Related quizzes

History of the Royal Navy quiz

List of active Royal Navy ships quiz

HMS Ocean (L12) quiz

HMS Illustrious (R06) quiz

HMS Ark Royal (R07) quiz

HMS Victory quiz

Naval Service quiz

HMS Montrose (F236) quiz

HMS Caroline (1914) quiz

Type 22 frigate quiz

The Royal British Legion quiz

History of the Royal Navy quiz

Royal Naval Reserve quiz

Did you know ...

• in the 1861 Tsushima Incident Japanese warships (pictured) failed to repel a Russian naval intrusion and had to be helped by Britain's Royal Navy?
• in the Battle of the Rice Boats in the American Revolutionary War, the militia of the Province of Georgia drove a squadron of the Royal Navy out of the Savannah River?
• future Admiral John Moore joined the Royal Navy when he was just 11 years old?
• former professional footballer Charlie Sillett was one of two Royal Navy gunners killed when the Norwegian steamship SS Corvus was sunk by a torpedo launched from the German U-boat U-1018?
• detachments of Royal Marines and of seamen from the Royal Navy were formed into Naval Brigades (pictured) to undertake operations on shore in the Crimean War, the Second Opium War, the Indian Mutiny, the Zulu War and Boer War, and the Boxer Rebellion?
• in the early 1940s, HMS Ceres (pictured), a C-class light cruiser of the British Royal Navy, was involved in the evacuation and later recapturing of British Somaliland?
• it took two German submarines, UB-6 and UB-16, to dispatch two World War I Royal Navy recruits?
• the French won a victory over the Royal Navy in a naval battle off Cape Breton during the American Revolutionary War?
• the frigate HMS Alarm was the first ship of the Royal Navy ever to have a fully copper-sheathed hull?
• the cutter HMS Entreprenante was the smallest British warship at the Battle of Trafalgar?
• the U class submarine HMS Vandal (pictured) had the shortest career of any Royal Navy submarine, being lost with all hands just four days after its commission?
• ships from the Royal Navy, the Royal Norwegian Navy and the Polish Navy participated in the British Commando raid Operation Anklet?
• despite being dismissed from the navy for disobeying orders, James Walker returned to fight at Camperdown and Copenhagen, and died a rear-admiral?
• despite being built for the Spanish Navy, the frigate Santa Margarita spent just five years in service with them, but served for nearly 60 years with the Royal Navy?
• a captain's clerk was a job, now obsolete, in the Royal Navy for a person employed by the captain to keep his records and correspondence, and his accounts for the Admiralty to approve?
• after ten years of service in the Royal Navy, the brig-sloop HMS Curlew became involved in the drug trade, and sold £330,000 worth of opium in China in 1833?
• Vice-Admiral Samuel Story was forced to surrender his Batavian fleet to the British navy without a fight in August 1799 because his officers started a mutiny?
• Lieutenant Peter Bover, whose shooting of a Royal Navy sailor sparked the Nore mutiny of 1797, was exonerated by the mutineers and cheered on returning to his ship?
• Captain Henry Trollope (1756–1839) of the Royal Navy, commanding the frigate Glatton, defeated a French squadron that outnumbered him six to one?
• all four of the Royal Navy's Bulldog class survey vessels were built by Brooke Marine?
• because of her tough resistance during the Battle of Jutland, the German battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger (pictured) was nicknamed "Iron Dog" by the British Royal Navy?
• despite a career lasting only four years, HMS Jason managed to capture (one engagement pictured) at least six French warships, including two that went on to become Royal Navy vessels?
• by the time of his death in 1847, Vice-Admiral William Young had spent 70 years serving in the Royal Navy?
• by the end of the Second World War 60,968 ratings had passed through the Royal Navy stone frigate HMS Ganges?
• before becoming a professional footballer, Bob Jefferson had deserted from the Royal Navy?
• the monitor HMS Gorgon (1914) fired the last shots of World War I by the Royal Navy against German coastal batteries in Belgium on 15 October 1918?
• the British Hawkins-class heavy cruiser HMS Frobisher (pictured) in 1944 was involved in Operation Neptune as a member of Gunfire Bombardment Support Force D allocated to Sword Beach in the D-Day landings?
• the capture of the French frigate Modeste by the British in the neutral port of Genoa in 1793 created a diplomatic incident?
• the deaths of two pirates during the November 11, 2008 incident off Somalia, are believed to be the first time since the 1982 Falklands War that the Royal Navy has killed anyone on the high seas?
• the Norwegian coastal steamer SS Barøy replaced a vessel sunk by the Royal Navy during the 1940 Norwegian Campaign and was herself sunk by the Fleet Air Arm the next year?
• the Rosario class was the last class of wooden sloops constructed for the Royal Navy?
• the HMS Inconstant, a Royal Navy frigate, captured three French warships during the French Revolutionary Wars?
• the fire and explosion of SS Fort La Monte wrecked the nearby Royal Navy destroyer HMS Arrow (pictured)?
• the successful escape from the multi-ship mutiny at the Nore by Royal Navy Captain Charles Cunningham in 1797 led to that mutiny's failure?
• with most of the British fleet immobilised by the mutiny at the Nore, HMS Adamant was one of only two two-decker warships available to blockade the Dutch fleet in 1798?
• when torpedoed in May 1915 by German submarine UB-8, SS Merion was disguised as the Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS Tiger?
• when Royal Navy Captain Robert Corbet was killed in action in September 1810, rumours were spread that he had been murdered by his own crew?
• the wreck of the scallop dredger Solway Harvester was discovered by the Royal Navy's minehunter HMS Sandown?
• the Ghana Navy was established under British Royal Navy command and headed by D. A. Foreman, a retired British officer commissioned as a Ghana naval officer with the rank of Commodore?
• the German hospital ship Ophelia was seized by the British Navy as a spy ship in 1914 only to be torpedoed and sunk by German U-boat UB-10 a year later?
• the Royal Navy ship of the line HMS Edgar was forced to fight unsupported for a time during the Battle of Copenhagen after the next ship in line, HMS Agamemnon, ran aground?
• the Royal Navy accepted Gay Viking and Gay Corsair into their service during the Second World War, with another 12 Gay class fast patrol boats joining in the 1950s?
• the Royal Navy ship of the line HMS Agamemnon ran aground in both the first and second Battles of Copenhagen, in 1801 and 1807, respectively?
• the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Quail (pictured) was mined in November 1943, but did not sink until May 1944?
• the Royal Navy repair ship HMS Artifex previously served as a liner for Cunard and as an armed merchant cruiser?
• the Royal Navy first trained pilots in 1911, in borrowed Short S.27 aircraft?
• the Royal Navy has tended to name its fireships (examples pictured) after subjects related to volcanoes or fire?
• the German Mine Sweeping Administration, a naval mine sweeping organisation made up of former members of the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany, was under command of the Royal Navy?
• the Royal Navy sloop HMS Beagle captured three French privateers during her ten years of service?
• the Royal Navy ordered the construction of the destroyer HMS Ledbury two days after the outbreak of World War II?
• the Royal Navy operated a secret training and anti-submarine warfare base at Seacliff in Scotland during World War I?
• Captain Alexander Hood of the Royal Navy was killed in battle between his ship Mars and the French Hercule in 1798?
  
