|
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. ==Career== ''Minotaur'' fought at the battle of the Nile in 1798, engaging the ''Aquilon'' with HMS ''Theseus'' and forcing her surrender. In the battle ''Minotaur'' lost 23 sailors dead and 64 wounded.〔(HMS Minotaur built 1793 ). Minotaur.org. Retrieved 2 November 2008.〕 ''Minotaur'' was present at the surrender of the French garrison at Civitavecchia on 21 September. She shared the prize money for the capture of the town and fortress with , , , and the bomb vessel . The British also captured the French polacca ''Il Reconniscento''. After the French surrendered Rome on 29 September 1799, Captain Thomas Louis had his barge crew row him up the Tiber River where he raised the Union Jack over the Capitol.〔Smith (1998), p.169.〕 In May 1800, ''Minotaur'' served as the flagship of Vice-Admiral Lord Keith at the siege of Genoa.〔 On 28 April, the squadron captured the ''Proteus'', off Genoa. She was present at the landings in Aboukir Bay during the invasion of Egypt in 1801 where she lost a total of three men killed, and six wounded.〔 Because ''Minotaur'' served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 to all surviving claimants. On 28 May 1803 ''Minotaur'', in company with , and later joined by , captured the French frigate ''Franchise''. ''Franchise'' was 33 days out of Port-au-Prince, and was pierced for twenty-eight 12-pounder guns on her main deck and sixteen 9-pounders on her quarterdeck and forecastle, ten of which were in her hold. She had a crew of 187 men under the command of Captain Jurien. ''Minotaur'', under Captain Charles John Moore Mansfield, participated in the battle of Trafalgar. There she was instrumental in capturing the Spanish ship ''Neptuno'', although ''Neptuno''s crew recaptured her in the storm that followed the battle.〔〔(All the Woods - ''Minotaur'' ). The Woodland Trust. Retrieved 2 November 2008.〕 ''Minotaur'' was towards the rear of Nelson’s wing of his fleet at Trafalgar. Mansfield pledged to his assembled crew that he would stick to any ship he engaged “till either she strikes or sinks – or I sink”. Late in the battle he deliberately placed ''Minotaur'' between the damaged ''Victory'' and an attacking French ship; he was later awarded a sword and gold medal for his gallantry. Both are now in the National Maritime Museum.〔http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/oct/21/union-flag-from-nelsons-fleet-unfurled-again-to-mark-trafalgar-day〕 In 1807 ''Minotaur'' served as the flagship of Rear-Admiral William Essington at the battle of Copenhagen.〔 Then on 25 July, during the Anglo-Russian War, 17 boats from a British squadron under the command of Captain Charles Pater, consisting of ''Minotaur'', , and , attacked a flotilla of four Russian gunboats and a brig off Aspö Head near Fredrickshamn in the Grand Duchy of Finland, Russia (present–day Hamina, Finland). Captain Forrest of ''Prometheus'' commanded the boats and succeeded in capturing gunboats Nos. 62, 65, and 66, and the transport brig No. 11. The action was sanguinary in that the British lost 19 men killed and 51 wounded, and the Russians lost 28 men killed and 59 wounded. ''Minotaur'' alone lost eight men killed and had 30 wounded, of whom four died of their wounds on the next day or so. In 1847 the Admiralty issued the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "25 July Boat Service 1809" to surviving claimants from the action. ''Cerberus'' then moved to the Mediterranean in 1810. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「HMS Minotaur (1793)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|