes below 5,000 feet, the Fw 200 was briefly the worlds most modern airliner, until other high-altitude airliners started operating, the Boeing 307 in 1940 and the Douglas DC-4 in 1942. The designation Condor was chosen because, like the condor bird, Deutsche Lufthansa issued a specification in June 1936 after discussions between Tank, Dr. Stüssel and Carl August von Gablenz. The plane was designed by Ludwig Mittelhuber with Wilhelm Bansemir as project director, the first prototype, the Fw 200 V1, made its first flight after just over one year of development on 27 July 1937 with Kurt Tank at the controls. It was an all-metal, four-engined monoplane powered by four American 875 hp Pratt & Whitney Hornet radial engines, two further prototypes were powered by German 720 hp BMW 132G-1 radials. The Japanese Navy requested a version of the Fw 200 for search and patrol duties. This Fw 200 was held in Germany because war had broken out in Europe by that time and this aircraft became the basis for all later military models used by the Luftwaffe. The extra weight introduced by its military fitments meant that a number of early Fw 200 aircraft broke up on landing, later models were equipped with Lorenz FuG200 Hohentwiel low UHF-band ASV radar in the nose. In 1943 a version entered service that could carry the Henschel Hs 293 guided missile, the Fw 200 was operated by Deutsche Lufthansa, DDL Danish Airlines and Lufthansas Brazilian subsidiary Syndicato Condor. Dai Nippon KK of Japan also ordered Fw 200 airliners and these could not be delivered to Japan once the war began, so they were delivered to Deutsche Lufthansa instead. On 14 April 1945 an Fw 200 flew Lufthansas last scheduled service before the end of World War II, other airlines continued to operate the Fw 200 after the end of World War II. The first prototype, the Fw 200 V1, upgraded with extra tanks and redesignated Fw 200 S-1. It was the first heavier-than-air craft to fly nonstop between Berlin and New York City, making the flight from Berlin-Staaken to Floyd Bennett Field on 10/11 August 1938 in 24 hours and 56 minutes, the return trip on 13 August 1938 took 19 hours and 47 minutes. These flights are commemorated with a plaque in Böttcherstraße, a street in Bremen, beginning on 28 November 1938 it flew from Berlin to Tokyo via Basra, Karachi and Hanoi. Original film footage of his arrival shows his aircraft bearing the German civil registration of D-ACVH, a Danish-owned Fw 200 aircraft named Dania was seized by the British on English soil after Denmark was invaded by German forces in 1940
24.
Convoy SC 130
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Convoy SC130 was a North Atlantic convoy which ran during the battle of the Atlantic in World War II. It was the 130th of the series of Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney. SC130 was one of convoy battles that occurred during the crisis month of May 1943. SC130, comprising thirty-seven ships, departed Halifax Harbour on 11 May 1943 in the care of a Western Local Escort Force, the Convoy Commodore was HC Forsyth in the freighter Sheaf Holme. As B-7 was one short for the voyage, the corvette HMCS Kitchener was seconded from the local group for the crossing. SC130 also included two oilers for mid-ocean re-fueling and re-arming, and the rescue ship Zamalek. Ranged against them were 25 U-boats in three lines, which had been organized by U-boat Command BdU on 15 May. This was in response to intelligence from the intelligence group B-Dienst which reported a westbound convoy. One group, Iller, of six newly arrived boats was just arriving, ONS7 came under attack on 13 May, and, warned by this and by intelligence from HF/DF readings and Enigma decrypts, the Admiralty was able to divert HX238 and to reinforce SC130. The convoy was found and reported on the evening of 18 May, by U-304 which commenced shadowing, the B7 group mounted an aggressive defence, chasing down all contacts in order to frustrate any attacks. In this they were successful and none of the U-boats were able to attack that night, on 19 May long-range aircraft were able to join the action and commenced patrolling, attacking Donau boats as they moved to join the assault. A Hudson of 269 Sqdn destroyed U-273, and a Liberator of 120 Sqdn attacked another, This was thought to have sunk U-954, but later judged to have hit U-731, causing little damage. Later that day the escort was reinforced by the 1st Support Group consisting of the Banff class sloop HMS Sennen with the River class frigates HMS Wear, HMS Jed. Within hours U-954 was sunk by hedgehog attacks from Sennen and Jed, admiral Karl Dönitzs son Peter Dönitz was among those lost aboard U-954. An attack by Snowflake and Duncan delivered a hit with a Hedgehog bomb, and was thought to have destroyed a U-boat but this was claimed to have hit U-636. That evening Tay attacked U-952 and damaged her so badly she had to retire from the action, on 20 May the assault continued, but without success, while No.120 Squadron RAF B-24 Liberator J sank U-258. At midday on 20th BdU called off the action, and the U-boats withdrew, the convoy reached Liverpool without loss on 26 May. SC130 was seen as an Allied victory, No ships had been lost, though two had returned to port, all 35 that made the crossing arrived safely
25.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
26.
