23 June 1883

Two officers from of composite screw gunboat HMS Stork were drowned in a river near Mayumba in West Africa after their boat was attacked by a hippopotamus on 23 June 1883. Stork, a 465-ton Banterer-class gunboat of four guns built at Samuda Brothers’ yard in Poplar the previous year, was operating along the west coast of Africa when she was ordered to sail south to St Paul de Luanda (now the capital of Angola), and call in at Mayumba, now part of Gabon, along the way to inquire over an allegation of the attempted murder of a British subject. When Stork arrived on 22 June, a ‘palaver’ (impromptu conference) was held with locals, and when business was completed, arrangements were made for a shooting party the following day. Accordingly, merchant’s agent Mr Preuslau joined Stork’s Commanding Officer, Lt Arthur Blennerhasset, Lt Henry Leeke and Dr Robert Anderson, the ship’s doctor, for the ‘sporting trip’ on the nearby river, setting out in a large whaleboat manned by a dozen Kroomen (skilled local sailors and fishermen) in the early afternoon. Around 1830, not far from reeds lining the banks of the river, the boat was attacked by a hippopotamus which stove in the port quarter. The boat quickly filled and capsized, throwing the men into the water. Lt Blennerhasset and a Krooman clung onto the boat then struggled ashore, while the rest of the Kroomen swam to the riverbank. Mr Preuslau could not swim, and it is thought that the other two Royal Navy officers – both competent swimmers – went to his aid. It was suggested that the hippo, which was still mid-stream, could have been attracted by the white uniforms of the sailors and continued its attack; when their bodies were found two days later they bore marks that indicated they had been trampled. Having reached the riverbank, Lt Blennerhasset ran a mile to fetch a canoe and returned to search for his men, but despite the fact that the river was dragged and locals dived for f ive hours the following day, they could not be found. Lt Leeke and Dr Anderson were buried with military honours on 27 June at a ceremony attended by the remaining officers from Stork who were not on watch, ten sailors and a detachment of Marines. Both were described as popular shipmates, and it was Dr Anderson’s first service on a foreign station. Stork was converted to a survey vessel in 1887 and later served as a Navy League training ship for boys before being broken up in Kent in 1950.

24 June 1916

The body of Cdr Loftus William Jones, killed at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, was recovered off the Swedish coast and buried at the Swedish village of Fiskebakskil on 24 June 1916. Cdr Jones, who was born in Southsea on 13 November 1879, was educated at Eastman’s Royal Naval Academy – not unexpected, as his family had strong Naval links; his father was an admiral, and several other relatives served as Naval officers. He joined HMS Royal Sovereign as a midshipman in 1896 – the first of almost 30 ships in which he served during his Naval career, many of them torpedo-boat destroyers. He also served for a spell at HMS Tamar in Hong Kong. His final command was Acasta class destroyer HMS Shark, which on the afternoon of 31 May 1916 led a division of destroyers into action against a German battlecruiser squadron. Shark took a fearful pounding, quickly disabling her steering from the bridge and damaging her engines. Another British destroyer, HMS Acasta, placed herself between Shark and the enemy, but Cdr Jones warned her off and made his way aft to help steer the ship, being wounded in the face and leg by shrapnel as he did so. At that point Shark’s fore and aft guns were destroyed, killing most of their crews, so Cdr Jones went to the midship gun to help keep it firing – with some success, as they managed to damage German destroyer V48. Cdr Jones was hit by a shell which took his right leg off above the knee, but he continued to help fire the gun as a rating put a tourniquet around his thigh; the officer also had the presence of mind to notice that his ship’s Ensign had been dislodged from the mainmast, so he ordered another be raised to replace it. With Shark reduced to a floating wreck, Cdr Jones ordered the remaining crew to don lifebelts to prepare for her sinking, and as they did so a torpedo delivered the coup de grace and Shark went down, taking Cdr Jones with her, though seven of his crew managed to cling to rafts and floating wreckage long enough to be picked up by a neutral ship when the fighting subsided; one man later died of his wounds. Cdr Jones was one of three bodies washed ashore at Fiskebakskil and buried in the village churchyard; one of the others was PO Stoker Harry Hughes, born the same year as Cdr Jones just a mile or so away. PO Hughes was in a sister destroyer of HMS Shark which also faced the might of the German navy at Jutland, HMS Ardent being sunk by the battleship SMS Westfalen – only two of her crew of 80 survived. Cdr Jones was awarded a posthumous VC on 6 March 1917, when the facts of the incident were established. The three graves were kept neat and tidy by villagers for decades, with letters and photographs being sent back to the families of the three men back in Britain. Eventually the bodies were reinterred at Kviberg Cemetery in Gothenburg, Sweden, alongside six other victims of Jutland.

