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Tobruk Ferry Service
The Tobruk Ferry Service (also known as the Tobruk Ferry Run) was the name given to the force of Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy ships involved in the supply of Allied forces during the Siege of Tobruk. History The aim of the Ferry Service was to keep the besieged Allied forces supplied with ammunition, gun barrels, and medical supplies, while evacuating wounded personnel. The initial supply runs to Tobruk were performed by the ships of the 10th Destroyer Flotilla (which included the Australian 'Scrap Iron Flotilla') operating independently. A typical run saw a destroyer leave Alexandria early in the morning, after spending the night loading, then sail for Tobruk, where the ship would arrive around midnight. After supplies were unloaded and wounded loaded, the destroyer would sail for Mersa Matruh, where the wounded were exchanged for more supplies. The destroyer would return to Tobruk for a second evening, then head back to Alexandria. The danger of attack by air and sea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service. From the middle decades of the 17th century, and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century, it was the world's most powerful navy until the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing and defending the British Empire, and four Imperial fortress colonies and a string of imperial bases and coaling stations secured the Royal Navy's ability to assert naval superiority globally. Owing to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, to ref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the principal naval force of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (CN) Vice Admiral Mark Hammond AM, RAN. CN is also jointly responsible to the Minister of Defence (MINDEF) and the Chief of Defence Force (CDF). The Department of Defence as part of the Australian Public Service administers the ADF. Formed in 1901, as the Commonwealth Naval Forces (CNF), through the amalgamation of the colonial navies of Australia following the federation of Australia. Although it was originally intended for local defence, it became increasingly responsible for regional defence as the British Empire started to diminish its influence in the South Pacific. The Royal Australian Navy was initially a green-water navy, and where the Royal Navy provided a blue-water force to the Australian Squadron, which the Australian and New Zealand governments helped to fund, and that was assigned to the Australia Station. Thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siege Of Tobruk
The siege of Tobruk lasted for 241 days in 1941, after Axis forces advanced through Cyrenaica from El Agheila in Operation Sonnenblume against Allied forces in Libya, during the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) of the Second World War. In late 1940, the Allies had defeated the Italian 10th Army during Operation Compass and trapped the remnants at Beda Fomm. During early 1941, much of the Western Desert Force (WDF) was sent to the Greek and Syrian campaigns. As German troops and Italian reinforcements reached Libya, only a skeleton Allied force remained, short of equipment and supplies. The defenders quickly became known as the Rats of Tobruk. Operation ''Sonnenblume'' forced the Allies into a retreat to the Egyptian border. A garrison, consisting mostly of the 9th Australian Division (Lieutenant-General Leslie Morshead) remained at Tobruk, to deny the port to the Axis, while the WDF reorganised and prepared a counter-offensive. The Axis siege of Tobruk began on 10 Apri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
10th Destroyer Flotilla
The British 10th Destroyer Flotilla, or Tenth Destroyer Flotilla, was a military formation of the Royal Navy from March from 1914 to 1919. It was reformed on an ad hoc basis from 1940 to 1941 and finally from 1944 to 1945. History First created in March 1914 it was later assigned to the Harwich Striking Force later renamed Harwich Force in April 1915. The flotilla took part in the Battle of Jutland, (31 May – 1 June 1916) after Jutland it remained with the Harwich Force until it was disbanded in April 1919. The flotilla was reactivated again during World War Two but each time this was a temporary arrangement. It reformed as part of the Mediterranean Fleet from 1 June 1940 to 1 July 1941 before being de-mobilized. It was reformed for the last time as part of the Plymouth Command The Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, was a senior commander of the Royal Navy for hundreds of years. Plymouth Command was a name given to the units, establishments, and staff operating under the admira ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scrap Iron Flotilla
