23 July 1940

Ocean-going submarine HMS Thames was lost on or around 23 July 1940 – her exact fate remains a mystery to this day. The giant boat – at 2,700 tons the River class dwarfed their predecessors, the legendary S-class (935 tons) and the equally lauded T-class that came later (1,590 tons) – was launched at Vickers Armstrong’s Barrow yard on 26 February 1932 and allocated to the Mediterranean Fleet, stationed in Malta. On the outbreak of war she returned to home waters for anti submarine and surface raider patrols. She supported the Norwegian campaign in the North Sea in the spring of 1940, and doubts arise over the exact date of her loss as she is a leading candidate for the submarine that sank German torpedo boat Luchs on 26 July; Luchs was part of the escort for damaged battleship Gneisenau, which was being moved from Trondheim in Norway to Kiel. In any case, Thames was officially reported overdue at her home base of Dundee on 3 August, and she is suspected to have struck a mine off the Norwegian coast in the last week or so of July. She was lost with all 63 hands.

24 July 1945

Algerine-class minesweeper HMS Squirrel was lost to a mine in the Far East on 24 July 1945. The 1,150 ton turbine-powered vessel, completed at Harland and Wolff in Belfast on 16 August 1944, spent the first couple of months of her career clearing mines off the Belgian coast, but in November was nominated to transfer to the Far East. After a refit and some more mine clearance work in the Channel, Squirrel and sister ship HMS Fancy set course for India in March 1945, towing a floating dock with them. Unfortunately, the minesweepers were caught in a severe storm in the Bay of Biscay which damaged the ships and sank the floating dock, so Squirrel returned to the UK for repairs, which were carried out at Canning Town in London. The minesweeper left Falmouth for Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on 13 May, passing through the Mediterranean, Suez Canal and Red Sea before arriving at Trincomalee in July. Squirrel sailed from Trincomalee as part of Force 63 for Operation Livery, with the minesweeping element planning to sweep the Strait of Malacca to persuade the Japanese that an Allied landing was coming. While at work of Phuket Island a mine was detonated by the sweeping gear of HMS Plucky, forcing Squirrel into untested water where she struck a mine, killing seven of her sailors and badly damaging the fore part of the ship. The minesweeper gradually took on a heavy list, and more than two hours after the blast the situation was deemed beyond repair and the ship’s company was taken off. Squirrel was finally sunk by gunfire from other ships in Force 63.

25 July 1941

Cruiser HMS Newcastle spotted famed German blockade runner Erlangen in South American waters on 25 July 1941, resulting in the freighter’s destruction. The Erlangen, a 6,000-ton general cargo ship built in 1929, had plied her trade between Australia, New Zealand and South America before the war, and in late August 1939 was in Dunedin Harbour in the South Island of New Zealand. On 25 August a signal from German radio station Norddeich Radio warned more than 2,400 merchant ships across the globe that a declaration of war was imminent. They were subsequently instructed to keep out of normal shipping lanes, and to try to make it to a friendly or neutral port within four days. Erlangen sailed on 26 August, stating her destination as Port Kembla coaling station in Australia then New York. Low on fuel, the blockade runner began by heading north, but then doubled back after dark and took refuge in the Auckland Islands archipelago to the south of the country. Hidden in a narrow anchorage, the crew spent five weeks cutting wood from a nearby forest for fuel, and at one point she only remained undiscovered because cruiser HMS Leander, searching for the ship, could not enter the narrow channel because of poor weather. With her bunkers partly replenished, and with a set of makeshift sails knocked together by the crew, Erlangen sailed from her secret berth bound for Chile on 7 October, anchoring off the port of Ancud on 11 December, and as her story became known back home she took on the reputation of Germany’s most famous blockade runner of the war. Her career ended seven months later when she was seen by HMS Newcastle in the mouth of the River Plate off Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. The cruiser set off in pursuit and fired on the merchant ship, which was scuttled by her crew using explosive charges, sinking rapidly.

