Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia PDF
Preview Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia
Page iii Ships of the World An Historical Encyclopedia Lincoln P. Paine With contributions by James H. Terry and Hal Fessenden Page iv Disclaimer: Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the netLibrary eBook. Copyright © 1997 by Lincoln Paxton Paine All rights reserved For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Paine, Lincoln P. Ships of the world : an historical encyclopedia / by Lincoln P. Paine ; with essays by James H. Terry and Hal Fessenden ; with a foreword by Eric J. Berryman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0395715563 1. Ships — Encyclopedias. I. Title. V23.P24 1997 9712872 623.8'2'003 — dc21 CIP Printed in the United States of America Book design by Robert Overholtzer KSPT 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Page v IN MEMORIAM SIADHAL SWEENEY Navigare necesse est Vivere non necesse — Pompeius Magnus Page vii CONTENTS Illustrations ix Foreword xi By Eric J. Berryman Preface xiii Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia 1 Maps 591 Literary Ships 601 Chronologies 606 Glossary 619 Bibliography 623 Index 646 Page ix ILLUSTRATIONS Af Chapman 7 Akagi 11 CSS Alabama 12 Albert Ballin 15 HMS Alert 16 Altmark 19 America 23 American Promise INSERT Amoco Cadiz 26 Aquitania 30 Arctic 32 USS Arizona 35 L'Astrolabe 41 Atlantic 44 Aurora 47 BadenBaden 49 HMS Barham 53 Batavia INSERT Bear 55 Beaver INSERT HMS Bellerophon 59 Bismarck 63 Bonhomme Richard INSERT Bowdoin INSERT Britannia 80 USS Brooklyn 83 USS Cairo 85 Cap Pilar 91 Cap Trafalgar 93 Carnegie 94 Challenge 101 Cheops Ship INSERT City of Paris 113 Cleopatra 114 Cleopatra's Barge 115 USS Constellation INSERT USS Constitution INSERT Dahshur 130 Deutschland (1900) 139 Deutschland (U200) 140 HMS Devastation 141 HMS Discovery 145 Dreadnought 150 HMS Dreadnought 151 El Horria 161 SMS Emden 162 Endurance 166 Eppleton Hall 170 HMS Erebus 171 USS Essex (1802) 175 Europa 178 Exodus 1947 179 Far West 182 Fox 189 Fram 190 France (1890) 191 France (1912) 192 Fuso 195 George Washington 203 Giorgios Averoff 205 Gjøa 207 HMS Glowworm 211 Golden Hind 213 Grand Turk 218 Great Britain 220 Great Eastern 221 Great Western 224 HMCS Haida 229 USS Harriet Lane 233 USS Hartford 234 Hawai'iloa 236 HD4 237 Henry B. Hyde INSERT Herzogin Cecilie 245 CSS H. L. Hunley 247 USS Holland 249 Houqua 253 Huascar 254 Ile De France 257 USS Independence 260 USS Indianapolis 262 HMS Invincible 266 USS Iowa INSERT HMS Iron Duke 268 Jervis Bay 274 Jhelum 275 J. T. Wing 278 Jylland 280 Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse 282 Kaiulani 283 Karlsruhe 284 USS Kearsarge 285 Kronprinzessen Cecilie 291 Kyrenia/Kyrenia II INSERT USS Laffey 295 USS Langley 296 Lawhill 297 Leviathan 300 USS Lexington 302 SMS Lützow 313 USS Maddox 316 Magdalene Vinnen 319 USS Maine 320 Mainz Ships 321 USS Marblehead 324 Mayflower INSERT Medusa 333 USS Missouri 339 Mogami 340 USS Monitor 342 USS Monongahela 344 Mora INSERT Morro Castle 346 Nautilus (1801) 351 USS Nautilus (1955) 353 Niña (1492) INSERT Niña (1928) 361 Normandie 364 Noronic 365 USS Olympia 374 Olympias INSERT Omega 377 Oregon 378 Page x USS Oregon 379 Oseberg Ship INSERT Pacific 383 Padua 384 USS Panay 385 Parma 388 Passat INSERT Peking 390 Péreire 391 USS Plunger 397 Portland INSERT USS Powhatan 402 USS President 403 USS Princeton 406 HMS Queen Charlotte 414 Ranger (1777) 420 USS Ranger (1876) 421 Reale INSERT RearAdmiral Popov 425 Reliance 426 HMS Renown 427 Rob't. E. Lee 434 HMS Rodney 435 HMS Rose INSERT HMS Royal Charles INSERT Royal William 441 St. Louis 446 St. Roch 448 Scharnhorst 463 Sea Witch 467 Serçe Limani Ship 470 Shamrock V 472 Skuldelev Ships 479 Sobraon 481 Le Soleil Royal 483 USS Somers 484 Sovereign of the Seas INSERT Sprague 488 Spray 489 Star of India 491 Success 496 Sultana 497 Sunbeam 499 HMAS Sydney 505 HMS Téméraire INSERT Terra Nova 510 HMS Terror 511 USS Texas (1914) 512 Thomas W. Lawson 515 USS Thresher 516 Ticonderoga 517 Tirpitz 520 Trent 523 HMS Trincomalee 525 Turbinia 527 Turtle 529 Ulu Burun Wreck 536 USS United States 539 United States INSERT USS Vesuvius 546 Vicar of Bray INSERT HMS Victory INSERT Ville De Paris 553 USS Vincennes (1826) 555 Virginius 559 Vittorio Veneto 560 HMS Warrior 567 HMS Warspite 568 Wasa INSERT Wavertree 572 William Mitchell 575 W. R. Grace 577 Yassi Ada Wreck A 581 Zeven Provinciën 586 Zuiho 587 Photo insert follows page 344 Page xi FOREWORD Long before tales of Homer's winedark sea, waterborne vessels of any sort — but most especially deepdraft voyagers — stimulated dreams of adventure and of riches. Of all the conveyances invented by the hand and mind of man, none captures the imagination as firmly as the ship, ancient or modern. We bless ships and give them names; we endow them with human attributes. They have courage, strength of will, pride, resoluteness, and nobility. Their character is often described as faithful, honest, good, or brave according to the quality and tenure of