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Maritime Monday 261

Monkey Fist — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:02:06 +0000

An explosion lights up the night sky as the the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blows an 11,000 foot hole in the Birds Point levee in Mississippi County, Mo. on May 2 to protect nearby Cairo, Ill. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP) #

Mississippi River flooding (more) on the Big Picture

Aiguebelle Ships – Surcouf’s Lugger
Chocolat d’Aiguebelle “ships” (series of 25 c1910)
Lugger of the “King of Corsair’s” Robert Surcouf

Robert Surcouf (1773–1827) was a famous French corsair. During his legendary career, he captured 47 ships and was renowned for his gallantry and chivalry, earning the nickname of Roi des Corsaires (“King of Corsairs”).

more on wiki

Figurehead of Napoleon from the French navy ship, Iéna, 1846 (via missfolly)

Bilgewater, Coast Guard Academy Class of 1944. Photo via USNI.org) — via coldisthesea

Italy: Ancient ship uncovered near Rome coast

Rome, 29 April (AKI) – Builders have unearthed the remains of a 2,000 year-old wooden ship dating from the Roman Empire, near the Italian capital Rome’s ancient port of Ostia. The ship’s discovery, made during work at the site of a new road, was hailed as an important one by archaeologists.

“It shows that the coastline during during ancient Roman times was some 3-4 kilometres farther inland than it is now,” said Ostia archaeology official Anna Maria Moretti .

Amazing Stories, January, 1943 — Many people do not know that America’s employment of the atomic bomb in World War Two was a strategic response to Japan’s army of giant monsters. via thegildedcentury

RMS Carmania sinking SMS Cap Trafalgar near the Brazilian islands of Trindade, September 14, 1914 by Charles Dixon (1872 – 1934); Armed merchantman

The Birth of the Ark Royal, 1950 – This photograph of the HMS Ark Royal was taken by E. Chambré Hardman from the top of Holt Hill, Birkenhead on April 1st, 1950. The ship had just been painted white, as part of preparations for its launch from the Cammell Laird shipyard by the Queen Mother.

The picture was retouched – the white washed gable end nearest the camera was eliminated by the application of coccine nouvelle (a red dye) to the positive transparency, as it detracted from the contrast of the ship. He also painted out an unwanted lamp-post and increades the height of one of the schoolboy’s socks to bring it up to the same height as the other.

“I was trying to recreate what I had seen, to produce an effect, and anything that goes against the effect I want, I rule out.”
- E. Chambré Hardman, 1983.

The copyright of the image belongs to the National Trust.

from HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT (via coldisthesea)

Men from the Royal Navy minesweeper HMS Calton patrol the seas around Aden, searching for dhows running guns to the terrorists, during the country’s war for independence. (Photo by Victor Blackman/Express/Getty Images). 23rd February 1966 – from muratdemirelli

thegraceriots: Here’s a photograph of my dearest Jack Kerouac in a Merchant Marine cap circa 1944.

msbehavoyeur — From: ‘A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruell, and Barbarous Proceedings Against the English at Amboyna in the East-Indies’, 1624. The multi-page pamphlet – [source] – records the torture and execution for treason of employees of the British East India Company by the Dutch East India Company; known as the Amboyna Massacre (Ambon island, Indonesia). via

American Export Isbrandtsen Lines; The Exarch (USA) 1929. Ports of Call: New York, Genoa, Marseilles, Leghorn, Naples. (via maritime timetable images)

Time for a smoke. via sailorjunkers

“… His Majesty spouted.” 1809 — (via allmermaids)

fuckyeahwrecks — A man on a motorcycle is blocked by fishing boats washed ashore nearly two months ago by the tsunami that struck north-east Japan on 11 March following a powerful earthquake.. via BBC

Miss Monkey got coffee on her computer. Hunting Dumbo (via mudwerks)

flippinyourfins.tumblr.com (via sailorjunkers)

Suehiro Maruo – Lunatic Lovers (from dirtyscarab)

Liam Barr; http://www.liambarr.com/ — via darksilenceinsuburbia

Tom Haubrick – (via C.A.V.E. Gallery’s Three Year Anniversary | Hi-Fructose)

left: Frederick Paul Thumann – The Sirens via sisterwolf — right: Joaquim Marquès Nielsen » Fjordens Dag 2011 plakat (via fuckyeahcartography)

Danish short film about some fishermen who catch a mermaid. see on michaelmay

(via Squid Offers Free Hugs To Submarines) … BustedTees t-shirt “Free Hugs” features a squid getting friendly with a submarine.

Popeye #66 (via dirtyriver)

oldbookillustrations: … Mighty marts beyond the sea. Fenn, from The song of the sower, by William Cullen Bryant, New York, 1871. (Source: archive.org)

Vintage tattoo design – 28 Pics – from drtuesdaygjohnson

A chilly faceful of Elliott Bay! Seattle Maritime Festival, May 14, 2011. Quick n Dirty Boat Building contest. Photos of the festival by Joshua Trujillo, SeattlePI.com. Via larboardwatch

National Jukebox now online, serving up hits from the early 1900s | Ars Technica

(via mudwerks) — These days when a new music service launches itself, the sell is usually access to the latest cutting-edge content or classic pop genres. Count on the Library of Congress to offer something very different. The LOC’s just released online National Jukebox offers cutting-edge material for sure, but circa 1901 through 1925: 10,000 ready-to-audit recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company.

“Imagine your computer as a new Gramophone purchased for family and friends to enjoy in your home parlor,” the LOC’s announcement proclaims. “Audition popular recorded selections of the beginning of the 20th century years—band music, novelty tunes, humorous monologues, hits from the season’s new musical theater productions, the latest dance rhythms, and opera arias…”

Cigarette Card – Anglo-Saxon Ship – Player’s Cigarettes “Wooden Walls” (set of 10 extra large cards issued in 1908) An Anglo-Saxon Ship 10th Century – cigcardpix

Artist: Victor Hugo (yes, that Victor Hugo). circa 1866. – from octopoda

ca. 1945, “Sky Pirates”, [Ground crew at Royal Naval Air Station Greenock] – National Archives via drtuesdaygjohnson

Creatures from the Census of Marine Life: Red-lined Paper Bubble

… off Japan’s Cape Nomamisaki. This new species of Bubble Snail was discovered in a sperm whale carcass in the deep sea. Its tiny eyes, two black dots, are protected by wing-like folds. (Our Amazing Planet) via larboardwatch

A whaling ship with its sails down in Spitzbergen, surrounded by several whales lying dead in the sea. Original Artwork: Catchpole Collection. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1905 (muratdemirelli)

Hanging out with Neptune – Actor Burr McIntosh as “Father Neptune” for the “Neptune Electrical Extravaganza” pageant Long Beach, California 1933 – (via allmermaids)

both: Claire Hampshire on traditionaltattoos

Suehiro Maruo on sutured-infection (via mudwerks)

Anselmo Ballester poster for Rough, Tough and Ready (directed by Del Lord, 1945) which for some reason was known as Femmine del Mar (Females of the Sea) in Italy (via tanuchi)

(via mudwerks)

Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels in Captain Kidd’s Kids (1919) – After a wild bachelor party, our hero finds himself aboard a sailing vessel where he encounters numerous adventures. In a dream sequence, he fantasizes that the ship is seized by a band of female pirates. via rantingsofamoderndayglamourgirl

hoodoothatvoodoo: Bakufu Ohno

See You Next Week! – Walrus (via jraffunderwater)

Maritime Monday for May 14, 2012: In the Town Where I Was Born

Monkey Fist — Mon, 14 May 2012 02:41:09 +0000

Tintin 363 (original)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Take ‘Er Down (1954)

“I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.”
– HG Wells.

One of the most revolutionary naval advances was the submarine. By 1900, the gyroscope, the gyrocompass, and the use of steel hulls, a safe method of propulsion in the internal combustion engine and the accumulator battery, combined to make the submarine possible. The development of the reliable torpedo provided the submarine with an excellent weapon of attack. In 1900, the six major navies of the world had only 10 submarines among them.

Since then the submarine has become the shark of almost every navy. Silent, hunting, killing, dark and sleek under the oceans, Always a foreboding subject in books and films. Some have argued that it and the aircraft have made surface ships obsolete in naval warfare. today the launchpad of not only torpedoes but missiles and the mainstay of nuclear arsenals. Like sharks, submarines are unseen until they strike, and also like sharks – we know they are out there.

–The Snark

Painting by Mort Künstler
via Flickr / x-ray_delta_one

Movie Card: Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea (1961)
Irwin Allen Productions
posted by modern_fred

IMDb: Admiral Nelson takes a brand new atomic submarine through its paces. When the Van Allen radiation belt catches fire, the admiral must find a way to beat the heat or watch the world go up in smoke.

Goofs: Admiral Nelson orders the submarine to submerge near the end of the movie by stating “take the ship down”, even though submariners call their vessels “boats”.

more goofs on IMDb

Polaris Nuclear Sub Ad 1966
see also: Fighting Ships Ad 1966

Mystery of the Siamese Submarine of 1938

In 1936, about 128 Siamese (Thai) naval officers were sent to japan for training by the Japanese Navy, and to bring back 4 new submarines with them to Siam. — However, there were 32 officers, sent earlier that year for a secret training, in a separate mission – they were a crew of a nonexistent Submarine Number 5.

No record / document about 32 officers and their submarine can be found in Thailand today. No one can really be sure what their secret mission was – only rumor that Submarine No.5 vanished without a trace by the end of 1945 – if it ever really existed, that is…

Russian submarine K-129 (see 3000 × 1694)

Raised from 17,000 ft. below sea level during the 1970′s by the Hughes Glomar Explorer

The 1968 sinking of the K-129 occurred approximately 1,560 nautical miles (2,890 km) northwest of Hawaii. Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about $800 million ($3.8 billion in 2012 dollars). The exact reasons why this project was undertaken are unknown, but likely reasons included the recovery of an intact nuclear missile (R-21 (missile) also known as NATO SS-N-5-SERB), as well as cryptological documents and equipment.

The US searched diligently using acoustic data from four AFTAC sites and the Adak SOSUS array to pinpoint the location within 2 nautical miles. The USS Halibut (above) submarine used the Fish: a towed, 12 foot, 2 ton collection of cameras, strobe lights, and sonar to detect seafloor objects and built to withstand extreme depths. The recovery operation commenced covertly (in international waters) about 6 years later with a supposed commercial purpose: mining the sea floor for manganese nodules under the cover of Howard Hughes and the Hughes Glomar Explorer.

more on wikipedia

Commander Battle & The Atomic Sub Comics no 6 May 1955

see all

War Comics # 1 from Dell in 1940

source

USS Growler by bowsprite

USS Growler (SSG-577), an early cruise missile submarine of the Grayback class, was the fourth ship of the United States Navy to be named for a large-mouth black bass.

Growler was laid down on 15 February 1955 by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard of Kittery, Maine, and was launched on 5 April 1958. decommissioned 25 May 1964, struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 August 1980, and was scheduled to be used as a torpedo target. However, on 8 August 1988, Congress awarded the hulk to Zachary Fisher, Chairman of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum.

Growler is the sole survivor of the Navy’s fleet of pioneering strategic missile diesel powered submarines.

- more on wiki -

SM U-20; Postcard depicting the sinking of the RMS Lusitania

launched on 18 December 1912 – During World War I, she took part in operations around the British Isles. The U-20 became infamous following her sinking of the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915, an act that dramatically reshaped the course of World War I.

At about 1:40 pm Schwieger saw a vessel approaching through his periscope. From a distance of about 700 m Schwieger noted she had four funnels and two masts making her a liner of some sort. He recognised her as the Lusitania, a vessel in the British Fleet Reserve, and fired a single torpedo. It hit on the starboard side, almost directly below the bridge.

Following the torpedo’s explosion, the liner was shattered by a second explosion, possibly caused by either coal dust, munitions in the hold, or a boiler explosion, so large Schwieger himself was surprised. Lusitania sank rapidly in 18 minutes with the loss of nearly 2,000 lives.

Schwieger noted in his war diary:

“It looks as if the ship will stay afloat only for a very short time. [I gave order to] dive to 25 metres and leave the area seawards. I couldn’t have fired another torpedo into this mass of humans desperately trying to save themselves.”

see U 20 grounded Denmark 1916

German drawing of Lusitania being torpedoed. Incorrectly shows torpedo hit on port side of ship.

Illustration of Lusitania‘s life boats in the slip in Queenstown – 1,008 × 774 pixels

LEFT: Undersea Guardians, unknown artist. Amazing Stories, December 1944 (see original)
RT: The Mermaid of Maracot Deep

captured German mine-laying submarine SM UC-5; World War I

launched on 13 June 1915: UC-5 had an impressive career, with 29 ships sunk for a total of 36,288 tons on 29 patrols. On August 21, 1915 UC-5 became the first submarine minelayer to penetrate into the English Channel, laying 12 mines off Boulogne, one of which sank the steamship William Dawson the same day. UC-5 went on to lay 6 more mines off Boulogne and Folkestone on 7 September, one of which sank the cable layer Monarch.

UC-5 ran aground while on patrol 27 April 1916 at Coordinates: 51°59′N 1°38′E 51°59′N 1°38′E and was scuttled. Her crew were captured by HMS Firedrake and the submarine was displayed at Temple Pier on the Thames river and, later, in New York for propaganda purposes.

Original (900 x 911)

HMS Bulldog in June 1937

9th May 1941: A boarding party from the British destroyer HMS Bulldog captured the German secret Enigma signal cyphering equipment from German submarine U-110 (1940) in the North Atlantic, the greatest intelligence coup in Naval History.

U-110 at Uboat.net

Operation Primrose: allowed to sink on 10 May 1941.

Nick Nr. 030

Nick comics drawn by Hansrudi Wäscher — grew up in the Italian part of Switzerland. He was impressed by comic books like ‘Tarzan’, ‘Mandrake’ and ‘Flash Gordon’. After high school he studied graphic design. Wäscher entered the comic book field in 1953, with ‘Sigurd’. After that, he drew, translated and wrote over 1,500 mini-sized comic books, published all over Europe.

from German comics:

Comic books (were) never to be published in Nazi Germany because such literature was banned under the Nazi party “Smut and Trash” decree of 4 February 1933.

In post-war (the 1950s and 1960s) West Germany, comic books and strips were largely inspired by American models. Comic books for children and young people were developed, such as Sigurd by Hansrudi Wäscher (the complete works of Hansrudi Wäscher and new stories of Sigurd are published by Norbert Hethke). Despite dubious art quality and increasing resistance from educators, these comics were read in great quantities.

see also: Nick Nr. 031 und Wigor 06 – Meteor Nr. 009 “Titania”

U-427

German sub making an emergency surfacing manouvre; this picture taken through her periscope

Russian Project 613 Whiskey class medium range patrol submarines being scrapped in England; 1980′s

In 2009 a previously unknown and unidentified sunken Whiskey class submarine was discovered within Sweden’s EEZ close to the island of Gotland. It was a decommissioned submarine which sank while under tow to be scrapped in Denmark. News of the discovery was not made public until March 2011.

Whiskey class submarines on wikipedia

Arthur Conan Doyle: Danger! Being the Log of Captain John Sirius”

“Several of the enemy’s submarines are at sea, and have inflicted some appreciable damage upon our merchant ships. The danger-spots upon Monday and the greater part of Tuesday appear to have been the mouth of the Thames and the western entrance to the Solent. On Monday, between the Nore and Margate, there were sunk five large steamers, the Adela, Moldavia, Cusco, Cormorant, and Maid of Athens, particulars of which will be found below.

“Near Ventnor, on the same day, was sunk the Verulam, from Bombay. On Tuesday the Virginia, Caesar, King of the East, and Pathfinder were destroyed between the Foreland and Boulogne. The latter three were actually lying in French waters, and the most energetic representations have been made by the Government of the Republic.

“On the same day The Queen of Sheba, Orontes, Diana, and Atalanta were destroyed near the Needles. Wireless messages have stopped all ingoing cargo-ships from coming up Channel, but unfortunately there is evidence that at least two of the enemy’s submarines are in the West. Four cattle-ships from Dublin to Liverpool were sunk yesterday evening, while three Bristol- bound steamers, The Hilda, Mercury, and Maria Toser, were blown up in the neighbourhood of Lundy Island.

“Commerce has, so far as possible, been diverted into safer channels, but in the meantime, however vexatious these incidents may be, and however grievous the loss both to the owners and to Lloyd’s, we may console ourselves by the reflection that since a submarine cannot keep the sea for more than ten days without refitting, and since the base has been captured, there must come a speedy term to these depredations.”

This story appeared in the July, 1914 edition of the Strand Magazine. The story dealt with a conflict between Britain and a fictional country called Norland. In the story, Norland is able to bring Britain to its knees by the use of a small submarine fleet. German officials were later quoted as saying that the idea of the submarine blockade came to them after hearing Conan Doyle’s warnings against such an event. How much of that statement was truth and how much was propaganda designed to cause conflict within Britain is not known.

Read it here; http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/14573/

Paris | Metro “Arts et Métiers”

Design: François Schuiten (Belgian comic book artist)
more: pic – pic – pic

Arts et Métiers is a station of the Paris Métro. To mark the bicentenary of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in 1994, the station was redesigned by Belgian comics artist François Schuiten in a steam punk style reminiscent of the science fiction works of Jules Verne.

Arts et Métiers (Paris Métro) on wikipedia
http://www.coolstuffinparis.com/metro-arts-et-metiers-paris-steampunk.php

Deep Flight Super Falcon

The 10 Coolest Submarines

The craft “flies” just like a jet plane, with electric motors controlling for roll, pitch and yaw. It can fly downward at a maximum of 200 feet per minute, upward at twice that speed and keep flying for a maximum of five hours at 4 knots – about 4.6 mph…

keep reading

20K

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
(French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers)

is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1870.

Captain Nemo’s name is a subtle allusion to Homer’s Odyssey, a Greek epic poem. In The Odyssey, Odysseus meets the monstrous cyclops Polyphemus during the course of his wanderings. Polyphemus asks Odysseus his name, and Odysseus replies that his name is “Utis” (ουτις), which translates as “No-man” or “No-body”

Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury, “Captain Maury” in Verne’s book, a real-life oceanographer who explored the winds, seas, currents, and collected samples of the bottom of the seas and charted all of these things, is mentioned a few times in this work by Jules Verne.

References are made to other Frenchmen. Those include Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, a famous explorer who was lost while circumnavigating the globe; Dumont D’Urville,(an explorer) and Ferdinand Lesseps, builder of the French sea level crossing between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean that is known as the Suez Canal and the nephew of the man who was the sole survivor of Lapérouse’s expedition.

The most famous part of the novel, the battle against a school of giant cuttlefish, begins when a crewman opens the hatch of the boat and gets caught by one of the monsters. As he is being pulled away by the tentacle that has grabbed him, he yells “Help!” in French. At the beginning of the next chapter, concerning the battle, Aronnax states that: “To convey such sights, one would take the pen of our most famous poet, Victor Hugo, author of The Toilers of the Sea”.

The Toilers of the Sea also contains an episode where a worker fights a giant octopus, wherein the octopus symbolizes the Industrial Revolution. It is probable that Verne borrowed the symbol, but used it to allude to the Revolutions of 1848 as well, in that the first man to stand against the “monster” and the first to be defeated by it is a Frenchman.

Read: 20,000 Leagues under the Sea at Project Gutenberg, trans. by Lewis Mercier, 1872

Under the Pole in a Submarine (Aug, 1929)
on Modern Mechanix

AIRSHIPS and airplanes have conquered the arctic air, but steamships have not conquered the arctic ice. Within a hundred years two hundred or more ships have been lost in battle with the grinding pack ice. They have been caught in the arms of the merciless floes, and, splintered and crushed, have dropped into the maw of the arctic basin. Many brave crews have followed their mangled ships to the bottom of the Arctic ocean. A few, more fortunate, more experienced or cautious, have escaped to tell tales of misfortune, hardship and privation…

keep reading

The United States Navy submarine USS Nautilus (SSN-571) crossed the North Pole on August 3, 1958. On March 17, 1959, the USS Skate (SSN-578) surfaced at the Pole, becoming the first naval vessel to do so.

The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at 4,261 m (13,980 ft) by the Russian Mir submersible )above) in 2007, and at 4,087 m (13,410 ft) by USS Nautilus (below) in 1958.

In July 1951 the United States Congress authorized the construction of a nuclear-powered submarine for the U.S. Navy, which was planned and personally supervised by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, known as the “Father of the Nuclear Navy.”

Nautilus’s keel was laid at General Dynamics’ Electric Boat Division in Groton, Connecticut by Harry S. Truman, President of the United States, on 14 June 1952.

Argonne National Laboratory, together with Westinghouse, developed the basic reactor plant design used in the USS Nautilus after being given the assignment on Dec. 31, 1947. This design is the basis for nearly all of the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine and surface combat ships, and was adapted by other countries for naval nuclear propulsion.

Operation Sunshine – under the North Pole

On 25 April 1958, Nautilus was underway for the West Coast, after stopping at San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle, she began her history-making polar transit. She submerged in the Barrow Sea Valley on 1 August and on 3 August, at 2315 (EDST) she became the first watercraft to reach the geographic North Pole.

From the North Pole, she continued on and after 96 hours and 1,590 nmi (2,940 km) under the ice, she surfaced northeast of Greenland, having completed the first successful submerged voyage around the North Pole.

