Best of Royal Navy

The History Guy will be traveling the next two weeks with limited posting. Until I return, enjoy this compilation of episodes about ships and heroes of the Royal Navy. A full hour of sea stories from The History Guy.

00:00 – Liquid History and HMS Belfast
13:49 – Charles Lucas and the First Victoria Cross
28:18 – HMS Zubian and the Dover Patrol
40:12 – Cruisers vs Zeppelin: HMAS Sydney and HMS Dublin vs L 43, 1917
54:46 – Through the Eyes of Timothy, The Last Survivor of the Crimean War

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This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

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Today we’re going to take you back to London in an extraordinary ship that sits in the river upon which that city was built enjoyed the episode and if you do enjoy please consider becoming a patron back in July the world famous tank Museum and Dorset invited me to

Come and film an episode of their series top five tanks it was great fun it’s an awesome Museum and the people there are very nice and the collection is extraordinary if you tanks are cool the tank museum is a can’t miss bucket list Museum check out my episode of top five

Tanks on their YouTube page and when you do subscribe to their YouTube channel and please consider contributing to their patreon channel the visit allowed me to collect up a couple of good friends who also enjoy history and do some exploring around Wales Southwestern England in a few days in London this is

The fifth episode chronicling our adventures last episode I talked about the Imperial War Museum in London while the Imperial War Museum actually has five different units and one of them most spectacular sits along the banks of the river temps in London at 345 km the river temps is the longest river

Entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom running through Southern England including through London the river drains the whole of London and through the temps Estuary drains into the North Sea the temps is fed by more than 50 named tributaries includes more than 80 Islands you cannot understand the

History of England without recognizing the importance of the tams in 1929 m Parliament John Burns famously explained the temps he said is liquid history the exact origin of the name of the river disputed but likely predates Roman times it might be batonic Celtic and possibly means dark referring to the river’s

Muddiness on his second expedition to England in 54 BC Julius Caesar recognized its importance most strategic into the Iron Age tribes of the area when Rome foundly occupied England in 43 ad they built a fortification at a defensible site along the TS Where the River River was still deep enough to

Accommodate oceangoing ships of the era but narrow enough to be bridged the settlement which is still in the tide way or the part of the river close enough to the ocean to be subject to the tides would become the city of London London grew on its sea trade and to

Facilitate trade the Romans built a harbor and a Warf the harbor brought great wealth to the city in the Roman era and the Romans so changed the geography with their Wares and harbor that it was no longer possible to determine the natural Waterfront of the river the harbor remained the driver for

The prosperity of the City even after the Roman departure from England the section of the old Roman Harbor along Billings Gate built in the part of the temps that was still navigable by tall masted chips became the primary dockyards and were established as a section where all cargo was supposed to

Be inspected by Customs officials earning it the title the legal Keys there’s been some form of the London Bridge since Roman times but in 1170 Thomas Becket the Archbishop of Canterbury was assassinated at the bequest of or there are multiple accounts on the misinterpret suggestion of King Henry II Becket became venerated

As a martyr and Henry II was compelled to give Penance for becket’s death among his penitent acts was to build a stone bridge along the temps with a chapel at its Center dedicated to the Martyr Becket in 1209 the bridge served London until 1831 it’s generally now referred

To as the old London Bridge that bridge now served by a box girder bridge built in 1973 represented the farthest reach of the river that could be navigated by a tall masted ship and the area from Rother height up River to the bridge became known as the pool of London the

Area that fed the growth and wealth of one of the world’s greatest cities the development of shipping containers in the 1960s increased the importance of coastal deep water ports and the pool of London declined until the Wares were essentially shut down now the area known

As the pool of London is largely an area of retail stores and includes significant tourist attractions as London grew by its connection to the Sea England also grew by sea being an island both the economy and the defense of Great Britain depended upon the sea interestingly the

Thing we know today as the Royal Navy was not established until after the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II prior to that establishment the ships that protected England were called the king ships and they were considered the private property of the king the Navy was not at all permanent

Was often constituted of borrowed Merchant ships in fact attacks by Charles I to finance the building of ships largely to comb back barbery corsairs because all good stories involved Pirates was one of the primary drivers of the English Civil War and parliamentary victory in the war

Led to another expansion of the fleet to combat the Myriad new enemies created by that Victory when Charles II restored the monarchy and then established the Navy as a permanent institution in 1660 it was a different Force for the first time it was a National Institution not the personal possession of the reigning

Monarch and the fleet was first given the title The Royal Navy the title of his or her majesty ship predates the official formation of the royal Navy although it would sometimes be his bratanic majesty ship and was sometimes more specific for example his majesty frigate but the

Title was always stated fully it was not abbreviated HMS until 1789 while placing the name the at the front of the name of a royal Navy ship is often Dawn it is considered to be grammatically incorrect that is a ship would be HMS Victory not the HMS Victory

While the Royal Navy VI with other navies in the 17th century by the middle 18th century the Royal Navy was the world’s most powerful navy an advantage that served it well in the age of the apex of the British Empire through the Napoleonic Wars and the Great War With

The Royal Navy only eventually being surpassed by the United States Navy during the second world war in many ways the kingdom grew and depended upon the pool of London and the Royal Navy and that makes it particularly fitting that the Royal Navy is represented today at

The pool of London in the form of the museum ship HMS Belfast a town class light Cruiser if it seems to have taken me a long time even to get to the place that we were visiting in this travel log well that’s the point London is a beautiful

Exciting vibrant City but it is also an ancient city and merely standing on the key waiting to visit HMS Belfast you can tell that you in the heart of that history from here you can see the Tower of London built by William the Conqueror in 1078 the tower was a sign of the

Power of the Normans a symbol of Oppression that eventually became the key to holding the kingdom it was an Infamous prison its first prisoner being Randol flambard the bishop of Durham Who Rose to power collecting taxes for William’s son William Rufus or King William II the bishop was imprisoned by

William’s successor Henry the for embezzlement in August 1100 ad his Jailer allowed him to escape making him both the Tower’s first prisoner and its first escapee during the War of the Roses the sons of king Edward IV were held here and never seeing again their fate still an enduring mystery two of

Henry VII’s five wives were held in the tower before being executed Elizabeth the was held there before she Rose to become Queen one of her favorites sir waler Ry was held in the tower imprisoned by her successor James I guy Fox the infamous revolutionary who plotted to blow Parliament was held in

