#royalnavy — Public Fediverse posts

On 12 July a Submarine the Royal Navy Sold to Canada for £1 Fired the Torpedo That Sank a Decommissioned US Navy Cruiser

On 12 July 2026, in water nearly three miles deep, more than fifty nautical miles north of Kauai,…
#Canada #ColdWar #nato #navy #RoyalNavy #Submarine #Submarines #USNavy #Victoria-Class
https://www.europesays.com/canada/196649/

NATO issues chilling 3-word warning to Putin over Russia’s secret submarine missions | World | News

NATO has sent a chilling warning to Vladimir Putin and the secretive missions being carried out by his…
#NATO #OTAN #Europe #Europa #EU #News #defence #Military #RoyalNavy #Russia #Ukraine #VladimirPutin
https://www.europesays.com/nato/13030/

Des considérations juridiques compliquent la protection de l’espace aérien irlandais par les forces françaises et britanniques

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.opex360.com/2026/08/29/des-considerations-juridiques-compliquent-la-protection-de-lespace-aerien-irlandais-par-les-forces-francaises-et-britanniques/

https://www.csseo.org/1305659/ Russia minaccia ritorsioni contro le navi europee: scontro con Londra e Parigi sulla “flotta ombra” ##DirittoMarittimo ##DmitryMedvedev ##FlottaOmbra ##MarinaRussa ##petroliorusso ##regnounito ##RoyalNavy ##SicurezzaMarittima ##Smyrtos ##UNCLOS ##unioneeuropea ##VladimirPutin #Francia #geopolitica #Londra #Mosca #nato #russia #sanzioni #Ucraina

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/07/tuesday-july-28-2026/

New Video: ANALYSIS: Defence Investment Plan Released: What It Means for Modern Warfare & Finding Funds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdBcK35hKL0

#Geopolitics #UKDefence #RoyalNavy #Geopolitics #MilitarySpending #KeirStarmer

Manchester Monday 29th June 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/06/29/manchester-monday-29th-june-2026/

Monday, June 15, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/06/monday-june-15-2026/

Le porte-avions HMS Prince of Wales est contraint de rester en Norvège pour effectuer des réparations

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.opex360.com/2026/05/30/le-porte-avions-hms-prince-of-wales-est-contraint-de-rester-en-norvege-pour-effectuer-des-reparations/

HMS Spartan was a British light cruiser commissioned on 12 July 1943. In Jan 1944, Spartan was stationed off Anzio during Operation Shingle. On 29 Jan she was attacked by German aircraft using a guided bomb, probably a Henschel Hs 293 radio-controlled glide bomb. Spartan sank quickly in shallow water with heavy loss of life among her crew. https://www.destinationsjourney.com/historical-military-photographs/hms-spartan-british-light-cruiser/ #cruiser #hmsspartan #LightCruiser #maritimehistory #NavalHistory #royalnavy #secondworldwar #warships #worldwartwo #ww2 #WWII

“Britain has agreed to create a unified naval force with nine European countries to deter future Russian threats from the “open sea border” to the north, the head of the Royal Navy has announced.”

“… the first sea lord said the 10 members of the Joint Expeditionary Force (Jef), had signed last week a statement of intent to create a “multinational maritime force” to act as a “complement to Nato”.

It will not include the US.

#UK #JEF #Europe #Russia #royalnavy

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/apr/29/britain-royal-navy-russia-open-sea-border-europe

HMS Edinburgh was a British light cruiser of the Royal Navy, launched in 1938 and commissioned in 1939. In April 1942, while escorting Convoy QP 11 from Russia back to Britain, she was struck by two torpedoes fired by the German submarine U-456. After being struck by an additional torpedo from a German Destroyer, she was scuttled on 2 May 1941 with over 4.5 tonnes of Soviet gold on board https://www.destinationsjourney.com/historical-military-photographs/hms-edinburgh-1939-british-light-cruiser/ #SecondWorldWar #HMSEdinburgh #lightcruiser #maritimehistory #naval #Navy #RoyalNavy

Manchester Monday 16th February 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/02/16/manchester-monday-16th-february-2026/

Manchester Monday 16th February 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/02/16/manchester-monday-16th-february-2026/

Manchester Monday 16th February 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/02/16/manchester-monday-16th-february-2026/

Manchester Monday 16th February 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/02/16/manchester-monday-16th-february-2026/

Manchester Monday 16th February 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/02/16/manchester-monday-16th-february-2026/

Four astronauts set for Artemis 2 NASA’s moon mission for first time in 50-years

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/four-astronauts-set-artemis-2-36655169

Photo of the Day 28th January 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/01/28/photo-of-the-day-28th-january-2026/

Manchester Monday 12th January 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/01/12/manchester-monday-12th-january-2026/

#OTD 11 November 1918

The #WW1 #Armistice isn't always mentioned in the log-books of #RoyalNavy ships.
HMS Rinaldo, at anchor off Simonstown, South Africa, did, though.

