Действие 13 мая 1779 года
| Действие 13 мая 1779 года | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Часть англо-французской войны | |||||||
 Действие у побережья Франции Томасом Луди | |||||||
| |||||||
| Воинственники | |||||||
 Великобритания |
 Франция | ||||||
| Командиры и лидеры | |||||||
 Сэр Джеймс Уоллес |
 De Kergariou Coalles | ||||||
| Сила | |||||||
|
3 фрегата 1 шлюп 1 Бриг |
2 фрегата 1 Корвет 1 gabarre 2 резки | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
2 killed 15 wounded |
1 frigate captured 1 corvette destroyed 1 cutter destroyed | ||||||
Действие 13 мая 1779 года было битвой в заливе Канле , недалеко от Святого Мало , между французскими и британскими эскадрильами фрегатов . Французские силы были частью эскорта, предназначенного для вторжения Карла Генриха фон Нассау-Сигена в Джерси . Когда это вторжение потерпело неудачу 1 мая французы отступили до отдачи . Британцы собрали большую эскадрилью фрегатов под руководством капитана Джона Гидона и капитана сэра Джеймса Уоллеса , которая затем разделилась на двоих, чтобы напасть на французскую эскадрилью на побережье в маневре.
13 мая эскадрилья Гидоина преследовала французов от кутранс до побережья до Сент -Мало, где их ждала эскадрилья Уоллеса. Уоллес последовал за французами в залив Кандейл и напал на них; В ответ французские корабли устроили на берег и вышли на берег после того, как были пуноналированы в течение полутора часов. Уоллес захватил фрегат Данаэ и два торговых суда, но был вынужден сжечь другие суда из -за стрельбы из оружейных батарей на берегу. Эскадрилья Уоллеса понесла минимальные жертвы. Данаэ будет покупать в эксплуатацию с Королевским флотом ; Резак были единственными французскими судами , Guepe и Gabarre Ecluse которые французы смогли восстановить и восстановить.
Background
[edit]On 1 May 1779 a French invasion force led by Karl Heinrich von Nassau-Siegen attacked the British crown dependency of Jersey, intending to capture the island through a coup de main. The invasion force was made up of five ships of the line and a number of smaller vessels, together carrying 2,500 soldiers.[a][2][3] The force attempted to land at Saint Ouen Bay, but a combined force of local militia and the 78th Regiment of Foot, which was garrisoned on the island, repulsed the attack. Unable to proceed with their landings, Nassau-Siegen's force put to sea again.[4] When the threat from the French force had been at its highest, the island's governor had sent a flyboat to Portsmouth to raise the alarm.[5] While on her way there the boat encountered the squadron of Rear-Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot at 10 a.m. on 2 May that was escorting a large convoy to North America. Arbuthnot took his force to the Channel Islands and arrived at Guernsey on 4 May to find that the invasion force had departed.[4][1]
While Arbuthnot sailed to relieve the islands, the messenger that had reached him continued on to Portsmouth. Admiral Sir Thomas Pye, the commander-in-chief there, ordered a group of frigates under the command of Captain John Gidoin of the frigate HMS Richmond to sail out to Jersey.[4] Arbuthnot departed the Channel Islands on 6 May, but left behind the frigate HMS Experiment under Captain Sir James Wallace to temporarily bolster naval forces in the area.[4][3] Gidoin's force joined with Wallace at Bouley Bay.[4]
Action in Cancale Bay
[edit]On 10 May the bailiff of Jersey sent a letter to Gidoin, who was the senior captain still on station, to report that a group of French ships that had been tasked with assisting the invasion, had been seen near the Chausey Islands, situated between the French coast and the Channel Islands.[6][7][5] Wallace, who had been preparing to leave the area and re-join Arbuthnot, instead chose to stay with Gidoin. Some small ships were sent out to Chausey to discover the nature of the French ships, and they soon reported that the French force consisted of the frigates Danae and Diane, the gabarre Écluse, the corvette Valeur, and cutter Guepe, and that they were anchored off Coutances.[6][1][8]
Gidoin and Wallace decided to split their force to provide the greatest possible chance of intercepting the French ships before they could escape. Wallace, in Experiment, took with him the frigates HMS Pallas and HMS Unicorn, the brig HMS Cabot, the sloop HMS Fortune, and one other vessel donated by the locals to assist in the hunt. Gidoin, in Richmond, took with him the four other ships of the squadron and three more local armed vessels.[9][1] The two forces sailed on 12 May; Gidoin went directly for Coutances where the French were still at anchor, while Wallace took a westerly route around Jersey in order to cut off any escape route the French might have used.[10][11]