USS Skate at the North Pole, 1959; Submarines Under Ice

American fast attack submarine USS Skate (SSN-578) 1955-1986 on WarShipResearch

Icebreaker Arktika, the first surface ship
to reach the North Pole on August 17, 1977

On July 3, 1971, construction began on a conceptual design of a larger nuclear icebreaker, dubbed Arktika, in the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg. Four years later, on December 17, 1975, Moscow and Leningrad received radio messages informing them that sea trials had been completed successfully.

The newest and largest nuclear icebreaker at the time was ready for the Arctic. In 1982, it was officially christened Leonid Brezhnev in honor of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982.[3] In 1968, the crew of the Leonid Brezhnev, went on a communication strike. Disliking the name of the ship, they refused to respond to any radio message unless the ship was referred to as Arktika. Within a week of the strike, the name was changed back to Arktika.

On April 9, 2007 a fire broke out on the Arktika. The fire caused minor damage to three cabins and knocked out an electricity-distribution panel. The nuclear reactor was not damaged. There were no injuries. The icebreaker was in the Kara Sea when the blaze erupted, and was sent to Murmansk. The ship was officially taken out of service in October 2008.

Arktika class icebreakers on wikipedia

USS Charlotte SSN-766

The contract to build her was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia on 6 February 1987 and her keel was laid down on 17 August 1990, and she was launched on 3 October 1992.

Charlotte is a MOSUB (Mother Submarine) for the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) and is also capable of launching and recovering the Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS).

On 29 November 2005, Charlotte arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, having taken the northern route from Pearl Harbor, under the Arctic ice cap. Along the way, she surfaced at the North Pole through 61 inches of ice, a record for a Los Angeles-class submarine.

more on wikipedia

Crew of the USS Charlotte stopping for souvenir snaps at the pole. (29 photos)

USS HALFBEAK (SS 352) (1958) — Submarines Under Ice

Named for the halfbeak, a garlike fish with a beak formed by an extension of the lower jaw, found in warmer seas.

Halfbeak was launched 19 February 1946 by the Electric Boat Co., Groton, Conn. Her regular patrol duties took a turn on 28 July 1958 when she departed for the Arctic, where with the nuclear submarine Skate (SSN-578) she operated under and around the polar ice pack to gather information in connection with the International Geophysical Year.

Halfbeak was decommissioned and simultaneously struck from the Naval Register, 1 July 1971. She was sold for scrapping, 13 July 1972.

more on wikipedia

HMS Tireless on exercise at the North Pole

NOAA North Pole Web Cam

Voyage To The Deep
Issue 4 November 1964 — Issue 3 August 1963
see also: Issue 1 Sep 1962 – Issue 2 May 1963

U-118

Following surrender U-118 was to be transferred to France where it would be broken up for scrap. However, in the early hours of 15 April 1919, while it was being towed through the English Channel towards Scapa Flow, its dragging hawser broke off in a storm. The ship ran aground on the beach at Hastings in Sussex at approximately 12:45am, directly in front of the Queens Hotel.

Initially there were attempts to displace the stricken vessel; three tractors tried to refloat the submarine and a French destroyer attempted to break the ship apart using its cannons.These attempts however were unsuccessful and the proximity of the submarine to the public beach and Queens Hotel dissuaded further use of explosive forces.

The wreck of the submarine immediately became a popular tourist attraction with thousands of visitors to Hastings that Easter flocking to see the beached vessel. The vessel was put in charge of the local coastguard station and the Admiralty allowed the Town Clerk of Hastings to charge a small fee for people to climb on the deck of the submarine. This continued for two weeks, during which time the town collected almost £300 which helped fund an event to welcome the town’s troops returning from the war.

Eventually, between October and December 1919, U-118 was broken up and the pieces removed and sold for scrap.The gun was left in place but later dug up in 1921. It is believed that some of the keel from the submarine may still lie underneath the sand of the beach.

- via thingsihappentolike -

Wonder Woman 139; 1963

Ronald Reagan’s only acting gig alongside future wife Nancy Davis
Nathan Juran’s Hellcats of the Navy (1957)

Reagan plays Commander Casey Abbott, commander of the fictional submarine USS Starfish, who is ordered to undertake a dangerous mission which sees him attempting to cut off the flow of supplies between China and Japan in the heavily-mined waters off the Asiatic mainland. When a diver, who is Abbott’s competitor for the affections of Nurse Lieutenant Helen Blair (Davis) back at home, gets into a dangerous situation, Abbott must struggle to keep his personal and professional lives separate in dealing with the crisis. –wiki

“Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, CINCPAC Pacific Theatre in World War II chose to make a personal appearance in this film about submarines. That’s like having Eisenhower or MacArthur make a personal appearance in an army war film. Unheard of.” –IMDb

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yellow Submarine Movie Trailer (The Beatles)

Project 641 diesel electric attack submarine

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang.

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

Maritime Monday for May 7th, 2012

Monkey Fist — Mon, 07 May 2012 03:30:55 +0000

Die grosse Gruselserie von Jason Dark
see also: Das Ding ist da!

Die Neue Welt Illustriertes Unterhaltungsblatt für das Volk I (1882)
40 photos

The Departure of John and Sebastian Cabot from Bristol
on their First Voyage of Discovery in 1497
as painted in 1906 by Ernest Board

Discovery News:
Columbus May Not Have Been First to America

A five-century-old document has revealed that Italian bankers were behind John Cabot’s expeditions to North America.

An investigation worthy of a Dan Brown novel has shed new light on the voyages of John Cabot,‭ ‬the Italian navigator and explorer, revealing that he may have‭ ‬had‭ ‬knowledge of European expeditions to the‭ “‬New World‭”‬ that predated Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage…

Keep Reading on Discovery News

The Matthew, John Cabot’s ship, 1497

Replica of John Cabot’s sailing ship Matthew sailing across Mounts ay; West Corwall

Newfoundland – 1897
Cabot’s Ship Matthew Leaving the Avon

In 1897, on the 400th anniversary of Cabot’s discovery of North America, the Newfoundland Post Office issued a commemorative stamp honoring Cabot and his discovery

Opening its doors on what would have been his 250th birthday in 1978, The Captain Cook Birthplace Museum is located as close to the actual spot he was born as one can get without being directly on top of the granite urn that marks the spot.

The legendary navigator and mariner is honored by themed gallery displays, events, temporary exhibitions and an education program. The museum’s more interesting features are the interactive displays, hosted by “Sidney Scurvy”, a computer generated sailor who takes you through the lives and times of the crew members on Cook’s ships.

more on atlasobscura

Sometime after midnight on June 4th 1629, “The Batavia” ran aground 80 kilometers off of the Western Australian coast. Commanded by Francisco Pelsaert and carrying 322 men, women and children, the Dutch East India Company flagship was on its maiden voyage. What happened next has inspired books, plays, film and television for centuries.

Unknown to the oblivious passengers, two men had been plotting to commandeer the voyage since before the wreck, and had steered the ship off course deliberately to act out a manipulation that would make other crew members join them in mutiny. The plan failed…

West Wallabi Island

Architectural Stationery Vignettes on Bibliodyssey

Currier and Ives birdseye map of New Orleans, Louisiana in 1885 – BIG MAP BLOG

Monkey Fist

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

Maritime Monday for April 30, 2012

Monkey Fist — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:46:35 +0000

In former times, when war and strife
The French invasion threaten’d life
An’ all was armed to the knife
The Fisherman hung the monkey O !
The Fishermen with courage high,
Siezed on the monkey for a French spy;
“Hang him !” says one; “he’s to die”
They did and they hung the monkey Oh!
They tried every means to make him speak
And tortured the monkey till loud he did speak;
Says yen “thats french” says another “its Greek”
For the fishermen had got druncky oh!

– rest of the song –

Monkey hanger

During the Napoleonic wars, a French ship of the type chasse marée was wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool. The only survivor was a monkey wearing a French uniform (presumably to provide amusement for sailors on board the ship).

Finding the monkey after it had washed ashore, some locals decided to hold an impromptu trial on the beach. Since the monkey was unable to answer their questions, and many locals were unaware of what a Frenchman may look like, they concluded that the monkey was in fact a French spy. T he unfortunate animal was sentenced to death and hanged from the mast of a fishing boat on the Headland.

The term was originally derogatory, and is often applied to supporters of Hartlepool United Football Club by supporters of their arch rivals Darlington. It has since been embraced by many Hartlepudlians, and only a small minority still consider the term offensive; indeed, Hartlepool United F.C.’s mascot is a monkey called H’Angus the Monkey.

In 2002, Stuart Drummond campaigned for the office of Mayor of Hartlepool in the costume of H’Angus the Monkey and narrowly won. His election slogan was “Free Bananas for Schoolchildren”, a promise he was unable to keep. He has since been re-elected twice.

An alternative theory put forward is that the mascot counted as a member of the crew and that if it had survived they would not have been eligible for salvage rights under the terms of maritime law.

images:
Voici quelques minuscules extraits des planches 18 à 40 de la bd “Le singe de Hartlepool”

– This is a photo of the Old Heugh Lighthouse and its keeper –

The Lighthouse was the first of its kind in England to use coal gas
as a luminant and stood from 1847 to 1915.
Lighthouses and Lifeboats flickr set from Museum of Hartlepool (9 images)

The Lighthouse

HMS Trincomalee; from Intricate Ship Sterns: Art on the Ocean

from This is Hartlepool:

Britain’s oldest warship afloat! The wooden frigate – previously called HMS Foudroyant has become the symbol for Hartlepool and takes pride of place in the center of Hartlepool’s Historic Quay and Maritime Experience.

HMS Trincomalee 1817 is berthed afloat at Hartlepool Historic Quay, where a major award-winning restoration and interpretation of the Ship was completed in the early summer of 2001. You can read more about the restoration of HMS Trincomalee here, or read about her history here.

Brought to Hartlepool in 1987 as nothing more than a rotting hulk, the ship is now fully masted and attracting thousands of visitors every year and takes pride of place on the masthead of the Hartlepool Mail.

- View more images in our gallery -

– Hartlepool lifeboat Betty Huntbatch –
Original (2160 x 1440)

– Hartlepool Docks from the air –
Large (1024 x 683)

– Suter, Hartmann & Rahtjen’s Composition Co Ltd –
on display in the Beamish Museum

– Victorian Hybrid: The Killingworth –

Photograph showing steam and sail ship, the ”Killingworth”, which was based in London, in harbour at Hartlepool Headland.

Ships wrecked on Haisborough Sands: SS Cambria after a collision with SS Killingworth on the 14 May 1891

from The Pattison Collection;

“This set holds a group of images taken by the Reverend James Whitehead Pattinson during the latter years of the 19th Century, in and around the Hartlepool and Bishop Auckland areas. Many show simple street scenes, or views from the beach at Seaton Carew, while others record the town’s diverse range of inhabitants and characters. Indeed, often picturing the poorer, even illiterate members of society, Pattison’s images enable us to gain a rare insight into the lives of Hartlepool’s working classes, whom history has often overlooked.

“Ordained in 1882, Pattison was posted to the Holy Trinity Church in Seaton Carew in 1885 in order to help its rector, the Reverend John Lawson, during his twilight years. Here, in 1887, he took up the hobby of photography and began to record the everyday lives of the townsfolk. A father of two, he appears to be a kind and generous man who was especially good with children, whom he even taught to use his camera and photographic equipment…”

– Seaton Carew, children and bathing machine –

Seaton Carew is a small seaside resort within the Borough of Hartlepool, in North East England with a population of 6,018 (2001). It is situated on the North Sea coast between the town of Hartlepool and the mouth of the River Tees. The area is named after a Norman French family called Carou who owned lands in the area and settled there, while ‘Seaton’ means farmstead or settlement by the sea.

more on wikipedia

– wreck of the Danish schooner Doris at North Gare, Seaton Carew –

On the coast to the north of Seaton is a promenade which allows visitors to walk from Seaton Carew to Hartlepool Marina. This promenade gives unrestricted views across the North Sea, and on a clear day all the way down to Whitby. Along the coastline is the Hartlepool Submerged Forest.

Further south is the bus station with renovated grade II listed art deco clock tower and shelters. South of this is a beachside car park overlooking Seaton Carew Wreck, the protected remains of a wooden collier vessel on the beach below the tide line.

– Seaton Carew Lifeboat and Crew –

During a northerly gale in the early hours of 31 January, 1907 the cargo steamship SS Clavering became stranded near North Gare breakwater in the mouth of the river Tees. During a 31 hour joint rescue the Seaton Carew and Hartlepool lifeboats removed a total of 39 people from the vessel—the RNLI subsequently awarded Silver Medals to coxswain Shepherd Sotheran and John Franklin, coxswain superintendent of the Seaton Carew Lifeboat.

First appearing in a1957 comic strip in the Daily Mirror newspaper, Andy Capp is a chauvinistic, flat-cap wearing lay-about, chronically unemployed pub-dweller from Hartlepool who spends most of his days perched precariously on or between the local watering hole with his mate Chalkie and his living room sofa in Number 37 Durham Street.

Scourge of his long suffering wife Flo, Andy also has a penchant for the bookmakers, avoiding Percy the rent collector, post pub fish and chips and booze related fistfights, both in and outside public houses. Reg Smythe, his creator, based Andy on the characters he saw whilst growing up in depression-era Hartlepool in the 1930′s.

The Andy Capp strip was accused of perpetuating stereotypes about Britain’s Northerners, who are seen in other parts of England as chronically unemployed, dividing their time between the sofa and the neighborhood pub, with a few hours set aside for violence at soccer games. Even his name is a perfect phonetic rendition of that region’s pronunciation of the word “handicap” (which the cartoonist chose because a handicap is exactly what Andy is to his hard-working wife, Flo).

Smythe had nothing but affection for his good-for-nothing protagonist, a fact which showed in his work. Since the very beginning, Andy has been immensely popular among the people he supposedly skewers.

In 1987, a computer game based on the Andy Capp comic strips was released to the Commodore 64 entitled Andy Capp: The Game. Players had to borrow money in order to replenish Andy’s beer supply whilst avoiding fights with either Flo or the police.

– Andy Capp World blog –

– Andy Capp Statue; Hartlepool –

– Sail and Steam: Changing Tides –
Museum of Hartlepool

SS Irish Elm – Capacity Plan

William Gray’s was the largest shipbuilding company in West Hartlepool. Dating from 1874 there are approximately 35,000 ship plans in the Gray’s Shipyard Archive. This collection is owned and managed by Hartlepool Cultural Services. Most of the plans date from the late 1920s to 1961 when the last ship was launched. The majority of plans were printed onto starched linen cloth and were stored rolled up in tubes.

left: Alarm clock with a piece of German shell embedded in the dial. The clock was damaged during the bombardment of the Hartlepools on 16th December 1914. It is said that the clock stopped at the time of the shell hitting it. The clock belonged to a resident at 14 Collingwood Road but is now part of the collections at the Museum of Hartlepool and is on permanent display. Ironically the clock was manufactured in Germany. right: Bombardment damage to the Lighthouse Café with the lighthouse in the background.

Bombardment (Set: 50) – Museum of Hartlepool

more: Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby

“Grimsby – the largest fishing port in the world”
postcard dated 21 Dec 1908 (see gallery)

Under-the-Bow
by Mike—Whittaker

Grimsby Docks
by John Gulliver

Grimsby_Town
by ArcticCorsair

Grimsby Docks

Grimsby developed around a small river called the Haven, which joined the Humber and provided a save haven for ships on the estuary. During the twelfth century, imports included coal from Newcastle upon Tyne, wine from France and Spain, and timber from Norway. The main export was wool.

In 1796, an Act of Parliament was obtained, which authorised the construction of new quays and dredging of the Haven to make it deeper. By the middle of the century, a more radical solution was needed, and the foundation stone for the Royal Dock was laid by Albert the Prince consort in 1849. The dock covers 25 acres (10 ha) and was formally opened by Queen Victoria in 1854.

The dock gates and cranes were operated by hydraulic power, and the 300-foot (91 m) Grimsby Dock Tower was built to provide a head of water with sufficient pressure. Opening of the No. 1 Fish Dock followed in 1856. Further construction took place in the 1870s, with No. 2 Fish Dock opening in 1877 and the Union Dock and Alexandra Dock in 1879. The fishing fleet expanded, and No. 3 Fish Dock was built in 1934.

– A brief history of Grimsby on localhistories.org –

- Grimsby Docks on Flickriver –

BYGONES: The embryo that spawned the industryon This is Grimsby

A trawler on the slipways in the Grimsby Docks is being converted into a minesweeper

Grimsby Docks – August 1963 by J.C. Carter

Grimsby trawlers (more)

Grimsby Fish Docks; Centenary Exhibition – British First Day Covers

The Queen re-opened the Cutty Sark on Wednesday
(25 April) after its six-year conservation project

Cutty Sark restoration an ‘honour and a joy’

A Suffolk craftsman has spoken of his pride at being involved in the restoration of the Cutty Sark.

Charles Le Sauvage spent six months restoring two lifeboats for the 19th Century tea clipper, which was almost completely destroyed by fire in 2007.

The lifeboats had already been removed from the ship but were damaged by rot.

Mr Le Sauvage, who restored the boats at his workshop near Framlingham, said: “It was an honour and a joy to work on the project.”

“The majority of the work was stripping it back to bare wood, repainting and applying wood preserver to the inside and revarnishing all the inside,” said Mr Le Sauvage.

Another Suffolk man, Hugh Leeper, produced canvases for the restored Cutty Sark.

– keep reading on the BBC –

Ahoy! Historic Cutty Sark clipper ship
set to open after restoration

– more on msnbc –

– A ceiling of tea chests in the lower hold –

We may be known as a nation of tea drinkers, but it’s difficult to imagine just how big the tea business was in the late 19th century. In 1849 Britain imported over 25 million kilograms of Chinese tea. That’s enough for 8 billion cups. And with customers keen to drink the freshest brew, using the fastest ships wasn’t just important, it made you more money. The first tea to arrive back home commanded a premium price, making ‘first to market’ everyone’s aim. The Cutty Sark didn’t disappoint. She may famously have been beaten by the Thermopylae in 1872, after losing her rudder off Indonesia, but she regularly got away from China before her rivals.

My other ship’s a clipper: inside the restored Cutty Sark
from The Beagle Project Blog

GIZMODO: Conservation of the Cutty Sark is among the most extensive ever taken on a historical ship. The ship suffered extensive damage in a fire that raged for hours before firefighters could bring it under control. The center of the ship suffered the most damage. However, over the course of six years the government completely restored her to spec, down to the 11 miles of rigging that keep the sails up…

Simply Stunning—The World Famous Cutty Sark After Its £50 Million Renovation

Click here to view the embedded video.

VIDEO: HM The Queen re-opens the Cutty Sark and Inspects Royal Barge

BBC News London:

“The 2007 fire was caused by an industrial vacuum cleaner which had been left switched on for two days while a conservation project was being carried out to repair Cutty Sark’s iron framework.

Fortunately, the ship’s masts, saloon and deckhouses had been removed and put into storage in Kent when the fire took hold.

more

Click here to view the embedded video.

VIDEO: Cutty Sark National Treasure (I HR)

Prince Philip – who helped save the ship for the nation back in the 1950s – has been to see the restoration progress for himself…

– BBC VIDEO –

– At a fair clip: an 1872 painting of the Cutty Sark by Frederick Tudgay –

Frederick Tudgay (1841-1921) was the youngest and arguably the most talented member of the prestigious Tudgay family of marine artists. Working occasionally in collaboration with his father, John, Frederick’s talent for portraying detail and his draftsman-like technique drew the attention of the maritime community.

Frederick worked as a painter of ship interiors for the Green Shipyard in Blackwall, giving him direct access to study ship design and construction techniques.

Working in London during the last half of the nineteenth century, the Tudgays painted almost exclusively on direct commission from owners and captains, producing accurate ship portraits known for their fidelity to vessel design. Today, their works are considered important examples of British marine painting, sought after by knowledgeable collectors the world over.

– industrial artifacts review –

The Guardian: Up From the Ashes

Not since retreating German troops torched a museum containing two of Caligula’s imperial barges, near Rome in 1944, has fire destroyed such an important vessel. The blaze that reduced the Cutty Sark to a blackened iron core yesterday was cruel in many ways…

The Cutty Sark was the one of the most refined of all ships, the Concorde of her day, fast, delicate and elegant. Her curved lines showed she was not some salt-crusted carrier but a whippet of the seas, designed to race from China with tea. Never quite the fastest, or happiest of ships – beaten for speed by the Thermopylae, the greatest clipper of all – she was nonetheless the last to survive.

– keep reading –

Cutty Sark restoration: A Clucking, Grade A, Bernard Matthews-Class Turkey

Today’s Weekend cover story in the printed paper is my take on the heartbreaking vandalism of the Cutty Sark, and Greenwich in general, in the name of witless, bungled, and unnecessary “restoration.”

Odd: I didn’t realise they had shopping–centre–style glass lifts in their ships in 1869. The new Cutty Sark has three. One entire side of the vessel is now dominated by a 30–foot high steel tower to hold two of the lifts, rearing up above the ship’s open main deck like a small block of flats. The tower also contains an air–conditioning plant. In another conspicuous nod to the mall experience, the Cutty Sark will be the first Victorian sailing vessel in the history of the world to be fully air–conditioned. The new “steelwork lower deck, of contemporary design, incorporating an amphitheatre feature” in the main hold might come as a surprise to 19th–century seafarers, too.

