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HMS Scott (J79)
HMS ''Scott'' (J79) was a (officially, "fleet minesweeping sloop") of the British Royal Navy completed as an unarmed survey ship with an enlarged bridge and a large chart room abaft the extended forecastle deck. She served through World War II and the two following decades. Service history World War II ''Scott'' surveyed the English Channel in 1939 in preparation for laying a Channel Mine Barrage, and directed minelayers laying the barrage immediately following declaration of war. She was equipped for anti-submarine escort assignments when the Channel minelaying was completed, but retained the chart room by sacrificing her mainmast to compensate for the additional topside weight of a QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval gun on the forecastle. By the spring of 1940 her assignments were refocused on minelaying surveys rather than escort work. She measured depth of water with tidal fluctuations and currents to determine suitable minefield locations. In May 1941 ''Scott'' narrowly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is the world's largest island. It is one of three constituent countries that form the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark and the Faroe Islands; the citizens of these countries are all citizens of Denmark and the European Union. Greenland's capital is Nuuk. Though a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and Denmark, the colonial powers) for more than a millennium, beginning in 986.The Fate of Greenland's Vikings , by Dale Mackenzie Brown, ''Archaeological Institute of America ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morlaix
Morlaix (; br, Montroulez) is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Leisure and tourism The old quarter of the town has winding streets of cobbled stones and overhanging houses constructed of stone and timber. Many have religious and secular sculptures on their façades. One of these houses is "la Maison dite de la duchesse Anne", or the "so-called Duchess Anne’s house", which is now a museum, open to the public. This house is said to be one of the oldest in the town. Local legend has it that it derives its name from the fact that the Duchesse Anne of Brittany visited the house during her Tro Breizh pilgrimage. This seems unlikely, though, as construction on the house started in the 1520s and Anne of Brittany died in 1514. ThMuseum of the Jacobinsin Morlaix, housed in a former convent, traces the history of Finistère. Morlaix is a popular location for sea sports enthusiasts with a diverse arr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invasion Of Normandy
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Normandy landings. A 1,200-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June, and more than two million Allied troops were in France by the end of August. The decision to undertake a cross-channel invasion in 1944 was taken at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, and General Bernard Montgomery was named commander of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all the land forces involved in the invasion. The coast of Normandy of northwestern France was chosen as the site of the invasion, with the Americans assigned to land at sec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arromanches
Arromanches-les-Bains (; or simply Arromanches) is a commune in the Calvados department in the Normandy region of north-western France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as ''Arromanchais'' or ''Arromanchaises''. Geography Arromanches-les-Bains is 12 km north-east of Bayeux and 10 km west of Courseulles-sur-Mer on the coast where the Normandy landings took place on D-Day, 6 June 1944. Access to the commune is by the D514 road from Tracy-sur-Mer in the west passing through the town and continuing to Saint-Côme-de-Fresné in the east. The D87 road also goes from the town south to Ryes. The D65 road goes east to Meuvaines. About a third of the commune is the urban area of the town with the rest farmland. History Arromanches is remembered as a historic place of the Normandy landings and in particular as the place where a Mulberry harbour artificial port was installed. This artificial port allowed the disembarkation of 9,000 tons of materiel per day. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix Breakwaters
The Phoenix breakwaters were a set of reinforced concrete caissons built as part of the artificial Mulberry harbours that were assembled as part of the preparations for the Normandy landings during World War II. They were constructed by civil engineering contractors around the coast of Britain. They were collected at Dungeness and Selsey, and then towed by tugboats across the English Channel and sunk to form the Mulberry harbour breakwaters replacing the initial " Gooseberry" block ships. Caissons were added in the autumn of 1944 to reinforce the existing structure to cope with the harbour continuing in use longer than planned. Several Phoenix breakwaters still exist in Britain: two are part of the harbour off Castletown at Portland Harbour in Dorset, and two can be dived in less than 10 metres of water off Pagham in West Sussex. There is also a smaller Phoenix Caisson (type C) in Langstone Harbour in Hampshire. A wrecked Phoenix breakwater is also to be seen, broken in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blockship