service. When ships die, we mark and remember their loss. Their shape and ordeals have been modeled and painted, romanced, dramatized, and made into the stuff of song and legend. Steam locomotives had names — most likely they still do — and not a few of them inspired stirring tales, as did pioneering aircraft and today's space vehicles. Today even some passenger aircraft may bear a plate honoring this or that city. But whether wooden hulled or constructed of steel, whether powered by oars or canvas and wind, by coal or oil or nuclear propulsion, the ship is unique among man's creations in the measure of its contributions to human history. Ships and their movement on the vast oceans of the planet etched the fate of our forebears, and to this day they define the measure of national aspirations. Earth's greatest cities owe their might to safe anchorages, access to the sea, and the power of ships that came to call. In pursuit of trade, exploration, and defense, ships and the sea lanes of communication continue to be the linchpins of national prosperity and, indeed, of survival. By the contents of ships' holds, by their weapons, by their design and seaworthiness, and by the professional capacity and courage of captains and crews the wealth of nations has ever risen or fallen. Above all else, a ship is defined by the souls who live and work aboard. One of my earliest memories of suspense and hope was listening to radio accounts of Captain Carlson's monumental efforts to save his command, Flying Enterprise, and my utter grief when he was forced to abandon the battle to the might of the sea. The saga took place when World War II was still a very fresh memory, when life in Wales and England — where I was raised — meant subsistence on the thin edge of ration stamps, reedy Woodbine cigarettes, and Spam for tea on special days. Inspirational human examples seemed to have left the stage when the last hero fell on the last battlefield in Europe. Carlson's brave example renewed hope in an exhausted people — and in at least one small boy. The BBC broke through its regular programming time and again to describe the captain's struggle, the evacuation of his crew, and the deteriorating condition of the ship. I listened with my parents, who were as spellbound as I was by the highseas drama, including my stepfather, who was serving in the Royal Air Force. Although the ship eventually broached and went down, the sheer courage of the attempt gave us all — my family and the whole country — an enormous morale boost. Flying Enterprise was never surrendered — she was wrested from her captain and crew. The redeeming grace of extraordinary effort and selfsacrifice was reaffirmed in those broadcasts. Destiny and the performance of the officers and crew endow the reputation of a ship, but whether bravely fought or shamefully lost, the ship retains a uniquely personal identification. What happens to her can matter not only very deeply and immediately to passengers and crew, but also to whole populations. What happened to Golden Hind and Goeben, Amistad and Adventure, Titanic and Turbinia, the little PT109, Calypso, or Exxon Valdez affects us all. This book chronicles the history of more than a thousand of the world's most noteworthy vessels. Many names resonate with the epic events associated with their fates, but not all. A few entries have no identity or documented history, for only the ship's bones and the detritus of longlost cargo survive to speak to us. But by our study of their construction and purpose we retrieve from an Page xii tiquity and more recent history details of mankind's reach to discover the world, to unite peoples in trade, and to defend selfinterest. A few select, workaday plain craft of lake and river also find a place in these pages, because certain ships or ship types merit our attention simply by their amazing utility. Some vessels were built to go to places that seem improbable, if not altogether impossible, for a waterborne transport. But if a waterway was at all navigable — if there was enough dew to float a hull of even the most extraordinary design and materials — peoples of widely diverse cultures made every effort to tame the wilderness and seek the horizon. Some of the ships are included because of the mystery of their eerie disappearance, some because they carried quantities of treasure, and some because of the fashion in which they were handled by their competitive masters. And not a few are here for the breathtaking incompetence that led to their destruction and, often, great loss of life. One way or the other, these are uncommon ships that have remained in mankind's memory. Any encyclopedia is open to the challenge of omission, and no doubt there are other ships that might find their way into some future edition. We all have our favorites. Mine are the windships that ventured into distant oceans during the era when commerce and speed reached a kind of salty apotheosis. Nothing afloat ever surpassed the form or splendor of the American extreme clipper, its later adaptations in the British wool and tea