– keep reading on The Telegraph –

– 1957 booklet –

– Cigarette card on NYPL –

Last voyage of the Cutty Sark
The Cutty Sark leaving Greenhithe for Greenwich 1958
marine artist Anthony Blackman

Cutty Sark is a range of blended Scotch whisky produced by Edrington plc of Glasgow whose main office is less than 10 miles from the birthplace of the famous clipper ship of the same name. The whisky was created on March 23, 1923, with the home of the blend considered to be at The Glenrothes distillery in the Speyside region of Scotland. The name comes from the River Clyde-built clipper ship Cutty Sark, whose name came from the Scots language term cutty-sark, the short shirt prominently mentioned in the famous poem by Robert Burns – “Tam o’ Shanter”. The drawing of the clipper ship Cutty Sark on the label of the whisky bottles is a work of the Swedish artist Carl Georg August Wallin. He was a mariner painter, and this is probably his most famous ship painting. This drawing has been on the whisky bottles since 1955.

Cutty Sark homepage

Gangsters like Al Capone made a fortune from the illegal trade in whiskey that was smuggled into the US via Canada and the Bahamas.

The most famous whiskey-smuggler was Captain McCoy, known for his excellent contraband. His name became a synonym for good quality whiskey. In the speakeasies people started asking for ‘The Real McCoy’ when they wanted some of the Captain’s finest uncut whiskey.

Ultimately, Prohibition only caused the opposite of what was intended. People actually drank more than ever during those dark years.

For the Scots it wasn’t dark at all, because they overthrew the Irish and American whiskey monopoly by shipping huge quantities of blended whisky to Canada and the relatively safe Bahamas. One of the brands Captain McCoy became famous for was Cutty Sark…

– Keep Reading on Whiskey in America –

Hartlepool Town Wall: dating from the late 14th century, the limestone wall once enclosed the whole of the medieval town. The ancient houses overlook the entrance to Victoria Docks, which can be seen in the background.

Monkey Fist

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

Maritime Monday for April 23, 2012: Dunkirk Jack

Monkey Fist — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 03:30:43 +0000

A naval officer overlooks Ramsgate harbour as about 50 original
Operation Dynamo boats prepare to depart

A fleet of Little Ships that rescued Allied troops from Dunkirk in 1940 has set sail from Ramsgate to mark the 70th anniversary of the event. Fifty vessels headed to France to commemorate Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of 338,000 soldiers from Dunkirk’s beaches. The troops had been driven back to the French coast by the German army during the second world war

- Gallery on theguardian -

Mrs. Miniver (1942) – Directed by: William Wyler; Starring: Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon

Miss Monkey watched the old classic Mrs. Miniver the other night, and was inspired to make this week’s Maritime Monday about the Evacuation of Dunkirk.

Based on the fictional English housewife created by Jan Struther in 1937 for a series of newspaper columns, the film won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Director.

Mrs. Kay Miniver (Greer Garson) and her family live a comfortable life at a house called “Starlings” in a village outside London. The house has a large garden, with a private landing stage on the river Thames, and a motorboat. As World War II looms, Clem; together with other boat owners, volunteers to take his boat to assist in the Dunkirk evacuation.

Director William Wyler wrote and re-wrote the key sermon “the night before the sequence was to be shot.” The speech “made such an impact that it was used in essence by President Roosevelt as a morale builder and part of it was the basis for leaflets printed in various languages and dropped over enemy and occupied territory.”

In 2009, it was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant and will be preserved for all time. Soon after filming, Richard Ney, who played Kay Miniver’s son and was 11 years her junior, married Garson. –wikipedia

Well, that explains the conspicuously long on-the-mouth kisses they exchanged during the film.

Final outcome of the war being no where near certain by the film’s release in 1942, the studio wisely chose to omit any sweeping declarations about Victorious Britannia and the everlasting pluck of her peoples.

- Mrs Miniver on IMDb -

- Synopsis and Reviews on British Film Institute -

- Picture of Mrs. Miniver; see full size (600×1611) -

The Dunkirk evacuation, commonly known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, code-named Operation Dynamo by the British, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 26 May and the early hours of 3 June 1940. Operation Dynamo took its name from the dynamo room in the naval headquarters below Dover Castle.

The evacuation was ordered on 26 May. In a speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill called the events in France “a colossal military disaster”, saying that “the whole root and core and brain of the British Army” had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. In his We shall fight on the beaches speech on 4 June, he hailed their rescue as a “miracle of deliverance”.

NEWSREEL: British Dunkirk Evacuation Footage
(many more videos in sidebar)

Great Speeches: Winston Churchill “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” (text)
House of Commons; Following May 26, Operation Dynamo
Video of Churchill’s Speech

Click here to view the embedded video.

Battle of Dunkirk [hi rez video]

Fight them on the beaches … stranded troops

Operation Dynamo, The Evacuation from Dunkirk, 27 May-4 June 1940

About 338,000 men were saved in about 11 days. About 215,000 were British, 123,000 were French — of whom 102,250 escaped in British ships.

- map showing the shrinking BEF perimeter at Dunkirk -

BBC Archive remembers Dunkirk

A new online collection from BBC Archive released today commemorates the heroes of Dunkirk and reveals the personal stories behind the event which has become synonymous with the true spirit of British wartime defiance.

Julie Rowbotham, Executive Producer, BBC Archive said:

“These archive programmes offer us a glimpse of the trauma of Dunkirk, but also provide us with an account of the many heroic deeds carried out during those few desperate days of the evacuation.”

Other highlights include: an interview with Charles Herbert Lightoller, famous as the most senior surviving officer from the Titanic, describing the hazards he faced when he took his yacht to the beaches.

This collection is the latest in a series of archive collection to be released online and which explore the cultural and political developments that shaped the 20th century. WWII – Dunkirk Evacuation is available online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/dunkirk/

An appeal for boating skills…

L: Members of Royal Ulster Rifles waiting on improvised pier of lorries to evacuate Dunkirk
during low tide R: British soldiers being evacuated from a Dunkirk beach (The Telegraph)

Small ships including pleasure craft were used to
evacuate allied troops from Dunkirk. Here, being towed

The Telegraph: Dunkirk evacuation:Operation Dynamo in pictures

Although the events at Dunkirk gave a great boost to British morale, they also left the remaining French to stand alone against a renewed German assault southward. German troops entered Paris on 14 June and accepted the French surrender on 22 June.

HMS Whitehall D94

Destroyers loaded with soldiers of the British expeditionary force, evacuated after fighting from Dunkirk during operation Dynamo, moor to berth when they return to England. Ship number D-94 in the background the Destroyer HMS Whitehall on 1st June 1940 during the operation, was damaged by German bombers.

- full size -

Abandoned weapons on the beach

BBC VIDEO: Three soldiers, Harry Garrett, Arthur Waterhouse and Alfred Smith, all rescued from the Dunkirk beaches in 1940, tell their stories

A beached French coastal patrol craft and a British Universal Carrier abandoned
at Dunkirk hours after the evacuation

The loss of materiel on the beaches was huge. The British Army left enough equipment behind to equip about eight to ten divisions. Left behind in France were, among huge supplies of ammunition, 880 field guns, 310 guns of large calibre, some 500 anti-aircraft guns, about 850 anti-tanks guns, 11,000 machine guns, nearly 700 tanks, 20,000 motorcycles and 45,000 motor cars and lorries.

The shortage of army vehicles after Dunkirk was so severe that the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was reduced to retrieving and refurbishing numbers of obsolete bus and coach models from British scrapyards to press them into use as troop transports. Some of these antique workhorses were still in use as late as the North African campaign of 1942.

British ships Dunkirk Harbour

Lockheed Hudson of RAF Coastal Command approaching the beaches of Dunkirk,
with “little ships” in action below – see also: Spitfires Join the Fighting

Little ships of Dunkirk

On 27 May, the small-craft section of the British Ministry of Shipping telephoned boat builders around the coast, asking them to collect all boats with “shallow draft” that could navigate the shallow waters. Attention was directed to the pleasure boats, private yachts and launches moored on the River Thames and along the south and east coasts.

The term Little Ship applies to all craft that were originally privately owned and includes private yachts, barges, British, French, Belgian and Dutch fishing vessels and pleasure steamers, but the Association does include some ex-Service vessels, which are now privately owned, and ex-Lifeboats.

–Naval Jacks of the UK

In nine days, 192,226 British and 139,000 French soldiers — 331,226 in all — were rescued by the 700 little ships and around 220 warships. The rescue operation turned a military disaster into a story of heroism which served to raise the morale of the British.

Dunkirk (1958) Movie Poster – posted by The Kent Film Office (see full size)

Dunkirk is a 1958 British war film directed by Leslie Norman and starring John Mills, Richard Attenborough and Bernard Lee. It was based on two novels: Elleston Trevor’s The Big Pick-Up and Lt. Col. Ewan Hunter and Maj. J. S. Bradford’s Dunkirk.

The film relates the story of Operation Dynamo, principally from the viewpoints of two people: a newspaper reporter and a soldier.

Dunkirk (film) on wikipedia
Dunkirk at the IMDb

WEEKEND AT DUNKIRK poster

Weekend at Dunkirk (French: Week-end à Zuydcoote) is a 1964 drama film directed by Henri Verneuil and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo.[1] It is based on the 1949 Prix Goncourt winning novel Week-end at Zuydcoote (French: Week-end à Zuydcoote) by Robert Merle. Music by Maurice Jarre.

Week-end à Zuydcoote on IMDb

Hilfranor; A Dunkirk Little Ship – read the story of her restoration

Some of them were taken with the owners’ permission — and with the owners insisting they would sail them — while others were requisitioned by the government with no time for the owners to be contacted. The boats were checked to make sure they were seaworthy, fueled, and taken to Ramsgate to set sail for Dunkirk. They were manned by Naval Officers, Ratings and experienced volunteers. Very few owners manned their own vessels, apart from fishermen and one or two others.

British propaganda later exploited the successful evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, and particularly the role of the “Dunkirk little ships”, very effectively. Many of the “little ships” were private vessels such as fishing boats and pleasure cruisers, but commercial vessels such as ferries also contributed to the force, including a number from as far away as the Isle of Man and Glasgow.

These smaller vessels—guided by naval craft across the Channel from the Thames Estuary and from Dover—assisted in the official evacuation. Being able to reach much closer in the beachfront shallows than larger craft, the “little ships” acted as shuttles to and from the larger craft, lifting troops who were queuing in the water, many waiting shoulder-deep in water for hours. The term “Dunkirk Spirit” still refers to a popular belief in the solidarity of the British people in times of adversity.

- Little ships of Dunkirk on wikipedia -

Regal Lady – photo by Whipper snapper (full size)

Regal Lady and the Coronia

Some of the rescued were sailed back to ports like Ramsgate or Dover, others were only carried out a short distance and then transferred to larger ships so that the little ships could turn towards the hostile shore and make another run.

The Woolwich ferries, yachts, motor cruisers, RNLI lifeboats, pleasure boats, a Thames fire boat and even Thames sailing barges were pressed into service for the evacuation which eventually saved more than a third of a million men.

One story is told that a group of soldiers found an abandoned Thames sailing barge of about 90 tons stranded on the Dunkirk beach. Without any sailing experience the soldiers re-floated the barge and sailed it back to Britain themselves.

- see also -

MV Royal Daffodil

The 465 ton, 152′ long SS Royal Daffodil leaving Southend

Royal Daffodil

The River Mersey ferry evacuated 7,461 service personnel from Dunkirk in five trips between 28 May and 2 June, among them the French historian Marc Bloch, who served as a captain in the campaign. This was the largest number evacuated by a single passenger vessel in the operation. On 2 June, she was attacked by six German aircraft. A bomb dropped by one of them penetrated two of her decks and blew a hole below the water line, but she managed to limp back to port.

Dunkirk and beaches with Paddle Steamer in background by Ivan Barryman

Painting of HMS Medway Queen, Heroine of Dunkirk

Medway Queen

The paddle steamer made the most round trips — seven — rescuing 7,000 men and earning herself the nickname “Heroine of Dunkirk”. –website

All hands … steamer sent to evacuate – The Sun.UK

The Sundowner is a 58 foot (18m) motor yacht at the Ramsgate Maritime Museum in England.

Sundowner

Owned by Charles Lightoller, former second officer of the Titanic, was requisitioned by the Admiralty on 30 May. Lightoller insisted that, if anyone was going to take her to Dunkirk, it would be him and his eldest son, Roger, together with Sea Scout Gerald Ashcroft. The men transported 130 soldiers back to Ramsgate, reportedly packed together like sardines, almost capsizing when they reached the shore.

- more -

52′ Express Cruiser Breda back home at Ramsgate

miniature Bluebird of Chelsea on Solent Radio Control Model Boat page

Bluebird of Chelsea: the yacht originally built for Sir Malcolm Campbell, made two round trips to Kent, carrying hundreds of men.

She had three further owners before being requisitioned by the Admiralty at the outbreak of World War II. Soon she was on her way with the flotilla of “little ships” to Dunkirk. Not without two false starts though, first due to engine trouble and then over-crowding. Her return from Dunkirk was even more fraught: after first refilling the fuel tanks with water, then fouling her screws on debris, she returned under tow.

- more -

Tamzine

A fishing boat less than 15 feet (4.6 m) in length; the smallest boat to take part in the evacuation and now preserved by the Imperial War Museum.

image: The Flotilla and The Fleet

Named after the eighteen-year-old wife of a sailing skipper, who was drowned off the Isles of Scilly in an eighteenth century shipwreck and is said to be buried in the churchyard at St. Mary’s, Tamzine is the smallest surviving open fishing boat to take part in Operation Dynamo. She is less than 15ft. long, clinker built, light yet strongly made and was designed for year-round fishing off the shore at Birchington in Kent.

Mona’s Isle (IV) on simplonPC

Isle of Man Steam Packet Company

from wikipedia:

In the Second World War, ten of the fleet of sixteen ships were commandeered for active duty, four of which were lost. The Dunkirk evacuation was perhaps the company’s finest hour, with Mona’s Isle (IV) being the first to leave Dover and the first to complete the round trip during the evacuation.

Eight company ships took part in this mission, rescuing a total of 24,699 British troops – one in fourteen of those evacuated from Dunkirk.The anchor from Mona’s Queen (III) was raised as part of the 70th anniversary commemoration of Operation Dynamo at Dunkirk. It is to be sited at Kallow Point in Port St Mary as a memorial to the company’s crew who took part in the war

By the end of operations, the fleet had rescued a total of 24,699, 1 in 14 of those evacuated from Dunkirk

- Isle of Man Steam Packet Company (website) -

The Endeavour - a Leigh cockle boat and Dunkirk veteran, restored by a local charitable trust: see here
She’s the last survivor of the five Leigh cocklers that answered the call (see full size – and another)

Commander JH Allison, HMS Worcester and the last daylight ship evacuation from Dunkirk

Association of Dunkirk Little Ships

Sea Scout Boat Minotaur

Aboard the Devonia (Flickr photo posted by gt_hawk63)

Batten Photo, The Capstone, Ilfracombe. An RPPC found in an Eastbourne antique shop. The Devonia survived until 30 May, 1940 when she was sunk while taking part in the Dunkirk evacuation. more: paddlesteamers.awardspace.com/Devonia.htm

Lancastria – (1924-40) – ex-Tyrrhenia on simplonPC

The evacuation of British troops and civilians from France in 1940 did not end with Dunkirk. Several weeks later, on June 17, 1940, the British Cunard liner Lancastria was loaded to capacity with troops and civilians off the French port of St. Nazaire, when she was struck by three direct hits from a German Junkers 88 bomber. As many as 6,500 men, women and children were lost when the ship sank.

It was the worst maritime disaster in British history. The sinking claimed more lives than the combined losses of Titanic and Lusitania. News of the disaster was covered up. Churchill said that, “The newspapers have got quite enough disaster for today, at least…”

- keep reading on Old Salt Blog -

- Lancastria: Britain’s forgotten disaster on BBC -

- Lancastria enters the war on Lancastria.org -

- Radio review: The Sinking of the Lancastria on The Guardian -

The Dunkirk Jack

The St George’s Cross defaced with the arms of Dunkirk flown from the jack staff is known as the Dunkirk jack and is only flown by civilian ships and boats of all sizes that took part in the Dunkirk rescue operation in 1940. The only other ships permitted to fly the George’s Cross flag at the bow are those with a Royal Navy Admiral on board.

“Permission was given by the Admiralty, the College of Heralds and the City of Dunkirk for the Cross of St. George (the flag of Admiralty) to be defaced with the Arms of Dunkirk for use as the Association’s House Flag. This can be worn by Member Ships at any time when the owner is aboard. In addition, when in company, we fly the undefaced Cross of St. George at the bow.

“To avoid any possible confusion with barges wearing an Admiral’s flag, the Dunkirk Little Ships must wear the Red Ensign when flying the undefaced Flag of St. George at the bows…”

–source: Jacks of the UK

above right: St George’s Cross
below right: Blason ville fr Dunkerque:

“A lion sable passant armed and langued gules, argent a dolphin azure naiant embowed finned and langued gules. In other words, picturing a (former) Flemish city and harbour.”

The Flag of England is the St George’s Cross. The red cross appeared as an emblem of England in the Middle Ages, specifically during the Crusades (although the original symbol used to represent English crusaders was a white cross on a red background) and is one of the earliest known emblems representing England. It also represents the official arms of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and it achieved status as the national flag of England during the sixteenth century.

The flag used by the British Royal Navy (the White Ensign) is also based on the flag of England, consisting of the St George’s Cross and a Union Flag in the canton. In addition to the UK, several countries in the Commonwealth of Nations also have variants of the White Ensign with their own national flags in the canton, with the St George’s Cross sometimes being replaced by a naval badge.

more: History of the Union Jack on wikipedia

‘Little Ships’ Rerun Finds Its Own Dunkirk

DOVER, England — Few moments in modern British history are more iconic than the evacuation of the British expeditionary force of nearly 340,000 troops in the spring of 1940 from the beaches of Dunkirk, 22 miles across the Channel from the white chalk cliffs that overlook this ancient port town. At the time, Winston Churchill called it “a miracle of deliverance.”

This time, the effort centered on a group of men in a flotilla of inflatable speedboats who set out from Dover to ferry some of their stranded compatriots home from the rail and ferry chaos created by the cloud of volcanic ash that has shut down much of Europe’s air traffic.

- keep reading on NY Times -

The Sun: A FLOTILLA of old boats set sail for Dunkirk today to commemorate the
70th anniversary of the famous allied WWII rescue mission.

video: Dramatic Dunkirk evacuation anniversary on The Telegraph

Veterans Charles Searle, 92, 3rd Canadian Medical Corps, and Lionel Tucker, 93, Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, salute on board a ferry bound for Dunkirk, France, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Operation Dynamo

- The Telegraph (11 images) -

Dunkirk war memorial – photo by murky

“this memorial wall are in the Dunkirk harbor and are made with old paving stones of the pier, used by the passage of allied soldiers (French and British) who waiting for a evacuation to the Great Britain.”

- Site officiel du mémorial du souvenir de Dunkerque -

Dunkirk harbour wall at sunset – photo by orlando72

Dunkirk beach today – photo by Ruud Welten

Monkey Fist

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

Maritime Monday for April 16, 2012: Asleep in the Deep

Monkey Fist — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:23 +0000

Third-class tea cup china used by passengers and the crew, is shown as part of the artifacts
collection at a warehouse in Atlanta, in this Aug 15, 2008 file photo. (AP Photo/Stanley Leary, File)

Just As The Ship Went Down
Words by Edith Maida Lessing ; Music by Bernie Adler & Sidney Gibson

A cold dark night, a sea of ice… (sheet music viewable here)

Lead Belly – The Titanic

Edited version of a song by Huddy Ledbetter aka Leadbelly. Recorded by Alan Lomax in 1948.
(“Aint haulin no coal…” reference to race laws prohibiting black folk passage on the great boat)

- click link above please; embedding has been disabled -

- The Titanic under construction -

RMS stands for Royal Mail Ship, indicating that the Titanic was contracted to carry mail. The Titanic had a Post Office and Mail Room deep in the ship on decks F and G, the blue prints of which are held by the BPMA. The five postal workers were tasked with sorting much of the mail which had been brought on board the ship, 3,364 bags in total, as well as dealing with any letters which were posted on the ship by passengers and crew.

When the ship struck the iceberg, the postal workers were celebrating (an employee’s) 44th birthday. However, they soon realised that the Mail Room was flooding and so attempted to move 200 sacks of registered mail to the upper decks in the hope of saving them. They press-ganged several stewards into helping them, one of whom later recalled:

“I urged them to leave their work. They shook their heads and continued at their work. It might have been an inrush of water later that cut off their escape, or it may have been the explosion. I saw them no more…”

- The Post Office aboard the Titanic on Cruising the Past -
- image: The Royal Mail (1935) -

- RMS Titanic running the vessel SS New York off her moorings and almost colliding with her -

- Rotterdam Maritiem Museum; Titanic Tableware -

- see also: dinner plate – porcelein

‘Titanic’: ‘Downton Abbey’ Creator Julian Fellowes Brings The Titanic To Life In New ABC Special

7 to 10 p.m. Saturday and 8 to 9 p.m. Sunday on ABC

“Titanic,” a four-part miniseries written by “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes, will attempt to tell the whole story of what really happened on that fateful night in 1912 like you’ve never seen it done before.

“This is a portrait of a ship in a way that other versions haven’t been,” Fellowes told The Daily Mail at the press launch of the miniseries at the London Film Museum. “’A Night to Remember’ is a wonderful film but its mainly about the officers. James Cameron’s was another wonderful film, but that is a love story set against the sinking of the Titanic… We, right from the start, set out to tell the story of the whole ship.”

a week of titanica
on transpress nz

Titanic Wreck Site Gets UNESCO Protection

The wreck of the Titanic will come under UNESCO protection as the 100th anniversary of its sinking passes on 15 April, the United Nations cultural body said.