25 June 1907

On 25 June 1907 Tribal-class destroyer HMS Tartar was the first ship launched by Thornycroft at their new Woolston yard in Southampton, following a move from their old site at Chiswick in London. The London site was created in 1864 when the 21-year-old John Isaac Thornycroft started building steam yachts and launches – John had shown himself to be a precocious talent when, at the age of 16, he began building his first steam launch, the Nautilus, which three years later made headlines by being the first such vessel with sufficient speed to keep up with the University Boat Race. In 1873 the Church Wharf yard built a small torpedo craft for the Norwegian Navy, and the Rap proved to be something of a pump-primer, with other nations following in the Norwegians’ footsteps. HMS Lightning followed in 1877, being the first seagoing vessel to be armed with self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. Thornycroft torpedo boats were in great demand, and became larger and faster as designs matured, but by the time the 810-ton HMS Speedy torpedo gunboat emerged it was quite apparent that the yard had reached the limit of its usefulness – ships had to pass under Hammersmith Bridge to reach the open sea, requiring the lowering or removal of masts and funnels, so new premises were sought for the construction of larger ships. That search ended on the banks of the River Itchen at Woolston in Southampton, when an existing boatyard was bought in 1904 and production moved to Hampshire; the original Chiswick yard closed in August 1909. Tartar was the first destroyer built at Woolston, but 36 more such vessels were built for the Royal Navy before the outbreak of war, with several others being sold abroad. Another 26 RN destroyers were built there during World War 1, along with three submarines and numerous smaller craft, though their famed Coastal Motor Boats were built at Hampton on the Thames. Between the wars the emphasis was more on commercial craft, including ferries, but World War 2 saw a return to warship-building, as Woolston turned out a string of destroyers and corvettes. In 1966 Thornycroft merged with Vosper and Co to form Vosper Thornycroft, and through a series of subsequent sales and mergers the lineage can now be traced to BAE Systems Surface Ships. As for Tartar, the first ship down the slipway, she served initially in the Channel out of Dover during World War 1, patrolling, screening capital ship formations and carrying out anti-submarine sweeps. On 17 June 1917 struck a mine which killed 43 of her crew, including her Commanding Officer, though the ship was towed back to harbour. After repairs, she served out the war based in Blyth, in Northumberland, and was scrapped in 1919.

26 June 1854

Wooden paddle sloop HMS Prometheus recaptured British brig Cuthbert Young on 26 June 1854, after it had been taken by Rif pirates in Zera Bay off Morocco. The 1,280-ton Alecto-class ship, formally classified as a Steam Vessel 3, later altered to 3rd Class Sloop, was built at Sheerness and launched on 21 September 1839. Her first commission took her to the Mediterranean, where she spent just over a year before returning to Woolwich and Limehouse for a refit, including work on her boilers. Within a couple of months she was off to the west coast of Africa, taking ten slave ships in two years. Further refits were followed by another two-year spell on anti-slavery patrols off West Africa, returning to Woolwich in early 1853. She recommissioned a year later at Devonport, and was straight back to North and West Africa, where on 26 June 1854 she took part in action against Rif tribesmen, who had been causing grief to many nations along the coast of Morocco. The coastal pirates had captured the British merchant brig Cuthbert Young, based in South Shields, on 20 June around ten miles to the south west of Cape Tres Forcas, and taken whatever could be removed from the ship. Most of her crew, and her master, managed to escape to Gibraltar, but Prometheus was sent along to sort things out. The Naval paddle steamer found the brig anchored in an inlet, and despite musket fire from onshore a party of British sailors managed to attach a hawser, weighed her anchor and Prometheus slowly backed out of the inlet with the Cuthbert Young in tow. During that commission Prometheus also saw service in the Black Sea. The paddle steamer undertook one f inal commission off Africa in 1860-61 before she was paid off on 21 June 1862. She was taken to Woolwich for further repairs, but surveyors deemed her hull too rotten for further use, so she was sold to local shipbreakers Henry Castle and Sons for scrapping.

