Construction and early service
Fleurus was constructed by the Foundation Company [1] of Savannah, Georgia as a steam escort trawler for the French Navy. She was delivered in 1919, after the end of the First World War, and remained in French service for only three years before being sold to Huret Sauvetage ("Huret Rescue") in Boulogne. In September 1924, she was again sold, this time to the Antarctic whaling firm A/S Tønsberg Hvalfangeri, based in Tønsberg, southern Norway. [2]
Savannah is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. A strategic port city in the American Revolution and during the American Civil War, Savannah is today an industrial center and an important Atlantic seaport. It is Georgia's fifth-largest city, with a 2017 estimated population of 146,444. The Savannah metropolitan area, Georgia's third-largest, had an estimated population of 387,543 in 2017.
The French Navy, informally "La Royale", is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces. Dating back to 1624, the French Navy is one of the world's oldest naval forces. It has participated in conflicts around the globe and played a key part in establishing the French colonial empire.
Tønsberg[²tœnsbær(ɡ)](listen) is a city and municipality in Vestfold county, southern Norway, located around 102 kilometres south-southwest of Oslo on the western coast of the Oslofjord near its mouth onto the Skagerrak. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Tønsberg. The municipality has a population of 41,239 and covers an area of 107 square kilometres.
As built, Fleurus measured 406 gross register tons, with a steel hull and a triple-expansion steam engine. She was 140.1 feet LPP by 25.1 feet, with a draft of 13 feet. [2]
Length between perpendiculars is the length of a ship along the waterline from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the sternpost, or main stern perpendicular member. When there is no sternpost, the centerline axis of the rudder stock is used as the aft end of the length between perpendiculars.
Falkland Islands Dependencies
Fleurus was converted to carry mail and passengers, and then leased to the Falkland Islands Government, which used her as a mail ship in the Falkland Islands Dependencies, a scattered collection of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands. The Fleurus service included five voyages per year between Stanley and the whaling stations at Grytviken on South Georgia, and less frequent journeys to the South Orkney Islands and the South Shetland Islands, the bases for small groups of whalers and sealers. In addition, she carried mail and passengers from Stanley to Montevideo, Uruguay. [3]
The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement for administering the various British territories in Sub-Antarctica and Antarctica from 1843 until 1985 which were governed from the Falkland Islands and its capital Port Stanley.
Stanley is the capital of the Falkland Islands. It is located on the island of East Falkland, on a north-facing slope in one of the wettest parts of the islands. At the 2016 census, the town had a population of 2,460. The entire population of the Falkland Islands was 3,398 on Census Day on 9 October 2016
Grytviken was the largest whaling station on South Georgia, part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic. The settlement, which is located at the head of King Edward Cove within the larger Cumberland East Bay, was considered the best harbour on South Georgia Island. It was founded on November 16, 1904, by Carl Anton Larsen of Sandefjord, Norway.
In 1927, Fleurus carried Arnold Hodson, Governor of the Falkland Islands, to South Georgia, where the governor inspected the whaling stations and the Discovery Investigations. This was the first time a Governor had visited the Dependencies. The following year, Fleurus took Hodson on a month-long tour further south, visiting the Palmer Archipelago of Graham Land in Antarctica proper, as well as the South Shetlands and South Orkneys. Such trips were not limited to dignitaries; Fleurus operated a commercial passenger service on the mail route, and advertised round-trip "tourist tickets" for the journeys to South Georgia and the South Shetlands, the first tourist cruises in Antarctica. [3]
Sir Arnold Wienholt Hodson was a British colonial administrator who was Governor in turn of the Falkland Islands, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast.
The Discovery Investigations were a series of scientific cruises and shore-based investigations into the biology of whales in the Southern Ocean. They were funded by the British Colonial Office and organised by the Discovery Committee in London, which was formed in 1918. They were intended to provide the scientific background to stock management of the commercial Antarctic whale fishery.
Palmer Archipelago, also known as Antarctic Archipelago, Archipiélago Palmer, Antarktiske Arkipel or Palmer Inseln, is a group of islands off the northwestern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. It extends from Tower Island in the north to Anvers Island in the south. It is separated by the Gerlache and Bismarck straits from the Antarctic Peninsula and Wilhelm Archipelago, respectively.