Since the British liner sank in international waters, “no State has exclusive jurisdiction over the wreckage area,” the Paris-based Unesco said in a statement.

For this reason, the wreck, as well as other vessels that sank in international waters at least 100 years ago, will fall under the cover of the 2001 UNESCO convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage.

- more on Discovery News -

Asleep in the Deep
Words by A.J. Lamb ; Music by H.W. Petrie

Loudly the bell in the old tower rings, biding us list to the warning it brings…

As sung with success by Harry Tanner (inset photo)
On a stormy night, the lighthouse bell can be heard; on a ship are two lovers, unaware of the danger they face; the following day the sun shines, the wreckage lies on the shore, and the two lovers now rest in peace.

- Sheet music, 1897; The New York Public Library -

The Titanic is Doomed and Sinking
- Words by Owen Lynch, Music by Wm. H. Farrell (1912) -

Neil deGrasse Tyson Should Get an Editor’s Credit on the Titanic Re-Release

Seeing a popular motion picture reappear in theaters years after its initial release is not a new thing. However, as technical advances continue to speed exponentially forward, a film’s re-issue gives a filmmaker the opportunity to make strategic changes to the content of the film – alter digital effects, add new scenes, swap out one object for another.

Typically, if a director makes a change, it’s something that can be readily noticed and, hopefully, adds something new to the film.
Sometimes, though, you make a change just because a really cool astrophysicist asks you to do so – such as is the case with the re-release of James Cameron’s film Titanic. While Cameron went to notorious lengths to recreate the Titanic itself, he forgot to recreate everything else above it.

The Telegraph has revealed that while viewing the epic film, the brilliant Neil deGrasse Tyson was so bothered by the portrayal of the night sky on the evening of the Titanic’s sinking, he badgered Cameron to correct the mistake…

- keep reading on Mental Floss -

Duncan’s Cigarette cards; Evolution of the Steamship; SS Titanic
(see entire set)

How did Titanic really break up?
By Richard Woytowich | April 9, 2012

I’m a member of the Marine Forensics Committee, and author or co-author of three peer-reviewed papers on the “Titanic”. My most recent paper, “The Breakup Of Titanic – A Re-Examination of Survivor Accounts”, was presented at the First International Marine Forensics Symposium on April 4.

Working with Roy Mengot (with whom I co-authored one paper), I’ve been gathering evidence to support a reconstruction of the breakup of the “Titanic” that differs somewhat from the one you may have seen in movies or in other publications. The most important stages in our reconstruction are illustrated here

In our reconstruction, the failure began in the ship’s bottom structure, when the ship was at an angle of about 17 degrees. The failure spread across the breadth of the ship, then upward; it also spread forward and aft, probably along lightly riveted longitudinal seams, forming two separate pieces of the double bottom…

According to an article on the History Channel website, our work will be challenged in a documentary to be aired on the anniversary of the sinking.

- keep reading on Scientific American -

- Titanic Museum is situated in COBH near Cork, Ireland, the last port visited by the Titanic -

- White Star Tenders; vintage postcard -

Two of the tenders that ferried passengers out to the Titanic when she stopped at Queenstown

A Titanic Timeline, 1909-2012

From the great ocean liner’s construction to its sinking to its discovery on the ocean floor, the key moments in the Titanic‘s history. See our full centenary coverage here

For more on the Titanic, read our In-Depth Report:
The Titanic: 100 Years Later
A look back at one of the biggest moments in steamship history, including how Scientific American covered it.

For her maiden voyage, Titanic carried a total of 20 lifeboats of three different varieties:

Lifeboats 1 and 2: emergency wooden cutters: 25 ft (7.62 m) 2 in long by 7 ft (2.13 m) 2 in wide by 3 ft (0.91 m) 2 in deep; capacity 326.6 cubic feet (9.25 m3) or 40 people.
Lifeboats 3 to 16: wooden lifeboats: 30′ long by 9’1″ wide by 4′ deep; capacity 655.2 cubic feet (18.55 m3) or 65 people.
Lifeboats A, B, C and D: Englehardt collapsible lifeboats: 27’5″ long by 8′ wide by 3′ deep; capacity 376.6 cubic feet (10.66 m3) or 47 people.

Boats on the starboard side were odd-numbered 1–15 from bow to stern, while those on the port side were even-numbered 2–16 from bow to stern. Lifeboats 1 and 2, the “emergency cutters”, were kept swung out, hanging from the davits, ready for immediate use while collapsible lifeboats C and D were stowed on the boat deck immediately in-board of boats 1 and 2 respectively.

Collapsible lifeboats A and B were stored on the roof of the officers’ quarters, on either side of number 1 funnel. However there were no davits mounted on the officers’ quarters to lower collapsibles A and B, and they weighed a considerable amount empty.

During the sinking, lowering collapsibles A and B proved difficult as it was first necessary to slide the boats on timbers and/or oars down to the boat deck. During this procedure, collapsible B capsized and subsequently floated off the ship upside down.

- more on Rare Titanic photos and letters -

The cry of “women and children first” during ship disasters
turns out to be more of a myth than reality.

Women More Likely to Die in Ship Disasters than Men

Mikael Elinder and Oscar Erixson of Uppsala University studied 18 passenger ship disasters that took place between 1852 and 2011, and the fate of more than 15,000 passengers and crew on the ships.

Their study began with the 1852 sinking of the HMS Birkenhead because it is considered to be the source of the expression “women and children first.” The last known example of a captain actually giving the order that women and children should go first was the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915.

In the case of the Titanic, 73% of women were saved, but only 21% of men. However, the Birkenhead and the Titanic turn out to be the only two of the 18 disasters in which women really did have a survival advantage. In 11 cases, men were more likely to survive and in five cases there was no gender difference…

- image source -

- keep reading -

Titanic (1943) on I Shoot The Pictures

This is a version of Titanic done by Nazi Germany that was completed in 1943. By the late 1930?s films in Nazi Germany became nasty and very anti-Semitic… However, this movie is a breed apart from those films and that’s why Turner Classic Movies showed it and I recorded it.
Before I talk about the film there is a little back story. The film was originally being directed by Herbert Selpin until he made some comments that he shouldn’t have. He was taken away and later found dead in a prison cell. Werner Klingler was brought in to finish the film, which he did.

Goebbels, the head of propaganda in Nazi Germany, realized that maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea to release a film about a bunch of people dying considering this was Nazi Germany and it was 1943. I mean it’s not exactly a morale booster. So the film was shelved and presumed lost until it was found fairly recently…

keep reading

_ _ _

In a recent lecture, Norman Brouwer said it is easy to tell the difference between the Olympic and the Titanic: the 1st class passenger promenade is open in Olympic, in the Titanic, it was closed off.

Also, fewer lifeboats (namely, twenty for 1,178 people) were on the Titanic as “the seagoing public unquestionably thoroughly appreciates the advantage presented by clear deck space as well as unrestricted view.” This quote was found by Conrad Milster in an 1910 engineering journal…

- keep reading on Bowsprite -

New Images Released By “National Geographic” Magazine

In a tricked-out trailer on a back lot of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), William Lange stands over a blown-up sonar survey map of the Titanic site—a meticulously stitched-together mosaic that has taken months to construct. At first look the ghostly image resembles the surface of the moon, with innumerable striations in the seabed, as well as craters caused by boulders dropped over millennia from melting icebergs.

On closer inspection, though, the site appears to be littered with man-made detritus—a Jackson Pollock-like scattering of lines and spheres, scraps and shards. Lange turns to his computer and points to a portion of the map that has been brought to life by layering optical data onto the sonar image. He zooms in, and in, and in again. Now we can see the Titanic’s bow in gritty clarity, a gaping black hole where its forward funnel once sprouted, an ejected hatch cover resting in the mud a few hundred feet to the north. The image is rich in detail: In one frame we can even make out a white crab clawing at a railing…

- keep reading -

left: members of the Titanic orchestra — right: Titanic Crew Memorial

_ _ _

In 1898, Morgan Robertson wrote Futility, a novella that tells the rise and the fall of the Titan, the greatest man-made boat of all time.

It was touted as unsinkable, and launched from northern England across to the United States. The ship sinks after crashing head-on into an iceberg, and several thousand people perish because of woefully inadequate life boats. Are you seeing the similarities?

The book was intended to be a scathing social criticism of the selfish goals of industrialization, lambasting the fatcat tycoons who championed “progress” while overlooking human suffering. But it’s not remembered that way at all. It is instead forever known as the book that preceded the sinking of the Titanic, with countless, eerie similarities.

The Titan was 800 feet, Titanic was 882. Titan had 24 lifeboats (less than half necessary) and lost 2500 passengers, Titanic had 16 lifeboats (also less than half) and lost 2207 passengers. They both crashed into icebergs in April about 400 miles from Newfoundland, traveling too fast at over 22 knots.

- keep reading on Scuttlefish -

The Wreck of the Titanic: A descriptive Piano Composition by Jeannette Forrest
- instrumental sheet music -

Gavin Bryars – Opening Part I
The Sinking of The Titanic

(click link above to listen) Richard Gavin Bryars (born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.

Bryars’s first works as a composer owe much to the New York School of John Cage (with whom he briefly studied), Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and minimalism. One of his earliest pieces, The Sinking of the Titanic (1969), is an indeterminist work which allows the performers to take a number of sound sources related to the sinking of the RMS Titanic and make them into a piece of music. The first recording of this piece appeared on Brian Eno‘s Obscure Records in 1975. The 1994 recording of this piece was remixed by Aphex Twin as Raising the Titanic (later collected on the 26 Mixes for Cash album).

- more -

* Go log into itunes or Amazon or whatever musical teet-from-which-you-suck and download this. It’s cool and will impress the chicks.

- The Titanic sinking by Ken Marschall; mini gallery here -

Marine Artist Ken Marschall Sails the Titanic into “Household-Namedom”

Ken Marschall (born October 28, 1950) is best known as the world’s foremost creator of Titanic artwork. Accomplished in photo-realistic rendering of anything from architecture to nature, it is Ken’s splendid, evocative Titanic paintings that are his legacy.

His minutely detailed portrayals of famous liners, naval vessels, airships and shipwrecks are admired for their realism, drama, historical accuracy, use of light and color, subtlety of detail and smoothness of line… they go where a camera cannot.

Renowned for bringing Titanic back to life with his paintbrush, Ken’s haunting portraits of the celebrated liner, often copied by others, are iconic images that have become part of Titanic’s history itself.

“… his paintings almost seemed to be stills from a movie that hadn’t yet been made. And I thought to myself… I can make these paintings live. It became my goal to accomplish on film what Ken had done on canvas, to will the Titanic back to life.”
James Cameron

The Art of Ken Marschall; official website
Trans-Atlantic Designs, Inc.;
exclusive source for the largest collection of Titanic prints and posters by Ken Marschall
Favorite/Least Favorite Ken Marschall Titanic Painting?;
on encyclopedia titanica discussion board

- Meet the Titanic Experts on National Geographic -

see also: Titanic Art by Ken Marschall

Titanic Trivia:
After the sinking, J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, was so vilified for taking a seat in a lifeboat that the towns of Ismay, Texas, and Ismay, Montana, wanted to change their names.

- Sur les traces du RMS TITANIC -

Book publishers are releasing Titanic titles by the score. John Williams, of the New York Times, “Art Beat” recently wrote:

“The centennial anniversary of the Titanic disaster is April 14, and publishers appear to be hoping that readers maintain an almost infinite appetite for it. Viewed as a group, the number of Titanic-related books that have crossed my desk in recent weeks borders on the comical. But to dip into almost any one of them in particular is to be riveted by a story that remains deeply eerie, dramatic and heartbreaking…”

According to Williams, Titanic, First Accounts is “the loveliest of the bunch” and I trust him because he’s read them all, or so it seems. He also offers a short, but sweet analysis of the Titanic ”cottage industry.”

- Titanic — T-minus 24 on Ships on the Shore -

March 6, 1912:
Titanic (right) had to be moved out of drydock so her sister Olympic, which had lost a propeller, could have it replaced – see full size

The emergency signals were so strong from Titanic’s radio room, that they
reached the mainland United States and Greenland’s base station.

Wireless Could Have Saved Lives on Titanic

“Come at once. We have struck a berg.” The Titanic’s radio engineers sent this emergency message and many like it in Morse code, wirelessly, to anyone listening.

Two employees of Marconi, the company that made the system, operated the radio. It was the most powerful system of its kind, and the clear night helped the signal go far.

Many ships did receive the call. So did land-based stations in the United States and Greenland. Radio operators at the time were also skilled at transmitting messages quickly in code — 80 to 100 words per minute. With such capabilities, what went wrong?

For starters, Titanic’s communications system had its limits…

Passengers on the deck of the Titanic taking a stroll. The price of a ticket was $4,400
USD in 1912, which is $80,000 dollars, at today’s rate of inflation

A uniform button belonging to William Murdoch, the bridge officer aboard the Titanic, is seen on
display before an exhibition opens to the public Tuesday, April 3, 2012, in Atlanta.

From the pitch-black depths 2½ miles beneath the North Atlantic, salvagers of the Titanic made a notable discovery when they located the personal effects of Murdoch, the bridge officer who tried in vain to keep the doomed ship from colliding with an iceberg.

The artifacts, including a shoe brush, straight razor and pipe, are the first (that belonged) specifically to Murdoch, a central figure in the disaster who gained added notoriety after James Cameron’s polemical portrayal of him in the 1997 blockbuster movie “Titanic.” (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Photo Galleries » RMS Titanic

see also: Recovered Items From the Famed Shipwreck on ABC News

LAS VEGAS (FOX5 VIDEO) - A candlelight vigil at Las Vegas’ Titanic exhibit commemorated
the 100 year anniversary of the ship’s maiden voyage Wednesday.

In new exhibit, ‘Titanic’ artifacts are still telling stories on accessATLANTA

- The gymnasium: Father Browne’s Titanic Album –
HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT

Click here to view the embedded video.

Newsreel that ran after the Titanic sank in 1912

To commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking, British Pathe has released the original newsreel that ran following the maritime disaster (the music is a new addition). Witness survivors arriving in New York City and long-distance radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi receiving accolades for inventing such a life-saving device.

You can find further footage from the aftermath at the British Pathe’s archives.

Seven Famous People Who Missed the Titanic

Theodore Dreiser

The novelist, then 40, considered returning from his first European holiday aboard the Titanic; an English publisher talked him out of the plan, persuading the writer that taking another ship would be less expensive.

Dreiser was at sea aboard the liner Kroonland when he heard the news. He recalled his reaction the following year in his memoir, A Traveler at Forty: “To think of a ship as immense as the Titanic, new and bright, sinking in endless fathoms of water. And the two thousand passengers routed like rats from their berths only to float helplessly in miles of water, praying and crying!”

Guglielmo Marconi

The Italian inventor, wireless telegraphy pioneer and winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics was offered free passage on Titanic but had taken the Lusitania three days earlier.

Although Marconi was later grilled by a Senate committee over allegations that his company’s wireless operators had withheld news from the public in order to sell information to the New York Times, he emerged from the disaster as one of its heroes, his invention credited with saving more than 700 lives.
Three years later, Marconi would narrowly escape another famous maritime disaster. He was on board the Lusitania in April 1915 on the voyage immediately before it was sunk by a German U-boat in May.

- See full article on Smithsonian -

Der naser keiver oder Churbon Titanic (The Titanic’s disaster)
Sheet Music; c. 1912 – Arrangement for Piano

The Kosher Deli Born of a Shipwreck – J.A.Hyman (Titanics) Ltd of Manchester

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Rick Spilman

This story is so unlikely that it must be true…

When the Collapsible Lifeboat C from the RMS Titanic was picked up by the Carpathia, of the 41 aboard, there were two very different men, though their names, by virtue of alphabetization are adjacent to each other on the list of survivors – Joseph Abraham Hyman, 34, a third class passenger, and Joseph Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line, traveling in first class. Despite their difference in social standing, both reportedly help row the lifeboat.

The sinking of the Titanic ruined Ismay. Joseph Hyman did somewhat better. He was traveling to visit his brother in in New Jersey to start a new life.

After arriving in America, however, Joseph Hyman decided to return to Britain. (It is said, understandably, that he required a sizable quantity of alcohol before he could bring himself to board another ship.) On his return, he decided to set up a kosher delicatessen like the ones that he had seen in New York. And that is exactly what he did. In 1913 he established J.A.Hyman – Kosher Butcher and Deli in Manchester, England.

Of course, it was never known as J.A.Hyman’s. It was always called by its customers, Titanics…

- Keep reading on Old Salt Blog -

A photograph released by Henry Aldridge & Son/Ho Auction House in Wiltshire, Britain, 18 April 2008, shows an extremely rare Titanic passenger ticket. They were the auctioneers handling the complete collection of the last American Titanic Survivor Miss Lillian Asplund. The collection was comprised of a number of significant items including a pocket watch, one of only a handful of remaining tickets for the Titanic’s maiden voyage and the only example of a forward emigration order for the Titanic thought to exist. Lillian Asplund was a very private person and because of the terrible events she witnessed that cold April night in 1912 rarely spoke about the tragedy which claimed the lives of her father and three brothers. (Henry Aldridge & Son/Ho) #

Titanic at 100 years: The Big Picture on Boston.com

- TITANIC Belfast museum -

Titanic Belfast is a visitor attraction and a monument to Belfast’s maritime heritage on the site of the former Harland and Wolff shipyard in the city’s Titanic Quarter.

Inside Titanic Belfast, BBC News 14 March 2012
Titanic Belfast website

Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
Published April 6, 2012

Titanic at 100: Be Among the Last to Dive to Wreck Site?

With increased access, ship’s survival is in jeopardy, advocates warn.

“I think one thing that captures people is a direct link to this almost mythological maritime character, the Titanic,” said Rob McCallum of Deep Ocean Expeditions, which holds exclusive charter for Titanic dives.

But summer 2012 is the first season since 2005 that Deep Ocean Expeditions has taken people to the Titanic—and it could be the last.

“For a variety of reasons, these are the last dives that the Deep Ocean Expeditions is going to do on Titanic,” said McCallum, whose company began diving to the Titanic in 1998. The outfitter also takes tourists to the Bismarck shipwreck, the North Pole, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and other extreme sites.

“Our support ship is going into retirement soon, and the submersibles are going to go back into government work.”

keep reading

The Big Picture — Titanic’s port bow rail, chains and an auxiliary anchor boom. Dr. Robert Ballard, the man who found the remains of the Titanic nearly two decades ago, returned to the site and lamented damage done by visitors and souvenir hunters. (Institute for Archaeological Oceanography & Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island Grad. School of Oceanography) #

The Band Played “Nearer My God to Thee” As the Ship Went Down
Words by Mark Beam; Music by Harold Jones
for voice and piano, 1912

A few months ago, my girlfriend and I sat down to watch the best movie ever made about the Titanic – and no, I’m not referring to the one rereleased this past weekend in 3D.

I think the world is divided into two camps: those who love James Cameron’s Hollywood epic, and those who never want to hear the word Titanic again because of it…

Danish passenger liner SS Norge (wikipedia)

Leith Built Ships: April 2012; Titanic 100 years on

The ship was a converted livestock carrier carrying mostly Scandinavian’s but no famous or wealthy people on this vessel. The bit that really got to me about this story was the fact that after the disaster, J.B.Ismay, (chairman of the White Star Line) sent the owners of the Norge a telegraph to commiserate with them on the loss of the ship – one ship owner to another — with no mention at all made of the huge loss of life…

Before the Titanic, this was the deadliest civilian maritime disaster on record. Danish passenger ship Norge (built 1891) left Copenhagen for New York City, but crashed into a reef near Rockall, an uninhabited island northwest of Scotland. Because its lifeboats could hold only a fraction of the nearly 800 passengers on board, more than 600 died. The 160 who did make it into lifeboats were afloat for a week before being rescued. (text source)

Titanic Museum; Pigeon Forge, Sevier County, TN

The Titanic Pigeon Forge is the world’s largest permanent Titanic Museum Attraction. There are over 400 personal and private artifacts on display that can be viewed during the 2 hour self-guided tour. The collection is valued at over four and a half million dollars.

Each visitor is given a boarding pass with the name of an actual Titanic passenger or crew member. At the end of the tour you will learn of your passenger’s fate.

- official web site -
- photo by Jerry Jaynes –

Titanic life vest fetches £43,000

One of the Titanic’s few remaining lifejackets has been sold to a private collector for £43,000 ($80,000).

The auction at Devizes in Wiltshire also featured dozens of letters sent by some of the 1,500 people who died when the ship sank in the Atlantic in 1912.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said most items sold for more than expected to collectors from around the world.

One letter, in which passenger Edward Colley wrote of an earlier near-miss with a liner, made £18,000, he said.

The Irish aristocrat who died on his 37th birthday, had poked fun at the service on board the ship in the letter.

The company did not want souvenir hunters, so a lot of things, including clothing, were put in big piles and burned…
Alan Aldridge, auctioneer

“He mentioned, for instance, that the ordinary grub in first class was quite good – but if you wanted anything better you had to pay for it,” said Mr Aldridge, who conducted the sale in south-west England…

- keep reading on encyclopedia titanica –
- image via pinterest -

Margaret Brown (right) giving Captain Arthur Henry Rostron an
award for his service in the rescue of the Titanic‘s survivors

The 13,564 ton RMS Carpathia was three days out of New York, heading for Gibraltar and a Mediterranean cruise when her radio operator picked up the Titanic’s distress calls.