1.30pm: Guns fired from batteries denoting signing of armistice. Dressed ship overall

The inset shows part of the actual log-book page.

#NavalHistory #ArmisticeDay #History

Brewster Buffalo of 805 NAS Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm being trialled on HMS Eagle in Alexandria harbour in 1941 https://www.destinationsjourney.com/historical-military-photographs/brewster-buffalo-in-british-service/ #BrewsterBuffalo #FleetAirArm #RoyalNavy #WW2 #NavalHistory #Aviation #NavalAviation

Photo of the Day 20th November 2024.

Photo of the Day 20th November 2024.

Bonus Photo of the Day 20th November 2024

Bonus Photo of the Day 2 20th November 2024

#airshow #avgeek #aviation #b737 #barton #boeing #DeHaviland #DH112 #egcb #egcc #egcd #gemini #l13 #m65 #man #manchester #miles #photography #planespotting #RoyalNavy #transavia #Venom #woodford

The Blackburn firebrand was a carrier based strike fighter of the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. Originally designed as a fighter, its low performance led to a redesign as a strike fighter.https://www.destinationsjourney.com/historical-military-photographs/blackburn-firebrand/ #BlackburnFirebrand #TorpedoFighter #StrikeAircraft #RoyalNavy #FleetAirArm #fighter #fighterplane #plane #aeroplane #aircraft #airplane #aviation #aerialwarfare #military #navy #naval #navalaviation

𝗪𝗜𝗞𝗜𝗣𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗔'𝗦 𝗙𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘𝗗 𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗖𝗟𝗘

✧ Operation Title ✧

Operation Title was an unsuccessful 1942 Allied attack on the German battleship Tirpitz during World War II. The Allies considered Tirpitz to be a major threat to their shipping and after several Royal Air Force heavy bomber raids failed to inflict any damage it was decided to use Royal Navy midget submarines instead. Opera...

#RoyalAirForce #OperationTitle #RoyalNavy #Tirpitz #Allied #Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Title

Fairey Firefly Mk I (TT.I) Seen here in the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovliton, the Firefly was the last time the Royal Navy shoehorned a navigator into one of their carrier fighters! Theythought that the pilot needed a navigator to stop him getting lost at sea! Needless to say, this increased the size and weight of the aircraft, and reduced performance. Despite being powered by a Rolls-Griffon IIB engine of 1,735hp, the Firefly I could only manage 319 mph - this was 5 mph slower than a Merlin-powered Hawker Hurricane Mk I of 1940! This Firefly was sold to Svensk Flygtjänst AB of Sweden after conversion to a target tug, eventually being restored as an aircraft which took part on attacks on the Japanese Home Islands in 1945. #FaireyFirefly #FleetAirArm #RN #RoyalNavy #Pacific #Japan #HomeIslands #WW2 #history #photography #museum #aviation #avgeek #targettug #Sweden #yeovilton #FleetAirArmMuseum #navalaviation #fighter #aircraft #rollsroyce #rrgriffon

Supermarine Walrus I, Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton. The Walrus was designed to be an aircraft that could be catapulted from capital ships of the Royal Navy, but ended up being a most useful amphibian. As well as spotting naval gunfire, the Walrus provided excellent air/sea rescue service around the coast of Britain and in other areas. Some were supplied to the Republic of Ireland, and this preserved example is one of these. #amphibian #WW2 #royalnavy #aircraft #capitalship #navalhistory #navalaviation #naval #avgeek #FleetAirArm #FleetAirArmMuseum #yeovilton #supermarine #walrus #aviation #aviationgeek

A day of firsts; the thread about the start of the air war over Britain above the Firth of Forth

This thread was originally written and published in July 2023.

On September 3rd 1939, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, drawing the country into what would become the Second World War. This early period of the war is sometimes called the “Phoney War”, on account of the relatively limited military activity between France, Germany and Britain on the Western Front. However on Monday 16th October 1939, the air war over Britain commenced over the Firth of Forth as German bombers made their first air raid on the country of the war and the RAF squadrons defending Edinburgh went immediately to war.