Naval ship
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A naval ship is a military ship used by a navy. Naval ships are differentiated from civilian ships by construction and purpose, generally, naval ships are damage resilient and armed with weapon systems, though armament on troop transports is light or non-existent. Naval ships designed primarily for naval warfare are termed warships, as opposed to support or shipyard operations, submarine – self-propelled submersible types regardless of whether they are employed as combatant, auxiliary, or research and development vehicles which have at least a residual combat capability. Amphibious warfare – ships having organic capability for amphibious assault and which have characteristics enabling long duration operations on the high seas, combat logistics – ships that have the capability to provide underway replenishment to fleet units. Mine warfare – ships whose primary function is mine warfare on the high seas, coastal defense – ships whose primary function is coastal patrol and interdiction. Sealift – ships that have the capability to provide material support to other deployed units operating far from home base. Support – ships, such as oilers, designed to operate in the ocean in a variety of sea states to provide general support to either combatant forces or shore based establishments. Service type craft – navy-subordinated craft designed to provide support to either combatant forces or shore-based establishments. In rough order of tonnage, modern naval ships are commonly divided into the following different classes. There is also much blurring / gray areas between the classes, depending on their use, history, and interpretation of the class by different navies. Official Website of the United States Navy, heres the Entire U. S. Navy Fleet in One Chart. Official Website of the United States Navy, *United States Naval Recognition Training Slides-Grand Valley State University Archives and Special Collections
27.
Modern history
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Modern history, the modern period or the modern era, is the global historiographical approach to the timeframe after the Post-classical history. It took all of history up to 1804 for the worlds population to reach 1 billion. Contemporary history is the span of historic events from approximately 1945 that are relevant to the present time. Some events, while not without precedent, show a new way of perceiving the world, the concept of modernity interprets the general meaning of these events and seeks explanations for major developments. The fundamental difficulty of studying modern history is the fact that a plethora of it has been documented up to the present day and it is imperative to consider the reliability of the information obtained from these records. In the pre-modern era, many peoples sense of self and purpose was expressed via a faith in some form of deity. Pre-modern cultures have not been thought of creating a sense of distinct individuality, religious officials, who often held positions of power, were the spiritual intermediaries to the common person. It was only through intermediaries that the general masses had access to the divine. Tradition was sacred to ancient cultures and was unchanging and the order of ceremony. The term modern was coined in the 16th century to present or recent times. New information about the world was discovered via empirical observation, versus the use of reason. The term Early Modern was introduced in the English language in the 1930s, to distinguish the time between what we call Middle Ages and time of the late Enlightenment. It is important to note that these terms stem from European history, in the Contemporary era, there were various socio-technological trends. Regarding the 21st century and the modern world, the Information Age and computers were forefront in use, not completely ubiquitous. The development of Eastern powers was of note, with China, in the Eurasian theater, the European Union and Russian Federation were two forces recently developed. A concern for Western world, if not the world, was the late modern form of terrorism. The modern period has been a period of significant development in the fields of science, politics, warfare and it has also been an age of discovery and globalization. During this time, the European powers and later their colonies, began a political, economic, the modern era is closely associated with the development of individualism, capitalism, urbanization and a belief in the possibilities of technological and political progress
28.
Maritime geography
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Maritime geography is often discussed in terms of three loosely defined regions, brown water, green water, and blue water. The elements of maritime geography are loosely defined and their meanings have changed throughout history, the USAs 2010 Naval Operations Concept defines blue water as the open ocean, green water as coastal waters, ports and harbors, and brown water as navigable rivers and their estuaries. Robert Rubel of the US Naval War College includes bays in his definition of brown water, during the Cold War, green water denoted those areas of ocean in which naval forces might encounter land-based aircraft and brown water, land-based artillery. The development of long-range bombers with antiship missiles turned most of the oceans to green, after the Cold War, US amphibious taskforces were sometimes referred to as the green-water navy, in contrast to the blue-water carrier battlegroups. This distinction disappeared as increasing threats in coastal waters forced the ships further offshore, delivering assaults by helicopter. This prompted the development of ships designed to operate in such waters - the Zumwalt class destroyer, under his scheme brown water would be zones in which ocean-going units could not operate at all, including rivers, minefields, straits and other choke points. The brown water environment starts from the shoreline through to the end of the continental shelf, a brown-water navy focuses on coastal operations and primarily takes a defensive role. The green water environment extends from the edge of the brown-water layer past any continental shelves, archipelagos and islands. A green-water navy is capable of defense of its nation in depth and is a significant offensive force within its territory, the blue water environment extends from the outer edge of the green-water zone through to the deep ocean of the world. A blue-water navy can project its nations power throughout the world
29.
