HMS Swallow

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

HMS Swallow was the name of at least 21 ships of the British Royal Navy . It is likely that there were other small ships of this name that are not mentioned in the literature below.

  • Probably the first warship named Swallow is mentioned in 1344. King Edward III traveled on board this ship from Sandwich to Sluis in Flanders .
  • The second Swallow was a small 80-ton warship. It was built in 1512 for King Henry VIII and rebuilt in 1524. Her whereabouts are unknown.
  • The third Swallow was a 240 ton warship for 100 men. She was armed with 8 bronze and 45 iron guns. It was built in 1544 for King Henry VIII. Her whereabouts are unknown.
  • The fourth swallow was a galleon . She entered the Royal Navy in an unknown fashion in 1573, took part in the fighting against the Spanish Armada in 1588 , and was retired in 1603. The Navy List of 1603 pursuant to which they had 330 tons, 160-man crew and eight guns.
  • The fifth Swallow was a 478 ton galleon with 34 cannons. During the English Civil War it belonged to a naval association with which Sir William Batten switched to the side of the royalists in 1648. It took part in the operations of Prince Ruprecht von der Pfalz and was abandoned in Nantes in 1651 because it was no longer seaworthy.
  • The sixth Swallow was a small six-cannon warship with 60 tons. It was completed in 1657 under the Commonwealth. Her whereabouts are unknown.
  • The seventh Swallow was a 543-ton, 40-cannon warship. In 1688 she was classified as a fourth class ship of the line with 48 cannons, later with 50 cannons. It was built as Gainsborough in 1654 under the Commonwealth and renamed Swallow in 1660 . The Swallow took part in the Battle of Beachy Head (1690).
  • The eighth Swallow was a 6-cannon sloop that was captured by the French in 1703.
  • The ninth Swallow was a ship of the line with 60 guns. She defeated the famous pirate Bartholomew Roberts in 1722 under the command of Chaloner Ogle and in 1727 belonged to a squadron detached to Gibraltar.
  • The 10th Swallow was a sloop or brig with 16 guns that was lost in a shipwreck in 1744.
  • The eleventh Swallow was again a sloop or brig with 16 guns that took part in an attack on Pondicherry ( British India ) in 1748 under Rear Admiral Edward Boscawen . It is probably identical to the ship that took part in a circumnavigation of the world under Philip Carteret from 1766 to 1769, during which the Pitcairn Island was discovered. It was lost in a shipwreck in 1778.
  • The twelfth Swallow was again a sloop or brig with 16 guns. It was lost in 1781 near Long Island when it was stranded.
  • The thirteenth Swallow was a small ship that Captain Sir William Sidney Smith had bought and equipped at his own expense in Izmir . It was used in the 1793 evacuation of Toulon .
  • The fourteenth Swallow was an 18-gun sloop or brig. It was acquired in 1804, renamed HMS Lilly in the same year , and decommissioned in 1811.
  • The fifteenth Swallow was an eighteen-gun brig. It was built in 1805 and decommissioned in 1815.
  • The sixteenth Swallow was a customs cutter that entered service in Ireland in 1830 . Her whereabouts are unknown.
  • The seventeenth Swallow was a paddle-wheel drive mail ship . It was completed in 1837 and decommissioned in 1848.
  • The eighteenth Swallow was a propeller-driven sloop with 9 guns. It was completed in 1854, was temporarily stationed in Sheerness and was decommissioned in 1866.
  • The nineteenth Swallow was a three-gun gunboat. It was completed in 1868, was stationed in Portsmouth , later in South Africa , West Africa and East Africa , and was decommissioned in 1882.
  • The twentieth HMS Swallow was an eight gun sloop. It was completed in 1885, was stationed in Sheerness , later in South Africa and West Africa , and was sold in 1904.
  • 1918 ran at Scotts in Greenock , a destroyer of the S-Class named Swallow from the stack, which was delivered before the end of the war. In 1936 it was sold for demolition.
  • The most recent HMS Swallow (P242) was a patrol boat of the Peacock class . She entered service in 1984 and sold to the Irish Navy in 1988.

literature

  • William Laird Clowes: The Royal Navy. A History from the Earliest Times to 1900. 7 vols., London 1996 (reprint of 1897–1903 edition)

Web links