In addition to her regular government duties, it was briefly suggested in 1928 that she be used to patrol territorial waters and prevent unlicensed whaling, but the political problems arising from a Norwegian whaling company's ship carrying out British license enforcement rendered this impractical. Fleurus was also contracted to support the Wilkins-Hearst Antarctic expedition in 1928-9. [3]
Sir George Hubert Wilkins MC & Bar was an Australian polar explorer, ornithologist, pilot, soldier, geographer and photographer. He was awarded the Military Cross, when he assumed command of a group of American soldiers who had lost their officers during the Battle of the Hindenburg Line, and became the only official Australian photographer from any war to receive a combat medal. He narrowly failed in an attempt to be the first to cross under the North Pole in a submarine, but was able to prove that submarines were capable of operating beneath the polar ice cap, thereby paving the way for future successful missions. The US Navy later took his ashes to the North Pole aboard the submarine USS Skate on 17 March 1959.
Royal Norwegian Navy
In 1933, Fleurus was sold to Einar Veim in Bergen, and in 1935 sold to A/S Thorodd in Ålesund, when she was renamed Thorodd. She was hired by the Royal Norwegian Navy following the outbreak of the Second World War, and taken into service as a patrol ship based at Hammerfest in the far north of Norway. [2]
Following the Norwegian Campaign of April–June 1940, the surviving ships of the Royal Norwegian Navy were evacuated to the United Kingdom. Thorodd arrived on 17 June, and at the end of the month was sent to Rosyth Dockyard to be converted for use as a minesweeper. She was taken into the Royal Navy on 14 March 1941, manned by a Norwegian crew, as HMS Thorodd (FY-1905), operating with a group of North Sea minesweepers based in Dundee. She served for the next three and a half years, finally being taken out of service in September 1944 and laid up. [2]
While serving as a minesweeper, Thorodd gained a measure of fame for her captain's dog, a St. Bernard named Bamse. Bamse was widely known among the local communities around the shore bases in Montrose and Dundee, and had the run of the town; he eventually became famous as a mascot of the Royal Norwegian Navy and of the Norwegian Forces in Exile. [2] [4]
Postwar
In August 1945, at the end of the war, Thorodd was formally returned to A/S Thorodd. She was later converted to a 600 b.h.p. engine before being laid up in Ålesund in 1951. The following year, she was sold to the fisheries company A/S Grindhaugs Fiskeriselskap, which converted her to a seine trawler; after conversion, she was lengthened to 151.2 feet, with a tonnage of 452 gross register tons, and a 408 b.h.p. engine, making her the largest seine trawler operating in Norway. [2]
Outside the fishing season, Thorodd transported cargo between ports. She was carrying a cargo of ore from Visnes to Tofte on 6 October 1955 when a storm caused the cargo to shift and she developed a severe list. The crew abandoned ship and Thorodd sank. [2]
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) is a British Overseas Territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote and inhospitable collection of islands, consisting of South Georgia and a chain of smaller islands known as the South Sandwich Islands. South Georgia is 165 km (103 mi) long and 35 km (22 mi) wide and is by far the largest island in the territory. The South Sandwich Islands lie about 700 km (430 mi) southeast of South Georgia. The territory's total land area is 3,903 km2 (1,507 sq mi). The Falkland Islands are about 1,300 km (810 mi) north-west from its nearest point.
The history of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The term Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle, was coined by Marinus of Tyre in the 2nd century AD.
Fleurus is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. It has been the site of four major battles.
Deception Island is an island in the South Shetland Islands archipelago, with one of the safest harbours in Antarctica. This island is the caldera of an active volcano, which seriously damaged local scientific stations in 1967 and 1969. The island previously held a whaling station; it is now a tourist destination and scientific outpost, with Argentine and Spanish research bases. While various countries have asserted sovereignty, it is still administered under the Antarctic Treaty System.
John Biscoe was an English mariner and explorer who commanded the first expedition known to have sighted the areas named Enderby Land and Graham Land along the coast of Antarctica. The expedition also found a number of islands in the vicinity of Graham Land, including the Biscoe Islands that were named after him.
