The Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, which Lord Palmerston had established in 1859 in response to a perceived threat of invasion by Emperor Napoleon III of France, recommended the fort's construction. When considering the defence of the Royal Dockyard at Pembroke Dock and the anchorage at Milford Haven, the Commissioners believed that there was a danger that an enemy force might conduct an amphibious landing on a beach on the southern Pembrokeshire coast followed by an overland attack on the naval facilities. The Commissioners envisioned a chain of coastal artillery forts extending along the coast from Tenby to Freshwater West covering all the potential landing sites; ultimately, only this fort at Tenby was constructed. Wikipedia

Fort Bowyer was constructed by the U.S. Army during 1813 to guard against possible British attack. This small log and sand fortification was attack twice by the British during the War of 1812. The first attack made by four British warships and a combine force of British Royal Marines and Creek Indians came on September 15, 1814. The ensuing battle was total American victory. One warship, the H.M.S. Hermes was sunk and the marines and Creek Indians were forced to withdraw. During a second battle which took place during early February 1815, a combine British land and naval force forced the vastly outnumbered American troops to surrender the fort. By the terms of the treaty that ended the War of 1812, the British had to return Fort Bowyer to the United States. Fort Bowyer defended Mobile Point until the early 1820's when it burned and construction began on Fort Morgan in 1819. It was designed by Simone Bernard, a French engineer and former aide-de-camp to Napolean who, after joining the U.S. Army in 1816, was active in developing a national defense system on the eastern seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. His designs conformed to the theories of de Vauban, who revolutionized fort construction in eighteenth century France. The star-shaped fort was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers mostly through the use of African-American slaves and completed in 1934. Brick and mortar were the only materials that could be obtained locally. An estimated seven to eight million bricks were used in its construction. Other essential construction materials such as finished granite, sandstone, iron work, and cement had to be shipped by water from New York. The fort was known as the "Work on Mobile Point" until April 1833 when it was named to honor Revolutionary War hero General Daniel Morgan. Fort Morgan upon its 1934 completion.

In preparing Mobile Point for possible attack, soon after the outbreak of Civil War, the Confederates cleared virgin pine, umbrella trees and scrub oaks for almost three miles on the east side of the fort to build breastworks and trenches. As part of this defense system, they also built Battery Bragg, a brick fortification approximately one mile from the fort near the gulf, and Battery Gee farther to the east. The fort was peacefully transferred from Federal troops to the Alabama militia on January 5, 1861, in a futile attempt to forestall a civil war. Mobile was blockaded soon after the war began, but no attempt was made to capture the port until August 5, 1864. Union forces immediately occupied the fort August 23, 1864 and soon made basic repairs to the fort. This battle closed one of the last two operating ports in the Confederacy. After the Civil War, years passed with only a few military caretakers and lighthouse keepers occupying the reservation. Then plans were made for the construction of coastal defense batteries. Battery Bowyer was the first to be constructed in 1895, followed by Battery Duportail (built within the walls of Fort Morgan). After the Spanish-American War in 1898, Batteries Thomas, Schenk and Dearborn were completed with wooden barracks, officers' homes, a hospital and other buildings. Fort Morgan became an active training base for artillery corpsmen during World War I. After the war, the fort was abandoned as a training base.

In 1927, the State of Alabama purchased the old fort to create a State park and employees of the Public Works Administration during the 1930's repaired the old installations and cleared away some of the aftermath of years of military use and abandonment. Alabama was advised in 1941 that Fort Morgan was needed again as a military base, and the Navy, Coast Guard and 50th Coastal Artillary came to guard against attack by German submarines. After the end of World War II, the reservation was returned to the State of Alabama which has maintained it as a park ever since.

Fort Morgan holds a couple of distinctions as a piece of American history...it was placed on the National Historic Landmarks register on December 12, 1960 and included on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. All of the information above was taken from either the original documents submitted to the NRHP for listing consideration or the Fort Morgan website through the Alabama Historical Commission:

npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/AssetDetail/6442f2c2-41f7-4c82-893...

www.fort-morgan.org/history/

The photo above is the main entrance to Fort Morgan.

Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS6.

"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11

The best way to view my photostream is through Flickriver with the link below: www.flickriver.com/photos/photojourney57/

Taschenuhr im Stil einer Beobachtungsuhr - auch B-Uhr oder Deckuhr - genannt.

Es handelte sich dabei um tragbare Uhren im Taschenuhrformat, die für navigatorische Zwecke bei Marine und Luftwaffe bestimmt waren.

Der Bau dieses Uhrentypus musste - neben einem amtlichen Zertifikat - folgende Merkmale erfüllen:

* Qualitativ hochwertiges Uhrwerk

* Hochwertige Hemmung

* Kompensation des Gangreglers

* Großes Zifferblatt mit einer klaren Anzeige.

Für Beobachtungsuhren, die statt fest installierter Seechronometer eingesetzt werden sollten, wurde auch eine Gangreserveanzeige gefordert.

Diverse Uhrenfabriken hatten solche Modelle im Programm und belieferten die Regierungen diverser Länder.

So rüstete bspw. die Manufaktur Zenith aus Le Locle in der Schweiz die US Navy sowie die britische Royal Navy aus.

Dieses hier gezeigte Modell hat einen Durchmesser von 59,50 mm, die Höhe beträgt 19,50 mm und sie wiegt exakt 190,00 g.

—————————-

Chronometer Watch H.S.2

These type of timepieces are portable pocket-watches designed for naval and air force navigational purposes.

The construction of this type of watches had to fulfill - in addition to an official certificate - the following characteristics:

* High quality movement

* High quality inhibition

* Compensation of the gear regulator

* Large dial with a clear display.

For observation watches, which should be used instead of permanently installed sea chronometer, a power reserve indicator was also required.

Many watch companies offered these types and supplied the governments of various countries.

For example, Zenith from Le Locle in Switzerland equipped the US Navy and the British Royal Navy.

[Quelle: „Die Zeppelin-Beobachtungsuhr“ aus dem Webarchiv von A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte i/SA]

Eilean Donan is a small tidal island where three sea lochs meet, Loch Duich, Loch Long and Loch Alsh, in the western Highlands of Scotland. A picturesque castle that frequently appears in photographs, film and television dominates the island, which lies about 1 kilometre from the village of Dornie. Since the castle's restoration in the early 20th century, a footbridge has connected the island to the mainland.

Eilean Donan is part of the Kintail National Scenic Area, one of 40 in Scotland.

Eilean Donan, which means simply "island of Donnán", is named after Donnán of Eigg, a Celtic saint martyred in 617. Donnán is said to have established a church on the island, though no trace of this remains.

The castle was founded in the thirteenth century, and became a stronghold of the Clan Mackenzie and their allies the Clan MacRae. In the early eighteenth century, the Mackenzies' involvement in the Jacobite rebellions led in 1719 to the castle's destruction by government ships. Lieutenant-Colonel John Macrae-Gilstrap's twentieth-century reconstruction of the ruins produced the present buildings.It is possible that an early Christian monastic cell was founded on the island in the 6th or 7th century, dedicated to Donnán of Eigg, an Irish saint who was martyred on Eigg in April 617. No remains of any Christian buildings survive, though fragments of vitrified stone, subjected to very high temperatures, have been discovered indicating the presence of an Iron Age or early medieval fortification.

In the earlier thirteenth century, during the reign of Alexander II (ruled 1214–1249), a large curtain-wall castle (wall of enceinte) was constructed that enclosed much of the island. At this time the area was at the boundary of the Norse-Celtic Lordship of the Isles and the Earldom of Ross: Eilean Donan provided a strong defensive position against Norse expeditions. A founding legend relates that the son of a chief of the Mathesons acquired the power of communicating with the birds. As a result, and after many adventures overseas, he gained wealth, power, and the respect of Alexander II, who asked him to build the castle to defend his realm.

At a later date, the island became a stronghold of the Mackenzies of Kintail, originally vassals of William I, Earl of Ross. At this early stage, the castle is said to have been garrisoned by Macraes and Maclennans, both clans that were later closely associated with the Mackenzies. Traditional Mackenzie clan histories relate that Earl William sought advantage from the Treaty of Perth of 1266, by which King Magnus VI of Norway ceded the Hebrides to Scotland, and demanded that his kinsman Kenneth Mackenzie return the castle to allow his expansion into the islands. Mackenzie refused, and Earl William led an assault against Eilean Donan that the Mackenzies and their allies repulsed.

The Mackenzie clan histories also claim (with little, if any, supporting contemporary evidence), that Robert the Bruce sheltered at Eilean Donan during the winter of 1306 to 1307; the castle escaped any other involvement in the Wars of Scottish Independence. In 1331 Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, sent an officer to Eilean Donan to warn the occupants of his forthcoming visit. In preparation 50 wrongdoers were rounded up and executed, their heads being displayed on the castle walls to Moray's approval. By the middle of the 14th century the Mackenzies are said to have been on the losing side in the ongoing feuding with the Earls of Ross. William III, Earl of Ross granted Kintail to Raghnall Mac Ruaidhrí in 1342. With the assistance of Leod Macgilleandrais, the Earl allegedly apprehended Kenneth Mackenzie, 3rd of Kintail, and had him executed in 1346 at Inverness. Through this period Eilean Donan is said to have been held by Duncan Macaulay for the Mackenzies, against the Earl and his allies. Kenneth's young son Murdo Mackenzie supposedly evaded the Earl's attempts to eliminate him, and on the return of David II from exile Murdo Mackenzie was allegedly confirmed in the lands of Kintail and Eilean Donan by a charter of 1362 (of which, however, no trace survives to the present day). At some point in the earlier 14th century it is thought that the Clan Macrae began to settle in Kintail as a body, having migrated from the Beauly Firth, and there gained the trust of the Mackenzie lairds through possible kinship and an advantageous marriage. The Macraes began to act as Mackenzie's bodyguards, acquiring the soubriquet "Mackenzie's shirt of mail".

James I, determined to pacify the Highlands, journeyed to Inverness in 1427 and invited the principal chiefs to meet him there. Allegedly among them was the young Alexander Mackenzie, 6th Earl of Kintail. James then arrested him, along with the other chiefs, on their arrival. Mackenzie clan histories relate that, although several chiefs were executed or imprisoned, Alexander, due to his youth, was instead sent to Perth to attend school. Alexander's uncles attempted to seize control of Kintail, but the constable Duncan Macaulay continued to hold Eilean Donan on his behalf. Fionnla Dubh mac Gillechriosd, considered by clan historians to be the founder of the Clan Macrae in Kintail, was dispatched to fetch the young laird back. During his lairdship Alexander appears to have supported the monarchy against the MacDonald Lords of the Isles and was allegedly rewarded by another charter of Kintail in 1463. Alexander died in about 1488 at a great age, and was succeeded by Kenneth Mackenzie, 7th of Kintail who won the Battle of Blar Na Pairce against the MacDonalds. Kenneth died a few years later and was succeeded first by his eldest son, then on his death in 1497 by his second son, John of Killin, who was still a minor. His uncle, Hector Roy Mackenzie, attempted to usurp the Mackenzie lands and installed his own constable in Eilean Donan, Malcolm Mac Ian Charrich Macrae. Hector's lawless activities caused the Mackenzies to be branded rebels, and in 1503 the Earl of Huntly offered to deliver Eilean Donan to the king, and to hold it on his behalf. James IV supplied a ship to support the enterprise. Eventually, John compelled his uncle to relinquish his claim, and Hector agreed to hand over Eilean Donan. The constable refused however, and John's supporters laid siege. Malcolm Mac Ian Charrich was eventually persuaded by Hector to relinquish the castle, after which he was dismissed as constable and Christopher Macrae (Gillechriosd Mac Fionnlagh Mhic Rath) was appointed in his place in around 1511. John of Killin obtained a further charter of Kintail and Eilean Donan in 1509.

In 1539, Donald Gorm Macdonald of Sleat ravaged the lands of MacLeod of Dunvegan on Skye, and then attacked the Mackenzie lands of Kinlochewe, where Miles (Maolmure), brother of Christopher Macrae, was killed. After a series of retaliatory raids, Donald Gorm learned that Eilean Donan was weakly garrisoned and launched a surprise attack. In fact, only two people were in the castle: the recently appointed constable Iain Dubh Matheson and the warden. Duncan MacGillechriosd of the Clan Macrae, son of the former constable, arrived at the start of the attack and killed several MacDonalds at the postern gate. Arrows launched by the attackers killed Matheson and the warden, but MacGillechriosd managed to hit Donald Gorm with his last arrow, fatally wounding Gorm, and the Macdonalds retreated. Duncan MacGillechriosd expected to be appointed as the new constable but was considered too headstrong: the local clergyman John MacMhurchaidh Dhuibh (John Murchison) was appointed as a compromise between rival Macrae and Maclennan interests. Furious at this treatment, MacGillechriosd left Kintail and joined the service of Lord Lovat, though he eventually returned to settle at Inverinate. Meanwhile, an aggrieved Maclennan apparently shot MacMhurchaidh in the buttocks with an arrow.

MacGillechriosd's son Christopher Macrae became constable of Eilean Donan in turn, and held the castle during yet another clan feud, this time between the Mackenzies and the MacDonalds of Glengarry. Feuding broke out in 1580 and continued for almost 25 years. In around 1602 Eilean Donan was the base for a sea skirmish at the narrows of Kyle Rhea led by Christopher's son Duncan. During the action the MacDonalds were driven on to the Cailleach Rock at the eastern tip of Skye and Angus, son of MacDonald of Glengarry, was killed. Christopher was succeeded as constable by the Rev. Murdoch Murchison, minister of Kintail.

Kenneth Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Seaforth, was brought up at Eilean Donan by Rev. Farquhar Macrae

The Rev. Farquhar Macrae, son of Christopher Macrae, was born at the castle in 1580. After attending Edinburgh University and taking holy orders, in 1618 he was appointed constable of the castle and minister of Kintail on the death of Murdoch Murchison. Colin Mackenzie of Kintail was created Earl of Seaforth in 1623. He lived mainly at Chanonry of Ross in Fortrose, but made regular visits to Eilean Donan where the constable was required to entertain him and his retinue of between 300 and 500 retainers, as well as the neighbouring lairds. In 1635 George Mackenzie, 2nd Earl of Seaforth, appointed Farquhar as tutor to his six-year-old son Kenneth, who was subsequently raised at Eilean Donan.

In the civil wars of the mid 17th century, the Earl of Seaforth sided with Charles I. In 1650, after the king's execution, the Parliament of Scotland ordered a garrison to Eilean Donan. The local people did not welcome the garrison. When a party of 30 soldiers came out from the castle to request provisions from the local people, a band of 10 men who opposed their demands met the occupiers. An argument broke out, which led to the garrison men being driven off with several casualties. Shortly thereafter the garrison departed. The following year the Earl's brother, Simon Mackenzie of Lochslin, gathered troops for the royalist cause around Eilean Donan. For reasons unrecorded, he fell out with Farquhar Macrae and demanded his removal from the castle. Farquhar initially resisted, and despite interventions by the young Kenneth, had to be marched out by Lochslin and George Mackenzie (later Earl of Cromartie). He was finally persuaded to leave without violence, stating that he was too old to dwell in the cold castle. Farquhar was thus the last constable to dwell in Eilean Donan until its reconstruction, although he retained the ministry of Kintail until his death in 1662, at the age of 82.

After this time, the castle was briefly occupied by the Earl of Balcarres and his wife, who were in the Highlands in support of the Earl of Glencairn's royalist uprising, although Balcarres later disagreed with Glencairn and departed. In June 1654 General Monck, Oliver Cromwell's military governor in Scotland, marched through Kintail while suppressing the uprising. His troops destroyed much property, and stole 360 of Farquhar Macrae's cattle, though only one man was killed.

In 1689, King James VII of the House of Stuart was declared to have to forfeit the throne, and the crown was offered to William of Orange, in the so-called "Glorious Revolution". The revolution also established Presbyterianism in Scotland, although the Highlands generally remained Roman Catholic and loyal to the Stuarts. A series of Jacobite risings followed, leading to an increased military presence in Scotland as government forces attempted to penetrate and subdue the Highlands. In 1714 while surveying fortifications for the government, the military engineer Lewis Petit made the only surviving drawing of Eilean Donan. The sketch-elevation and carefully drawn plan show a dilapidated castle, largely roofless but for a small building by the entrance.

A major Jacobite uprising took place in 1715. Led by the Earl of Mar, it was an attempt to restore the exiled James Stuart, the "Old Pretender", to the throne. William Mackenzie, 5th Earl of Seaforth, joined the Jacobite army, leading out men of the Clan Mackenzie and Clan Macrae. The Macraes mustered at Eilean Donan, and are said to have danced on the roof of the castle before setting out to the Battle of Sheriffmuir where 58 Macraes were among the Jacobite dead. The battle was indecisive and the rising collapsed soon after.

Following the failure of the rising of 1715, the Jacobites found new support from Spain, now opposing both Britain and France in the War of the Quadruple Alliance. The Duke of Ormonde led the main invasion fleet from Spain, while an advance party of 300 Spanish soldiers under George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, arrived in Loch Duich in April 1719, and occupied Eilean Donan Castle. The expected uprising of Highlanders did not occur, and the main Spanish invasion force never arrived. At the beginning of May, the Royal Navy sent ships to the area. Early in the morning on Sunday 10 May 1719 HMS Worcester, HMS Flamborough and HMS Enterprise anchored off Eilean Donan and sent a boat ashore under a flag of truce to negotiate. When the Spanish soldiers in the castle fired at the boat, it was recalled and all three ships opened fire on the castle for an hour or more. The next day the bombardment continued while a landing party was prepared. In the evening under the cover of an intense cannonade, a detachment went ashore in the ships' boats and captured the castle against little resistance. According to Worcester's log, in the castle were "an Irishman, a captain, a Spanish lieutenant, a serjeant, one Scotch rebel and 39 Spanish soldiers, 343 barrels of powder and 52 barrels of musquet shot." The naval force spent the next two days and 27 barrels of gunpowder demolishing the castle. Flamborough then took the Spanish prisoners to Edinburgh. The remaining Spanish troops were defeated on 10 June at the Battle of Glen Shiel.

Between 1919 and 1932, the castle was rebuilt by Lt. Col. John MacRae-Gilstrap. The restoration included the construction of an arched bridge to give easier access to the island. Macrae-Gilstrap also established a war memorial dedicated to the men of the MacRae clan who died in the First World War. The memorial is adorned with lines from John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields", and is flanked by grey field guns from the war. Eilean Donan was opened to the public in 1955, and has since become a popular attraction: over 314,000 people visited in 2009, making it the third-most-visited castle in Scotland. In 1983 ownership of the castle was transferred to the Conchra Charitable Trust, established by the Macrae family to maintain and restore the castle, and a purpose-built visitor centre was opened on the landward side of the bridge in 1998.

Clan MacRae Roll of Honour inside Eilean Donan Castle grounds, added during the restoration.

The castle is regularly described as one of the most photographed monuments in Scotland, and is a recognised Scottish icon, frequently appearing on packaging and advertising for shortbread, whisky and other products. Eilean Donan has made several appearances in films, beginning with Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1948 and The Master of Ballantrae in 1953. The castle was the setting for the 1980 short film Black Angel, filmed to accompany screenings of The Empire Strikes Back in cinemas. It featured prominently in Highlander (1986) as the home of Clan MacLeod, was backdrop to a dance scene in the Bollywood movie Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998, and served as the Scottish headquarters of MI6 in The World Is Not Enough in 1999. In Elizabeth: The Golden Age Eilean Donan stood in for Fotheringhay Castle in England. In the movie Made of Honor Eilean Donan can be seen as home of the groom's family.

To view more of my images of Felixstowe, please click

"here"

From the Achieves, reprocessed using Photoshop CC 2022!

Please, no group invites; thank you!

Felixstowe is a seaside town in Suffolk, England. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 23,689. The Port of Felixstowe is the largest container port in the United Kingdom. The old Felixstowe hamlet was centred on a pub and church, having stood on the site since long before the Norman conquest of England. The early history of Felixstowe, including its Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norman and medieval defences, is told under the name of Walton, because the name Felixstowe was given retrospectively, during the 13th century, to a place which had expanded to a form beyond the boundaries of Walton alone. In the Doomsday book, for instance, only Walton is shown, and not Felixstowe, which at the time held little more than a few houses scattered over the cliff tops. Walton was a settlement on the River Orwell and in 1844 had a population of 907 compared to the relatively small Felixstowe Parish holding only 502 people. Walton had always preceded Felixstowe as a settlement as seen by the presence of Walton Castle, built by the Romans in the 3rd century, but today Walton is generally considered part of Felixstowe due to modern expansion. The Felixstowe area as a whole provided a linchpin in England's defence, as proved in 1667 when Dutch soldiers landed near the Fludyers area and tried (unsuccessfully) to capture Landguard Fort due to strategic location. The town only became related to a major port in 1886 when the port opened to trade, following the initial construction of the dock basin in 1882. In 1810 or 1811 seven Martello Towers were built along the shore, of which 4 (Manor Road, Q Tower in the town, and two more towards the Deben mouth) survive. Q Tower was the HQ of the Harwich-Ipswich-Martlesham Heath anti-aircraft guns between 1941 and 1945 (earlier it had been in Landguard Fort). On 11 August 1919, the Felixstowe Fury sideslipped and crashed into the sea 500 yards offshore soon after takeoff while on a test flight. It was preparing for an 8,000-mile flight to Cape Town, South Africa. The wireless operator, Lt. MacLeod, was killed, and the 6 passengers were rescued. The wreckage was towed ashore. At the turn of the century, tourism increased, and a pier was constructed in 1905 of which is partially functional to this day as an amusement arcade. Indeed, during the late Victorian period (after circa 1880) it became a fashionable resort, a trend initiated by the opening of Felixstowe railway station, the pier, (see above) and a visit by the German imperial family. It remained so until the late 1930s. Felixstowe played an important role in both world wars--in the first as Royal Naval Air Service and RAF seaplane base, and in the second as the Coastal Forces MTB, MGB and ML base HMS Beehive. It was the first base from which 2nd World War German E-boats and coastal convoys were systematically attacked--by flotilla led by Lt-Commanders Howes, Dickens, Hichens and Trelawney. Felixstowe was also HQ of the Harwich Harbour coast and anti-aircraft defences, and accommodated the RAF's 26th Marine Craft (Air-Sea Rescue) Unit. In 1944 the piers near the Dock were used to load troops, tanks and vehicles onto the British and American landing craft of "Force L", which reinforced the Normandy Invasion on its first and second days. In 1945 the German naval commanders in Occupied Holland arrived in E-boats at Felixstowe Dock to surrender their boats and charts to the Royal Navy. Most of the south-western area of Felixstowe Urban District, between the Dock, Landguard Point, and Manor Road, was occupied by the Navy, RAF and Army. with Landguard Fort and several ruined gun emplacements and bunkers a reminder of that era. Between the wars the seaplane station housed the RAF experimental establishment which tested seaplanes and flying boats. Its sheds and piers were incorporated in the MTB base and later the container port. Landguard Fort, originally known as Langer Fort, is on the site of the last opposed invasion of England in 1667, and the first land battle of the Duke of York and of Albany's (later James II & VII) Marines. The current fort was built in the 18th century, and modified in the 19th century with substantial additional 19th/20th century outside batteries. The Fort hosts regular military re-enactments, including Darell's Day, which is a celebration of the last invasion, children's events and open-air theatre. In the two world wars the Fort was variously the HQ of the Harwich Harbour coast and anti-aircraft defences, the signal/control station for the harbour entrance, and a radio and radar station. Landguard Fort is in the care of English Heritage, and is managed by the Landguard Fort Trust to make it accessible to the public.

Felixstowe Museum A museum telling the story of Felixstowe, with a reference library, historic maps, photo archive and 14 rooms of artefacts from Roman finds, the Martello towers, military social and domestic history through two world wars and into the new millennium is managed by volunteers from the Felixstowe History and Museum Society. It is located in the old submarine mining establishment building at the Landguard Peninsula, between the Fort and Port. The pier was opened in 1906, and was then was rebuilt in late 2017;and re-opened in 2018. During the Second World War the majority of the pier, at the time one of the longest in the country and complete with its own train, was purposely demolished by the Royal Engineers to prevent it from being used as an easy landing point for enemy troops. After the war the damage was not repaired and the pier is never regaining its original length. The sole remaining railway station, called Felixstowe Town, was opened in 1898. The well-preserved station building now houses a supermarket and shops. Felixstowe Radio, the local community radio station that was formerly based in the building, has now moved to the old Coes building at the top of Bent Hill. In its prime the railway station saw more than 20 services a day, and is now served by an hourly service to Ipswich. The station now has only one platform, which has been created from the far end of one of the original platforms. Felixstowe Beach railway station was demolished in 2004, despite a storm of protest from many local people keen on saving the historic building which the council had branded as "unsafe". The station was originally opened in 1877 and was used continuously until 1959, after which it was the site of a small printers for many years until its demolition. From 1877 until 1951 there was also Felixstowe Pier railway station, sited inside the area of the modern day docks at a small pier popular with pleasure boats, and with a paddle steamer link to London. A dock next to the pier was approved in 1879.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1510AD, 21st March, Portsmouth, England. The construction of the Mary Rose continues.

Henry VIII has decided that England needs a larger naval force with building works being carried out by 1510AD and 1515AD. Work started on the Mary Rose in 1510 and went onto 1511AD.

As for Portsmouth the dry dock is one of the oldest in the world and is the oldest in the Royal Navy.

Archway.

Akershus Festning - Akershus Fortress,

(Akershus slott og festning - Akershus Castle).

Akershus Fortress

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Akershus festning

Oslo, Norway

Akershus Fortress

Built 1290s

Construction

materials Stone

In use 1290s-today

Controlled by Norway, Germany

Akershus Fortress (Akershus Festning) is the old castle built to protect Oslo, the capital of Norway.

The first work on the fortress started around the late 1290s, by King Håkon V, replacing Tønsberg as one of the two most important Norwegian castles of the period (the other being Båhus). It was constructed in response to the Norwegian nobleman, Earl Alv Erlingsson of Sarpsborg’s earlier attack on Oslo.

The fortress has successfully survived many sieges, primarily by Swedish forces. In the early 17th c., the fortress was modernized and remodeled under the reign of the active King Christian IV, and got the appearance of a renaissance castle.

The fortress was first used in battle in 1308, when it was besieged by the Swedish duke Erik of Södermanland, who later in the same year won the Swedish throne. The immediate proximity of the sea was a key feature, for naval power was a vital military force as the majority of Norwegian commerce in that period was by sea. The fortress was strategically important for the capital, and therefore, Norway as well. Whoever ruled Akershus fortress ruled Norway.

The fortress has never been successfully captured by a foreign enemy. It surrendered without combat to Nazi Germany in 1940 when the Norwegian government evacuated the capital in the face of the unprovoked German assault on Denmark and Norway (see Operation Weserübung). During WWII, several people were executed here by the German occupiers. After the war, eight Norwegian traitors who had been tried for war crimes and sentenced to death were also executed at the fortress. Among those executed was Vidkun Quisling.

Akershus fortress is still a military area, but is open to the public daily until 9pm. In addition to the castle, the Norwegian Armed Forces museum and the Norwegian Resistance museum can be visited there. The Norwegian armed forces inteligence still has the HQ at Akershus Fortress.

Several Norwegian royals have been buried in the Royal Mausoleum in the castle. They include:

* King Haakon VII

* Queen Maud

* King Olav V

* Crown Princess Märtha

1510AD, 21st March, Portsmouth, England. The construction of the Mary Rose continues.

Henry VIII has decided that England needs a larger naval force with building works being carried out by 1510AD and 1515AD. Work started on the Mary Rose in 1510 and went onto 1511AD.

As for Portsmouth the dry dock is one of the oldest in the world and is the oldest in the Royal Navy.

Eilean Donan is a small tidal island situated at the confluence of three sea loch, in the western Highlands of Scotland, about 1 kilometre from the village of Dornie. It is connected to the mainland by a footbridge that was installed early in the 20th century and is dominated by a picturesque castle that frequently appears in photographs, film and television. The island's original castle was built in the thirteenth century; it became a stronghold of the Clan Mackenzie and their allies, the Clan MacRae. However, in response to the Mackenzies' involvement in the Jacobite rebellions early in the 18th century, government ships destroyed the castle in 1719. The present-day castle is Lieutenant-Colonel John Macrae-Gilstrap's 20th-century reconstruction of the old castle.

Eilean Donan is part of the Kintail National Scenic Area, one of 40 in Scotland.In 2001, the island had a recorded population of just one person, but there were no "usual residents" at the time of the 2011 census.

Eilean Donan, which means simply "island of Donnán", is named after Donnán of Eigg, a Celtic saint who was martyred in 617. Donnán is said to have established a church on the island, though no trace of this remains.In the earlier thirteenth century, during the reign of Alexander II (ruled 1214–1249), a large curtain-wall castle (wall of enceinte) was constructed; it enclosed much of the island. At this time, the area around the island was at the boundary of the Norse-Celtic Lordship of the Isles and the Earldom of Ross: Eilean Donan provided a strong defensive position against Norse expeditions. A founding legend has it that the son of a chief of the Mathesons acquired the power to communicate with birds; as a result of this power, and after many adventures overseas, he gained wealth, power, and the respect of Alexander II, who asked him to build the castle to defend his realm.

At a later date, the island became a stronghold of the Mackenzies of Kintail, originally vassals of William I, Earl of Ross. At this early stage, the castle is said to have been garrisoned by Macraes and Maclennans, both clans that were later closely associated with the Mackenzies. Traditional Mackenzie clan histories relate that Earl William sought advantage from the Treaty of Perth of 1266, by which King Magnus VI of Norway ceded the Hebrides to Scotland, and demanded that his kinsman Kenneth Mackenzie return the castle to allow his expansion into the islands. Mackenzie refused, and Earl William led an assault against Eilean Donan that the Mackenzies and their allies repulsed.

The Mackenzie clan histories also claim (with little, if any, supporting contemporary evidence), that Robert the Bruce sheltered at Eilean Donan during the winter of 1306 to 1307; the castle escaped any other involvement in the Wars of Scottish Independence. In 1331 Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, sent an officer to Eilean Donan to warn the occupants of his forthcoming visit. In preparation 50 wrongdoers were rounded up and executed, their heads being displayed on the castle walls to Moray's approval. By the middle of the 14th century the Mackenzies are said to have been on the losing side in the ongoing feuding with the Earls of Ross. William III, Earl of Ross granted Kintail to Raghnall Mac Ruaidhrí in 1342. With the assistance of Leod Macgilleandrais, the Earl allegedly apprehended Kenneth Mackenzie, 3rd of Kintail, and had him executed in 1346 at Inverness. Through this period Eilean Donan is said to have been held by Duncan Macaulay for the Mackenzies, against the Earl and his allies. Kenneth's young son Murdo Mackenzie supposedly evaded the Earl's attempts to eliminate him, and on the return of David II from exile Murdo Mackenzie was allegedly confirmed in the lands of Kintail and Eilean Donan by a charter of 1362 (of which, however, no trace survives to the present day). At some point in the earlier 14th century it is thought that the Clan Macrae began to settle in Kintail as a body, having migrated from the Beauly Firth, and there gained the trust of the Mackenzie lairds through possible kinship and an advantageous marriage. The Macraes began to act as Mackenzie's bodyguards, acquiring the soubriquet "Mackenzie's shirt of mail".

