HMS Rorqual (N74)
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HMS Rorqual (N74)
HMS ''Rorqual'' (N74) was a British mine-laying submarine, one of the six ships of the of the Royal Navy. She was built by Vickers Armstrong, Barrow and launched 27 July 1936. She served in the Second World War in the Mediterranean and in the far east. She was the only ''Grampus''-class submarine to survive the war, and she is considered the most successful minelaying submarine of World War II, sinking 57,704 GRT of enemy shipping, 35,951 of which through her mines. Career Mediterranean Sent to the Mediterranean in 1940, ''Rorqual'' began laying minefields and attacking enemy shipping. Amongst the shipping lost to mines laid by ''Rorqual'' were the Italian merchants '' Loasso'', ''Celio'', ''Leopardi'', and ''Salpi''; the Italian Navy water tankers ''Verde'' and ''Ticino''; the Italian pilot vessel F 34 / ''Rina Croce'', the Italian torpedo boats , , , and ; the Italian auxiliary submarine chaser AS 99 ''Zuri'', the German troop transport ''Ankara''; the French merchant ...
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RORQUAL Badge-1-
Rorquals () are the largest group of baleen whales, which comprise the family Balaenopteridae, containing ten extant species in three genera. They include the largest animal that has ever lived, the blue whale, which can reach , and the fin whale, which reaches ; even the smallest of the group, the northern minke whale, reaches . Rorquals take their name from French , which derives from the Norwegian word : the first element originated from the Old Norse name for this type of whale, , probably related to the Norse word for "red", and the second from the Norse word ''hvalr'' meaning "whale" in general. The family name Balaenopteridae is from the type genus, ''Balaenoptera''. Characteristics All members of the family have a series of longitudinal folds of skin running from below the mouth back to the navel (except the sei whale and common minke whale, which have shorter grooves). These furrows allow the mouth to expand immensely when feeding, "permitting them to engorge gr ...
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Floating Battery
A floating battery is a kind of armed watercraft, often improvised or experimental, which carries heavy armament but has few other qualities as a warship. History Use of timber rafts loaded with cannon by Danish defenders of Copenhagen against bomb ketches of a combined British-Dutch-Swedish fleet is attested by Nathaniel Uring in 1700. An early appearance was in 1782 at the Great Siege of Gibraltar, and its invention and usage is attributed to Spanish Lieutenant General Antonio Barceló. A purpose-built floating battery was ''Flådebatteri No. 1'', designed by Chief Engineer Henrik Gerner in 1787; it was long, wide and armed with 24 guns, and was used during the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen under the command of Peter Willemoes. The British made limited use of floating batteries during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, with the two-vessel and -class floating batteries, and some individual vessels such as . The most notable floating batteries were built o ...
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Ships Built In Barrow-in-Furness
A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished from boats, based on size, shape, load capacity, and purpose. Ships have supported exploration, trade, warfare, migration, colonization, and science. After the 15th century, new crops that had come from and to the Americas via the European seafarers significantly contributed to world population growth. Ship transport is responsible for the largest portion of world commerce. The word ''ship'' has meant, depending on the era and the context, either just a large vessel or specifically a ship-rigged sailing ship with three or more masts, each of which is square-rigged. As of 2016, there were more than 49,000 merchant ships, totaling almost 1.8 billion dead weight tons. Of these 28% were oil tankers, 43% were bulk carriers, and 13% were con ...
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Newport, Wales
Newport ( cy, Casnewydd; ) is a city and Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county borough in Wales, situated on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, northeast of Cardiff. With a population of 145,700 at the 2011 census, Newport is the third-largest authority with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in Wales, and seventh List of Welsh principal areas, most populous overall. Newport became a unitary authority in 1996 and forms part of the Cardiff-Newport metropolitan area. Newport was the site of the last large-scale armed insurrection in Great Britain, the Newport Rising of 1839. Newport has been a port since medieval times when the first Newport Castle was built by the Normans. The town outgrew the earlier Roman Britain, Roman town of Caerleon, immediately upstream and now part of the borough. Newport gained its first Municipal charter, charter in 1314. It grew significantly in the 19th century when its port became the focus of Coa ...
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John Cashmore Ltd
John Cashmore Ltd (also known as J Cashmore, or simply as Cashmore's or other derivations) was a company operating largely in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales. It became best known for ship breaking and scrapping redundant British railway locomotives. History The company was founded in 1872 by a member of the Cashmore family in Horseley Heath, Staffordshire. While eventually the large part of the business was in Newport, with a business address at the Old Town Dock, the headquarters was in Great Bridge, Tipton. Scrapping of steam locomotives from the LMR, ER and WR, also took place at Gold's Hill, Great Bridge. The shipbreaking business was closed in October 1976, and the remaining business was incorporated into the Gynwed Group. Ship breaking It ran a ship breaking business on the banks of the River Usk, which had a very high tide enabling large vessels to be moved upstream. It scrapped many ex-Royal Navy ships including the following: * (Destroyer - 1914) * (Destroyer ...