Blue-water navy
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A blue-water navy is a maritime force capable of operating globally, essentially across the deep waters of open oceans. A term more used in the United Kingdom to describe such a force is a navy possessing maritime expeditionary capabilities. While definitions of what constitutes such a force vary, there is a requirement for the ability to exercise sea control at wide ranges. The term blue-water navy is a maritime geographical-term in contrast with brown-water navy, the Defense Security Service of the United States has defined the blue-water navy as, a maritime force capable of sustained operation across the deep waters of open oceans. A blue-water navy allows a country to project power far from the home country, smaller blue-water navies are able to dispatch fewer vessels abroad for shorter periods of time. In public discourse, blue-water capability is identified with the operation of capital ships such as battleships. In the end Australia did not buy a new carrier, a blue-water navy implies force protection from sub-surface, surface and airborne threats and a sustainable logistic reach, allowing a persistent presence at range. A hallmark of a true blue-water navy is the ability to conduct replenishment at sea, while a blue-water navy can project sea control power into another nations littoral, it remains susceptible to threats from less capable forces. An example of vulnerability was the October 2000 USS Cole bombing in Aden. The term blue-water navy should not be confused with the capability of an individual ship, for example, vessels of a green-water navy can often operate in blue water for short periods of time. A number of nations have extensive maritime assets but lack the capability to maintain the required sustainable logistic reach, some of them join coalition task groups in blue-water deployments such as anti-piracy patrols off Somalia. According to a definition, blue-water capability refers to an oceangoing fleet able to operate on the high seas far from its nations homeports. In their 2012 publication, Sea Power and the Asia-Pacific, professors Geoffrey Till, bratton outlined what they termed as concise criteria with regard to the definitions of brown, green and blue-water navies. They go on to say that even such a definition and understanding of naval hierarchy. For example, while France and the United States may be considered blue-water navies, he states that the operational capability, another definition states that brown-water refers to the littoral areas within 100 nautical miles of the coastline. Green-water begins from 100 nautical miles out to the major land formation. While blue-water is the ability to force out to aleast 1,500 nautical miles beyond the coast. Traditionally a distinction used to be made between a coastal brown-water navy operating in the zone to 200 nautical miles and an oceangoing blue-water navy
30.
Brown-water navy
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These mother ships include converted World War II-era LCMs and LSTs, among other vessels. Brown-water navies are contrasted with seaworthy blue-water navies, which can conduct operations in open ocean. After losing its blue-water fleet in the Battle of Copenhagen, the kingdom of Denmark-Norway quickly built a brown-water navy, the partial successes of the resulting Gunboat War were undone by land invasion. The term brown-water navy originated in the American Civil War, of 1861–1865, in the early days of the war, U. S. Army built and crewed these boats, with the naval officers commanding them being the only direct connection to the U. S. Navy. By the autumn of 1862, the boats and their mission were transferred to the Department of the Navy. Because of the rivers murky brown water, the ships participated in these Mississippi campaigns were quickly referred to as the brown-water navy. After the end of the American civil war the next major conflict in the world was the Paraguayan War. In this the Brazilian brown-water navy, which comprised large ironclads as well as monitors, had a crucial role. The natural highway to the Republic of Paraguay was the River Paraguay and it comprised a 6,000 feet line of artillery batteries overlooking a sharp concave bend in the river, at a point where the channel was only 200 yards wide. A chain boom could be raised to block the navigation, the fortress was exceedingly hard to take from the landward side for it was protected by impassible swamp, marsh or lagoons and, where not, by 8 miles of trenches with a garrison of 18,000 men. The river was shallow, uncharted and capable of trapping large vessels if the water level should fall, in that environment the greatest threat to shipping was torpedoes. Six vessels of the Brazilian ironclad squadron eventually succeeded in dashing past Humaitá in an incident known as the Passage of Humaitá, even after Humaitá was captured − which took more than two years – the Paraguayans improvised further strongpoints along the river, further delaying the Allies. Save for a river patrol boat, the United States river ironclad navy was all. Yet the concept of a defense force lived on in countries and regions where rivers enabled the U. S. to project its military presence. The U. S. Navy of that era used the term for protecting U. S. foreign policy, the U. S. Navy, China gunboat, USS Asheville, was sunk, by the Japanese, in March 1942. They have succeeded the river created in 1945, by the request of General Leclerc. The Dinassaut served until the end of the conflict in 1955, ten Dinassauts were created, with five based in Cochinchina and the others in Tonkin. Each one was made of ten vessels and one Commandos Marine unit