Aerial view of Eilean Donan

James I, determined to pacify the Highlands, journeyed to Inverness in 1427 and invited the principal chiefs to meet him there. Allegedly among them was the young Alexander Mackenzie, 6th Earl of Kintail. James then arrested him, along with the other chiefs, on their arrival. Mackenzie clan histories relate that, although several chiefs were executed or imprisoned, Alexander, due to his youth, was instead sent to Perth to attend school. Alexander's uncles attempted to seize control of Kintail, but the constable Duncan Macaulay continued to hold Eilean Donan on his behalf. Fionnla Dubh mac Gillechriosd, considered by clan historians to be the founder of the Clan Macrae in Kintail, was dispatched to fetch the young laird back. During his lairdship Alexander appears to have supported the monarchy against the MacDonald Lords of the Isles and was allegedly rewarded by another charter of Kintail in 1463. Alexander died in about 1488 at a great age, and was succeeded by Kenneth Mackenzie, 7th of Kintail who won the Battle of Blar Na Pairce against the MacDonalds. Kenneth died a few years later and was succeeded first by his eldest son, then on his death in 1497 by his second son, John of Killin, who was still a minor. His uncle, Hector Roy Mackenzie, attempted to usurp the Mackenzie lands and installed his own constable in Eilean Donan, Malcolm Mac Ian Charrich Macrae. Hector's lawless activities caused the Mackenzies to be branded rebels, and in 1503 the Earl of Huntly offered to deliver Eilean Donan to the king, and to hold it on his behalf. James IV supplied a ship to support the enterprise. Eventually, John compelled his uncle to relinquish his claim, and Hector agreed to hand over Eilean Donan. The constable refused however, and John's supporters laid siege. Malcolm Mac Ian Charrich was eventually persuaded by Hector to relinquish the castle, after which he was dismissed as constable and Christopher Macrae (Gillechriosd Mac Fionnlagh Mhic Rath) was appointed in his place in around 1511. John of Killin obtained a further charter of Kintail and Eilean Donan in 1509.

In 1539, Donald Gorm Macdonald of Sleat ravaged the lands of MacLeod of Dunvegan on Skye and then attacked the Mackenzie lands of Kinlochewe, where Miles (Maolmure), brother of Christopher Macrae, was killed. After a series of retaliatory raids, Donald Gorm learned that Eilean Donan was weakly garrisoned and launched a surprise attack. In fact, only two people were in the castle: the recently appointed constable Iain Dubh Matheson and the warden. Duncan MacGillechriosd of the Clan Macrae, son of the former constable, arrived at the start of the attack and killed several MacDonalds at the postern gate. Arrows launched by the attackers killed Matheson and the warden, but MacGillechriosd managed to hit Donald Gorm with his last arrow, fatally wounding Gorm, and the Macdonalds retreated. Duncan MacGillechriosd expected to be appointed as the new constable but was considered too headstrong: the local clergyman John MacMhurchaidh Dhuibh (John Murchison) was appointed as a compromise between rival Macrae and Maclennan interests. Furious at this treatment, MacGillechriosd left Kintail and joined the service of Lord Lovat, though he eventually returned to settle at Inverinate. Meanwhile, an aggrieved Maclennan apparently shot MacMhurchaidh in the buttocks with an arrow.

MacGillechriosd's son Christopher Macrae became constable of Eilean Donan in turn, and held the castle during yet another clan feud, this time between the Mackenzies and the MacDonalds of Glengarry. Feuding broke out in 1580 and continued for almost 25 years. In around 1602 Eilean Donan was the base for a sea skirmish at the narrows of Kyle Rhea led by Christopher's son Duncan. During the action the MacDonalds were driven on to the Cailleach Rock at the eastern tip of Skye and Angus, son of MacDonald of Glengarry, was killed. Christopher was succeeded as constable by the Rev. Murdoch Murchison, minister of Kintail.

Kenneth Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Seaforth, was brought up at Eilean Donan by Rev. Farquhar Macrae

The Rev. Farquhar Macrae, son of Christopher Macrae, was born at the castle in 1580. After attending Edinburgh University and taking holy orders, in 1618 he was appointed constable of the castle and minister of Kintail on the death of Murdoch Murchison. Colin Mackenzie of Kintail was created Earl of Seaforth in 1623. He lived mainly at Chanonry of Ross in Fortrose, but made regular visits to Eilean Donan where the constable was required to entertain him and his retinue of between 300 and 500 retainers, as well as the neighbouring lairds. In 1635 George Mackenzie, 2nd Earl of Seaforth, appointed Farquhar as tutor to his six-year-old son Kenneth, who was subsequently raised at Eilean Donan.

In the civil wars of the mid 17th century, the Earl of Seaforth sided with Charles I. In 1650, after the king's execution, the Parliament of Scotland ordered a garrison to Eilean Donan. The local people did not welcome the garrison. When a party of 30 soldiers came out from the castle to request provisions from the local people, a band of 10 men who opposed their demands met the occupiers. An argument broke out, which led to the garrison men being driven off with several casualties. Shortly thereafter the garrison departed. The following year the Earl's brother, Simon Mackenzie of Lochslin, gathered troops for the royalist cause around Eilean Donan. For reasons unrecorded, he fell out with Farquhar Macrae and demanded his removal from the castle. Farquhar initially resisted, and despite interventions by the young Kenneth, had to be marched out by Lochslin and George Mackenzie (later Earl of Cromartie). He was finally persuaded to leave without violence, stating that he was too old to dwell in the cold castle. Farquhar was thus the last constable to dwell in Eilean Donan until its reconstruction, although he retained the ministry of Kintail until his death in 1662, at the age of 82.

After this time, the castle was briefly occupied by the Earl of Balcarres and his wife, who were in the Highlands in support of the Earl of Glencairn's royalist uprising, although Balcarres later disagreed with Glencairn and departed. In June 1654 General Monck, Oliver Cromwell's military governor in Scotland, marched through Kintail while suppressing the uprising. His troops destroyed much property, and stole 360 of Farquhar Macrae's cattle, though only one man was killed.

Jacobite rising and destruction of the castle.

In 1689, King James VII of the House of Stuart was declared to have to forfeit the throne, and the crown was offered to William of Orange, in the so-called "Glorious Revolution". The revolution also established Presbyterianism in Scotland, although the Highlands generally remained Roman Catholic and loyal to the Stuarts. A series of Jacobite risings followed, leading to an increased military presence in Scotland as government forces attempted to penetrate and subdue the Highlands. In 1714 while surveying fortifications for the government, the military engineer Lewis Petit made the only surviving drawing of Eilean Donan. The sketch-elevation and carefully drawn plan show a dilapidated castle, largely roofless but for a small building by the entrance.

A major Jacobite uprising took place in 1715. Led by the Earl of Mar, it was an attempt to restore the exiled James Stuart, the "Old Pretender", to the throne. William Mackenzie, 5th Earl of Seaforth, joined the Jacobite army, leading out men of the Clan Mackenzie and Clan Macrae. The Macraes mustered at Eilean Donan, and are said to have danced on the roof of the castle before setting out to the Battle of Sheriffmuir where 58 Macraes were among the Jacobite dead. The battle was indecisive and the rising collapsed soon after.

Following the failure of the rising of 1715, the Jacobites found new support from Spain, now opposing both Britain and France in the War of the Quadruple Alliance. The Duke of Ormonde led the main invasion fleet from Spain, while an advance party of 300 Spanish soldiers under George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, arrived in Loch Duich in April 1719, and occupied Eilean Donan Castle. The expected uprising of Highlanders did not occur, and the main Spanish invasion force never arrived. At the beginning of May, the Royal Navy sent ships to the area. Early in the morning on Sunday 10 May 1719 HMS Worcester, HMS Flamborough and HMS Enterprise anchored off Eilean Donan and sent a boat ashore under a flag of truce to negotiate. When the Spanish soldiers in the castle fired at the boat, it was recalled and all three ships opened fire on the castle for an hour or more. The next day the bombardment continued while a landing party was prepared. In the evening under the cover of an intense cannonade, a detachment went ashore in the ships' boats and captured the castle against little resistance. According to Worcester's log, in the castle were "an Irishman, a captain, a Spanish lieutenant, a serjeant, one Scottish rebel and 39 Spanish soldiers, 343 barrels of powder and 52 barrels of musquet shot." The naval force spent the next two days and 27 barrels of gunpowder demolishing the castle. Flamborough then took the Spanish prisoners to Edinburgh. The remaining Spanish troops were defeated on 10 June at the Battle of Glen Shiel.

Between 1919 and 1932, the castle was rebuilt by Lt. Col. John MacRae-Gilstrap. The restoration included the construction of an arched bridge to give easier access to the island. Macrae-Gilstrap also established a war memorial dedicated to the men of the MacRae clan who died in the First World War. The memorial is adorned with lines from John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields", and is flanked by grey field guns from the war. Eilean Donan was opened to the public in 1955, and has since become a popular attraction: over 314,000 people visited in 2009, making it the third-most-visited castle in Scotland. In 1983 ownership of the castle was transferred to the Conchra Charitable Trust, established by the Macrae family to maintain and restore the castle, and a purpose-built visitor centre was opened on the landward side of the bridge in 1998.

Clan MacRae Roll of Honour inside Eilean Donan Castle grounds, added during the restoration.

The castle is regularly described as one of the most photographed monuments in Scotland, and is a recognised Scottish icon, frequently appearing on packaging and advertising for shortbread, whisky and other products. Eilean Donan has made several appearances in films, beginning with Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1948 and The Master of Ballantrae in 1953. The castle was the setting for the 1980 short film Black Angel, filmed to accompany screenings of The Empire Strikes Back in cinemas. It featured prominently in Highlander (1986) as the home of Clan MacLeod, was backdrop to a dance scene in the Bollywood movie Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998, and served as the Scottish headquarters of MI6 in The World Is Not Enough in 1999. In Elizabeth: The Golden Age Eilean Donan stood in for Fotheringhay Castle in England. In the movie Made of Honor Eilean Donan can be seen as home of the groom's family.

Return of the 'Task Force' from the Falklands War

On 21st July 1982, after serving for three months in the South Atlantic, the vintage aircraft carrier HMS Hermes [R12] - flagship of the Royal Navy 'Task Force' made a triumphant return to the Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth. The ship was greeted by a huge flotilla of small vessels. I made the journey down to capture this historic occasion.

There was an impressive lineup of the crew on deck! Also visible were 6 x Sea Harrier FRS.1's of No's 800, 809 & 899 Squadrons, 4 x Wessex HU.5 from No's 845 & 847 Squadrons and 2 x Lynx HAS.1, 9 x Sea King HAS.5 from No 826 Squadron and 2 x HC.4 Commando's from No 846 Squadron. Details courtesy crusader752 See comments section below :)

HMS Hermes

HMS Hermes was a conventional British aircraft carrier and the last of the Centaur class. The ship was laid down by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness during World War II as HMS Elephant. Construction was suspended in 1945 but work was resumed in 1952 to clear the slipway and the hull was launched on 16 February 1953. The vessel remained unfinished until 1957, when she entered service with the Royal Navy on 18 November 1959 as HMS Hermes.

The ship was in service with the Royal Navy from 1959 until 1984, and she served as the flagship of the British forces during the 1982 Falklands War. After being sold to India in 1986, the vessel was recommissioned and remained in service with the Indian Navy as INS Viraat until 2017.

Falklands War

On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Three days later, a naval task force headed by Invincible and Hermes left HMNB Portsmouth bound for the South Atlantic. Hermes had been due to be decommissioned in 1982 after a 1981 defence review (that would have made the Royal Navy considerably smaller) by the British government, but when the Falklands War broke out, she was made the flagship of the British forces. She sailed for the Falklands with an airgroup of 12 Sea Harrier FRS1 attack aircraft of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm, and 18 Sea King helicopters. On 20 April, the UK government formally ordered its defence forces to bring the islands back under British control.

From an original slide, scanned and unrestored.

You can see a random selection of my aviation memories here: www.flickriver.com/photos/heathrowjunkie/random/

The Jupiter Inlet Light is located in Jupiter, Florida, on the north side of the Jupiter Inlet. The site for the lighthouse was chosen in 1853. It is located between Cape Canaveral Light and Hillsboro Inlet Light. The lighthouse was designed by then Lieutenant George G. Meade of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers. Meade's design was subsequently modified by Lieutenant William Raynolds. The Jupiter Inlet silted shut in 1854, forcing all building supplies to be shipped in light boats down the Indian River. Work was interrupted from 1856 to 1858 by the Third Seminole War. The lighthouse was completed under the supervision of Captain Edward A. Yorke in 1860 at a cost of more than $60,000.

The lighthouse was built on a hill once thought to be an Indian shell mound or midden (and sometimes falsely rumored to be a burial mound), but which is now determined to be a natural parabolic sand dune.[4] The top of the 105-foot (32 m) tower is 153 feet (47 m) above sea level. The light can be seen 24 nautical miles (44 km; 28 mi) at sea. The lighthouse structure is brick with double masonry walls. The outer wall is conical, tapering from 31.5 inches (800 mm) (eight bricks thick) at ground level to 18 inches (460 mm) (three bricks thick) at base of lantern. The inner wall is cylindrical and two bricks thick throughout. Circumference at base is about 65 feet (20 m) and at the top about 43 feet (13 m). The lighthouse was painted red in 1910 to cover discoloration caused by humidity. Hurricane Jeanne in 2004 sandblasted the paint from the upper portion of the tower, and the tower was repainted using a potassium silicate mineral coating.

The point of land which sits at the junction of the Indian River and Jupiter Inlet for thousands of years had been a meeting place for ancient Indian tribes. This strategic site did not go unnoticed by US Army surveyors who in 1849 recommended the Jupiter Inlet area as a suitable place for military defenses. President Franklin Pierce signed the order to set aside a 61½-acre site on the Fort Jupiter Reservation for a lighthouse in 1854.

The lighthouse was initially designed by Lieutenant George Gordon Meade. Later, Lt. William Raynolds, who succeeded Meade as head of the 4th and 7th Lighthouse Districts, improved the strength of the lighthouse with a double wall design. The lighthouse and oil house construction was accomplished by Captain Edward Yorke, who arrived December 31, 1859 and completed the tower in May 1860. It was lit July 10, 1860.

A Weather Bureau station and signal station were established on the lighthouse grounds in 1889. Passing ships were signaled during the day by semaphore (flags) and at night by flares. In 1890 the Naval wireless telegraph station was established on the Reservation. It was not until 1925 that it was discovered that a mistake had been made on the original survey; the Lighthouse Reservation actually covered 113.22 acres. In 1930 the acreage was increased to 121.95 and held the tower, a keeper's house, a radio beacon, power house and several outbuildings.

The US Navy acquired 8.4 acres of the Reservation from the US Government and by 1936 the Navy was operating a Radio Compass Station at Jupiter as an aid to navigation. The station broadcast weather information and monitored distress signals as well as naval ship-to-shore and aircraft frequencies. On July 1, 1939 all US lighthouses became the responsibility of the US Coast Guard. In the same year, the US Navy established an Intelligence Listening Post at the Naval Radio Station and constructed the barracks building for naval personnel and their families.

By July 1940, the Navy's Radio Detection Finding Station, known as "Station J", came online. This secret installation was designed to intercept German U-boat radio messages and warn Allied ships and help US forces attack enemy vessels. Station J was able to pinpoint the names and locations of the submarines. In May 1943, 30 German submarines were destroyed, and in June another 37. Most had been located by the men of Station J

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Inlet_Light

Perhaps destined to be the last “all British” fighter design to enter service, the Buzzard FG.2 represents the culmination of decades of refinements and upgrades on a dependable 4th generation platform. Buzzard’s story dates back to Falklands War, where Royal Navy and Royal Air Force Harriers battled for aerial supremacy over the disputed territory. Despite the sterling service performed, multiple ships were damaged or destroyed by anti-shipping missiles or even dumb bombs lobbed by largely antiquated Argentine air forces. The Royal Navy, which had just divested itself of CATOBAR carriers, quickly did an about-face and authorized a new generation of fleet carriers capable of fielding a long-legged, supersonic, BVR capable fighter aircraft. As the design and construction of new supercarriers would take more than a decade, MoD decided to design and produce a fighter to accompany it. Though briefly a binational project, the French quickly dropped out after favoring a smaller aircraft, leaving BAe to design and build the Buzzard F.1 on its own.

Entering service just after the end of the Cold War, the Buzzard F.1 was a potent air superiority fighter with little ground attack capability. Serving in NATO air policing missions throughout the nineties, the Buzzard proved to be a capable, albeit limited, platform. By the time of its greatest test to date, the Second Eastern European War, the Buzzard F.1 was particularly outmoded in avionics and electronic warfare capabilities. Three Buzzards were lost in the conflict, all to JNA SAMs. Outdated and with more modern Eurofighter Tempest and Cyclones entering service, the Buzzard’s service days seemed all but over. By 2020 however, a new technology would transform Buzzard into one of the UK’s most important boutique forces.

The hypersonic arms race resulted in two UK developments, based on a shared design - the strategic, nuclear-tipped Red Rain, and the conventional anti-shipping (and limited ground strike) Blue Gale hypersonic missiles. Red Rain would ensure the UK’s commitment to strategic deterrence for the new age, while Blue Gale would seek to check the almost impossibly-quickly growing Songun People’s Army Navy (SPAN) fleet and its accompanying global influence. These missiles, however, were large, larger than could be mounted on any Eurofighter. Without developing a dedicated bomber or relying on converted transport craft, only one aircraft in the UK’s inventory could physically mount such a weapon - the Buzzard. The FG.2 upgrade program was a massive SLEP that overhauled almost everything about the aircraft to convert the air supremacy fighter into a survivable theater / strategic missile carrier. The airframe was strengthened and flight hours extended, the engines upgraded, avionics completely replaced, new secure strategic communications suite installed, along with the latest and greatest countermeasure suites. The second crew member was also deleted, replaced with highly classified electronics, rumored to include an artificial intelligence to aid in target acquisition and classification and threat avoidance. Though a massively expensive program, it was still the cheaper option compared to developing a new airframe, or divesting any strategic mobility platforms for the purpose.

Though only a few squadrons of Buzzards remain, and their hypersonic weapons are only deployed from ground bases, the Buzzard force has never before enjoyed the degree of importance as it does now. This Buzzard, of the Royal Navy No. 892 Naval Air Squadron, is depicted carrying Blue Gale and a self-defense loadout of two Meteor 2 Mk.3 and two AIM-132B ASRAAMs. Even with the massive power of its twin EJ-290 engines, Blue Gale’s weight and bulk limits its payload. Despite its new role as a dedicated strike aircraft, Buzzard FG.2 could theoretically serve with aplomb in its original role of fleet defender, its upgrades and pure kinematic performance putting it on par with even more modern aircraft such as the NATF or Eurofighter Tempest.

Huge thank you to -Evan M- for his awesome photoshop work, which really has brought this build to life!

A V Roe's Type 621 Tutor was a two-seat British radial-engined biplane from the inter-war period. It was a simple but rugged initial trainer that was used by the RAF as well as many other air arms worldwide.

The Avro Model 621 was designed by Roy Chadwick as an Avro private venture metal replacement for the Avro 504. Conceived as a light initial pilot trainer, the biplane design featured heavily-staggered equal-span, single-bay wings; the construction was based on steel tubing (with some wooden components in the wing ribs) with doped linen covering. A conventional, fixed divided main undercarriage with tail skid was used in all but the latest aircraft, which had a tail wheel.

The Model 621 was powered either by a 155 hp Siddeley Mongoose or Armstrong Siddeley Lynx IV (180 hp) or IVC (240 hp) engine; later Lynx-powered models had the engine enclosed in a Townend ring cowling (as seen above). The Mongoose-powered version was called the 621 Trainer and the more numerous Lynx-engined aircraft the Tutor. The Tutor also differed by having a more rounded rudder.

The first flight of the prototype G-AAKT was in September 1929, piloted by Avro chief test pilot Captain Harry Albert 'Sam' Brown.

Production was started against an order for three from the Irish Free State and 21 Trainers from the RAF. The RAF required a replacement for the wooden Avro 504 (see elsewhere in my stream), and after three years of trials against other machines such as the Hawker Tomtit it was adopted as their basic trainer, supplanting the 504 in 1933 and remaining in this role until 1939. As well as the 21 Trainers a total of 381 Tutors and 15 Avro 646 Sea Tutors were eventually ordered by the RAF. RAF units to operate the type in quantity included the RAF College, the Central Flying School and Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 Flying Training Schools.

Subsequently, the Model 621 achieved substantial foreign sales. A V Roe and Co exported 29 for the Greek Air Force, six for the Royal Canadian Air Force, five for the Kwangsi Air Force, three for the Irish Air Force (where it was known as the Triton) and two for each of the South African and Polish Air Forces. In addition 57 were licence built in South Africa, and three licence built by the Danish Naval Shipyard.

A total of 30 Tutors were exported to the Greek Air Force and at least 61 were licence built in Greece by KEA. A number of Greek Tutors was incorporated in combat squadrons after Greece's entrance in WWII, used as army co-operation aircraft.

Known for its good handling, the type was often featured at air shows. Over 200 Avro Tutors and five Sea Tutors remained in RAF service at the beginning of WWII.

The 621 was designed as a military trainer and few reached the civil registers. In the 1930s, in addition to 10 prototypes and demonstrators, two were used by Alan Cobham's Flying Circus and two trainers were retired from the RAF into private use. One 621 was used from new by Australian National Airways. After the war another four ex-RAF 621s appeared on the civil register.

G-AHSA (above) was used for communication duties during WWII, struck off in December 1946 and purchased by Wing Commander Heywood. After suffering engine failure in the early stages of the filming of Reach for the Sky, it was purchased by the Shuttleworth Collection and restored to flying condition.

Up to the end of 2003, G-AHSA was still flying as K3215 in RAF trainer yellow. Since January 2004 it has flown painted as K3241 in the colours of the Central Flying School. (The real K3241 built in 1933, served RAF College Cranwell, until transferred to the CFS in 1936.)

Seen tucked-in for the night after the Shuttleworth Collection's 2015 Wings and Wheels Show.

The Kangaroo Point Cliffs below Main Street, River Terrace, and Lower River Terrace, Kangaroo Point, are the remnant evidence of extensive non-indigenous quarrying over 150 years (1826 - 1976). They have played a significant role in the development of the city and port of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, since the 1820s. They are a distinctive landscape feature which, along with the Story Bridge and the Brisbane City Hall, has acquired iconoclastic status in the Brisbane townscape. The cliffs contain the best known outcrop of Brisbane Tuff, the distinctive pink and green building stone used in some of Brisbane's earliest (1820s and 1830s) public buildings; in base courses, retaining walls, side walls, and cellars of 19th century free settlement buildings; and in later municipal and government works such as roadmaking, kerbing, wharves, and marine walls.

The Kangaroo Point 'Cliffs' which Aborigines knew prior to European settlement, were steep rocky slopes with boulder outcrops and vegetation. The earliest identified historical reference to the Kangaroo Point Cliffs was made by New South Wales Surveyor-General John Oxley, during his exploration of the Brisbane River in early December 1823, when he noted in his field book a "high, rocky bank" below what is now River Terrace, Kangaroo Point. An 1844 survey plans prepared by surveyor James Warner, the high ground of Kangaroo Point was described as a "bold rocky ridge", much of which is still evident in late 19th century photographs of Kangaroo Point.

Following the removal of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement from Red Cliff Point to the Brisbane River (North Brisbane) around May 1825, the river flats at the northern end of Kangaroo Point were cleared and planted with wheat and maize to supply food for the new settlement, and 1826 Commandant Logan opened a quarry at the base of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, to supply stone for his building works at North Brisbane. According to Allan Cunningham's August 1829 survey of Brisbane Town, this early quarry was located opposite the Botanical Gardens, at the "highest point of a wooded ridge", in the vicinity of the later Naval Stores. The rock was punted across the river to Stone Wharf, about 150 metres upstream from the present Edward Street ferry landing.

The stone quarried from the Kangaroo Point Cliffs was known as 'porphyry (later Brisbane Tuff), a consolidated volcanic ash or rhyolitic ignimbrite deposited during the late Triassic age following a Nuee Ardent (glowing cloud) eruption. These eruptions are generally violent and voluminous and the erupted body moves with great speed for long distances, up to 100km if the relief is sufficient. The Kangaroo Point Cliffs are made up of such a flow or of two almost consecutive flows. These volcanic rocks are of the same age and chemical composition as the more coarsely crystallized Enoggera Granite and other granite bodies north-west of Brisbane. All may have originated from the same parent meltrock and magma in the final stages of consolidation of the eastern Australian mountain belt, 230 - 220 million years ago.

During the 1820s and 1830s stone from the Kangaroo Point quarry was used to construct a number of government buildings at the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, including the Commissariat Store (1828-1829) and its William Street retaining wall.

Following the closure of the penal colony and the opening of Moreton Bay to free settlement in February 1842, Brisbane's earliest suburb, Kangaroo Point, was surveyed into suburban allotments, auctioned in December 1843. The lower areas of the Point, which had been cleared during the convict era for cropping purposes, and which had easy access to the river, attracted various early industries, including a boiling down works, a soap and candle factory, ship building, foundries, and sawmills. By the 1850s, there were some 80 to 90 houses on the peninsula, including several fine residences along Main Street.

From 1842 the Kangaroo Point Quarry was rented to private builders, including John Petrie, until placed under the control of the newly established (September 1859) Brisbane Municipal Council in 1860. By this date, however, only two small quarry faces had been opened - one below Saint Mary's Church and the other below the later TAFE college (now demolished). The Municipal Council continued to sub-lease the quarry to private builders, under whom the quarry mainly supplied stone ballast to ships. This wasteful use of the stone and the manner in which it was quarried was of particular concern to the Rector of Saint Mary's Church located on the cliff above, resulting in the Colonial Government resuming control of the quarry in 1864. By the mid-1880s the quarry face extended a little over 100 metres, or about one-eighth the length of the present worked-out quarry face.

In 1880 the entire length of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs below River Terrace from Leopard Street to Saint Mary's Church was placed under control of the Brisbane Municipal Council as a Temporary Reserve for Public Purposes subject to the right of the Government to use it for works in progress and to resume any land it might require for wharfage, railway and quarrying purposes (QGG 26 June 1880). This heralded Government construction in the early 1880s of new coal wharves at the foot of the southern end of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, adjacent to the South Brisbane Dry Dock. The new wharves were serviced by a branch rail line and siding, which necessitated the cutting back of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs below Lower River Terrace.

Until the mid-1880s the export of coal from the West Moreton district was frustrated by a lack of direct access to deep water wharves for bunkering of coal onto ships for export from Brisbane. Coal came into Brisbane and was loaded onto drays for transport to the wharves. To facilitate the more efficient handling of coal for export, various extensions to the railway system were proposed and in 1880 an extension to the Ipswich-Brisbane lin,e branching off at South Brisbane Junction (later known as Corinda) between Sherwood and Oxley, and coming around to Woolloongabba and South Brisbane via Yeerongpilly, was approved. The project included a sidings branch to new coal wharves adjacent to the Dry Dock at South Brisbane. The contract for the wharves and sidings branch was awarded to Acheson Overend & Co. After a number of delays, the line was finally opened in 1884.

After construction of the wharf, it was found necessary to remove a bar of rock in the river which prevented the proper use of the two 4.5 tonne (10-ton) steam cranes installed on the wharf. Overend & Co. undertook the removal of the rock bar and constructed an additional 18mx12m (60ft x 40ft) jetty with a 6.8 tonne (15-ton) steam crane for coaling large ocean vessels. Coal traffic from the wharf at South Brisbane flourished and in 1900 additional siding accommodation was constructed and a travelling crane installed replacing crane number 4. This travelling crane dominated the South Brisbane vista along the river for many years. By the mid-20th century oil fuel was replacing coal and the bunkering of coal declined. In 1960 the rails were removed from the wharf and the wharf was demolished in 1974.

In 1886 - 1888, as part of Queensland's marine defence strategy, the Colonial Government constructed a depot for the Queensland Marine Defence Force at the foot of the northern end of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, on the floor of the earlier Kangaroo Point Quarry. Established to provide storage, repair, and training facilities for the colony's modest but growing fleet of marine defence vessels and newly established Naval Brigade, the Depot originally comprised two two-storeyed timber buildings roofed with galvanized corrugated iron and resting on stone foundation walls with concrete footings. These buildings contained lecture rooms; a gun battery for training; store rooms; carpenters' shops; workshops for ship repairs; and a torpedo storeroom/workshop. A wharf was erected in 1887 - 1888, and a flight of timber stairs was constructed 1890 to provide access up the cliff to Amesbury Street and Saint Mary's Church, which served as the Naval Chapel for many years. A concrete boatslip was constructed 1900.

The Depot remained the operational base of the Queensland Marine Defence Force until the formation of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) after Federation in 1901. The Kangaroo Point Depot remained the principal training facility for Queensland naval reservists until the construction of a depot at Alice Street in the 1920s. On the 31st of October 1959 the RAN handed over the Kangaroo Point Depot to the Australian Army, which used it to accommodate its 32nd Small Ships Squadron. In 1984 the Army removed its Small Ships Squadron to Bulimba, and the Kangaroo Point Depot was vacated. In 1986/87 the site was transferred to the Brisbane City Council.

Only one of the former Naval Depot buildings (No.2 Store) survives. The former Naval Brigade Depot was entered permanently in the Queensland Heritage Register in October 1992.

In 1898 the Marine Department opened a new quarry south of the Naval Depot, about halfway along River Terrace, to supply rock for river walls at Hamilton. This was the start of the scheme of dredging and training walls devised by EA Cullen, appointed Engineer of Harbours and Rivers in 1902, to complete the development of the river port of Brisbane. The Department of Harbours and Rivers (later the Department of Harbours and Marine) used the Kangaroo Point Cliffs quarry for marine work until 1976. In the period 1898 to 1919, this work included: the training walls or revetments which contain the dredgings of the reclamation of the tidal flats for industry at Hamilton (1898 - 1900), Doughboy (1900), Coxen Point, and Lytton; the training walls which regulate tidal flow and link Parker, Bulwer, Gibson, and other estuarine islands with the mainland; and the stone pitching of the river banks at the City Botanic Gardens. By 1919, more than half a million tones of stone for these walls had been removed from the Kangaroo Point Quarry. In 1928, stone from the Kangaroo Point Quarry was used to double the height of the Lytton training wall and to shape and maintain other early 20th century training walls. Other Harbours and Marine projects utilising stone from Kangaroo Point included the Manly Boat Harbour and the new port at Fisherman Islands in the 1970s.

The rock for these projects was loaded onto punts at the quarry and towed to the work sites. Extensive quarrying by the Marine Department opened the rock face of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs between the Naval Stores at the northern end of the site and the coal wharves at the southern end, creating the dramatic length of perpendicular drop that distinguishes the Kangaroo Point Cliffs today. By 1976, when control of the Brisbane River passed to the Port of Brisbane Authority, most of the available Kangaroo Point rock had been exploited and the quarry was closed.

Brisbane Tuff is now exposed along the cliff face, providing an important source of geological information. The quarry floors and ridge of the cliffs are now important public park reserves and enjoyed as places of informal recreation. The cliffs are popular for abseiling and rock climbing, and are valued as a riverside walkway, picnic area, and vantage point - especially for Brisbane River and Southbank festivities.