The tower the last official prisoner held in the Tower of London was Rudolph Hess one of Hitler’s lieutenants in 1941 from the key you can also see the tower bridge the pride of Victorian London built between 1886 and 1894 and often used today as a symbol for the

City if a single spot could be said to represent England its history its conquest and its tragedies there’s a good case to be made that it is this spot along the temps a ship of the royal Navy in the pool of London between the tower bridge and the London Bridge and

Across the temps from the Tower of London in so many ways represents the realm itself this was the river that fed and moved and protected the people of the island since prehistory when the Romans decided to make this island part of their empire this is where they placed their Central settlement that the

Connection to the rest of that Empire it was here the center of the old city that plague ravaged in 1592 from this spot you would have witnessed the great fire in 1666 and the Blitz in 1940 and 41 it was here along these banks in suur that Shakespeare’s plays were performed in

The Globe Theater from these Waters Britain built the largest Empire in world history and to the docks that were located here the wealth of that Empire flowed if britania rules the waves those waves lead here and they were ruled by ships of the royal Navy ships like HMS

Belfast HMS Belfast is a town class-like Cruiser the class being named after cities the town class was a product of the London Naval Treaty of 1930 the treaty was designed to limit the size of navies in the hopes of creating a balance of power that would prevent War

As with almost any other kind of limit those limited will seek to find a way around it the town class like Cruisers are a good example the Washington and London Naval treaties have placed strict caps on the number of capital ships defined as a warship of more than 10,000

Tons standard displacement and with Armament of a caliber greater than 8 in relatively unrestricted were light Cruisers defined as having a main Armament of no greater than 6.1 in caliber thus navies created ships as large as heavy Cruisers but with smaller guns that by mounting more of them would

Match the Firepower of a Heavy Cruiser while still meeting the Treaty definition of a light Cruiser the town classers who created his response to the Japanese mogami class Cruisers which use the same tactic to work around the treaty restrictions although the Japanese abandoned the treaty in 1939

And the US built its Brooklyn class like cruisers on the same idea 10 Town class vessels were built and though they were classified as like Cruisers they were in reality as powerful as capital ships for example the heavy Cruisers of the county class so-called treaty Cruisers because they were designed around the treaty

Parameters displaced 10,400 tons and were 630 ft long Belfast defined as a light Cruiser by the same treaty this place is 11,550 tons and is 613 ft long while the county class carried 8 8in guns the Belfast carries 12 6-in guns Belfast had an exceptionally long service commissioned in 1939 she was not

Decommissioned until 1963 as such the ship was heavily modified and refitted from its second world war configuration her length of service was particularly notable because the ship’s career was almost very short commissioned in August in November 1939 she struck a German mine off the coast of Scotland while the mine only did

Minor damage to the external armor the shock of the explosion had severely warped the hole breaking its Keel and deforming its decks there was consideration of scrapping the ship having been commission just in time for the war she spent the next two years in repairs although she came out fitted

With better armor anti-aircraft defenses and perhaps most importantly State to-the Arc Fire Control Radars despite the two years spent in repair Belfast saw extensive service in the second world war she escorted convoys to Russia in the North Sea played a critical role in the 1943 Battle of North Cape which resulted in

The sinking of the German battleship Shor and was an escort for the 1944 Air Attack that severely damaged Germany’s last capital ship the battleship tpet she supported The Landings at Golden Juno beaches during the invasion of Normandy before being sent to the Pacific although she arrived there too

Late to participate in any fighting the ship remained in the Far East and served in the Korean conflict in which she fired more than 8,000 rounds from our 6-in guns after the war many Cruisers were decommissioned they were crew intensive and costly but the decision was made to

Retain in modernized Belfast the work between 1956 and 1959 altered the ship in many ways but in protecting parts of the ship from chemical and biological attack they changed the structure of the bridge in super structure such that the ship today is aesthetically very different than it was in the second

World war in 1963 she was decommissioned and served as an accommodation ship in 1967 the Imperial War Museum was searching for a 6-in gun turret to preserve to represent a number of classes of Royal Navy ships and that transformed into a discussion of preserving an entire ship several were

Considered including another town class cruiser HMS shefield whose configuration was more representative of that during the second world war but Sheffield was too decay for preservation an investigation of Belfast determined that she was in good enough shape that preservation would be practical and economical but the government didn’t

Want to pay the cost and in 1971 the ship was set to be scrapped only a concerted effort in Parliament spearheaded by two members of parliament who had served aboard balast saved the ship postponing her being scrapped until a private trust could develop a plan to preserve this last bit of Britain’s

World War II Royal Navy history the ship has been on display as a museum ship since 19 71 with more and more areas being made available for the public to visit in 1978 the trust was merged into the Imperial War Museum you can now visit nine decks of the ship as well as

See dedicated exhibit space the preservation does a particularly good job of showing what crew life was like aboard the vessel and the access to the engine rooms is the best I’ve seen on a museum ship I would warn that seeing all the spaces available to visitors

Requires quite a lot of walking much of up and down steep stairs sometimes in confined spaces I know I spent more time talking about where the ship sits than the ship itself and I do plan to do more history Guy episodes on HMS Belfast service but

Like so much of the ancient country what you find in England the history goes so much deeper than what meets the eye it’s everywhere you walk it’s even in liquid History the Victoria cross is the highest and most prestigious award for Valor in the British armed forces the award was created in January of 1856 but the first awards weren’t actually given out until June 26th 1857 163 years ago today the creation of the Victoria Cross had to do with a

Confluence between a complex and little remembered conflict and developments in technology and the first award to be given by date of action actually had to do with a little remembered theater of that little remembered conflict it is history that deserves to be remembered the 19th century was an interesting era

For the military of the British Empire on the one hand the empire was almost constantly at war in the first half of the 19th century the British army fought in various Wars and conflicts all over the world from North America to New Zealand and China with nearly constant fighting on the Indian

Subcontinent but on the other hand the people of Great Britain largely thought of the period after Wellington finally defeated Napoleon in 1815 as a a period of Peace battles on the far off Northwestern Frontier of the Raj aside the British did not face what would be called a major war like the Napoleonic

Wars until 1853 it’s difficult for even historians to explain the Crimean War it was ostensibly a war of religion but really a war of Empire it was fought around old enmities but also included odd alliances between former Rivals it was a a war over territory fought largely outside

