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SAS Skilpad
SAS Skilpad was a mine-layer vessel of the South African Navy during and after the Second World War. She was launched as the German trawler ''Polaris'' and after being captured by the Allies in 1940, she was commissioned into the Royal Navy as a war-prize and named HMS ''Spindrift''. During the course of the war she was transferred to the South African Naval Forces, being based in Saldanha Bay and later in Durban. After being kept in storage for several years after the end of the war, she sank at her moorings in Durban during a gale in 1953, leading to her being decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1957. History ‘’Polaris’’ was built in Germany in 1936 as a general purpose trawler and was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine in 1939 and converted into a lookout trawler. She was then fitted with concealed torpedo tubes and the Kriegsmarine added super heaters to the boilers to improve speed for short "sprints" as may be needed. She was intended to put to sea with genera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portland Harbour
Portland Harbour is located beside the Isle of Portland, Dorset, on the south coast of England. Construction of the harbour began in 1849; when completed in 1872, its surface area made it the largest man-made harbour in the world, and remains one of the largest in the world today. It is naturally protected by Portland to the south, Chesil Beach to the west and mainland Dorset to the north. It consists of four breakwaters — two southern and two northern. These have a total length of and enclose approximately of water. Portland Harbour was built by the Admiralty as a facility for the Royal Navy (though access was also available to merchant ships); on 11 December 1923 it was formally designated HM Naval Base (HMNB) Portland, and continued to serve as such until closure in 1995. History Creation of harbour of refuge (1844–1872) The original harbour was naturally protected by the south coast of England, Chesil Beach and the Isle of Portland, providing refuge for ships aga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Arrow (H42)
HMS ''Arrow'' was an destroyer of the Royal Navy. She served during the Second World War before being damaged while fighting a fire on an ammunition ship and written off in 1943. Construction and commissioning ''Arrow'' was ordered on 6 March 1928 under the 1927 Naval Estimates. She was laid down on 20 August 1928 at the yards of Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow-in-Furness, as Yard No 642. She was launched a year later on 22 August 1929 and was commissioned on 14 April 1930. She was adopted by the civil community of the Rural District of Blackwell, Derbyshire in February 1942 following a successful Warship Week National Savings Campaign. Career Escort duties On the outbreak of the Second World War, ''Arrow'' was deployed at Portland with the 18th Destroyer Flotilla for anti-submarine patrol and convoy defence duties. She carried out these duties into October, and on 24 October put into Devonport Dockyard to undergo repairs to fix turbine defects. These repairs lasted until D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern end in June 2009 Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay and Hoy. Its sheltered waters have played an important role in travel, trade and conflict throughout the centuries. Vikings anchored their longships in Scapa Flow more than a thousand years ago. It was the United Kingdom's chief naval base during the First and Second World Wars, but the facility was closed in 1956. Scapa Flow has a shallow sandy bottom not deeper than and most of it is about deep; it is one of the great natural harbours and anchorages of the world, with sufficient space to hold a number of navies. The harbour has an area of and contains just under 1 billion cubic metres of water. Since the scuttling of the German fleet after World War I, its wrecks and their marine habitats form an internationally acclaimed diving lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Griffin (H31)
HMS ''Griffin'' (H31) was a G-class destroyer, built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1930s. In World War II she took part in the Norwegian Campaign of April–May 1940 and the Battle of Dakar in September before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in November. She generally escorted larger ships of the Mediterranean Fleet as they protected convoys against attacks from the Italian Fleet. ''Griffin'' took part in the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 and the evacuations of Greece and Crete in April–May 1941. In June she took part in the Syria-Lebanon Campaign and was escorting convoys and the larger ships of the Mediterranean Fleet until she was transferred to the Eastern Fleet in March 1942. ''Griffin'' saw no action in the Japanese Indian Ocean raid in April, but was escorting convoys for most of her time in the Indian Ocean. In June she returned to the Mediterranean to escort another convoy to Malta in Operation Vigorous. Beginning in November 1942, she was con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salisbury Island, Durban
Salisbury Island is located inside the Port of Durban on the east coast of South Africa; it is a former island until the Second World War when construction of a naval base connected it to the mainland by a causeway. The island, then a mangrove-covered sandbank, was named after , the Royal Navy ship that surveyed the future harbour area for the newly established Port Natal Colony in the 1820s. Second World War and after Naval Base Durban was constructed for the Royal Navy during the Second World War in response to the threat of Japanese attacks on shipping along the east coast of Africa. It was during this construction that the island became a peninsula through the construction of a causeway. After the war the base was turned over to the South African Naval Service (SANS), which has since maintained a fluctuating and intermittent presence. With the signing of the Simonstown Agreement in 1957, the Royal Navy gave up its control of the SANS in exchange for the use of the base at Sim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ships Of The South African Navy
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maritime History Of South Africa
Maritime may refer to: Geography * Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps * Maritime Region, a region in Togo * Maritime Southeast Asia * The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island * Maritime County, former county of Poland, existing from 1927 to 1939, and from 1945 to 1951 * Neustadt District, Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, known from 1939 to 1942 as ''Maritime District'', a former district of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, Nazi Germany, from 1939 to 1945 * The Maritime Republics, thalassocratic city-states on the Italian peninsula during the Middle Ages Museums * Maritime Museum (Belize) * Maritime Museum (Macau), China * Maritime Museum (Malaysia) * Maritime Museum (Stockholm), Sweden Music * ''Maritime'' (album), a 2005 album by Minotaur Shock * Maritime (band), an American indie pop group * "The Maritimes" (song), a song on the 2005 album ''Boy-Cott-In the Industry'' by Classified * "Maritime ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mine Warfare Vessels Of The South African Navy
Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun Military * Anti-tank mine, a land mine made for use against armored vehicles * Antipersonnel mine, a land mine targeting people walking around, either with explosives or poison gas * Bangalore mine, colloquial name for the Bangalore torpedo, a man-portable explosive device for clearing a path through wire obstacles and land mines * Cluster bomb, an aerial bomb which releases many small submunitions, which often act as mines * Land mine, explosive mines placed under or on the ground * Mining (military), digging under a fortified military position to penetrate its defenses * Naval mine, or sea mine, a mine at sea, either floating or on the sea bed, often dropped via parachute from aircraft, or otherwise lain by surface ships or submarines * Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