Scout Place, the lookout on the top of the cliffs adjacent to River Terrace, between Llewellyn and Bell Streets, was erected in 1982 to designs prepared by the Brisbane City Council's Landscape Architecture Section, to commemorate seventy-five years of scouting in Queensland.

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

Return of the 'Task Force' from the Falklands War

On 21st July 1982, after serving for three months in the South Atlantic, the vintage aircraft carrier HMS Hermes [R12] - flagship of the Royal Navy 'Task Force' made a triumphant return to the Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth. The ship was greeted by a huge flotilla of small vessels. I made the journey down to capture this historic occasion.

After HMS Hermes docked, I joined the waiting crowds to get some close ups - and I managed to get a good shot of one of the six Sea Harrier FRS.1s, this one being XZ457/14.

On deck were 6 x Sea Harrier FRS.1's of No's 800, 809 & 899 Squadrons, 4 x Wessex HU.5 from No's 845 & 847 Squadrons and 2 x Lynx HAS.1, 9 x Sea King HAS.5 from No 826 Squadron and 2 x HC.4 Commando's from No 846 Squadron. Details courtesy crusader752 See comments section below :)

HMS Hermes

HMS Hermes was a conventional British aircraft carrier and the last of the Centaur class. The ship was laid down by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness during World War II as HMS Elephant. Construction was suspended in 1945 but work was resumed in 1952 to clear the slipway and the hull was launched on 16 February 1953. The vessel remained unfinished until 1957, when she entered service with the Royal Navy on 18 November 1959 as HMS Hermes.

The ship was in service with the Royal Navy from 1959 until 1984, and she served as the flagship of the British forces during the 1982 Falklands War. After being sold to India in 1986, the vessel was recommissioned and remained in service with the Indian Navy as INS Viraat until 2017.

Falklands War

On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Three days later, a naval task force headed by Invincible and Hermes left HMNB Portsmouth bound for the South Atlantic. Hermes had been due to be decommissioned in 1982 after a 1981 defence review (that would have made the Royal Navy considerably smaller) by the British government, but when the Falklands War broke out, she was made the flagship of the British forces. She sailed for the Falklands with an airgroup of 12 Sea Harrier FRS1 attack aircraft of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm, and 18 Sea King helicopters. On 20 April, the UK government formally ordered its defence forces to bring the islands back under British control.

From an original slide, scanned and unrestored.

You can see a random selection of my aviation memories here: www.flickriver.com/photos/heathrowjunkie/random/

The Kangaroo Point Cliffs below Main Street, River Terrace, and Lower River Terrace, Kangaroo Point, are the remnant evidence of extensive non-indigenous quarrying over 150 years (1826 - 1976). They have played a significant role in the development of the city and port of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, since the 1820s. They are a distinctive landscape feature which, along with the Story Bridge and the Brisbane City Hall, has acquired iconoclastic status in the Brisbane townscape. The cliffs contain the best known outcrop of Brisbane Tuff, the distinctive pink and green building stone used in some of Brisbane's earliest (1820s and 1830s) public buildings; in base courses, retaining walls, side walls, and cellars of 19th century free settlement buildings; and in later municipal and government works such as roadmaking, kerbing, wharves, and marine walls.

The Kangaroo Point 'Cliffs' which Aborigines knew prior to European settlement, were steep rocky slopes with boulder outcrops and vegetation. The earliest identified historical reference to the Kangaroo Point Cliffs was made by New South Wales Surveyor-General John Oxley, during his exploration of the Brisbane River in early December 1823, when he noted in his field book a "high, rocky bank" below what is now River Terrace, Kangaroo Point. An 1844 survey plans prepared by surveyor James Warner, the high ground of Kangaroo Point was described as a "bold rocky ridge", much of which is still evident in late 19th century photographs of Kangaroo Point.

Following the removal of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement from Red Cliff Point to the Brisbane River (North Brisbane) around May 1825, the river flats at the northern end of Kangaroo Point were cleared and planted with wheat and maize to supply food for the new settlement, and 1826 Commandant Logan opened a quarry at the base of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, to supply stone for his building works at North Brisbane. According to Allan Cunningham's August 1829 survey of Brisbane Town, this early quarry was located opposite the Botanical Gardens, at the "highest point of a wooded ridge", in the vicinity of the later Naval Stores. The rock was punted across the river to Stone Wharf, about 150 metres upstream from the present Edward Street ferry landing.

The stone quarried from the Kangaroo Point Cliffs was known as 'porphyry (later Brisbane Tuff), a consolidated volcanic ash or rhyolitic ignimbrite deposited during the late Triassic age following a Nuee Ardent (glowing cloud) eruption. These eruptions are generally violent and voluminous and the erupted body moves with great speed for long distances, up to 100km if the relief is sufficient. The Kangaroo Point Cliffs are made up of such a flow or of two almost consecutive flows. These volcanic rocks are of the same age and chemical composition as the more coarsely crystallized Enoggera Granite and other granite bodies north-west of Brisbane. All may have originated from the same parent meltrock and magma in the final stages of consolidation of the eastern Australian mountain belt, 230 - 220 million years ago.

During the 1820s and 1830s stone from the Kangaroo Point quarry was used to construct a number of government buildings at the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, including the Commissariat Store (1828-1829) and its William Street retaining wall.

Following the closure of the penal colony and the opening of Moreton Bay to free settlement in February 1842, Brisbane's earliest suburb, Kangaroo Point, was surveyed into suburban allotments, auctioned in December 1843. The lower areas of the Point, which had been cleared during the convict era for cropping purposes, and which had easy access to the river, attracted various early industries, including a boiling down works, a soap and candle factory, ship building, foundries, and sawmills. By the 1850s, there were some 80 to 90 houses on the peninsula, including several fine residences along Main Street.

From 1842 the Kangaroo Point Quarry was rented to private builders, including John Petrie, until placed under the control of the newly established (September 1859) Brisbane Municipal Council in 1860. By this date, however, only two small quarry faces had been opened - one below Saint Mary's Church and the other below the later TAFE college (now demolished). The Municipal Council continued to sub-lease the quarry to private builders, under whom the quarry mainly supplied stone ballast to ships. This wasteful use of the stone and the manner in which it was quarried was of particular concern to the Rector of Saint Mary's Church located on the cliff above, resulting in the Colonial Government resuming control of the quarry in 1864. By the mid-1880s the quarry face extended a little over 100 metres, or about one-eighth the length of the present worked-out quarry face.

In 1880 the entire length of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs below River Terrace from Leopard Street to Saint Mary's Church was placed under control of the Brisbane Municipal Council as a Temporary Reserve for Public Purposes subject to the right of the Government to use it for works in progress and to resume any land it might require for wharfage, railway and quarrying purposes (QGG 26 June 1880). This heralded Government construction in the early 1880s of new coal wharves at the foot of the southern end of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, adjacent to the South Brisbane Dry Dock. The new wharves were serviced by a branch rail line and siding, which necessitated the cutting back of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs below Lower River Terrace.

Until the mid-1880s the export of coal from the West Moreton district was frustrated by a lack of direct access to deep water wharves for bunkering of coal onto ships for export from Brisbane. Coal came into Brisbane and was loaded onto drays for transport to the wharves. To facilitate the more efficient handling of coal for export, various extensions to the railway system were proposed and in 1880 an extension to the Ipswich-Brisbane lin,e branching off at South Brisbane Junction (later known as Corinda) between Sherwood and Oxley, and coming around to Woolloongabba and South Brisbane via Yeerongpilly, was approved. The project included a sidings branch to new coal wharves adjacent to the Dry Dock at South Brisbane. The contract for the wharves and sidings branch was awarded to Acheson Overend & Co. After a number of delays, the line was finally opened in 1884.

After construction of the wharf, it was found necessary to remove a bar of rock in the river which prevented the proper use of the two 4.5 tonne (10-ton) steam cranes installed on the wharf. Overend & Co. undertook the removal of the rock bar and constructed an additional 18mx12m (60ft x 40ft) jetty with a 6.8 tonne (15-ton) steam crane for coaling large ocean vessels. Coal traffic from the wharf at South Brisbane flourished and in 1900 additional siding accommodation was constructed and a travelling crane installed replacing crane number 4. This travelling crane dominated the South Brisbane vista along the river for many years. By the mid-20th century oil fuel was replacing coal and the bunkering of coal declined. In 1960 the rails were removed from the wharf and the wharf was demolished in 1974.

In 1886 - 1888, as part of Queensland's marine defence strategy, the Colonial Government constructed a depot for the Queensland Marine Defence Force at the foot of the northern end of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, on the floor of the earlier Kangaroo Point Quarry. Established to provide storage, repair, and training facilities for the colony's modest but growing fleet of marine defence vessels and newly established Naval Brigade, the Depot originally comprised two two-storeyed timber buildings roofed with galvanized corrugated iron and resting on stone foundation walls with concrete footings. These buildings contained lecture rooms; a gun battery for training; store rooms; carpenters' shops; workshops for ship repairs; and a torpedo storeroom/workshop. A wharf was erected in 1887 - 1888, and a flight of timber stairs was constructed 1890 to provide access up the cliff to Amesbury Street and Saint Mary's Church, which served as the Naval Chapel for many years. A concrete boatslip was constructed 1900.

The Depot remained the operational base of the Queensland Marine Defence Force until the formation of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) after Federation in 1901. The Kangaroo Point Depot remained the principal training facility for Queensland naval reservists until the construction of a depot at Alice Street in the 1920s. On the 31st of October 1959 the RAN handed over the Kangaroo Point Depot to the Australian Army, which used it to accommodate its 32nd Small Ships Squadron. In 1984 the Army removed its Small Ships Squadron to Bulimba, and the Kangaroo Point Depot was vacated. In 1986/87 the site was transferred to the Brisbane City Council.

Only one of the former Naval Depot buildings (No.2 Store) survives. The former Naval Brigade Depot was entered permanently in the Queensland Heritage Register in October 1992.

In 1898 the Marine Department opened a new quarry south of the Naval Depot, about halfway along River Terrace, to supply rock for river walls at Hamilton. This was the start of the scheme of dredging and training walls devised by EA Cullen, appointed Engineer of Harbours and Rivers in 1902, to complete the development of the river port of Brisbane. The Department of Harbours and Rivers (later the Department of Harbours and Marine) used the Kangaroo Point Cliffs quarry for marine work until 1976. In the period 1898 to 1919, this work included: the training walls or revetments which contain the dredgings of the reclamation of the tidal flats for industry at Hamilton (1898 - 1900), Doughboy (1900), Coxen Point, and Lytton; the training walls which regulate tidal flow and link Parker, Bulwer, Gibson, and other estuarine islands with the mainland; and the stone pitching of the river banks at the City Botanic Gardens. By 1919, more than half a million tones of stone for these walls had been removed from the Kangaroo Point Quarry. In 1928, stone from the Kangaroo Point Quarry was used to double the height of the Lytton training wall and to shape and maintain other early 20th century training walls. Other Harbours and Marine projects utilising stone from Kangaroo Point included the Manly Boat Harbour and the new port at Fisherman Islands in the 1970s.

The rock for these projects was loaded onto punts at the quarry and towed to the work sites. Extensive quarrying by the Marine Department opened the rock face of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs between the Naval Stores at the northern end of the site and the coal wharves at the southern end, creating the dramatic length of perpendicular drop that distinguishes the Kangaroo Point Cliffs today. By 1976, when control of the Brisbane River passed to the Port of Brisbane Authority, most of the available Kangaroo Point rock had been exploited and the quarry was closed.

Brisbane Tuff is now exposed along the cliff face, providing an important source of geological information. The quarry floors and ridge of the cliffs are now important public park reserves and enjoyed as places of informal recreation. The cliffs are popular for abseiling and rock climbing, and are valued as a riverside walkway, picnic area, and vantage point - especially for Brisbane River and Southbank festivities.

Scout Place, the lookout on the top of the cliffs adjacent to River Terrace, between Llewellyn and Bell Streets, was erected in 1982 to designs prepared by the Brisbane City Council's Landscape Architecture Section, to commemorate seventy-five years of scouting in Queensland.

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

Fortitude Valley opened its first post office in 1864. It acquired a telegraph office in 1877. The telephone was invented by American Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. On the 28th of January 1878, the first successful experiment with the new telephone system was made in Queensland when a successful call was put through from Brisbane to Ipswich. Brisbane’s (and Queensland’s) first telephone exchange opened at the Brisbane General Post Office (GPO, built 1872) in 1880. In 1886, Fortitude Valley became a recognised postal district with the appointment of its first Post Master, Mr T. J. Cook. The Fortitude Valley Post and Telegraph Office at 740 Ann Street were built in 1887. The first public telephone was opened in the Valley in July 1888. The telephone charge was sixpence for every five minutes of a telephone call.

Plans for an automatic telephone exchange to be built at Fortitude Valley were drafted in April 1941 by the Architect-in-Charge, Drawing Office in Canberra in the ACT. The plans and construction were overseen in Queensland by the Works Director of the Commonwealth Department of the Interior, Mr HW Barker. While World War 2 (WWII) had been raging for two and a half years, the impact on Brisbane had been minimal. Thus the planning for a new Brisbane automatic telephone exchange was conducted at a leisurely, almost peace-time conditions pace. There was no urgency placed on the construction of the new telephone exchange, for at that time, the centre of Australia’s war effort was Sydney/Melbourne/Canberra with Brisbane relegated as a training base with a small garrison of mainly support staff.

The chosen site for the new telephone exchange was in Ballow Street, Fortitude Valley, behind the Fortitude Valley Post Office. During the 1920’s, Fortitude Valley’s importance had grown as new industries were established in the suburb. These included a new printing works and offices for the Truth and Sportsman newspaper, a bakery complex for Automatic Bakery and a car assembly plant and service garage for General Motors Limited. By the 1930’s, Fortitude Valley, with its collection of large department stores, had become Brisbane’s second most-important shopping precinct after Queen Street in the City. Subsequently, the Fortitude Valley Post Office was one of the busiest post offices in Brisbane, exceeded only by the GPO at 261 Queen Street and, possibly by the South Brisbane Post and Telegraph Office at 472 Stanley Street, South Brisbane. As the City and South Brisbane (built circa 1926) had existing automatic telephone exchanges then Fortitude Valley was the obvious site for the new exchange.

Responsibility for the building of the new automatic exchange rested with the Commonwealth Government’s Post Masters General Department. The building plans were completed on the 22th of April 1941. The building was designed by Architect in Charge of the Commonwealth Government’s Works Director (Queensland). The land that was the proposed site of the new building was in private ownership. James Campbell & Sons Ltd had subdivision 4 of Block 14 of Lot 73 (18.3 perches). Hector Stribling had resubdivision 2 of subdivision 2 of Block 14 of Lot 73 plus resubdivision 1 of subdivision 7 of Lot 74 (20.88 perches). Hector with Harold Archibald Stribling had subdivions 1 and 3 and resubdivision 1 of subdivision 2 of Block 14 of Lot 73 (1 rood, 5.58 perches). The allotments were appropriated by the Commonwealth Government on the 15th of July 1940 through its “The Real Property (Commonwealth Titles) Act of 1924”. The Commonwealth Government was to finally purchase these allotments in the immediate post-War period. Subdivision 4 of Block 14 of Lot 73 was obtained on 1 August 1946. Subdivision 1 and 3 and resubdivision 1 of subdivision 2 of Block 14 of Lot 73 were obtained on the 30th of July 1947. Subdivions 1 and 3 and resubdivision 1 of subdivision 2 of Block 14 of Lot 73 plus resubdivision 1 of subdivision 4 of Block 14 of Lot 73 were obtained on the 24th of September 1951.

Due to wartime shortages in building materials and skilled labour, the commencement of the construction of the Fortitude Valley Telephone Exchange was delayed. On the 8th of December 1941, Australia entered the Pacific War against Japan. On the 22nd of December 1941, the Pensacola convoy reaches Brisbane delivering the first US service personnel to be based in Brisbane. Major-General Julian F. Barnes became the first commander of the US Forces in Australia (USFIA) with his HQ at Lennon’s Hotel, Brisbane. On the the 30th of March 1942, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff established a new command structure covering Australia. This was the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA) command headed by US General Douglas MacArthur. On the 20th of July 1942, MacArthur transferred his SWPA command HQ from Melbourne to Brisbane. He had preferred Townsville but it lacked the required facilities. During 1942 - 1943, the US forces expanded their operations in Brisbane either through the requestioning of existing properties or through the construction of new facilities.

In Fortitude Valley, the US Army had its 383rd Medical Service detachment, a US Army Air Force air freight receiving depot at 47 Alfred Street, the 5th Air Force service command at 111 Constance Street, an Ordnance and Enlistment Depot on St Pauls Terrace. Nearby at Newstead and New Farm, the US Navy had various training centres, a fleet Post Office and Public Works shop, the Headquarters of the US Brisbane Naval Base, 134th Ships Maintenance Office, the Naval Officers Club in Oxlade Drive, an USN dispensary and shore patrol office, a submarine base at the New Farm wharves and Camp New Farm at New Farm Park, while the US Army had a photographic unit based at Newstead House. Also close to Fortitude Valley was the US Army camp at Victoria Park in Gregory Terrace at Spring Hill.

The US Forces laid their own phone lines to connect their numerous Brisbane facilities and even produced a separate Brisbane telephone directory for their forces. With both the US and Australian forces making extensive use of telephone communication in Brisbane, there was an obvious need to complete the automatic telephone exchange planned for Ballow Street. The first mention, in the Queensland Post Office Directories, of the Fortitude Valley Telephone Exchange, appears in the 1944 edition. As each edition was published the year after a survey was conducted then the Fortitude Valley Telephone Exchange must have been completed in 1943.

Source: Brisbane City Council Heritage Register.

The entire Fort Henry complex originally consisted of a solidly constructed earth work fortification of five bastions supplemented with sandbags and a series of outer rifle pits. The inner fort contained fourteen guns, nine bore on the Tennessee River that it was built to defend, and five were mounted on the land side. The outer fort consisted of a series of infantry entrenchments. At the present time, due to the impoundment of Kentucky Lake, the site of inner Fort Henry is under water. The only portion of the fort which survives in recognizable form is a series of rifle pits which originally constituted part of the outer breast works. (And depending on water levels, rainfall, etc. these sections can be mostly covered as well as on the date of the photo above.) There are three sections that remain - one is approximately one-fourth of a mile in length, and the other two sections form a semi-circle with a combined total of approximately one-third of a mile in length.

Fort Henry was named for Gustavus A. Henry who represented the State of Tennessee in the Confederate senate at Richmond from 1861 to 1865, but it was Major General Bushrod Johnson who selected the site for the fort. Work on the construction of Fort Henry began on June 14, 1861. The Confederacy was trying to avoid violating the proclaimed neutrality of Kentucky and thus the fort was placed in Tennessee when actually the west bank of the river, or the Kentucky side, would have been a much better choice. As it was, the fort was constructed on the east bank of the river at a place so low that when the river rose water would overflow into the lower parts of the works.

From the beginning of January 1862, the fort was subject to occasional shellings by Union gunboats, but on February 6, Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote and his gunboats began their attack in earnest. After a fairly hot engagement of some 75 minutes, the fort surrendered. The Union capture of Fort Henry gave them access to the Tennessee River, and after the fall of Fort Donelson eight days later (see my earlier photo & info about Fort Donelson), the river was open into the heart of the Confederate states. This cut the Confederate states off from the old northwest and pushed their forces back further into the south. Capture of Fort Henry by the Union forces also led indirectly to the sinking, or capture by Federal forces, of all but one of the Confederate steamboats operating in the area. The value of the ironclad as a river weapon was proven by the fact that Fort Henry surrendered to a naval force and not an army force. The action also cost the Confederates seventeen pieces of artillery, five dead, eleven wounded, five missing, and seventy-eight prisoners. A Union camp was then established outside the fort following the surrender and the Union forces then went on to capture Fort Donelson.

This site was listed on the NRHP on October 10, 1975. And all information above was taken from the original documents submitted for listing consideration and can be viewed here:

npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/db75d405-72d8-4711-86b4-d...

Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS6.

"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11

The best way to view my photostream is through Flickriver with the link below:

www.flickriver.com/photos/photojourney57/

Wieża króla Alfreda

Z Wikipedii, wolnej encyklopedii

Wieża króla Alfreda

Wieża króla Alfreda

Wieża króla Alfreda znajduje się w Somerset Wieża króla Alfreda

Lokalizacja w Somerset

Informacje ogólne

MiastaBrewham , Somerset

KrajAnglia

Współrzędne51,115 ° N 2.365 ° W

Budowa rozpoczęła się1769

Zakończony1772

KlientHenry Hoare

Wysokość49 metrów (161 stóp)

Projektowanie i budowa

ArchitektHenry Flitcroft

Wieża króla Alfreda , znany również jako szaleństwo króla Alfreda Wielkiego lub Stourton Wieży , jest szaleństwem wieża. Jest w parafii Brewham w angielskim hrabstwie Somerset , i został zbudowany jako część Stourhead osiedla i krajobrazu. Wieża stoi na Kingsettle Hill i należy do National Trust . Jest on oznaczony jako klasy I wymienione budynku .

Henry Hoare II planowane w 1760s wieżę upamiętniający koniec siedmioletniej wojny przeciwko Francji i przystąpienie króla Jerzego III w pobliżu lokalizacji "Egbert w kamieniu", gdzie uważa się, że Alfred Wielki , król Wessex , zebrał że Sasi maja 878 przed ważnym Bitwy Ethandun . Został zniszczony przez samolot w 1944 roku i odnowiony w 1980 roku.

49 metrów (161 stóp) wysokości trójkątna wieża ma pusty środek i wspiął się poprzez spiralne schody w jednym z występów narożnych. Obejmuje on posąg króla Alfreda i poświęcenie napisem.

Zawartość

1 Lokalizacja

2 Historia

3 Architektura

3.1 Napis

4 Odniesienia

5 Linki zewnętrzne

Lokalizacja

Wieża stoi w pobliżu lokalizacji "Egbert w kamieniu", gdzie uważa się, że Alfred Wielki , król Wessex , zebrał Sasów maja 878 przed ważnej bitwie Ethandun , gdzie wojska duńskie, prowadzony przez Guthrum Starego został pokonany. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Jest to początek Leland Trail , o 28 mil (45,1 km), ścieżka, która biegnie od wieży króla Alfreda do Ham Hill Country Park . [ 3 ]

Historia

Projekt budowy wieży został stworzony w 1762 przez bankiera Henry Hoare II (1705/85). [ 4 ] wieża przeznaczona została również na pamiątkę koniec wojny siedmioletniej z Francją i przystąpienie króla Jerzego III . [ 5 ]

Wieża Alfreda jest pomnik geniuszu angielskiego krajobrazu, wielu z których najpiękniejsze nawiedza to nakazuje, i do człowieka, który z pewnością zasługuje na pamięć jako jednym z największych dobroczyńców angielskiej sceny. - Christopher Hussey , Country Life , 11 czerwca 1938 . [ 6 ]

W 1765 Henry Flitcroft , Palladio architekt, zaprojektował wieżę. [ 2 ] Budowa rozpoczęła się w 1769 lub na początku 1770 roku, a zakończono w 1772 roku, a jego szacunkowa kosztów pomiędzy £ 5,000 do £ 6,000. [ 5 ] Nie może być pewne opóźnienie spowodowane do trudności w uzyskaniu cegły. [ 7 ] Oprócz funkcji pamiątkowej, wieża przeznaczona została również służyć jako skupić wzrok na tych, zwiedzania park w Stourhead Estate. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] W kwietniu 1770 kiedy wieża była zaledwie 4,7 m (15 ft), Hoare cytuje: ". Mam nadzieję, że będzie on gotowy w jak szczęśliwych czasach do tej wyspy jako Alfred skończył Life of Glory w czym mam odejść w spokoju" [ 10 ]

Wieża została zniszczona w 1944 roku, gdy samolot, Noorduyn Norseman , uderzył w nią, powodując śmierć pięciu członków załogi i uszkodzenia najwyższych 10 metrów (33 stóp). [ 11 ] [ 12 ] [ 13 ] Został wyznaczony jako klasy I wymienione budynku w 1961 roku. [ 14 ] [ 4 ] wieża została odrestaurowana w 1986 roku, który obejmował zastosowanie Wessex helikoptera obniżenia 300-kg (47 st) kamień na górze. Pomnik króla Alfreda również przywrócone w tym czasie, w tym zastąpienia jego brakującym prawym przedramieniu. [ 5 ]

Architektura

Wieżyczka powyżej schodów wieży na szczycie wieży.

Trójkątna wieża ma ponad 40 metrów (131 ft) o obwodzie 51 metrów (167 stóp). Każdy z trzech rogach trójkątnej konstrukcji ma okrągły występ. [ 14 ] Centrum wieży jest puste i powstrzymać ptaków do przestrzeni siatki została dodana na poziomie dachu. Platforma widokowa, która ma blankami parapet i oferuje widok na okolicę, jest osiągnięty przez 205-stopniowe schody spiralne w rogu od wejścia. [ 2 ] cegła ma Chilmark kamienne opatrunki i jest zwieńczony szyku parapet. [ 15 ] [ 16 ]

"Przód" (południowy-wschód) twarz wieży znajduje się gotycki-łukowate drzwi wejściowe, posąg króla Alfreda oraz panel kamień z napisem (patrz poniżej). To jest twarz, że większość odwiedzających zobaczyć pierwszy podczas spaceru z Stourhead ogrodzie lub z pobliskiego parkingu.

Napis

Pomnik króla Alfreda nad wejściem

Wokół osiedla Stourhead kilka napisów. Jeden na wieży został zredagowany w 1762 i zainstalowane w 1772. [ 17 ] kamienna tablica nad drzwiami na wschodniej ścianie wieży brzmi:

"Alfred Wielki

AD 879 na tym szczycie

wznieść swoją Standardowy

Przeciwko duńskich najeźdźców

Jemu zawdzięczamy Pochodzenie jury

Ustanowienie Milicji

stworzenia siły morskie

ALFRED świetle benighted Wiek

był filozofem i Christian

Ojciec jego ludzie

założyciel angielskiej

monarchii i wolności "

Referencje

Skok w górę ^ Tobias, RC (jesień 1967). "Praca na rok w wiktoriańskiej Poezji: 1966". Victorian Poezja 5 (3):. 200 JSTOR 40001410 .

^ Skocz do: a b c "Wieża króla Alfreda" . Wieża króla Alfreda . Źródło 25 listopada 2012 .

Skok w górę ^ "Leland Trail" . Spacery stron . Źródło 17 maja 2014 .

^ Skocz do: a , b "Wieża Alfreda" . Obrazy z Anglii . Źródło: 01 kwietnia 2008 .

^ Skocz do: a b c Holt, Jonathan (2007). Somerset Follies . Kąpiel: Akeman Prasa. pp. 46-47. ISBN 978-0-9546138-7-7 .

Skok w górę ^ Hussey, Christopher (11 czerwca 1938). Country Life .

Skok w górę ^ Woodbridge, Kenneth (marzec 1965). "Henry Hoare w raju". Sztuka Biuletyn 47 (1):. 109 JSTOR 3048235 .

Skok w górę ^ "Stourhead Park (część), Alfreda Tower, Brewham" . Somerset historyczne Środowisko rekordu . Somerset County Council . Źródło 15 maja 2014 .

Skok w górę ^ Kelsall Malcolm (1983). "Ikonografia Stourhead". Urzędowy Warburg i Courthold Instytuty 46 :. 133-143 JSTOR 751117 .

Skok w górę ^ Lapidge, Michael (2000). anglosaskiej Anglii . Cambridge University Press. p. 322. ISBN 978-0-521-65203-2 .

Skok w górę ^ "Informacje dodatkowe" . Wieża króla Alfreda . Źródło 26 maja 2014 .

Skok w górę ^ "Wieża króla Alfreda" . Atlas Obscura . Źródło 26 grudnia 2013 .

Skok w górę ^ "Wieża Alfreda" . Folly danych . Źródło 26 maja 2014 .

^ Skocz do: a , b "Wieża Alfreda" . Liście Dziedzictwa Narodowego w Anglii . English Heritage . Źródło 26 grudnia 2013 .

Skok w górę ^ "Alfreda Tower, Kingsettle Hill (Południowa strona), Brewham" . Somerset Historic Environment Record . Somerset County Council . Źródło 15 maja 2014 .

Skok w górę ^ "Alfreda Tower, Brewham" . Somerset Historic Environment Record . Somerset County Council . Źródło 15 maja 2014 .

Skok w górę ^ Turner, James (marzec 1979). "Struktura Henry'ego Hoare w Stourhead". Sztuka Biuletyn 61 (1):. 68-77 doi : 10,2307 / 3049865 . JSTOR 3049865 .

Linki zewnętrzne

Wikimedia Commons znajdują się multimedia związane z wieży króla Alfreda .

Strona wieży

Źródło: " en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=King_Alfred%27s_Tower&... "

Kategorie :Towers w SomersetZabytków i pomników w SomersetKlasy I wymienione budynki w South SomersetNational Trust w SomersetAtrakcji turystycznych w SomersetWieże Folly w AngliiWieże zakończone w 1772 rokuAlfred WielkiWieże w Zjednoczonym Królestwie

Tę stronę ostatnio zmodyfikowano w dniu 3 sierpnia 2014 r 03:41.

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King Alfred's Tower

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King Alfred's Tower

King Alfred's Tower

King Alfred's Tower is located in Somerset King Alfred's Tower

Location within Somerset

General information

Town or cityBrewham, Somerset

CountryEngland

Coordinates51.115°N 2.365°W

Construction started1769

Completed1772

ClientHenry Hoare

Height49 metres (161 ft)

Design and construction

ArchitectHenry Flitcroft

King Alfred's Tower, also known as The Folly of King Alfred the Great or Stourton Tower, is a folly tower. It is in the parish of Brewham in the English county of Somerset, and was built as part of the Stourhead estate and landscape. The tower stands on Kingsettle Hill and belongs to the National Trust. It is designated as a grade I listed building.

Henry Hoare II planned in the 1760s the tower to commemorate the end of the Seven Years' War against France and the accession of King George III near the location of 'Egbert's stone' where it is believed that Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, rallied the Saxons in May 878 before the important Battle of Ethandun. It was damaged by a plane in 1944 and restored in the 1980s.

The 49-metre (161 ft) high triangular tower has a hollow centre and is climbed by means of a spiral staircase in one of the corner projections. It includes a statue of King Alfred and dedication inscription.