Those territories a war of Empires fought over an Empire in Decline it was purportedly predicated by who got to hold a key and included a battle fought entirely with snowballs and it was a bloody mess around 900,000 combatants representing more than half of all the soldiers who

Fought in the conflict died in the war with the vast majority dying not from wounds but disease and the FedEd conditions of the military camps in a time when military medicine was almost non-existent the purported conflict had to do with whether the Eastern Orthodox or the Roman Catholic Church would be

Recognized as the protector of Christians in the Holy lands that were under the rule of the Ottoman Empire the key point was which church leaders would hold the keys to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem it all had to do with the broader question of European

Influence in the Ottoman Empire with the nearly 500y old Empire in Decline European powers were seeking to take advantage in order to gain territory the row for the treaty regarding the control of keys was simply a proxy for a contest between Russia and France which was looking to expand

Territory under Napoleon theii the argument resulted in war between Russia and the Ottomans as Russia sought to gain territory on the fringes of their empire the threat of Russian expansion thus DW in the British who had been opposing Russia as it attempted to gain influence in Central Asia and what was

Called the great game and saw a threat to the Crown Jewel of the Empire British India what can only be called an astounding turn of events the British joined an alliance with the great nephew of Napoleon bonapart and joined the Ottomans in a war to blunt the ambitions

Of Russia the Allies also added the kingdom of Sardinia in an attempt to Curry favor with the French in the wars to unite Italy while the conflict was supposedly over ottoman lands the war was mainly fought on the Crimean peninsula in southern Ukraine as that was the important strategic point that allowed

The Russian Navy access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean thus the war was called the Crimean War and so it was a diplomatic scuffle over who got the keys to a church that would put it into the 39 years of relative peace that the British had enjoyed since the final

Defeat of the first Napoleon at the Battle of waterl some 107,000 Britains would be sent to fight in the Crimean War 22,000 of them would die as a result in Britains would see this war differently than they saw any War previously largely because of the development of two key technologies that

Came after Wellington’s victory at waterl the Telegraph and photography while the idea of a telegraph had been suggested Ed at least in the 1750s the first thing that could be described as a working version was not demonstrated until English inventor Francis Ronalds built a system in his mother’s Garden in

1816 while we’ve talked about the development of the Telegraph and other episodes and there’s certainly disagreement over who is most responsible for the invention the important Point here is that the Innovation came too late to even report Wellington’s victory at waterl by 1853 tography had come into its own and was

Utilized all over the world in terms of the war in Crimea it allowed an in ative correspondent named William Howard Russell to send reports from the front on the fighting that reached the public in a much more immediate and less filtered way than ever before the editor

Of the newspaper the times asked Russell to accompany the Brigade of guards when it left Britain for the Crimea in February 1854 correspondents like Russell were writing for a population that had Rising literacy voting reform In 1832 had increased the franchise and thus increased the interest in politics the

British public was more interested in news from the front than in any War previously this trend was further driven by advances in photography while there had been attempts to capture images with light sensitive materials in the 18th century and the ability to fix images with a practical process did not arrive

Until the 1820s again too late for the Napoleonic Wars and the technology to reduce exposure times to a point where photos could practically be taken on the battlefield not until the 1840s thus the Crimea was one of the first places where a photographic record of the events of War was possible photographer Roger

Fenton was sent to the Crimea by The Illustrated London news in the fall of 1854 partly as a response to the notoriety the war had gained because of the work of correspondents like William Howard Russell Fenton produced more than 350 photographic negatives chronicling the war many of which were reproduced as

Wood Cuts in The Illustrated London news the work of early correspondents and photographers in the war on the Crimea had many effects for example Florence Nightingale said that Russell’s reporting on conditions in the war was part of what what inspired her to go there to treat the wounded an action

That would lead her to develop the practice of modern nursing reporting on the conditions of the troops and government mishandling of the war drove an uprising in London in January 1855 a crowd of some 1500 in taler square pelted traffic and police with snowballs the snowball Riot was part of the driver

Behind an act in Parliament that caused the resignation of the Prime Minister and another impact was the creation of the Victoria Cross previous to the Crimea the British honor System for recognizing military accomplishment was rather limited the military order of the bath a special form of Knighthood was established by

King George I in 1725 the order was restricted to senior officers had only a limited number of members allowed and was often awarded as a much a matter of Politics as action on the battlefield being recognized by entry into one of the ranks of the order was in fact specifically differentiated from

Acts of gallantry on the battlefield the original warrant for the order red the third class of our most honorable order of the bath is limited except in very rare cases to the higher ranks of both services and the graning of medals both in our Navy and army is only awarded for

Long service or meritorious conduct rather than for bravery in action or distinction before an enemy lower ranks could possibly be recognized for acts on the battlefield by being mentioned in dispatches or by receiving a battlefield promotion both of which were rare even in the time of the Napoleonic Wars and

Usually had to be witnessed by senior off officers which meant they went disproportionately to things like officers staffs in short there was no system in the British military to reward common soldiers for acts of Valor The Correspondents like Rosell who was described as a vulgar low Irishman

Who sings a good song drinks anyone’s Brandy and water and smokes as many cigars as a jolly good fellow is just the sort of chap to get information particularly out of youngsters in short he published thrilling Adventures of soldiers on the battlefield that were published alongside the rather dull

Reports that were being provided by military commanders and that led to a growing consensus among the public that some sort of award was needed to recognize military Valor the idea was proposed by the Secretary of War the Duke of Newcastle to Victorious husband Prince Albert in January of

1855 the Civil Service suggested the name the military order of Victoria but Albert after Consulting the queen suggested the simpler Victoria Cross it was the queen herself who dictated the on the metal for Valor Queen Victoria officially constituted such an award by Royal warrant in January 1856 specifying that the awards could be

Backdated to 1854 to recognize acts of gallantry in the Crimean War the original warrant stated that the award should be ordained with a view to place all persons on a perfectly equal footing in relation to eligibility for the decoration that neither rank nor long service nor wounds nor any other

Circumstance of condition whatsoever save the Merit of conspicuous bravery shall be held to establish a sufficient claim to the honor since its exception some 2third of the medals have been presented personally by the British monarch and that is how it came to be that 163 years ago today that her

Majesty Victoria by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen defender of the faith made the first presentation of the award to 62 of the 111 Crimean recipients of the medal and the earliest action to be recognized that is the First Victoria

