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Accidents at Sea

Ships sunk or damaged without enemy action

1. The Mary Rose: In 1545, Henry VIII's overloaded flagship wheeled in the wind and sank as water rushed into the lower gun ports that the crew had omitted to close.

2. The Wasa: The 64-gun Swedish flagship sank on her maiden voyage in 1628, capsizing in the wind almost as soon as her sails were hoisted.

3. The Kronan: The Swedish Admiral Baron Lorentz Creutz's last words were 'In the name ofjesus, make sure that the cannon ports are closed and the cannon made fast, so that in turning we don't suffer the same fate as befell the Wasa\ The ports were not closed and his flagship sank in 1675 as her predecessor had about fifty years earlier.

4. HMS Association: In 1707 the British Mediterranean commander, Sir Cloudesley Shovell, was returning home late in the season when his squadron misjudged their longitude and were wrecked on the Isles of Scilly. This disaster led the government to offer sponsorship for research into a reliable method of determining longitude, resulting in John Harrison's chronometer.

5. HMS Victoria: In an exercise in the Bay of Tripoli in 1893, Admiral Sir George Tryon of the Royal Navy put his flagship on a collision course with HMS Camperdown. He refused to reverse his orders despite the warnings of his officers and was reported to have said 'It is all my fault' before he drowned with 358 other seamen.

6. U-28: During the First World War, the German submarine launched a close-range surface attack on the British cargo ship Olive Branch. When a shell from U-28's deck gun set off a consignment of ammunition aboard the ship, the explosion was enough to sink the attacking submarine.

7. HMS Trinidad: In 1941 the Royal Navy submarine fired a torpedo at a German destroyer only for the weapon to describe a curving course - returning to destroy the Trinidad's engine room and put her out of the war. The same fate was suffered by the American submarine USS Tang, which torpedoed itself in the Formosa Strait in 1944.

8. K-141 Kursk: The nuclear-powered Russian submarine sank with all hands in the Barents Sea in 2000 after an explosion in one of her torpedo tubes. Russian authorities have claimed this was due to a collision with a foreign vessel - an account dismissed by international investigators.

There are many other examples : HMS Vanguard 1875, USS Maine 1898, USS Squalus 1939, HMS Thetis 1939, HMS Affray 1951, USS Thresher 1963 and HMAS Voyager 1964 to name but a few.

Of course your rigt there has been anumber of accidents at sea however apart from USS Maine. I think the others were accidents of the real and tragic kind

Maine was blamed on the Spaniards and used as a reason for the US to go to War, later it was suspected that It had been destroyed by the US government. Present thinking claims it may have been an Ammunition Accident.

. HMS Trinidad: In 1941 the Royal Navy submarine fired a torpedo at a German destroyer only for the weapon to describe a curving course - returning to destroy the Trinidad's engine room and put her out of the war. The same fate was suffered by the American submarine USS Tang, which torpedoed itself in the Formosa Strait in 1944.

I heard a story back in the late 1960's that US jet fighter shot itself down with its own heat seeking missile. Can anyone confirm that story?

That coming from an ex not so ableseaman aboard USS Gonowhere is reach

Never mind Tommy as they say in the RN (real navy), 'there is always Rum, Bum and Baccy'

The official rum ration for sailors aboard ship was abolished in 1970. I should think that rum is still available in the bars on board ship though.

President? Was you an absentee as well?

Lew they stopped the Rum taion as Mark says in 1970, but the matelots still get two cans of beer a day instead. Apparently issueing a rum ration was not condusive to operating the more technical equipment.

It was illegal to save your rum ration, but sailors being sailors did for special occaisions aboard ship birthdays, births among the crews families and last night on board.

I f you were a guest on a mess deck you could be invited to sippers or gulpers, depending how popular you were. Sippers was a tiny sip from every ones ration and Gulpers was just that and invariably ment you were blotto!

The RN still splice the main brace on special occaisions.

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