Contents [hide]

1 Location

2 History

3 Architecture

3.1 Inscription

4 References

5 External links

Location[edit]

The tower stands near the location of 'Egbert's stone' where it is believed that Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, rallied the Saxons in May 878 before the important Battle of Ethandun, where the Danish army, led by Guthrum the Old was defeated.[1][2] It is the start of the Leland Trail, a 28-mile (45.1 km) footpath which runs from King Alfred's Tower to Ham Hill Country Park.[3]

History[edit]

The project to build the tower was conceived in 1762 by the banker Henry Hoare II (1705-1785).[4] The tower was also intended to commemorate the end of the Seven Years' War against France and the accession of King George III.[5]

Alfred's Tower is a monument to the genius of English landscape, many of whose loveliest haunts it commands, and to a man who certainly deserves to be remembered as among the great benefactors of the English scene. - Christopher Hussey, Country Life, 11 June 1938.[6]

In 1765 Henry Flitcroft, a Palladian architect, designed the tower.[2] Building began in 1769 or early 1770, and was completed in 1772 at an estimated cost between £5,000 and £6,000.[5] There may have been some delay due to difficulty in obtaining the bricks.[7] In addition to the commemorative function, the tower was also intended to serve as an eye-catching focus for those touring the parkland of the Stourhead Estate.[8][9] In April 1770, when the tower was just 4.7 metres (15 ft) high, Hoare is quoted as saying: 'I hope it will be finished in as happy Times to this Isle as Alfred finished his Life of Glory in then I shall depart in peace.'[10]

The tower was damaged in 1944 when an aeroplane, a Noorduyn Norseman, crashed into it, resulting in the death of the five aircrew and damage to the highest 10 metres (33 ft).[11][12][13] It was designated as a Grade I listed building in 1961.[14][4] The tower was restored in 1986, which included the use of a Wessex helicopter to lower a 300-kilogram (47 st) stone onto the top. The statue of King Alfred was also restored at this time, including the replacement of his missing right forearm.[5]

Architecture[edit]

The turret above the stair-tower at the top of the tower.

The triangular tower is over 40 metres (131 ft) high with a girth of 51 metres (167 ft). Each of the three corners of the triangular structure has a round projection.[14] The centre of the tower is hollow and to stop birds from entering the space a mesh has been added at roof level. The viewing platform, which has a crenellated parapet and offers a view over the surrounding countryside, is reached by a 205-step spiral staircase at the corner furthest from the entrance.[2] The brick tower has Chilmark stone dressings and is surmounted by an embattled parapet.[15][16]

The 'front' (south-east) face of the tower has a Gothic-arched entrance door, a statue of King Alfred, and a stone panel bearing an inscription (see below). This is the face that most visitors see first when walking from Stourhead garden or from the nearby car park.

Inscription[edit]

Statue of King Alfred above the entrance

Around the Stourhead estate are several inscriptions. The one on the tower was drafted in 1762 and installed in 1772.[17] The stone tablet above the door on the east face of the tower reads:

"ALFRED THE GREAT

AD 879 on this Summit

Erected his Standard

Against Danish Invaders

To him We owe The Origin of Juries

The Establishment of a Militia

The Creation of a Naval Force

ALFRED The Light of a Benighted Age

Was a Philosopher and a Christian

The Father of his People

The Founder of the English

MONARCHY and LIBERTY"

(Wikipedia)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_National_Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, commonly known as Washington National Cathedral, is an American cathedral of the Episcopal Church. The cathedral is located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States.[1][2] The structure is of Neo-Gothic design closely modeled on English Gothic style of the late fourteenth century. It is the second-largest church building in the United States,[3] and the fourth-tallest structure in Washington, D.C. The cathedral is the seat of both the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Bruce Curry, and the bishop of the Diocese of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde. Over 270,000 people visit the structure annually.[4]

The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, under the first seven Bishops of Washington, erected the cathedral under a charter passed by the United States Congress on January 6, 1893.[5] Construction began on September 29, 1907, when the foundation stone was laid in the presence of President Theodore Roosevelt and a crowd of more than 20,000, and ended 83 years later when the "final finial" was placed in the presence of President George H. W. Bush in 1990. Decorative work, such as carvings and statuary, is ongoing as of 2011.[needs update] The Foundation is the legal entity of which all institutions on the Cathedral Close are a part; its corporate staff provides services for the institutions to help enable their missions, conducts work of the Foundation itself that is not done by the other entities, and serves as staff for the board of trustees.

The cathedral stands at Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues in the northwest quadrant of Washington. It is an associate member of the recently organized inter-denominational Washington Theological Consortium.[6] It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2007, it was ranked third on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.[7]

Contents

1 History

1.1 Construction

1.2 National role

2 Major events

2.1 Major services

2.2 2011 earthquake

2.3 Lee-Jackson stained glass windows

3 Financial concerns

4 Architecture

4.1 Architects

4.2 Images of architectural details

5 Leadership and funding

5.1 List of deans

6 Worship

7 Music

8 Burials

9 Schools

10 Media

11 See also

12 References

13 Bibliography

14 External links

History

Construction

In 1792, Pierre L'Enfant's "Plan of the Federal City" specified a site for a "great church for national purposes". However he defined it as non-sectarian and nondenominational. Hamilton modified that plan and eliminated the "church" and several other proposed monuments and that plan was never reproduced. The working plan for the new city was subsequently produced by Andrew Ellicott and it varied in many respects from L'Enfant's although the essence remained. National Portrait Gallery now occupies that site. In 1891, a meeting was held to begin plans for an Episcopal cathedral in Washington. On January 6, 1893, the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia was granted a charter from Congress to establish the cathedral. The 52nd United States Congress declared in the act to incorporate the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia that the "said corporation is hereby empowered to establish and maintain within the District of Columbia a cathedral and institutions of learning for the promotion of religion and education and charity."[8] The commanding site on Mount Saint Alban was chosen. Henry Yates Satterlee, first Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Washington, chose George Frederick Bodley, Britain's leading Anglican church architect, as the head architect. Henry Vaughan was selected supervising architect.

Construction started on September 29, 1907, with a ceremonial address by President Theodore Roosevelt and the laying of the cornerstone. In 1912, Bethlehem Chapel opened for services in the unfinished cathedral, which have continued daily ever since. When construction of the cathedral resumed after a brief hiatus for World War I, both Bodley and Vaughan had died. Gen. John J. Pershing led fundraising efforts for the church after World War I. American architect Philip Hubert Frohman took over the design of the cathedral and was thenceforth designated the principal architect. Funding for Washington National Cathedral has come entirely from private sources. Maintenance and upkeep continue to rely entirely upon private support.

National role

From its earliest days, the cathedral has been promoted as more than simply an Episcopal cathedral. Planners hoped it would play a role similar to Westminster Abbey. They wanted it to be a national shrine and a venue for great services. For much of the cathedral's history, this was captured in the phrase "a house of prayer for all people." In more recent times the phrases "national house of prayer" and "spiritual home for the nation" have been used. The cathedral has achieved this status simply by offering itself and being accepted by religious and political leaders as playing this role.[9]

Its initial charter was similar to those granted to American University, The Catholic University of America, and other not-for-profit entities founded in the District of Columbia around 1900. Contrary to popular misconception, the government has not designated it as a national house of prayer.

During World War II, monthly services were held there "on behalf of a united people in a time of emergency."[10] Before and since, the structure has hosted other major events, both religious and secular, that have drawn the attention of the American people, as well as tourists from around the world.

Major events

Major services

The 2004 state funeral of the 40th President, Ronald Reagan

State funerals for four American presidents have been held at the cathedral:[11][12][13]

34th President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1969): lay in repose at the cathedral before lying in state

40th President Ronald Reagan (2004)

38th President Gerald Ford (2007)

41st President George H. W. Bush (2018)

Memorial services were also held at the cathedral for the following presidents:[11]

(29th) Warren G. Harding

(27th) William Howard Taft

(30th) Calvin Coolidge

(33rd) Harry S. Truman

(37th) Richard Nixon

Presidential prayer services were held the day after the inaugurations for:[14]

32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt's second inauguration in January 1937

40th President Ronald Reagan's second inauguration in 1985

41st President George H. W. Bush's inauguration in 1989

43rd President George W. Bush's first and second inaugurations in 2001 and 2005

44th President Barack Obama's first and second inaugurations in 2009 and 2013

45th President Donald Trump's inauguration in 2017[15]

46th President Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021

Prayer and vigil for the March for Our Lives rally, March 23, 2018

Other events have included:

Funeral for former first lady Edith Wilson (1961)[11]

Memorial service for former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1962)[11]

Memorial service for the casualties of the Vietnam War on November 14, 1982

Public funeral for Chief of Naval Operations, United States Navy, Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda (1996)

Funeral for Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown (1996)

Funeral for U.S. Ambassador to France Pamela Harriman (1997)

Funeral for The Washington Post newspaper publisher Katharine Graham (2001)

Memorial service for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks

Special evensong for the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting

Funeral for educator and national civil rights leader Dorothy Height (2010)

Memorial service for NASA astronaut and first person on the Moon Neil Armstrong (2012)

Funeral for Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and Medal of Honor recipient (2012)

Funeral for Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship (2012)[16]

Memorial service for former South African President and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela (2014)

Interfaith service of Prayer and Remembrance: The Fifteenth Anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Sunday September 11, 2016

March for Our Lives Prayer Vigil: A vigil for "activists, students and pilgrims" participating in the March for Our Lives anti-gun violence rally in Washington, D.C. and other cities, Friday March 23, 2018[17]

Funeral for U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona (September 1, 2018)

Service of Thanksgiving and Remembrance for Matthew Shepard (October 26, 2018).[18]

Funeral for U. S. Army General (Ret.), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State Colin Powell (November 5, 2021).

Funeral for U.S. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas (December 10, 2021)

It was from Washington National Cathedral's "Canterbury Pulpit" that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final Sunday sermon on March 31, 1968, just a few days before his assassination in April 1968.[19] A memorial service for King was held at the cathedral later the same week.

2011 earthquake

Washington National Cathedral undergoing repairs in 2017

The cathedral was damaged in August 2011 during the Virginia earthquake. Finial stones on several pinnacles broke off, and several pinnacles twisted out of alignment or collapsed entirely. Some gargoyles and other carvings were damaged, and a hole was punched through the metal-clad roof by falling masonry. Cracks also appeared in the flying buttresses surrounding the apse. Inside, initial inspections revealed less damage, with some mortar joints loose or falling out.[20] The cathedral, which had no earthquake insurance, struggled to cope with the cost of the damage.[21]

Washington National Cathedral closed from August 24 to November 7, 2011,[20] as $2 million was spent to stabilize the structure and remove damaged or loose stone.[21] Safety netting was erected throughout the nave to protect visitors from any debris that might fall from above.[22] The cathedral reopened for the consecration and installation of Mariann Budde as the ninth Bishop of Washington on November 12, 2011.[23] At that time, estimates of the cost of the damage were about $25 million.[23]

Identifying the full extent of the damage and construction planning and studies over the next two years consumed another $2.5 million.[21] In 2011, the cathedral received a $700,000 preservation work matching grant from the Save America's Treasures program, a public-private partnership operated by the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation. The program, which is federally funded, required the cathedral to match the grant dollar-for-dollar with private funds and use the money solely for preservation work.[24]

The Reverend Canon Gary R. Hall was chosen to be the 10th dean of Washington National Cathedral in July 2012.[25]

Although fundraising to repair the damage began soon after the earthquake, it took the cathedral three years to raise the $15 million to complete the first phase of repairs.[21] In August 2013, the cost of the repairs was re-estimated at $26 million. About $10 million had already been raised by this date to pay for the repairs, half of that coming from the Lilly Endowment.[26] The cathedral began charging a $10 admission fee for tourists in January 2014, and started renting out its worship and other spaces to outside groups to raise cash.[27] The cathedral also transformed the Herb Cottage (its old baptistry building adjacent to the cathedral) into a for-profit coffeehouse operated by the Open City café chain.[28]

Phase I of the restoration, which cost $10 million,[21] repaired the internal ceiling's stone and mortar and was completed in February 2015. The planned 10-year, $22 million Phase II will repair or replace the damaged stones atop the cathedral.[29]

In June 2015, Washington National Cathedral leaders said the church needed $200 million, which would both complete repairs and establish a foundation to give the cathedral financial stability. The cathedral began working on a capital fundraising campaign, which The New York Times said was one of the largest ever by an American religious institution, to begin in 2018 or 2019. Hall said that the cathedral also planned to reopen its continuing education college and its Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage (a space on the cathedral's crypt level dedicated to prayer, meditation, and devotional practice). After three years of deficit spending, however, the cathedral also announced additional cuts to music programs to balance its budget.[21]

Lee-Jackson stained glass windows

See also: Modern display of the Confederate flag and Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials

In June 2016, after an examination by a five-person task force it was announced that two Confederate battle flag images would be removed from stained glass windows commemorating the lives of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The windows were installed in 1953 after lobbying by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. In its report, the task force wrote that it "is unanimous in its decision that the windows provide a catalyst for honest discussions about race and the legacy of slavery and for addressing the uncomfortable and too often avoided issues of race in America. Moreover, the windows serve as a profound witness to the cathedral's own complex history in relationship to race."[30]

On September 6, 2017, the cathedral, in a statement signed by the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of the cathedral, and John Donoghue, chair of the cathedral chapter, announced its decision to deconsecrate and remove the stained glass windows honoring Lee and Jackson.[31]

Financial concerns

In January 2003, the Reverend Nathan D. Baxter, dean of the cathedral, announced his retirement effective from June 30, 2003. Baxter had led the cathedral since 1991.[32] After an 18-month search, Samuel T. Lloyd III was named dean and began his tenure on April 23, 2005.[33] Using a $15 million bequest the cathedral received in 2000, Lloyd rapidly expanded the cathedral's programming.[34][21] Meanwhile, the cathedral deferred maintenance and declined to make needed repairs.[21] Construction also began in summer 2005 on a $34 million, four-level, 430-car underground parking garage. It opened in 2007.[35][21] The structure was pushed by John Bryson Chane, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and was mostly funded by debt. Payments on the garage were $500,000 per year, with a major increase in the annual debt service beginning in 2017.[36] In early 2008, the National Cathedral Association, the church's fundraising donor network, was disbanded after cathedral leaders concluded that the building was "finished" and it was no longer necessary to raise significant funds for construction.[21][37]

The 2008–2009 Great Recession hit the cathedral hard. By June 2010, the cathedral cut its budget from $27 million to $13 million, outsourced the operation of its gift shop, shut its greenhouse, cancelled its plans to replace the Skinner organ in the sanctuary, and ceased operation of the College of Preachers that had provided Episcopal clergy nationwide with continuing theological education. The cathedral also laid off 100 of its 170 staff members, including its art conservator and its liturgist (who researched and advocated the use of liturgies at the cathedral).[38] It also significantly cut back on programming, music performances, and classes.[39] To help stabilize its finances, the cathedral began an $11 million fundraising campaign and used $2.5 million of its $50 million endowment to plug budget holes.[38] The National Cathedral Association was recreated as well.[36]

In June 2010, the cathedral announced that it was exploring the sale of its rare book collection, the value of which was estimated to be several million dollars.[38] It sold a number of books to a private collector in 2011 for $857,000[21] and in 2013 donated most of the remaining collection to Virginia Theological Seminary.[21][40]

As the economic downturn continued, a report by cathedral staff identified $30 million in needed maintenance and repairs.[21] Among the problems were cracked and missing mortar in the oldest sections of the building; broken HVAC, mechanical, and plumbing systems throughout the structure; extensive preservation needs; and a main organ in disrepair. Repointing the building was estimated to cost at least $5 million, while organ repair was set at $15 million.[36]

Architecture

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Looking east, looking up to the choir of the cathedral

Nave vaulting facing east

The cathedral's final design shows a mix of influences from the various Gothic architectural styles of the Middle Ages, identifiable in its pointed arches, flying buttresses, a variety of ceiling vaulting, stained-glass windows and carved decorations in stone, and by its three similar towers, two on the west front and one surmounting the crossing.

The structure consists of a long, narrow rectangular mass formed by a nine-bay nave with wide side aisles and a five-bay chancel, intersected by a six bay transept. Above the crossing, rising 301 ft (92 m) above the ground, is the Gloria in Excelsis Tower; its top, at 676 ft (206 m) above sea level, is the highest point in Washington.[3] The Pilgrim Observation Gallery—which occupies a space about 3/4ths of the way up in the west-end towers—provides sweeping views of the city. Unique in North America, the central tower has two full sets of bells—a 53-bell carillon and a 10-bell peal for change ringing; the change bells are rung by members of the Washington Ringing Society.[3] The cathedral sits on a landscaped 57-acre (23 ha) plot on Mount Saint Alban.[3] The one-story porch projecting from the south transept has a large portal with a carved tympanum. This portal is approached by the Pilgrim Steps, a long flight of steps 40 feet (12 m) wide.

Most of the building is constructed using a buff-colored Indiana limestone over a traditional masonry core. Structural, load-bearing steel is limited to the roof's trusses (traditionally built of timber); concrete is used significantly in the support structures for bells of the central tower, and the floors in the west towers.

The pulpit was carved out of stones from Canterbury Cathedral; Glastonbury Abbey provided stone for the bishop's formal seat, the cathedra. The high altar, the Jerusalem Altar, is made from stones quarried at Solomon's Quarry near Jerusalem, reputedly where the stones for Solomon's Temple were quarried. In the floor directly in front of that altar are set ten stones from the Chapel of Moses on Mount Sinai, representing the Ten Commandments as a foundation for the Jerusalem Altar.

There are many other works of art including over two hundred stained glass windows,[3] the most familiar of which may be the Space Window, honoring mankind's landing on the Moon, which includes a fragment of lunar rock at its center;[3] the rock was presented at the dedication service on July 21, 1974, the fifth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission.[41] Extensive wrought iron adorns the building, much of it the work of Samuel Yellin. A substantial gate of forged iron and carbon steel by Albert Paley was installed on the north side of the crypt level in 2008. Intricate woodcarving, wall-sized murals and mosaics, and monumental cast bronze gates can also be found. Most of the interior decorative elements have Christian symbolism, in reference to the church's Episcopal roots, but the cathedral is filled with memorials to persons or events of national significance: statues of Washington and Lincoln, state seals embedded in the marble floor of the narthex, state flags that hang along the nave, stained glass commemorating events like the Lewis and Clark expedition and the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima.

The cathedral was built with several intentional "flaws" in keeping with an apocryphal medieval custom that sought to illustrate that only God can be perfect.[dubious – discuss] Artistically speaking, these flaws (which often come in the form of intentional asymmetries) draw the observer's focus to the sacred geometry as well as compensate for visual distortions, a practice that has been used since the Pyramids and the Parthenon.[citation needed] The architects designed the crypt chapels in Norman, Romanesque, and Transitional styles predating the Gothic, as though the cathedral had been built as a successor to earlier churches, a common occurrence in European cathedrals.[citation needed]

Numerous grotesques and gargoyles adorn the exterior, most of them designed by the carvers; one of the more famous of these is a caricature of then-master carver Roger Morigi on the north exterior of the nave. There were also two competitions held for the public to provide designs to supplement those of the carvers. The second of these produced the famous Darth Vader grotesque which is high on the northwest tower, sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter and carved by Patrick J. Plunkett.[42]

The west facade follows an iconographic program of Creation rather than that of the Last Judgement as was traditional in medieval churches. All of the sculptural work was designed by Frederick Hart and features tympanum carvings of the creation of the Sun and Moon over the outer doors and the creation of man over the center. Hart also sculpted the three statues of Adam and Saints Peter and Paul. The west doors are cast bronze rather than wrought iron. The west rose window, often used as a trademark of the cathedral, was designed by Rowan LeCompte and is an abstract depiction of the creation of light. LeCompte, who also designed the clerestory windows and the mosaics in the Resurrection Chapel, chose a nonrepresentational design because he feared that a figural window could fail to be seen adequately from the great distance to the nave.

The cathedral contains a basement, which was intentionally flooded during the Cuban Missile Crisis to provide emergency drinking water in the event of a nuclear war.[43]

Architects

The cathedral's master plan was designed by George Frederick Bodley (founder of Watts & Co.), a highly regarded British Gothic Revival architect of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and was influenced by Canterbury. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. contributed a landscaping plan for the cathedral close and Nellie B. Allen designed a knot garden for the Bishop's Garden. After Bodley died in 1907, his partner Henry Vaughan revised the original design, but work stopped during World War I and Vaughan died in 1917. When work resumed, the chapter hired Boston architecture firm Frohman, Robb and Little to execute the building. Philip Hubert Frohman, who had designed his first fully functional home at the age of 14 and received his architectural degree at the age of 16, and his partners worked to perfect Bodley's vision, adding the carillon section of the central tower, enlarging the west façade, and making numerous smaller changes. Ralph Adams Cram was hired to supervise Frohman, because of his experience with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, but Cram insisted on so many major changes to the original design that Frohman convinced the Cathedral Chapter to fire him. By Frohman's death in 1972, the final plans had been completed and the building was finished accordingly.

To view more of my images of aircraft and space craft, click "here" !

The de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide was a 1930s British short-haul biplane airliner for 6–8 passengers. It proved an economical and durable craft, despite its relatively primitive plywood construction. In late 1933, the Dragon Rapide was designed at the de Havilland company as a faster and more comfortable successor to the DH.84 Dragon. It was in effect a twin-engined, scaled-down version of the four-engined DH.86 Express. It shared many common features with the DH.86 Express, including its tapered wings, streamlined fairings and Gipsy Six engines but it demonstrated none of the operational vices of the Express and went on to become perhaps the most successful British-built short-haul commercial passenger aircraft of the 1930s. On 17 April 1934, the prototype aircraft first flew at Hatfield and 205 aircraft were built for airlines and other owners all around the world, before the outbreak of World War II. Originally called the "Dragon Six" it was first marketed as "Dragon Rapide", although later it was popularly referred to as the "Rapide". From 1936, with the fitting of improved trailing edge flaps, they were redesignated DH.89As. In the summer of 1934, the type entered service with UK-based airlines, with Hillman Airways Ltd being first to take delivery in July. From August 1934, Railway Air Services (RAS) operated a fleet of Dragon Rapides on routes linking London, the north of England and on to Northern Ireland and Scotland. The RAS DH.89s were named after places on the network, for example "Star of Lancashire". Isle of Man Air Services operated a fleet of Rapides on scheduled services from Ronaldsway Airport near Castletown to airports in north-west England including Blackpool, Liverpool and Manchester. Some of its aircraft had been transferred to it after operation by Railway Air Services. Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) owned a Dragon Rapide (G-ADDD) which he used for royal duties. He flew this aircraft to London on his accession to king in 1936, being the first British monarch to fly. One famous incident was in July 1936 when two British SIS agents, Cecil Bebb and Major Hugh Pollard, flew Francisco Franco in Dragon Rapide G-ACYR from the Canary Islands to Spanish Morocco, at the start of the military rebellion which began the Spanish Civil War. It is on display in the Museo del Aire, Madrid. At the start of World War II, many (Dragon) Rapides were impressed by the British armed forces and served under the name de Havilland Dominie, for passenger and communications duties. Over 500 more were built for military use, powered by improved Gipsy Queen engines, to bring total production to 731. The Dominies were mainly used by the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy for radio and navigation training. Postwar they were used as communications aircraft by Royal Naval air station flights. DH.89B Dominie Mark II in Royal Netherlands Air Force livery, Militaire Luchtvaart Museum, the Netherlands (2009) Other civilian Dragon Rapides continued to fly for UK airlines as part of the Associated Airways Joint Committee (AAJC). The AAJC co-ordinated the UKs wartime scheduled services which were entirely operated on over-water routes. After the war, many ex-RAF survivors entered commercial service; in 1958, 81 examples were still flying on the British register. Dominie production was by de Havilland and Brush Coachworks Ltd, the latter making the greater proportion. The DH.89 proved an economical and durable aircraft, despite its relatively primitive plywood construction and many were still flying in the early 2000s. Several Dragon Rapides are operational in the UK and several operators including Classic Wings and Plane Heritage offer pleasure flights in them. After the Second World War de Havilland introduced a Dragon Rapide replacement, the de Havilland Dove.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Return of the 'Task Force' from the Falklands War

On 21st July 1982, after serving for three months in the South Atlantic, the vintage aircraft carrier HMS Hermes [R12] - flagship of the Royal Navy 'Task Force' made a triumphant return to the Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth. The ship was greeted by a huge flotilla of small vessels. I made the journey down to capture this historic occasion.

There was an impressive lineup of the crew on deck! Also visible were 6 x Sea Harrier FRS.1's of No's 800, 809 & 899 Squadrons, 4 x Wessex HU.5 from No's 845 & 847 Squadrons and 2 x Lynx HAS.1, 9 x Sea King HAS.5 from No 826 Squadron and 2 x HC.4 Commando's from No 846 Squadron. Details courtesy crusader752 See comments section below :)

HMS Hermes

HMS Hermes was a conventional British aircraft carrier and the last of the Centaur class. The ship was laid down by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness during World War II as HMS Elephant. Construction was suspended in 1945 but work was resumed in 1952 to clear the slipway and the hull was launched on 16 February 1953. The vessel remained unfinished until 1957, when she entered service with the Royal Navy on 18 November 1959 as HMS Hermes.

The ship was in service with the Royal Navy from 1959 until 1984, and she served as the flagship of the British forces during the 1982 Falklands War. After being sold to India in 1986, the vessel was recommissioned and remained in service with the Indian Navy as INS Viraat until 2017.

Falklands War

On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Three days later, a naval task force headed by Invincible and Hermes left HMNB Portsmouth bound for the South Atlantic. Hermes had been due to be decommissioned in 1982 after a 1981 defence review (that would have made the Royal Navy considerably smaller) by the British government, but when the Falklands War broke out, she was made the flagship of the British forces. She sailed for the Falklands with an airgroup of 12 Sea Harrier FRS1 attack aircraft of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm, and 18 Sea King helicopters. On 20 April, the UK government formally ordered its defence forces to bring the islands back under British control.

From an original slide, scanned and unrestored.

You can see a random selection of my aviation memories here: www.flickriver.com/photos/heathrowjunkie/random/

Return of the 'Task Force' from the Falklands War

On 21st July 1982, after serving for three months in the South Atlantic, the vintage aircraft carrier HMS Hermes [R12] - flagship of the Royal Navy 'Task Force' made a triumphant return to the Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth. The ship was greeted by a huge flotilla of small vessels. I made the journey down to capture this historic occasion.

If you have very good eyesight, you can spot a Rescue (SAR) Westland Wessex in flight :)

On deck were 6 x Sea Harrier FRS.1's of No's 800, 809 & 899 Squadrons, 4 x Wessex HU.5 from No's 845 & 847 Squadrons and 2 x Lynx HAS.1, 9 x Sea King HAS.5 from No 826 Squadron and 2 x HC.4 Commando's from No 846 Squadron. Details courtesy crusader752

HMS Hermes

HMS Hermes was a conventional British aircraft carrier and the last of the Centaur class. The ship was laid down by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness during World War II as HMS Elephant. Construction was suspended in 1945 but work was resumed in 1952 to clear the slipway and the hull was launched on 16 February 1953. The vessel remained unfinished until 1957, when she entered service with the Royal Navy on 18 November 1959 as HMS Hermes.

The ship was in service with the Royal Navy from 1959 until 1984, and she served as the flagship of the British forces during the 1982 Falklands War. After being sold to India in 1986, the vessel was recommissioned and remained in service with the Indian Navy as INS Viraat until 2017.

Falklands War

On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Three days later, a naval task force headed by Invincible and Hermes left HMNB Portsmouth bound for the South Atlantic. Hermes had been due to be decommissioned in 1982 after a 1981 defence review (that would have made the Royal Navy considerably smaller) by the British government, but when the Falklands War broke out, she was made the flagship of the British forces. She sailed for the Falklands with an airgroup of 12 Sea Harrier FRS1 attack aircraft of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm, and 18 Sea King helicopters. On 20 April, the UK government formally ordered its defence forces to bring the islands back under British control.

From an original slide, scanned and unrestored.

You can see a random selection of my aviation memories here: www.flickriver.com/photos/heathrowjunkie/random/

Return of the 'Task Force' from the Falklands War

On 21st July 1982, after serving for three months in the South Atlantic, the vintage aircraft carrier HMS Hermes [R12] - flagship of the Royal Navy 'Task Force' made a triumphant return to the Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth. The ship was greeted by a huge flotilla of small vessels. I made the journey down to capture this historic occasion.

After HMS Hermes docked, I joined the waiting crowds to get this shot showing the officers disembarking point. I can only imagine what they and their families were feeling. There is amazing detail in this shot :)

On deck were 6 x Sea Harrier FRS.1's of No's 800, 809 & 899 Squadrons, 4 x Wessex HU.5 from No's 845 & 847 Squadrons and 2 x Lynx HAS.1, 9 x Sea King HAS.5 from No 826 Squadron and 2 x HC.4 Commando's from No 846 Squadron. Details courtesy crusader752 See comments section below :)

HMS Hermes

HMS Hermes was a conventional British aircraft carrier and the last of the Centaur class. The ship was laid down by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness during World War II as HMS Elephant. Construction was suspended in 1945 but work was resumed in 1952 to clear the slipway and the hull was launched on 16 February 1953. The vessel remained unfinished until 1957, when she entered service with the Royal Navy on 18 November 1959 as HMS Hermes.

The ship was in service with the Royal Navy from 1959 until 1984, and she served as the flagship of the British forces during the 1982 Falklands War. After being sold to India in 1986, the vessel was recommissioned and remained in service with the Indian Navy as INS Viraat until 2017.

Falklands War

On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Three days later, a naval task force headed by Invincible and Hermes left HMNB Portsmouth bound for the South Atlantic. Hermes had been due to be decommissioned in 1982 after a 1981 defence review (that would have made the Royal Navy considerably smaller) by the British government, but when the Falklands War broke out, she was made the flagship of the British forces. She sailed for the Falklands with an airgroup of 12 Sea Harrier FRS1 attack aircraft of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm, and 18 Sea King helicopters. On 20 April, the UK government formally ordered its defence forces to bring the islands back under British control.

From an original slide, scanned and unrestored.

You can see a random selection of my aviation memories here: www.flickriver.com/photos/heathrowjunkie/random/

Les tours de Castillon sont un site archéologique situé à Paradou (Bouches-du-Rhône) sur la chaîne de la Pène (massif des Alpilles). Le site a été habité entre le IIe siècle av. J.-C. et le XVe siècle, avec un maximum de population entre les XIIIe et XIVe siècles. Il a ensuite été abandonné par ses habitants qui sont allés peupler le nouveau village à quelques centaines de mètres plus au nord, dénommé aujourd'hui Paradou.

Des fouilles archéologiques récentes ont permis de reconstituer l'histoire de cet oppidum. Le site peut être visité aujourd'hui. On y observe la présence de trois tours encore debout datant du Moyen Âge et qui marquaient les limites de la ville ancienne. Le rempart a disparu dans sa quasi-totalité. Des fouilles archéologiques y ont été menées entre 1986 et 1990 et ont révélé l'existence de cet oppidum très détérioré par le temps et les fouilles clandestines1.

Histoire

Antiquité

Le site des tours de Castillon a dominé durant des siècles une vaste étendue marécageuse, dénommée les marais des Baux et dont il constituait la frontière nord. Son emplacement par rapport à ce marais n'est pas anodin. Il se situe au-dessus d'un point de franchissement des marais, le pont Saint-Jean2, sur le chaînon de collines de La Pène, à 41 mètres d'altitude.