Cross to be awarded by date of action for the award that was created because of reporting and photographs about the Army serving in the Crimea went to a naval officer for an action against the grand duy of Finland nearly 3,000 km from the Crimean Peninsula if the Crimean War is hard to

Explain the little remembered Baltic front of that war is even more baffling at the outbreak of War a combined British and French fleet was sent to the Baltic under the command of a 67-year-old Admiral Sir Charles John nap here to attack the Russian Baltic Fleet in order to prevent them from

Reinforcing the Black Sea Fleet and to enforce a naval blockade that would slow the supplies to troops in the Crimea while large the fleet was hastily prepared and under and poorly manned the fleet was so poorly supplied that the Admiral was instructed not to conduct gunary practice because despite the

Gunners being poorly trained there was a concern that there wouldn’t be enough ammunition should the fleet have to fight the Russians the fleet found the Russian ports to be too well defended for the Navy to reduce them cowed by the size of their Fleet that the Russian Baltic Squadron stayed close to their

Bases thus the Baltic campaign was essentially enforcing a blockade in the most terrible weather conditions and so the war over who got the keys to the Church of the Nativity came to the archipelago of Oland off the coast of Finland which had been annexed to the Russian Empire in 1809 In 1832 the

Russians had begun a fortification called bombers as the fortification was not yet fully completed it was seen as vulnerable and nap’s Fleet went to bombard The Fortress in June of 185 before Charles Davis Lucas was an Irishman who had enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1838 at the age of 13 by the

Time of the first battle of bombers he was a 20-year-old mate a junior officer aboard the 4 gun Paddle Wheel steam Sloop HMS heckla named after an Icelandic volcano hecka was bombarding The Unfinished Fortress along with two other ships historian Griffith Wy described the action in order to get

Within range of the Fortress the heas captain edged his ship in closer and as a result the hea came within range of the Russian guns several shells fell just short and several more overshot but one with its fuse hissing loudly landed on the deck of the ship everyone

Immediately ran or threw himself flat for if the shell exploded it would mean instant death everyone ducked but Lucas but as the Belfast newsletter said before the messenger of death exploded the Gallant youth took up the living shell and flung it overboard the shell exploded before hitting the water doing

Slight damage to the ship the the captain said that the ACT saved dozens of lives if not the entire ship’s company and that Lucas acted with great coolness and presence of Mind Lucas was given immediate promotion to Lieutenant for his Brave act Lucas’s Act was publicized in the papers and Wily

Speculates that it might have been that personal Act of heroism that led to the creation of the Victoria Cross Charles Lucas served in the Royal Navy until 1867 retired with the rank of Captain who was eventually promoted to rear Admiral while on the retired list

He passed away in 1914 at the age of 80 The Fortress of berson surrendered in August 1854 and was demolished by the British it was the only significant victory in the Baltic campaign the Treaty of Paris at Ed the war required demilitarization of the island a Prohibition that continues to this day

Admiral Napier was criticized in his time for his inability to destroy the Russian Fleet or to reduce the Zars Naval bases in the Baltic but the Baltic Campaign which really meant enforcing a block a during terrible weather conditions ended up being very important to the creman war not only did it bottle

Up the Russian Fleet and slow supplies but it held thousands of troops that had to be kept in the Baltic for fear of invasion there that could threaten the Russian capital and thus kept thear from sending those troops South where they might have shifted the battle in the

Crimea and towards the end of the war the Allies were building a significant bombardment Fleet in the baltics and it was this risk of having his Naval bases bombarded that undoubtedly helped to drive thear to sue for peace on unfavorable terms in March of 1856 one of the surprising results of

The Russian loss in the war in the Crimea was that Russia with their reduced position eventually came to the conclusion that they could not defend their North American territories were they to be attacked by the British and so they sold Alaska to the United States and so the United States got our 50th

State because of an argument over who got the key to a church significantly the British French cooperation that came during the Crimea War would carry through into the world wars of the 20th century since Charles Lucas the award awarded to persons who in the presence of the enemy display the most

Conspicuous gallantry a daring or preeminent Act of Valor or self-sacrifice or extreme Devotion to duty has been given just 1,357 times in Naval terminology a destroyer is a fast maneuverable vessel that is designed to escort other vessels the need for such a class came from the development of the self-propelled

Torpedo which allowed a fast but cheap torpedo boat to threaten large and expensive ships of the line and thus the requirement for a class of vessels that had the endurance to accompany fleets the speed to catch these torpedo boats and the Firepower to sink them thus the

Original name for the class the torpedo boat Destroyer by the turn of the 20th century most modern navies had Destroyer designs but by the Advent of the Great War become an essential Fleet element that filled multiple roles including of course challenging the new great Naval threat of that era the submarine and of

All the tales of Valor and accomplishment for destroyers during the Great War the story of HMS zubian is perhaps unique the mere story of how the vessel was created illustrates the risk that these vessels faced in that war and the Des spiration of the times it is history that deserves to be

Remembered the f-class destroyer of the royal Navy was first proposed by the first Sea Lord meaning head of the royal Navy Admiral Jackie fiser fiser had had a distinguished career in which he saw action in China during the second Opium War Between 1854 and 1860 and in the

1882 Anglo Egyptian war but it was in his posting between 1890 and 1902 as the third Sea Lord a position responsible for the superintending of the Department of Naval construction that he was Central in creating the first True Modern Naval Destroyer designs in fact it was fiser who suggested the name

Destroyer in 1904 fiser became First Sea Lord and one of his initial tasks was to determine what to require for the next class of Royal Navy destroyers the E-class also called The River class since the vessels were all named after British and Irish Rivers was well regarded using triple expansion steam

Engines and coal boilers the river class presented a significant step in Destroyer design focusing on greater endurance rather than just top speed 36 River class vessels were produced between 1903 and 1905 when it came time for a replacement fiser suggested much more engine power using oil fired boilers instead of coal

The resulting f-class called the tribal class as the ships were named after native tribes was a troubl design while better armed and faster the ships had to be nearly double in size to accommodate the larger boilers even then they had to be relatively lightly built and proved fragile in combat the larger boilers

Also consumed a lot of fuel and fuel bunker on the design was generally considered to be inadequate perhaps most troubling the tribal class was not standardized with design details left up to individual Builders this resulted in a variety of designs including HMS Viking which sported six funnels the only six

Funneled Destroyer ever built eventually 12 f-class destroyers were built between 1905 and 1908 among the last five built in the 1907 to 1908 program were HMS Nubian and HMS Zulu HMS Nubian was laid down in May of 1908 and launched in April 1909 built by the thorny coft company in Portsmouth

