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Banff-class Sloop
The ''Banff''-class sloop was a group of ten warships of the Royal Navy. Built as United States Coast Guard Lake-class cutters, in 1941 these ships were loaned to the Royal Navy as antisubmarine warfare escort ships. The transfers took place at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; the sloops were manned for transport to Britain by personnel from the damaged battleship ''Malaya'' which was under repair there. The sloops were initially part of Western Approaches command used to escort convoys such as SL convoys from Sierra Leone to Liverpool, and one, HMS ''Culver'', was sunk by a German submarine in the Atlantic while so employed January 1942. In 1943, the nine surviving sloops were assigned to Operation Torch - the Allied invasion of French North Africa. Two—''Walney'' and ''Hartland''—were destroyed in Operation Reservist in the assault to capture Oran harbor. The remaining seven escorted Mediterranean convoys in support of the North African invasion and saw varied employment in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Walney
Two ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS ''Walney'' after Walney Island off the coast of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria: * was a sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ... launched in 1930 as USCGC ''Sebago''. She was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1941 and was lost in 1942. * is a , launched in 1991, decommissioned in 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Walney, Hms Royal Navy ship names ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SL Convoys
SL convoys were a numbered series of North Atlantic trade convoys during the Second World War. Merchant ships carrying commodities bound to the British Isles from South America, Africa, and the Indian Ocean traveled independently to Freetown, Sierra Leone to be convoyed for the last leg of their voyage to Liverpool. History On the basis of World War I experience, SL convoys were one of four trade convoy routes organized at the beginning of the Battle of the Atlantic. The other routes were HX convoys from North America, HG convoys from the Mediterranean, and a short-lived series of HN convoys from Norway. Eight ships sailed as convoy SL 1 sailed on 14 September 1939 and three faster ships sailed six days later as a faster section -- sometimes designated SL(F) 1 or SL 1(F). The slower convoy was sometimes similarly suffixed with an (S). Early convoys were usually accompanied by an armed merchant cruiser or one of the South Atlantic Station cruisers based at Freetown; but no an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Zipper
During World War II, Operation Zipper was a British plan to capture either Port Swettenham or Port Dickson, Malaya, as staging areas for the recapture of Singapore in Operation Mailfist. However, due to the end of the war in the Pacific, it was never fully executed. Some of the proposed landings on Penang went ahead as planned to probe Japanese intentions, encountering no resistance. The planned deception for this attack was called Operation Slippery, whilst a small Special Operations Executive team led by Tun Ibrahim Ismail which landed in October 1944 managed to convince the Japanese that the landings were to be on the Isthmus of Kra, to the north. Operations Jurist and Tiderace were put into action following the surrender of Japan, with the objectives of directly liberating Penang and Singapore respectively, followed by smaller amphibious landings on the coast of Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. Two Allied fleets set sail from Rangoon, with the Royal Navy's Task Force 11 hea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Dracula
Operation Dracula was a World War II-airborne and amphibious attack on Rangoon by British and Anglo-Indian forces during the Burma Campaign. The plan was first proposed in mid-1944 when the Allied South East Asia Command was preparing to reoccupy British Burma, Burma, but was dropped as the necessary landing craft and other resources were not available. In March 1945 however, it was resurrected, as it was vital to capture Rangoon before the start of the monsoon (which was expected in the second week of May) to secure the lines of communication of the Allied troops in Burma. During April 1945, units of the British Fourteenth Army (United Kingdom), Fourteenth Army advanced to within of Rangoon, but were delayed until 1 May by an improvised Japanese force which held Pegu. On the same day, as part of Operation Dracula, a composite Gurkha parachute battalion landed on Elephant Point at the mouth of the Rangoon River. Once they had secured the coastal batteries, minesweepers cleared th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bay Of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between Sangaman Kanda, Sri Lanka, and the north westernmost point of Sumatra, Indonesia. It is the largest water region called a bay in the world. There are countries dependent on the Bay of Bengal in South Asia and Southeast Asia. During the existence of British India, it was named as the Bay of Bengal after the historic Bengal region. At the time, the Port of Kolkata served as the gateway to the Crown rule in India. Cox's Bazar, the longest sea beach in the world and Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest and the natural habitat of the Bengal tiger, are located along the bay. The Bay of Bengal occupies an area of . A number of large rivers flow into the Bay of Bengal: the Ganges– Hooghly, the Padma, the Brahmaputra–Yamuna, the Barak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabian Sea