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Green-water navy
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It is a relatively new term, and has been created to better distinguish, and add nuance, between two long-standing descriptors, blue-water navy and brown-water navy. It is a naval term used in different ways. It originates with the United States Navy, who use it to refer to the portion of their fleet that specializes in operations in coastal waters. Nowadays such ships rely on stealth or speed to avoid destruction by shore batteries or land-based aircraft, the US Navy has also used the term to refer to the first phase of the expansion of Chinas navy into a full blue-water navy. Subsequently, other authors have applied it to other navies that can project power locally. Such navies typically have amphibious ships and sometimes small aircraft carriers, the elements of maritime geography are loosely defined and their meanings have changed throughout history. The USs 2010 Naval Operations Concept defines blue water as the ocean, green water as coastal waters, ports and harbors. Robert Rubel of the US Naval War College includes bays in his definition of brown water, during the Cold War, green water denoted those areas of ocean in which naval forces might encounter land-based aircraft. The development of long-range bombers with anti-ship missiles turned most of the oceans to green, after the Cold War, US amphibious task forces were sometimes referred to as the green-water navy, in contrast to the blue-water carrier battle groups. This distinction disappeared as increasing threats in coastal waters forced the ships further offshore, delivering assaults by helicopter. Under his scheme, brown water would be zones in which ocean-going units could not operate at all, including rivers, minefields, straits and other choke points. This is not true for most other navies, whose supply chains, a number of countries are working on overcoming these constraints. Other authors have started to apply the term green-water navy to any navy that has ocean-going ships. Its often not clear what they mean, as the term is used without consistency or precision, for example, the German Navy has near the same capability as the Canadian Navy but is not recognized as a true green-water navy. Another example is the Portuguese Navy that, despite being classified as a minor navy, has several times conducted sustained operations in faraway regions typical of the green-water navies. The collapse of the USSR also brought with it the collapse of the second largest naval force in the world, moreover, budget cuts forced large cuts in the submarine force, such as the retirements of the Typhoon-class submarine. As the Soviet Navy was built largely around submarine warfare the losses in the submarine capability have adversely affected the capability of the newly formed Russian Navy as well, the Royal Australian Navy is well established as a green-water navy. The navy sustains a range of maritime operations, from the Middle East to the Pacific Ocean
32.
Broadside
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A broadside is the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their coordinated fire in naval warfare. From the 16th century until the decades of the steamship. Firing all guns on one side of the ship known as a broadside. The cannons of 18th century men of war were accurate only at short range and these wooden ships sailed closer and closer towards each other until cannon fire would be effective. Each tried to be the first to fire a broadside, often giving one party a decisive headstart in the battle when it crippled the other ship. Since ancient times, war at sea had been much like on land, with melee weapons and bows and arrows. Though the introduction of guns was a significant change, it slowly changed the dynamics of ship-to-ship combat. The first guns on ships were small wrought-iron pieces mounted on the decks and in the fighting tops. They were designed to injure, kill or simply stun, shock, as guns were made more durable to withstand stronger gunpowder charges, they increased their potential to inflict critical damage to the vessel rather than just its crew. Since these guns were heavier than the earlier anti-personnel weapons, they had to be placed lower in the ships. In Northern Europe the technique of building ships with clinker planking made it difficult to cut ports in the hull, the solution was the gradual adoption of carvel-built ships that relied on an internal skeleton structure to bear the weight of the ship. The development of propulsion during the 15th century from single-masted, square-rigged cogs to three-masted carracks with a mix of square, gunports cut in the hull of ships had been introduced as early as 1501. Initially, the gunports were used to mount heavy so-called stern chasers pointing aft and this made possible coordinated volleys from all the guns on one side of a ship for the first time in history, at least in theory. Guns in the 16th century were considered to be in fixed positions and were intended to be fired independently rather than in concerted volleys. It was not until the 1590s that the word broadside in English was commonly used to refer to gunfire from the side of a rather than the ships side itself. This is calculated by multiplying the weight of the ships main armament shells times the number of barrels that can be brought to bear. If some turrets are incapable of firing to either side of the vessel, for example, the American Iowa-class battleships carried a main armament of nine 16-inch main guns in turrets which could all be trained to a single broadside. Each 16-inch shell weighed 2,700 pounds, which multiplied by nine equals a total of 24,300 pounds
33.