The history of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is relatively recent. When European explorers found the islands, they were uninhabited, and their hostile climate, mountainous terrain, and remoteness made subsequent settlement difficult. Due to these setbacks, human activity in the islands has largely consisted of sealing, whaling, and scientific surveys and research, interrupted by World War II and the Falklands War.
The British Antarctic Territory (BAT) is a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom as one of its 14 British Overseas Territories. It comprises the region south of 60°S latitude and between longitudes 20°W and 80°W, forming a wedge shape that extends to the South Pole. The Territory was formed on 3 March 1962, although the UK's claim to this portion of the Antarctic dates back to Letters Patent of 1908 and 1917. The area now covered by the Territory includes three regions which, before 1962, were administered by the British as separate dependencies of the Falkland Islands: Graham Land, the South Orkney Islands, and the South Shetland Islands.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is the United Kingdom's national Antarctic operation. It is part of the Natural Environment Research Council. With over 400 staff, BAS takes an active role in Antarctic affairs, operating five research stations, two ships and five aircraft in both polar regions, as well as addressing key global and regional issues. This involves joint research projects with over 40 UK universities and more than 120 national and international collaborations.
Bamse was a St. Bernard dog that became the heroic mascot of the Free Norwegian Forces during the Second World War. He became a symbol of Norwegian freedom during the war.
Compañía Argentina de Pesca was initiated by the British-Norwegian whaler and Antarctic explorer Carl A. Larsen, and established on 29 February 1904 by three foreign residents of Buenos Aires: the Norwegian consul P. Christophersen, H.H. Schlieper, and E. Tornquist. Larsen was the company’s Manager, in which capacity he organized the building of Grytviken, the first land-based whaling station in Antarctica put into operation on 24 December 1904.
HMNZS Endeavour was a Royal New Zealand Navy Antarctic support vessel. She was the first of three ships in the Royal New Zealand Navy to bear that name.
MS Explorer was a Liberian-registered cruise ship, the first vessel of its kind used specifically to sail the icy waters of the Antarctic Ocean. It was the cruise ship to sink there when she struck an iceberg on 23 November 2007. All passengers and crew were rescued.
A naval trawler is a vessel built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes. Naval trawlers were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Fishing trawlers were particularly suited for many naval requirements because they were robust boats designed to work heavy trawls in all types of weather and had large clear working decks. One could create a mine sweeper simply by replacing the trawl with a mine sweep. Adding depth charge racks on the deck, ASDIC below, and a 3-inch (76 mm) or 4-inch (102 mm) gun in the bow equipped the trawler for anti-submarine duties.
The Viola is a steam trawler built in 1906 at Hull. She is the oldest surviving steam trawler in the world. During her long career, she was known as HMT Viola, Kapduen, and Dias. She is currently beached at Grytviken in South Georgia, though there are currently plans afoot to return her to Hull.
Tourism in Antarctica started by the sea in the 1960s. Air overflights of Antarctica started in the 1970s with sightseeing flights by airliners from Australia and New Zealand, and were resumed in the 1990s. The (summer) tour season lasts from November to March. Most of the estimated 14,762 visitors to Antarctica in 1999-2000 were on sea cruises. During the 2009 to 2010 tourist season, over 37,000 people visited Antarctica.
Antarctic was a Swedish steamship built in Drammen, Norway in 1871. She was used on several research expeditions to the Arctic region and to Antarctica through 1898-1903. In 1895 the first confirmed landing on the mainland of Antarctica was made from this ship.
SS Telefon was a Norwegian cargo steamship of about 1,400 GRT built by on the River Tyne in 1900. She was wrecked in South Shetland Islands in 1908, though later salved, repaired and returned to service. She was sunk in a collision off Denmark in 1913 as the British Kinneil.
The first evidence for whaling in Scotland is from Bronze Age settlements where whalebones were used for constructing and decorating dwelling places. Commercial whaling started in the Middle Ages, and by the 1750s most Scottish ports were whaling, with the Edinburgh Whale-Fishing Company being founded in 1749. The last company still engaged in whaling was Christian Salvesen, which exited the industry in 1963.
MV Norsel was a Norwegian sealing ship home ported in Tromsø. Launched during the final weeks of the Second World War as Lyngdalsfjord and only completed in late 1949, the ship sailed in both Arctic and Antarctic waters for more than 53 years until shipwrecking off the coast of Norway in 1992.
