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John Luce (Royal Navy Officer)
Rear Admiral John Luce, (4 February 1870 – 22 September 1932) was a senior officer in the Royal Navy during and after the First World War. He played a significant role in the early development of British naval aviation and held command during the Battle of Coronel and the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. Early and family life John Luce was born on 4 February 1870 at Halcombe, Malmesbury, in the English county of Wiltshire. In 1902, he married Mary Dorothea Tucker; and they had three children. The eldest, Alfred, born on 6 November 1903, also joined the Navy and was executive officer of during the pursuit of the German battleship ''Bismarck''. He died in a training exercise on 20 October 1941. Alfred had two daughters. Sir David Luce, born on 23 January 1906, joined the Navy and served as First Sea Lord from 1963 to 1966. Sir William Luce was born the following year and in later life became the Governor of Aden from 1956 to 1960. His great-granddaughter ...
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Malmesbury
Malmesbury () is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately west of Swindon, northeast of Bristol, and north of Chippenham. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the upper waters of the Bristol Avon and one of its tributaries. Once the site of an Iron Age fort, in the early medieval period Malmesbury became the site Malmesbury Abbey, a monastery famed for its learning. It was later home to one of Alfred the Great's fortified burhs for defence against the Vikings. Æthelstan, the first king of all England, was buried in Malmesbury Abbey when he died in 939. As a market town, it became prominent in the Middle Ages as a centre for learning, focused on and around the abbey. In modern times, Malmesbury is best known for its abbey, the bulk of which forms a rare survival of the dissolution of the monasteries. The economy benefits mostly from agriculture, as well as tourism to the Cotswolds, and a Dyson facil ...
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First Sea Lord
The First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff (1SL/CNS) is the military head of the Royal Navy and Naval Service of the United Kingdom. The First Sea Lord is usually the highest ranking and most senior admiral to serve in the British Armed Forces unless either the Chief or Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff are naval officers. Admiral Ben Key was appointed First Sea Lord in November 2021. Originally titled the "Senior Naval Lord to the Board of Admiralty" when the post was created in 1689, the office was re-styled "First Naval Lord" in 1771. The concept of a professional "First Naval Lord" was introduced in 1805, and the title of the office was changed to "First Sea Lord" on the appointment of Sir John Fisher in 1904. Since 1923, the First Sea Lord has been a member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee; he now sits on the Defence Council and the Admiralty Board.
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SMS Leipzig (1905)
SMS ("His Majesty's Ship ") was the sixth of seven s of the Imperial German Navy, named after the city of Leipzig. She was begun by AG Weser in Bremen in 1904, launched in March 1905 and commissioned in April 1906. Armed with a main battery of ten guns and two torpedo tubes, was capable of a top speed of . spent her career on overseas stations; at the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, she was cruising off the coast of Mexico. After rejoining with the East Asia Squadron, she proceeded to South American waters, where she participated in the Battle of Coronel, where the German squadron overpowered and sank a pair of British armored cruisers. A month later, she again saw action at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, which saw the destruction of the East Asia Squadron. was chased down and sunk by the cruisers and ; the majority of her crew was killed in the battle, with only 18 survivors. Design The German German Naval Laws, 1898 Naval Law called for the replacement ...
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Armored Cruiser
The armored cruiser was a type of warship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed like other types of cruisers to operate as a long-range, independent warship, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship and fast enough to outrun any battleship it encountered. For many decades, naval technology had not advanced far enough for designers to produce a cruiser which combined an armored belt with the long range and high speed required to fulfill its mission. For this reason, beginning in the 1880s and 1890s, many navies preferred to build protected cruisers, which only relied on a light armored deck to protect the vital parts of the ship. However, by the late 1880s, the development of modern rapid-fire breech-loading cannon and high-explosive shells made the reintroduction of side armor a necessity. The invention of face-hardened armor in the mid-1890s offered effective protection with less weight than previously. Varying in size, the armored cruiser was ...
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Castles Of Steel
''Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea'' is a work of non-fiction by Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert K. Massie. It narrates the major naval actions of the First World War with an emphasis on those of the United Kingdom and Imperial Germany. The term "castles of steel" was coined by the British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill in reference to the large number of the Royal Navy's battleships he saw at Spithead in 1914. Summary The book begins in the lead-up to the declaration of hostilities between Germany and Britain, whereas Massie's previous work '' Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War'' ended with the beginning of the war. All the significant naval strategies and battles of World War I are covered, including the Battle of Coronel, where a German squadron led by Admiral Maximilian von Spee destroyed a weaker British cruiser squadron under the command of Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock; the ensuing Battle ...
