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Operation Lucid
Operation Lucid was a British plan to use fire ships to attack invasion barges that were gathering in ports on the northern coast of France in preparation for a German invasion of Britain in 1940. The attack was initiated several times in September and October that year but unreliable ships and unfavourable weather caused the plan to be aborted on each occasion. Inception Following the fall of France in July 1940, the Germans threatened to invade Britain. The British Government made strenuous efforts to meet the invasion and also sought to attack the Germans before any landings took place. As invasion barges were seen to gather in French ports along the English Channel, the Royal Air Force (RAF) was sent to attack them by bombing. Experiments by the Petroleum Warfare Department (PWD) aimed to burn the invasion barges before they could reach the English shore. The first idea was simply to explode a vessel filled with oil and this was tried at Maplin Sands where a Thames oil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Fleet Auxiliary
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is a naval auxiliary fleet owned by the UK's Ministry of Defence. It provides logistical and operational support to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. The RFA ensures the Royal Navy is supplied and supported by providing fuel and stores through replenishment at sea, transporting Royal Marines and British Army personnel, providing medical care and transporting equipment and essentials around the world. In addition the RFA acts independently providing humanitarian aid, counter piracy and counter narcotic patrols together with assisting the Royal Navy in preventing conflict and securing international trade. They are a uniformed civilian branch of the Royal Navy staffed by British merchant sailors. RFA personnel are civilian employees of the Ministry of Defence and members of the Royal Naval Reserve and Sponsored Reserves. Although RFA personnel wear Merchant Navy rank insignia with naval uniforms, they are part of the Royal Navy. RFA vessels a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustus Agar
Commodore Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, (4 January 1890 – 30 December 1968) was a Royal Navy officer in both the First and the Second World Wars. He was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, for sinking a Soviet cruiser during the Russian Civil War. In his naval biography, ''Footprints in the Sea'', published in 1961, Agar described himself as "highly strung and imaginative." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says that Agar "epitomizes the 'sea dog' of British naval tradition: honourable, extremely brave and totally dedicated to King, country and the Royal Navy." Early life Augustus Agar was born in Kandy, Ceylon, on 4 January 1890. He was the thirteenth child of John Shelton Agar/Eagar, an Irishman from Milltown, County Kerry, who had left his native land in 1860 to become a successful tea planter in Ceylon. John's cousin Honora Eagar was the first wif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calais
Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. The population of the city proper is 72,929; that of the urban area is 149,673 (2018).Comparateur de territoire: Aire d'attraction des villes 2020 de Calais (073), Commune de Calais (62193) INSEE Calais overlooks the , the narrowest point in the English ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sheerness
Sheerness () is a town and civil parish beside the mouth of the River Medway on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 11,938, it is the second largest town on the island after the nearby town of Minster which has a population of 21,319. Sheerness began as a fort built in the 16th century to protect the River Medway from naval invasion. In 1665 plans were first laid by the Navy Board for Sheerness Dockyard, a facility where warships might be provisioned and repaired. The site was favoured by Samuel Pepys, then Clerk of the Acts of the navy, for shipbuilding over Chatham inland. After the raid on the Medway in 1667, the older fortification was strengthened; in 1669 a Royal Navy dockyard was established in the town, where warships were stocked and repaired until its closure in 1960. Beginning with the construction of a pier and a promenade in the 19th century, Sheerness acquired the added attractions of a seaside resort. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motor Boat
A motorboat, speedboat or powerboat is a boat that is exclusively powered by an engine. Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the internal combustion engine, the gearbox and the propeller in one portable unit. An inboard-outboard contains a hybrid of an inboard and an outboard, where the internal combustion engine is installed inside the boat, and the gearbox and propeller are outside. There are two configurations of an inboard, V-drive and direct drive. A direct drive has the powerplant mounted near the middle of the boat with the propeller shaft straight out the back, where a V-drive has the powerplant mounted in the back of the boat facing backwards having the shaft go towards the front of the boat then making a ''V'' towards the rear. Overview A motorboat has one or more engines that propel the vessel over the top of the water. Boat engines vary in shape, size, and type. Engines are installe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Depth Charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful and destructive hydraulic shock. Most depth charges use high explosive charges and a fuze set to detonate the charge, typically at a specific depth. Depth charges can be dropped by ships, patrol aircraft, and helicopters. Depth charges were developed during World War I, and were one of the first viable methods of attacking a submarine underwater. They were widely used in World War I and World War II, and remained part of the anti-submarine arsenals of many navies during the Cold War, during which they were supplemented, and later largely replaced, by anti-submarine homing torpedoes. A depth charge fitted with a nuclear warhead is also known as a " nuclear depth bomb". These were designed to be dropped from a patrol plane or deployed by an anti-submarine missile from a surface ship, or a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gun Cotton
Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid. One of its first major uses was as guncotton, a replacement for gunpowder as propellant in firearms. It was also used to replace gunpowder as a low-order explosive in mining and other applications. In the form of collodion it was also a critical component in an early photographic emulsion, the use of which revolutionized photography in the 1860s. Production The process uses a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid to convert cellulose into nitrocellulose. The quality of the cellulose is important. Hemicellulose, lignin, pentosans, and mineral salts give inferior nitrocelluloses. In precise chemical terms, nitrocellulose is not a nitro compound, but a nitrate ester. The glucose repeat unit (anhydroglucose) within the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cordite
Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom since 1889 to replace black powder as a military propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burning rates and consequently low brisance. These produce a subsonic deflagration wave rather than the supersonic detonation wave produced by brisants, or high explosives. The hot gases produced by burning gunpowder or cordite generate sufficient pressure to propel a bullet or shell to its target, but not so quickly as to routinely destroy the barrel of the gun. Cordite was used initially in the .303 British, Mark I and II, standard rifle cartridge between 1891 and 1915; shortages of cordite in World War I led to the creation of the "Devil's Porridge" munitions factory ( HM Factory, Gretna) on the English-Scottish border, which produced 800 tonnes of cordite per annum. The UK also imported some United States–developed smokeless powder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harbourmaster
A harbourmaster (or harbormaster, see spelling differences) is an official responsible for enforcing the regulations of a particular harbour or port, in order to ensure the safety of navigation, the security of the harbour and the correct operation of the port facilities. Responsibilities Harbourmasters are normally responsible for issuing local safety information sometimes known as notice to mariners. They may also oversee the maintenance and provision of navigational aids within the port, co-ordinate responses to emergencies, inspect vessels and oversee pilotage services. The harbourmaster may have legal power to detain, caution or even arrest persons committing an offence within the port or tidal range of the port's responsibilities. An example of this is the team of harbourmasters employed by the Port of London Authority who are empowered to undertake an enforcement role. Actions that a harbourmaster may investigate include criminal acts, immigration, customs and excise, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palmers Shipbuilding And Iron Company
Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited, often referred to simply as "Palmers", was a British shipbuilding company. The Company was based in Jarrow, County Durham, in north-eastern England, and also had operations in Hebburn and Willington Quay on the River Tyne. History Early history and growth The company was established in 1852 by Charles Mark Palmer as Palmer Brothers & Co. in Jarrow. Later that year it launched the '' John Bowes'', the first iron screw collier. By 1900 the business was known as Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company. At that time, besides building ships, it manufactured and processed its own steel and other metals, and its products included Reed water tube boilers and marine steam engines. By 1902 Palmers' base at Jarrow occupied about 100 acres (41 hectares) and included 0.75 miles (1.2 kilometres) of the southern bank of the River Tyne, and employed about 10,000 men and boys. In 1910 Sir Charles Palmer's interest ... [...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] |