Propriété des seigneurs des Baux au Moyen Âge, le site est habité depuis bien plus longtemps2. Les premières traces d'occupation semblent remonter au IIe siècle av. J.-C.1, même si des tessons retrouvés pourraient être plus anciens de deux à trois siècles. L'oppidum n'est fortifié qu'à partir du IIe siècle av. J.-C., période à laquelle il s'entoure d'un mur en brique crue sur un socle de pierres sèches large de 1,50 mètre3. Le parement en grand appareil est postérieur à ce premier rempart mais date approximativement de la même période ou au plus tard de la période augustéenne1. Contre le rempart, des cases à brique crues sur solin de pierres sont appuyées. Le rempart a beaucoup souffert. Ses blocs ont été prélevés au Moyen Âge pour permettre la construction de divers ouvrages. On considère qu'il devait se trouver deux portes au castrum, au nord et au sud, même s'il n'a pas été possible d'en apporter la preuve à ce jour4. Les pierres utilisées viennent probablement des Alpilles. Il s'agit d'un calcaire burdigalien typique des Baux ou du Montpaon4. Le premier rempart devait être en briques crues, comme le mur des maisons du castrum, tandis que le second rempart, de moindre qualité, était fait d'adobes.

Il existe des traces d'un incendie qui a probablement détruit le village entre la fin du IIe et le début du Ier siècle. Toujours est-il que, s'il a sans doute été inhabité à ce moment, le site compte à nouveau une certaine population au début de l'époque romaine1.

Une chaussée antique a été repérée par des vues aériennes mais n'a pas encore été datée, même si on peut sans doute l'estimer d'époque romaine4.

Moyen Âge

Quartier d'habitation médiéval.

À l'origine propriété de l'abbaye de Montmajour, le site des Tours de Castillon devient possession du seigneur des Baux entre le XIe siècle et le XIIe siècle5. Le site permet de par sa position d'être en communication permanente avec le château des Baux et de contrôler la voie de communication traversant le marais des Baux et menant à la plaine de la Crau. Les sources écrites mentionnent le château au XIIe siècle. Aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles, un rempart enserre la colline. Les angles sont dans un premier état occupés par des tours carrées renforcées par la suite par des tours curvilignes et des lices en avant6. Un petit quartier d'habitation a été fouillé entre 1986 et 1990. Dans cette zone, l'habitat prend de l'ampleur au XIVe siècle et subit de nombreuses modifications durant son occupation. Des silos, des caves et des citernes ont été identifiées. L'abandon est opéré progressivement dans les dernières années du XIVe siècle7.

Nécropole

La nécropole découverte sur le versant sud-est du site des tours de Castillon, regardant vers les marais des Baux, a révélé la présence de cinq corps sans doute datés du Moyen Âge. Seuls les sexes de trois de ces corps ont pu être identifiés : il s'agit de deux hommes et d'une femme. Les corps étaient à l'intérieur de sépultures en decubitus dorsal, les bras en adduction et les jambes en extension. Ce sont tous des adultes, entre 21 et 45 ans et ils mesurent entre 1,61 cm et 1,73 cm, ce qui constituent des tailles élevées8.

Provence (/prəˈvɒ̃s/, US: /proʊ-/; French: [pʁɔvɑ̃s]; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm, pronounced [pʀuˈvɛnsɔ]) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east, and is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the south.[1] It largely corresponds with the modern administrative region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and includes the departments of Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, as well as parts of Alpes-Maritimes and Vaucluse.[2] The largest city of the region is Marseille.

The Romans made the region the first Roman province beyond the Alps and called it Provincia Romana, which evolved into the present name. Until 1481 it was ruled by the Counts of Provence from their capital in Aix-en-Provence, then became a province of the Kings of France.[2] While it has been part of France for more than five hundred years, it still retains a distinct cultural and linguistic identity, particularly in the interior of the region.[3]

History

Main article: History of Provence

See also: Lower Burgundy

Prehistoric Provence

The entrance to the Cosquer Cave, decorated with paintings of auks, bison, seals and outlines of hands dating to 27,000 to 19,000 BC, is located 37 meters under the surface of the Calanque de Morgiou near Cassis.

A bronze-age dolmen (2500 to 900 BC) near Draguignan

The coast of Provence has some of the earliest known sites of human habitation in Europe. Primitive stone tools dating back 1 to 1.05 million years BC have been found in the Grotte du Vallonnet near Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, between Monaco and Menton.[4] More sophisticated tools, worked on both sides of the stone and dating to 600,000 BC, were found in the Cave of Escale at Saint Estėve-Janson, and tools from 400,000 BC and some of the first fireplaces in Europe were found at Terra Amata in Nice.[5] Tools dating to the Middle Paleolithic (300,000 BC) and Upper Paleolithic (30,000–10,000 BC) were discovered in the Observatory Cave, in the Jardin Exotique of Monaco.[6]

The Paleolithic period in Provence saw great changes in the climate. Two ice ages came and went, the sea level changed dramatically. At the beginning of the Paleolithic, the sea level in western Provence was 150 meters higher than today. By the end of the Paleolithic, it had dropped to 100 to 150 metres below the sea level today. The cave dwellings of the early inhabitants of Provence were regularly flooded by the rising sea or left far from the sea and swept away by erosion.[7]

The changes in the sea level led to one of the most remarkable discoveries of signs of early man in Provence. In 1985, a diver named Henri Cosquer discovered the mouth of a submarine cave 37 metres below the surface of the Calanque de Morgiou near Marseille. The entrance led to a cave above sea level. Inside, the walls of the Cosquer Cave are decorated with drawings of bison, seals, auks, horses and outlines of human hands, dating to between 27,000 and 19,000 BC.[8]

The end of the Paleolithic and beginning of the Neolithic period saw the sea settle at its present level, a warming of the climate and the retreat of the forests. The disappearance of the forests and the deer and other easily hunted game meant that the inhabitants of Provence had to survive on rabbits, snails and wild sheep. In about 6000 BC, the Castelnovian people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues, were among the first people in Europe to domesticate wild sheep, and to cease moving constantly from place to place. Once they settled in one place they were able to develop new industries. Inspired by pottery from the eastern Mediterranean, in about 6000 BC they created the first pottery made in France.[7]

Around 6000 BC, a wave of new settlers from the east, the Chasséens, arrived in Provence. They were farmers and warriors, and gradually displaced the earlier pastoral people from their lands. They were followed about 2500 BC by another wave of people, also farmers, known as the Courronniens, who arrived by sea and settled along the coast of what is now the Bouches-du-Rhône.[7] Traces of these early civilisations can be found in many parts of Provence. A Neolithic site dating to about 6,000 BC was discovered in Marseille near the Saint-Charles railway station. and a dolmen from the Bronze Age (2500–900 BC) can be found near Draguignan.

Ligures and Celts in Provence

Between the 10th and 4th century BC, the Ligures were found in Provence from Massilia as far as modern Liguria. They were of uncertain origin; they may have been the descendants of the indigenous Neolithic peoples.[9] Strabo distinctly states they were not of Celtic origin and a different race from the Gauls.[10] They did not have their own alphabet, but their language remains in place names in Provence ending in the suffixes -asc, -osc. -inc, -ates, and -auni.[9] The ancient geographer Posidonios wrote of them: "Their country is savage and dry. The soil is so rocky that you cannot plant anything without striking stones. The men compensate for the lack of wheat by hunting... They climb the mountains like goats."[11] They were also warlike; they invaded Italy and went as far as Rome in the 4th century BC, and they later aided the passage of Hannibal, on his way to attack Rome (218 BC). Traces of the Ligures remain today in the dolmens and other megaliths found in eastern Provence, in the primitive stone shelters called 'Bories' found in the Luberon and Comtat, and in the rock carvings in the Valley of Marvels near Mont Bégo in the Alpes-Maritimes, at an altitude of 2,000 meters.[12]

Between the 8th and 5th centuries BC, tribes of Celtic peoples, probably coming from Central Europe, also began moving into Provence. They had weapons made of iron, which allowed them to easily defeat the local tribes, who were still armed with bronze weapons. One tribe, called the Segobriga, settled near modern-day Marseille. The Caturiges, Tricastins, and Cavares settled to the west of the Durance river.[13]

Celts and Ligurians spread throughout the area and the Celto-Ligures eventually shared the territory of Provence, each tribe in its own alpine valley or settlement along a river, each with its own king and dynasty. They built hilltop forts and settlements, later given the Latin name oppida. Today the traces 165 oppida are found in the Var, and as many as 285 in the Alpes-Maritimes.[12] They worshipped various aspects of nature, establishing sacred woods at Sainte-Baume and Gemenos, and healing springs at Glanum and Vernègues. Later, in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, the different tribes formed confederations; the Voconces in the area from the Isère to the Vaucluse; the Cavares in the Comtat; and the Salyens, from the Rhône river to the Var. The tribes began to trade their local products, iron, silver, alabaster, marble, gold, resin, wax, honey and cheese; with their neighbours, first by trading routes along the Rhône river, and later Etruscan traders visited the coast. Etruscan amphorae from the 7th and 6th centuries BC have been found in Marseille, Cassis, and in hilltop oppida in the region.[12]

Greeks in Provence

Main article: Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul

Remains of the ancient harbour of Massalia, near the Old Port of Marseille

Traders from the island of Rhodes were visiting the coast of Provence in the 7th century BC. Rhodes pottery from that century has been found in Marseille, near Martigues and Istres, and at Mont Garou and Evenos near Toulon. The traders from Rhodes gave their names to the ancient town of Rhodanousia (Ancient Greek: 'Ροδανουσίαν) (now Trinquetaille, across the Rhône river from Arles), and to the main river of Provence, the Rhodanos, today known as the Rhône.[14]

The first permanent Greek settlement was Massalia, established at modern-day Marseille in about 600 BC by colonists coming from Phocaea (now Foça, on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor). A second wave of colonists arrived in about 540 BC, when Phocaea was destroyed by the Persians.[15]

Massalia became one of the major trading ports of the ancient world. At its height, in the 4th century BC, it had a population of about 6,000 inhabitants, living on about fifty hectares surrounded by a wall. It was governed as an aristocratic republic, by an assembly of the 600 wealthiest citizens. It had a large temple of the cult of Apollo of Delphi on a hilltop overlooking the port, and a temple of the cult of Artemis of Ephesus at the other end of the city. The Drachma coins minted in Massalia were found in all parts of Ligurian-Celtic Gaul. Traders from Massalia ventured inland deep into France on the Rivers Durance and Rhône, and established overland trade routes deep into Gaul, and to Switzerland and Burgundy, and as far north as the Baltic Sea. They exported their own products; local wine, salted pork and fish, aromatic and medicinal plants, coral and cork.[15]

The Massalians also established a series of small colonies and trading posts along the coast; which later became towns; they founded Citharista (La Ciotat); Tauroeis (Le Brusc); Olbia (near Hyères); Pergantion (Breganson); Caccabaria (Cavalaire); Athenopolis (Saint-Tropez); Antipolis (Antibes); Nikaia (Nice), and Monoicos (Monaco). They established inland towns at Glanum (Saint-Remy) and Mastrabala (Saint-Blaise.)

The most famous citizen of Massalia was the mathematician, astronomer and navigator Pytheas. Pytheas made mathematical instruments which allowed him to establish almost exactly the latitude of Marseille, and he was the first scientist to observe that the tides were connected with the phases of the moon. Between 330 and 320 BC he organised an expedition by ship into the Atlantic and as far north as England, and to visit Iceland, Shetland, and Norway. He was the first scientist to describe drift ice and the midnight sun. Though he hoped to establish a sea trading route for tin from Cornwall, his trip was not a commercial success, and it was not repeated. The Massalians found it cheaper and simpler to trade with Northern Europe over land routes.[16]

Roman Provence (2nd century BC to 5th century AD)

Triumphal Arch of Orange, first century AD

The Roman arena at Arles (2nd century AD)

The baptistery of Fréjus Cathedral (5th century) is still in use

In the 2nd century BC the people of Massalia appealed to Rome for help against the Ligures. Roman legions entered Provence three times; first in 181 BC the Romans suppressed Ligurian uprisings near Genoa; in 154 BC the Roman Consul Optimus defeated the Oxybii and the Deciates, who were attacking Antibes; and in 125 BC, the Romans put down an uprising of a confederation of Celtic tribes.[17] After this battle, the Romans decided to establish permanent settlements in Provence. In 122 BC, next to the Celtic town of Entremont, the Romans built a new town, Aquae Sextiae, later called Aix-en-Provence. In 118 BC they founded Narbo (Narbonne).

The Roman general Gaius Marius crushed the last serious resistance in 102 BC by defeating the Cimbri and the Teutons. He then began building roads to facilitate troop movements and commerce between Rome, Spain and Northern Europe; one from the coast inland to Apt and Tarascon, and the other along the coast from Italy to Spain, passing through Fréjus and Aix-en-Provence.

In 49 BC, Massalia had the misfortune to choose the wrong side in the power struggle between Pompey and Julius Caesar. Pompey was defeated, and Massalia lost its territories and political influence. Roman veterans, in the meantime, populated two new towns, Arles and Fréjus, at the sites of older Greek settlements.

In 8 BC the Emperor Augustus built a triumphal monument at La Turbie to commemorate the pacification of the region, and he began to Romanize Provence politically and culturally. Roman engineers and architects built monuments, theatres, baths, villas, fora, arenas and aqueducts, many of which still exist. (See Architecture of Provence.) Roman towns were built at Cavaillon; Orange; Arles; Fréjus; Glanum (outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence); Carpentras; Vaison-la-Romaine; Nîmes; Vernègues; Saint-Chamas and Cimiez (above Nice). The Roman province, which was called Gallia Narbonensis, for its capital, Narbo (modern Narbonne), extended from Italy to Spain, from the Alps to the Pyrenees.

The Pax Romana in Provence lasted until the middle of the 3rd century. Germanic tribes invaded Provence in 257 and 275. At the beginning the 4th century, the court of Roman Emperor Constantine (280–337) was forced to take refuge in Arles. By the end of the 5th century, Roman power in Provence had vanished, and an age of invasions, wars, and chaos began.

Arrival of Christianity (3rd–6th centuries)

There are many legends about the earliest Christians in Provence, but they are difficult to verify. It is documented that there were organised churches and bishops in the Roman towns of Provence as early as the 3rd and 4th centuries; in Arles in 254; Marseille in 314; Orange, Vaison and Apt in 314; Cavaillon, Digne, Embrun, Gap, and Fréjus at the end of the 4th century; Aix-en-Provence in 408; Carpentras, Avignon, Riez, Cimiez (today part of Nice) and Vence in 439; Antibes in 442; Toulon in 451; Senez in 406, Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux in 517; and Glandèves in 541.[18] The oldest Christian structure still surviving in Provence is the baptistery of the cathedral in Fréjus, dating from the 5th century. At about the same time, in the 5th century, the first two monasteries in Provence were founded; Lérins, on an island near Cannes; and Saint-Victor in Marseille.

Germanic invasions, Merovingians and Carolingians (5th–9th centuries)

King Boson and San Stephen (fragment of fresco at Charlieu Abbey)

Beginning in the second half of the 5th century, as Roman power waned, successive waves of Germanic tribes entered Provence; first the Visigoths (480); then the Ostrogoths; then the Burgundians; finally, the Franks in the 6th century. Arab invaders and Berber pirates came from North Africa to the Coast of Provence in the beginning of the 7th century.

During the late 7th and early 8th century, Provence was formally subject to the Frankish kings of the Merovingian dynasty, but it was in fact ruled by its own regional nobility of Gallo-Roman stock, who ruled themselves according to Roman, not Frankish law. Actually, the region enjoyed a prestige that the northern Franks hadn't, but the local aristocracy feared Charles Martel's expansionist ambitions.[19] In 737 Charles Martel headed down the Rhône Valley after subduing Burgundy. Charles attacked Avignon and Arles, garrisoned by the Umayyads. He came back in 739 to capture for a second time Avignon and chase the duke Maurontus to his stronghold of Marseille.[19] The city was brought to heel and the duke had to flee to an island. The region was thereafter under the rule of Carolingian Kings, descended from Charles Martel; and then was part of the empire of Charlemagne (742–814).

In 879, after the death of the Carolingian ruler Charles the Bald, Boso of Provence, (also known as Boson), his brother-in-law, broke away from the Carolingian kingdom of Louis III and was elected the first ruler of an independent state of Provence.

The Counts of Provence (9th–13th centuries)

The Catalan Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Provence, in the Castle in Fos, painted by Marià Fortuny (Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi, on deposit at the Palace of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Barcelona).

The Coat of Arms of Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona and his descendants, who as Counts of Provence ruled Provence from 1112 until 1246

Coat of Arms of the Counts of Provence of the House of Valois-Anjou, who ruled Provence from 1246 until it became part of France in 1486

Three different dynasties of Counts ruled Provence during the Middle Ages, and Provence became a prize in the complex rivalries between the Catalan rulers of Barcelona, the Kings of Burgundy, the German rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Angevin Kings of France.[clarification needed]

The Bosonids (879–1112) were the descendants of the first King of Provence, Boson. His son, Louis the Blind (890–928) lost his sight trying to win the throne of Italy, after which his cousin, Hugh of Italy (died 947) became the Duke of Provence and the Count of Vienne. Hugh moved the capital of Provence from Vienne to Arles and made Provence a fief of Rudolph II of Burgundy.

In the 9th century, Arab pirates (called Saracens by the French) and then the Normans invaded Provence. The Normans pillaged the region and then left, but the Saracens built castles and began raiding towns and holding local residents for ransom. Early in 973, the Saracens captured Maieul, the Abbot of the Monastery at Cluny, and held him for ransom. The ransom was paid and the abbot was released, but the people of Provence, led by Count William I rose up and defeated the Saracens near their most powerful fortress Fraxinet (La Garde-Freinet) at the Battle of Tourtour. The Saracens who were not killed at the battle were baptised and enslaved, and the remaining Saracens in Provence fled the region. Meanwhile, the dynastic quarrels continued. A war between Rudolph III of Burgundy and his rival, the German Emperor Conrad the Salic in 1032 led to Provence becoming a fiefdom of the Holy Roman Empire, which it remained until 1246.

In 1112, the last descendant of Boson, Douce I, Countess of Provence, married the Catalan Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, who as a result became Raymond Berenguer I, Count of Provence. He ruled Provence from 1112 until 1131, and his descendants, the Catalan counts ruled in Provence until 1246. In 1125, Provence was divided; the part of Provence north and west of the Durance river went to the Count of Toulouse, while the lands between the Durance and the Mediterranean, and from the Rhône river to the Alps, belonged to the Counts of Provence. The capital of Provence was moved from Arles to Aix-en-Provence, and later to Brignoles.[20]

The Church of Saint Trophime in Arles (12th century)

Under the Catalan counts, the 12th century saw the construction of important cathedrals and abbeys in Provence, in a harmonious new style, the romanesque, which united the Gallo-Roman style of the Rhône Valley with the Lombard style of the Alps. Aix Cathedral was built on the site of the old Roman forum, and then rebuilt in the gothic style in the 13th and 14th centuries. The Church of St. Trophime in Arles was a landmark of Romanesque architecture, built between the 12th and the 15th centuries. A vast fortress-like monastery, Montmajour Abbey, was built on an island just north of Arles, and became a major destination for medieval pilgrims.

In the 12th century three Cistercian monasteries were built in remote parts of Provence, far from the political intrigues of the cities. Sénanque Abbey was the first, established in the Luberon 1148 and 1178. Le Thoronet Abbey was founded in a remote valley near Draguignan in 1160. Silvacane Abbey, on the Durance river at La Roque-d'Anthéron, was founded in 1175.

In the 13th century, the French kings started to use marriage to extend their influence into the south of France. One son of King Louis VIII of France "the Lion", Alphonse, Count of Poitou, married the heiress of the Count of Toulouse, Joan. Another, Louis IX "the Saint" of France or Saint Louis (1214–1270), married Marguerite of Provence. Then, in 1246, Charles, Count of Anjou, the youngest son of Louis VIII, married the heiress of Provence, Beatrice. Provence's fortunes became tied to the Angevin Dynasty and the Kingdom of Naples.[21]

The Popes in Avignon (14th century)

Main article: Avignon papacy

The façade of the Palais des Papes.

In 1309, Pope Clement V, who was originally from Bordeaux, moved the Roman Catholic Papacy to Avignon.[22] From 1309 until 1377, seven Popes reigned in Avignon before the Schism between the Roman and Avignon churches, which led to the creation of rival popes in both places. After that three Antipopes reigned in Avignon until 1423, when the Papacy finally returned to Rome. Between 1334 and 1363 the old and new Papal Palaces of Avignon were built by Popes Benedict XII and Clement VI respectively; together the Palais des Papes was the largest gothic palace in Europe.[23]

The 14th century was a terrible time in Provence, and all of Europe: the population of Provence had been about 400,000 people; the Black Plague (1348–1350) killed fifteen thousand people in Arles, half the population of the city, and greatly reduced the population of the whole region. The defeat of the French Army during the Hundred Years' War forced the cities of Provence to build walls and towers to defend themselves against armies of former soldiers who ravaged the countryside.

The Angevin rulers of Provence also had a difficult time. An assembly of nobles, religious leaders, and town leaders of Provence was organised to resist the authority of Queen Joan I of Naples (1343–1382). She was murdered in 1382 by her cousin and heir, Charles of Durazzo, who started a new war, leading to the separation of Nice, Puget-Théniers and Barcelonnette from Provence in 1388, and their attachment to the County of Savoy. From 1388 up to 1526, the area acquired by the Savoy was known as Terres Neuves de Provence; after 1526 it officially took on the name County of Nice.

Good King René, the last ruler of Provence

Detail of the Burning Bush triptych by Nicolas Froment, showing René and his wife Jeanne de Laval

The Chateau of René in Tarascon (15th century)

The 15th century saw a series of wars between the Kings of Aragon and the Counts of Provence. In 1423 the army of Alphonse of Aragon captured Marseille, and in 1443 they captured Naples, and forced its ruler, King René I of Naples, to flee. He eventually settled in one of his remaining territories, Provence.

History and legend has given René the title "Good King René of Provence", though he only lived in Provence in the last ten years of his life, from 1470 to 1480, and his political policies of territorial expansion were costly and unsuccessful. Provence benefitted from population growth and economic expansion, and René was a generous patron of the arts, sponsoring painters Nicolas Froment, Louis Bréa, and other masters. He also completed one of the finest castles in Provence at Tarascon, on the Rhône river.

When René died in 1480, his title passed to his nephew Charles du Maine. One year later, in 1481, when Charles died, the title passed to Louis XI of France. Provence was legally incorporated into the French royal domain in 1486.

1486 to 1789

Soon after Provence became part of France, it became involved in the Wars of Religion that swept the country in the 16th century. Between 1493 and 1501, many Jews were expelled from their homes and sought sanctuary in the region of Avignon, which was still under the direct rule of the Pope. In 1545, the Parliament of Aix-en-Provence ordered the destruction of the villages of Lourmarin, Mérindol, Cabriéres in the Luberon, because their inhabitants were Vaudois, of Italian Piedmontese origin, and were not considered sufficiently orthodox Catholics. Most of Provence remained strongly Catholic, with only one enclave of Protestants, the principality of Orange, Vaucluse, an enclave ruled by Prince William of the House of Orange-Nassau of the Netherlands, which was created in 1544 and was not incorporated into France until 1673. An army of the Catholic League laid siege to the Protestant city of Mėnerbes in the Vaucluse between 1573 and 1578. The wars did not stop until the end of the 16th century, with the consolidation of power in Provence by the House of Bourbon kings.

View of Toulon Harbour around 1750, by Joseph Vernet.

The semi-independent Parliament of Provence in Aix and some of the cities of Provence, particularly Marseille, continued to rebel against the authority of the Bourbon king. After uprisings in 1630–31 and 1648–1652, the young King Louis XIV had two large forts, fort St. Jean and Fort St. Nicholas, built at the harbour entrance to control the city's unruly population.

At the beginning of the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu began to build a naval arsenal and dockyard at Toulon to serve as a base for a new French Mediterranean fleet. The base was greatly enlarged by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV, who also commissioned his chief military engineer Vauban to strengthen the fortifications around the city.

At the beginning of the 17th century, Provence had a population of about 450,000 people.[24] It was predominantly rural, devoted to raising wheat, wine, and olives, with small industries for tanning, pottery, perfume-making, and ship and boat building. Provençal quilts, made from the mid-17th century onwards, were successfully exported to England, Spain, Italy, Germany and Holland.[25] There was considerable commerce along the coast, and up and down the Rhône river. The cities: Marseille, Toulon, Avignon and Aix-en-Provence, saw the construction of boulevards and richly decorated private houses.

Marseille in 1754, by Vernet

At the beginning of the 18th century, Provence suffered from the economic malaise of the end of the reign of Louis XIV. The plague struck the region between 1720 and 1722, beginning in Marseille, killing some 40,000 people. Still, by the end of the century, many artisanal industries began to flourish; making perfumes in Grasse; olive oil in Aix and the Alpilles; textiles in Orange, Avignon and Tarascon; and faience pottery in Marseille, Apt, Aubagne, and Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. Many immigrants arrived from Liguria and the Piedmont in Italy. By the end of the 18th century, Marseille had a population of 120,000 people, making it the third largest city in France.[24]

During the French Revolution

Main article: French Revolution

Though most of Provence, with the exception of Marseille, Aix and Avignon, was rural, conservative and largely royalist, it did produce some memorable figures in the French Revolution; Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau from Aix, who tried to moderate the Revolution, and turn France into a constitutional monarchy like England; the Marquis de Sade from Lacoste in the Luberon, who was a Deputy from the far left in the National Assembly; Charles Barbaroux from Marseille, who sent a battalion of volunteers to Paris to fight in the French Revolutionary Army; and Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836), an abbé, essayist and political leader, who was one of the chief theorists of the French Revolution, French Consulate, and First French Empire, and who, in 1799, was the instigator of the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, which brought Napoleon to power.

La Marseillaise 1792

Provence also produced the most memorable song of the period, the La Marseillaise. Though the song was originally written by a citizen of Strasbourg, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792, and it was originally a war song for the revolutionary Army of the Rhine, it became famous when it sung on the streets of Paris by the volunteers from Marseille, who had heard it when it was sung in Marseille by a young volunteer from Montpellier named François Mireur. It became the most popular song of the Revolution, and in 1879 became the national anthem of France.

The Revolution was as violent and bloody in Provence as it was in other parts of France. On 30 April 1790, Fort Saint-Nicolas in Marseille was besieged, and many of the soldiers inside were massacred. On 17 October 1791 a massacre of royalists and religious figures took place in the ice storage rooms (glaciere) of the prison of the Palace of the Popes in Avignon.

When the radical Montagnards seized power from the Girondins in May 1793, a real counter-revolution broke out in Avignon, Marseille and Toulon. A revolutionary army under General Carteaux recaptured Marseille in August 1793 and renamed it "City without a Name" (Ville sans Nom.) In Toulon, the opponents of the Revolution handed the city to a British and Spanish fleet on 28 August 1793. A Revolutionary Army laid siege to the British positions for four months (see the Siege of Toulon), and finally, thanks to the enterprise of the young commander of artillery, Napoleon Bonaparte, defeated the British and drove them out in December 1793. About 15,000 royalists escaped with the British fleet, but five to eight hundred of the 7,000 who remained were shot on the Champ de Mars, and Toulon was renamed "Port la Montagne".

The fall of the Montagnards in July 1794 was followed by a new White Terror aimed at the revolutionaries. Calm was only restored by the rise of Napoleon to power in 1795.

Under Napoleon

Napoleon restored the belongings and power of the families of the old regime in Provence. The British fleet of Admiral Horatio Nelson blockaded Toulon, and almost all maritime commerce was stopped, causing hardship and poverty. When Napoleon was defeated, his fall was celebrated in Provence. When he escaped from Elba on 1 March 1815, and landed at Golfe-Juan, he detoured to avoid the cities of Provence, which were hostile to him, and therefore directed his small force directly to the northeast of it.[26]

19th century

Marseille in 1825

Provence enjoyed prosperity in the 19th century; the ports of Marseille and Toulon connected Provence with the expanding French Empire in North Africa and the Orient, especially after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

In April–July 1859, Napoleon III made a secret agreement with Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont, for France to assist in expelling Austria from the Italian Peninsula and bringing about a united Italy, in exchange for Piedmont ceding Savoy and the Nice region to France. He went to war with Austria in 1859 and won a victory at Solferino, which resulted in Austria ceding Lombardy to France. France immediately ceded Lombardy to Piedmont, and, in return, Napoleon received Savoy and Nice in 1860, and Roquebrune-Cap-Martin and Menton in 1861.

The railroad connected Paris with Marseille (1848) and then with Toulon and Nice (1864). Nice, Antibes and Hyères became popular winter resorts for European royalty, including Queen Victoria. Under Napoleon III, Marseille grew to a population of 250,000, including a very large Italian community. Toulon had a population of 80,000. The large cities like Marseille and Toulon saw the building of churches, opera houses, grand boulevards, and parks.

After the fall of Louis Napoleon following the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War barricades went up in the streets of Marseille (23 March 1871) and the Communards, led by Gaston Cremieux and following the lead of the Paris Commune, took control of the city. The Commune was crushed by the army and Cremieux was executed on 30 November 1871. Though Provence was generally conservative, it often elected reformist leaders; Prime Minister Léon Gambetta was the son of a Marseille grocer, and future prime minister Georges Clemenceau was elected deputy from the Var in 1885.

The second half of the 19th century saw a revival of the Provençal language and culture, particularly traditional rural values. driven by a movement of writers and poets called the Felibrige, led by poet Frédéric Mistral. Mistral achieved literary success with his novel Miréio (Mireille in French); he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1904.

20th century

Between World War I and World War II, Provence was bitterly divided between the more conservative rural areas and the more radical big cities. There were widespread strikes in Marseille in 1919, and riots in Toulon in 1935.

After the defeat of France by Germany in June 1940, France was divided into an occupied zone and unoccupied zone, with Provence in the unoccupied zone. Parts of eastern Provence were occupied by Italian soldiers. Collaboration and passive resistance gradually gave way to more active resistance, particularly after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the Communist Party became active in the resistance. Jean Moulin, the deputy of Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free France resistance movement, was parachuted into Eygalières, in the Bouches-du-Rhône on 2 January 1942 to unite the diverse resistance movements in all of France against the Germans.

In November 1942, following Allied landings in North Africa (Operation Torch), the Germans occupied all of Provence (Operation Attila) and then headed for Toulon (Case Anton). The French fleet at Toulon sabotaged its own ships to keep them from falling into German hands.

The Germans began a systematic rounding-up of French Jews and refugees from Nice and Marseille. Many thousands were taken to concentration camps, and few survived. A large quarter around the port of Marseille was emptied of inhabitants and dynamited, so it would not serve as a base for the resistance. Nonetheless, the resistance grew stronger; the leader of the pro-German militia, the Milice, in Marseille was assassinated in April 1943.

On 15 August 1944, two months after the Allied landings in Normandy (Operation Overlord), the Seventh United States Army under General Alexander Patch, with a Free French corps under General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, landed on the coast of the Var between St. Raphael and Cavalaire (Operation Dragoon). The American forces moved north toward Manosque, Sisteron and Gap, while the French First Armored Division under General Vigier liberated Brignoles, Salon, Arles, and Avignon. The Germans in Toulon resisted until 27 August, and Marseille was not liberated until 25 August.

After the end of the War, Provence faced an enormous task of repair and reconstruction, particularly of the ports and railroads destroyed during the war. As part of this effort, the first modern concrete apartment block, the Unité d'Habitation of Corbusier, was built in Marseille in 1947–52. In 1962, Provence absorbed a large number of French citizens who left Algeria after its independence. Since that time, large North African communities settled in and around the big cities, particularly Marseille and Toulon.