26 July 1953

Aircraft carrier HMS Unicorn came to the aid of a British freighter that was under attack by Taiwanese forces in an act of piracy on 26 July 1953. The incident was part of a wider campaign by the Republic of China (Taiwan) to enforce a trade embargo on the People’s Republic of China during the Chinese Civil War. Ships of all nations were liable to attack by vessels of the Republic of China Anti-Communist National Salvation Army (ROC ACNSA), even in international waters or the seas around sovereign nations such as Japan. Former Flower-class corvette HMS Nigella, at the time operating as the civilian freighter Nigelock, was attacked by ROC ACNSA gunboat on 17 February 1951 though the converted warship, transporting fruit and vegetables, escaped unscathed. On 26 July 1953 the small British coastal freighter Inchkilda, formerly SS Fort Wilhelmus, was attacked by three ROC ACNSA gunboats in the Wuqiu region of Taiwan, and her distress call was picked up by HMS Unicorn, which came straight to her aid. Inchkilda escaped on this occasion, but was seized again, by the ROC Navy, in October the following year; this time it took British and American diplomatic efforts to secure her release. Unicorn was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast as an aircraft maintenance and replenishment/ light fleet aircraft carrier – she proved a very useful asset during World War 2 and the Korean War. Launched in November 1941 and commissioned in March 1943, the 20,600-ton Unicorn was straight into action, providing air cover for the Allied amphibious landings at Salerno, Italy, in September the same year. She was the moved to the Indian Ocean, supporting both the Eastern Fleet and its successor, the British Pacific Fleet until the end of the war, when she returned to the UK and went into reserve. She was recommissioned in 1949 and returned to the Far East, where she spent most of the Korean War ferrying aircraft, supplies, equipment and personnel in support of United Nations operations. Released in 1954, she returned to the UK and was refitted the following year, though she remained in reserve. She was put up for disposal in 1958 and broken up in Scotland to years later.

27 July 1803

3rd rate warship HMS Plantagenet captured privateer Atalante after a long chase on 27 July 1803. The 74 gun warship was built at Woolwich and launched on 23 October 1801, and although she was set to be laid up in ordinary at Plymouth she was instead fitted for service and ready for action by April 1803. The following month she sailed as part of a squadron on Channel patrol, and she claimed her first victim – the six-gun French privateer Courier de Terre Neuve – on 24 July. Three days later, in sight of HM Ships Endymion and Rosario, Plantagenet gave chase to the French privateer Atalante, mounting 20 guns with a crew of 160. The Bordeaux-based ship gave a good account of herself, but was finally taken by the warship, whose crew found four British sailors from the Ville de Paris amongst the French ranks. The privateer was taken by a prize crew into Falmouth, having survived an counterattack by French sailors who had remained concealed during the taking of their ship. Atalante was taken into Royal Navy service, under the name Hawk. Plantagenet went on to serve in the Channel, the Baltic, the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the east coast of the United States until she was disposed of in 1817.

28 July 1914

Royal Navy fleets were ordered to their war bases on 28 July 1914 as talk of war continued to grow in the fevered diplomatic activity of the July Crisis. While the government was still mulling over the idea that they might become involved in the fighting, Navy formations completing large-scale exercises and cruises were told not to disperse and take leave. As the situation developed large numbers of warships were on the move, with the First Fleet safely at Scapa Flow by 1 August. Full mobilisation came the following day, with orders being issued for two German warships en route to Turkey to be shadowed across the Mediterranean. Britain had also assured France that if a German fleet sailed into the Channel or North Sea, Britain would lend every assistance in what would have been regarded as a hostile act. War was officially declared by the British government at midnight on 4 August 1914 as a consequence of German forces invading Belgium and ignoring Britain’s ultimatum that they should withdraw.

29 July 1856

Esquimalt in British Columbia replaced Valparaiso in Chile as the Royal Navy’s main base in the Pacific in the summer of 1856. The Chilean base had been established in 1813 as the home of the British Pacific Squadron, from where Royal Navy ships could protect British interests in the region. In 1842 the survey ship HMS Pandora sailed north to study the coast of Vancouver Island, during the course of which it was discovered that Esquimalt Harbour would be well-suited to Royal Navy requirements, particularly with tensions rising between Britain and America not far to the south in Oregon. The first ship stationed there was the powerful 50-gun frigate HMS Constance, which arrived in 1848, and in 1855 three wooden ‘Crimean huts’ were built ashore to take patients from the Crimean War. The location of this Naval base proved ideal in more ways than one – the site was surrounded by coniferous forests that provided abundant material for spars, and when steam took the ascendency there was coal to be found on the island and in nearby Vancouver. By 1865, with Esquimalt by now well established as the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet, plans for development of the site were advanced, and a graving dock was duly commissioned in1887 that could handle the largest ships in the Pacific Fleet, allowing Britain to continue countering Russian ambitions in the region, as well as defending British Columbia from threats of annexation by the United States in the Alaska Boundary Dispute, a grumble which the Americans had inherited from the Russians after the Alaska Purchase of 1867. Shifting geopolitical concerns at the end of the Victorian era meant Britain needed to change her focus to the rise of the German navy, and the Esquimalt Station closed down at sunset on 1 March 1905, transferring to Canadian control, though Royal Navy ships still used the facilities there. It is now the Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, one of two major naval facilities in the country, the other covering the Atlantic from CFB Halifax, Nova Scotia.

