On This Day ... in 1916 & Others
The tiny naval war fought on the waters of Lake Tanganyika (the inspiration for the film African Queen) came to a close when the Royal Navy manned vessels Mimi and Fifi (pictured below)
caught and sank the last remaining German vessel, Hedwig von Weissman.
1941: Force H under Vice Admiral Somerville bombarded Genoa, whilst Fleet Air Arm aircraft from HMS Ark Royal attacked Spezia, Leghorn and Pisa.
1942: The Pacific War Council, composed of representatives from the U.K., Australia, Netherlands East Indies, and New Zealand, is formed in London
Approximately 8,000 Japanese troops landed near Makassar City and south of Makassar at Jeneponto on Celebes Island. They immediately advanced for Makassar City, where they capture a bridge and the Dutch troops who were guarding the bridge.
A company of native soldiers opened fire on the Japanese causing casualties and in reprisal, the Japanese tied the Dutch soldiers in groups of three and threw them from the bridge into the water to drown
1943: Organized Japanese resistance on Guadalcanal ended
1944: The very successful anti-submarine group led by Captain F J Walker
in HMS Starling fought a notable action in defence of convoy SL.147, sinking U-238 and U-734.
Over 150 depth charges were used in a long and relentless battle, one of the depth charges successfully exploding a German torpedo just a few yards before it would have hit Starling. Exhausted by his relentless patrols of the North Atlantic,
Captain Walker, awarded the Distinguished Service Order no less than four times, suddenly died aboard ship in July 1944.
1945: U-864 was sunk in the North Sea west of Bergen by torpedoes from the British submarine HMS Venturer (pictured below)
While submerged west of Bergen, Lt Andy Chalmers was in the control room when he heard faint underwater sounds on the hydrophones, and Launders spotted a periscope at about 5,000 yards range. Chalmers trimmed the boat in silence for three hours while Launders the Captain stalked his quarry, calculating the range by the loudness of its noise.
U-864, commanded by Korvettenkaptän Ralf-Reimar Wolfram,
was making "suicidal" use of its periscope, which was protruding about four feet above the surface. Venturer fired four torpedoes, and two minutes 12 seconds later there was a loud explosion.
This is the only known sinking of one submarine by another when both boats were submerged throughout the engagement. Venturer was cued by Ultra on to U-864, which carried an Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor, 64 tons of mercury, heavy water, and some 20 Luftwaffe officers as well as German and Japanese engineers
Capt. Alexander Solzhenitsyn commander of an artillery battalion, is arrested and sentenced to eight years in a camp for criticizing Stalin in a letter to a friend
Today is also known as Black Friday by the Royal Canadian Air Force. No.404 Squadron, flying Bristol Beaufighters on an anti-shipping strike against remaining German naval units moored at Fordefjord, Norway was bounced by fighters. A total of 6 aircraft were lost to the Fw-190s and flak
Comments
HMS Mimi and Fifi? Sounds like a bad joke. Who would want to wear a hat with either of THOSE ribbons into a bar? Guaranteed that fists would fly. Boy named Sue!
Posted by: Bomber Harris | February 9, 2009 8:55 PM
The new layout has really been sanitised hasnt it? Mi5 do your cleaning?
Posted by: TimC | February 9, 2010 8:47 AM
Still miss your blog.
Posted by: bill | February 9, 2010 9:49 AM
Still a great blog.
Posted by: Fred Z | February 9, 2010 2:34 PM
Always very interesting history posts BUT come on, own up and ADMIT IT ...... We all still come here at sunrise, first click of every day, to see if Mr FM has had a change of mind or circumstance and gone back to blogging??? Ah well, maybe one day.
Posted by: ndlovu8 | February 10, 2010 4:15 AM
The peculiar Cdr Spicer-Simson wanted to christen his original gunboats HMS Dog and Cat. Their Lordships at the Admiralty thought otherwise and picked Mimi and Toutou instead.
HMS Fifi was a captured German vessel and christened in the spirit of the Flotilla.
Sure there are other odd-named HM Ships.
Posted by: r22f | February 10, 2010 3:10 PM
"HMS Mimi and Fifi? Sounds like a bad joke. Who would want to wear a hat with either of THOSE ribbons into a bar? Guaranteed that fists would fly"
First, during wartime, for security, the hat tally only reads "HMS"
But, during the Great War, the RN commissioned a group of minesweeping sloops given the name of flowers (officially the "Herbaceous Ornamental" class) which included HMS Pansy. Of course, everyone in dockside bars knows what ships are in port anyway, so that crew probably DID do most of its fighting against the RN.
Flash forward to the rematch. There is a new Flower class and among the names sent forward to the Sovereign for His approval is a second HMS Pansy. Of course George VI was an ex-naval officer (under fire at Jutland) and was no fool either. The list was returned with a line through the name and "No - GR" penned alongside it.
"The peculiar Cdr Spicer-Simson wanted to christen his original gunboats HMS Dog and Cat. Their Lordships at the Admiralty thought otherwise and picked Mimi and Toutou instead.
HMS Fifi was a captured German vessel and christened in the spirit of the Flotilla."
My understanding is that since he had been born in France, once his original names were rejected, Spicer-Samsonn suggested the nicknamess of ex-girlfriends
"Sure there are other odd-named HM Ships."
Such as the minesweeper HMS Pickle of WWII
which honored the schooner which brought Collingwood's despatches home after Trafalgar. Lt Lapenotierre just about killed several teams of horses enroute to London after making port at (iirc) Plymouth, stumbling into the Admiralty in the wee hours to greet Lord Barham with "Sir, we have won a great victory but lost Lord Nelson"
Col Beausaber
Posted by: Beausaber | February 11, 2010 10:21 AM
It seems mimi and toutou are french slang for meow and bark.
Though it may be easy to find a frenchy girl named or nick-named Mimi...
The Royal Navy has had so many ship's names that it is a certainty to find a few that were peculiar or even derisive at some point, possibly long after said name had been used.
Posted by: r22f | February 12, 2010 1:29 AM