In the 1940s, Provence underwent a cultural renewal, with the founding of the Avignon Festival of theatre (1947), the reopening of the Cannes Film Festival (begun in 1939), and many other major events. With the building of new highways, particularly the Paris Marseille autoroute which opened in 1970, Provence became destination for mass tourism from all over Europe. Many Europeans, particularly from Britain, bought summer houses in Provence. The arrival of the TGV high-speed trains shortened the trip from Paris to Marseille to less than four hours.

At the end of the 20th century, and the beginning of the 21st century, the residents of Provence were struggling to reconcile economic development and population growth with their desire to preserve the landscape and culture that make Provence unique.

Extent and geography

The Roman Province of Gallia Narbonensis around 58 BC

The original Roman province was called Gallia Transalpina, then Gallia Narbonensis, or simply Provincia Nostra ('Our Province') or Provincia. It extended from the Alps to the Pyrenees and north to the Vaucluse, with its capital in Narbo Martius (present-day Narbonne).

Borders

In the 15th century the Conté of Provence was bounded by the Var river on the east, the Rhône river to the west, with the Mediterranean to the south, and a northern border that roughly followed the Durance river.

The Comtat Venaissin, a territory which included Avignon, and the principality of Orange were both papal states, ruled by the Pope from the 13th century until the French Revolution. At the end of the 14th century, another piece of Provence along the Italian border, including Nice and the lower Alps, was detached from Provence and attached to the lands of the Duke of Savoy. The lower Alps were re-attached to France after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, but Nice did not return to France until 1860, during the reign of Napoleon III.[27]

The administrative region of Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur was created in 1982. It included Provence, plus the territory of the Comtat Venaissin around Avignon, the eastern portion of the Dauphiné, and the former county of Nice.

Rivers

The Rhône at Avignon

The Rhône river, on the western border of Provence, is one of the major rivers of France, and has been a highway of commerce and communications between inland France and the Mediterranean for centuries. It rises as the effluent of the Rhône Glacier in Valais, Switzerland, in the Saint-Gotthard massif, at an altitude of 1753 m. It is joined by the river Saône at Lyon. Along the Rhône Valley, it is joined on the right bank by Cévennes rivers Eyrieux, Ardèche, Cèze and Gardon or Gard, on the left Alps bank by rivers Isère, Drôme, Ouvèze and Durance. At Arles, the Rhône divides itself in two arms, forming the Camargue delta, with all branches flowing into the Mediterranean Sea. One arm is called the "Grand Rhône"; the other one is the "Petit Rhône".

The Gorge du Verdon.

The Durance river, a tributary of the Rhône, has its source in the Alps near Briançon. It flows south-west through Embrun, Sisteron, Manosque, Cavaillon, and Avignon, where it meets the Rhône.

The Verdon River is a tributary of the Durance, rising at an altitude of 2,400 metres in the southwestern Alps near Barcelonette, and flowing southwest for 175 kilometres through the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Var (départements) before it reaches the Durance at near Vinon-sur-Verdon, south of Manosque. The Verdon is best known for its canyon, the Verdon Gorge. This limestone canyon, also called the 'Grand Canyon of Verdon', 20 kilometres in length and more than 300 metres deep, is a popular climbing and sight-seeing area.

The Var River rises near the Col de la Cayolle (2,326 m/7,631 ft) in the Maritime Alps and flows generally southeast for 120 kilometres (75 mi) into the Mediterranean between Nice and Saint-Laurent-du-Var. Before Nice was returned to France in 1860, the Var marked the eastern border of France along the Mediterranean. The Var is the unique case in France of a river giving a name to a department, but not flowing through that department (due to subsequent adjustments to the department's boundaries).

The Camargue

With an area of over 930 km2 (360 mi2), the Camargue is Western Europe's largest river delta (technically an island, as it is wholly surrounded by water). It is a vast plain comprising large brine lagoons or étangs, cut off from the sea by sandbars and encircled by reed-covered marshes which are in turn surrounded by a large cultivated area.

The Camargue is home to more than 400 species of birds, the brine ponds providing one of the few European habitats for the greater flamingo. The marshes are also a prime habitat for many species of insects, notably (and notoriously) some of the most ferocious mosquitoes to be found anywhere in France. It is also famous for bulls and the Camargue horse.

Mountains

Vallon de Mollières, Mercantour National Park.

Alpilles landscape near Le Destet.

By considering the Maritime Alps, along the border with Italy, as a part of the cultural Provence, they constitute the highest elevations of the region (the Punta dell'Argentera has an elevation of 3,297 m). They form the border between the French département Alpes-Maritimes and the Italian province of Cuneo. Mercantour National Park is located in the Maritime Alps. On the other hand, if the département Hautes Alpes is also considered as part of the modern Provence, then the alpin Écrins mountains represent the highest elevations of the region with the Barre des Écrins culminating at 4102m.

View of Mont Ventoux from Mirabel-aux-Baronnies.

Outside of the Maritime Alps, Mont Ventoux (Occitan: Ventor in classical norm or Ventour in Mistralian norm), at 1,909 metres (6,263 ft), is the highest peak in Provence. It is located some 20 km north-east of Carpentras, Vaucluse. On the north side, the mountain borders the Drôme département. It is nicknamed the "Giant of Provence", or "The Bald Mountain". Although geologically part of the Alps, is often considered to be separate from them, due to the lack of mountains of a similar height nearby. It stands alone to the west of the Luberon range, and just to the east of the Dentelles de Montmirail, its foothills. The top of the mountain is bare limestone without vegetation or trees. The white limestone on the mountain's barren peak means it appears from a distance to be snow-capped all year round (its snow cover actually lasts from December to April).

The Alpilles are a chain of small mountains located about 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of Avignon. Although they are not particularly high – only some 387 metres (1,270 ft) at their highest point – the Alpilles stand out since they rise abruptly from the plain of the Rhône valley. The range is about 25 km long by about 8 to 10 km wide, running in an east–west direction between the Rhône and Durance rivers. The landscape of the Alpilles is one of arid limestone peaks separated by dry valleys.

Mont Sainte-Victoire, painted by Paul Cézanne

Montagne Sainte-Victoire is probably the best-known mountain in Provence, thanks to the painter Paul Cézanne, who could see it from his home, and painted it frequently. It is a limestone mountain ridge which extends over 18 kilometres between the départements of Bouches-du-Rhône and Var. Its highest point is the Pic des mouches at 1,011 m.

The massif des Maures

The Massif des Maures (Mountains of the Moors) is a small chain of mountains that lies along the coast of the Mediterranean in the Var Department between Hyères et Fréjus. Its highest point is the signal de la Sauvette, 780 metres high. The name is a souvenir of the Moors (Maures in Old French), Arabs and Berbers from North Africa, who settled on the coast of Provence in the 9th and 10th centuries.

The massif des Maures extends about sixty kilometres along the coast, and reaches inland about thirty kilometres. On the north it is bordered by a depression which is followed by the routes nationales 97 and 7 and the railroad line between Toulon and Nice. On the south it ends abruptly at the Mediterranean, forming a broken and abrupt coastline.

The peninsula of Saint-Tropez is part of the Massif des Maures, along with the peninsula of Giens and the islands offshore of Hyères; Porquerolles, Port-Cros, and île du Levant. Cape Sicié, west of Toulon, as well as the massif of Tanneron, belong geologically to the massif des Maures.

The Calanques

Calanque de Sugiton

The Calanques, also known as the Massif des Calanques, are a dramatic feature of the Provence coast, a 20-km long series of narrow inlets in the cliffs of the coastline between Marseille on the west and Cassis on the east. The highest peak in the massif is Mont Puget, 565 metres high.

The best known calanques of the Massif des Calanques include the Calanque de Sormiou, the Calanque de Morgiou, the Calanque d'En-Vau, the Calanque de Port-Pin and the Calanque de Sugiton.

Calanques are remains of ancient river mouths formed mostly during Tertiary. Later, during quaternary glaciations, as glaciers swept by, they further deepened those valleys which would eventually (at the end of the last glaciation) be invaded with sea and become calanques.

The Garrigue, typical landscape of Provence

The Cosquer cave is an underwater grotto in the Calanque de Morgiou, 37 metres (121 ft) underwater, that was inhabited during Paleolithic era, when the sea level was much lower than today. Its walls are covered with paintings and engravings dating back to between 27,000 and 19,000 BC, depicting animals such as bison, ibex, and horses, as well as sea mammals such as seals, and at least one bird, the auk.

Landscapes

The Garrigue is the typical landscape of Provence; it is a type of low, soft-leaved scrubland or chaparral found on limestone soils around the Mediterranean Basin, generally near the seacoast, where the climate is moderate, but where there are annual summer drought conditions.[28] Juniper and stunted holm oaks are the typical trees; aromatic lime-tolerant shrubs such as lavender, sage, rosemary, wild thyme and Artemisia are common garrigue plants. The open landscape of the garrigue is punctuated by dense thickets of Kermes oak.

Climate

Mistral wind blowing near Marseille. In the center is the Château d'If

Sisteron – la Baume rock

Forcalquier Cathedral

Most of Provence has a Mediterranean climate, characterised by hot, dry summers, mild winters, little snow, and abundant sunshine. Within Provence there are micro-climates and local variations, ranging from the Alpine climate inland from Nice to the continental climate in the northern Vaucluse. The winds of Provence are an important feature of the climate, particularly the mistral, a cold, dry wind which, especially in the winter, blows down the Rhône Valley to the Bouches-du-Rhône and the Var Departments, and often reaches over one hundred kilometres an hour.

Bouches-du-Rhône

Marseille, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, has an average of 59 days of rain a year, though when it does rain the rain is often torrential; the average annual rainfall is 544.4 mm. It snows an average of 2.3 days a year, and the snow rarely remains long. Marseille has an average of 2835.5 hours of sunshine a year. The average minimum temperature in January is 2.3 °C., and the average maximum temperature in July is 29.3 °C. The mistral blows an average of one hundred days a year.[29]

The Var

Toulon and the Department of the Var (which includes St. Tropez and Hyères) have a climate slightly warmer, dryer and sunnier than Nice and the Alpes-Maritime, but also less sheltered from the wind. Toulon has an average of 2899.3 hours of sunshine a year, making it the sunniest city in metropolitan France,[30] The average maximum daily temperature in August is 29.1 °C., and the average daily minimum temperature in January is 5.8 °C. The average annual rainfall is 665 mm, with the most rain from October to November. Strong winds blow an average of 118 days a year in Toulon, compared with 76 days at Fréjus further east. The strongest Mistral wind recorded in Toulon was 130 kilometres an hour.[31]

Alpes-Maritimes

Nice and the Alpes-Maritimes Department are sheltered by the Alps, and are the most protected part of the Mediterranean coast. The winds in this department are usually gentle, blowing from the sea to the land, though sometimes the Mistral blows strongly from the northwest, or, turned by the mountains, from the east. In 1956 a mistral wind from the northwest reached the speed of 180 kilometres an hour at Nice airport. Sometimes in summer the scirocco brings high temperatures and reddish desert sand from Africa. (See Winds of Provence.)

Rainfall is infrequent – 63 days a year, but can be torrential, particularly in September, when storms and rain are caused by the difference between the colder air inland and the warm Mediterranean water temperature (20–24 degrees C.). The average annual rainfall in Nice is 767 mm, more than in Paris, but concentrated in fewer days.

Snow is extremely rare, usually falling once every ten years. 1956 was a very exceptional year, when 20 centimetres of snow blanketed the coast. In January 1985 the coast between Cannes and Menton received 30 to 40 centimetres of snow. In the mountains, the snow is present from November to May

Nice has an annual average of 2694 hours of sunshine. The average maximum daily temperature in Nice in August is 28 °C., and the average minimum daily temperature in January is 6 °C.[32]

Alpes-de-Haute-Provence

The Department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence has a Mediterranean climate in the lower valleys under one thousand metres in altitude and an alpine climate in the high valleys, such as the valleys of the Blanche, the Haut Verdon and the Ubaye, which are over 2500 metres high. The alpine climate in the higher mountains is moderated by the warmer air from the Mediterranean.

Haute-Provence has unusually high summer temperatures for its altitude and latitude (44 degrees north). The average summer temperature is 22 to 23 °C. at an altitude of 400 metres, and 18 to 19 °C. at the altitude of 1000 metres; and the winter average temperature is 4 to 5 °C. at 400 metres and 0 C. at 1000 metres. The lower valleys have 50 days of freezing temperatures a year, more in the higher valleys. Sometimes the temperatures in the high valleys can reach −30 °C. Because of this combination of high mountains and Mediterranean air, it is not unusual that the region frequently has some of the lowest winter temperatures and some of the hottest summer temperatures in France.

Rainfall in Haute-Provence is infrequent – 60 to 80 days a year – but can be torrential; 650 to 900 mm. a year in the foothills and plateaus of the southwest, and in the valley of the Ubaye; and 900 to 1500 mm. in the mountains. Most rainfall comes in the autumn, in brief and intense storms; from mid-June to mid-August, rain falls during brief but violent thunderstorms. Thunder can be heard 30 to 40 days a year.

Snow falls in the mountains from November to May, and in midwinter can be found down to altitude of 1000–1200 metres on the shady side of the mountains and 1300 to 1600 metres on the sunny side. Snowfalls are usually fairly light, and melt rapidly.

The Mistral (wind) is a feature of the climate in the western part of the Department, blowing from the north and the northwest, bringing clear and dry weather. The eastern part of the department is more protected from the Mistral. The Marin (wind) comes from the south, bringing warm air, clouds and rain.

Haute-Provence is one of the sunniest regions of France, with an average of between 2550 and 2650 hours of sunshine annually in the north of the department, and 2700 to 2800 hours in the southwest. The clear nights and sunny days cause a sharp difference between nighttime and daytime temperatures. Because of the clear nights, the region is home of important observatories, such as the Observatory of Haute-Provence in Saint-Michel-Observatoire near of Forcalquier.[33]

The Vaucluse

The Vaucluse is the meeting point of three of the four different climatic zones of France; it has a Mediterranean climate in the south, an alpine climate in the northeast, around the mountains of Vaucluse and the massif of the Baronnies; and a continental climate in the northwest. The close proximity of these three different climates tends to moderate all of them, and the Mediterranean climate usually prevails.

Orange in the Vaucluse has 2595 hours of sunshine a year. It rains an average of 80 days a year, for a total of 693.4 mm a year. The maximum average temperature in July is 29.6 °C., and the average minimum temperature in January is 1.3 °C. There are an average of 110 days of strong winds a year.[34]

Language and literature

Scientists, scholars and prophets

Pytheas (4th century BCE) was a geographer and mathematician who lived in the Greek colony of Massalia, which became Marseille. He conducted an expedition by sea north around England to Iceland, and was the first to describe the midnight sun and polar regions.

Petrarch (1304–1374) was an Italian poet and scholar, considered the father of humanism and one of the first great figures of Italian literature. He spent much of his early life in Avignon and Carpentras as an official at the Papal court in Avignon, and wrote a famous account of his ascent of Mount Ventoux near Aix-en-Provence.

Nostradamus (1503–1566), a Renaissance apothecary and reputed clairvoyant best known for his alleged prophecies of great world events, was born in Saint-Remy-de-Provence and lived and died in Salon-de-Provence.

Occitan literature

Main articles: Occitan language and Occitan literature

Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, from a collection of troubadour songs, BNF Richelieu Manuscrits Français 854, Bibliothèque Nationale Française, Paris.

Historically the language spoken in Provence was Provençal, a dialect of the Occitan language, also known as langue d'oc, and closely related to Catalan. There are several regional variations: vivaro-alpin, spoken in the Alps; and the provençal variations of south, including the maritime, the rhoadanien (in the Rhône Valley) and the niçois (in Nice). Niçois is the archaic form of provençal closest to the original language of the troubadours, and is sometimes to said to be literary language of its own.[35]

Provençal was widely spoken in Provence until the beginning of the 20th century, when the French government launched an intensive and largely successful effort to replace regional languages with French. Today Provençal is taught in schools and universities in the region, but is spoken regularly by a small number of people, probably less than five hundred thousand, mostly elderly.

Writers and poets in the Occitan language

"Folquet de Marselha" in a 13th-century chansonnier. Depicted in his episcopal robes

The golden age of Provençal literature, more correctly called Occitan literature, was the 11th century and the 12th century, when the troubadours broke away from classical Latin literature and composed romances and love songs in their own vernacular language. Among the most famous troubadours was Folquet de Marselha, whose love songs became famous all over Europe, and who was praised by Dante in his Divine Comedy. In his later years, Folquet gave up poetry to become the Abbot of Le Thoronet Abbey, and then Bishop of Toulouse, where he fiercely persecuted the Cathars.

In the middle of the 19th century, there was a literary movement to revive the language, called the Félibrige, led by the poet Frédéric Mistral (1830–1914), who shared the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904.

Provençal writers and poets who wrote in Occitan include:

Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (1180–1207)

Louis Bellaud (1543–1588)

Théodore Aubanel (1829–1886)

Joseph d'Arbaud (1874–1950)

Robert Lafont (1923–2009)

French authors

Alphonse Daudet

Colette

Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897) was the best-known French writer from Provence in the 19th century, though he lived mostly in Paris and Champrosay. He was best known for his Lettres de mon moulin (eng: Letters from my Mill) (1869) and the Tartarin de Tarascon trilogy (1872, 1885, 1890). His story L'Arlésienne (1872) was made into a three-act play with music by Bizet.[36]

Marcel Pagnol (1895–1970), born in Aubagne, is known both as a filmmaker and for his stories of his childhood, Le Château de la Mere, La Gloire de mon Pere, and Le Temps des secrets. He was the first filmmaker to become a member of the Académie française in 1946.

Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) (1873–1954), although she was not from Provence, became particularly attached to Saint-Tropez. After World War II, she headed a committee which saw that the village, badly damaged by the war, was restored to its original beauty and character

Jean Giono (1895–1970), born in Manosque, wrote about peasant life in Provence, inspired by his imagination and by his vision of Ancient Greece.

Paul Arène (1843–1896), born in Sisteron, wrote about life and the countryside around his home town.

Emigrés, exiles, and expatriates

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the climate and lifestyle of Provence attracted writers almost as much as it attracted painters. It was particularly popular among British, American and Russian writers in the 1920s and 1930s.

Edith Wharton (1862–1937), bought Castel Sainte-Claire in 1927, on the site of a former convent in the hills above Hyères, where she lived during the winters and springs until her death in 1937.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) and his wife Zelda first visited the Riviera in 1924, stopping at Hyères, Cannes and Monte Carlo, eventually staying at St. Raphaël, where he wrote much of The Great Gatsby and began Tender is the Night.

Ivan Bunin (1870–1953), the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, went to France after the Russian Revolution, set several of his short stories on the Côte d'Azur, and had a house in Grasse.

Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) bought a house, the Villa Mauresque, in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in 1928, and, except for the years of World War II, spent much of his time there until his death.

Other English-speaking writers who live in or have written about Provence include:

Peter Mayle

Carol Drinkwater

John Lanchester

Willa Cather

Charles Spurgeon (who spent long periods in Menton)

Katherine Mansfield

Lawrence Durrell

Music

Music written about Provence includes:

The saxophone concerto Tableaux de Provence (Pictures of Provence) composed by Paule Maurice.

The opera Mireille by Charles Gounod after Frédéric Mistral's poem Mireio.

Georges Bizet, 'L'Arlésienne' incidental music to play by Alphonse Daudet.

Darius Milhaud, 'Suite Provençale'

Two song settings of Vladimir Nabokov's poem "Provence" in Russian and English versions by composers Ivan Barbotin and James DeMars on the 2011 contemporary classical album Troika.[37]

The piece "Suite Provencale", written for symphonic band by Jan Van der Roost.

Painters

The 14th-century ceiling of the cloister of Fréjus Cathedral is decorated with paintings of animals, people and mythical creatures

Triptych of the Burning Bush, by Nicolas Froment, in Aix Cathedral (15th century)

Artists have been painting in Provence since prehistoric times; paintings of bisons, seals, auks and horses dating to between 27,000 and 19,000 BC were found in the Cosquer Cave near Marseille.[38]

The 14th-century wooden ceiling of the cloister of Fréjus Cathedral has a remarkable series of paintings of biblical scenes, fantastic animals, and scenes from daily life, painted between 1350 and 1360. They include paintings of a fallen angel with the wings of a bat, a demon with the tail of a serpent, angels playing instruments, a tiger, an elephant, an ostrich, domestic and wild animals, a mermaid, a dragon, a centaur, a butcher, a knight, and a juggler.[39]

Nicolas Froment (1435–1486) was the most important painter of Provence during the Renaissance, best known for his triptych of the Burning Bush (c. 1476), commissioned by King René I of Naples. The painting shows a combination of Moses, the Burning Bush, and the Virgin Mary "who gave birth but remained a virgin", just as the bush of Moses "-burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed". This is the explication according to a plaque in the cathedral. A more likely reason for the juxtaposition is that in 1400 a shepherd, or shepherds, discovered a miraculous statue of the Virgin and Child inside another burning bush (thorn bush specifically), in the village of L'Epine in the present day department of La Marne. The site and statue were later visited by the "Bon Roi René". The wings of the triptych show King René with Mary Magdalene, St. Anthony and St. Maurice on one side, and Queen Jeanne de Laval, with Saint Catherine, John the Evangelist, and Saint Nicholas on the other.[40]

Louis Bréa (1450–1523) was a 15th-century painter, born in Nice, whose work is found in churches from Genoa to Antibes. His Retable of Saint-Nicholas (1500) is found in Monaco, and his Retable de Notre-Dame-de-Rosaire (1515) is found in Antibes.

Pierre Paul Puget (1620–1694), born in Marseille, was a painter of portraits and religious scenes, but was better known for his sculptures, found in Toulon Cathedral, outside the city hall of Toulon, and in the Louvre. There is a mountain named for him near Marseille, and a square in Toulon.

Paul Cézanne, L'Estaque, 1883–1885

Vincent van Gogh, Cafe Terrace at Night, September 1888

Paul Signac, The Port of Saint-Tropez, oil on canvas, 1901

In the 19th and 20th centuries, many of the most famous painters in the world converged on Provence, drawn by the climate and the clarity of the light. The special quality of the light is partly a result of the Mistral wind, which removes dust from the atmosphere, greatly increasing visibility.

Adolphe Monticelli (1824–1886) was born in Marseille, moved to Paris in 1846 and returned to Marseille in 1870. His work influenced Vincent van Gogh who greatly admired him.[41]

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) was born in Aix-en-Provence, and lived and worked there most of his life. The local landscapes, particularly Montagne Sainte-Victoire, featured often in his work. He also painted frequently at L'Estaque.

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) liv

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some Background:

The Ki-38 fighter was designed by the Tachikawa Aircraft Company Limited (立川飛行機株式会社, Tachikawa Hikōki Kabushiki Kaisha) near Tokyo, an aircraft manufacturer in the Empire of Japan, specializing primarily in aircraft for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force. The Ki-38 prototype was produced in response to a December 1937 specification for a successor to the popular fixed-gear Nakajima Ki-27 Nate. The specification called for a top speed of 500 km/h (310 mph), a climb rate of 5,000 m (16,000 ft) in five minutes and a range of 800 km (500 mi). Maneuverability was to be at least as good as that of Ki-27.

As the war progressed, however, the fighter suffered from the same weaknesses as its slower, fixed-gear Ki-27 "Nate" predecessor and the more advanced naval A6M Zero: light armor and less-than-effective self-sealing fuel tanks, which caused high casualties in combat. Its armament of four light machine guns also proved inadequate against the more heavily armored Allied aircraft. Both issues were more or less mended with improved versions, but the Ki-38 could never keep up with the enemy fighters’ development and potential. And as newer Allied aircraft were introduced, the Japanese were forced into a defensive war and most aircraft were flown by inexperienced pilots.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 8.96 m (29 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 10.54 m (34 ft 7 in)

Height: 3.03 m (9 ft 11 in)

Wing area: 17.32 m² (186.4 sq ft)

Empty weight: 2,158 kg (4,758 lb)

Gross weight: 2,693 kg (5,937 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 2,800 kg (6,173 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Mitsubishi Ha-102 14-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engine with 1,050hp (755 kW),

driving a 3-bladed variable-pitch propeller

Performance

Maximum speed: 509 km/h (316 mph, 275 kn)

Cruise speed: 450 km/h (280 mph, 240 kn)

Range: 600 km (370 mi, 320 nmi)

Service ceiling: 10,000 m (33,000 ft)

Time to altitude: 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in 3 minutes 24 seconds

Wing loading: 155.4 kg/m2 (31.8 lb/sq ft)

Power/mass: 0.182 hp/lb (0.299 kW/kg)

Armament:

2× 20 mm (0.787 in) Ho-5 cannon with 150 rpg

2× 7.7 mm (0.303 in) Type 89 machine guns with 500 rpg

2× underwing hardpoints for single 30 kg (66 lb) or 2 × 250 kg (550 lb) bombs

1× ventral hardpoint for a 200 l (53 US gal; 44 imp gal) drop tank

The kit and its assembly:

I always thought that the French Bloch MB 150 had some early WWII Japanese look to it, and with this idea I recently procured a relatively cheap Heller kit for this conversion project that would yield the purely fictional Tachikawa Ki-38 for the IJA – even though the Ki-38 existed as a Kawasaki project and eventually became the Ki-45, so that the 38 as kitai number was never actively used.

The Heller MB 150 is a vintage kit, and it is not a good one. You get raised panel lines, poor details (the engine is a joke) and mediocre fit. If you want a good MB 150 in 1:72, look IMHO elsewhere.

For the Ki-38 I wanted to retain most of the hull, the first basic change was the integration of a cowling from a Japanese Mitsubishi Ha-102 two-row radial (left over from an Airfix Ki-46 “Dinah”), which also received a new three-blade propeller with a different spinner on a metal axis inside. The engine also received some more interior details, even though the spinner blocks most sight.

The next, more radical move was to replace the MB 150’s spinal cockpit fairing with a bubble canopy and a lowered back – I found a very old and glue-tinted canopy from a Matchbox A6M in the spares box, and it turned out to be very suitable for the Ki-38. However, cleaning the clear piece was quite challenging, because all raised struts had to be sanded away to get rid of the old glue and paint residues, and re-polishing it back to a more or less translucent state took several turns with ever finer sandpaper, polishing paste and soft polishing mops on a mini drill. The spine was re-created with 2C-putty and the canopy was blended into it and into the fuselage with several PSR turns.

Inside, I used a different pilot figure (which would later be hard to see, though), added a fuel tank behind the seat with some supporting struts and inserted a piece of styrene sheet to separate the landing gear well from the cockpit – OOB it’s simply open.

The landing gear was basically taken OOB, I just replaced the original tail skid with a wheel and modified the wheels with hub covers, because the old kit wants you to push them onto long axis’ with knobs at their tips so that they remain turnable. Meh!

The fairings under the guns in the wings (barrels scratched from the MB 150’s OOB parts) are conformal underwing fuel tanks from a late Seafire (Special Hobby kit).

Painting and markings:

The initial plan was a simple green/grey IJA livery, but the model looked SO much like an A6M that I rather decided to give it a more elaborate paint scheme. I eventually found an interesting camouflage on a Mitsubishi Ki-51 “Sonia” attack plane, even though without indications concerning its unit, time frame or theater of operations (even though I assume that it was used in the China-Burma-India theater): an overall light grey base, onto which opaque green contrast fields/stripes had been added, and the remaining light grey upper areas were overpainted with thin sinuous lines of the same green. This was adapted onto the Ki-38 with a basis in Humbrol 167 (RAF Barley Grey) and FS 34102 (Humbrol 117) for the green cammo. I also wanted to weather the model considerably, as a measure to hide some hardware flaws, so that a partial “primer coat” with Aluminum (Revell 99) was added to several areas, to shine through later. The yellow ID markings on the wings’ leading edges were painted with Humbrol 69. The propeller blades were painted with Humbrol 180, the spinner in a slightly lighter mix of 180 and 160.

Interior surfaces were painted with a dull yellowish green, a mix of Revell 16 and 42, just the inside of the landing gear covers became grey as the outside, in a fashion very similar to early Ki-43s.

The decals came form various sources, including a Hasegawa Ki-61 sheet for the unit markings and some stencils and hinomaru in suitable sizes from a generic roundel sheet.

Some dry-brushing with light grey was done to emphasize edges and details, and some soot stains were added with graphite to the exhausts and the guns. Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish, some more dry-brushing with aluminum was done, esp. around the cockpit, and position lights were added with translucent paint.

An unexpected result – I was not prepared that the modified MB 150 looks THAT much like a Mitsubishi A6M or the Ki-43! There’s even an Fw 190-ish feel to it, from certain angles. O.K., the canopy actually comes from a Zero and the cowling looks very similar, too. But the overall similarity is baffling, just the tail is the most distinguishing feature! However, due to the poor basis and the almost blind canopy donor, the model is far from stellar or presentable – but some in-flight shots look pretty convincing, and even the camouflage appears to be quite effective over wooded terrain.

An Air Force Lockheed Martin F-22 "Raptor" assigned to the 3rd Wing flies over Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Feb. 27, 2018. The Lockheed Martin F-22 "Raptor" is the U.S. Air Force’s premium fifth-generation fighter asset.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Lockheed Martin F-22 "Raptor" is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but also has ground attack, electronic warfare, and signal intelligence capabilities. The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built most of the F-22's airframe and weapons systems and conducted final assembly, while Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.

The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 before it formally entered service in December 2005 as the F-22A. Despite its protracted development and various operational issues, USAF officials consider the F-22 a critical component of the service's tactical air power. Its combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and situational awareness enable unprecedented air combat capabilities.

Service officials had originally planned to buy a total of 750 ATFs. In 2009, the program was cut to 187 operational production aircraft due to high costs, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile F-35. The last F-22 was delivered in 2012.

Development

Origins

In 1981, the U.S. Air Force identified a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) to replace the F-15 "Eagle" and F-16 "Fighting Falcon". Code named "Senior Sky", this air-superiority fighter program was influenced by emerging worldwide threats, including new developments in Soviet air defense systems and the proliferation of the Su-27 "Flanker"- and MiG-29 "Fulcrum"-class of fighter aircraft. It would take advantage of the new technologies in fighter design on the horizon, including composite materials, lightweight alloys, advanced flight control systems, more powerful propulsion systems, and most importantly, stealth technology. In 1983, the ATF concept development team became the System Program Office (SPO) and managed the program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The demonstration and validation (Dem/Val) request for proposals (RFP) was issued in September 1985, with requirements placing strong emphasis on stealth and supercruise. Of the seven bidding companies, Lockheed and Northrop were selected on 31 October 1986. Lockheed teamed with Boeing and General Dynamics while Northrop teamed with McDonnell Douglas, and the two contractor teams undertook a 50-month Dem/Val phase, culminating in the flight test of two technology demonstrator prototypes, the YF-22 and the YF-23, respectively.