The Scrap Iron Flotilla was an Australian destroyer group that operated in the Mediterranean and Pacific during World War II. The name was bestowed upon the group by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. The flotilla consisted of five Royal Australian Navy (RAN) destroyers. The five ships of the flotilla had been Royal Navy ships that had been built and served during the First World War and transferred to the RAN in the 1930s. HMAS ''Waterhen'' was sunk in the Mediterranean in 1941, HMAS ''Vampire'' was sunk in the Indian Ocean in 1942, and HMAS ''Voyager'' was sunk near Timor in 1942. HMAS ''Stuart'' and HMAS ''Vendetta'' survived the war. The story of the ships in the flotilla, up to 1943, was recounted in the book ''Scrap-Iron Flotilla'' by John F. Moyes, who served as a Sub-Lieutenant RANVR on HMAS ''Voyager'' later in the war, and collected many stories from the crews. Moyes was on HMAS ''Voyager'' when she was sunk, but survived. The flotilla * * * * * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria grew rapidly and became a major centre of Hellenic civilisation, eventually replacing Memphis, in present-day Greater Cairo, as Egypt's capital. During the Hellenistic period, it was home to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which ranked among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as well as the storied Library of Alexandria. Today, the library is reincarnated in the disc-shaped, ultramodern Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Its 15th-century seafront Qaitbay Citadel is now a museum. Called the "Bride of the Mediterranean" by locals, Alexandria is a popular tourist destination and an important industrial centre due to its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. The city extends about along the northern coast of Egypt, and is the largest city on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mersa Matruh
Mersa Matruh ( ar, مرسى مطروح, translit=Marsā Maṭrūḥ, ), also transliterated as ''Marsa Matruh'', is a port in Egypt and the capital of Matrouh Governorate. It is located west of Alexandria and east of Sallum on the main highway from the Nile Delta to the Libyan border. The city is also accessible from the south via another highway running through the Western Desert towards Siwa Oasis and Bahariya Oasis. In ancient Egypt and during the reign of Alexander the Great, the city was known as ''Amunia''. In the Ptolemaic Kingdom and later during the Byzantine Empire, it was known as Paraitónion ( grc-koi, Παραιτόνιον). During the Roman Empire, it was called Paraetonium in Latin, which became () after the mid-7th century Muslim conquest of Egypt. As a British military base during World War II, several battles were fought around its environs as the German Afrika Korps attempted to capture the port. It fell to the Germans during the Battle of Mersa Matru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish NavySmith, Charles Edgar: ''A short history of naval and marine engineering.'' Babcock & Wilcox, ltd. at the University Press, 1937, page 263 as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" (TBDs) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War. Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sloop Of War
In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' encompassed all the unrated combat vessels, including the very small gun-brigs and cutters. In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fireships were classed as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were employed in the sloop role when not carrying out their specialised functions. In World War I and World War II, the Royal Navy reused the term "sloop" for specialised convoy-defence vessels, including the of World War I and the highly successful of World War II, with anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capability. They performed similar duties to the American destroyer escort class ships, and also performed similar duties to the smaller corvettes of the Royal Navy. Rigging A sloop-of-war was quite different from a civilian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Brian Palmer
Alfred Brian Palmer MBE, DSC (27 March 1899 Redfern, New South Wales – 4 July 1993 Clearwater, Florida) was a Royal Navy Reserve captain and near the end of his career was the commander of the shore base HMS ''Furneaux'' in Brisbane. He is known for his bravery in breaking the German blockade of Tobruk in the Second World War with his small schooner ''Maria Giovanni''. During the Second World War he was wounded several times and finally taken prisoner by the Germans, from whom he attempted numerous escapes. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1941 for "courage, skill and devotion to duty in operations off the Libyan coast", and made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1944. Early life Palmer's name at birth was Alfred O'Brien. He first went to sea on the ''Daniel'', a 185-ton sailing vessel built in Norway in 1830. After three voyages to New Zealand on the ''Daniel'' in November 1916, Palmer joined the ''Burrowa'', an Australian merchant sailing vesse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libya In World War II
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest. Libya is made of three historical regions: Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 700,000 square miles (1.8 million km2), it is the fourth-largest country in Africa and the Arab world, and the 16th-largest in the world. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves in the world. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya and contains over three million of Libya's seven million people. Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age as descendants from Iberomaurusian and Capsian cultures. In ancient times, the Phoenicians established city-states and trading posts i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