The sinking liner’s position was fifty-eight miles to the north west of the Carpathia. With a top speed of fourteen knots, it would take the Carpathia four hours to reach the scene. Captain Arthur H. Rostron guided his ship at night through ice and reached the Titanic’s last reported position at 4.00 am. It had taken three-and-a-half hours – thirty minutes quicker than estimated.

As day broke, he saw the Titanic’s lifeboats scattered over a four-mile area of sea. The Carpathia returned to New York on 18th April with all the survivors.

Tributes were heaped on Captain Rostron – scrolls, loving cups, testimonial dinners – and a medal honouring him was struck by the U. S. Congress. But the strangest ‘thank you’ gift of all came from Margaret Brown; an item that remained in the possession of Captain Rostron until his death in 1940.

- Servant of the Deep: The mystery of the Titanic Shabti -

Jaime Brockett & The Legend Of The Titanic

An interesting piece from 1968. Bizarre, humorous, almost psychotic at times…

Jaime Brockett (pronounced “Jamie”) is a memorable and uniquely stylish New England folksinger. As the Boston Globe described him, Jaime is a “hard-core, unregenerated folkie.”

His popularity soared, as a recording artist and performer, starting in the 1960s, when his version of Legend of the USS Titanic became an overnight classic.

Despite the song’s length — over three minutes, an extraordinarily long recording for that era — radio stations made time to play it anyway…

- “Damn, I knew we forgot something” -

- House flag, White Star Line; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London -

Some more misc. stuff:

Monkey Fist

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

Maritime Monday for April 9, 2012: It Took a Ship to Discover Australia, part 2: Ten Pound Poms

Monkey Fist — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:30:15 +0000

original: Orient Pacific Line Poster; Orient Steam Navigation(see below)

Maritime Monday for April 2, 2012:
It took a ship to discover Australia
- part 1 -

The Adamant and the Cospatrick, 1874

On Sunday 31st October 1874, from the Blackwell Dock in London, two sailing ships left within an hour or so of each other. The first to leave was the wooden hulled Cospatrick with 429 immigrants bound for Auckland, NZ, followed by the smaller steel hulled Adamant with 340 government assisted immigrants bound for Nelson.

The Cospatrick didn’t make it, becoming one of the sea’s most hideous tragedies.

keep reading on The Prow.org.NZ
article: The Cospatrick Disaster Of 1874

Newspaper adverstisement: Adelaide almanac and directory for South Australia, 1882

Adelaide Steamship Company’s popular Gulf Trip
features the MV Moonta which operated from 1931 to 1955

The Gulf Trip was one of the most popular South Australian holiday tours for fifty years. Now, she is a landlocked casino ship and tourist attraction Casino Le Lydia in Le Barcarès, France.

The Adelaide Steamship Company was formed by a group of South Australian businessmen in 1875. Their aim was to control the transport of goods between Adelaide and Melbourne and profit from the need for an efficient and comfortable passenger service. For the first 100 years of its life, the main activities of the company were conventional shipping operations on the Australian coast, primary products, consumer cargoes and extensive passenger services. In 1964, the fleet merged with McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co, and the partnership developed the world’s first purpose built container ships.

more on wikipedia
Coastal Cruises aboard the MV MOONTA on Cruising the Past

Australian Commonwealth Line

Officially named the Commonwealth Government Line of Steamers, the company was formed in 1916 with fifteen second hand British tramp steamers which were used mainly to export Australian wheat and wool from Australia to Europe and the USA.

The company also operated 23 ex-German and Austrian ships which had been seized at the outbreak of war in 1914 including five sailing vessels. A quantity of wooden hulled cargo steamers were also purchased from the U.S.A. The majority of these ships were sold when they became uneconomical to run.

In 1923 the line was restructured as the Australian Commonwealth Line of Steamers but by late 1926, due to the slump in the shipping trade, the company was left with only the seven ships. By 1928 these also had been sold and the company was wound up.

Australian Commonwealth Line
on Timetable Images
Australian Commonwealth Line of Steamers / Commonwealth Government Line
Fleet info and history on The Ships List

MS Princess of Tasmania on the slipway of the NSW State Dockyard, Newcastle, just prior to launch

Australian National Line

M/S Princess of Tasmania was an Australian-built roll-on/roll-off RO/RO passenger ship for the Australian National Line. The vessel was laid down on 15 November 1957, and launched 15 December of 1958. Up to 334 passengers and 142 vehicles could be carried. Maximum speed 17.75 knots. The ship was the first RO/RO passenger ship in the southern hemisphere, and at the time of launch, the largest vessel built in Australia.

more on wikipedia
PRINCESS of TASMANIA on Flotilla Australia
Princess of Tasmania on Timetable Images
EMPRESS of AUSTRALIA history on Flotilla Australia
Sank in the Malacca Strait on 23 August 1992 after a collision (more detailed account)
AUSTRALIA NATIONAL LINE fleet history and photos on Flotilla Australia
Australian National Line on simplonpc

A-O Line Ports of Call: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Townsville, Cairns, Thursday Island, Manila, and Hong Kong

A-O Line (Australian-Oriental Line)
on Timetable Images

Australian Oriental Line Ltd. 1912-1961, Sydney and Hong Kong: fleet history on The Ships List

The good ship Singkiang, (sister ship to the Soochow) sailing Hong Kong harbour;
operated by the Australian-Oriental Line out of Swire House in Sydney.

Walking the streets of Camperdown the other day I came across a battered nine cents aerogramme (by air mail; par avion) of a featherweight kind I hadn’t seen for years.

It was postmarked 4.45 pm 6th January 1967, Brisbane, and it turned out to be letter from an Asian man to a woman with a distinctly British name living in 22 Brumby street, Surrey Hills. It turns out the man was a seaman on the merchant ship Soochow, and lived at Swire house, long gone from Spring street in Sydney.

The letter reveals he’d been on an eighteen day trip to Brisbane to drop off cargo and pick some up for the reverse trip, and would soon return to Sydney. It’s written in halting stumbling English – jumping from a denial of having any girlfriends in Brisbane to a declaration of love to a desire to give up smoking just like the woman – and it’s signed “from your lover”, with a Chinese signature, dated the 5th January 1967.

- keep reading on Loon Pond -

SS Australian; 1896-1906; Passenger cargo steamship built by Robert Napier Govan, Glasgow. 9 November 1906 wrecked Vashon Head, Coburg Peninsula Northern Territory Australia. No loss of life.

Australian Shipping Lines
on Flotilla Australia

aka: Eastern & Australian Mail Steam Co Ltd (18th April 1873-9th August 1880) Also traded as Eastern & Australian Steamship Co Ltd (10th August 1880) but most familiarly known as E & A Line

E & A Line (Eastern & Australian Steamship Co.) on Timetable Images

AUSN – Australasian United Steam Navigation Co. on The Ships List

Australian United Steam Navigation Company on Flotilla Australia

Queensland Steam Shipping Company

Formed 1881 – Registered in London under British India Steam Navigation Company. What started as an incentive from the then Queensland Premier for a satisfactory tender for the State’s Mail contract led to the creation of this entity. A fierce rate war ensued with the Australasian Steam Navigation Co., who otherwise enjoyed a monopoly on the East coast shipping trade. ASN Co then made an offer in 1886 to sell their fleet but not their land based holdings to QSS Co. QSS Co did not agree and the rate war continued. 1887 the QSS found agreement with the ASN and the two fleets combined under the new name of the Australasian United Steam Navigation Co (AUSN) The Company existed into the 1960s

- photos and more on Flotilla Australia -

Eastern and Australian Steamship Company

The Eastern and Australian Steamship Company was a link in the transport chain from Britain to Australia in the early 1900s.

Passengers booking with the Canadian Pacific Company would board one of their famous Empress steamers in a British port, sail in luxury across the Atlantic and up the St Lawrence to Quebec, then they would travel on the Canadian Pacific Railway to Vancouver, where they would board another Empress Liner taking them to Japan, the final link to Australia being provided by an Eastern and Australian Company Steamship.

The journey would take several weeks and be punctuated by stays in luxury hotels along the route.

Eastern & Australian Steamship Co. on Timetable Images
E & A Line on flotilla-australia
Eastern & Australian Steam Navigation Company on P&O Heritage
image source

Cruise Brochure for 1935 in French; postcard of Arandora Star in her cruising livery c1939

MV Sydney Star; Blue Star Line ships (more images)

Blue Star Line

United Kingdom

The Blue Star Line was owned by Vestey Brothers, Union Cold Storage Company and commenced operating their own ships in 1909, principally for the carriage of frozen produce initially from South America and China. Services to Australia and New Zealand were inaugurated in 1933. In 1952 Austasia Line was formed to operate services between Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia.

In 1957 Crusader Shipping Company formed in partnership with the New Zealand Shipping Company. Many Blue Star cargo ships had limited passenger accommodation.

Fleet history and more on TheShipsList
Blue Star Line on Maritime Timetable Images
History of Blue Star Line & Associated Companies (image galleries)

postcard: Blue Star liner in Sydney Harbor

left: Australia. Lloyd Triestino, c1930s; Gino Boccasile (Italian, 1901-1952)
right: Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia, c1930s; J. Miller Marshall
- Josef Lebovic Gallery -

Centaur poster, c1943. ‘Work, save, fight and so avenge the nurses!’
poster by unknown artist. Collection of the Australian War Memorial

AHS Centaur following her conversion to hospital ship

The sinking of the Centaur

On May 14th, 1943, AHS Centaur, an Australia hospital ship sailed off the coast of Queensland towards Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. The ship had 332 medical personnel and crew on board. She was marked with large red crosses and sailed without military escort as per the Geneva Convention requirements. The vessel would not survive to see dawn. The Japanese submarine I-177, commanded by Hajime Nakagawa, torpedoed AHS Centaur in an early morning attack, taking 268 lives. Now, the discovery of her wreck on December 20th has resurfaced the sensitive issue between Australia and Japan.

The sinking of AHS Centaur violated international war law and is considered one of Australia’s worst wartime tragedies. Her demise turned the vessel into a martyr for Australians, confirming the brutality of the Japanese in the public’s mind.

Huddart Parker Limited

Est. 1876: Huddart Park (aka Huddart Parker) was not only a famous Australian interstate shipping company, but also the only one to maintain a passenger line to New Zealand.

right: House flag, Huddart Parker Ltd – National Maritime Museum

Huddart Parker Limited was an Australian shipping company trading in various forms between 1876 and 1961. It was one of the seven major coastal shippers in Australia at a time when shipping was the principal means of interstate and trans-tasman transport. The company started in Geelong, but in 1890 shifted its offices to Melbourne. By 1910 Huddart Parker had grown to rank 24th of the top 100 companies in Australia by asset value.

The company was founded on the 1st August 1876 in Geelong as Huddart, Parker & Co. Pty. Ltd, by James Huddart, T.J. Parker, John. Traill, and Captain T. Webb. Earlier, in the 1850s, James Huddart’s uncle, Captain Peter Huddart had made his fortune importing coal for use in the Victorian goldfields. He was the first major operator handling coal from the port of Geelong. Mr. T.J.Parker, was a merchant who arrived in Geelong from London in 1853. The trading activities each built up through the gold-rush era and beyond led to a linking of the businesses of their descendants and successors, to become Huddart Parker & Company.

After 1876 Huddart Parker expanded rapidly. By 1886 it had inaugurated the Melbourne-Adelaide shipping service and in 1882 entered the Sydney Melbourne trade. During the early 1890s its steamers were running to the principal ports of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, and in 1893 it was also trading with ports in New Zealand.

history on Transport Britain
Huddart Parker on wikipedia
Images Postcards Photographs Ephemera of Huddart Parker & Co Pty Ltd. on Flotilla Australia
History and Story of Huddart Parker Ltd on ssMaritime

The HP Wanganella looking superb as she is seen here fully dressed with flags

left: Fare Schedules between New Zealand and the UK;
for the Rangitata, Rangitiki, Rangitane, Rangitoto
right: Official New Zealand Shipping Co postcard of Remeura

New Zealand Shipping Company (1873-1973)

Operator of cargo (especially refrigerated cargo) and passenger services between New Zealand and the UK

The New Zealand Shipping Company was formed in London in 1873. Fitted ships with refrigerated capacity for NZ meat were introduced in 1881. In 1910 NZSCo together with Shaw, Savill & Albion Line and White Star Line took control of the Canadian-Australasian Line (James Huddart) and recommenced services between New Zealand – Australia and Canada. In 1912 NZSCo took over Federal Steam Navigation Company but they continued to trade under their own name and colours.

In 1916 P&O Line took over NZSCo but the company continued to operate as before. In 1936 the Montreal – Australian New Zealand Line (MANZ Line) was formed in conjunction with Ellerman & Bucknall and the Port Line. This service closed in 1971. In 1973 ownership of all ships was transferred to P&O Line and the existence of NZSCo as a separate company ceased.

PORT OUT STARBOARD HOME
images: Shipboard dining and Comfort in the cabins
New Zealand Shipping & Federal Steam Navigation Company
(fleet histories and photos)
Photos of New Zealand Shipping Flag Vessels
(fleet histories and photos)
New Zealand Shipping Company on simplonpc.uk
(detailed histories and images)
New Zealand Shipping Company
on P&O Heritage
Shaw, Savill & Albion Co Ltd. on ShipsNostalgia (more ship photos & history)

SS Hororata of the New Zealand Shipping Company

She was delivered to her owners in 1942 by John Brown & Co of Clydebank for use on the UK to Australia and New Zealand service. She served faithfully until 1967 when she was sold for scrapping in Taiwan.

- Ogden’s Cigarettes; Flags & Funnels of Leading steamship Lines -
No.6 New Zealand Shipping Co. 1906

see also:

above: Chimborazo (+1878) wrecksite.eu – below: Orient Line Steamer Chimborazo
in a Storm Gale, from The Illustrated London News, dated 1880

The Orient Steam Navigation Company

Also known as the Orient Line, was a British shipping company with roots going back to the late eighteenth century. From the early twentieth century onwards an association began with P&O that eventually culminated in the Orient Line being totally absorbed into that company in the 1960s.

- Orient Line fleet information, history etc.
on The Ships List -

At the end of 1918, The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company acquired a controlling interest in Orient’s share capital.

The relationship between Orient and P&O were close (they co-operated on ship design in the 1930s and joint trans-Pacific services under the ‘Orient & Pacific’ name in the 1950s) but they maintained separate trading identities and independent shore organizations until 1960.

The archive records relating to Orient Steam Navigation Company are on permanent loan by P&O to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. The great bulk of the collection comprises material which dates only from 1942 – most earlier records were destroyed in World War II when the company’s City offices were bombed.

- more on P & O Heritage -

Orient Line (Orient Steam Navigation Co.) United Kingdom
- more on Timetable Images -

article: The Orient Steam Navigation Company
on Cruising The Past
Orient Line / Orient Steam Navigation Company
on The Ships List
Other Orient Line Ships: RMS Orcades — SS Oriana – RMS Orion

- Steam Ship Ormuz; Australia to England; 1887. Eleven thousand miles within 27 Days -
(1886-1912 – 6,031gt) Sold to Cie de Nav. Sud-Atlantique in 1912, renamed Divona, scrapped in 1922

SS Oronsay
- larger version –

The Oronsay (27,632, 708 ft. long) was put in service on the UK-Australia route of the Orient Line in 1951. From 1960 she sailed along the P&O liners as part of the combined fleet of P&O-Orient Lines. She was sold to be broken up in 1975.

- SS Oronsay on ssMaritime -

RMS Oronsay

RMS (later s.s.) Oronsay was a passenger liner of 27,632 grt built by Vickers Armstrong’s Barrow Yard and delivered to her owners, Orient Steam Navigation in 1951. Her delivery had been delayed by some 8 weeks due to a fire on board whilst she was fitting out. She was employed on the Company’s service from the UK to Australia. Following the merger of Orient Line and the P&O, she was absorbed into the P&O fleet in 1960 and changed her livery to the all-white hull in 1964, the first of the ex-Orient Liners to do so.

Created as part of the “Populate or Perish” policy, the scheme was designed to substantially increase the population of Australia and to supply workers for the country’s booming industries. In return for subsidising the cost of traveling to Australia — adult migrants were charged only ten pound sterling for the fare (hence the name), and children were allowed to travel for free — the Government promised employment prospects, housing and a generally more optimistic lifestyle. However, on arrival, migrants were placed in basic hostels and the expected job opportunities were not always readily available. –source

Ten Pound Sterling immigrants from the UK to Australia during the 1950s.
A family only had to pay 10 Pounds to travel to a new country

Ten Pound Poms is a colloquial term used in Australia to describe British subjects who migrated to Australia after the Second World War under an assisted passage scheme established and operated by the Government of Australia.

Ten Pound Poms tells the journeys of nine Britons who took the gamble of migrating to Australia in the post war years. They were part of one of the largest planned migrations of the Twentieth Century.

One million Britons were sold the dream of a modern British way of life in the sun and seduced by a fare of just ten pounds. The catch was that they had to stay for a minimum of two years. Most loved the sunburnt country but one quarter fled home disillusioned, fleeing ‘pommy bashing’ or the belief they had been sold a lie.

SS Orion 1934. One of the first Ten Pound Pom ships – shipwatcher blog

- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London -

The P&O house flag is the Company’s oldest symbol, incorporating the Royal colours of Portugal and Spain, the countries of the Iberian Peninsula to which its earliest services ran in the 1830s.

- MACEDONIA; 1904 -
- see also -

MACEDONIA ca. 1910-1915

- Cadbury’s Chocolate “Famous Steamships” c. 1923 -
Australia via The Cape Service; Peninsular & Oriental Line

The Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (Est. 1837)

The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) has a celebrated history dating back to the 1830s. In 1837 it was awarded its first mail contract and this is seen as the birth of the line. It was incorporated by a Royal Charter in 1840, and its name therefore includes neither “PLC” nor “Limited”.

The initials “P&O” are among the most familiar anywhere, and its house flag, older even than the Company itself, is one of the best known. The history of its first century is encapsulated in the heraldry of its Coat of Arms, granted in 1937, while throughout well over 160 years it has been a premier British shipping company, and in its time the largest and most varied in the world.

The P&O house flag is the Company’s oldest symbol, incorporating the Royal colours of Portugal and Spain, the countries of the Iberian Peninsula to which its earliest services ran in the 1830s. The flag is now familiar all over the world, flown on ships, offices and depots on six continents.

The P&O house flag has also become a corporate device, painted on ships and vehicles, incorporated into signs and badges, and used in every type of printing, stationery and display. The P&O logo has similarly become a bold and distinctive design element.

more on Transport Britain
more yet: The Ships of P&O

P&O official postcard of Ballarat (2)
- One of five sisterships built for P&O’s secondary one-class service to Australia -

This was not a successful class, all ships having been withdrawn within 15 years. They had accommodation for 500 passengers, whilst an additional 700 temporary berths could be rigged for the outbound emigrant voyages. They sailed to Australia via Cape Town, and offered departures every two weeks.

By 1926, the third class emigrant trade was collapsing, and in 1929 the route via Capetown was abandoned. The ships were refitted in turn, including conversion to oil firing, and returned to service with accommodation for 586 one-class passengers. They were used on the mail route to Australia via Suez, charging third class fares for much improved accommodation compared to their earlier history. However, their withdrawals started only seven years later.

- P&O official postcard SS Comorin, 1925 -
Built by Barclay Curle & Company Glasgow.
UK/Australia, later UK/Bombay and Far East services.

12/03/1930: Caught fire while anchored in Colombo harbour
10/1937: Union Jack painted on her hull in Singapore for extra identification during the Sino~Japanese War.
05/09/1939: Requisitioned by the Admiralty for service as an armed merchant cruiser. Her after funnel was removed and eight 6~inch and two 3~ inch guns were fitted.
06/04/1941: Caught fire in the North Atlantic. All but 20 of the 470 on board were taken off by the motor vessel GLENARTNEY, the ex~US destroyer HMS LINCOLN and the destroyer HMS BROKE. The latter repeatedly pulled alongside for survivors to jump from one ship to the other.
07/04/1941: The fire could not be controlled and she was shelled and sunk by the LINCOLN.

more on Clydebuilt database
HMS Comorin on wrecksite.eu

After WWII P&O decided to upgrade their fleet for the Australian service considering P&O had lost six of their passenger ships during Operation Torch.

SS Himalaya (1948-1975) Built in 1948 by Vickers Armstrong Ltd. Naval Construction Yard, Barrow-in-Furness for the British-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company.

She would be P&O’s first new passenger liner of the postwar period. Himalaya was constructed with a number of improvements, the first of which, although controversial at the time, was a funnel cowl to keep the liner’s decks clear of debris without causing interference to her boilers.

Following sea trials in August 1949 and acceptance by her owners, she departed on her maiden voyage on 6 October 1948 on what would be her primary route: London (Tilbury Docks) to Southampton, Gibraltar, Marseille, Naples, Port Said, transit of the Suez Canal, Aden (Yemen), Bombay, Colombo (Ceylon), Fremantle, Melbourne and Sydney. At that time, she was the fastest and largest ship P&O had ever owned with a top speed of 25 knots which allowed her to become a record breaker as well as cut the UK to Bombay passage by 5 days. She reduced the overall voyage to Australia from 38 days to ‘just’ 28 days.

She served the Company well until 1974 when she was sold for scrapping in Taiwan.