Dem/Val was focused on risk reduction and technology development plans over specific aircraft designs. Contractors made extensive use of analytical and empirical methods, including computational fluid dynamics, wind-tunnel testing, and radar cross-section calculations and pole testing; the Lockheed team would conduct nearly 18,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing. Avionics development was marked by extensive testing and prototyping and supported by ground and flying laboratories. During Dem/Val, the SPO used the results of performance and cost trade studies conducted by contractor teams to adjust ATF requirements and delete ones that were significant weight and cost drivers while having marginal value. The short takeoff and landing (STOL) requirement was relaxed in order to delete thrust-reversers, saving substantial weight. As avionics was a major cost driver, side-looking radars were deleted, and the dedicated infra-red search and track (IRST) system was downgraded from multi-color to single color and then deleted as well. However, space and cooling provisions were retained to allow for future addition of these components. The ejection seat requirement was downgraded from a fresh design to the existing McDonnell Douglas ACES II. Despite efforts by the contractor teams to rein in weight, the takeoff gross weight estimate was increased from 50,000 lb (22,700 kg) to 60,000 lb (27,200 kg), resulting in engine thrust requirement increasing from 30,000 lbf (133 kN) to 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class.

Each team produced two prototype air vehicles for Dem/Val, one for each of the two engine options. The YF-22 had its maiden flight on 29 September 1990 and in flight tests achieved up to Mach 1.58 in supercruise. After the Dem/Val flight test of the prototypes, on 23 April 1991, Secretary of the USAF Donald Rice announced the Lockheed team as the winner of the ATF competition. The YF-23 design was considered stealthier and faster, while the YF-22, with its thrust vectoring nozzles, was more maneuverable as well as less expensive and risky. The aviation press speculated that the Lockheed team's design was also more adaptable to the U.S. Navy's Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF), but by 1992, the Navy had abandoned NATF.

Production and procurement

As the program moved to full-scale development, or the Engineering & Manufacturing Development (EMD) stage, the production version had notable differences from the YF-22, despite having a broadly similar shape. The swept-back angle of the leading edge was decreased from 48° to 42°, while the vertical stabilizers were shifted rearward and decreased in area by 20%. To improve pilot visibility, the canopy was moved forward 7 inches (18 cm), and the engine intakes moved rearward 14 inches (36 cm). The shapes of the wing and stabilator trailing edges were refined to improve aerodynamics, strength, and stealth characteristics. Increasing weight during development caused slight reductions in range and maneuver performance.

Prime contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics manufactured the majority of the airframe and performed final assembly at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia; program partner Boeing Defense, Space & Security provided additional airframe components as well as avionics integration and training systems. The first F-22, an EMD aircraft with tail number 4001, was unveiled at Marietta, Georgia, on 9 April 1997, and first flew on 7 September 1997. Production, with the first lot awarded in September 2000, supported over 1,000 subcontractors and suppliers from 46 states and up to 95,000 jobs, and spanned 15 years at a peak rate of roughly two airplanes per month. In 2006, the F-22 development team won the Collier Trophy, American aviation's most prestigious award. Due to the aircraft's advanced nature, contractors have been targeted by cyberattacks and technology theft.

The USAF originally envisioned ordering 750 ATFs at a total program cost of $44.3 billion and procurement cost of $26.2 billion in fiscal year (FY) 1985 dollars, with production beginning in 1994. The 1990 Major Aircraft Review led by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reduced this to 648 aircraft beginning in 1996. By 1997, funding instability had further cut the total to 339, which was again reduced to 277 by 2003. In 2004, the Department of Defense (DoD) further reduced this to 183 operational aircraft, despite the USAF's preference for 381. A multi-year procurement plan was implemented in 2006 to save $15 billion, with total program cost projected to be $62 billion for 183 F-22s distributed to seven combat squadrons. In 2008, Congress passed a defense spending bill that raised the total orders for production aircraft to 187.

The first two F-22s built were EMD aircraft in the Block 1.0 configuration for initial flight testing, while the third was a Block 2.0 aircraft built to represent the internal structure of production airframes and enabled it to test full flight loads. Six more EMD aircraft were built in the Block 10 configuration for development and upgrade testing, with the last two considered essentially production quality jets. Production for operational squadrons consisted of 37 Block 20 training aircraft and 149 Block 30/35 combat aircraft; one of the Block 35 aircraft is dedicated to flight sciences at Edwards Air Force Base.

The numerous new technologies in the F-22 resulted in substantial cost overruns and delays. Many capabilities were deferred to post-service upgrades, reducing the initial cost but increasing total program cost. As production wound down in 2011, the total program cost is estimated to be about $67.3 billion, with $32.4 billion spent on Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) and $34.9 billion on procurement and military construction (MILCON) in then year dollars. The incremental cost for an additional F-22 was estimated at about $138 million in 2009.

Ban on exports

The F-22 cannot be exported under US federal law to protect its stealth technology and other high-tech features. Customers for U.S. fighters are acquiring earlier designs such as the F-15 "Eagle" and F-16 "Fighting Falcon" or the newer F-35 "Lightning II", which contains technology from the F-22 but was designed to be cheaper, more flexible, and available for export. In September 2006, Congress upheld the ban on foreign F-22 sales. Despite the ban, the 2010 defense authorization bill included provisions requiring the DoD to prepare a report on the costs and feasibility for an F-22 export variant, and another report on the effect of F-22 export sales on U.S. aerospace industry.

Some Australian politicians and defense commentators proposed that Australia should attempt to purchase F-22s instead of the planned F-35s, citing the F-22's known capabilities and F-35's delays and developmental uncertainties. However, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) determined that the F-22 was unable to perform the F-35's strike and close air support roles. The Japanese government also showed interest in the F-22 for its Replacement-Fighter program. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) would reportedly require fewer fighters for its mission if it obtained the F-22, thus reducing engineering and staffing costs. However, in 2009 it was reported that acquiring the F-22 would require increases to the Japanese government's defense budget beyond the historical 1 percent of its GDP. With the end of F-22 production, Japan chose the F-35 in December 2011. Israel also expressed interest, but eventually chose the F-35 because of the F-22's price and unavailability.

Production termination

Throughout the 2000s, the need for F-22s was debated, due to rising costs and the lack of relevant adversaries. In 2006, Comptroller General of the United States David Walker found that "the DoD has not demonstrated the need" for more investment in the F-22, and further opposition to the program was expressed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, Senator John McCain, and Chairman of U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Senator John Warner. The F-22 program lost influential supporters in 2008 after the forced resignations of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General T. Michael Moseley.

In November 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the F-22 was not relevant in post-Cold War conflicts such as irregular warfare operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in April 2009, under the new Obama Administration, he called for ending production in FY2011, leaving the USAF with 187 production aircraft. In July, General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated to the Senate Committee on Armed Services his reasons for supporting termination of F-22 production. They included shifting resources to the multirole F-35 to allow proliferation of fifth-generation fighters for three service branches and preserving the F/A-18 production line to maintain the military's electronic warfare (EW) capabilities in the Boeing EA-18G "Growler". Issues with the F-22's reliability and availability also raised concerns. After President Obama threatened to veto further production, the Senate voted in July 2009 in favor of ending production and the House subsequently agreed to abide by the 187 production aircraft cap. Gates stated that the decision was taken in light of the F-35's capabilities, and in 2010, he set the F-22 requirement to 187 aircraft by lowering the number of major regional conflict preparations from two to one.

In 2010, USAF initiated a study to determine the costs of retaining F-22 tooling for a future Service Life Extension Program (SLEP). A RAND Corporation paper from this study estimated that restarting production and building an additional 75 F-22s would cost $17 billion, resulting in $227 million per aircraft, or $54 million higher than the flyaway cost. Lockheed Martin stated that restarting the production line itself would cost about $200 million. Production tooling and associated documentation were subsequently stored at the Sierra Army Depot, allowing the retained tooling to support the fleet life cycle. There were reports that attempts to retrieve this tooling found empty containers, but a subsequent audit found that the tooling was stored as expected.

Russian and Chinese fighter developments have fueled concern, and in 2009, General John Corley, head of Air Combat Command, stated that a fleet of 187 F-22s would be inadequate, but Secretary Gates dismissed General Corley's concern. In 2011, Gates explained that Chinese fifth-generation fighter developments had been accounted for when the number of F-22s was set, and that the U.S. would have a considerable advantage in stealth aircraft in 2025, even with F-35 delays. In December 2011, the 195th and final F-22 was completed out of 8 test EMD and 187 operational aircraft produced; the aircraft was delivered to the USAF on 2 May 2012.

In April 2016, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee proposed legislation that would direct the Air Force to conduct a cost study and assessment associated with resuming production of the F-22. Since the production halt directed in 2009 by then Defense Secretary Gates, lawmakers and the Pentagon noted that air warfare systems of Russia and China were catching up to those of the U.S. Lockheed Martin has proposed upgrading the Block 20 training aircraft into combat-coded Block 30/35 versions as a way to increase numbers available for deployment. On 9 June 2017, the Air Force submitted their report to Congress stating they had no plans to restart the F-22 production line due to economic and operational issues; it estimated it would cost approximately $50 billion to procure 194 additional F-22s at a cost of $206–$216 million per aircraft, including approximately $9.9 billion for non-recurring start-up costs and $40.4 billion for aircraft procurement costs.

Upgrades

The first aircraft with combat-capable Block 3.0 software flew in 2001. Increment 2, the first upgrade program, was implemented in 2005 for Block 20 aircraft onward and enabled the employment of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). Certification of the improved AN/APG-77(V)1 radar was completed in March 2007, and airframes from production Lot 5 onward are fitted with this radar, which incorporates air-to-ground modes. Increment 3.1 for Block 30 aircraft onward provided improved ground-attack capability through synthetic aperture radar mapping and radio emitter direction finding, electronic attack and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) integration; testing began in 2009 and the first upgraded aircraft was delivered in 2011. To address oxygen deprivation issues, F-22s were fitted with an automatic backup oxygen system (ABOS) and modified life support system starting in 2012.

Increment 3.2 for Block 35 aircraft is a two-part upgrade process; 3.2A focuses on electronic warfare, communications and identification, while 3.2B includes geolocation improvements and a new stores management system to show the correct symbols for the AIM-9X and AIM-120D. To enable two-way communication with other platforms, the F-22 can use the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) as a gateway. The planned Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) integration was cut due to development delays and lack of proliferation among USAF platforms. The F-22 fleet is planned to start receiving Increment 3.2B as well as a software upgrade for cryptography capabilities and avionics stability in May 2019. A Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Joint (MIDS-J) radio that replaces the current Link-16 receive-only box is expected to be operational by 2020. Subsequent upgrades are also focusing on having an open architecture to enable faster future enhancements.

In 2024, funding is projected to begin for the F-22 mid-life upgrade (MLU), which is expected to include new sensors and antennas, hardware refresh, cockpit improvements, and a helmet mounted display and cuing system. Other enhancements being developed include IRST functionality for the AN/AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector (MLD) and more durable stealth coating based on the F-35's.

The F-22 was designed for a service life of 8,000 flight hours, with a $350 million "structures retrofit program". Investigations are being made for upgrades to extend their useful lives further. In the long term, the F-22 is expected to be superseded by a sixth-generation jet fighter to be fielded in the 2030s.

Design

Overview

The F-22 "Raptor" is a fifth-generation fighter that is considered fourth generation in stealth aircraft technology by the USAF. It is the first operational aircraft to combine supercruise, supermaneuverability, stealth, and sensor fusion in a single weapons platform. The F-22 has four empennage surfaces, retractable tricycle landing gear, and clipped delta wings with reverse trailing edge sweep and leading edge extensions running to the upper outboard corner of the inlets. Flight control surfaces include leading-edge flaps, flaperons, ailerons, rudders on the canted vertical stabilizers, and all-moving horizontal tails (stabilators); for speed brake function, the ailerons deflect up, flaperons down, and rudders outwards to increase drag.

The aircraft's dual Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 augmented turbofan engines are closely spaced and incorporate pitch-axis thrust vectoring nozzles with a range of ±20 degrees; each engine has maximum thrust in the 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class. The F-22's thrust-to-weight ratio at typical combat weight is nearly at unity in maximum military power and 1.25 in full afterburner. Maximum speed without external stores is approximately Mach 1.8 at military power and greater than Mach 2 with afterburners.

The F-22's high cruise speed and operating altitude over prior fighters improve the effectiveness of its sensors and weapon systems, and increase survivability against ground defenses such as surface-to-air missiles. The aircraft is among only a few that can supercruise, or sustain supersonic flight without using fuel-inefficient afterburners; it can intercept targets which subsonic aircraft would lack the speed to pursue and an afterburner-dependent aircraft would lack the fuel to reach. The F-22's thrust and aerodynamics enable regular combat speeds of Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet (15,000 m). The use of internal weapons bays permits the aircraft to maintain comparatively higher performance over most other combat-configured fighters due to a lack of aerodynamic drag from external stores. The aircraft's structure contains a significant amount of high-strength materials to withstand stress and heat of sustained supersonic flight. Respectively, titanium alloys and composites comprise 39% and 24% of the structural weight.

The F-22's aerodynamics, relaxed stability, and powerful thrust-vectoring engines give it excellent maneuverability and energy potential across its flight envelope. The airplane has excellent high alpha (angle of attack) characteristics, capable of flying at trimmed alpha of over 60° while maintaining roll control and performing maneuvers such as the Herbst maneuver (J-turn) and Pugachev's Cobra. The flight control system and full-authority digital engine control (FADEC) make the aircraft highly departure resistant and controllable, thus giving the pilot carefree handling.

Stealth

The F-22 was designed to be highly difficult to detect and track by radar. Measures to reduce radar cross-section (RCS) include airframe shaping such as alignment of edges, fixed-geometry serpentine inlets and curved vanes that prevent line-of-sight of the engine faces and turbines from any exterior view, use of radar-absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return. The F-22 was also designed to have decreased radio emissions, infrared signature and acoustic signature as well as reduced visibility to the naked eye. The aircraft's flat thrust-vectoring nozzles reduce infrared emissions of the exhaust plume to mitigate the threat of infrared homing ("heat seeking") surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Additional measures to reduce the infrared signature include special topcoat and active cooling of leading edges to manage the heat buildup from supersonic flight.

Compared to previous stealth designs like the F-117, the F-22 is less reliant on RAM, which are maintenance-intensive and susceptible to adverse weather conditions. Unlike the B-2, which requires climate-controlled hangars, the F-22 can undergo repairs on the flight line or in a normal hangar. The F-22 has a Signature Assessment System which delivers warnings when the radar signature is degraded and necessitates repair. While the F-22's exact RCS is classified, in 2009 Lockheed Martin released information indicating that from certain angles the aircraft has an RCS of 0.0001 m² or −40 dBsm – equivalent to the radar reflection of a "steel marble". Effectively maintaining the stealth features can decrease the F-22's mission capable rate to 62–70%.

The effectiveness of the stealth characteristics is difficult to gauge. The RCS value is a restrictive measurement of the aircraft's frontal or side area from the perspective of a static radar. When an aircraft maneuvers it exposes a completely different set of angles and surface area, potentially increasing radar observability. Furthermore, the F-22's stealth contouring and radar absorbent materials are chiefly effective against high-frequency radars, usually found on other aircraft. The effects of Rayleigh scattering and resonance mean that low-frequency radars such as weather radars and early-warning radars are more likely to detect the F-22 due to its physical size. However, such radars are also conspicuous, susceptible to clutter, and have low precision. Additionally, while faint or fleeting radar contacts make defenders aware that a stealth aircraft is present, reliably vectoring interception to attack the aircraft is much more challenging. According to the USAF an F-22 surprised an Iranian F-4 "Phantom II" that was attempting to intercept an American UAV, despite Iran's assertion of having military VHF radar coverage over the Persian Gulf.

POINT MUGU, Calif. (Feb. 4, 2021) Construction Mechanic 2nd Class Eric Perez Jimenez, a native of Tacoma, Wash., assigned to Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron (MSRON) 11, provides perimeter security during security convoy training, provided by Maritime Expeditionary Security Group (MESG) 1 Training Evaluation Unit. The Maritime Expeditionary Security Force is a core Navy capability that provides port and harbor security, high value asset security, and maritime security in the coastal and inland waterways. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Boatswain’s Mate Nelson Doromal Jr.)

After contacting Theodor A.R. Strauss, 1988-1993 secretary of Nederlandse Reünisten Vereniging China (NRCV, Dutch Reunists Association China) about a detail I found about works performed for Hong Kong Kai Tak airport in 1927 by Netherlands Harbour Works Co., he brought me in contact with two sons of an engineer who worked for the company in the 1930s to 1960s. The eldest son of Jan and Mieke Wesselingh, Hans (J.A.) Wesselingh, had written a document about the story of their parents in China and the younger son Rob Wesselingh sent me additional information via e-mail. With their kind permission, part of their photos and story are shared here.

Jan Wesselingh (1904-1971) was born as the third child of a farmer’s family in the Netherlands. He was the only child to study, at the Technical University of Applied Science in Delft (Technische Hoogeschool Delft). Nowadays it is still a Technical University of fame. Due to the Great Depression, which started in 1929, just after Jan’s graduation it was very difficult to find a job. However, Jan was adventurous and a little cheeky and via his professor who supervised his graduation, he was offered a job to work in China for Nederlandsche Maatschappij voor Havenwerken (NMH, Netherlands Harbour Works Co.), ca. 1932. Travel by boat took over a month and was rather expensive, so his first contract lasted for four years, after which he received three months of leave. He worked along the China coast, at dredging and harbour building projects.

In 1936, during his leave in the Netherlands, he met his future wife, Mieke Teepe (1912-2002). Their romance was not an easy one, Mieke’s father had to be persuaded by other family members to let his daughter live in Ireland for three months, where Jan was doing a job for NMH. This gave them a chance to see if they were fit for one another. The outcome was positive, and they married in October 1936 (photo).

Directly after their wedding, they travelled to Berlin and left for an 11-day train journey with the Trans-Siberia Express. Via Moscow and Lake Baikal, which they found very beautiful, they travelled through the Soviet Union and Japanese occupied Manchuria, to reach Beijing (Peking at the time). According to Mieke’s diary it was one of the most beautiful cities she knew. Few multi-storey buildings and very characteristic architecture. Foreigners had their own community in Beijing, a community which changed all the time. New arrivals were welcomed heartily.

After a few days they travelled by train to Shanghai, a poor and dirty harbour city in their view. Then by boat to Hong Kong, fifteen hundred kilometres south. Hong Kong, an English colony at the time, gave them a cosmopolitan and well organised impression. China impoverished greatly after the Western imposed favourable tax treatment of companies in the foreign concessions in China, after the 1839-1860 Opium Wars. It explains what they experienced: a great many foreigners, an abundance of goods for sale and many recreational opportunities. A major difference in comparison to the impoverished Chinese cities they had seen.

The final part of the journey was only two hundred kilometres, to Guangzhou (Canton at the time). The city gave them a poor, dirty impression and seemed to be not without danger. Jan Wesselingh was project leader in a naval harbour construction project, in Huangpu District, Guangzhou (at the time Whampoa, south-east of Guangzhou). The 1938 photo shows how rural Huangpu District still was at the time.

Hans Wesselingh was born in Guangzhou (Canton) in 1937. One year later, the family fled after the Japanese bombarded the city. They left on an English gunboat, fearful times!

The photo of the eight figurines represents seven wise men and a woman, Hans Wesselingh was once explained. Supposedly, the figurines were given to his parents for the occasion of his birth, by their housekeeper, Mrs Ah-Lin, when they were living in Huangpu District. She continued to work as their housekeeper when they were living in Hong Kong after the 2nd World war.

After the 1938 evacuation, Jan Wesselingh found employment for the dredger fleet, which managed to escape from Guangzhou as well. There was work in Tasmania, where the port of Devonport had to be dredged and enlarged. Rob Wesselingh was born there in 1940. In 1942 the project was finished and new work for the dredger fleet had to be found. In Iran (Persia at the time), a new project was contracted. On the way to Iran, Jan Wesselingh arrived in Jakarta (Batavia at the time), where he was enlisted as a reserve air force officer, after Japan had declared war on the Netherlands East Indies. When the Dutch capitulated, Jan Wesselingh was imprisoned in a Japanese camp. He survived and returned to Tasmania.

The family returned to the Netherlands and early 1947 they left for Hong Kong, where Jan continued to work for MVH to coordinate Far East activities. In Hong Kong there were large projects such as typhoon shelters in Causeway Bay and Aberdeen and another project was in Macau.

In Rob Wesselingh’s recollection, the activities in Hong Kong were preparations for the large project of the new Kai Tak airport, which was going to be built on a dam in the harbour. In the end a French company managed to ‘capture’ the assignment, when they were forced out of Vietnam (French Indochina at the time) and offered the project at a price far below market rates.

The 1953 photo of a dredger in Hong Kong gives an impression of the type of work Jan performed. In the 1950s, Jan Wesselingh was the head of the Far East department at NMH, the only large contractor which had dared to stay in Hong Kong after the Communist revolution in China. He supervised some 2,000 people at the time, most of them Chinese workers.

Rob Wesselingh went to the Netherlands in 1950 and after education and military service, he was sent by KJCPL (the successor of Java-China Japan Line, where Charles Gesner van der Voort’s friends Dorone van den Brandeler, Frikkie Wiersum and Harry de Haan worked in Shanghai) to Hong Kong, where he married in 1965 and where their three children were born.

Gwulo.com member Stanislaus about the location of the photo (note the pagoda on the left of the photo): "The white pagoda should be the Tiger Pagoda of the Tiger Balm Garden, Tai Hang." Member Moddsey added: "The reclamation works was for the filling-in of the former typhoon shelter. Today's Victoria Park stands in its place. See gwulo.com/atom/32909"

Courtesy Wesselingh family archives

docplayer.nl/10021344-Reis-naar-china-door-hans-j-a-wesse...

The Norman Keep

The twelve-sided Keep at Cardiff is the finest in Wales and is known as a ‘shell’ keep. Its outer walls provided a shell for smaller buildings within it. From the top of the Keep the panoramic views of the city are breath-taking and to the north you can see as far as Castell Coch. There are approximately 50 steep stone steps leading to the Keep entrance and further steps to reach the viewing platform, but it’s worth the effort!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Castle

Cardiff Castle (Welsh: Castell Caerdydd) is a medieval castle and Victorian Gothic revival mansion located in the city centre of Cardiff, Wales. The original motte and bailey castle was built in the late 11th century by Norman invaders on top of a 3rd-century Roman fort. The castle was commissioned either by William the Conqueror or by Robert Fitzhamon, and formed the heart of the medieval town of Cardiff and the Marcher Lord territory of Glamorgan. In the 12th century the castle began to be rebuilt in stone, probably by Robert of Gloucester, with a shell keep and substantial defensive walls being erected. Further work was conducted by Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester, in the second half of the 13th century. Cardiff Castle was repeatedly involved in the conflicts between the Anglo-Normans and the Welsh, being attacked several times in the 12th century, and stormed in 1404 during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr.

After being held by the de Clare and Despenser families for several centuries the castle was acquired by Richard de Beauchamp in 1423. Richard conducted extensive work on the castle, founding the main range on the west side of the castle, dominated by a tall octagonal tower. Following the Wars of the Roses, the status of the castle as a Marcher territory was revoked and its military significance began to decline. The Herbert family took over the property in 1550, remodelling parts of the main range and carrying out construction work in the outer bailey, then occupied by Cardiff's Shire Hall and other buildings. During the English Civil War Cardiff Castle was initially taken by a Parliamentary force, but was regained by Royalist supporters in 1645. When fighting broke out again in 1648, a Royalist army attacked Cardiff in a bid to regain the castle, leading to the Battle of St Fagans just outside the city. Cardiff Castle escaped potential destruction by Parliament after the war and was instead garrisoned, probably to protect against a possible Scottish invasion.

In the mid-18th century, Cardiff Castle passed into the hands of the Marquesses of Bute. John Stuart, the first Marquess, employed Capability Brown and Henry Holland to renovate the main range, turning it into a Georgian mansion, and to landscape the castle grounds, demolishing many of the older medieval buildings and walls. During the first half of the 19th century the family became extremely wealthy as a result of the growth of the coal industry in Glamorgan. The third Marquess, John Crichton-Stuart, used this wealth to back an extensive programme of renovations under William Burges. Burges remodelled the castle in a Gothic revival style, lavishing money and attention on the main range. The resulting interior designs are considered to be amongst "the most magnificent that the gothic revival ever achieved".[2] The grounds were re-landscaped and, following the discovery of the old Roman remains, reconstructed walls and a gatehouse in a Roman style were incorporated into the castle design. Extensive landscaped parks were built around the outside of the castle.

In the early 20th century the fourth Marquess inherited the castle and construction work continued into the 1920s. The Bute lands and commercial interests around Cardiff were sold off or nationalised until, by the time of the Second World War, little was left except the castle. During the war, extensive air raid shelters were built in the castle walls; they could hold up to 1,800 people. When the Marquess died in 1947, the castle was given to the city of Cardiff. Today the castle is run as a tourist attraction, with the grounds housing the "Firing Line" regimental museum and interpretation centre. The castle has also served as a venue for events, including musical performances and festivals.

History

1st–4th centuries AD

The future site of Cardiff Castle was first used by the Romans as a defensive location for many years.[3] The first fort was probably built about AD 55 and occupied until AD 80.[4] It was a rectangular structure much larger than the current site, and formed part of the southern Roman border in Wales during the conquest of the Silures.[5] When the border advanced, defences became less important and the fort was replaced with a sequence of two, much smaller, fortifications on the north side of the current site.[6]

A fourth fort was built in the middle of the 3rd century in order to combat the pirate threat along the coast, and forms the basis of the Roman remains seen on the castle site.[7] The fort was almost square in design, approximately 635 feet (194 m) by 603 feet (184 m) large, constructed from limestone brought by sea from Penarth.[8] The fort's irregular shape was determined by the River Taff that flowed along the west side of the walls.[9] The sea would have come much closer to the site than is the case in the 21st century, and the fort would have directly overlooked the harbour.[8] This Roman fort was probably occupied at least until the end of the 4th century, but it is unclear when it was finally abandoned.[10] There is no evidence for the re-occupation of the site until the 11th century.[10]

11th century

Plan of the castle in the 21st century; A - North Gate; B - motte and shell keep; C - outer bailey; D - main lodgings; E - inner bailey; F - the Clock Tower; G - the Black Tower; H - South Gate and barbican tower

The Normans began to make incursions into South Wales from the late 1060s onwards, pushing westwards from their bases in recently occupied England.[11] Their advance was marked by the construction of castles, frequently on old Roman sites, and the creation of regional lordships.[12] The reuse of Roman sites produced considerable savings in the manpower required to construct large earth fortifications.[13]

Cardiff Castle was built during this period. There are two possible dates for the construction: William the Conqueror may have built a castle at Cardiff as early as 1081 on his return from his pilgrimage to St Davids.[14] Alternatively, the first Norman fortification may have been constructed around 1091 by Robert Fitzhamon, the lord of Gloucester.[15] Fitzhamon invaded the region in 1090, and used the castle as a base for the occupation of the rest of southern Glamorgan over the next few years.[16] The site was close to the sea and could be easily supplied by ship, was well protected by the Rivers Taff and Rhymney and also controlled the old Roman road running along the coast.[17]

Cardiff Castle was a motte-and-bailey design. The old Roman walls had collapsed and the Normans used their remains as the basis for the outer castle perimeter, digging a defensive trench and throwing up a 27-foot (8.2 m) high bank of earth over the Roman fortifications.[18] The Normans further divided the castle with an internal wall to form an inner and an outer bailey. In the north-west corner of the castle a wooden keep was constructed on top of a 40-foot (12 m) tall earth motte, surrounded by a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide moat.[19] The motte was the largest built in Wales.[20] The overall area of the castle was around 8.25 acres (3.34 ha); the inner bailey was around 2 acres (0.81 ha) in area.[21] Mills were essential to local communities during this period, and the castle mill was located outside the west side of the castle, fed by the River Taff; under local feudal law, the residents of Cardiff were required to use this mill to grind their own grain.[22]

The conquered lands in Glamorgan were given out in packages called knights' fees, and many of these knights held their lands on condition that they provided forces to protect Cardiff Castle.[23] Under this approach, called a castle-guard system, some knights were required to maintain buildings called "houses" within the castle itself, in the outer bailey.[24] Anglo-Saxon peasants settled the region around Cardiff, bringing with them English customs, although Welsh lords continued to rule the more remote districts almost independently until the 14th century.[25] Cardiff Castle was a Marcher Lord territory, enjoying special privileges and independence from the English Crown. The medieval town of Cardiff spread out from the south side of the castle.[26]

12th–14th centuries

Part of the reconstructed Roman wall (l), the foundations of the internal bailey wall, and the reconstructed Roman north gatehouse (r)

FitzHamon was fatally injured at the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106 and died shortly afterwards.[27] Henry I then gave the castle in 1122 to Robert of Gloucester, the king's illegitimate son and the husband of FitzHamon's daughter, Mabe.[28] After the failed attempt of Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror's eldest son, to take England from Henry I, Robert of Normandy was imprisoned in the castle until his death in 1134.[29] Robert held the castle during the troubled years of the Anarchy in England and Wales, and passed it on to his son, William Fitz Robert.[30] Around the middle of the century, possibly under Robert of Gloucester, a 77-foot (23 m) wide, 30-foot (9 m) high shell keep was constructed on top of the motte, along with a stone wall around the south and west sides of the inner bailey.[31] The polygonal shell keep has architectural links to a similar design at Arundel Castle.[32] The building work was probably undertaken in response to the threat posed following the Welsh uprising of 1136.[20]

Tensions with the Welsh continued, and in 1158 Ifor Bach raided the castle and took William hostage for a period.[30] A further attack followed in 1183.[30] By 1184 town walls had been built around Cardiff, and the West Gate to the town was constructed in the gap between the castle and the river.[33] William died in 1183, leaving three daughters. One of these, Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, was declared the sole heir to the estate by Henry II. This was contrary to legal custom in England, and was done in order that Henry could then marry her to his youngest son Prince John and thus provide him with extensive lands.[34] John later divorced Isabel, but he retained control of the castle until she married Geoffrey de Mandeville in 1214.[35]

Upon Isabel's death in 1217 the castle passed through her sister to Gilbert de Clare, becoming part of the Honour of Clare, a major grouping of estates and fortifications in medieval England.[36] The castle formed the centre of the family's power in South Wales, although the de Clares typically preferred to reside in their castles at Clare and Tonbridge.[37] Gilbert's son, Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester, carried out building work at the castle in the late 13th century, constructing the Black Tower that forms part of the southern gateway seen today.[38] On the ground floor the tower contained the Stavell Oged and Stavell Wenn chambers, with three rooms constructed above them.[38] Richard was also probably responsible for rebuilding the northern and eastern walls of the inner bailey in stone.[39] The inner bailey was reached through a gatehouse on the eastern side, protected by two circular towers and later called the Exchequer Gate.[40] The defensive work may have been prompted by the threat posed by the hostile Welsh leader Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales.[41]