Central battery ship
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One of the participants was the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia, essentially a central battery ship herself, albeit a low-freeboard one. The central battery ships had their main guns concentrated in the middle of the ship in an armoured citadel, the concentration of armament amidships meant the ship could be shorter and handier than a broadside type like previous warships. In this manner the design could maximize the thickness of armour in an area while still carrying a significant broadside. These ships meant the end of the frigates with their full-length gun decks. In the UK, the man behind the design was the newly appointed Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy, Edward James Reed. The previous Royal Navy ironclad designs, represented by HMS Warrior, had proven to be seaworthy, fast under power and sail, the first central battery ship was HMS Bellerophon of 1865. Great Britain built a total of 18 central battery ships before turrets became common on ships in the 1880s. The second British central battery ship, HMS Hercules, served as model for the Austrian navy, starting with their first design SMS Lissa designed by Josef von Romako and launched in 1871. The Austrian SMS Kaiser—not to be confused with German Kaiser—was built along a similar design, although the hull had been converted from a wooden ship, three older broadside ironclads of the Kaiser Max class were also officially converted to casemate design, although they were mostly built from scratch. The largest design yet was Tegetthoff, later renamed to Mars when the new dreadnought battleship Tegetthoff was commissioned, the Austrian records distinguish between the category of older broadside ironclads and the newer designs using the words Panzerfregatten and respectively Casemattschiffe. The German navy had two large ships of the Kaiser class built in UK shipyards. The first ironclad of the Greek navy, Vasilefs Georgios, was built in the UK, at 1700 tons. The Italians had three ships built, Venezia, converted from broadside during construction, and the two Principe Amedeo-class ironclads. The disadvantage of the centre-battery was that, while more flexible than the broadside, each gun still had a restricted field of fire. The centre-battery ships were succeeded by turreted warships. Box battery Brown, David K. RCNC, Warrior to Dreadnought, Warship Design 1860–1905, London, Chatham,1997 ISBN 1-84067-529-2 Sondhaus, Lawrence. The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918, Navalism, Industrial Development, gardiner, Robert, ed. Conways All the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860–1905
34.
Casemate
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A casemate, sometimes erroneously rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. Originally, the referred to a vaulted chamber in a fortress. In armoured fighting vehicles that do not have a turret for the main gun, the word comes from the Italian casamatta, the etymology of which is uncertain. Others think that it comes from the Arabic word kasaba, transliterated to kasbah, menagio speculated that it came from the Greek word for pit, khasma, the plural of which is khasmata. Hensleigh Wedgwood thought that it came from the Spanish casa and matar, others take matto in its archaic Italian meaning of dark, equivalent to the English matt, as in opaque, making a casamatta a dark house. Casematte were also used as prisons, making use of their lack of light to add to the punishment. This explanation seems to be the most agreed upon, a casemate was originally a vaulted chamber usually constructed underneath the rampart. It was intended to be impenetrable and could be used for sheltering troops or stores, with the addition of an embrasure through the scarp face of the rampart, it could be used as a protected gun position. In the early 19th century, French military engineer Baron Haxo designed a free-standing casemate that could be built on the top of the rampart, casemates built in concrete were used in the Second World War to protect coastal artillery from air attack. In warship design the term casemate has been used in a number of ways, the most famous naval battle of the war was the duel at Hampton Roads between the Union turretted ironclad USS Monitor and the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia. Casemate ship was a term for central battery ship or center battery ship. The casemate was a box that extended the full width of the ship protecting many guns. The armoured sides of the box were the sides of hull of the ship, there was an armoured bulkhead at the front and rear of the casemate, and a thick deck protecting the top. The lower edge of the casemate sat on top of ships belt armour, some ships, such as the Alexandra, had a two-storey casemate. A casemate was a room in the side of a warship. A typical casemate held a 6-in gun, and had a 6 front plate, with armour plates on the sides and rear, with a protected top and floor. Casemates were similar in size to turrets, ships carrying them had them in pairs, the first battleships to carry them were the British Royal Sovereign class laid down in 1889. They were adopted as a result of live-firing trials against HMS Resistance in 1888, the use of casemates enabled the 6-in guns to be dispersed, so that a single hit would not knock out all of them
35.
