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Imperial Russian dispatch boat No. 218 (former torpedo boat), after striking a mine in 1915
Imperial Russian dispatch boat Roksana
The tug Knickerbocker , prior to her United States Navy service as tug, minesweeper, and dispatch boat
Dispatch boats were small boats, and sometimes large ships, tasked to carry military dispatches from ship to ship or from ship to shore or, in some cases from shore to shore. Dispatch boats were employed when other means of transmitting a message was not possible or safe or as quick.
Dispatch boats, which performed their dispatch-carrying duties only on a temporary basis, should not be confused with packet ships—sometimes called packet boats or paquetbots—which were cargo ships which also routinely carried the mail from port to port.
Generally, dispatch boats served the military, and paquetbots served commerce.
Dispatch boat was a term used by the United States Navy in its journal accounts to describe boats which carried messages, or mail—otherwise termed dispatches—between high-ranking military officials aboard other ships or to land-based destinations.[ citation needed ]
In 1776 the Continental Navy ship Lynch was assigned dispatch boat duty and, after delivering her secret dispatches in France, set sail for the United States with French secret dispatches, only to be captured, but not before destroying the French dispatches. [1]
Once the Battle of Trafalgar had been decided in favor of the British in October 1805, the honor of delivering the news of the victory as well as the loss of Admiral Lord Nelson belonged to the dispatch boat which first brought the news to the Admiralty in London.
A 1000-mile sea race from the location of the naval battle resulted between Lt. Lapenotiere in HMS Pickle and Captain Sykes in Nautilus with the Pickle reaching England first to deliver the dispatches to the Admiralty. For his outstanding effort in the race, Lt. Lapenotiere was awarded a cash prize of 500 pound sterling (equivalent to £41,000in 2020) and, in addition, was promoted to Commander. [2]
The American Civil War employed a large number of dispatch boats, such as Massasoit, Gladiolus and Geranium among numerous others. General Ulysses S. Grant depended on dispatch boats during his Virginia campaign to correspond with Union Navy ships on the James River.[ citation needed ]
The US Navy did not have enough dispatch boats available during the Spanish–American War of 1898, so private yachts and tugboats used by newspapers were frequently tasked by the Navy to carry messages. [3] USS Vega was a US dispatch boat during World War I.[ citation needed ]
Dispatch boats became largely unnecessary with the advent of underwater cable and shipboard radio technology in the early 20th century. However, there was a brief reprise during the Falklands War in 1982. CS Iris, a cable laying ship owned by British Telecom, was taken up from trade by the British Government. She ferried supplies and dispatches (including troop's mail from home) between elements of the fleet and between Ascension Island and the Falkland Islands – she also recovered urgent supplies that were air-dropped in the South Atlantic by Royal Air Force, C-130 Hercules aircraft. [4]
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Eight ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Pickle:
The Battle of Coronel was a First World War Imperial German Navy victory over the Royal Navy on 1 November 1914, off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. The East Asia Squadron of the Kaiserliche Marine led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and overpowered a British squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock.
Amphibious warfare is a type of offensive military operation that today uses naval ships to project ground and air power onto a hostile or potentially hostile shore at a designated landing beach. Through history the operations were conducted using ship's boats as the primary method of delivering troops to shore. Since the Gallipoli Campaign, specialised watercraft were increasingly designed for landing troops, material and vehicles, including by landing craft and for insertion of commandos, by fast patrol boats, zodiacs and from mini-submersibles.
HMS Pickle was a topsail schooner of the Royal Navy. She was originally a civilian vessel named Sting, of six guns, that Lord Hugh Seymour purchased to use as a tender on the Jamaica station. Pickle was at the Battle of Trafalgar, and though she was too small to take part in the fighting, Pickle was the first ship to bring the news of Nelson's victory to Great Britain. She also participated in a notable single-ship action when she captured the French privateer Favorite in 1807. Pickle was wrecked in 1808, but without loss of life.
HMS Minotaur was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 6 November 1793 at Woolwich. She was named after the mythological bull-headed monster of Crete. She fought in three major battles – Nile, Trafalgar, and Copenhagen (1807) – before she was wrecked, with heavy loss of life, in December 1810.