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British Pacific Fleet
The British Pacific Fleet (BPF) was a Royal Navy formation that saw action against Japan during the Second World War. The fleet was composed of empire naval vessels. The BPF formally came into being on 22 November 1944 from the remaining ships of the former Eastern Fleet then being re-named the East Indies Fleet and continuing to be based in Trincomalee. The British Pacific Fleet's main base was at Sydney, Australia, with a forward base at Manus Island in northern Papua New Guinea. One of the largest fleets ever assembled by the Royal Navy, by Victory over Japan Day (VJ Day) it consisted of over two hundred ships and submarines and more than 750 aircraft; including four battleships and six fleet aircraft carriers, fifteen smaller aircraft carriers, eleven cruisers and numerous smaller warships, submarines, and support vessels. The fleet took part in the Battle of Okinawa and the final naval strikes on Japan. Background Following their retreat to the western side of the India ...
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Leros
Leros ( el, Λέρος) is a Greek island and municipality in the Dodecanese in the southern Aegean Sea. It lies (171 nautical miles) from Athens's port of Piraeus, from which it can be reached by an 9-hour ferry ride or by a 45-minute flight from Athens, and about 20 miles to Turkey. Leros is part of the Kalymnos regional unit. The island has been also called in it, Lero. This island has population of 7,988 Geography The municipality has an area of . The municipality includes the populated offshore island of Farmakonisi (pop. 10), as well as several uninhabited islets, including Levitha and Kinaros, and had a 2011 census population of 7,917, although this figure swells to over 15,000 during the summer peak. The island has a coastline of . It is known for its imposing medieval castle of the Knights of Saint John possibly built on a Byzantine fortress. Nearby islands are Patmos, Lipsi, Kalymnos, and the small islands of Agia Kyriaki and Farmakos. In ancient times it was c ...
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Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. Beirut has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years, and was one of Phoenicia's most prominent city states, making it one of the oldest cities in the world (see Berytus). The first historical mention of Beirut is found in the Amarna letters from the New Kingdom of Egypt, which date to the 14th century BC. Beirut is Lebanon's seat of government and plays a central role in the Lebanese economy, with many banks and corporations based in the city. Beirut is an important seaport for the country and region, and rated a Beta + World City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Beirut was severely damaged by the Lebanese Civil War, the 2006 Lebanon War, and the 2020 massive explosion in the ...
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Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik (), historically known as Ragusa (; see notes on naming), is a city on the Adriatic Sea in the region of Dalmatia, in the southeastern semi-exclave of Croatia. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean, a seaport and the centre of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County. Its total population is 42,615 (2011 census). In 1979, the city of Dubrovnik was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in recognition of its outstanding medieval architecture and fortified old town. The history of the city probably dates back to the 7th century, when the town known as was founded by refugees from Epidaurum (). It was under the protection of the Byzantine Empire and later under the sovereignty of the Republic of Venice. Between the 14th and 19th centuries, Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state. The prosperity of the city was historically based on maritime trade; as the capital of the maritime Republic of Ragusa, it achieved a high level of develo ...
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Lighter (barge)
A lighter is a type of flat-bottomed barge used to transfer goods and passengers to and from moored ships. Lighters were traditionally unpowered and were moved and steered using long oars called "sweeps" and the motive power of water currents. They were operated by skilled workers called lightermen and were a characteristic sight in London's docks until about the 1960s, when technological changes made this form of lightering largely redundant. Unpowered lighters continue to be moved by powered tugs, however, and lighters may also now themselves be powered. The term is also used in the Lighter Aboard Ship (LASH) system. The name itself is of uncertain origin, but is believed to possibly derive from an old Dutch or German word, ''lichten'' (to lighten or unload). In Dutch, the word ''lichter'' is still used for smaller ships that take over goods from larger ships. Lighters, albeit powered ones, were proposed to be used in 2007 at Port Lincoln and Whyalla in South Australia to load ...
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Italian Ship Piero Foscari
''Piero Foscari'' was an Italian merchant ship and then auxiliary cruiser of the ''Regia Marina''. Built in 1928 for the ''Società Anonima di Navigazione Adriatica'', it was originally a motor ship of 3,423 tons. ''Foscari'' served as a transport ship for the ''Regia Marina'' from 18 to 25 August 1940, and in 1941 was converted into an auxiliary cruiser to act as convoy escort. On 18 December 1942, while travelling from Naples to Civitavecchia, she was damaged by the torpedoes of the British minelaying submarine . After the Armistice with Italy of 9 September 1943, while en route from Genoa to escort the merchant ship ''Valverde'', she was shelled by coastal artillery and attacked by three German patrol boats and the minelayers ''Pommern'' and ''Brandenburg''. ''Foscari'' took refuge at Castiglioncello Castiglioncello (formerly ''Castiglione Mondiglio'') is a ''frazione'' of 3800 inhabitants of the ''comune'' of Rosignano Marittimo, in the province of Livorno, Tuscany, Ital ...
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