A blockship is a ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used. It may either be sunk by a navy defending the waterway to prevent the ingress of attacking enemy forces, as in the case of at Portland Harbour in 1914; or it may be brought by enemy raiders and used to prevent the waterway from being used by the defending forces, as in the case of the three old cruisers , and scuttled during the Zeebrugge raid in 1918 to prevent the port from being used by the German navy. An early use was in 1667, during the Dutch Raid on the Medway and their attempts to do likewise in the Thames during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, when a number of warships and merchant ships commandeered by the Royal Navy were sunk in those rivers to attempt to stop the attacking forces. An even earlier use are the six 11th century Skuldelev ships in Roskilde Fjord, sunk to protect Roskilde from northern Vikings. They are now on display in the Viking Ship Museum. The above is th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moray Firth
The Moray Firth (; Scottish Gaelic: ''An Cuan Moireach'', ''Linne Mhoireibh'' or ''Caolas Mhoireibh'') is a roughly triangular inlet (or firth) of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of north of Scotland. It is the largest firth in Scotland, stretching from Duncansby Head (near John o' Groats) in the north, in the Highland council area, and Fraserburgh in the east, in the Aberdeenshire council area, to Inverness and the Beauly Firth in the west. Therefore, three council areas have Moray Firth coastline: Highland to the west and north of the Moray Firth and Highland, Moray and Aberdeenshire to the south. The firth has more than 800 kilometres (about 500 miles) of coastline, much of which is cliff. Etymology The firth is named after the 10th-century Province of Moray, whose name in turn is believed to derive from the sea of the firth itself. The local names ''Murar'' or ''Morar'' are suggested to derive from , the Gaelic for sea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decca Navigator System
The Decca Navigator System was a hyperbolic radio navigation system which allowed ships and aircraft to determine their position by using radio signals from a dedicated system of static radio transmitters. The system used phase comparison of two low frequency signals between 70 and 129 kHz, as opposed to pulse timing systems like Gee and LORAN. This made it much easier to design receivers using 1940s electronics, and operation was simplified by giving a direct readout of Decca coordinates without the complexity of a cathode ray tube and highly skilled operator. The system was invented in the U.S., but development was carried out by Decca in the UK. It was first deployed by the Royal Navy during World War II for the vital task of clearing the minefields to enable the D-Day landings. The Allied forces needed an accurate system not known to the Germans and thus free of jamming. After the war, it came off the secret list and was commercially developed by the Decca Company and deplo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Barrage
The Northern Barrage was the name given to minefields laid by the British during World War II to restrict German access to the Atlantic Ocean. The barrage stretched from the Orkney to the Faroe Islands and on toward Iceland. Mines were also laid in the Denmark Strait, north of Iceland. Concept The objective of a defensive minefield is to restrict movement of enemy ships into areas used by friendly shipping. The assumed presence of a minefield may have a morale effect of assumed risk in addition to actually damaging ships attempting to cross the field. In July 1939, before World War II had begun, the possibility of a Northern Barrage between the Orkney Islands and Norway (similar to the North Sea Mine Barrage of World War I) had been considered. Other alternatives were investigated after the occupation of Norway by the Germans in April 1940. Conventional mines of the era employed a contact-fuzed explosive charge within a buoyant shell suspended over an anchor attached by a wire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lofoten Islands
Lofoten () is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Lofoten has distinctive scenery with dramatic mountains and peaks, open sea and sheltered bays, beaches and untouched lands. There are two towns, Svolvær and Leknes – the latter is approximately north of the Arctic Circle and approximately away from the North Pole. The archipelago experiences one of the world's largest elevated temperature anomalies relative to its high latitude. Etymology ''Lofoten'' ( non, Lófótr) was the original name of the island Vestvågøya. The first element is ''ló'' (i.e., "lynx") and the last element is derived from Norse ''fótr'' (i.e., "foot"), as the shape of the island must have been compared with that of a lynx's foot. (The old name of the neighbouring island Flakstadøya was ''Vargfót'', "wolf's foot", from ''vargr'' "wolf".) Alternatively it could derive from the word for light in reference to the presence of Aurora Borealis as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