The Trafalgar Way is the name given to the historic route used to carry dispatches with the news of the Battle of Trafalgar overland from Falmouth to the Admiralty in London. The first messenger in November 1805 was Lieutenant John Richards Lapenotière, of HMS Pickle, who reached Falmouth on 4 November after a hard voyage in bad weather. He then raced to London bearing the dispatches containing the momentous news of Lord Nelson's victory and death in the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.
The New Trafalgar Dispatch was part of the bicentenary celebrations of Lord Nelson's famous and momentous victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, in 1805. The prolonged and multi-focal ceremony took place between July and September 2005.
Captain John Richards Lapenotière was a British Royal Navy officer who, as a lieutenant commanding the tiny topsail schooner HMS Pickle, observed the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, participated in the rescue operations which followed it and then carried the dispatches of the victory and the death of Admiral Nelson to Britain.
Commander Robert Benjamin Young, RN was an officer in the Royal Navy. His service in small ships led to his presence observing the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 from the deck of the tiny 10-gun cutter HMS Entreprenante. Following this battle, Young performed well, acting as messenger and rescue boat during the storm, although the honour of carrying the dispatches back to England was given to John Richards Lapenotiere, commander of HMS Pickle; Young maintained that prior to the battle Admiral Nelson had promised this honour to him.
The Raid on Cuxhaven was a British ship-based air-raid on the Imperial German Navy at Cuxhaven mounted on Christmas Day, 1914.
The Gibraltar Chronicle is a national newspaper published in Gibraltar since 1801. It became a daily in 1821. It is Gibraltar's oldest established daily newspaper and the world's second oldest English language newspaper to have been in print continuously. Its editorial offices are at Watergate House, and the print works are in the New Harbours industrial estate.
USS Island Belle (1861) was a large tugboat acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Although carrying relatively heavy weaponry, she was used for unassuming tasks, such as carrying dispatches and providing surveillance. When she ran aground in unfriendly waters, she was scrapped to prevent her falling into the hands of the Confederate forces.
USS Cohasset (1860) was a tugboat acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy for various purposes: as a tugboat, dispatch vessel, escort vessel, and even as a gunboat.
USS Harcourt (1864) was a small steamship acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was placed into service as a tugboat and assigned to the blockade of ports of the Confederate States of America.
USS Sibyl (1863) was a wooden-hull steamer outfitted with heavy guns, purchased by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
Naval trawlers are vessels built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes; they were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Some—known in the Royal Navy as "Admiralty trawlers"— were purpose-built to naval specifications, others adapted from civilian use. Fishing trawlers were particularly suited for many naval requirements because they were robust vessels designed to work heavy trawls in all types of weather, and had large clear working decks. A minesweeper could be created by replacing the trawl with a mine sweep. Adding depth charge racks on the deck, ASDIC sonar below, and a 3-inch (76 mm) or 4-inch (102 mm) gun in the bow equipped the trawler for anti-submarine duties.
The Battle of Diamond Rock took place between 31 May and 2 June 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars. It was an attempt by Franco-Spanish force dispatched under Captain Julien Cosmao to retake Diamond Rock, at the entrance to the bay leading to Fort-de-France, from the British forces that had occupied it over a year before.
Peter G Hore FRHistS naval officer, historian and obituarist, served a full career in the Royal Navy (1962-2000), spent ten years working in the cinema and television industry (2000-2009) and is a successful biographer and obituarist. One of his books, Habit of Victory, was the Daily Telegraph reader's choice and another book, Sydney, Cipher and Search was praised for its literary quality and depth of research and shortlisted for the Mountbatten Media Awards. His reasons for becoming an historian are published at British Naval History.
HMS Nautilus was launched at Milford in 1804 as the only member of her class of sloops. She had a minor career capturing a handful of merchantmen. She was wrecked on 5 January 1807 with great hardship for the survivors and loss of life.
RNAS Bermuda was a Royal Naval Air Station in the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island until 1939, then Boaz Island, Bermuda. Bermuda became the primary base for the North America and West Indies Station of the Royal Navy in the North-West Atlantic following American independence. It was the location of a dockyard, an Admiralty House, and the base of a naval squadron.