P&O LINE’S SS HIMALAYA on Cruising the Past
SS Himalaya postcards on simplonpc.uk

Iberia almost completed – seen in June 1954 at Victoria Wharf fitting out basin

SS Iberia; Built by Harland and Wolff; Launched: 21 January 1954

SS Iberia on ssMaritime; detailed history and interior photos
SS Iberia (1954) on wikipedia

SS Iberia in Sydney Harbour

Sadly, Iberia eventually became known as a much “troubled ship” due to accidents and constant breakdowns. On March 14, 1956 Iberia departed Tilbury bound for Australia via the Suez Canal. However, on March 27 at approximately 0130 Iberia was rammed broadside (amidships – portside) by the Esso tanker “Stanvec Pretoria” whilst sailing in heavy seas about 275 km (170 miles) off Colombo. Iberia received extensive damage to her portside Promenade, Boat and Sports Decks. Temporary repairs were made at Colombo.

Vertical irons bars had to be welded to the side of the ships upper decks to support boat deck. Iberia continued on to Sydney and entered into Cockatoo Shipyards on April 16 for repairs. After seventeen days of extensive work, she was returned to her regular duties.

RMS Mooltan

Built at Harland and Wolff Ltd 1918-1923. Put through her sea trials and was finally delivered on 21 September 1923. At that time she was the first P&O ship over 20,000 tons, but she had sacrificed speed for reliability and comfort. The Mooltan had broad decks and would have a reputation for magnificent steadiness, although, because of her small rudder, handling would prove to be difficult.

SS Mooltan set off on her maiden voyage on 5 October 1923. She left the Port of Tilbury, and via Suez canal arrived in Sydney, Australia on 21 December 1923, calling at Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Melbourne on her way. She would make the voyage to Australia many times carrying many thousands of immigrants to a new life in Australia.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Great Britain and her allies realised that they would need ships for troop and equipment movements. On 6 September 1939 SS Mooltan was requisitioned for service as an armed merchant cruiser and was converted for such a task.

Mooltan served in the South Atlantic based in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and she had the satisfaction of not losing a single merchant ship placed in her care. On 31 July the Mooltan was on the western approaches en route from Plymouth to Freetown when she was attacked by a German reconnaissance aircraft; which she survived intact.

In 1941 she carried troops out to the Middle East Campaign, and in May 1942 she took part in the North African landings at Oran, Algeria as part of Operation Torch. She was returned to P&O after the war on 16 July 1947.

RMS Mooltan on wikipedia

P & O SS Morea; built by Barclay Curle & Company, Glasgow, 1908
more photos and ship’s record on Clydebuilt

Used for tests in the Determination of Gravity at Sea her refrigerating chamber accommodation had been found perfect for the experiments. She was used extensively as a troop carrier from Australia in the first world war, carrying, amongst may others, soldiers from the Camel Corps, 9th Light Horse, 26th Reinforcements, She was eventually sold for scrap to Japan on 17th June 1930, after 22 years hard service. –source

detailed history of RMS Morea on shipsnostalgia

Bookmark issued by P & O Lines in 1968 for use on the ship SS Orsova

SS Orsova, a 1,503-passenger ocean liner, was built by Vickers Armstrong Shipbuilders Ltd. of Barrow-in-Furness, England, in 1954 for the Orient Steam Navigation Company for UK to Australia services via the Suez Canal, the voyage taking four weeks.

photo on Flickr

The SS Orsova was the first liner to be built without masts and to have a welded hull, she was launched on 14th May 1953. She accommodated 681 first class passengers, 813 tourist class and 620 crew. Cruises were undertaken between Britain and Australia, around the Pacific, and world cruises. In 1965, Orsova’s ownership transferred to P & O, and continued in service until 1974.

photo and history of the SS Orsova

postcard: SS Persia in stormy weather

The liner SS Persia, Cdr. W. H. S. Hall, R.N.R., which left London on December 18th, 1915, and Marseilles on the 26th, was 71 miles S.E. by S. of Cape Martello, Crete, on the 30th, when she was torpedoed without warning by the U-38 (Lt. Cdr. Max Valentiner)

The attack occurred at 1.10 p.m. the vessel being struck on the port bow, and five minutes later the port boiler blew up. She sank in a very short time and 334 of the 501 persons on board were drowned, including Cdr. Hall.

Two of her boats were drawn down when she foundered taking all their occupants with them, but four got away in safety. One hundred and sixty seven survivors were picked up, most of them by a trawler 30 hours later, and were landed at Alexandria.

wrecksite.eu

The RANCHI of Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co Ltd on Tyne Built Ships

SS Ranchi was built for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) by Hawthorn Leslie & Co. at Newcastle Upon Tyne. The Ranchi was used as an emigrant ship between June 1948 and 1952, when she completed 15 voyages from England to Australia. Broken up in 1953.

P&O Lines – SS Ranchi on Cruising the Past
SS Ranchi on wikipedia

Strathaird seen here departing on her first Australian cruise on December 23, 1932

Built by Vickers-Armstrong Ltd,. Tonnage: 22,544 GRT (Gross Registered Tons). Length: 202.4m (664ft). Breadth: 24.4m (80.1ft). Engines: Turbo electric steam turbine motors. Screws: Twin. Service speed 20 knots. Passengers: 498 First Class, 668 Tourist. Crew: 490.

launched on July 18 1931, and completed on January 10, 1932. During her trials, Strathaird attained a respectable 23 knots. RMS Strathaird departed Tilbury on her maiden voyage on February 12 1932, bound for Sydney Australia via the Suez Canal, a service she would remain on until the war.

see also: The three funneled RMS Strathaird departs Sydney on her very first Australian cruise -
STRATHAIRD in Sydney Harbour with the city visible in the background (Australian National Maritime Museum)

Strathaird: Image Galleries on Australia for Everyone

RMS Strathaird on ssMaritime

P & O Passenger ship Stratheden being turned in the Brisbane River by the tugboat Carlock

Built in 1937 by Vickers-Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness, she was launched on 10th June for the P&O Line, and her maiden voyage to Australia started on 24th Dec.

She was 23,732 gross tons, length 664.5ft x beam 82.1ft, one funnel, two masts, twin screw, speed 20 knots. Accommodation for 530-1st and 450-tourist class passengers.

Between 1939-1945 she served as a troopship, was reconditioned 1946-47 and resumed her P&O Line service in June 1947. Sold to John S. Latsis, Piraeus in 1964, she was renamed Henrietta Latsis, and in 1966 was renamed Marianna Latsis. Scrapped at Spezia in 1969. (source)

video: Launch of the liner Stratheden,1931 on British Pathe
Other P&O ships: SS Canberra
SS Canberra (1960)

Farewell to passengers leaving on the Stratheden, Hamilton, Brisbane

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the Prime Minister of Australia established the Federal Department of Immigration and thereby launched a large scale immigration program. After commissioning a report on the subject which found that Australia was in urgent need of a larger population for the purposes of defence and development, it was recommended a 1% annual increase in population be accomplished through increased immigration.

Post-war immigration to Australia on wikipedia

Assisted migrants were generally obliged to remain in Australia for two years after arrival, or alternatively refund the cost of their assisted passage. If they chose to travel back to Britain, the cost of the journey was at least £120, a large sum in those days and one that most could not afford.

podcast on Ten Pound Pom

Between 1945 and 1972 more than a million Brits left for these parts, and helped their new homes well on the way to boom times in a number of industries. Things didn’t always turn out as rosily as advertised.
After a year of residence, these new arrivals could become citizens.

Interestingly enough, the new Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, was a Ten Pound Pom. Her family made the journey from Wales in 1966 in an attempt to alleviate her lung condition.

more on Life in the Land of the Long White Cloud

Since the end of the Second World War, Australia has welcomed around a million immigrants per decade, including more than a million Ten Pound Poms. Each new migrant has a unique story to tell about how they moved to another world and helped to shape a nation.

More on TenPoundPom.com

- image source -

- Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company / P&O -
on The Ships List

- Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company postcards on simplonpc.UK -

- P&O Steam Navigation Company on P & O Heritage -

left: Travel by CA and Union Lines to Canada, United States, Europe, c1930s; from Travel by Ocean Liner; Josef Lebovic Gallery – right: The Stories of the Razmak 1925 and the Monowai 1930 on NZ Maritime Record

The Union Steamship Co. of New Zealand Est. 1875

The Union Steam Ship Company was a highly successful shipping institution dealing with both passenger and freight transportation in New Zealand and between New Zealand and other Pacific countries. At its height, in 1914, it operated the largest fleet of its type in the southern hemisphere.

more on Port Out Starboard Home

The Awatea was the ultimate statement in luxurious service and was the only way to cross the Tasman Sea in the late 1930s. Unfortunately, this beautiful jewel of a liner’s life was very brief but will always be remembered as an elegant experience while it lasted.

right: Cruising the Past

The Awatea (meaning Eye of the Dawn) was one of the most famous and beautiful ships under the Union flag and the only way to cross the Tasman Sea. She also made several voyages from Sydney to Vancouver via Honolulu.

more: Union Steam’s luxurious T.S.S. Awatea was the “only way to cross” the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand in the late 1930s!

TSS Monowai Union Line (Union Steam Ship Co. of New Zealand): New Zealand

Union Steam Ship Co. of New Zealand on Timetable Images
Union-Australasian Line
John Player & Sons Cigarette Trading Cards: Ships Flags & Badges
Union Steamship Company of New Zealand
Union Steam Ship Co. of New Zealand timetable
A collection of Memorabilia & Ephemera from the vessels
of the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand

SS Oriana was the last of the Orient Steam Navigation Company ocean liners

Built at Vickers-Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria and launched on 3 November 1959. She sailed as an Orient Line ship until 1966 when that company was fully absorbed into the parent P&O group. -image source

left: Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The City With A Holiday Charm, c1930s – produced for centenary celebrations in 1938 – artist: James Northfield (Australian, 1888-1973) — right: c1930s; Orient Steam Navigation Company Limited, Inc. in England. H & G Pty Ltd.; by Walter Jardine (Australian, 1884-1970) — posters: Josef Lebovic Gallery

- Port of Geelong on wikipedia -

P&O British Lines: Strathaird, Viceroy of India, and Strathnaver - more on cruising the past

One of a relatively small number of merchant ships to see military action in both World Wars, Ceramic was built for White Star by Harland & Wolff, Belfast, and launched in 1912. She was White Star’s first “all cabin class” ship and also had two permanent 4.7 inch guns mounted aft.

Ceramic made her maiden voyage in White Star’s Liverpool-Australia service on 24 July 1913, after representing White Star at the Mersey Pageant earlier that month. Ceramic was, at the time, the largest ship to serve Australia, as well as the largest to call regularly at Capetown.

- more on GreatShips -

- White Star Liner MV Georgic & Passengers, Station Pier, Port Melbourne, 1949 -

The first all-British migrant ship. The MV Georgic left Liverpool in Britain on 11th January 1949 and arrived at Station Pier in Port Melbourne, Australia on 12th February 1949.

She was constructed by Harland and Wolff Ltd in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the early 1930s. Her inaugural voyage was in June 1932 on the Liverpool to New York route. In 1934 Cunard merged with White Star, and the ‘Georgic’ was then based in London. In 1940, during World War Two, the ‘Georgic’ was refitted as a military personnel transport ship. The following year the ship was bombed and suffered great damage. After being rebuilt, the ‘Georgic’ continued to provide war service and repatriation work until 1948. She was then refitted once more as a one-class emigrant carrier for the Australian government. In 1955 the ship was de-commissioned.

Medic was the second of the “Jubilee Class” of ships designed to permit White Star to run a monthly service to Australia, but the first of them to actually sail to Australia. Built by Harland & Wolff, Belfast, Medic was launched in December 1898, and made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Sydney via Cape Town, on 3 August 1899.

Medic remained in commercial service during World War I because of her large frozen meat capacity, although she was operated under the Liner Requisition Scheme for two years. She returned to White Star service in 1919, and remained on the Australia route until 1927.

In January 1928, Medic was sold and converted into a whale factory ship named Hektoria. Hektoria was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic by U-608 on 11 September 1942, while serving as a Ministry of War Transport oil tanker.

Great Ships: Postcard and Ephemera Collection of Jeff Newman

see also: Afric – Vedic – Persic

Ypiranga was built for the Hamburg-America Line by Krupp’s Germaniawerft, at Kiel, and was launched in May 1908. After spending the war years idle at Hamburg, Ypiranga was ceded to Great Britain as a war reparation. She was then placed under White Star Line management in April 1919, and was used as a troop repatriation vessel and as an auxiliary ship on White Star’s service to Australia.

more

Zealandic

Launched at Harland & Wolff, Belfast, in June 1911. Her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Wellington began on 30 October of that year. In addition to her regular service, Zealandic was chartered for a time in 1913 as an immigrant carrier for the government of Western Australia.

more

British subjects and Australian citizenship – Booklet: Australia Ahead
circa 1951, Source: Museum Victoria

The Royal Mail Ship ARCADIA (1953 – 1979)

The much admired Arcadia held the distinction of being the largest P&O liner to be built on the banks of the Clyde. She was named after the 6,000 ton steamer of the same name which entered P&O service in 1888.

Arcadia was constructed specifically for the London to Australia and New Zealand route, upon which she commenced service in February 1954. Her early voyages saw her use the same trans-Suez and India route in both directions. In later years this was extended to include the Pacific and the American West Coast.

more on NZ National Maritime Museum; NZ Maritime Record

above right: Passenger ship Arcadia, which brought Ten Pound Poms, at its berth in Sydney

SS Orsova

- Liebig’s Beef Extract “Sea Ports” Belgian issue -
Melbourne, Australia, c. 1908

Further Reading:

- New Zealand Maritime Museum -
Maritime Histories and Ship Index

- Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney -

left: A mine being readied for transportation by railway trolley to the wharf by members of the Corp of Submarine Miners. The mines were laid on the riverbed and were detonated electrically, by cable from inside the Fort. The soldiers were Queensland Volunteer Engineers and the unit had various names throughout the period. The Brisbane River was mined by these engineers between 1878 and 1908 when responsibility for underwater defence passed to the Navy.

right: An early view showing the Australian steamship, Leichardt, in the South Brisbane dry dock in May 1883

- Brisbane Living Heritage -

- Flickr stream for State Library of Queensland, Australia -

- Immigration Museum; Victoria, Australia -

- Martime Ship Covers from New Zealand (Paquebot Mail) -

PICTURE GALLERY:
- Steamers in the Australia & New Zealand Passenger and Immigrant Trade -
on findboatpics.com.au

- FLOTILLA AUSTRALIA -
The Site of Australian Shipping Lines Postcards, Prints, Photographs, Ephemera, Essential Data of Australian Ships, Big and Small, Past and Present. From Adelaide Steamship to Yorke’s Peninsular Steam Navigation Co. From Admella to Zincmaster. From 1852 up to the modern day.

- The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company -
multi-media on P&O Ferries UK

from Cruising Mates Forums

T.E.V. Wahine, Yard Number 830, under construction on the Number Two Building Berth in the shipyard of the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Ltd at Govan, Glasgow, in early 1965.

The Wahine was a drive-on passenger ship owned by the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8 p.m. the Wahine departed Wellington for the overnight voyage between the North and South Islands of New Zealand, arriving at Lyttelton next morning at 7 a.m.

She would then sail back to Wellington the following night. Her partner on the Steamer Express service, the smaller and older Maori (7,498 gross tons, built 1953) ran in the opposite direction, leaving Lyttelton on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, passing the Wahine during the night before reaching Wellington next morning. There were no sailings on Sunday evenings.

- more on thewahine.co.nz -
photo: Wellington City Archives (Union Steam Ship Company collection)

Clam Shell with painting of TSS TOFUA, Union Steam Ship Company painted by Frank Barnes, a marine painter of the late 19th and early 20th century in Wellington, NZ

Monkey Fist

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

Maritime Monday for April 2, 2012: It took a ship to discover Australia

Monkey Fist — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 03:24:43 +0000

Descriptio terræ subaustralis – Copperplate map, with added color, 9 × 13 cm.
From Petrus Bertius’s P. Bertii tabularum geographicarum contractarum (Amsterdam, 1616)

Terra Australis Incognita

The notion of Terra Australis was introduced by Aristotle. Christian thinkers did not discount the idea that there might be land beyond the southern seas, but the issue of whether it could be inhabited was controversial.

The first depiction of Terra Australis on a globe was probably on Johannes Schöner’s lost 1523 globe. On this landmass was written “recently discovered but not yet completely explored”. The body of water beyond the tip of South America is called the “Mare Magellanicum,” one of the first uses of navigator Ferdinand Magellan’s name in such a context.

1604 copy of the 1602 Chinese map Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, which depicts
“Magellanica” as a large continent in the South. Full resolution‎ (11,726 × 5,266 pixels)

Exploration of the Pacific

Polynesians reached nearly all the Pacific islands by about 1200AD. In 1521 Magellan crossed the Pacific. For the next 250 years Europeans explored various parts of the Ocean, but the only significant trade was along both coasts and the Manila galleons that crossed from Mexico to the Philippines. The modern period began with Captain Cook (1768–80).

Captain James Cook, FRS, RN (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy.

Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

- James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich -

Exploration of the Pacific — Captain Cook on wikipedia

- HMS Endeavour leaving Whitby Harbour in 1768. By Thomas Luny, dated 1790 -

HMS Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, was a British Royal Navy research vessel commanded by Lieutenant James Cook on his first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand from 1769 to 1771.

Launched in 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke, she was purchased by the Navy in 1768 for a scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean, and to explore the seas for the surmised Terra Australis Incognita or “unknown southern land”.

In September 1769, she anchored off New Zealand, the first European vessel to reach the islands since Abel Tasman‘s Heemskerck 127 years earlier. In April 1770, Endeavour became the first seagoing vessel to reach the east coast of Australia, when Cook went ashore at what is now known as Botany Bay.

image right: HMS Endeavour off the coast of New Holland, by Samuel Atkins c.1794 — Painting shows the crew of HMB Endeavour in longboats attempting to pull the ship free from the reef.

Endeavour then sailed north along the Australian coast. She narrowly avoided disaster after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef, and was beached on the mainland for seven weeks to permit rudimentary repairs to her hull. Largely forgotten after her epic voyage, Endeavour spent the next three years shipping Navy stores to the Falkland Islands.

Renamed and sold into private hands in 1775, she briefly returned to naval service as a troop transport during the American Revolutionary War and was scuttled in a blockade of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island in 1778. Her wreck has not been precisely located.

A replica of Endeavour was launched in 1994 and is berthed alongside the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney Harbour. The space shuttle Endeavour is named for the original ship.

- more on wikipedia -
- more images and history on National Museum of Australia -
- A Chart of the Southern Hemisphere 1777 -

New Zealander Tattoos

The bodies of both sexes are marked with black stains called Amoco, by the same method that is used at Otaheite, and called Tattowing; but the men are more marked, and the women less…

The men, on the contrary, seem to add something every year to the ornaments of the last, so that some of them, who appeared to be of an advanced age, were almost covered from head to foot. Besides the Amoco, the have marks impressed by a method unknown to us, of a very extraordinary kind: they are furrows of about a line deep, and a line broad, such as appear on the bark of a tree which has been cut through . . . and being perfectly black, they make a most frightful appearance.

We could not but admire the dexterity and art with which they were impressed. The marks upon the face in general are spirals, which are drawn with great nicety, and even elegance, those on one side exactly corresponding with those on the other. . . . No two were, upon a close examination, found to be alike.

- The Inside of a Hippah, in New Zealand -
From atlas volume of Cook’s A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean – London, 1784

“Carte de la Nle. Zelande visitée en 1769 et 1770 par le Lieutenant J. Cook Commandant de l’Endeavour – French copy of Cook’s foundation map of New Zealand, showing the track of the Endeavour around both islands, from October 6, 1769, to April 1, 1770 (full size)

Endeavour came within sight of land on April 19, well north of the area charted by Tasman 125 years earlier. The New Holland (Australia) coast was exasperating, however, and Cook could not find a safe place to land until the afternoon of Saturday, April 28, when they entered Botany Bay (part of today’s Sydney Harbor), which Cook later named for the wide variety of plant life found there.

- Further Reading: Act I: The First Voyage -

Captain Cook’s Journal during his first voyage round
the world made in HM Bark Endeavour 1768-71
A Literal Transcription of the Original Mss. with Notes and Introduction
edited by Captain W.J.L. Wharton, RN, FRS Hydrographer of the Admiralty.
Illustrated — web edition published by ebooks.adelaide

- read online -
- Also on Project Gutenberg -

left: A Pub inspired by the great Captain James Cook; Putney, London
right: Royal Doulton loving cup, Captain Cook, designed by Charles Noke & Harry Fenton. Issued 1933

Further Reading: Strait Through: Magellan to Cook & the Pacific

The British planned Botany Bay as the site for a penal colony. Out of these plans came the first European habitation of Australia at Sydney Cove.

Black-eyed Sue and Sweet Poll of Plymouth, England mourning their
lovers who are soon to be transported to Botany Bay, 1792

Governor Arthur Phillip sailed the armed tender Supply into the bay on 18 January 1788. Two days later the remaining ships of the First Fleet arrived to found the planned penal colony. Finding that the sandy infertile soil of the site in fact rendered it most unsuitable for settlement, Phillip decided instead to move to the excellent natural harbour of Port Jackson to the north.

On the morning of 24 January the French exploratory expedition of Jean-François de La Pérouse was seen outside Botany Bay. On 26 January, the Supply left the bay to move up to Port Jackson. It anchored in Sydney Cove and the British Flag “Queen Ann” was hoisted on shore. On the afternoon of 26 January, the remaining ships of First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove.