Gun turret
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A gun turret is a location from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility, and some cone of fire. Rotating gun turrets have the protection, the weapon, and its crew rotate, when this meaning of the word turret started being used at the beginning of the 1860s, turrets were normally cylindrical. Barbettes were an alternative to turrets, with a barbette the protection was fixed, in the 1890s, armoured hoods were added to barbettes, these rotated with the platform. By the early 20th Century, these hoods were known as turrets, modern warships have gun-mountings described as turrets, though the protection on them is limited to protection from the weather. They may be manned or remotely controlled and are most often protected to some degree, the protection provided by the turret may be against battle damage, the weather conditions, general environment in which the weapon or its crew will be operating. A small turret, or sub-turret set on top of a one, is called a cupola. The term cupola is used for a rotating turret that carries a sighting device rather than weaponry. Before the development of large-calibre, long-range guns in the mid-19th century, firepower was provided by a large number of guns, each of which could traverse only in a limited arc. Additionally casemate mounts had to be recessed into the side of a vessel to afford a wide arc of fire, designs for a rotating gun turret date back to the late 18th century. The Lady Nancy proved a success and Coles patenting his rotating turret design after the war. Coless aim was to create a ship with the greatest possible all round arc of fire, the Admiralty accepted the principle of the turret gun as a useful innovation, and incorporated it into other new designs. Coles submitted a design for a ship having ten domed turrets each housing two large guns, the design was rejected as impractical, although the Admiralty remained interested in turret ships and instructed its own designers to create better designs. Coles enlisted the support of Prince Albert, who wrote to the first Lord of the Admiralty, in January 1862, the Admiralty agreed to construct a ship, the HMS Prince Albert which had four turrets and a low freeboard, intended only for coastal defence. While Coles designed the turrets the ship was the responsibility of the chief Constructor Isaac Watts, another ship using Coles turret designs, HMS Royal Sovereign, was completed in August 1864. Its existing broadside guns were replaced with four turrets on a flat deck, early ships like the Royal Sovereign had little sea-keeping qualities being limited to coastal waters. Sir Edward James Reed, went on to design and build HMS Monarch, laid down in 1866 and completed in June 1869, it carried two turrets, although the inclusion of a forecastle and poop prevented the turret guns firing fore and aft. The gun turret was independently invented by the Swedish inventor John Ericsson in America, Ericsson designed the USS Monitor in 1861, its most prominent feature being a large cylindrical gun turret mounted amidships above the low-freeboard upper hull, also called the raft. This extended well past the sides of the lower, more traditionally shaped hull, a small armoured pilot house was fitted on the upper deck towards the bow, however, its position prevented Monitor from firing her guns straight forward
36.
Aircraft carrier
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An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project air power worldwide without depending on local bases for staging aircraft operations. Aircraft carriers are expensive to build and are critical assets, there is no single definition of an aircraft carrier, and modern navies use several variants of the type. These variants are sometimes categorized as sub-types of aircraft carriers, Aircraft carriers may be classified according to the type of aircraft they carry and their operational assignments. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, former head of the Royal Navy, has said, To put it simply, as of April 2017, there are 37 active aircraft carriers in the world within twelve navies. The United States Navy has 10 large nuclear-powered fleet carriers, the largest carriers in the world, the Royal Navy of Great Britain is building two 280-m / 920-ft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, and the Prince of Wales scheduled to go into service in 2020-2023. These are the largest carriers capable of fast speeds, by comparison, escort carriers were developed to provide defense for convoys of ships. They were smaller and slower with lower numbers of aircraft carried, most were built from mercantile hulls or, in the case of merchant aircraft carriers, were bulk cargo ships with a flight deck added on top. Light aircraft carriers were fast enough to operate with the main fleet, three nations currently operate carriers of this type, ten by the United States, and one each by France and Brazil for a total of twelve in service. Short take-off but arrested-recovery, these carriers are generally limited to carrying lighter fixed-wing aircraft with more limited payloads, currently, Russia, China, and India possess commissioned carriers of this type. Short take-off vertical-landing, limited to carrying STOVL aircraft and this type of aircraft carrier is currently in service with Italy. Some also count the nine US amphibious assault ships in their secondary light carrier role boosting the total to thirteen. Helicopter carrier, Helicopter carriers have an appearance to other aircraft carriers. Some are designed for addition of, or may include, a ski jump ramp allowing for STOVL operations or may have a ski jump installed before retirement of STOVL aircraft. In the past, some conventional carriers were converted and called commando carriers by the Royal Navy, some helicopter carriers with a resistant flight surface can operate STOVL jets. Currently the majority of carriers, but not all, are classified as amphibious assault ships. The US has nine of this type, France and Japan three, Australia two, the UK one, the Republic of Korea one and Spain one, the US and Spains amphibious assault ships operate STOVL jets in normal deployment. Supercarrier Fleet carrier Light aircraft carrier Escort carrier Several systems of identification symbol for aircraft carriers, two months later, on 18 January 1911, Ely landed his Curtiss pusher airplane on a platform on the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay
37.
