Ten ships of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

have borne the name HMS ''Medusa'', after the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

mythological figure

Medusa In Greek mythology, Medusa (; ), also called Gorgo () or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her wa ...

: * was a 50-gun

fourth rate In 1603 all English warships with a complement of fewer than 160 men were known as 'small ships'. In 1625/26 to establish pay rates for officers, a six-tier naval ship rating system was introduced.Winfield 2009 These small ships were divided ...

launched in 1785 and wrecked in 1798. * was a 38-gun

fifth-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a fifth rate was the second-smallest class of warships in a hierarchical system of six " ratings" based on size and firepower. Rating The rating system in the Royal N ...

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuvera ...

launched in 1801. She was Nelson's flagship on his return to England at Harwich on 9 August, was present at the

action of 5 October 1804 The Battle of Cape Santa Maria was a naval engagement that took place off the southern Portuguese coast, in which a British squadron under the command of Commodore Graham Moore attacked and defeated a Spanish squadron commanded by Brigadier D ...

and was broken up in 1816. *HMS ''Medusa'' was to have been a 46-gun fifth rate. She was ordered in 1816, reordered in 1830 and cancelled in 1831. * was a wooden paddle packet launched in 1838 and sold in 1872. * was an iron paddle

gunboat A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-steam ...

launched in 1839 and wrecked in 1853. * was a launched in 1888, on harbour service from 1910, sold in 1920 and resold in 1921. * was a , previously the Greek ''Lesvos''. She was purchased in 1914, before being launched in 1915. She was abandoned after a collision with and subsequently ran aground and was wrecked in 1916. *HMS ''Medusa'' was an

monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, Wes ...

, previously named . She was renamed HMS ''Medusa'' in 1925, converted to a depot ship and renamed HMS ''Talbot'' in 1941, HMS ''Medway II'' in 1943 and back to HMS ''Medusa'' in 1944. She was sold in 1946 and broken up in 1947. * was an auxiliary minesweeper requisitioned in 1939 and transferred to the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the navy, naval branch of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (Australia), Chief of Navy (CN) Vice admiral (Australia), Vice Admiral Mark Hammond (admiral), Ma ...

as in 1942. * was a harbour defence motor launch, launched in 1943 as ''ML 1387''. She served in

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

, was renamed ''BDB 76'' in 1946, ''SDML 3516'' in 1949 and ''Medusa'' in 1961. She was paid off in 1963, and is now a

museum ship A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...

Notes

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Medusa, Hms Royal Navy ship names