In 1789, captain John Hunter surveyed Botany Bay. The good supply of fresh water in the area led to the expansion of its population in the 19th century.

right: The Founding of Australia, Jan. 26th 1788, by Capt. Arthur Phillip R.N. Sydney Cove Original oil sketch [1937] by Algernon Talmadge

- see: Very Early Map of Sydney from 1789 done by a transported convict -

Let’s settle this: Australia was colonised as part of Britain’s imperial ambition and not just as a penal dumping ground for failed citizens…

- article: Bound to Botany Bay: putting to rest an ancient imperial lie -

William Bradley – Drawings from his journal
A Voyage to New South Wales
December 1786 – May 1792, Album

The First Fleet

Over 252 days, the First Fleet brought over 1500 men, women and children half way around the world from England to New South Wales.

On 13 of May 1787, the fleet of 11 ships set sail from Portsmouth, England. Led by Captain Arthur Phillip, this historic convoy, which later became known as the First Fleet, carried officers, crew, marines and their families, and convicts from Britain to a distant and little known land on the far side of the world.

The Fleet consisted of two Royal Navy escort ships, HMS Sirius and HMS Supply. They accompanied six convict transports, the Alexander, Charlotte, Friendship, Lady Penrhyn, Prince of Wales and the Scarborough, and three store ships, the Borrowdale, Fishburn and Golden Grove.

- keep reading -
- article: Spearing the Governor -

The British First Fleet arrived in Port Jackson (now Sydney) in January 1788, when 11 ships carrying about 1,400 people landed to establish the first penal colony. Among the sailors and convicts on board were draughtsmen, artists and forgers. They painted and drew the new landscape, its wildlife, and the Eora Nation clans who inhabited the area. Despite their lack of scientific accuracy, the images in the First Fleet collection are some of the most important in the Museum, providing a snapshot of a key moment in Australia’s history…

- article: Australian rarities arrive in the Images of Nature gallery -

left: The great South Sea Caterpillar, transform’d into a Bath Butterfly (1795), James Gillray caricatured Banks’s investiture with the Order of the Bath as a result of his expedition — right: Dr Daniel Solander, Sir Joseph Banks, Captain James Cook, Dr John Hawkesworth and Earl Sandwich by John Hamilton Mortimer

- The Endeavour botanical illustrations -

1941 novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall; Dust jacket art by N. C. Wyeth
- posted by theticketthatexploded -

Botany Bay is a historical fiction written by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall about the trials and tribulations of the first European settlers of the Australian continent. It is also a 1953 American film directed by John Farrow and starring Alan Ladd, James Mason and Patricia Medina.

In 1787, prisoners are shipped from Newgate Jail on the Charlotte to found a new penal colony in Botany Bay, New South Wales. Amongst them is Hugh Tallant (Ladd) an American medical student who had been wrongly imprisoned. During the journey he begins to clash with the villainous Captain Gilbert (Mason), and is soon plotting a full-scale mutiny against him.

- Botany Bay on IMDb -

- Australian paintings by J.W. Lewin, G.P. Harris, G.W. Evans and others, 1796-1809 -
32 watercolours

The Naming of Australia

In 1606, the Spanish Captain Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, standing in Tahiti, spoke of the destiny of Australia almost a hundred years before it was claimed by Captain Cook. Here, in part, is the text of the prophecy:

“Let the heavens, the earth, the waters with all their creatures and all those present witness that I, Captain Pedro Fernandez de Quiros… in the name of Jesus Christ… hoist this emblem of the Holy Cross on which His person was crucified and whereon He gave His life for the ransom and remedy of all the human race… on this day of Pentecost, 1606…

I take possession of all this part of the South as far as the pole, in the name of Jesus… which from now on shall be called the Southern Land of the Holy Ghost (La Australia del Espiritu Santo)… and this always and forever… and to the end that to all natives, in all the said lands, the holy and sacred evangel may be preached zealously and openly.”

- source -

- Captain Flinders’s ‘A voyage to Terra Australis’ London: G.& W. Nichol, 1814 -
State Library of Queensland

- Matthew Flinders on Minute Stories of Famous Explorers -

A Voyage to Terra Australis: Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty’s Ship the Investigator was a sea voyage journal written by English mariner and explorer Matthew Flinders.

It describes his circumnavigation of the Australian continent in the early years of the 19th century, and his imprisonment by the French on the island of Mauritius from 1804-1810

The ship Flinders commanded, HMS Investigator, was a 334-ton sloop. Up until this time the circumnavigation of Australia which was necessary to prove it was a single continent land mass, had never been completed. He achieved this by circling the island continent, leaving Sydney in July 1802, heading north, through Torres Strait, across the top of the continent westward, and south along the western coastline.

Flinders reached and named Cape Leeuwin on 6 December 1801, and proceeded to make a survey along the southern coast of the Australian mainland, and then completing the journey, arrived back in Sydney in June 1803, despite the dangerous condition of his ship.

- A Voyage to Terra Australis on wikipedia -
- HMS Investigator (1798) on wikipedia -

- Matthew Flinders: A Brief History -
- statue: Trim, the cat, at the feet of his master, Matthew Flinders -

- Matthew Flinders and the History of Minjerribah Island -

- The Baudin expedition ships: Le Géographe and Le Naturaliste -

In October 1800 Nicolas Baudin was selected to lead an expedition to map the coast of Australia. He had two ships, Géographe and Naturaliste, and was accompanied by nine zoologists and botanists, including Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour.

He reached Australia in May 1801, being the first to explore and map the western coast, and a part of the southern coast of the continent. The scientific expedition was a great success, with more than 2500 new species discovered.

In April 1802, he met Matthew Flinders, also engaged in charting the coastline, in Encounter Bay. Baudin then stopped at the British colony at Sydney for supplies. In Sydney he bought a new ship — Casuarina — named after the wood it was made from.

From there, Baudin sent home Naturaliste, which had on board all of the specimens that had been discovered by Baudin and his crew. He then headed for Tasmania, before continuing north to Timor.

Baudin then sailed for home, stopping at Mauritius, where he died of tuberculosis. An inscription was left by members of Géographe on Kangaroo Island, Australia, in 1803.

Over 200,000 specimens from the expedition were deposited in Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (zoology) and Jardin des Plantes (botany). Live plants, animals and birds were also sent to Empress Josephine Bonaparte’s gardens at Château de Malmaison.

- Baudin expedition to Australia on wikipedia -

- Journeys of Enlightenment: French Exploration of Terres Australes -

- Owen Stanley; Voyage of HMS Rattlesnake: Album view -

HMS Rattlesnake was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette of the Royal Navy launched in 1822. She made a historic voyage of discovery to the Cape York and Torres Strait areas of northern Australia.

Captain on the voyage to northern Australia and New Guinea was Owen Stanley. Also aboard were John Thomson as Surgeon, Thomas Henry Huxley as Assistant Surgeon (“surgeon’s mate”, but in practice marine naturalist), John MacGillivray as botanist and Oswald Brierly as artist.

Narrative of the Voyage of HMS Rattlesnake, Volume 1 at Project Gutenberg
Narrative of the Voyage of HMS Rattlesnake, Volume 2 at Project Gutenberg
HMS Rattlesnake (1822) on wikipedia

Founding of Port Adelaide and Kangaroo Island

The South Australian Company bought the ship Duke of York and another Falmouth packet named Lady Mary Pelham. The intent was to send it whaling in the South Seas after it had delivered passengers and cargo to South Australia.

In the oceans off Australia and New Zealand fortunes could be made in whaling. Since the first European ships had arrived in Australia in 1788 they had used whaling as a way to catch a cargo for their return voyages.

History of the South Australian Company
State Library of South Australia
also: South Australia illustrated

The Bound for South Australia website, established to give first-hand accounts of the voyage by History SA as it happened 175 years ago

On 25 February,1836 Captain Robert Morgan sat down in his tiny cabin on board the Duke of York to begin a diary of the long sea voyage to the new Province of South Australia. He was well aware that the journey he faced would be long and perilous, indeed the route to Australia was one of the longest sea voyages undertaken at the time, and he knew only too well that he might never return…

Bound for South Australia, 1836; Week One; Setting Sail

- South Australian Company Building, North Terrace, 1872 on Flickr -

- Port Adelaide 1886 -

Patent slip belonging to the Australian Steam Navigation Co.
- Views of ships, ca. 1859-1871 / watercolours by Frederick Garling (Album) -
State Library of New South Wales

The Australasian Steam Navigation Company (ASN Co) was a shipping company of Australia. The company was started as the Hunter River Steam Navigation Company in 1839 and changed its name in 1850. The shipping company was amalgamated with the Queensland Steam Shipping Company with their respective vessels in 1887 to form the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company.

- Australian United Steam Navigation Company on Flotilla Australia -

- Circular Quay, Sydney in 1892 -

Sydney Cove, the current site of Circular Quay, was the site of the initial landing of the First Fleet in Port Jackson on 26 January, 1788. In 1794 Thomas Muir, a Scottish constitutional reformer, was sentenced to transportation for sedition. Thomas Muir later escaped from the colony in 1796 aboard an American brig, the Otter.

- Circular Quay on wikipedia -
- Interactive 360° panorama -

- Circular Quay, Sydney Harbor, Circa 1900 -
State Library of New South Wales

- Manly Wharf, Circular Quay, Sydney c. 1900 -

- Port Jackson and the Manly Steamship Company -

- Circular Quay, Sydney, New South Wales, the Metropolis of the South Seas; 1906 -

- A SHORT HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA on Jane’s Oceania -

- Looking up — Sydney’s history from a new angle -

Typhoo Tea “Wonder Cities of the World” 1933 -
No. 3 Sydney “The First Port of Australia”

- Famous Names: The Australasian Antarctic Expedition -

Australasian Antarctic Expedition
on wikipedia

1911 — 1914

The Australasian Antarctic Expedition was an Australasian scientific team that explored part of Antarctica between 1911 and 1914. It was led by the Australian geologist Douglas Mawson, who was knighted for his achievements in leading the expedition. In 1910 he began to plan an expedition to chart the 2000-mile long coastline of Antarctica to the south of Australia.

The Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science approved of his plans and contributed substantial funds for the expedition. The remaining funds were raised by public subscription and additional donations. more

more: Douglas Mawson, & the Aurora; Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911-14
on Cool Antarctica
map: Full-size image: 4549 × 3973
(more links to other stories, diaries and images)
First Australasian Antarctic Expedition
Flickr Set
John George Hunter collection of photographs of Antarctica, 1911-1914
Flickr Set
100 Years of Australian Antarctic Expeditions

left: Crew member W. F. Howard on board RRS Discovery 28th December 1930 — right: Scientific staff and ship’s officers on the second BANZARE cruise, 1930-31 (Sir Douglas Mawson stands in the middle row wearing a balaclava)

British Australian & New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition

1929 – 1931

The British Australian (and) New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) was a research expedition into Antarctica between 1929 and 1931, involving two voyages over consecutive Austral summers. It was a British Commonwealth initiative, driven more by geopolitics than science, and funded by the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

The leader of the BANZARE was Sir Douglas Mawson on board the RRS Discovery. The BANZARE was also a scientific quest, producing 13 volumes of reports, on geology, oceanography, meteorology, terrestrial magnetism, zoology and botany.

- more on wikipedia -

- BANZARE 1930-1931; Flickr Set -

- map: Australian Antarctic Division: BANZARE 1929-31 voyage tracks -

- Illustrated front cover from The Queenslander, October 22, 1931 -
Caption: In memory of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805, “His ship the Victory named–Long be that victory famed. For victory crowned the day.”

—

Maritime Monday for April 9, 2012: It Took a Ship to Discover Australia, part 2: Ten Pound Poms

Monkey Fist

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

Maritime Monday for March 26, 2012: Whaling, Commodore Perry, and the Opening of Japan; pt. 2

Monkey Fist — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:30:16 +0000

- Ships of The World 1963 -

Maritime Monday for March 19, 2012: Whaling, Commodore Perry, and the Opening of Japan – Part 1 -

- The View of the Hashima Coal Mine outside Nagasaki Harbour -

- Sakura Maru Being Built at Nagasaki -

left: February 6, 1904: Japan’s foreign minister cuts all ties with the Russian Empire in reaction to the dispute over Manchuria. (Kajima)

right: February 8, 1904 Russo-Japanese War: Three hours before Japan’s declaration of war is received by the Russian Government, the Imperial Japanese Navy, in a surprise attack on the Russian Far East Fleet at Port Arthur, Korea, disables seven Russian warships.

- US Army Transport (USAT) SHERMAN taking on coal at Nagasaki, Japan -

sailed from New York City on February 2, 1899. The Regiment arrived in Manila, PI, on March 22, 1899 to take part in actions connected with the Philippine Insurrection until March 18, 1902.

- another photo on Flickr -

Imperial Japan’s 1904–05 war against Tsarist Russia changed the global balance of power. The first war to be widely illustrated in postcards, the Japanese view of the conflict is presented in images from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection of Japanese Postcards at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

- article: ASIA RISING: Japanese Postcards from the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) -

Navy Commander Hirose Takeo by Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1904

“Captain Hirose,” who perished while returning to find one of his missing men, was perhaps the single most celebrated Japanese hero in the Russo-Japanese War.

In the following print, the respectful treatment of the final moments of Russian vice-admiral Makarov, who went down with his ship along with 800 men, is every bit as tragic and poignant in its way as Captain Hirose’s death.

images & articles: Throwing Off Asia:
- part three: The Russo-Japanese War -

- article: Russo-Japanese War News – May 1905 -

- SHIKISHIMA Flagship in Yokohama Harbor -
One of Japan’s greatest Battlships of old, designed and built in the UK.

Hand-tinted silver print, originally photographed as a stereoview ca.1904-05 during the Russo-Japan War. See also: The ASAMA in Yokohama Harbor — Waiting for Emperor Meiji to Board

The Japanese Warship Niitaka’s logbooks give us insight regarding the military plans for
Dokdo Island by Imperialist Japan during the Russo Japan War of 1904~1905.

The Japanese Imperial Navy battle cruiser Tsushima and her sister ship the Niitaka both conducted surveys of Liancourt Rocks to determine the islands suitability for watchtowers and telegraph stations just months before the islands annexation during the 1904~1905 Russo Japanese War

- article: Japan’s Takeshima – Dokdo and Japan’s Imperial Navy -
Logbooks of the Japanese Imperial Navy Warship Niitaka

Depiction from the French periodical Le Petit Journal (1894) of the sinking of the
Kow-shing and the rescue of some of its crew by the French gunboat Le Lion

- article: Sinking of the Kow-shing on wikipedia -

- The Battle of the Yalu River 1894 -

The Imperial Japanese Navy destroyed 8 out of ten warships of the Chinese Beiyang Fleet off the mouth of the Yalu River on 17 September 1894. Japan’s command of the sea was assured.

False depiction of Chinese delegation, led by Admiral Ding Ruchang and their foreign advisers, boarded the Japanese vessel to negotiate the surrender with Admiral Itō Sukeyuki after the Battle of Weihaiwei. In reality, Ding had committed suicide after his defeat and never surrendered.

- website: Overview of the Sino-Japanese War -

- image: Sunken-Ship Matsushima and Battle-Ship Tokiwa -

- Wreck of the steamship DAKOTA, Japan, 1907 -

Great Northern Steamship Company’s SS Dakota with 2700 passengers sunk off the coast of Japan, March 7, 1907. The passengers abandoned the ship, which was later destroyed by a storm.

Along with her sister ship, the SS Minnesota, she was described as the largest steamer in the world flying the American flag. She was built “to give impetus to the trade with the Orient”, trading with Japan and Hong Kong and traveling the Pacific route. Launched in February 1903, she was a twin screw vessel with four masts and one funnel, capable of 14.6 knots.

She was wrecked when she struck a reef off the coast of Yokohama on 3 March 1907. The ship was close enough to shore to avoid any deaths and the passengers and cargo were evacuated before she sank.. The passengers returned to the United States aboard the Japanese steamship Hakuai. Eighty bags of mail later washed ashore.

After the ship was lost, Hill vowed not to make any more ships under the American flag, noting the high cost of maintaining a ship in America compared to Japan due to restrictions he regarded as “onerous”.

- more on wikipedia -

- Wreck of the cargo liner SS Dakota, March 3, 1907. Bow view of the vessel sinking -

In southern Japan women free-divers have been collecting the flora and fauna of the sea for 2,000 years. Traditionally they wore only loincloths in far-from-warm waters.

Traditions don’t get much more exciting than mostly-nude women in the water with pearls and sharks and whatnot. These divers are known as ama, or sea women.

- Deep Blue Home -

- The Mitsubishi Dockyard, Nagasaki Japan -

- The No. 1 Mitsubishi Dock Yard, Nagasaki Japan -

- Pacific Mail Steam Ship Company vessel Minnesota in Mitsubishi Dry Dock, Nagasaki JAPAN, 1911 -

- Coaling on the Ship at Nagasaki Harbor -

article: Nagasaki 1910s: Taking on Coal

- Nagasaki Naval Training Center -

- Toyo Kisen Kaisha / Oriental Steamship Company -

Yokohama, early 1900s; Ports of call:
Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohama, Honolulu, San Francisco
- fleet information on The Ships List -

Tenyo Maru
This Japanese steamship was the oil-burning, turbine-driven ocean liner that carried the Japanese Friendship Dolls from Yokohama to San Francisco in 1927

see also: Toyo Kisen Kaisha; (Oriental Steamship Company) Japan – Early 1920s (brochure)

Here is a collection of early 20th century travel posters for Japanese steamship companies (from the book Miwaku no Funatabi, published by the Museum of Maritime Science, 1993)

Japanese steamship travel posters
on Pink Tentacle

- Shell Pickers at Honmoku Near Yokohama -
- At Work in Old Japan -

Yokohama Foreign Traders; Sadahide, 1861

Keihin Industrial Zone: Burning of the Prefectual Office and Customs House
- Great Kanto Earthquake, September 1, 1923 -

On board Chichibu Maru going to Japan, June 1931
In the center are Prince and Princess Takamatsu who were returning from a world tour.
- see full size -

M/S CHICHIBU MARU
Built: 1930 Yokohama Dock Co., Yokohama, Japan
Operator: Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK)
Speed: 19 kn – Passengers: 817

Built for Yokohama – San Francisco run. In 1942 she became a transport ship for the Japanese Navy and was also used as a hospital ship. On 04-28-1943, while on a voyage from Manila to Singapore she was torpedoed and sunk by the US submarine Gudgeon.

- source -

JAPAN’S FAMOUS LINERS – NYK LINES (Now Crystal Cruises) on Cruising the Past
(advertising her Sulzer diesel engines)

The Asama Maru was a Japanese ocean liner owned by Nippon Yusen Kaisha. The ship was built in 1927-1929 by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. at Nagasaki, Japan. The vessel was created as a twin of the Tatsuta Maru, and both ships were named after important Shinto shrines.

- Asama Maru on wikipedia -

left: NYK Line (Nippon Yusen Kaisha) Japan
Sailings April 1922-March 1923

right: Plan of Passenger Accommodation Motor Ships Asama Maru & Tatsuta Maru
The Orient-California Fortnightly Service N.Y.K. Line, 1929
Published by the N.Y.K. Line (Nippon Yusen Kaisha)

detailed histories of
MS Asama Maru; 1929 – 1944, MS Tatsuta Maru; 1930 – 1943 and MS Chichibu Maru; 1930 – 1943 on DerbySulzer

The Tatsuta Maru (16,975 grt, 584 ft. long) commenced her maiden voyage between Yokohama and San Francisco in April 1930. The transliteration of her name was changed to Tatuta Maru in 1938. She became a troop transport for the Japanese Navy in 1941, but ended her days two years later when sunk by a US submarine. Her sister-ship the Asama Maru was near-identical, whereas a half-sister, the Chichibu Maru, was slightly larger with only one funnel.

- click here to see interiors -

- CP Ships / Canadian Pacific Steamships -
Sailings November 1928-August 1929

- The China Marines; Asiatic Fleet (more) -

The term China Marines originally referred to those United States Marines from the 4th Marine Regiment who were stationed in Shanghai, China during 1927 – 1941 to protect American citizens and their property in the Shanghai International Settlement during the Chinese Revolution and the Second Sino-Japanese War

- more on wikipedia -

- Countdown to Infamy: Timeline to Pearl Harbor -

Editor’s note: A very weird website I stumbled on while compiling this week’s MM. I had no intention of veering into Pearl, I mean, really? What can I bring to it that we all haven’t already read (or seen in the movies) but this was just too strange to pass by without at least a mention.

Someone has put together a website with a very detailed timeline of events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and used vintage WWII comic panels to illustrate it. The images are pretty piss poor quality, to be honest, but hell… they get an A for effort.

- Japanese postcard: steamship Nagasaki Maru -

World War II: 13 May, 1942 — The ocean liner struck a mine and sank in the Pacific Ocean off Nagasaki with the loss of 39 people. Her captain later committed hari-kiri.

- M/S ASAMA MARU -
Built for Yokohama – San Francisco service; 30 October 1928 – crew of 330
1941: troopship for the Japanese Navy
1 NOV, 1944: torpedoed and sunk by USS Atule in the South China Sea

On November 1, 1944, Asama Maru was torpedoed and sunk by the US submarine USS Atule in the South China Sea 100 miles (160 km) south of the island of Pratas. In transporting Allied prisoners, it was amongst those vessels which earned the epithet “hell ships.”

The Prisoners of World War were basically transported either from the Philippines or Singapore to work in Japan, Korea or Taiwan as constrained labourers. While aboard the vessels, these prisoners not only faced severe dearth of food, ventilation and water but also had to deal with the attacks carried out by the Allied Powers.