She had a length of 255 ft a beam of 26′ 6 in and was armed with two 4-in guns one each front in aft and two 18-inch torpedo tubes on each side of midships she was four funneled triple screwed and had a crew of 70 she was commissioned

Into the first Destroyer filla part of the channel Fleet with the coming of the Great War the 12 vessels of the tribal class were assigned to the do Patrol group assigned to prevent German shipping particularly uots from entering the English Channel and route to the Atlantic the do Patrol assembled various vessels including

Cruisers monitors armed yachts and destroyers as well as motor launches and Coastal motor boats submarines sea planes airplanes and airships the patrol performed several duties in both the North Sea and the do Straits including anti-submarine patrols escorting other vessels laying sea mines and constructing mine barges sweeping up German mines bombarding German military

Positions on the Belgian coast and of course sinking OTS as such the do Patrol was one of the most important Royal Navy commands of the Great War and played a critical role in the first battle of the Atlantic Nubian saw her first hot action

Of the War when was part of a force that bombarded German positions in Belgium 1914 in March 1915 when the submarine SM u8 became entangled in a submarine net in the English Channel Across The Straits of Dover Nubian along with the tribal class vessels Viking girka and Maui were sent to investigate activity

That have been observed in the net gerot used a toad device called an explosive anti-submarine sweep that forced the SMU 8 which had sunk five British Merchant vessels the previous month to surface and Under Fire from the four destroyers the crew of the submarines scuttled The Vessel and surrendered

In April 1916 she participated in an operation to lay Nets and mines in an attempt to limit the use of Belgian ports by German OTS she was joined in the operation by her sister tribal class vessel HMS Zulu in October 1916 HMS Nubian was involved in one of the largest battles

That the do Patrol would see during the Great War the battle of the do Straight the system of anti-submarine Nets and minefields that the Royal Navy used to control access to the Atlantic was called the do barrage The Barrage had to be constantly maintained a duty that was

Often performed by what were called Drifters Naval Drifters were small boats either fishing vessels that have been requisitioned for use by the Navy or constructed for Naval purposes by yards that typically built fishing vessels The Drifters usually less than 100 ft long and lightly armed with a single Naval

Rifle acted as Patrol boats checking the Nets and searching for German activity as their armament was light they were usually accompanied by destroyers for defense and the tribal class destroyers of the do P could be called if they came under attack prior to October 1916 the Imperial German Navy had assigned few

Vessels to challenge the do barrage and those were smaller vessels designed for coastal defense as a result the do barrage had become complacent and was Ill prepared for an attack but in October the Imperial Navy reinforced their flotilla in Flanders with two flotillas of large torpedo boats the

Large torpedo boats of the Imperial Navy were oceangoing vessels and despite their title of torpedo boat were actually larger vessels comparable to destroyers of the royal Navy unbeknownst to the Royal Navy the Imperial German Navy now had a force that was capable of challenging the tribal class destroyers of the do

Patrol the night of October 26 27th 23 large torpedo boats of the Imperial German Navy entered the do straight six attacked the patrol boats of the barrage 28 light Naval Drifters when they were protected by a single Destroyer the outdated Destroyer HMS flirt an armed

Tler and an armed yacht a force that was heavily outgunned FLIR attempted to Ram one of the German boats but was sunk by Torpedoes and gunfire six of The Drifters were sunk as the tribal class destroyers HMS Amazon Mohawk Viking tartar KAC and Nubian rushed to the

Battle HMS Nubian was the first to arrive but initially mistook the German boats as allies and were under Fire before the other destroyers of the do Patrol could arrive Nubian attempted to Ram the last torpedo boat in line but a torpedo exploded under her just behind the bridge nearly cutting the boat in

Two and rendering her a drifting Hulk the rest of the Destroyers engaged various groups of torpedo boats taking damage to HMS Amazon and Mohawk and doing little damage to the Germans in return Nubian was taken under toe but the toe lines were broken in bad weather

And the boat ran ground near over the bow which had been nearly severed by the torpedo broke off and sank the stern was trapped against a cliff but was eventually refloated and towed to the Stockyard in chatam 15 members of Nubian crew were lost and the fate of HMS

Nubian would then be tied rather literally to another tribal class destroyer HMS Zulu HMS Zulu was laid down in the Hawthorne Leslie Shipyard in August of 1908 construction was delayed and Zulu was not launched until September 1909 285 ft long she had a beam of 27 ft assigned to the do Patrol

The outbreak of War HMS Zulu captured a German sailing ship in August 1914 and joined Nubian escorting vessels laying mines in 1916 the Minefield laid in that operation was suspected to have caused a loss of at least one uboat the U13 in November 1916 Zulu was sailing

Between Dover to dunker when she struck a mine laid by the German minine Lang submarine uc1 the mine exploded beneath the Zulu’s engine room killing three men the stern broke off and sank the bow was successfully told to Cay already facing a shortage of destroyers the Royal Navy

Decided to marry the bow of zulu to Nubian Stern creating a new vessel HMS zubian the work conducted at the chadam joyard was Quite a feat of engineering especially given that Zulu had a beam a half foot wider than Nubian the two were joined between the third and fourth

Funnels and recommissioned in June 1917 the new destroyer was said to have surprised the German Imperial Naval command who did not know that a ship of that name was being built only finding out after the war that is what is commonly called called a Franken vessel the resulting 280t long Destroyer

Continued serving in the do Patrol in February 198 while in the Dober straight she encountered the minel ubo uc50 the submarine was surfacing off Zubin Port bow when they encountered it and zubian attempted to Ram it the Germans managed to submerge but zubian dropped depth charges oil and wreckage

Was observed and divers were able to later confirm that they had sunk the uc50 earning a bit of Revenge and that it was this type of boat that had laid the mine that had blown off HMS Zulu’s Stern in April 1918 HMS zubian took part

In one of the most daring raids done by the do Patrol an attempt to block the German held Belgian Port of Brugge the Austin raid hoped to deny the use of the port by German submarines by seeking outdated concrete field Cruisers in the Austin channel zubian was part of a

Force assigned to suppress German fire but the raid was ultimately unsuccessful as the Germans defending the harbor had moved a navigational buoy causing the two block ships to run ground without blocking the harbor in the end three different operations to attempt deny the German Imperial Navy