603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron – an auxiliary squadron defending its home city from RAF Turnhouse – claimed the first German aircraft to be shot down by an RAF fighter over British territory in WW2 on that very day. At about 14:45, Red Section under Flt. Lt. “Patsy” Gifford fatally damaged a Ju-88 bomber near Cockenzie. The German aircraft, from squadron KG30, crashed into the Forth 4 miles offshore. The Cockenzie fishing boat Dayspring, skippered by John Dickson, rescued the crew. They admitted that they were reluctant at first to do so, but they were sailors foremost and overcame their misgivings to help those in peril on the sea.

Rear gunner OGefr. Kramer had been killed before the plane crashed and was never found, but pilot OLt. Hans Storp and crewmen Hugo Rohnke and Hans Georg Heilscher were saved and sent to the military hospital at Edinburgh Castle, the first German military prisoners in Britain of WW2. The grateful Storp gave his gold ring to John Dickson in thanks for his life.

Earlier that morning, at 09:30, the “Chain Home” radar station at Drone Hill in Berwick shire had identified two enemy aircraft approaching over the North Sea. At 10:21, Flt. Lt. George Pinkerton of 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron became the first RAF fighter pilot to attack a German aircraft over Britain when his Spitfire engaged and damaged a He-111 bomber over the Isle of May. This aircraft – one of two from squadron KG26 – had been on a reconnaissance flight to photograph the naval dockyard at Rosyth and was chased east out to sea where it evaded its pursuers, returning safely home. 602 Squadron had been redeployed eastwards to defend Edinburgh and the Forth and had been based out of RAF Drem in East Lothian for just 3 days.

A confused game of cat and mouse now commenced between the RAF and Luftwaffe all along the East Coast of Scotland for much of the morning and early afternoon as attempts were made to intercept sporadic German incursions. The radar sets failed to work properly and broke down, phantom raiders were reported by the public and the ground controllers got their calculations back to front and sent the defending fighters in the wrong directions.

That afternoon the weather was good – clear skies with only broken cloud. At 14:20, the Royal Observer Corps, trained ground spotters whose job was to identify and report enemy aircraft over land, confirmed the presence of Ju-88 bombers in East Lothian. These were 12 aircraft commanded by Haupt. Helmuth Pohle of squadron KG30 and had been sent on a mission to attack the Royal Navy at Rosyth, based on the reports from the morning reconnaissance flight that George Pinkerton and 602 Squadron had intercepted. Once again, those Spitfires were scrambled to meet the raiders. At 14:27, the anti aircraft battery at Dalmeny reported the bombers flying up the Forth. The attackers had been forbidden to attack the Dockyard itself for fear of civilian casualties, so aimed for the ships anchored in the Firth. While the gunners frantically phoned for permission to open fire, the bombs began to fall.

The first wave of attackers targeted the cruiser HMS Southampton. At 14:35, the 500kg bombs fell around the ship but missed; however two of her boats that had been anchored alongside, including the Admiral’s personal barge, were sunk. At 14:38 – three minutes after the start of the attack – the orders for the defenders to open fire were given and every anti-aircraft gun on land and on ships that could be brought to bare opened up. At the same time, the next wave of attackers, those led by OLt. Hans Storp, arrived. They approached from the south over Threipmuir Reservoir and commenced their bombing run.

By now, both 602 (City of Glasgow) and 603 (City of Edinburgh) squadrons were in the air. Yellow Section of 603 attacked Storp and put his port engine out of action. The plane limped towards East Lothian out to sea, in a futile attempt to escape, which was where Red Section under Patsy Gifford brought it down. The victorious 603 were now ordered to return to Turnhouse to re-arm and re-fuel, leaving the defence in the hands of 602 Squadron. Blue Section, under George Pinkerton, spotted the aircraft of Helmuth Pohle over Inverkeithing and gave chase through the broken cloud. Pinkerton and his wing-man Archie McKellar attacked, killing two of the German machine’s crew and incapacitating both its engines. It headed for the sea near Crail and ditched three miles off of Fife Ness. The time was somewhere between 14:45 and 14:55, the Observer Corps putting the crash at the latter time, but McKellar and Pinkerton are credited with gaining the “first kill” before Patsy Gifford in some chronologies.

The events of October 16th had not yet concluded however. About 25 minutes after Pohle’s machine crashed, another Ju-88 bomber appeared over the outer reaches of the Forth. It had escaped interception up to this point as the ground observers had initially thought it to be a friendly Bristol Blenheim (an easy mistake, as the two were somewhat similar and the Ju-88 was a brand new aircraft and almost totally unseen by British eyes this early in the war). It found the destroyer HMS Mohawk off of the fishing village of Elie & Earlsferry and attacked; dropping its bombs and firing its machine guns at the ship.