Aircraft cruiser
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The aircraft cruiser is a warship that combines the features of the aircraft carrier and a surface warship such as a cruiser or battleship. The first aircraft cruiser was originally a 1930s experimental concept of creating an all-around warship, the early aircraft cruisers were usually armed with relatively heavy artillery, mines and a number of aircraft fitted with floats. The early aircraft cruiser turned out to be an unsuccessful design, the rapid development of naval aircraft in the 1930s quickly rendered the vessels obsolete, and they were rebuilt e. g. as anti-aircraft cruisers. One United States design for a flight deck cruiser from 1930, was described as a Brooklyn-class light cruiser forwards one half of a Wasp-class aircraft carrier aft, although not built, similar ships were created during and after World War II as reconstructions and later from the keel up. The cruiser Mogami also had its gun turrets replaced by aircraft handling facilities. The German Kriegsmarine also studied several Flugdeckkreuzer designs in 1942 which included 20.3 cm or 28 cm gun turrets forward of the flight deck. A more modern derivative of the cruiser is the helicopter cruiser which could typically operate at least 4 or more helicopters including medium. Litton-Ingalls completed sketch design work for DDH-997, which moved the helicopter deck aft, stretching the length of the hangar, the design would have accommodated two SH-3 Sea Kings or four smaller SH-60 Seahawk or SH-2 Seasprite helicopters. This raised the cost of the DDH substantially above a standard Spruance-class destroyer, while this additional cost might have been justified if the DDH was going to enter series production, it was difficult to justify for a single ship. Accordingly, the Navy built Hayler to the design as the rest of the Spruance-class. In the Russian Navy, aviation cruiser is a designation for the Kiev and they are a cross between a cruiser and an aircraft carrier. Aviation cruisers ships have close-in weapon systems, both gun and missile, for self-defense against missiles or rockets, the Kiev class of aviation cruisers is capable of carrying VTOL aircraft and helicopters. The ships have only a single angled flight deck for aviation, the forward deck is used to carry cruiser weapons, including P-500 Bazalt cruise missiles that are the main armament of the Slava-class cruiser. The Kuznetsov class is classified as heavy cruisers, reflecting their greater weight as well as the larger number of aircraft they can operate. In addition to helicopters, they are capable of operating conventional fixed-wing aircraft like the Sukhoi Su-33. The ships have a flight deck as well as an axial flight deck for takeoff. Since there is no catapult, a bow ski jump is used to assist takeoff, Kuznetsov also carries the P-700 Granit cruise missiles that form the main armament of the Kirov-class battlecruiser. All Soviet aircraft carriers were built at the Nikolayev Shipyard in the Ukrainian SSR and their classification as aircraft cruisers is very important for the purposes of international law, as it allows them to transit the Turkish Straits on their way into the Mediterranean Sea
38.
Amphibious assault ship
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An amphibious assault ship is a type of amphibious warfare ship employed to land and support ground forces on enemy territory by an amphibious assault. The design evolved from aircraft carriers converted for use as helicopter carriers, coming full circle, some amphibious assault ships now have a secondary role as aircraft carriers, supporting V/STOL fixed-wing aircraft. Most of these ships can carry or support landing craft. The largest fleet of these types is operated by the United States Navy, including the Tarawa class dating back to the 1970s and this does not include the amphibious transport dock, and dock landing ship. In the Pacific theater of World War II, escort carriers would often escort the landing ships, in this role, they would provide air cover for the troopships as well as fly the first wave of attacks on the beach fortifications in amphibious landing operations. In addition, they would also transport aircraft and spare parts from the US to the remote island airstrips, despite all the progress that was seen during World War II, there were still fundamental limitations in the types of coastline that were suitable for assault. Beaches had to be free of obstacles, and have the right tidal conditions. However, the development of the helicopter fundamentally changed the equation, the first use of helicopters in an amphibious assault came during the invasion of Egypt during the Suez War in 1956. In this engagement, two British light fleet carriers, Ocean and Theseus, were converted to perform an airborne assault with helicopters. The techniques were developed further by American forces during the Vietnam War, the modern amphibious assault can take place at virtually any point of the coast, making defending against them extremely difficult. Most early amphibious assault ships were converted from small aircraft carriers and their sister ship HMS Hermes was also converted to a commando carrier in the early 1970s, but was restored to aircraft carrier operations before the end of the 1970s. Later amphibious assault craft were constructed for the role, the United States Navy is also designing a new class of assault ships, the first America-class ship entered service in October 2014. The first British ship to be constructed specifically for the assault role was HMS Ocean. Most modern amphibious assault ships have a deck, allowing them to launch landing craft in rougher seas than a ship that has to use cranes or a stern ramp. Due to their aircraft carrier heritage, all amphibious assault ships resemble aircraft carriers in design, landing craft are also carried, either on deck-mounted davits, or in an internal well deck
39.
