1 October 1920

HM Gunboat Greenfly was captured by insurgents in Mesopotamia on or around 1 October 1920, though the exact circumstances of the incident are unclear. The vessel began life as one of 16 Fly-class gunboats, built in 1915-6 in sections by Yarrow at Scotstoun as “small China gunboats” but transported to Abadan in Iran, where they were assembled to form the Tigris gunboat flotilla during the Mesopotamian Campaign. The 100-ton ships had a very small draught of just two feet, though that did not help Greenfly when she ran aground on the Euphrates River on 10 August 1920. While steaming downriver to help shore up the defence of the town of Khedr, which was the site of a strategically-important railway station. By that time she had been handed over to the Army and was part of the Inland Water Transport division, patrolling the river to counter the Arab insurgents operating in Iraq and Mesopotamia (now mainly Iraq) after the Great War. She was manned by two officers and 20 infantrymen attached to the Royal Engineers, and became stuck on a sandbank some six miles from Khedr. With insurgents f iring at her from close range, the British poured resources into floating Greenfly off the sandbank, but she was still stranded a week later and casualties were mounting. Sister ship HM Gunboat Greyfly, with two launches and a strong force of Indian troops, made a f inal effort on 20 August, but to no avail, with river levels falling. She could have been scuttled and abandoned, but the decision was made to reinforce the crew with Indian troops and abundant supplies of food and ammunition, then leave them to defend the boat while plans were drawn up and ships gathered to attempt another rescue when conditions allowed. Weeks went by with no sign of relief for the beleaguered gunboatmen, and on 30 September the sole officer on the boat, 2nd Lt Hedger, sent a message saying food was running low but morale was still sound, and there were only a handful of casualties – one dead, two suffering bullet wounds, and four or five sick through lack of rations. He added that he felt they could stick it out until they were rescued so long as they could be resupplied. That was the last that was heard of Greenfly’s crew, and their fate remains a mystery. One theory is that the Indian troops rebelled, killed the British troops and handed the boat over to the insurgents shortly after that final, optimistic message. The insurgents then stripped the boat of guns and ammunition, and set her alight. That, at any rate, was the conclusion of the Board of Inquiry that convened several months later, though there was no evidence to support that theory – only one body was ever recovered, that of a British trooper.

2 October 1866

Wooden screw gun vessel HMS Griffon was stranded and lost after colliding with sister ship Pandora off Little Popo in the Bight of Benin in West Africa on 2 October 1866. The 430-ton steamship, built by Northfleet near Gravesend in Kent and launched in February 1860, had a short but relatively successful career on anti-slavery patrols in the Senior Service, apprehending eight salvers off the coast of Africa between 1861 and 1865. On 2 October 1866 she was in the Bight of Benin off the town of Little Popo in Togo, now known as Aneho. While on manoeuvres at night with sister ship HMS Pandora, the captain of the latter signalled Griffon to tack, but confusion over the signal (a new system of signalling at night was in the process of being introduced) led to the two ships colliding. Griffon was badly damaged and run ashore where her crew of 60 were taken off safely – there were no casualties in either ship. Pandora and a third gun vessel, HMS Mullet, attempted to pull Griffon free of the beach but failed, and the ship could not be saved.

3 October 1808

Brig-sloop HMS Carnation was taken by the French ship Palinure in the Atlantic on 3 October 1808. Carnation had a brief and ignoble career under two ensigns. Launched at the Taylor yard in Bideford on 3 October 1807, the 18 gun warship sailed on commissioning to the Caribbean. On 3 October 1808 – a year to the day after her launch – Carnation was engaged by the 16-gun French brig Palinure some 200 miles north-east of Martinique, and things quickly went very wrong. The opening exchanges resulted in the death of Carnation’s captain and entire officer cadre, and when the remaining British sailors were mustered to resist an attempted boarding a Royal Marines sergeant refused to obey and led more than 30 Britons below deck to await capture. The loss of around a third of the available crew gave the French the upper hand, and the Cruizer-class ship was quickly taken. Carnation was sailed back to Martinique where, on 31 January 1809, she was commissioned into the French Navy. However, that was as far as she got – the British had invaded Martinique the previous day, and Carnation was set alight by the French at her berth, destroying the ship. Sgt Chapman, the Royal Marine who had refused to oppose the boarding, was tried by court martial and hanged from the yardarm for cowardice, while all but one of the 31 who followed him were sentenced to flogging or transportation to Botany Bay; the other sailor was acquitted. Palinure was herself taken by the British frigate Circe just days after she defeated Carnation, and later returned to service for the British as HMS Snap.