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Robert K
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be use ...
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SMS Gneisenau
SMS ''Gneisenau''). was an armored cruiser of the German ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy), part of the two-ship . Named for the earlier screw corvette of the same name, the ship was laid down in June 1904 at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen, launched in June 1906, and commissioned in March 1908. She was armed with a main battery of eight guns, a significant increase in firepower over earlier German armored cruisers, and she had a top speed of . ''Gneisenau'' initially served with the German fleet in I Scouting Group, though her service there was limited owing to the British development of the battlecruiser by 1909, which the less powerful armored cruisers could not effectively combat. Accordingly, ''Gneisenau'' was assigned to the German East Asia Squadron, where she joined her sister ship . The two cruisers formed the core of the squadron, which included several light cruisers. Over the next four years, ''Gneisenau'' patrolled Germany's colonial possessions in Asia an ...
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SMS Scharnhorst
SMS was an armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at the Blohm+Voss, Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. She was the lead ship of Scharnhorst-class cruiser, her class, which included . and her sister were enlarged versions of the preceding ; they were equipped with a greater number of main gun battery, main guns and were capable of a higher top speed. The ship was named after the Prussian military reformer General Gerhard von Scharnhorst and commissioned into service on 24 October 1907. served briefly with the High Seas Fleet in Germany in 1908, though most of this time was spent conducting sea trials. She was assigned to the German East Asia Squadron based in Qingdao, Tsingtao, China, in 1909. After arriving, she replaced the cruiser as the squadron flagship, a position she would hold for the rest of her career. Over the next five years, she went on several tours of various Asian ports to :wikt:show the flag, show the flag for German Empire, Germany. She ...
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Captain (Royal Navy)
Captain (Capt) is a senior officer rank of the Royal Navy. It ranks above Commander (Royal Navy), commander and below Commodore (Royal Navy), commodore and has a NATO ranking code of OF-5. The rank is equivalent to a colonel in the British Army and Royal Marines, and to a group captain in the Royal Air Force. There are similarly named Captain (naval), equivalent ranks in the navies of many other countries. Seagoing captains In the Royal Navy, the officer in command of any warship of the rank of Commander (Royal Navy), commander and below is informally referred to as "the captain" on board, even though holding a junior rank, but formally is titled "the commanding officer" (or CO). In former times, up until the nineteenth century, Royal Navy officers who were captains by rank and in command of a naval vessel were referred to as post-captains; this practice is now defunct. A Captain (D) or Captain Destroyers afloat was an operational commander responsible for the command of dest ...
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Edward VII
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and nicknamed "Bertie", Edward was related to royalty throughout Europe. He was Prince of Wales and heir apparent to the British throne for almost 60 years. During the long reign of his mother, he was largely excluded from political influence and came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite. He travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties and represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and of the Indian subcontinent in 1875 proved popular successes, but despite public approval, his reputation as a playboy prince soured his relationship with his mother. As king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorganis ...
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Coronation Of King Edward VII And Queen Alexandra
The coronation of Edward VII and his wife, Alexandra, as King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and as Emperor and Empress of India took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on 9 August 1902. Originally scheduled for 26 June of that year, the ceremony had been postponed at very short notice, because the King had been taken ill with an abdominal abscess that required immediate surgery. In contrast to the previous coronation some 64 years previously, Edward's had been carefully planned as a spectacle reflecting the influence and culture of the British Empire, then at the height of its power, but also as a meaningful religious occasion. Preparations The 1838 coronation of Queen Victoria, Edward VII's mother and predecessor, had been an unrehearsed and somewhat lacklustre event in the Abbey, though the newly extended street procession and celebrations around the country had been a great popular success. The success of Victoria's Golden and Diamond Jubilee ...
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Spithead
Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds except those from the southeast. It receives its name from the Spit, a sandbank stretching south from the Hampshire shore for . Spithead is long by about in average breadth. Spithead has been strongly defended since 1864 by four Solent Forts, which complement the Fortifications of Portsmouth. The Fleet Review is a British tradition that usually takes place at Spithead, where the monarch reviews the massed Royal Navy. The Spithead mutiny occurred in 1797 in the Royal Navy fleet at anchor at Spithead. It is also the location where sank in 1782 with the loss of more than 800 lives. In popular culture In the operetta ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' by Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly crea ...
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