This week, we look at an incredible four-year-long circumnavigation of the world, and a several recent naval support ships.

June 15: In 1744, Commander George Anson returned to England after an epic four-year circumnavigation of the globe. Anson sailed with six naval and two merchant ships, returning with just one ship and only 10% of his original crew, which consisted primarily of “invalids” – sick or old or wounded sailors who could do some service, but not much. The voyage was an incredibly difficult one, with great losses of life due to mutinies, storms, scurvy, overloaded vessels, malaria, and much more. When Anson returned, he did so with gold and silver taken from a Spanish prize galleon, equivalent to perhaps $60M today. He was greatly celebrated at the time, and taken to meet the King. No investigation took place into the problems caused by scurvy or difficult leadership during the voyage, though a number of changes came directly from it – including, for example, the introduction of standardized naval uniforms, so that officers could distinguish naval sailors from merchant sailors.  

June 16: USS Wakefield entered naval service on this day in 1941, and was decommissioned on this day in 1946. Wakefield was better known as the ocean liner SS Manhattan (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), and as a troopship was the largest vessel ever operated by the US Coast Guard. As Manhattan, the ship sailed on the New York-Europe route, primarily to Hamburg – including carrying the US Olympic team to Germany for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. During one convoy voyage between Glasgow and New York, a fire broke out, causing extensive damage. Wakefield made it to Halifax, where torrential rains threatened to sink the ship. Eventually written off as a total loss, Wakefield was towed from Halifax to Boston, and then stripped to the waterline and completely rebuilt, returning to service in 1944. After D-Day, Wakefield began service carrying wounded GIs back to the US, and after the end of the war, the ship was decommissioned on this day in 1946, and eventually sold for scrap in 1965.

June 21: During the Falklands War in 1982, the hulk of RFA Sir Galahad (Wikipedia, ShipIndex) was sunk by HMS Onyx (Wikipedia, ShipIndex). Sir Galahad had been commissioned in 1966, and served as a landing ship logistics vessel during the Falklands War. The ship had survived an attack in late May by the Argentinian Air Force, and an unexploded bomb was successfully removed from the ship after that attack. Sir Galahad was attacked again on June 8, while preparing to unload soldiers in the Falklands; during this attack, several bombs exploded and started fires on board. The fires quickly got out of control, and the vessel was destroyed, with the loss of 48 lives. On the 21st, the hulk was towed out to sea and sunk by torpedoes from Onyx. It is now considered an official war grave.

Brockville, Ontario, will be hosting a collection of tall ships in their Tall Ships Festival, June 20-22. They’ve got a full lineup of ships, music, science, family activities, and a lot more. This festival takes place every three years, so if you’re in the neighborhood, don’t wait until 2028! Check it out!

There’s always something interesting in any week, when looking at maritime and naval history. Let’s see what we find this week!

June 8: USS Vincennes (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), a sloop of war built in 1825-26, returned from a circumnavigation of the world in 1830, the first US Naval vessel to do so. Several years later, Vincennes was assigned duty as the flagship of the US Exploring Expedition (or, US Ex Ex, or Wilkes Expedition) to the South Seas and the Pacific Northwest. The Ex Ex is not well-known today, but it was an exploration on the scale of Lewis & Clark’s 1804-06 expedition across North America, but at sea. Tens of thousands of botanical and biological specimens were collected on the voyage, thus forming the start of the collections at the Smithsonian. Hundreds of islands in the Pacific were explored and charted, and the expedition’s charts of Antarctica are still used today. 

June 9: In 1909, the Perry G. Walker, a Great Lakes freighter (ShipIndex), accidentally rammed the closed lower lock doors of the Canadian Soo Locks, in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, causing the doors to fail, and sweeping the Walker, the CP steamer Assiniboia (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), and Pittsburgh Steamship freighter Crescent City (ShipIndex) through the locks. The collision caused major damage to the locks, and water flowed out, completely uncontrolled. Despite the damage, the locks were repaired quickly and reopened two weeks later. As a result of wall failures in 1987, the locks were closed and replaced with a new lock in 1998. The locks are now a Canadian National Historic Site. Commercial traffic today uses the American locks to bypass the St Marys River rapids.

June 11: The Battle of Machias, the first naval engagement in the American Revolutionary War, took place in 1775. Residents of Machias, Maine, banded together to prevent the armed schooner HMS Margaretta from sailing to Boston to support British troops there, after the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April. After an attack by Machias citizens on the British ship while it was at anchor, Margaretta lost her boom and gaff in a sudden jibe, and wasn’t able to maneuver effectively as a result. Locals sailed on two vessels, the Unity and the Falmouth Packet, to successfully attack and overwhelm Margaretta, though with loss of lives on both sides. The Machias band was led by Jeremiah O’Brien, for whom the Liberty ship SS Jeremiah O’Brien (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), now on display in San Francisco, was named.