clippers and, most spectacularly, in the Flying P Line nitrate racers as epitomized by the fivemasted fullrigged ship Preussen. These were the mightiest of ships to claw their way westward against Cape Horn gales. We shall never again see their like. Lincoln Paine has made a determined start within the inherent limitations of the encyclopedia: his selections are outstanding. For anyone with an appreciation of ships and the sea, the attraction of these articles will exceed their use as a reference guide, and the book will become a source of unfailing interest. This work is not just a history of ships; it is a history of the world. Read on. ERIC J. BERRYMAN COMMANDER, USNR (RETIRED) TRUSTEE, WORLD SHIP TRUST, LONDON Page xiii PREFACE Ships have always played an important role in shaping human destiny. Whether they ply the waters of the world for peaceful or martial ends, whether engaged in fisheries or trade, carrying passengers for migration or pleasure, or used for geographical or scientific discovery, ships transform the waters of the world from barriers into thoroughfares. Before the age of air travel and satellite communications, ships formed the warp and woof of global communication, and even today they carry the burden of the world's trade. Evidence of the affection that people have for ships is seen in the fact that ships are named, and when writers invest their vessels with human attributes, the conceit is almost never questioned. For ships are living things and there is a symbiotic relationship between them and their crews that we understand and appreciate intuitively. This obtains whether we are describing a day sailer, an aircraft carrier, or a deep submergence vessel. Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia is a straightforward work with a simple premise. Individual ships stand out from the crowd, much as people do. This encyclopedia is an attempt to describe more than one thousand of the most important or wellknown vessels throughout history. There are no limitations as to size, rig, era, or place of origin (or rediscovery, in the case of archaeological sites). In addition to actual ships, there is an appendix covering a small number of well known literary ships. As in any reference work, the criteria for selecting individual vessels, as well as what to say about them, are nominally objective but ultimately subjective. In determining which and what, I have relied not only on my own reading of maritime and general history, but on the advice of dozens of colleagues and friends. Eric J. Berryman helped refine the idea for the book from its inception and took on the unenviable task of reading every entry as it was written, offering innumerable suggestions and insights that have improved the work in countless ways. Jim Terry, a graceful and scholarly author, interrupted his own writing to contribute about thirty articles on Mediterranean and Western European archaeological sites. Hal Fessenden taught me much about sailing, and I instinctively turned to him for several articles on shipwrecks and other disasters. Any errors or mistakes that I have introduced in their invaluable contributions are my own. This work also owes its completion to the advice of and review by countless friends and colleagues who thoughtfully answered my questions, reviewed portions of the manuscript, researched photographs, or otherwise lent a hand. In particular, Norman Brouwer, curator of ships and keeper of the Herman Melville Library at the South Street Seaport Museum, and his assistant, Marie Lore; Frank O. Braynard, executive director of the American Merchant Marine Museum, and our mutual colleague Bill Miller. I also benefited — as have so many others — from the advice of the late Karl Kortum, dean of the historic ship preservation community in the United States, who provided invaluable guidance as I developed the idea for this book. Others to whom I owe special thanks include George L. Maxwell, Harry Anderson, and Nicole Von Klenke; Captain Richard Bailey, "HMS" Rose; David Bell, Imperial War Museum; Liliane BouillonPasquet, Tapisserie de Bayeux; Ian Boreham, Captain Cook Study Unit; David Brink; Lars Bruzelius, Maritime History Virtual Archive; Ian Buxton, University of Newcastle; Eliot Cafritz; Arne Emil Christensen, University of Oslo; Carol City, Plimoth Plantation; John Coates, the Trireme Trust; Jim Delgado, Vancouver Maritime Museum; Margherita Desy, USS Constitution Museum; William Dudley, Naval Historical Center; Kathy Flynn, Peabody Essex Museum; Kevin Foster, National Park Service; Bill Gilbert, USS Long Beach Association; Jeremy Green, Western Australia Maritime Museum; Edwin Hill and Jodi Erickson, Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse; Olaf Höckmann, RömischGermanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz; Maria Jacobsen, Institute for Nautical Archaeology; Joseph A. Jackson, New York Yacht Club Library; Astrid Johnson, Norsk Sjøfartsmuseum, Oslo; Mark Lardas; Arthur Layton; Nathan Lipfert, Maine Maritime Museum; Tom Lewis; Per
The list of books you might like