Access to the Belgian Port failed to cut off the port completely the limitations of the tribal class of Destroyers were obvious before the end of the war and HMS zubian whom we could argue had already had its life predn naturally extended along with the rest of the ships of the class was sold

For scrap and broken up in 1919 the mere fact that zubian was created was not just a Marvel of Naval engineering but also an example of how thinly the Royal Navy was stretched trying to defend its vital Merchant Fleet across the vast Atlantic the damage to HMS Nubian and

HMS Zulu showed the risk that the ships of the do Patrol took throughout the war constantly under risk of Mines of uots and of attack by German torpedo boats and the battles in which the two ships that became one fought were illustrative of the small ship actions in a war that

Was much less defined by the giant Fleet actions that many naval observers had predicted but instead by the prolong longed fight to try to protect the merchant Fleet from what was then called the ubot Menace and in that the experience of HMS zubian was just a

Small taste of what was to come in the next World War many new military Technologies of the Industrial Age matured during the Great War a fact that contributed great to the brutality of that war but some technology simply hadn’t matured enough to be practical until the second world war among those the use of Naval Aviation against surface ships a

Prospect which wasn’t really proven until America’s Project B demonstrations in 1921 but that doesn’t mean that aircraft didn’t try in May of 1917 one of the strangest air sea battles in history occurred in the North Sea in a battle so brutal that both sides literally fired

At each other until they ran out of am amunition in his history that deserves to be remembered the 54,000 long ton 456 ft 10 and 38 in along Town class light Cruiser of the chattam subclass hmas Sydney was one of the most famous ships of the royal Australian Navy to serve in the

Great War in November of 1914 Sydney was escorting a convoy of New Zealand troops when it received a distress call from the cokos islands where a landing party from a German Raider had attacked the wireless station Sydney had subsequently engaged and destroyed the famous German commas Raider SMS imden earning

Worldwide Fame the battle between Sydney and imden is the subject of another episode of the history guy Sydney was then assigned patrolling for Raiders and OTS first off Bermuda and then in the North Sea in November 195 she was stationed at the Scottish Port of rith part of the second light Cruiser

Squadron assigned to patrol duties in the North Sea the North Sea was a critical theater of the naval action of the Great War it was from the North Sea that the British maintained their blockade that was intended to starve the Central Powers into submission the largest surface engagements of the war

The battles of dogger bank and jatland were fought in the North Sea ships of the second light Cruiser Squadron originally created to screen the Allied Grand Fleet had fought at Jutland joined by Sydney and hm Melbourne another town class light Cruiser of the royal Australian Navy the Squadron now

Patrolled the North Sea enforcing the blockade protecting Allied ships and hunting the German OTS it could be dangerous work in September 1914 a single uo had sunk three British Cruisers in the North Sea for a loss more than 1400 lives in February 1917 John glossip who captained the Sydney in

The battle against mden was appointed as Captain in charge of Naval establishments in Australia and was replaced as captain of the Sydney by serjan samz dummer an expert on Naval gunfire he had invented a new Rangefinder that allowed unprecedented accuracy and that had been dubbed the dmer he had commanded the armored

Cruiser HMS Shannon at the Battle of jetan in action for which he had been kned the official record of the royal Australian Navy described America as a man of exceptional ability and vivid imagination an originator therefore both of Novel devices and of tactical ideas in particular as captain of the Sydney

And second in command of the Squadron he was interested in using the Squadron against a new challenge the record continues when he joined the Sydney he was in the thick of a campaign for inducing the admiralty to use light Cruisers against the Zeppelin which were at the time infesting the North Sea area

The idea of a steerable balloon that is a balloon with a structure and engines goes back at least to the middle 19th century when French engineer hre gford piloted his gford durable literally meaning driveable in 1852 but it was Germany that would truly develop the concept the online

Encyclopedia of World War I planes notes that the development of the largest man-made flying objects ever described as a flying Cathedral of aluminum canvas and cowhide can be largely attributed to the vision of one man count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin was was the figurehead behind the concept of Airship he did not

Invent the durable in a French invention but took it after many fails pushed the envelope in reliability and size until making the formidable machines that existed in World War I though not a proper name not all the airships used in the Great War by Germany were constructed by Zeppelin the airships

Were commonly called Zeppelins and there terrifying bombing raids called Zeppelin raids the first such raid on the United Kingdom occurred in January 19155 Zeppelins were imperfect machine subject to weather and usually flying at night to avoid attack by airplanes their bombs were not accurate enough to say Target a

Military base in fact their bombs were often far off the mark one raid targeting London reportedly fell on Hull some 250 km North but the Zeppelin raids could be terrifying the airships had enough range to cross the English Channel flying at night they could turn their engines off making them silent

Before dropping their bombs about 1.6 football fields long they could carry up to two tons of bombs at altitudes too high for guns of the period to hit them there were weapons of Terror Dr Nick Evans of the University of Hull was quoted in a 2015 broadcast of the BBC

Britain were not prepared for something from the sky this enormous beast that’s what really frightened people although their military effect was small the zeppelins became known among the citizens of London and Paris as baby killers while they largely hit civilian targets is what the Germans called shite meaning Terror or awfulness the

International Encyclopedia of the first World War notes that the Germans saw this as a more legitimate form of warfare than starving the innocent German women and children who were the indiscriminate targets of the British blockade there were eventually several countermeasures developed to fight the giant airships which being filled with

Explosive hydrogen were particularly vulnerable to explosive shells but one suggestion for defense was the royal Navy the zeppelins came to bomb the coast of the United Kingdom across the North Sea fighting Zeppelin Was A New Concept for surface ships aircraft were not considered threats against surface

Ships and Sydney had only a single 3-in anti-aircraft gun mounted for the purpose of air defense in mid April Sydney along with the light Cruiser Dublin 6 destroyers and an early aircraft carrier the converted liner HMS compania set off on a mission to a location according to the official

Record where several Zeppelins were in the habit of patrolling every morning after daylight the plan was to use the softw Schneider aircraft carried by the companion to scout out and attack the airships but a strong Westerly wind prevented the airships from patrolling that day and the operation was the record writes a

Disappointment on May 3rd Sydney went on a North Sea Patrol again with HMS Dublin another town class-like Cruiser Dublin had supported The galipoli Landings had survived being torpedoed by an austr Hungarian submarine in 1915 and had fought with a second light Cruiser flotilla at Jutland helping to syn a