27 June 1829

Schooner HMS Monkey captured the Spanish slave ship Midas off Little Stirrup Cay on the Grand Bahama Bank on 27 June 1829, despite the slaver being much larger, more heavily armed and with twice the number of sailors on board. Monkey, around 75 tons with a crew of 26, was built in Jamaica and served with the West Indies Squadron. She captured the American salve ship Borneo on 14 March 1829, and less than a month later took the Spanish schooner Josefa in the Bahamas, freeing 206 slaves. On 27 June she encountered the 350 ton slave ship Midas near Bimini, a ship with a crew of more than 50 and mounting four 18pdr and four 12pdr guns. Despite only having a single 12pdr on a pivot and a crew of 26, Monkey took the slaver in an action of just over half-an-hour. Midas had sailed from West Africa in April 1829 with more than 560 salves on board, but fewer than 370 were still alive when she was captured by Monkey, and a further 72 died of disease before the ship was escorted into Havana. The British schooner was lost on 13 May 1831 off Mexico; she was being towed into the port of Tampico by a steam tug but was run aground. Her crew were rescued, but the ship was quickly broken up by the sea and sold as a wreck within a fortnight.

28 June 1961

HMS Leander launched at Harland and Wolff in Belfast on 28 June 1961 – the first of the 26 frigates of her class. The 3,200-ton workhorse deployed widely throughout her career, from the Caribbean and the Americas to the Far East. She took part in the Cod Wars, sustaining damage in ramming two Icelandic gunboats in January and May 1976. She was placed in reserve in the summer of 1986, and with no sale forthcoming she was decommissioned in April 1987. She ended up as a target during naval exercises in 1989, succumbing to the combined assault of Sea Dart and Exocet missiles and an air-dropped bomb.

29 June 1962

First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Carrington, unveiled a plaque on the west wall of RN Hospital Stonehouse on 29 June 1962 to mark the bicentenary of its foundation. Built between 1758 and 1765 beside Stonehouse Creek to the west of Plymouth on land close to tidal mills, the hospital began taking patients in 1760 and was considered to be fully functional by 762, making it the second great Naval hospital after Haslar in Gosport. The design of Stonehouse was considered revolutionary at the time, but proved hugely influential; wards were built in such a way that they benefited from good ventilation and were separated sufficiently to greatly reduce the spread of infection – principles championed by Florence Nightingale 100 years later. By the late 18th Century the hospital – formally known as the Royal Naval Hospital (or simply Royal Hospital) Plymouth – had capacity for 1,200 patients in 60 wards arranged in ten three-storey blocks around a colonnaded courtyard that provided space for patients to exercise while convalescing. Patients usually arrived by boat on Stonehouse Creek. An Army hospital (Stoke Military) was built on the opposite (north) bank of the creek around 1797 which mirrored the Naval facility, and was decommissioned at the end of World War 2. A burial ground was created at Stonehouse in 1826, and between 1898 and 1906 the site was widely upgraded and the range of facilities expanded. Buildings on the site were damaged in the German air raids of the spring of 1941, but the hospital remained operational throughout the war, admitting more than 60,000 patients during the period. The hospital closed in March 1995 as part of the government’s ‘Options for Change’ defence restructuring programme, and the former buildings are now used for a variety of purposes, including residential, business units and educational facilities Clinical services shifted to Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital.

30 June 1917

30-knotter destroyer HMS Cheerful was sunk by a mine off Lerwick on 30 June 1917 with the loss of more than half of her crew. The 405-ton three-funnel Hawthorn Leslie ship was launched at Hebburn-on-Tyne on 14 July 1897 and commissioned two years later, going straight into the Harwich Flotilla at Chatham. In the summer of 1912, under a Fleet-wide reorganisation, Cheerful was assigned to the C-class of destroyers alongside other 30-knotters. At the outset of World War 1 she was operating with the 8th Destroyer Flotilla, based at Sheerness, on anti-submarine and counter-mining patrols in the North Sea and eastern Channel, but at the end of September 1914 she moved to Scapa Flow on the Shetland patrol, hunting submarines and protecting the Fleet anchorage. On 30 June 1917 Cheerful was part of the escort force for a nine-ship convoy that had originally left the Humber on 28 June, with ships joining and leaving off the Tyne before heading on to Lerwick. In the late morning of 30 June a drifter warned convoy commanders that mines had been seen in the area, and around midday Cheerful struck a mine, the violent explosion near the aft boiler room splitting the ship in two. One part sank immediately, but the forward part of the ship capsized and remained afloat as other ships of the convoy approached to rescue survivors. Knocking could be heard from inside the hull, and so cutting tools were found and efforts made to break in to rescue the survivors. However, as soon as a hole was cut the trapped air within the hull rushed out and the remains of Cheerful “sank like a stone”, taking the last of the 40 victims with her.