The starting point for this book was my own experience as a young cadet with P&O in the early 1960s. During bridge watches at night, and often during the day, it was quite routine to call up passing ships with the Aldis signal lamp and I remember the 3rd Officer during the First Watch (8-12) one night asking me to ‘call up that ship’. “What do I say?” I ask him. “Start with ‘What Ship, Where Bound?’” came the reply. And so I did, almost certainly with some first-time nerves; sending Morse by lamp is easy but reading it takes practice and I cannot recall with clarity what the outcome was, but the opening question has stayed with me and eventually became the title of this book.
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The Power and the Glory; Royal Navy Fleet Reviews From Earliest Times To 2005
In November 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that he wants to make the UK the ‘foremost naval power in Europe’ as part of a multi-billion pound boost to defence spending. The PM vowed to ‘restore Britain’s position as the foremost naval power in Europe’. He added: ‘If there was one policy which strengthens the UK in every possible sense, it is building more ships for the Royal Navy.’
A TALE OF TWO MAYAS
Since the start of the pandemic ‘lockdown’ and the subsequent passing of my wife and partner in publishing, I have had next to nothing to do with miniature naval ship models except for the final editing of my book ‘Naval Ship Models of World War II’ for Seaforth. Recently, however, I saw a damaged Konishi Maya for sale on the web site 1250ships. While I had aircraft and a submarine from this Japanese firm, I had never owned any of their larger models. I was eager to examine one of them closely, as they were made from lost-wax cast brass, a technique not used by any other ship model producer.
While we socially isolate, we might spare a thought for seafarers battling the main diseases that often reached epidemic proportions among ships’ crews in the Age of Sail, a period in which the ‘miasma theory’ — that disease was contracted by inhaling foul air — still prevailed. We glimpse the theory in the laments of a former ship’s doctor writing early in the 18th century, regarding unventilated ships’ holds, in which ‘stagnant salt water’ tended to accumulated, and regarding their lower decks, in which ‘a multitude of people breathing and constantly perspiring’ were crowded together. The long-held theory is reflected in the name of that well-known scourge of tropical climes including the coast of West Africa, malaria (‘bad air’), which we, of course, know is spread by mosquitoes. But before we look briefly at epidemics involving infectious diseases, let’s look at that well-known non-communicable disease, scurvy, which had a devastating impact on seamen’s health ever since long voyages came to be undertaken.
Russia re-discovers its naval history.
Over the last decade most Western European nations and most of the English-speaking world have been commemorating the centenary of the First World War, from its beginning in the Balkans through the many theatres of war to its end in the forest near Compiegne. In virtually all of these commemorations there has been little or no recognition of the contribution of one of the great allies of the western nations, the Russian Empire. This is not new – almost from the moment of the armistice Russia’s massive effort in the four preceding years of the war appear to have been written off, a debt sunk by the Treaty at Brest Litovsk and regarded at Versailles as void. Millions of its soldiers killed and its treasure and lands devastated counted for nothing.
We hope you enjoyed our recent guest post from David Hobbs. Here is the second part. Enjoy!
British aircraft carrier design that led the world
The Royal Navy designed and built the world’s first aircraft carrier, HMS Argus, in 1918. It has led the world in the design and development of the technologies that have allowed bigger and faster jets to take-off and land on their flight decks and continues to do so today.
The Mystery of the Medway U-boats: solved.
Aidan Dodson
University of Bristol
Among the mud-flats of the Medway estuary rest the remains of three First World War German U-boats. One, in East Hoo Creek, still displays some features a submarine, with its raked stem still visible – although broken off and resting at a crazy angle – and its hull structure and ballast tanks visible, the outer plating having largely disappeared. See more here.
Tom Cunliffe, author of ‘Pilot Cutters Under Sail’ has owned three pilot cutters over a period of thirty-five years and sailed more miles in them than most. Here he recalls a spine-tingling incident that occurred on his initial sail with the 50ft, 1911 Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter, Hirta.
How the Royal Navy fought to save Estonia and Latvia
The thriving modern republics of Estonia and Latvia emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and are still threatened by the revanchist policies of the USSR’s successor state. But the fact that they exist at all is in large part due to the Royal Navy and particularly the role it played immediately after the First World War in helping fight off the expansionist ambitions of a post-Armistice Germany and the greed and aggression of the nascent Russian Bolshevik Empire.