German Destroyer but taking damage herself with three crew members killed and 27 wounded in addition the small flotilla commanded overall by dmer included four mclass destroyers HMS obdr nepan Pelican and pilotes the patrol was not specifically seeking Zeppelins and the Destroyers carried toad paravanes a device used to discover both mines and

Submarines the group was sweeping channels that were clear of mines for submarines between the fth of fourth and Humber shortly after 10 in the morning an unidentified small boat was observed and HMS OBD was sent to investigate as OBD approached the vessel Dublin cited as Zeppelin jwc Brook a leading

Signalman aboard the Sydney reported A zeppelin which we subsequently Learned was the l43 had been cited Captain dmer immediately ordered Full Steam 25 knots and his plan of action was as follows to rush at the Zeppelin and fire a 6-in gun with the object of making the Zeppelin

Engage the Sydney Dublin charged as well and demeric ordered the other three destroyers to follow and engage as ABR approached the unknown vessel it was attacked by one submarine and cited a second the Destroyer dropped depth charges at the locations of the submarines and observing the Zeppelin also took off off in

Pursuit the Zeppelin was apparently unaware of the presence of the ships until it was fired upon C Brook explained it seemed obvious that the Sydney cited the Zep first because on the Sydney’s 6-in projectile Landing in the water the Zep one struck up its nose and tail down and Rose rapidly here I

May explain that the Germans claimed that their zeppin could rise at a speed of 500 ft per 30 seconds the l43 was in fact an S-Class Zeppelin designed with a lighter structure to allow the durable to both rise faster and to a higher altitude the official record writes that abdat got

Within four miles of it when it Rose steeply and sheared off to the southeast at this point it wasn’t clear what the l43 commanded by Captain Lieutenant Herman Crower intended CBR says that immediately the Zeppelin was cited Captain dmer thought that it was working in conjunction with the uots the

Zeppelin doing The Scouting and the uots the sinking of British merchantmen if true this meant that there was risk in following the Airship as CBR notes the Zeppelin continued to rise and turned away either either because she did not want to fight or else to draw the Sydney

On in order to get her to steam over to the position on the water that the Zeppelin had been maneuvering which was thought to be a submarine Nest or rendevu demeric was concerned that the whole situation was a trap intended to draw his flotilla to be attacked by OTS

The attacks on H Miss abdur seemed to support that theory more confirmation quickly came as the official record notes at 1054 the Dublin saw the track of a torpedo passing ahead of her at 1112 a submarine and 11:15 another which fired two Torpedoes at her at 112 she

Cided a third which engaged with her guns and on which she dropped a depth charge wary of a trap dmer had the Cruisers turn away and ordered OB to investigate the original unknown boat suspecting it might be part of a trap he gave orders if there is any presumption

Whatever of connection with this Zeppelin and submarines you were to sink her and take back her crew with you the boat turned out to be a Dutch fishing vessel however demmer’s decision to turn away had an immediate effect the official record reads seeing the British ships in apparent Retreat the zeppin

Took heart and came after them c book writes as soon as Captain dmer thought that he saw the Hun maneuver he turned and ran away from the Zeppelin as soon as the Zep saw this it turned around and chased the Sydney which was exactly what the Good Ship wanted just before the

Zeppelin overtook the Sydney Captain Demmer ordered open fire with the anti-aircraft gun the official record says at 1210 the Cruisers doubled back on their tracks bringing the l43 within 7,000 yard range of an elevation variously described as 50° and 80° and open fire but the plan to dve the Zeppelin

Into the anti-aircraft guns of the Cruisers also proved futile as C Brook writes the shots from the Sydney went as straight as a gun barrel for the zap amid ships leaving a thin trail of smoke in their wake and appeared to anxious eyes on the deck of the Sydney to reach

Their culminating Point not many feet below the undercarriage of this Mighty zap groans went up when it was realized that the Zep could have it all its own way by keeping outside the C’s anti-aircraft vertical range of 21,000 ft and take its time and letting go whatever bombs had on boarded

The Zeppelin could simply fly higher than the limited anti-aircraft guns that the British ships could reach now the Zeppelin could drop its bombs on the ships the official record writes this angered the Zeppelin into a direct attack making for the stern of the Dublin and Rising hastily as it flew it

Endeavored to attain a position vertically above the cruiser in order to drop bombs in her an attempt which was foiled by the Dublin’s hurried swerve to starboard thus the conundra the ship’s fire could not reach the Zeppelin but they forced the Zeppelin to a height where bombing was not only not very

Accurate but which the ships below could see an a void deer’s own report says the Gunnery officers of Sydney in Dublin made very good shooting with the ha guns thereby keeping the Airship at such a height as to make her bomb-dropping inaccurate demeric further frustrated the Zeppelin’s attempts by ordering his

Fleet to disperse the maneuver where the other ships turn away not only made the ships more difficult to Target but the captain hope might drive the Zeppelin In to make a closer attack on the Sydney at that point Sydney would give the order for the other ships to turn in effect

Surrounding the Airship the Zeppelin now started dropping bombs very quickly and hits from 250 lb bombs straddled the Sydney as another set of bombs straddled the ship sebr wrote had the Sydney repeated her maneuver of steaming over where the last bomb fell I would not have been able to finish this story a

Barrage of bombs landed within 30 ft of HMS obdr CRA quoted demeric this fellow is doing some good shooting but he won’t damn well hit us the website of the royal Australian Navy proclaims with his back against the bridge screen and his feet against the base of the compass

Dmer became probably the first naval officer to develop the zigzag system of bomb avoidance but the flight finally came to an anticlimactic finish the official record writes then the Sydney having used up all of her anti-aircraft ammunition and the l43 all its bombs the combatants to quote an officer who was

In the fight parted on good terms after two hours of firing and bombing as well as attacks by and against at least three uots both sides retired without a single loss of life a second Zeppelin appeared on the horizon but never engaged the days of the zeppelins were numbered

While some 1500 people were killed in the United Kingdom in the Zeppelin raids of the first world war developments in anti-aircraft artillery blackout policies and most importantly the development of incendiary ammunition for fighter aircraft made the great airships vulnerable in the end 77 of the 115 rigid airships built by the Germans

During the first world war were either shot down or totally disabled including the l43 which was shot down by a British aircraft not a month after its attack back on hmas Sydney with all hands lost by the end of 1917 the Zeppelin raids have been discontinued over the United