When Gidoin's force came in sight of the French, they set sail north for St Malo, towards where Wallace was waiting for them. Gidoin chased the French but by 10 p.m. the tide was against him and his ships were making very little headway so he was forced to anchor off Granville. At the same time Wallace's force were beset by similar difficulties but by 7 p.m. had succeeded in getting round Jersey.[10]
At 3 a.m. on 13 May Gidoin set sail once more and at a slow pace struggled in the direction the French had been sailing; at 10 a.m. he discovered Wallace's squadron ahead of him, chasing the French who had anchored at Cancale Bay. Gidoin was not able to make up the distance to Wallace and the French force, and would play no role in the subsequent action.[10]
In the early morning daylight of 13 May Wallace, still sailing for the French, found another French frigate sailing from St Malo to assist her brethren in Cancale Bay. Wallace chased this new opponent under the guns of the batteries of St Malo, where she stayed. Unable to continue his assault on the frigate, Wallace redirected his force towards the original group of French ships, which were off to his left, just outside the bay itself.[10]
The French sailed into the bay in an attempt to escape the attack but Wallace, leading the chase in Experiment, followed them in.[10][3] Diane escaped past Experiment back out of the bay, while the rest of the French squadron sailed towards the protection of a gun battery further in.[1] Danae had ten men killed and 20 wounded before her crew ran her aground and abandoned her in the bay, without her commander, Lieutenant de vaisseau de Kergariou Coatles, having given any such order. When the crews of the other French vessels saw Danae's crew abandon her, they too abandoned their vessels. The French did not set fire to Danae as they were unable to extract her sick and wounded.[12][13]
The rest of Wallace's squadron having caught up with him, the British opened fire on the beached vessels for an hour and a half, forcing the French crews to escape to safety further inland. While the French squadron now lay defenceless, Wallace's attack had caused the local French militia to mobilise. The militia brought a number of cannon and howitzers to the bay and began to fire at the British ships.[7] Being now in the dangerous position of being fired on in an enclosed bay, Wallace was not able to bring all the French vessels off the shore as prizes.[7][11] Instead he ordered that two of the ships be burned where they lay, and for the cutter Dieppe, also in the bay, to be scuttled.[b][7][8] Danae was successfully brought off and captured alongside two merchantmen, a brig and the sloop Fleur.[7][15] Valeur, Ecluse, and Guepe were among the ships set on fire.[1]
While Wallace's orders were being enacted on the stranded French warships, a battery of six 12-pounders had been erected and manned by the crews of the deserted ships. The battery began a concerted fire on Experiment that so frustrated Wallace that after Danae had been secured, he took control of the frigate from her pilots. He sailed her up the bay to lay up against the battery, which after forty-five minutes he destroyed and forced the crews to leave.[c] The British then sailed from the bay with their prizes, which were sent to England.[7][3][14]
For the British, casualties and losses in the action were minor. Experiment had been heavily damaged in the hull and sails by the batteries engaging her, and lost two men killed and thirteen wounded. Apart from this the only casualties came from Cabot, which had suffered three men wounded, including her purser who had his leg shot off.[7]
Aftermath
[edit]Pallas brought Danae into Plymouth on 17 May.[16] The Royal Navy brought her into service under the same name. In reward for the success of the endeavour Commander Charles Powell Hamilton of Fortune and Commander Edmund Dod of Cabot were promoted to post-captain, and Lieutenant John Wallace of Experiment was promoted to commander.[7] Experiment would go on to re-join Arbuthnot's force, which was still at Torbay, and sail to New York.[3]
While several of the vessels burned by the British were unsalvageable, the French did succeed in rescuing Guepe after Wallace had left the bay,[1] and later recovered Ecluse. Diane escaped.[d] The destruction of their ships forced the French to abandon their plans to capture Jersey for use as a privateering and observation base, as they no longer had enough escorts available to protect an invasion force.[5][18] The French tried again in 1781, but British forces on the island repelled the invasion at the Battle of Jersey.[19]
