HMS Pomone (1805)
 Royal Navy
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| The Pomone in a color lithograph by TG Dalton after a painting by GF St. John | ||
| Ship data | ||
| Surname: | Pomone | |
| Type / Class: | Ship Fifth Rank Leda- class | |
| Keel laying : | December 1803 | |
| Launching ( ship christening ): | January 17, 1805 | |
| Fate: | Accumulated on a reef on October 14, 1811 | |
| Builder: | Chatham Dockyards | |
| Constructors: | Josiah & Brindley, Frindsbury | |
| Crew: | 284 to 330 officers and crew grades | |
| Technical specifications | ||
| Type: | Battery ship (timber construction, monoplane) | |
| Length: | 45.76 m (battery deck) | |
| Width: | 12.17 m | |
| Drive: | sail | |
| Draft: | 3.89 m | |
| Armor system: | without | |
| Armament | ||
| Battery deck: | 28 × 18 pounders | |
| Quarter deck: | 8 × 9 pounders + 14 × 32 pounder carronades | |
| Forecastle: | 2 × 9 pounders + 2 × 32 pounder carronades | |
The HMS Pomone was a 38 gun sailing warship of the Royal Navy and saw service during the Napoleonic Wars . She was one of the frigates of the successful and numerous British Leda class, which also included Shannon and Trincomalee , and ran into a reef in the English Channel in 1811, where she finally had to be abandoned.
construction
The ship was rigged as a full ship . The Pomone had a continuous gun deck and was one of the frigates of the successful and numerous British Leda class, which was built according to the lines of the French frigate Hebé , which fell into British hands as a prize in 1782 . The rear area led into the side galleries . The ship was designed for 38 cannons and thus a ship of 5th rank .
history
The Pomone was assigned to Captain William Lobb upon completion and was intended for canal service.
Under his command, she was able to take two Spanish privateers as a prize : On November 5, 1805, she was able to capture the Golondrina in Spanish waters, a logger equipped with four cannons and a crew of 29 . On January 25, 1806, she was able to capture the Bengador Heights Lisbon , a logger equipped with a cannon and a crew of 28. The Bengador carried a pinch, the Maid of the Mill with them. The Spanish ship was wrecked, the prize of which was placed under British command again.
In May 1806, Captain Sir Robert Barrie took command of the Pomone . In 1807 the ship was in service in the English Channel and was able to capture or sink 21 French ships between April and June 1807.
On July 27, 1808, Barrie and his ship were ordered into the Mediterranean .
On October 21, 1809, the ships Pomone and Alceste were tasked with observing the French naval base in Toulon and determining possible enemy movements. Barrie could now watch a French part of the fleet in the form of a squadron getting ready to sail. He sailed immediately to the Golfe du Lion to here Admiral Lord Collingwood to meet that there on his 110-gun flagship Ville de Paris was staying in order to report on the operations report. Collingwood and a British squadron went into pursuit. Returning to sight of the French squadron, the Pomone was able to successfully fight five ships belonging to the French convoy before the rest of the convoy was lost in the dark.
Rear Admiral George Martin was able to resume the squadron the next day on the southern French coast and continued the pursuit. Doing some French ships came apparently under so much pressure that the Lion and the robust level with the port city of Frontignan stranded . So that the ships did not fall into British hands, after two hours of unsuccessful liberation efforts, their cremation was finally ordered.
On March 31, 1810, the Pomone's crew succeeded in capturing the 10-cannon privateer Fortunee , and on May 11, 1810, the 8-gun privateer Jupiter .
On January 18, 1811, she also succeeded in capturing the Dubourdieu , a 93-man 14-cannon privateer.
On March 13, 1811, the Pomone was between Corsica and Sardinia when she took up the pursuit of the 16 gun brig Etourdie . It was not until March 14 that the race to catch up was successful, so that the crew of the Etourdie set their own ship on fire at the level of the island of Montecristo so as not to be hijacked or even taken as a prize. At around 3 p.m. on the same day, the French ship finally exploded due to the ongoing fire.
On April 30, 1811, the Pomone reached the bay of Sagone in Corsica with the frigate Unite , after reports of a collection of enemy ships in this area. The next day the British brig-sloop scout joined them and they finally came across three enemy ships protected by a coastal battery : the 26-cannon Giraffe , the 14-cannon Nourrice and an armed merchant ship.
Since there was a lull , the British captains rowed their ships with the dinghies within firing range and took the French warships and the land defense systems under heavy fire. After about an hour and a half of fighting, the destroyed coastal battery had to cease fighting and the French ships finally caught fire. It is believed that the fires on board the French ships were also due to the destruction of a Genoese coastal watch tower of the coastal battery, as the ammunition depot was also hit and destroyed. The British then rowed a safe distance from the burning ships before they too exploded.
