November 20, 2014
The Royal Navy was back in port, for an overnight visit. The HMS Argyll, a Type 23 frigate, was docked at Pier 1. The Argyll is a Duke Class frigate, with all 13 of the ships in the class named after Dukedoms. Three Type 23s have been sold to Chile so it is possible I’ll see a Chilean version at some point.
The HMS Argyll docked at Pier 1, San Juan, November 2014
The Type 23s were under design as the Falklands War occurred, and the original designs were modified based on lessons learned from that conflict. They were originally envisioned as anti-submarine ships, with towed sonars to locate the subs, and helicopters to destroy them. As originally designed, the frigates had no on-board air defense missiles – anti-air support was to have been supplied by fleet oilers accompanying the frigates while at sea. The frigates were redesigned to carry Viper missiles to protect against low-flying aircraft (i.e., Argentine Skyhawks) and anti-ship missiles like the Exocet.
This seems a good idea to me. If I were at sea, in a frigate, hunting submarines, I would not want some pukes on an oiler trying to protect me from Exocets. Way too much room for error. To illustrate the point: In March of this year, the Argyll accidentally launched a torpedo. Fortunately, it was unarmed and the incident caused more embarrassment than damage.
You would think firing torpedoes by accident is a rare occurrence, and it probably is. I know of one other instance. The Fletcher class destroyer, USS William D Porter fired a live torpedo at the new battleship, USS Iowa, in November 1943, during a live fire exercise. The Porter was escorting the Iowa to North Africa, and the battleship was carrying President Franklin D Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, the Chiefs of Staff and other dignitaries off to meet with Churchill and Stalin in Cairo and Teheran. Roosevelt, long an admirer of all things naval, asked to have his wheelchair pushed to the port side so he could observe the torpedo. His Secret Service agent, ever alert, pulled his pistol as a means to protect him, proving that agency’s troubles may not be as recent as we have been led to believe. The Iowa was able to increase speed; the torpedo passed astern and exploded harmlessly in her turbulent wake.
The Porter was ordered to Bermuda and the whole ships company arrested, thinking the torpedo may have been an assassination attempt. The investigation showed the firing was an accident, and the Porter was ordered to the Aleutians. While there, she managed to fire a live 5 inch shell, by accident of course, towards the base commander’s official residence. Whenever she entered port, other Navy ships would signal her: “Don’t shoot. We’re Republicans.” Her short career came to an end when she was sunk by a kamikaze off Okinawa in June of 1945. Perhaps my Dad, on Okinawa at the time, heard of the sinking.
I would have thought one of more of the Dukes of Argyll would have been famous military commanders. That does not seem to be the case. The Duke of Argyll is traditionally associated with one of the most powerful noble Scottish clans, and the Duke is known by other titles, including Earl of Argyl, Earl Campbell and Cowall, Viscount Lochow and Glenyla, Lord Campbell, Lord Lorne, Lord Kintyre, Lord Inveraray, Mull, Mover and Tiry’, Baron Hamilton of Hameldon and Baron Sundridge. His son and heir is traditionally known as the Marquess of Kintyre and Lorne. None of these names, at least according to my cursory research on the topic, is associated with British military endeavors of any note.
Maybe the HMS Argyll was named after a famous British warship, like Jellicoe’s flagship at the Battle of Jutland, the Iron Duke, the namesake of another Type 23 frigate. The current HMS Argyll is the third ship to bear that name. The first, a ship of the line, was launched in 1722, and, after a short, undistinguished career, was sunk in 1748 as a breakwater. The second was launched in 1904, a Devonshire class armored cruiser, but sunk after running aground on Bell Rock in the foam and froth of the Firth of Forth.
Perhaps this is why the current HMS Argyll has not been modernized to the standards of some of her fellow Type 23s, and is therefore relegated to less demanding naval tasks. For example, on her current deployment, she is doing, with the assistance of the US Coast Guard, anti-narcotic patrols. According to the rather breathless Royal Navy press releases (what ever happened to British understatement?), complete with pictures, she has stopped two vessels and confiscated more than 20 million pounds (currency, not weight) worth of cocaine. She also, in September of this year, called at Baltimore to participate in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the writing of The Star Spangled Banner.
The Baltimore port call shows the Royal Navy at its very best. What other of the world’s navies would send a ship to help celebrate a poem written to commemorate a defeat of her armed forces? That would be like the US sending an aircraft carrier to Tokyo to celebrate Pearl Harbor Day.
To be fair, the British did have a pretty good run in 1814. The end of the Napoleonic and the Peninsular Wars allowed the transfer of seasoned veterans to the North American theater. In August, under the command of General Robert Ross and Admiral Alexander Cochrane, the British unleashed their new strategy – attack in the Chesapeake region to relieve pressure on the outlying areas. The British came ashore in Benedict, Maryland, defeated a rapidly assembled American militia, and proceeded to march into and burn and loot Washington.
Ross and Cochrane next turned their attention to Baltimore. Cochrane led the ineffectual bombardment (rockets’ red glare, bombs bursting in air, and all that stuff) of Fort McHenry, while Ross was killed by American sharpshooters during the Battle of North Point, the failed land invasion of Baltimore. Ross’s body, preserved in a barrel of Jamaican rum, was eventually interred in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That was surely a waste of good rum – what were the British thinking?
The British embarked and retreated by sea, out the Chesapeake Bay, into the Atlantic, around Key West, into the Gulf of Mexico, and up the Mississippi River to New Orleans, where they were gobsmacked by Major General Andrew Jackson and the American forces there.
Cochrane once again led the naval forces, while Major General Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law to the Duke of Wellington, replaced Ross and commanded the British army.
There was apparently some tension between Cochrane and Pakenham. According to legend, Pakenham at one point asked for more help from the fleet. Cochrane refused, saying the troops had already received more than was needed, and that he (Cochrane) would put his sailors ashore if need be to make his point.
In the event, the British assault on the American fortifications was poorly executed. A flanking maneuver failed to arrive on time when the canal Cochrane’s sailors were digging collapsed. The assaulting troops forgot (!) the ladders and fascines needed to breach the earthen defensive works. Pakenham died of grapeshot wounds. The Americans held off the British, who eventually withdrew. In his eulogy of Pakenham, Wellington blamed Cochrane for the defeat at New Orleans.
In 1958, Jimmy Driftwood wrote The Battle of New Orleans, which was recorded by Johnny Horton and named Billboard’s best song of 1959. It is written from the perspective of a foot soldier, and some of the lyrics include:
We looked down the river and we seen the British come,
An there must have been a hundred of them beatin on the drum.
They stepped so high & they made their bugles ring,
We stood beside our cotton bails & didn’t say a thing.
So, the military failures of Cochrane and Ross, and then Pakenham, led to the creation of two iconic American songs.
Now that is something to celebrate.
For more information, see Wikipedia entries for HMS Argyll, Duke of Argyll, William D. Porter, General Robert Ross, Admiral Alexander Cochrane, Major General Edward Pakenham, Battle of New Orleans.
I find the Royal Navy site interesting and informative: http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/