Anti-submarine warfare carrier
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An anti-submarine warfare carrier is a type of small aircraft carrier whose primary role is to hunt and destroy submarines. This type of came into existence during the Cold War as a development of the escort carriers used in the ASW role in the North Atlantic during World War II. After World War II, the naval threat to most Western nations was confrontation with the Soviet Union. This trend in ASW force draw-down only accelerated with the reduction in the operational Soviet/Russian submarine fleet. Ships that could be called dedicated ASW carriers are now found within the Japan MSDF. Aircraft carriers and helicopter carriers that had primary ASW duties from the mid-1960s onward, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Hyūga class. ASW, utility, and sea mine clearing helicopters Izumo class, ASW, utility, and sea mine clearing helicopters Spanish Navy Dédalo - one ship ASW helicopter carrier 1967-1976, STOVL carrier 1976-1989. HMS Hermes, Centaur-class aircraft carrier converted to helicopter ASW in 1976, Invincible class - three ships Strike/ASW/Amphibious Assault STOVL and helicopters. After the Falklands War they were used as conventional, albeit light, HMS Invincible and HMS Ark Royal retired/scrapped, HMS Illustrious converted to amphibious assault ship. Escort carrier Helicopter carrier Light aircraft carrier
40.
Balloon carrier
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A balloon carrier or balloon tender was a ship equipped with a balloon, usually tied to the ship by a rope or cable, and usually used for observation. During the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, later, during the American Civil War, about the time of the Peninsula Campaign, gas-filled balloons were being used to perform reconnaissance on Confederate positions. The battles turned inland into the forested areas of the Virginia Peninsula where balloons could not travel. A coal barge, the George Washington Parke Custis, was cleared of all deck rigging to accommodate the gas generators, from this ship, professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps, made his first ascents over the Potomac River, other barges were converted to assist with the other military balloons transported about the eastern waterways. None of these Civil War craft ever sailed on the high seas. Balloons launched from ships led to the development of balloon carriers, or balloon tenders, during World War I, by the navies of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia. About 10 such balloon tenders were built with their objective being aerial observation posts. These ships were decommissioned or converted to seaplane tenders after the War
41.
CAM ship
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CAM ships were World War II-era British merchant ships used in convoys as an emergency stop-gap until sufficient escort carriers became available. CAM ship is an acronym for catapult aircraft merchant ship, a CAM ship was equipped with a rocket-propelled catapult launching a single Hawker Hurricane, dubbed a Hurricat or Catafighter. CAM ships continued to carry their normal cargoes after conversion, the German Luftwaffe had Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft with a range of nearly 2,000 nautical miles. After the Fall of France, these aircraft could operate from western France against British merchant ships in the Atlantic, flying from Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport, Fw 200s of I/KG40 could reach the convoy lanes west of Britain while staying outside the range of British land-based fighters. The Royal Navy had no aircraft available to provide close air cover for the convoys. The Fw 200s could shadow convoys, directing U-boat attacks on them, or drop bombs on convoy ships, without opposition and to deadly effect. To counter this threat, the Admiralty developed the fighter catapult ship – a converted freighter, manned by a naval crew, when an enemy bomber was sighted, the fighter would be launched into the air with rockets, and fly up to destroy or drive away the bomber. Being large and slow, the Fw 200 became a rather vulnerable target, after the combat, the fighter pilot would bail out or ditch in the ocean near the convoy, and be picked up if all went well. The Admiralty had already experimented with this system and they ordered 50 rocket-propelled aircraft catapults to be fitted to merchant ships. The planes were Hurricane Mark Is, converted to Sea Hurricane IAs, the pilots for these aircraft were drawn from the Royal Air Force. The RAF formed the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit on 5 May 1941 in RAF Speke by the River Mersey in Liverpool, moulton-Barrett commanded the unit providing training for volunteer pilots, Fighter Direction Officers, and airmen. After training, MSFU crews were posted to Liverpool, Glasgow, each team consisted of one pilot for Atlantic runs, with one fitter, one rigger, one radio-telephone operator, one FDO, and a seaman torpedoman who worked on the catapult as an electrician. MSFU crews signed ships articles as civilian crew members under the authority of the ships master. The ships chief engineer responsible for the catapult, and the first mate acted as Catapult Duty Officer. The single Hurricane fighter was launched only when enemy aircraft were sighted and agreement was reached via hand, the first four or five ships were taken into Royal Navy service as Auxiliary Fighter Catapult Ships, and later conversions were officially named CAMs manned by merchant crews. The first CAM ship, Michael E, was sponsored by the Royal Navy while the RAF MSFUs were working up, after a trial launch off Belfast, Michael E sailed with convoy OB327 on 28 May 1941. She was sunk by U-108 on 2 June, the first RAF trial CAM launch was from Empire Rainbow, at Greenock on the River Clyde on 31 May 1941, the Hurricane landed at Abbotsinch. Six CAM ships joined convoys in June 1941, when a CAM ship arrived at its destination, the pilot usually launched and landed at a nearby airfield to get in as much flight time as possible before his return trip
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