Richard's grandson, Gilbert de Clare, the last male de Clare, died at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and the castle was given to Hugh Despenser the Younger, the controversial favourite of Edward II.[30] Poor harvests and harsh governance by the Despenser family encouraged a Welsh rebellion under Llywelyn Bren in 1316; this was crushed and Llywelyn was hanged, drawn and quartered in Cardiff Castle in 1318 on Hugh's orders.[42] The execution attracted much criticism from across both the English and Welsh communities, and in 1321 Hugh arrested Sir William Fleminge as a scapegoat for the incident, first detaining him in the Black Tower and then executing him in the castle grounds.[43] Conflict between the Despensers and the other Marcher Lords broke out soon after, leading to the castle being sacked in 1321 during the Despenser War.[30] The Despensers recovered the castle and retained it for the rest of the century, despite the execution of Hugh Despenser for treason in 1326.[44] Under a 1340 charter granted by the Despensers, the castle's constable was made the de facto mayor of Cardiff, controlling the local courts.[45]

15th–16th centuries

By the 15th century, the Despensers were increasingly using Caerphilly Castle as their main residence in the region rather than Cardiff.[46] Thomas le Despenser was executed in 1400 on charges of conspiring against Henry IV.[47] In 1401 rebellion broke out in North Wales under the leadership of Owain Glyndŵr, quickly spreading across the rest of the country. In 1404 Cardiff and the castle were taken by the rebels, causing considerable damage to the Black Tower and the southern gatehouse in the process.[48] On Thomas's death the castle passed first to his young son, Richard, and on his death in 1414, through his daughter Isabel to the Beauchamp family.[47] Isabel first married Richard de Beauchamp, the Earl of Worcester and then, on his death, to his cousin Richard de Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick, in 1423.[47]

Richard did not acquire Caerphilly Castle as part of the marriage settlement, so he set about redeveloping Cardiff instead.[49] He built a new tower alongside the Black Tower in 1430, restoring the gateway, and extended the motte defences.[50] He also constructed a substantial new domestic range in the south-west of the site between 1425 and 1439, with a central octagonal tower 75-foot (23 m) high, sporting defensive machicolations, and featuring four smaller polygonal turrets facing the inner bailey.[51] The range was built of Lias ashlar stone with limestone used for some of the details, set upon the spur bases characteristic of South Wales and incorporated parts of the older 4th and 13th century walls.[52] The buildings were influenced by similar work in the previous century at Windsor Castle and would in turn shape renovations at Newport and Nottingham Castles; the octagonal tower has architectural links to Guy's Tower, built at around the same time in Warwick Castle.[53] A flower garden was built to the south of the range, with private access to Richard's chambers.[54] Richard also rebuilt the town's wider defences, including a new stone bridge over the River Taff guarded by the West Gate, finishing the work by 1451.[55]

Cardiff Castle remained in the hands of Richard's son, Henry and Henry's daughter, Anne until 1449.[47] When Anne died, it passed by marriage to Richard Neville, who held it until his death in 1471 during the period of civil strife known as the Wars of the Roses.[47] As the conflict progressed and political fortunes rose and fell, the castle passed from George, the Duke of Clarence, to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to Jasper Tudor, the Duke of Bedford, back to Richard Neville's wife Anne, back to Jasper and finally to Prince Henry, the future Henry VIII.[56] The ascension of the Tudor dynasty to the English throne at the end of the wars heralded a change in the way Wales was administered. The Tudors were Welsh in origin, and their rule eased hostilities between the Welsh and English. As a result, defensive castles became less important.[57] In 1495 Henry VII formally revoked the Marcher territory status of Cardiff Castle and the surrounding territories, bringing them under normal English law as the County of Glamorgan.[58]

The Crown leased the castle to Charles Somerset in 1513; Charles used it while he was living in Cardiff.[59] In 1550 William Herbert, later the Earl of Pembroke, then bought Cardiff Castle and the surrounding estates from Edward VI.[60] The outer bailey contained a range of buildings at this time, and extensive building work was carried out during the century.[61] The Shire Hall had been built in the outer bailey, forming part of a walled complex of buildings that included the lodgings for the traditional twelve holders of castle-guard lands.[62] The outer bailey also included orchards, gardens and a chapel.[63] The castle continued to be used to detain criminals during the 16th century, with the Black Tower being used as a prison to hold them; the heretic Thomas Capper was burnt at the castle on the orders of Henry VIII.[64] The visiting antiquarian John Leland described the keep as "a great thing and strong, but now in some ruine", but the Black Tower was considered to be in good repair.[65] In the inner bailey, the Herberts built an Elizabethan extension to the north end of the main range, with large windows looking onto a new northern garden; the southern garden was replaced by a kitchen garden.[66]

17th–18th centuries

In 1610 the cartographer John Speed produced a map of the castle, and noted that it was "large and in good repair."[67] In 1642, however, civil war broke out between the rival Royalist supporters of King Charles I and Parliament. Cardiff Castle was then owned by Philip Herbert, a moderate Parliamentarian, and the castle was initially held by a pro-Royalist garrison. It was taken by Parliamentary forces in the early period of the war, according to popular tradition by a sneak attack using a secret passageway.[68] The Royalist commander William Seymour, the Marquess of Hertford, then attacked the castle in turn, taking it in a surprise assault. Parliamentary forces and local troops then immediately besieged the castle, retaking it after five hours of fighting and reinstalling a garrison.[69] In early 1645 Mr Carne, the High Sheriff, rebelled against Parliament, taking Cardiff town but initially failing to seize the castle.[69] The King sent forces from Oxford, under the command of Sir Charles Kemys, to reinforce Carne but Parliament despatched a naval squadron to provide support to their forces from the sea.[69] A small battle ensued before the castle was taken by the Royalists.[70]

With the Royalist military position across the country worsening, King Charles himself came to Cardiff Castle that July to meet with local Welsh leaders.[71] Relations between his commander in the region, Sir Charles Gerard, and the people of Glamorgan had deteriorated badly and when Charles left the castle, he was confronted by a small army of angry locals, demanding to be given control of the castle.[71] These clubmen then declared themselves the "Peaceable Army" and increased their demands to include near independence for the region.[72] After negotiations, a compromise was found in which the royal garrison would quit the castle, to be replaced by a local Glamorgan force, commanded by Sir Richard Beaupré; in return, £800 and a force of a thousand men were promised to Charles.[71] In September, Charles returned to South Wales and reneged on the agreement, disbanding the Peaceable Army, but his military position in the region was collapsing.[73] The Peaceable Army's leaders switched sides and forced the surrender of Cardiff and the castle to Parliament in mid-September.[73]

With the outbreak of fresh fighting in 1648, a Royalist army of 8,000 fresh recruits was mustered under the command of General Rowland Laugharne and Sir Edward Stradling, with the intent of retaking Cardiff.[74] Parliamentary forces in Brecon under the command of Colonel Thomas Horton moved quickly to reinforce the castle, although with only 3,000 men they were content to wait until a larger army under Oliver Cromwell could arrive from Gloucester.[74] With time against them, the Royalist army attacked, leading to the battle of St Fagans just to the west of Cardiff, and a heavy Royalist defeat.[75]

After the war, Cardiff Castle escaped the slighting, or deliberate damage and destruction, that affected many other castles.[76] Probably because of the threat of a pro-Royalist invasion by the Presbyterian Scots, a Parliamentary garrison was installed instead and the castle remained intact.[76] The Herberts continued to own the castle as the Earls of Pembroke, both during the interregnum and after the restoration of Charles II.[77] The castle's constable continued to act as mayor of the town of Cardiff, controlling the meetings of the town's burgesses, bailffs and aldermen; the Herberts usually appointed members of the more important local gentry to this position during the period.[78]

Lady Charlotte Herbert was the last of the family to control Cardiff Castle.[77] She married twice, latterly to Thomas, Viscount Windsor and on her death in 1733 the castle passed to their son, Herbert.[77] Herbert's daughter, Charlotte Jane Windsor, married John Stuart, who rose to become the Marquess of Bute, beginning a family line that would control the castle for the next century.[77]

In 1776 the Marquess began to renovate the property with the intention of turning it into a residence for his son, John.[79] The grounds were radically altered under a programme of work that involved Capability Brown and his son-in-law, Henry Holland.[80] The stone wall that separated the inner and outer baileys was destroyed using gunpowder, the Shire Hall and the knights' houses in the outer bailey were destroyed and the remaining ground partially flattened; the whole of the area was laid with turf.[81] Considerable work was carried out on the main lodgings, demolishing the Herbert additions, building two new wings and removing many of the older features to produce a more contemporary, 18th century appearance.[82] The keep and motte was stripped of the ivy and trees that had grown up them, and a spiral path was laid down around the motte.[83] The motte's moat was filled in as part of the landscaping.[84] A summer house was built in the south-east corner of the castle.[83] Further work was planned on the property, including a reported proposal to roof the keep in copper, insert new windows and turn it into an assembly room for dances, but these projects were cut short by the Marquess's son's death in 1794.[82]

19th century

In 1814 Lord Bute's grandson, John, inherited his title and the castle. In 1825 the new Marquess began a sequence of investments in the Cardiff Docks, an expensive programme of work that would enable Cardiff to become a major coal exporting port.[85] Although the Docks were not particularly profitable, they transformed the value of the Butes' mining and land interests, making the family immensely wealthy.[86] By 1900, the family estate owned 22,000 acres (8,900 ha) of land in Glamorgan.[87]

The second Marquess preferred to live on the Isle of Bute in Scotland and only used Cardiff Castle occasionally.[88] The castle saw little investment and only four full-time servants were maintained on the premises, meaning that cooked food had to be brought across from the kitchens at a nearby hotel.[89] The castle remained at the centre of the Butes' political power base in Cardiff, however, with their faction sometimes termed as "the Castle party".[90] During the violent protests of the Merthyr Rising of 1831, the Marquess-based himself at Cardiff Castle, from where he directed operations and kept Whitehall informed of the unfolding events.[91] The governance of the city of Cardiff was finally reformed by an act of Parliament in the 1835, introducing a town council and a mayor, severing the link with the castle constable.[92]

The Clock Tower

The third Marquess of Bute, again called John, inherited the title and castle in 1848.[93] He was then less than a year old, and as he grew up he came to despise the existing castle, believing that it represented a mediocre, half-hearted example of the Gothic style.[94] Bute engaged the architect William Burges, to undertake the remodelling of the castle. The two shared a passion in medieval Gothic Revivalism and this, combined with Bute's huge financial resources, enabled Burges to rebuild the property on a grand scale. Burges brought with him almost of all of the team that had supported him on earlier projects, including John Starling Chapple, William Frame and Horatio Lonsdale.[95] Burges's contribution, in particular his research into the history of the castle and his architectural imagination, was critical to the transformation.[96]

Work began on Bute's coming of age in 1868 with the construction of the 150-foot (46 m) high Clock Tower.[97] The tower, built in Burges's signature Forest of Dean ashlar stone, formed a suite of bachelor's rooms, comprising a bedroom, a servant's room and the Summer and Winter smoking rooms.[97] Externally, the tower was a re-working of a design Burges had previously used in an unsuccessful competition entry for the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Internally, the rooms were sumptuously decorated with gildings, carvings and cartoons, many allegorical in style, depicting the seasons, myths and fables.[98] In his A History Of The Gothic Revival, written as the tower was being built, Charles Locke Eastlake wrote of Burges's "peculiar talents (and) luxuriant fancy."[99] The Summer Smoking Room rested at the top of the structure and was two storeys high with an internal balcony that, through an unbroken band of windows, gave views of the Cardiff Docks, the Bristol Channel, and the Glamorgan countryside. The floor had a map of the world in mosaic. The sculpture was created by Thomas Nicholls.[100]

As the rest of the castle was developed, work progressed along the rest of the 18th century range including the construction of the Guest Tower, the Arab Room, the Chaucer Room, the Nursery, the Library, the Banqueting Hall and bedrooms for both Lord and Lady Bute.[95] In plan, the new castle followed the arrangement of a standard Victorian country house quite closely. The Bute Tower included Lord Bute's bedroom and ended in another highlight, the Roof Garden, featuring a sculpture of the Madonna and child by Ceccardo Fucigna. Bute's bedroom contained extensive religious iconography and an en-suite bathroom. The Octagon Tower followed, including an oratory, built on the spot where Bute's father died, and the Chaucer Room, the roof of which is considered by historian Mark Girouard to be a "superb example of Burges's genius".[101]

The central part of the castle comprised a two-storey banqueting hall, with the library below. Both are enormous, the latter to hold part of the bibliophile Marquess's vast library. Both included elaborate carvings and fireplaces, those in the banqueting hall depicting the castle itself in the time of Robert, Duke of Normandy.[102] The decoration here is less impressive than elsewhere in the castle, as much of it was completed after Burges's death by Lonsdale, a less talented painter.[101] The Arab Room in the Herbert Tower remains however one of Burges's masterpieces. Its jelly mould ceiling in a Moorish style is particularly notable. It was this room on which Burges was working when he died and Bute placed Burges's initials, and his own, and the date 1881 in the fireplace as a memorial.[103] The central portion of the castle also included the Grand Staircase, recorded in a watercolour perspective prepared by Axel Haig.[104]

Burges's interiors at Cardiff Castle have been widely praised. The historian Megan Aldrich considers them amongst "the most magnificent that the gothic revival ever achieved", J. Mordaunt Crook has described them as "three dimensional passports to fairy kingdoms and realms of gold", and John Newman praises them as "most successful of all the fantasy castles of the nineteenth century."[105] The exterior of the castle, however, has received a more mixed reception from critics. Crook admires the variegated and romantic silhouette of the building, but architect John Grant considered them to present a "picturesque if not happy combination" of varying historical styles, and Adrian Pettifer criticises them as "incongruous" and excessively Gothic in style.[106]

Work was also carried out on the castle grounds, the interior being flattened further, destroying much of the medieval and Roman archaeological remains.[107] In 1889, Lord Bute's building works uncovered the remains of the old Roman fort for the first time since the 11th century, leading to archaeological investigations being carried out in 1890.[9] New walls in a Roman style were built by William Frame on the foundations of the originals, complete with a reconstructed Roman North Gate, and the outer medieval bank was stripped away around the new walls.[108]

The grounds were extensively planted with trees and shrubs, including over the motte.[83] From the late 18th century until the 1850s the castle grounds were completely open to the public, but restrictions were imposed in 1858 and as a replacement the 434 acres of land to the west and north of the castle was turned into Bute Park.[109] From 1868, the castle grounds were closed to the public altogether.[108] Stables were built just to the north of the castle, but only half were completed during the 19th century.[110] The Animal Wall was built along the south side of the castle, decorated with statues of animals, and the Swiss Bridge – a combination of summerhouse and river-crossing – was erected over the river by the West Gate.[111] Cathays Park was built on the east side of the castle, but was sold to the city of Cardiff in 1898.[112]

20th and 21st centuries

John, the fourth Marquess, acquired the castle in 1900 on the death of his father, and the family estates and investments around the castle began to rapidly reduce in size.[113] Cardiff had grown hugely in the previous century, its population increasing from 1,870 in 1800 to around 250,000 in 1900, but the coal trade began to diminish after 1918 and industry suffered during the depression of the 1920s.[114] John only inherited a part of the Butes' Glamorgan estates, and in the first decades of the 20th century he sold off much of the remaining assets around Cardiff, including the coal mines, docks and railway companies, with the bulk of the land interests being finally sold off or nationalised in 1938.[113]

Development work on the castle continued. There was extensive restoration of the medieval masonry in 1921, with architect John Grant rebuilding the South Gate and the barbican tower, and reconstructing the medieval West Gate and town wall alongside the castle, with the Swiss Bridge being moved in 1927 to make room for the new West Gate development.[115] Further archaeological investigations were carried out into the Roman walls in 1922 and 1923, leading to Grant redesigning the northern Roman gatehouse.[116] The second half of the castle stables were finally completed.[83] The Animal Wall was moved in the 1920s to the west side of the castle to enclose a pre-Raphaelite themed garden.[112] The grand staircase in the main range was torn out in the 1930s.[117] During World War II, extensive air-raid shelters were tunnelled out within the medieval walls, with eight different sections, able to hold up to 1,800 people in total, and the castle was also used to tether barrage balloons above the city.[118]

In 1947, the John, the fifth Marquess, inherited the castle on the death of his father and faced considerable death duties.[119] He sold the very last of the Bute lands in Cardiff and gave the castle and the surrounding park to the city on behalf of the people of Cardiff; the family flag was taken down from the castle as part of the official hand-over ceremony.[120] The castle was protected as a grade I listed building and as a scheduled monument.[121]

Cardiff Castle is now run as a tourist attraction, and is one of the most popular sites in the city.[122] The castle is not fully furnished, as the furniture and fittings in the castle were removed by the Marquess in 1947 and subsequently disposed of; an extensive restoration has been carried out, however, of the fittings originally designed for the Clock Tower by Burges.[123] The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, founded in 1949, was housed in the castle's main range for many years, but moved into the castle's former stables north of the castle in 1998.[124] A new interpretation centre, which opened in 2008, was built alongside the South Gate at a cost of £6.5 million, and the castle also contains "Firing Line", the joint regimental museum of the 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards and the Royal Welsh.[125]

The castle has been used for a range of cultural and social events. The castle has seen various musical performances, including by Tom Jones, Green Day and the Stereophonics, with a capacity to accommodate over 10,000 people. During the 1960s and 1970s the castle was the setting for a sequence of military tattoos.

SANTA RITA, Guam (Jan. 16, 2020) Construction Mechanic 2nd Class Gregory Lewis, assigned to Underwater Construction Team (UCT) 2, Construction Dive Detachment Charlie (CDD/C), gives the okay sign to his team on the dive support boat prior to commencing a dive. The Seabee divers of CDD/C are performing maintenance on navigational buoys in the harbor at Naval Base Guam. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Omar-Kareem L. Powell / Released)

The architect of the Jugen building is my long-deceased great-grandfather. Built around 1900.

With the development of hydropower in southern Norway, the city gradually developed an industrial base, particularly with the establishment in 1910 of the nickel refinery Kristiansands Nikkelraffineringsverk AS (later Falconbridge Nikkelverk, now Glencore Nikkelverk). From an economic perspective, the First World War was a good time for Kristiansand, as a neutral shipping city. The crises that followed with the gold standard politics of the 1920s and the world economic crisis of the 1930s were also deeply felt in a trading city like Kristiansand.

The labour movement had important pioneers in the city, and Leon Trotsky spent about a year of his exile in the archipelago offshore from Kristiansand. Arnulf Øverland took him from Randesund to Ny-Hellesund in Søgne in 1936.[10] In the interwar period Kristiansand was a centre for intellectuals, especially after the architect Thilo Schoder settled there in 1932.

Kristiansand was attacked by German naval forces and the Luftwaffe during the Operation Weserübung on 9 April 1940. The naval forces met fierce resistance from Norwegian coastal artillery at Odderøya. Bombs and grenades also hit the downtown and the 70 meter high church tower of the Kristiansand Cathedral was hit by accident. The third attack attempt on the city succeeded because a signal flag was confused with a French national flag and the misunderstanding was not discovered until it was too late. The city was occupied by a force of 800 men.

Post-war construction included further development of the Lund section, and in the 1960s and 1970s Vågsbygd to the west was developed into a section with 20,000 inhabitants. In the 1980s, industry and business in the city declined, in part because of the 1986 fire at the Hotel Caledonien. But beginning in the second half of the 1990s, business increased in momentum with the development of enterprises for marine and offshore equipment, security technology and drilling. wikipedia

Description: Group photograph of ACB-1 after the invasion at Inchon, Korea, September 1950.

On 15 September 1950 U.S. troops landed at Inchon in what has come to be known as one of the most brilliant amphibious assaults in history. Seabees achieved renown as the men who made it possible. Battling enormous thirty-foot tides and a swift current while under continuous enemy fire, they positioned pontoon causeways within hours of the first beach assault. Following the landing, the incident known as the "Great Seabee Train Robbery" took place. The need to break the equipment bottleneck at the harbor inspired a group of Seabees to steal behind enemy lines and capture some abandoned locomotives. Despite enemy mortar fire, they brought the engines back intact and turned them over to the Army Transportation Corps.

Date: Sep 1950

Creator/Photographer: ACB-1

Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication.

Repository: U.S. Navy Seabee Museum, Collections Department, Port Hueneme, CA 93043, www.history.navy.mil/museums/seabee_museum.htm

Spanish shipbuilder Navantia signed in 2018, a joint-venture agreement with state-owned Saudia Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) to build for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces five corvettes capable of performing ASW AND ASuW0 and AAW based on Navantia's Avante 2000 between 2018 and 2024 at Navantia's shipbuilding yard located at San Fernando (Cadiz) Spain. The agreement includes construction as well as Life Cycle Support for five years, with an option for another five years. The RSNF variant is called the Avante 2200.

Known as the Al Jubail-class they are to be fitted with Leonardo SUPER RAPID 76mm main gun, Rheinmetall Air Defence MILLENNIUM 35mm close-in weapon system, four 12.7mm machine guns, 2x3 torpedo tubes, 2x4 anti-ship missiles and 32 ESSM surface-to-air missiles (8-cell Mk 41).

The Jupiter Inlet Light is located in Jupiter, Florida, on the north side of the Jupiter Inlet. The site for the lighthouse was chosen in 1853. It is located between Cape Canaveral Light and Hillsboro Inlet Light. The lighthouse was designed by then Lieutenant George G. Meade of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers. Meade's design was subsequently modified by Lieutenant William Raynolds. The Jupiter Inlet silted shut in 1854, forcing all building supplies to be shipped in light boats down the Indian River. Work was interrupted from 1856 to 1858 by the Third Seminole War. The lighthouse was completed under the supervision of Captain Edward A. Yorke in 1860 at a cost of more than $60,000.

The lighthouse was built on a hill once thought to be an Indian shell mound or midden (and sometimes falsely rumored to be a burial mound), but which is now determined to be a natural parabolic sand dune.[4] The top of the 105-foot (32 m) tower is 153 feet (47 m) above sea level. The light can be seen 24 nautical miles (44 km; 28 mi) at sea. The lighthouse structure is brick with double masonry walls. The outer wall is conical, tapering from 31.5 inches (800 mm) (eight bricks thick) at ground level to 18 inches (460 mm) (three bricks thick) at base of lantern. The inner wall is cylindrical and two bricks thick throughout. Circumference at base is about 65 feet (20 m) and at the top about 43 feet (13 m). The lighthouse was painted red in 1910 to cover discoloration caused by humidity. Hurricane Jeanne in 2004 sandblasted the paint from the upper portion of the tower, and the tower was repainted using a potassium silicate mineral coating.

The point of land which sits at the junction of the Indian River and Jupiter Inlet for thousands of years had been a meeting place for ancient Indian tribes. This strategic site did not go unnoticed by US Army surveyors who in 1849 recommended the Jupiter Inlet area as a suitable place for military defenses. President Franklin Pierce signed the order to set aside a 61½-acre site on the Fort Jupiter Reservation for a lighthouse in 1854.

The lighthouse was initially designed by Lieutenant George Gordon Meade. Later, Lt. William Raynolds, who succeeded Meade as head of the 4th and 7th Lighthouse Districts, improved the strength of the lighthouse with a double wall design. The lighthouse and oil house construction was accomplished by Captain Edward Yorke, who arrived December 31, 1859 and completed the tower in May 1860. It was lit July 10, 1860.

A Weather Bureau station and signal station were established on the lighthouse grounds in 1889. Passing ships were signaled during the day by semaphore (flags) and at night by flares. In 1890 the Naval wireless telegraph station was established on the Reservation. It was not until 1925 that it was discovered that a mistake had been made on the original survey; the Lighthouse Reservation actually covered 113.22 acres. In 1930 the acreage was increased to 121.95 and held the tower, a keeper's house, a radio beacon, power house and several outbuildings.

The US Navy acquired 8.4 acres of the Reservation from the US Government and by 1936 the Navy was operating a Radio Compass Station at Jupiter as an aid to navigation. The station broadcast weather information and monitored distress signals as well as naval ship-to-shore and aircraft frequencies. On July 1, 1939 all US lighthouses became the responsibility of the US Coast Guard. In the same year, the US Navy established an Intelligence Listening Post at the Naval Radio Station and constructed the barracks building for naval personnel and their families.

By July 1940, the Navy's Radio Detection Finding Station, known as "Station J", came online. This secret installation was designed to intercept German U-boat radio messages and warn Allied ships and help US forces attack enemy vessels. Station J was able to pinpoint the names and locations of the submarines. In May 1943, 30 German submarines were destroyed, and in June another 37. Most had been located by the men of Station J

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Inlet_Light

An open day at Fort Luton earlier today

fortluton.co.uk/about-fort-luton.html

SAN CLEMENTE ISLAND, Calif. (July 28, 2021) Seabees assigned to U.S. Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3 erect a Naval Enterprise Tactical Command Control tent configuration to begin construction and support of Expeditionary Advanced Base and Advanced Naval Base Operations as part of Exercise TURNING POINT. TURNING POINT is a major combat operations readiness generation exercise for the Pacific Naval Construction Force designed to support and enable fleet maneuver and logistics. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Michael Lopez)

The Jupiter Inlet Light is located in Jupiter, Florida, on the north side of the Jupiter Inlet. The site for the lighthouse was chosen in 1853. It is located between Cape Canaveral Light and Hillsboro Inlet Light. The lighthouse was designed by then Lieutenant George G. Meade of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers. Meade's design was subsequently modified by Lieutenant William Raynolds. The Jupiter Inlet silted shut in 1854, forcing all building supplies to be shipped in light boats down the Indian River. Work was interrupted from 1856 to 1858 by the Third Seminole War. The lighthouse was completed under the supervision of Captain Edward A. Yorke in 1860 at a cost of more than $60,000.

The lighthouse was built on a hill once thought to be an Indian shell mound or midden (and sometimes falsely rumored to be a burial mound), but which is now determined to be a natural parabolic sand dune.[4] The top of the 105-foot (32 m) tower is 153 feet (47 m) above sea level. The light can be seen 24 nautical miles (44 km; 28 mi) at sea. The lighthouse structure is brick with double masonry walls. The outer wall is conical, tapering from 31.5 inches (800 mm) (eight bricks thick) at ground level to 18 inches (460 mm) (three bricks thick) at base of lantern. The inner wall is cylindrical and two bricks thick throughout. Circumference at base is about 65 feet (20 m) and at the top about 43 feet (13 m). The lighthouse was painted red in 1910 to cover discoloration caused by humidity. Hurricane Jeanne in 2004 sandblasted the paint from the upper portion of the tower, and the tower was repainted using a potassium silicate mineral coating.

The point of land which sits at the junction of the Indian River and Jupiter Inlet for thousands of years had been a meeting place for ancient Indian tribes. This strategic site did not go unnoticed by US Army surveyors who in 1849 recommended the Jupiter Inlet area as a suitable place for military defenses. President Franklin Pierce signed the order to set aside a 61½-acre site on the Fort Jupiter Reservation for a lighthouse in 1854.

The lighthouse was initially designed by Lieutenant George Gordon Meade. Later, Lt. William Raynolds, who succeeded Meade as head of the 4th and 7th Lighthouse Districts, improved the strength of the lighthouse with a double wall design. The lighthouse and oil house construction was accomplished by Captain Edward Yorke, who arrived December 31, 1859 and completed the tower in May 1860. It was lit July 10, 1860.

A Weather Bureau station and signal station were established on the lighthouse grounds in 1889. Passing ships were signaled during the day by semaphore (flags) and at night by flares. In 1890 the Naval wireless telegraph station was established on the Reservation. It was not until 1925 that it was discovered that a mistake had been made on the original survey; the Lighthouse Reservation actually covered 113.22 acres. In 1930 the acreage was increased to 121.95 and held the tower, a keeper's house, a radio beacon, power house and several outbuildings.

The US Navy acquired 8.4 acres of the Reservation from the US Government and by 1936 the Navy was operating a Radio Compass Station at Jupiter as an aid to navigation. The station broadcast weather information and monitored distress signals as well as naval ship-to-shore and aircraft frequencies. On July 1, 1939 all US lighthouses became the responsibility of the US Coast Guard. In the same year, the US Navy established an Intelligence Listening Post at the Naval Radio Station and constructed the barracks building for naval personnel and their families.

By July 1940, the Navy's Radio Detection Finding Station, known as "Station J", came online. This secret installation was designed to intercept German U-boat radio messages and warn Allied ships and help US forces attack enemy vessels. Station J was able to pinpoint the names and locations of the submarines. In May 1943, 30 German submarines were destroyed, and in June another 37. Most had been located by the men of Station J

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Inlet_Light

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The de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide was a 1930s British short-haul biplane airliner for 6–8 passengers. It proved an economical and durable craft, despite its relatively primitive plywood construction. In late 1933, the Dragon Rapide was designed at the de Havilland company as a faster and more comfortable successor to the DH.84 Dragon. It was in effect a twin-engined, scaled-down version of the four-engined DH.86 Express. It shared many common features with the DH.86 Express, including its tapered wings, streamlined fairings and Gipsy Six engines but it demonstrated none of the operational vices of the Express and went on to become perhaps the most successful British-built short-haul commercial passenger aircraft of the 1930s. On 17 April 1934, the prototype aircraft first flew at Hatfield and 205 aircraft were built for airlines and other owners all around the world, before the outbreak of World War II. Originally called the "Dragon Six" it was first marketed as "Dragon Rapide", although later it was popularly referred to as the "Rapide". From 1936, with the fitting of improved trailing edge flaps, they were redesignated DH.89As. In the summer of 1934, the type entered service with UK-based airlines, with Hillman Airways Ltd being first to take delivery in July. From August 1934, Railway Air Services (RAS) operated a fleet of Dragon Rapides on routes linking London, the north of England and on to Northern Ireland and Scotland. The RAS DH.89s were named after places on the network, for example "Star of Lancashire". Isle of Man Air Services operated a fleet of Rapides on scheduled services from Ronaldsway Airport near Castletown to airports in north-west England including Blackpool, Liverpool and Manchester. Some of its aircraft had been transferred to it after operation by Railway Air Services. Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) owned a Dragon Rapide (G-ADDD) which he used for royal duties. He flew this aircraft to London on his accession to king in 1936, being the first British monarch to fly. One famous incident was in July 1936 when two British SIS agents, Cecil Bebb and Major Hugh Pollard, flew Francisco Franco in Dragon Rapide G-ACYR from the Canary Islands to Spanish Morocco, at the start of the military rebellion which began the Spanish Civil War. It is on display in the Museo del Aire, Madrid. At the start of World War II, many (Dragon) Rapides were impressed by the British armed forces and served under the name de Havilland Dominie, for passenger and communications duties. Over 500 more were built for military use, powered by improved Gipsy Queen engines, to bring total production to 731. The Dominies were mainly used by the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy for radio and navigation training. Postwar they were used as communications aircraft by Royal Naval air station flights. DH.89B Dominie Mark II in Royal Netherlands Air Force livery, Militaire Luchtvaart Museum, the Netherlands (2009) Other civilian Dragon Rapides continued to fly for UK airlines as part of the Associated Airways Joint Committee (AAJC). The AAJC co-ordinated the UKs wartime scheduled services which were entirely operated on over-water routes. After the war, many ex-RAF survivors entered commercial service; in 1958, 81 examples were still flying on the British register. Dominie production was by de Havilland and Brush Coachworks Ltd, the latter making the greater proportion. The DH.89 proved an economical and durable aircraft, despite its relatively primitive plywood construction and many were still flying in the early 2000s. Several Dragon Rapides are operational in the UK and several operators including Classic Wings and Plane Heritage offer pleasure flights in them. After the Second World War de Havilland introduced a Dragon Rapide replacement, the de Havilland Dove.

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