Kingdom but they were replaced by attacks by fixed wi bomber aircraft the precursors to the devastating strategic bombing of the second world war demeric would later help to develop another Innovation creating a swivel launch which allowed a cruiser to carry a fighter aircraft that could Scout for and attack enemy aircraft hmas Sydney

Was the first Australian ship so equipped The Limited ability of strategic bombers to affect ships continued but new tactics dive bombers and torpedo bombers were developed between the wars in the United States 1921s Project B under the command of aviator Billy Mitchell demonstrated the ability of aircraft to sync Capital

Ships point that was emphatically made by the Japanese in December 1941 both against the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and in the South China Sea Sing the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser HMS repulse rarely has such a portentous battle one of the first between surface

Ships and Naval Aviation been so anticlimactic when a settler later complained that it was boring aboard the Sydney where nothing ever happens Captain dmer replied nothing ever happens you just had a fight with a zeppelin isn’t that something happening to which the Sailor mly replied not one of them hit Us celebrities pass away all the time I mean the sad fact is that uh no one lives forever and as shocking as it is sometimes even the famous giveway to age and it happens so often that it’s easy to miss when someone passes like that and so in 2004 when the oldest living

Resident of Great Britain past it made some newspapers here and there but it was largely missed by The Wider world and that’s tragic to me because she lived such an extraordinary life and was truly extraordinary One of a Kind she was the gentlest soul that you would ever meet but that bellied a

Life that had gracefully with stod enormous turmoil and change no hapless victim she served her country in true brutal Wars and then came home to be famous hobnobbing with royalty and movie stars and music stars she is someone who certainly deserves to be remembered and if I didn’t mention her

Name was Timothy and she was a tor t a Mediterranean spur thigh tortoise to be exact thought to be the oldest living example of her species she was likely born in Turkey around 1844 and her Story begins as all great stories do with being kidnapped by Pirates Timothy’s early days are a bit

Of a mystery she didn’t really like to talk about her past but one of the stories is that she was originally found aboard a Portuguese privateer essentially a state sponsored pirate in 1854 private teers are essentially given a license by their government to engage in piracy against an enemy and if

Timothy really did serve on a Portuguese Privateer that would have been against the French who had frequent conflicts with the Portuguese and if she really was a pirate in 1854 she was among the last because in the Declaration of Paris in 1856 all the major European powers got together and abolished the practice

Of Licensing Pirates the end of the age of piracy was one of the many changes that Timothy would endure in her life while the rumors of service aboard a Portuguese pirate ship seem somewhat fanciful we do know that Timothy was acquired by John guy Courtney everard of

The royal Navy in 1854 and that her size at the time suggested that she was about 10 years old everard assumed that she was a male and so gave her the name Timothy and she served as the mascot aboard the warship HMS queen during the first bombardment of sasta during the

Crimean War in 1854 the war in the Crimea was a complex Affair fought between the Empire of Russia and an alliance of the empires of England France the Ottoman Empire and the kingdom of Sardinia and it had to do with growing Russian influence in in the

Middle East in the end Russia lost and was forced to give up territories that it had claimed from the Ottoman Empire and the war changed power structures in Europe but not before it cost nearly a Million Lives many of those to diseases like ca Timothy and HMS Queen served

During the bombardment of the Fortress of Sebastapol in the Crimea it was a bloody Affair the Allied fleet was unable to do much damage to the fortifications but took quite a lot of damage from the shore batteries HMS Queen herself was set a fire three times during the battle a harrowing Affair

Even for a seasoned pirate it was during the Crimean War that Timothy’s owner met perhaps the most famous veteran of the Crimean War the nurse Florence Nightingale who developed the practice of modern nursing in the hospitals in that horrible War coincidentally Florence Nightingale also had had a pet tortoise its name was

Jimmy Timothy followed Courtney everard in his Naval career serving next as the mascot aboard the HMS princess Charlotte a 104 gun ship of the line during the second Opium War the second Opium War was another complex Affair fought between 1854 and 1860 that was between the British and French empires in the

Chinese Ching Dynasty and it had to do with opening trade in China it was a war of questionable justification that supported the destructive opium trade in the second Opium War the Royal Navy participated in the attacks on the taku forts which was a series of fortifications on the high river and

Again the Navy took terrible casualties trying to fight the shore bombardment but since it was on a river they were forced to use smaller gunboats that could go up the river so Timothy was probably spared the worst of the fighting out on the princess Charlotte in the end Britain prevailed and China

Was forced to make concessions in what China referred to as the unequal treaty having served in two of the most significant conflicts of the era Timothy continued to follow Courtney everhard’s Naval career and when he retired in 1880 he passed her to another naval officer she didn’t leave the Navy clear until

1892 after 38 years service in the Royal Navy from then on she lived in England eventually with Courtney ever Art’s family the the Earls of Devon who lived in an estate near exor called Pam it was there in 1926 when the 14th Earl of Devon took Timothy to the London

Zoological Society to see if he could mate and they found out for the very first time that Timothy was in fact a shei thus revealing her to be part of a distinguished group of women the first known example of which was epip of car during the Trojan War of women who

Masqueraded as men so that they could serve in time of War it was there at powderham estate quietly munching her favorite meal of strawberries in the garden and hibernating each year under a Wisteria Tree that Timothy with stod great changes in culture lived through two World Wars The Blitz which nearly

Destroyed the city of exiter from the 1960s on pwam had tours and so Timothy was given a tag that said hello my name is Timothy I’m very old please do not pick me up when the movie The Remains of the Day was filmed at powderham in 1993

She met actor Christopher reev and as powderham started holding concerts she met famous rock stars including Roger dalry of the who when Timothy passed away in 2004 she was thought to have been the oldest living resident of the United Kingdom the longest live example of a SPI tortoise and the last surviving

Veteran of both the Crimean and Opium Wars and while it might seem somewhat fanciful to see history Through The Eyes of a tortoise she is perhaps the greatest living example of the permanence of Nature and the transience of humanity author Rory night Bruce in his endearing work on Timothy the tortoise

Has suggested a movement to have the word timoth thesis meaning the wisdom that is derived from age added to the Oxford dictionary of the English language I’m behind that 100% when Timothy was born Victoria was Queen of England and John Tyler was President of the United States 34

Presidents and six monarchs later she passed away reminding us all that no matter how long you live life is short and you should always take the time to enjoy the struggle berries