Order of Battle
[edit]| British squadron | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ship | Guns | Commander | Casualties | Refs | |||
| Experiment | 50 | Captain Sir James Wallace | 2 killed, 13 wounded | [1] | |||
| Pallas | 36 | Captain Thomas Spry | — | [1][8] | |||
| Unicorn | 20 | Captain John Ford | [1][8] | ||||
| Cabot | 12/14 | Commander Edmund Dod | 3 wounded | [1][7] | |||
| Fortune | 12/14 | Commander Charles Powell Hamilton | — | [1] | |||
| Armed lugger | Unknown | [1][6] | |||||
| French squadron | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ship | Guns | Commander | Fate | Refs | |||
| Danae | 34 | Lieutenant de vaisseau de Kergariou Coatles | Captured | [20] | |||
| Diane | 26 | Escaped | [20][1][13] | ||||
| Dieppe | 16 | Scuttled | [15] | ||||
| Écluse[e] | 8 | Burned but recovered | [1][17] | ||||
| Valeur | 14 | Burned | [1][21] | ||||
| Guepe | 6 or 10 | Burned but recovered | [1][22] | ||||
Notes and citations
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ Also reported as 1,500 men.[1]
- ^ Alternatively reported that Dieppe was burned.[14]
- ^ Other reports state that the battery had already been destroyed before the French ships grounded themselves.[8]
- ^ Guepe was wrecked in February 1781 at Cape Charles, Virginia. Ecluse returned to service and then became a merchantman after the end of the war. She was condemned in 1788.[17] Diane continued in French service before being lost in a storm in 1780.[18]
- ^ Mis-named Recluse by Wallace.[20]
Citations
[edit]- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Clowes (1899), p. 25.
- ^ Beatson (1804), p. 538.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Breen (2008).
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Beatson (1804), pp. 538–539.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Hargreaves (1967), p. 166.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Beatson (1804), p. 539.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Beatson (1804), p. 541.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Duncan (1805), p. 321.
- ^ Beatson (1804), pp. 539–540.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Beatson (1804), p. 540.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Field of Mars (1801).
- ^ Troude (1867), pp. 50–51.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Roche (2005), p. 150.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Laughton (1899).
- ^ Jump up to: a b Wallace (1779), p. 260.
- ^ "The Marine List". Lloyd's List. No. 1060. 21 May 1779. hdl:2027/mdp.39015004281542. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Roche (2005), p. 166.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Winfield & Roberts (2017), p. 180.
- ^ "No. 12153". The London Gazette. 13 January 1781. p. 1.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Wallace (1779), p. 259.
- ^ Roche (2005), p. 455.
- ^ Roche (2005), p. 233.
References
[edit]- Beatson, Robert (1804). Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain. Vol. 4. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme.
- Breen, Kenneth (2008). "Wallace, Sir James". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- Clowes, William Laird (1899). The Royal Navy A History from the Earliest Times to the Present. Vol. 4. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company.
- Дункан, Арчибальд (1805). Британский трезубец . Тол. 2. Лондон: Джеймс Кунди.
- Hargreaves, Reginald (1967). «Гордая нога завоевателя». Журнал институтов Royal United Services . 112 (646): 165–170. doi : 10.1080/03071846709420395 .
- Лоутон, Джон Нокс (1899). . В Ли, Сидни (ред.). Словарь национальной биографии . Тол. 59. Лондон: Смит, Элдер и Ко.
- Рош, Жан-Мишель (2005). Словарь зданий французского военного флота Колберта до сегодняшнего дня . Полет. 1. Группа «Резузель-маури Миллау». ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6 Полем OCLC 165892922 .
- Поле Марса . Тол. 1. Лондон: Г. и Дж. Робинсон. 1801.
- Troude, Ongésime-Joachim (1867). Военно -морские сражения Франции . Полет. 2. Эйнелламель.
- Уоллес, Джеймс (май 1779). «Из лондонской газеты». Универсальный журнал знаний и удовольствия . 64 (447): 258–260.
- Уинфилд, Риф; Робертс, Стивен С. (2017). Французские военные корабли в эпохе паруса 1626–1786 . Барнсли: Сифорт. ISBN 978-1-4738-9353-5 .