The Pomone had two dead and 19 wounded, while the Scout and Unite had only six wounded. The mission was thus completed successfully.
Since the Pomone was still in the Mediterranean, she finally managed to capture a vehicle on which Lucien Bonaparte , his family and some followers were staying. Captain Barrie then spent him with a total of 40 other people to the British-occupied island of Malta , which he reached on August 23, 1810.
Last drive
On October 14, 1811, the Pomone was on her way back from the Mediterranean to home waters for some repairs . On board at this time was Sir Harford Jones , the British ambassador to Persia, as well as some Arab stallions who were a gift from the Shah of Persia to King George III. should be. At 7 o'clock the ship struck the rocks of " The Needles " on the Isle of Wight , as the master, James Sturrock, mistook the lighthouse of The Needles for the lighthouse of Hurst Castle . The pomone came into contact with an underwater rock southwest of Needles Point. The crew tried to save the ship by capping the masts, but could not get it free. Due to the fortunate circumstance that there was hardly any wind, auxiliary ships could rush up within an hour and rescue the entire crew. In the course of the next three days, masts, cannons, cargo and even the Shah's horses were recovered.
A court hearing called on October 25 absolved Barrie and his officers of all guilt, but reprimanded Master James Sturrock for his faulty navigation.
Barrie was then transferred to the Dragon , a ship of the line of the third rank (74 cannons).
As a result of the accident, the Admiralty ordered the Royal Navy that from now on nocturnal journeys near The Needles had to be stopped.
The Needles wreck site
At the wreck site of The Needles, the remains of two shipwrecks were found in 1969: on the one hand from the Pomone and from the Assurance, which ran aground in 1753 at the same point . The wreck site is subject to the "Protection of Wrecks Act" passed on April 4, 1974, a decision by the United Kingdom government to protect shipwrecks from unauthorized access and looting. In what is now the Underwater Archeology Center in Fort Victoria on the Isle of Wight, the museum there also deals in part with the wreck of the Pomone . So far, more than 3000 artifacts have been recovered and evaluated with official approval.
swell
- Sir W. Laird Clowes, Sir Clements R. Markham: The Royal Navy: a history from earliest times to the present. Sampson Low, Marston and Co., London 1900. Reprint: London 1996, ISBN 1-86176-014-0 .
- William Patrick Gossett: The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. Mansell, London a. a. 1986, ISBN 0-7201-1816-6 .
- Winfield, Riff: British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth, Barnsley 2008, ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4 .
Web links
- Description Solent Marine Heritage assests Needles Site Report (English)
- Info page about the wreck site
- Construction of the Pomone's bilge pump
- Info page of The Needles Battery with information about shipwrecks
Footnotes
- ↑ In retrospect, the designation as a 38-cannon frigate appears relatively arbitrary. Although only 38 cannons were actually provided in the original planning, the ships of the Leda class almost always carried 46 to 48 cannons in use. The cannons on the upper deck were partially replaced by lighter, but large-caliber carronades (32 pounds). One reason for the continued designation as a 38 frigate could have been the fact that later US frigates also carried more guns than their nominal designation suggested. The constitution was designed as a 44 frigate, but had 55 guns on board
- ↑ A total of 47 Leda class frigates were built, which were intended for armament between 38 and 46 cannons. Some of these ships were modified by Robert Seppings , so that later versions had a slightly different appearance than the first ships of this class. In particular, the transom was replaced by a round stern. In addition to greater robustness, it offered the additional advantage that the cannons located aft could also be aligned at an angle of 45 ° to the keel line. With the straight transom of the old design, the aiming area after guns firing aft was severely limited, so there were blind spots. Later versions of the Leda class were also distinguished from the older versions by the largely missing deck jump and the short, relatively high galion (ship's beak). The frame work on the last ships of this class was constructed according to Sepping's diagonal brace system, which enabled the use of shorter, cheaper woods and gave the hull greater strength and thus resistance, in particular to the consequences of so-called "hogging". By 1832, a total of twenty-five of the 47 Leda class ships had been built with a round stern.
- ^ A b Winfield, Riff: "British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates" , Seaforth: 2008. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4
- ^ Clowes, Sir W. Laird, Sir Clements R. Markham: "The Royal Navy: a history from earliest times to the present" , London, 1996. ISBN 978-1-86176-014-2 .
- ↑ the ship was also equipped with two hunting cannons
- ↑ The Master or Sailmaster was a rank on board a historical sailing (war) ship. He was an officer and was responsible for navigation on board.
- ^ Gossett, William Patrick: "The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900" , Mansell, 1986, ISBN 0-7201-1816-6 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 39 ′ 45.1 " N , 1 ° 35 ′ 24.8" W.