The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel and the Arabian Peninsula, on the southeast by the Laccadive Sea and the Maldives, on the southwest by Somalia, and on the east by India. Its total area is 3,862,000 km2 (1,491,000 sq mi) and its maximum depth is 4,652 meters (15,262 ft). The Gulf of Aden in the west connects the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea through the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Gulf of Oman is in the northwest, connecting it to the Persian Gulf. Name The sea is named after Arabia, the historic name of the region to the west of the sea. The Arabian Sea's name in Arabic is ; in Persian it is دریای عرب; in Urdu it is بحیرہ عرب; in Hindi it is अरब सागर; in Gujarati it is અરબી સમુદ્ર; in Marathi it is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by the Southern Ocean or Antarctica, depending on the definition in use. Along its core, the Indian Ocean has some large marginal or regional seas such as the Arabian Sea, Laccadive Sea, Bay of Bengal, and Andaman Sea. Etymology The Indian Ocean has been known by its present name since at least 1515 when the Latin form ''Oceanus Orientalis Indicus'' ("Indian Eastern Ocean") is attested, named after Indian subcontinent, India, which projects into it. It was earlier known as the ''Eastern Ocean'', a term that was still in use during the mid-18th century (see map), as opposed to the ''Western Ocean'' (Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic) before the Pacific Ocean, Pacific was surmised. Conversely, Ming treasure voyages, Chinese explorers in the Indian Oce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kilindini
Kilindini Harbour is a large, natural deep-water inlet extending inland from Mombasa, Kenya. It is at its deepest center, although the controlling depth is the outer channel in the port approaches with a dredged depth of . It serves as the harbour for Mombasa, with a hinterland extending to Uganda. Kilindini Harbour is the main part of the Port of Mombasa, the only international seaport in Kenya and the biggest port in east Africa. It is managed by the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA). Apart from cargo handling, Mombasa is frequented by cruise ships. Kilindini is a Swahili term meaning "deep down" or "in the depths" in reference to the depth of the channel. Kilindini Harbor is an example of a natural geographic phenomenon called a ria, formed millions of years ago when the sea level rose and engulfed a river that was flowing from the mainland. History Mombasa has a centuries-old history as a harbour city. The Kilindini harbour was inaugurated in 1896 when work started on the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The Sea has played a central role in the history of Western civilization. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. The Mediterranean Sea covers an area of about , representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar—the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa—is only wide. The Mediterranean Sea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oran
Oran ( ar, وَهران, Wahrān) is a major coastal city located in the north-west of Algeria. It is considered the second most important city of Algeria after the capital Algiers, due to its population and commercial, industrial, and cultural importance. It is west-south-west from Algiers. The total population of the city was 803,329 in 2008, while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000 making it the second-largest city in Algeria. Etymology The word ''Wahran'' comes from the Berber expression ''wa - iharan'' (place of lions). A locally popular legend tells that in the period around AD 900, there were sightings of Barbary lion, Barbary lions in the area. The last two lions were killed on a mountain near Oran, and it became known as ''la montagne des lions'' ("The Mountain of Lions"). Two giant lion statues stand in front of Oran's city hall, symbolizing the city. History Overview During the Roman Empire, a small settlement called ''Unica Colonia'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Reservist
Operation Reservist was an Allied military operation during the Second World War. Part of Operation Torch (the Allied invasion of North Africa), it was an attempted landing of troops directly into the harbour at Oran in Algeria. Background The purpose of Operation Reservist was to capture the valuable facilities and ships at the Vichy French port of Oran before they could be destroyed. The landing of troops directly from ships was extremely risky; however it was hoped that either the French defenders would be taken entirely by surprise, or that they would actually co-operate with the landing forces. Two sloops, and were used to landing the troops. The Operation The landing ships came under sustained fire from the defenders once they were inside the harbour boom including four shore batteries (from east to west – Mole Ravin Blanc, Mole Miller and, Mole J. Giraud and Mole Centre). There were 31 French ships in the port which did considerable damage to the Allied vessels. Casu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French North Africa
French North Africa (french: Afrique du Nord française, sometimes abbreviated to ANF) is the term often applied to the territories controlled by France in the North African Maghreb during the colonial era, namely Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. In contrast to French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa which existed as federations of French colonies and administrative entities in their own right, French North Africa was never more than a term of convenience to refer to the three separately governed territories under different forms of colonial regime. In the 19th century, the decline of the Ottoman Empire, which had loosely controlled the area since the 16th century, left the region vulnerable to other forces. In 1830, French troops captured Algiers and from 1848 until independence in 1962, France treated Algeria as an integral part of France, the ''Métropole'' or metropolitan France. In subsequent decades, a substantial European settler population emerged in Algeria known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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