June 14: In 1789, the survivors of the mutiny on board the HMS Bounty (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), led by Captain William Bligh, arrived in Timor, after one of the most remarkable and famous open-boat voyages ever, of over 3600 nautical miles. 

Here’s some activities to consider joining, if you’re (way) down south in the coming weeks:

From June 20 to 22, visit the New Zealand Maritime Museum to join a weekend of heritage boatbuilding work by Māori carvers. Join for crafts, storytelling, and more, during their celebration of Matariki, the Māori New Year. Find more information here.

If you have many (Many! MANY!) thousands of pounds sterling sitting around your house, and still have some holes in your Nelsoniana collection, consider taking a look at what Peter Harrington, the top-flight London bookseller, has to offer you. Consider one of Nelson’s early wills, at £30,000, or a letter written before the battle of Trafalgar, regarding his expectations for the battle, at £100,000, or a weather log kept by Nelson on board HMS Victory, for just £450,000! While nothing at Peter Harrington is inexpensive, you may find some other interesting items in their naval & maritime collection. 

We took a break from “This Week in Maritime History” posts for a bit, but we are back! Check out these events in this coming week in maritime history:

June 1: In 1850, Captain John S. DeBlois set sail in the whaleship Ann Alexander (Wikipedia, ShipIndex) from New Bedford, Massachusetts. While many ships set sail on whaling voyages at this time, the voyage was to become particularly notable because the next year, in the southern Pacific Ocean, while hunting whales, one whale crushed one of the small whaleboats, then turned its attention to the Ann Alexander. The whale rammed the Ann Alexander, creating a hole in the side of the ship below the waterline, and causing it to start sinking quickly. The crew was able to collect only a few provisions before the ship sank, but they got into two whaleboats and aimed northward. They were spotted, and rescued, by the whaler Nantucket (ShipIndex) two days later, and the entire crew eventually returned to New York. The whale, which had developed infections from the two harpoons and pieces of timber under its skin, was caught and killed five months later by the crew of the Rebecca Simms (ShipIndex). Herman Melville’s tome, Moby-Dick, was published just two months after this incident, causing Melville to write, “Ye Gods! What a commentator is this Ann Alexander whale… I wonder if my evil art has raised this monster.”

June 1: USS Chesapeake (Wikipedia, ShipIndex) was captured by HMS Shannon (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), in 1813, off the coast of Boston. Chesapeake sailed with a flag that read “Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights”, and had challenged Shannon to a battle when she sailed out of Boston the day before, but the written challenge had not been received before the battle occurred. But when the two ships met at sea, Chesapeake was seriously damaged, and Shannon’s accurate marksmen killed many men and officers on board Chesapeake. As Captain James Lawrence lay dying from a shot by a sniper, he was said to have given the order, “Don’t give up the ship. Fight her till she sinks.” Just 15 minutes after the first gun was fired, Shannon had taken Chesapeake. Chesapeake was taken into the Royal Navy and served as HMS Chesapeake for six years, before being sold and broken up to build a new watermill in England. The building still exists; it’s now an antique mall.

June 5: The Battle of Midway began on this day in 1942. The US Pacific Fleet decisively defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy after American code breakers had determined the Japanese plan of attack in advance. The Japanese fleet was caught by surprise, and Japan lost all of the aircraft carriers present at the battle – Akagi (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), Kaga (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), Sōryū (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), and Hiryū (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), along with the cruiser Mikuma and other ships, planes, and pilots. American forces lost the aircraft carrier Yorktown (Wikipedia, ShipIndex) and the destroyer Hammann (Wikipedia, ShipIndex). The battle was a significant turning point for the American campaign in World War II, and several ships later took the name Midway, in honor of the victory: Escort carrier CVE-63 was initially named USS Midway, but then renamed to USS St. Lo, so a larger aircraft carrier, CV-41, could take the name USS Midway (Wikipedia, ShipIndex). CV-41 is now docked in San Diego, at the USS Midway Museum. 

June 6: As memorialized by Jerry Bryant, “On the sixth day of June, eighteen-ninety and six, / Messrs. Harbo and Samuelsen started to row…” George Harbo and Frank Samuelson left on this day in 1896 to become the first people to row across an ocean – in this case, the Atlantic. They rowed a specially-built surfboat, Fox (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), crossing the ocean in about two months. Look for another post in about two months, noting their landfall.

In current news, USCGC Eagle is expected to visit Portland, Oregon, on June 6, and will be open for tours. I can’t find specific details on where the ship will dock, so if you have some details, please share! The next week, Eagle is scheduled to visit Astoria, then head south to San Francisco, head north to Seattle and Victoria, Canada, then head back to SF again. The full tentative schedule can be seen here.

For more about these ships, check out ShipIndex.org. And let us know if you have events that you think we should include!