By the time it was chased off by one of 602 Squadron’s Spitfires, 13 men including First Lieutenant E. J. Shea had been killed. Her captain, Commander Richard Jolly, was fatally wounded but refused to abandon his post and brought his ship safely back to Rosyth before dying a few hours later. In total 16 men from the Mohawk would lose their lives that day.

The last of the raiders that day appeared in ones and twos across the Lothians around 16:00 and were chased across the Forth, RAF Turnhouse, Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello by the Spitfires of 603 Squadron, but to no avail. Minor injuries were caused across the city from broken glass as bullets fired in the sky came down to earth and painter Joe McLuskie, working on a house in Abercorn Terrace, Portobello, was hit in the stomach and had to undergo emergency surgery in Leith Hospital. The raid had also claimed its first animal victim of the air war over Britain when Lady, a spaniel belonging to Mrs Mercer of Alma Street in Inverkeithing, was struck by shrapnel from falling “friendly” anti-aircraft shells and had to be put down as a result. The noise of the bombs and guns had panicked the animal and it had run off into the street.

Off of Crail, a fishing boat hauled four ditched German airmen from the sea. Crewmen Kurt Seydel and August Schleicher were already dead, Kurt Naake was mortally wounded and would not survive, leaving pilot Helmuth Pohle – nursing a broken jaw – as the sole survivor. He was sent to the naval hospital in Port Edgar. The bodies of Seydel and Schleicher lay in state at St. Phillip’s Church in Portobello, their coffins draped in Swastika flags, and were buried with military honours observed by a respectful turnout of locals at Portobello Cemetery. The proceedings were led by Henry Steel, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and many men from both 602 and 603 Squadrons were in attendance with the pipe band of 603 providing a musical lament. The pair were re-interred in a German military cemetery in England after the war.

Both Patsy Gifford and George Pinkerton would receive the Distinguished Flying Cross award for their efforts that day. Gifford, a reservist who was in peacetime a lawyer and town councillor from Castle Douglas, was sent to command 3 Squadron RAF in November 1939. He was shot down and killed over Belgium in May 1940.

Gifford and Pinkerton both have claims to their “first”. However neither claimed either the first British or first RAF aerial victories of the war. On September 26th 1939, Lt. Cdr. Bruce S. McEwen of 803 Squadron Fleet Air Arm and flying from HMS Ark Royal (therefore a Royal Navy aviator and not in the RAF) shot down a German Do-18 flying boat over the North Sea off Norway, the first British aerial victory of the way. The below photo was taken by the destroyer HMS Somali when they rescued its crew.

Another Do-18 would become the first German aircraft brought down by an RAF aircraft flying from the British mainland, was claimed by a Lockheed Hudson patrol aircraft of 224 Squadron Coastal Command out of RAF Leuchars on 8th October. The Hudson, actually a modified American airliner and intended to be a bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, proved to have a surprising capability as a long range fighter in the early part of the war.

And two weeks after 602 Squadron’s Pinkerton and McKellar brought Helmuth Pohle’s war to a premature end off of Crail, Archie McKellar shot down an He-111 bomber of squadron KG26, flown by Uffz. Kurt Lehmkuhl over East Lothian. This was the first RAF victory that brought down a plane over land, the machine making a crash landing in the Lammermuir hills near Humbie.

Another He-111 was shot down by 602 Squadron out of RAF Drem on February 9th 1940, with Squadron Leader Douglas Farquar bringing it down in a field just outside North Berwick.

This was the first chance for British intelligence to get a close up look of such a machine in a flyable condition and it was therefore partially dismantled and towed away for onwards transport to the Boffins down south. The plane was put back together, repaired, and commissioned into the RAF as part of the “Rafwaffe” of captured machines. Here it is seen going down Dirleton Avenue in North Berwick to the bemusement of onlookers.

Remarkably, there’s a colour cine film of it going down Musselburgh High Street, exciting much local interest, on its way to RAF Turnhouse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwhXwLhWDEc

Hans Storp’s Ju-88 would suffer the misfortune of being the first pilot and aircraft to be shot down twice in the war, when in December 1939 a re-enactment of his last flight took place for the propaganda film “Squadron 992“. An RAF Bristol Blenheim (which the observers had confused with the German Ju-88 back in October) stood in for the German machine on this occasion. The Cockenzie fisherman John Dickson, his crew, and their boat the Dayspring reprised their roles from that day and played themselves for the cameras.

You can watch the film Squadron 992 on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XycuXAtLyo4

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102 of 151 ships - HMS Narborough crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107
#HMSNarborough

Please follow the link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/narborough

Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project

89 of 151 ships - HMS Minion crew list - recent updates

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107
#HMSMinion

Please follow the link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/Minion