4 October 1912

Submarine HMS B2 was sunk on 4 October 1912 when she collided with a German ocean liner off Dover, resulting in the death of most of her crew. B2 was one of 11 320-ton B-class boats built by Vickers at Barrow-in Furness between 1904 and 1906 – B2 was launched on 30 October 1905 and commissioned around six weeks later. In October 1912 she was taking part in submarine exercises in the Strait of Dover as part of preparations for any possible future war, and was running on the surface four miles off Dover in the small hours of 4 October when she was struck by the 22,600-ton transatlantic Hamburg-Amerika Line ship SS Amerika. She rapidly sank, taking all but one of her crew of 16 with her. The sole survivor was bridge officer Lt Richard Pulleyne, who was rescued by HMS C16, but who died when in command of HMS E34, sunk when she struck a mine in the Heligoland Bight on 20 July 1918. B2 was left in where she sank, allowing the bodies to remain undisturbed.

5 October 1909

Destroyer HMS Lee was wrecked off the west coast of Ireland on 5 October 1909. Lee – a Doxford three funnel ship, also known as a 30-Knotter – was launched at the Doxford and Sons yard in Sunderland on 27 January 1899, and commissioned little over two years later, a delay partly down to her struggling to reach her specified speed of 30 knots. She spent most of her career in the Channel Fleet, based on the Medway and at Sheerness, with some time in reserve. On 14 July 1907 the 350-ton warship collided with the Dutch protected cruiser Friedland, holing the destroyer near her bows. On 5 October 1909 she was wrecked off Doolough Bay in Blacksod Bay, County Mayo, on the west coast of Ireland. She ran onto rocks only yards offshore, and although at first her crew remained on board in the hope she could be pulled off the rocks, eventually the destroyer’s hull was breached and she began to flood. All machinery and equipment that could be salvaged was taken off her, and she was abandoned.

6 October 1914

Submarine HMS E9 sank German torpedo boat SMS S-116 off the Western Ems on 6 October 1914. The British E-class boat, displacing 820 tons, was launched on 29 November 1913 at the Barrow yard of Vickers Engineering, and joined the front line on 18 June the following year. She enjoyed notable success early on, sinking a light cruiser on 13 September 1914 and following it up with the destruction of S-116 on 6 October. S-116 was a 1902 product of the Schichau yard at Elbing, displacing just over 400 tons, and on 6 October was on patrol in the mouth of the River Ems with sister ship S-117 when she was spotted by E9, which was under the command of Lt Cdr Max Horton. E9, part of the Harwich Force, fired two torpedoes, one of which hit S-116 which caused her to break in two and sink rapidly, killing nine of her crew of 50; the remainder were rescued by S-117 and another torpedo boat, S-118, which was in the area. E9 escaped, and Lt Cdr Horton was awarded the DSO for sinking the two German warships. The two successes were also instrumental in starting the tradition of British submarines flying the Jolly Roger when returning from a successful patrol; Lt Cdr Horton took his cue from the comment by First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, who described submarines as “underhanded, unfair, and damned un-English” and stated that submariners should be hanged as pirates. E9 did not quite survive the Great War, being scuttled in the Gulf of Finland on 3 April 1918 to prevent her falling into German hands. Horton, however, went on to become one of the giants of Royal Navy history, being a key figure behind the tactical developments that swung the Battle of the Atlantic in favour of the Allies in the latter part of World War 2.

7 October 1853

The North Yard at Devonport Dockyard – originally built as the Keyham Steam Yard – was officially opened when HMS Queen sailed into the basin on 7 October 1853. The development was essential as the Royal Navy embraced the new technology – by 1840 around a quarter of warships were steam-powered and required dedicated support facilities. Work started on the Keyham Steam Yard in 1844, requiring the displacement of the Powder Works, while almost 40 acres of land, and more than 40 acres of foreshore, were bought. A huge coffer dam, more than a quarter of a mile in length, was built to allow the construction of basins and locks, and vast quantities of material were shifted – around 150,000 cubic yards of mud was dug out, while thousands of tons of granite and limestone were used to create the walls and infrastructure. The foundation stone of the South Lock was laid on 12 September 1846, and the lock was flooded for the first time on 4 May 1850, though the entire complex was not tested until three years later. The new Steam Yard, which was lit by gas, covered more than 74 acres and was linked to the older part of the Dockyard by a tunnel which was built between 1855 and 1857. The Steam Yard operated independently from the original part of the Dockyard until 1876 when it was incorporated into the Royal Dockyard, and in late 1903 – by now boasting a considerable extension – it was formally renamed the North Yard, while the older parts of the Dockyard, around the First Dock, became the South Yard. There is a certain irony in the fact that the 110-gun first rate HMS Queen was the first ship to use the Keyham Steam Yard, as she was the last purely-sail battleship ordered for the Royal Navy, and thus the last sort of ship in mind when the Yard was conceived. However, Queen – built in Portsmouth in the late 1830s – was retrofitted with an auxiliary steam engine in 1858-9 and served with the Mediterranean Fleet for several years before being broken up in London in 1871.