Many such hell ships were destroyed by Allied Powers’ air and submarine attacks, leaving many POWs dead – either on the ship itself or by unintentional raids.

In a way it can be said that the Japanese purposefully used ships to transport POWs so that they could be killed without any interference from their side. The prisoners contained within a hell ship were used to be bolted and locked so that even when a missile hit the vessel, they had no way of escaping and saving their lives.

- Marine Insight -

The Lisbon Maru, Japanese steamship carrying POWs, sunk by US submarine Grouper off Shanghai, many died, but others escaped, some of whom died over the succeeding weeks.

Japanese “Hell” Ships 1942 to 1945

As Allied forces closed in, the Japanese began transferring POWs by sea. Similar to conditions on the Bataan Death March, prisoners were often crammed into cargo holds with little air, food or water for journeys that would last weeks.

Many died due to asphyxia, starvation or dysentery. Some POWs in the heat, humidity, lack of oxygen, food, and water became delirious and unresponsive to their environment. Unlike weapons transports which were sometimes marked as Red Cross ships, these prisoner transports were unmarked and were targeted by Allied submarines and aircraft.

- more: Japanese hell ships on wikipedia -

On 4th September 1944, convoy HI-72 sailed from Singapore. One of the ships, was the Rakuyo Maru, which carried 1317 POWs. On the 12th of September the Rakuyo Maru was torpedoed by the US submarine Sealion at around 5:00am. The Rakuyo Maru lost 1159 prisoners to the sea and the after effects of being in the water for up to 4 days.

- Japanese Hell Ships on Royal Marines online -

Tottori Maru; one of 20+ so called Hell Ships. She was empty when sunk by USS Hammerhead

Hell Ship to Singapore (January 1943)

The first week of January 1943, a thousand men from our camp, [Samethini] among them, were transported to Batavia (Jakarta) in a boarded-up train. One week later we were crammed, 1,100 men, into an old Japanese freighter, not knowing where the Japs were going to bring us. We were packed deep inside the ship, like herrings in a tin can. The hatches above us were open day and night, so we suffered the intense heat of the sun during the day. When it rained hard, the Japanese sailors put a tarp over the open hatch. We got very little food and drink, and pretty soon it got suffocating down there…

The so-called toilets were small, wooden spaces along ship’s railing. To get there, we had to climb a very steep and long steel ladder. Once there, we often had to wait in line for a long time. If there were too many in line, according to the guard, he would use the butt of his rifle to beat them back down the ladder. On top of that, many prisoners came down with dysentery. Those patients were unable to climb the ladder, and did everything where they were. We had to clean the mess because the illness is contagious. Many could not sleep for fear the ship would be torpedoed by the Allies during the night. Many of us felt mentally and physically broken soon, especially those with families left behind. In a word, it was misery….

- more -

Yanks Go Mad On Agony Ship
Dead Crammed In with Living In Hell-Hold of Jap Vessel

ARMS OUTSTRETCHED, BEGGING — American prisoners, crammed into hold of Jap prison ship, reach for light and air as comrades suffocate in dark recesses behind them. Men were driven mad by the heat, darkness and fetid air of the three holds.

News From the Past: 11 chapter serial of “The Death Cruise”

Nagara Maru & Naruto Maru – The Nagara Maru sailed from Manila on August 12, 1942 carrying 180 mostly senior POWs. It arrived in Takao, Formosa on August 14, 1942. During September – November 1942 the Nagara Maru made another trip carrying 600 British POWs from Singapore to Rabaul and Ballale.

This painting shows what the Naruto Maru would look like since both ships were of the same class. The Naruto Maru left Rabaul, New Britain on July 6, 1942 carrying 79 POWs and arrived in Yokohama, Japan on July 21, 1942. Nineteen of these POWs were women including six Australian nurses.

- more on Hellship Information and Photographs -

History – WW II: Singapore, The British, Evacuation and the Hell Ships

American POWs on Japanese Ships Take a Voyage into Hell - Prologue Magazine

- “Hell Ships” – Britain at War -
- Rolls of those who perished on Hell Ships -

Hell Ship Mutiny (1957)

Original Republic Pictures One Sheet Poster (27×41) for the Lee Sholem and Elmo Williams action adventure starring Jon Hall, John Carradine, and Peter Lorre. Hall plays the captain of a small ship in the South Seas who discovers a band of gunman led by Carradine that have enslaved the natives to make dangerous dives for pearls.

These stylish matchbox ads for Japanese bars, cafes and restaurants date from the 1920s to 1940s. See the complete Flickr photoset (uploaded by maraid) for much more. –via PinkTentacle

“Japan deserves the concentrated attention of all our armed forces in the Pacific. One way to give the enemy attention is to find out all we can about him. This book is provided for that purpose. Other ways are by bombing his cities, sinking his shipping and destroying his factories. We are doing that. The best attention we can pay him is to invade his homeland. Every island we have taken has been a stepping stone to the Japanese Empire. In war it is not the first step but the last which count the most. On the sea and under the sea, through the air and across the land we will move together in the final step to victory.”

C.W. Nimitz,
Fleet Admiral, U.S. Navy

Pocket Guide to Japan

Prepared by US Army Information Branch, for the War and Navy Departments.

We are going to make it impossible for Japan to go to war again – she must be made to realize that peace can bring greater rewards than war.

The United States armed forces will fight their way to Japan and occupy her home islands. The chances are you will fight your way in. Or maybe you will march in after Japan surrenders. At any rate, if you do go there, you will have a responsible job.

The presence of the American fighting man in Japan will help to deflate the Japanese of their cock-eyed ideas that they were born to rule the world. It will help to show them that they are not the master race in Asia or anywhere else. It will show them that their dreams of invincibility were sheer nonsense and that their mission during the last 80 years was anything but divine…

Part III. THE JAPANESE MIND…

- see entire brochure (including emergency phrasebook) –

Japanese Delegation on the Battleship USS Missouri (BB-63)
Surrender of Japan, Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945

Trivia:

MacArthur staged the historic Japanese surrender ceremony on the deck of the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. For a special touch he had the Navy Academy release the historic ensign that Commodore Matthew Perry had flown from his flagship in 1853, when he spent a grand total of 8 days off Japan. MacArthur ordered the ensign displayed on the battleship for all to see. (source)

Surrender of Japan, Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945 / Naval Historical Center

Why do the Japanese hunt whales? on Animal Planet
(image left) – (image right)

THE OCTOPUS — A Japanese Fisherman Struggles for his Life

WESTERN MAN IN KIMONO in Old YOKOHAMA, JAPAN

Luggage label for the “N.Y.K. Line, Stateroom,” circa 1929

Monkey Fist

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

Maritime Monday for March 19, 2012: Whaling, Commodore Perry, and the Opening of Japan

Monkey Fist — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 02:01:30 +0000

Classic Comics: Cutaway of the Pequod – Boston Globe

Found: The Pequod! (Almost)

Marine archaeologists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration have found the sunken wreck of the Two Brothers – the second whaling ship helmed by George Pollard, Jr. Pollard had previously been the captain of the Essex, which sunk after being attacked by a sperm whale. The sinking of the Essex was the inspiration for Melville’s Moby-Dick…

keep reading

from The wreck of the Nantucket Whaler, “Two Brothers”

- Tea Chest from CPR Empress Steamer -

right: Built in England, RMS Empress of India (1891), Empress of China and Empress of Japan were near sisters. Empress of India was the first to arrive in the Pacific, steaming around the world by way of the Suez Canal, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki and Kobe. She arrived in Vancouver on April 28, 1891, with 1,810 tons of tea, silk, rice and opium and 486 passengers. — more on Vancouver Maritime Museum

left: Best quality roasted green tea
Advertisement from 1930s (click thru to see full size)

- Japanese Postcard Advertising Formosa Oolong Tea 1910 -
- Images of Canadian Pacific ocean liners -

In 1561, Juan Fernández, a lay member of the Society of Jesus, recorded the adoption of tea at the Jesuit residence where Damien, a young Japanese convert, “has the task of always having a kettle of hot water ready, which he gives to all the visitors and to those in the residence who want it.

Trained by the Jesuits in Japan and fluent in Japanese, his function as translator facilitated his entry into the rarified levels of Japanese society where he met many of the most influential political figures of the day. Well versed in both Western and Eastern cultures, he was a sympathetic and knowledgeable bridge between the two.

Rodrigues wrote extensively about chanoyu in his treatise on Japanese tea, Arte del Cha. He identified tea with extremely high production standards, quality, and great cost, describing in detail the annual harvest from Uji, which produced the finest tea.

As for chanoyu, the practice of drinking tea came under Western criticism, the barbs aimed at the excessive worth of the art objects used in its preparation and service. In his biography of Francis Xavier of 1600, the Portuguese Jesuit João de Lucena produced a slight against connoisseurship and chanoyu: “The Japanese attach a value to the most trifling and ridiculous things, as are the stuffs used in preparing a decoction from the herb which is called cha.”

Tea and Jesuits I — Tea and Jesuits II — Tea and Jesuits III

THE TEA PICKERS — Child Labor in Old Japan photo

In 1894, Japan exported fifty million pounds of tea, three-fourths of which came to the United States. The labor of picking of this immense crop is performed largely by children”

- TEA set by Okinawa Soba -
- AT WORK in OLD JAPAN -

Whaling Grounds of the Pacific in the Nineteenth Century (larger)

- Shipping Routes in the Pacific Showing National Interests -
- Density of Traffic on Pacific Shipping Routes -

The Whaleship Manhattan, anonymous Japanese artist; 1845

postcard published by Old Dartmouth Historical Society
collection: New Bedford Whaling Museum

Zoomable reproduction of Matthew Fontaine Maury’s Whale Chart ; 1851

Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury(1806–1873) was the chief the U.S. Naval Observatory and one of the most important nautical thinkers of his day. He conceived of the Whale Chart in the 1840s to aid the whaling community.

see also: The Father of Modern Oceanography on CBN.com

Kawahara Keiga (1786-after 1860); Dutch Ship Entering the Harbor
early 19th century – water color on paper
- Peabody Essex & Edo-Tokyo Museums, eds. Worlds Revealed: The Dawn of Japanese & American Exchange – Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Visualizing Cultures

- View on Dejima. Chromolithograph by C.W. Mieling after a painting by J.M. van Lijnden -

- Deshima Nagasaki, Japan 1641-1857: 216 years trade monopoly -
- Holland & Japan: 400 Years of Trade -

- Engelbert Kaempfer’s map of Nagasaki harbor, 1727 -

Dejima (literally “exit island”) was a small fan-shaped artificial island built in the bay of Nagasaki in 1634. This island, which was formed by digging a canal through a small peninsula, remained as the single place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and the outside world during the Edo period. Dejima was built to constrain foreign traders as part of sakoku, the self-imposed isolationist policy. Originally built to house Portuguese traders, it was used by the Chinese and Dutch as a trading post from 1641 until 1853.

- Dejima Island (Nagasaki) Overview -

- article: Nagasaki 1890s: View on City and Bay (a history) -

A Japanese Nanban byōbu detail depicting a Portuguese
carrack arriving at Nagasaki, c. 1571

US Japan Fleet, Com. Perry Carrying the Gospel of God to the Heathen, 1853
by James G. Evans

- Japanese woodblock print of Perry (center) and other high-ranking American seamen -

- The Arrival of Perry -

On March 31, 1854, the Convention of Kanagawa (Japan-US Treaty of Amity and Friendship) was concluded between Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. Navy and the Tokugawa shogunate.

The treaty opened the Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to United States trade and guaranteed the safety of shipwrecked U.S. sailors; however, the treaty did not create a basis for establishing a permanent residence in these locations. The treaty did establish a foundation for the Americans to maintain a permanent consul in Shimoda. The arrival of the fleet would trigger the end of Japan’s 200 year policy of seclusion.

- more on wiki -
- article: Commodore Perry: Glorified Postman -

No One Expects the Steam Navy!

Com. Perry left Norfolk, Virginia in 1852 to embark on his trip to Japan. He left port with his
black-hulled ship and with the Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga, and the Susquehanna
- The Imperialism wiki -

Black Ships and Samurai:
Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan c.1853

On July 8, 1853, residents of Uraga on the outskirts of Edo, the sprawling capital of feudal Japan, beheld an astonishing sight. Four foreign warships had entered their harbor under a cloud of black smoke, not a sail visible among them.

They were, startled observers quickly learned, two coal-burning steamships towing two sloops under the command of a dour and imperious American. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry had arrived to force the long-secluded country to open its doors to the outside world.

This was a time that Americans can still picture today through Herman Melville’s great novel Moby Dick, published in 1851 — a time when whale-oil lamps illuminated homes, baleen whale bones gave women’s skirts their copious form, and much industrial machinery was lubricated with the leviathan’s oil.

For several decades, whaling ships departing from New England ports had plied the rich fishery around Japan, particularly the waters near the northern island of Hokkaido. They were prohibited from putting in to shore even temporarily for supplies, however, and shipwrecked sailors who fell into Japanese hands were commonly subjected to harsh treatment.

- American Navy Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Japan, August 7, 1853 -
Woodblock Print

USS Susquehanna steam frigate, one of the “Black Ships” — (see full size)
- article: Trade, but Not with Japan -

Nicknamed “Old Bruin”
by one of his early crews (and “Old Hog” and other disparaging epithets by crewman with the Japan squadron), Matthew Perry was the younger brother of the famous Oliver Hazard Perry. His sailors perceived him as a strict disciplinarian.

In fact, he regretted the decision by the US Navy to ban flogging as the traditional form of punishment on board ship. He said that flogging was the only way to keep order among the older crewmen.

He was a master of amateur theatricals, who insisted his ship’s company played musical instruments and made up a band. (source)

- articles: Stokes on the Commodore and God Bless Old Bruin -

- 1859: Bullocks, Japanese Ambassadors, Cholera in Northern Japan
and European Ladies in Japan -

- William Merritt Chase (1849 – 1916) Japanese Print 1898 -

Take that, classical antiquity! This here style is something new…

right: James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

In 1854, under pressure from Commodore Matthew Perry, Japan opened its borders to the West for the first time in more than 200 years. The concisely named “International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine” in Philadelphia in 1876 was America’s first world fair, where pavilions from thirty-odd countries—including Japan—exposed 9 million westerners to the wonders of the “Orient.” European avant-gardes like Toulouse-Latrec and Van Gogh began combining the clarity of line and flatness of picture plane from Japanese woodcuts with European techniques like oil painting.

The resulting bi-racial baby was named Japonisme, and it was awesome. No surprise there: when previously isolated cultures cross paths, cultural upheaval and fertility results.

- more: Europeans Can’t Get Enough of That Sweet, Sweet Classicism -

- Off to Japan – American Artists & Japonisme -

- A Final Dose of Japonisme for the New Year -

- a blog named for and about Japonisme -

- Looking Out to Sea from Honmoku Shrine, Yokahama -
(Views of Old Japan on Flickriver)

- Commodore Matthew Perry Entertaining Japanese Commissioners on Ship -
- article: A change of heart on Commodore Perry -

USS Powhatan carrying the First Japanese Embassy to America, circa 1860. Woodblock print, ink and colors on paper. Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA

Delegation of Japanese government officials and their US Naval escorts
at the Washington Navy Yard, 1860

- article: Samurai in Washington DC -

- article: The Rev. Mr. Goble Goes to Japan -

- article: John Chinaman, and his Japanese cousins, are not ignoramuses… -

- article: Commodore Perry brought the word back to Japan -

1858-1859: Kanagawa was specified as one of the
five open ports by The US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce.
Port of Yokohama is opened on 2 June 1859.

- Japan Mail Steamship Co. (NYK), 1909 -

History of the Port of Yokohama — The Opening of the Port: West Meets East

- Nautical Chart: Yokohama in 1874 -

- Complete Picture of the Newly Opened Port of Yokohama by Sadahide, 1859-60 -
see also: “Complete Detailed View of Yokohama Honchō and the Miyozaki Quarter” c. 1860

c. 1850: Japanese Whispers: Mapping the Forbidden Outside World
- Japanese Historical World Maps -

left: A nineteenth century steamship arrives in Japan, as depicted in
this 1861 print, “Gaikokujin sen no uchi: jōkisen”
article: BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER, MORE: Around the World at Superhuman Speed

right: Japanese Woodblock Print; Steamship, 1863, by Sadahide (1807-1873) on Fuji Arts

Fantastic depiction of a Japanese steamship underway, sailing past Uraga, the site of Commodore Perry’s 1853 landing. Just ten years later, a Japanese crew dressed in kimono and armed with samurai swords sails its own modern Western style ship. The sails are furled and a large anchor hangs at the side of the ship as white capped waves crash against the bow. A terrific image showing Japan’s rapid modernization.

- Japanese Junks Under Sail — A Classic Image from Meiji-era Japan in 3-D (Hand Tinted) -

Out of millions of the world’s greatest photographs to choose from, the combined editorial staff of both the CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART and the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY unanimously chose a black & white print version of this image by T. ENAMI to be used as the sole inset photograph on the First Edition cover of their 100th Anniversary exhibition book and catalog, the monumental ODYSSEY – THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY AT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. (1988).

- more -

- article: Globetrotter’s Japan: Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan -

“The Kanrinmaru in Rough Seas,” depicts the first Japanese ship ever to cross the Pacific

150 years ago, a sailing ship flying a flag never seen in North America before entered the Golden Gate. It was the Kanrin Maru, the first Japanese ship ever to cross the Pacific, and its arrival in San Francisco made history.

The Kanrin Maru had a difficult and stormy 37-day voyage from Japan in the late winter of 1860. During its time of isolation, the Japanese had no oceangoing ships. Only one of the Japanese crew had ever been beyond the sight of land. It was an epic voyage.

The Japanese were the toast of the town: They attended receptions in their honor and a civic banquet, where they were treated to Champagne, cold turkey and wild game – an exotic repast to Japanese tastes. Capt. Kaishu Katsu, skipper of the Kanrin Maru, was served ice cream after one banquet. “I have never tasted such a wonderful thing in my life,” he said, diplomatically…

article: 150th anniversary of Kanrin Maru’s epic voyage

article: Modern Replica of the Original Kanrin Maru

article: New York Times: Candinamarrah (Kanrin Maru) Arrives in San Francisco:
- part one — part two -

Brown McFarlane was founded in 1889 by Captain A.R. Brown, a former P & O Chief Officer. Captain Brown had worked in the Far East since 1868 charting and surveying the coastline of Japan for the Japanese government of the time.

At the end of the 19th century Captain Brown joined forces with George McFarlane, a naval architect, to establish A R Brown McFarlane & Co Ltd based in Glasgow.

The company was initially involved in building ships for the Japanese and in the export of machinery and other capital equipment to Japan. It evolved as a trader to supplying a wider market and opened a London office in 1915 followed by more offices in Antwerp, New York, and Tokyo all supported by a worldwide agent network. In the meantime its business became more centred on the supply of steel products.

- more -

Looking North-East from “The Bluff” Over Old 1890s Yokohama

This is a ca.1892-95 Large “Yokohama Album” print from an old souvenir photo album. Photographed by T. ENAMI and sold directly to tourists visiting his T.ENAMI PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO at No.9 Benten Street in Yokohama.

The paper was coated with egg-whites from regular chicken eggs, then painted with silver nitrate. Sandwiched together with a large glass negative, it was slowly printed out under the sun on a nice day — then fixed and washed in water. When dry, it was hand-tinted as you see above. Customers could buy them loose like that, or pasted into beautiful albums. Enami’s albums were usually lacquered Cherry Wood with an inlaid work of art.

- see a 20-set collection of T. Enami’s photos of old Japan -

August 23, 1872:
A load of tea arrives in San Francisco aboard the first Japanese commercial ship to visit the US.

1872: Baseball is introduced in Japan.

images & articles: Throwing Off Asia:
Woodblock Prints of Domestic Westernization in Japan (1868-1912)
- part one — part two -

- article: The Response to the West; Preserving Tradition in Modernity -

- “Kanagawa, Noge, and Yokohama” by Hiroshige II, 1861 (see full size) -

article: Boomtown, the Story: The New Treaty Port
Yokohama became a boomtown when it was designated as the first
Japanese city open to foreigners after 200 years of isolation.

Front View of Nagasaki City – postcard

- Children and Boats on the Evening Sea -

One of several examples of a largely ignored facet of Old Japanese Photography — a genre called “TAISHO ART” or “TAISHO PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY”. The pictorialism movement in Japan reached its peak during the reign of Emperor Taishō (1912-26)

- PICTORIALISM IN OLD JAPAN -
see also: SAILING INTO FUJI

Ship Ghost at the Japan Sea Coast Japanese 1904–05

Yokohama Maritime Museum / sailing ship Nipponmaru

The Hikawa Maru, a retired passanger liner that connected Yokohama to Seattle, is visited each day by a lot of students. In the photo you see a class of schoolboys in the typical uniform. Between the skyscrapers is anchored the historical sail training ship Nippon Maru that sailed between 1930 and 1984 the equivalent of 45 times round the world.

- above photo by ARCHiPhone (see larger) -

Yokohama Port Museum
- photo by JapanDish -

Maritime Monday for March 26, 2012:
Whaling, Commodore Perry, and the Opening of Japan; pt. 2

Special Thanks and Further Reading:

- Okinawa Soba’s photostream -
- blog: t-enami.org -

- Old Photos of Japan -

- 1860: Japanese Embassy to America Visits Hawaii -

Monkey Fist

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

Mar 16, 2012 — GPS Tracking Disaster: Japanese Tourists Drive Straight into the Pacific