30 July 1941

Minelayer submarine HMS Cachalot was sunk on 30 July 1941 when she was unable to dive and an Italian destroyer rammed her. The 2,160-ton submarine was built by Scotts at Greenock and launched on 2 December 1937, one of six in the Grampus class. She began her career in home waters with some success, torpedoing U-boat U-51 in August 1940 in the Bay of Biscay and sinking a German auxiliary minesweeper with one of her mines in September. Switching to the Mediterranean the following year, Cachalot departed Malta on 26 July bound for Alexandria, and in the early hours of 30 July spotted Italian torpedo boat Generale Achille Papa. The submarine dived and waited, but on resurfacing she found the Italian vessel – an obsolete destroyer that had been reclassified as a torpedo boat – still in the area. Cachalot attempted to dive a second time but a hatch jammed, and the Italian rammed her. Her crew managed to escape before the boat was scuttled and sank, and all but one were picked up by the Italian warship.

31 July 1804

Boats from 74-gun 3rd rate HMS Centaur cut out the privateer Elizabeth in Guadeloupe on 31 July 1804. The Woolwich-built warship, launched on 14 March 1797, spent the first part of her career in the Mediterranean where, usually as part of a squadron, she successfully harried enemy shipping, capturing small vessels and in one instance driving a 40-gun Spanish frigate ashore and wrecking it. In the Action of 18 June 1799 she was part of a squadron that captured a five-strong French formation consisting of three frigates (40, 36 and 32 guns) and two brigantines of 18 and 14 guns. Centaur then had a spell in the Channel Squadron, colliding with HMS Mars on 10 March 1801 and causing damage to both ships; a lieutenant on boar Centaur lost six months’ seniority and was dismissed from the ship. In late 1802 Centaur sailed for the Caribbean, joining Vice Admiral Sir John Duckworth’s squadron in Jamaica. She was involved in the taking of Saint Lucia, then Tobago, then Dutch territories, in the summer of 1803, also capturing American and Dutch cargo vessels. On 26 November, while sailing past Martinique, Centaur was fired on by a shore battery. The warship anchored, and a landing party of Marines and sailors destroyed the battery, throwing the guns into the sea, though one sailor was killed and several injured when the battery blew up prematurely. Shortly afterwards Centaur spotted a second gun battery, and this time the French fled as the landing party approached; the end result was the same, with the cannon in the sea and the barracks and stores blown up. In early 1804 Centaur established her own gun batteries on the ‘stone frigate’ HMS Diamond Rock, a tiny steep-sided island just off Martinique. On 25 April Centaur sailed from Barbados to Surinam where, after a little persuasion from the British warship’s effective landing parties, the Dutch surrendered. On 30 July 1804, Centaur’s boats – under fire from the shore – cut out an unidentified schooner and the privateer Elizabeth (six guns) out of Basseterre Roads, Guadeloupe. Elizabeth had a crew of 65, most of whom were either killed or swam ashore. One British sailor died in the action, with five wounded. Elizabeth had been described as “the fastest sailing privateer out of Guadaloupe” and a lucky ship at that. Talking of luck, in July 1805 Centaur just survived a hurricane, which dismasted her and opened up a number of leaks, requiring extensive repairs at Halifax, Nova Scotia. These repairs cost Centaur her place at the Battle of Trafalgar later that year. In 1806 Centaur continued to burnish her reputation, this time in the Channel, the Eastern Atlantic and, in 1807, the Baltic, including the Second Battle of Copenhagen. There was no respite in 1808 as the veteran warship took part in the Anglo-Russian War, and returned to the Mediterranean the following year, helping at the Defence of Tarragona. She crossed the Atlantic at least three further times in her final years, paying off at Plymouth in November1815 and being broken up in late 1819.