On this date in the R.N.

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On this day in 1941 Swordfish aircraft from HMS Ark Royal scored two torpedo hits on the battle ship Bismarck. The strike jammed the battle ships rudder allowing the British task force to catch up with, and finally sink her.

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On this date in 1941 Bismarck was sunk. Bismarck had been tracked through the night of the 26th, and the battleships King George the V and Rodney engaged her on the 27th. Action was opened at eight miles range, and within 15 minutes Bismarck was badly damaged, within an hour and a half she was a wreck.
Bismarck sank at 1036, leaving only 110 survivors.

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On this date in 1798 Lord St.Vincent introduced the first sick berths into the British fleet. He ordered that a berth be specially set aside to care for sick and wounded men. These berths situated under the forcastle tended. as ships bows were rounded to resemble bay windows in appearance, and the term sick bay was adopted, and still remains in use today.

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On this date in 1877 the first torpedo to be fired in anger was launched by a British warship.
HMS Shah an unarmoured iron hulled frigate, in company with HMS Amethyst engaged the heavily armoured Peruvian turret ship Huascar which had been taken over by anti Peruvian government rebels.
Shah's guns had no effect on the armour of the Peruvian ship, so she launched the first torpedo ever at the enemy. It missed, the Huascar outran the torpedo.

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On this date in 1943 submarine HMS Untamed P-58, sank during a training exercise off Campbelltown.
The cause of the accident was eventually established as the faulty installation of valves.
The whole crew of 36 men were lost in the incident.
Untamed was raised and rebuilt to continue inactive service until the end of the war, but was renamed Vitality.
She was scrapped in 1946.

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On this date in 1916 Sir John Jellicoe flying his flag in HMS Iron Duke engaged the German fleet at the battle of Jutland. By the end of the action the British fleet had lost 14 ships and sustained 6748 casualties, the Germans lost 11 ships with casualties of 3058.
Among the decorations won in this action was the V.C. awarded to John Travers Cornwall, Boy first class.
The citation, for devotion to duty.

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Owing to a computer blip, I missed the 1st June !

On the first of June 1813 HMS Shannon captured the American Chesapeake,(pride of their navy).
The single ship action took place about twenty miles off Boston, Massachusetts, and took less than fifteen minutes!

Couldn't miss remembering that action. The truth is often better than any fiction.

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On this date in 1913 it was reported that a submarine rammed the battleship HMS Prince of Wales.
It stated that the battleship received on damages!
The Prince of Wales was a predreadnought Battleship of about 15000 tons with nine inch armour plate round the whole of her hull.
The unfortunate submarine a C class boat laid down in 1909 is not obviously mentioned re damage, which rather shows the pecking order of importance in the fleet at this time.
The sub however did end her days when she ran ashore in the Gulf of Riga and was blown up in October 1917.

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On this day in1896 Frederick John Walker was born.
Know to many as Walker R.N. or Johnny Walker, he was one of only a couple of men ever to win the DSO four times!
Passed over in the peace time navy, he went on to become what many believe to be the greatest naval officer of modern times. Walker sank 20 "U" boats, 2 by ramming, 3 by gunfire, 15 by depth charging.

It was Walker and his group who kept the English Channel free from U boats during the "D" day crossing, if he had failed it is certain wholesale loss of life would have occurred before the landings could have started.

Walkers early death was almost certainly the result of his commitment to duty.

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On this day in 1940 Operation "Dynamo" -the evacuation of forces off the beaches of Dunkirk was completed.

338,226 troops in total were picked up and transported.

It should not be overlooked that  6 British and three French destroyers were lost, together with 8 passenger ships. 19 other destroyers were badly damaged.

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On this date in 1917 the first experiments were started with ASDIC devices at Harwich.

 

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On this day in 1944 Operation Neptune - The Normandy landings  commenced.
 

6833 ships took part in the operation of which 78% were British/Canadian, 17% American 5% French-Norwegian-Dutch-Polish_Greek.

10,000 Royal Marines took part, manning no less than two thirds of the assault landing craft. Up the Royals !

Incidentally on this day in1868 Robert Falcon Scott (Scott of the Antartic) was born.

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On this date in 1915 Reginald Alexander John Warneford became the first Royal Naval airman to win a V.C.
When flying from Ghent, Warneford attacked and destroyed the German airship LZ37, by flying above it and dropping bombs onto the craft below. The airship exploded throwing Warneford's aircraft upside down, and cutting out his engine. Warneford had no choice but to land in hostile territory, but after working on his plane for thirty minutes he restarted his engine and returned to base.
 
Warneford was to die just ten days later when ferrying a new aircraft to his base, the aircraft broke up in midflight, and crashed killing both Warneford and his passenger.

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On this day in 1940, the carrier HMS Glorious and her destroyer escorts Ardent and Acasta were sunk.

Glorious and escorts were returning from Norway when they were caught unawares by the German battle cruisers Sharnhorst and Gneisenau. The destroyers attempted to divert the German attack with smokescreen and torpedo attacks, but the Germans accurate fire opened from 14 miles range sank all three ships. Acastra had managed to to score a torpedo hit on Scharnhorst abreast the after turret damaging her severely, but the battle lasted only 98 minutes.

From the three British ships only 48 crew members survived the action.

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On this date in 1860, an initial commission to an officer with subsequent appointments replaced the practice of issuing seperate commissions for each appointment.

 Made life a bit easier anyway.