• Admiral Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport of the Royal Navy was elevated to the peerage for his exploits in the Battle of the Glorious First of June?
• Royal Navy officer Charles Elphinstone Fleeming was once challenged to a duel by his former subordinate, Charles John Napier?
• World War II Imperial Japanese Navy light cruiser Kuma was torpedoed by a Royal Navy submarine while engaged in anti-submarine warfare training?
• Royal Navy officer Bedford Pim was the first man to travel from a ship on the eastern side of the Northwest Passage to one on the western side?
• Royal Navy captain Kenneth Dewar was controversially court-martialled in 1928 for criticising his flag officer, an event the press described as a mutiny?
• Royal Navy Captain Francis Laforey successfully sued the Admiralty over the amount of prize money he should be awarded for the capture of the French frigate HMS Castor at the frigate action of 29 May 1794?
• Bill Boaks, a retired Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander, won only 5 votes (a record low in a British Parliamentary election) in a 1982 by-election?
• Carolyn Stait, one of only two women to reach Commodore rank in the Royal Navy, had enlisted in 1975 with plans to transfer to the diplomatic service?
• Erasmus Ommanney entered the Royal Navy at age 12 in August 1826 and went on to discover in 1850 the first traces of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago fate of Sir John Franklin?
• Friedrich Guggenberger's U-81 sank the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (pictured) with a single torpedo?
• Edward Stirling Dickson, who would eventually rise to the rank of Vice-Admiral, joined the Royal Navy in 1772, at the age of seven?
• Edward Nicolls proposed that oak trees be grown in Sierra Leone for the Royal Navy?
• Edmund Dummer, Surveyor of the Navy, founded Britain's Royal Navy dockyard at Devonport in the 1690s, but died bankrupt in the Fleet debtors' prison?
• Royal Navy seaman Harry Price recounted in a memoir how he once instigated a minor mutiny, only to end it when it reached "ugly proportions"?
• Royal Navy frigate HMS Castor was captured by the French in 1794, but was retaken (pictured) just 20 days later?
• one of the French ships captured at the Battle of Cape Ortegal in 1805 went on to serve the Royal Navy for 144 years?
• Horatio Nelson described Captain George Elliot as one of the best officers in the navy?
• Captain Ralph Kerr, briefly commander of the Royal Navy's largest warship HMS Hood, had previously only commanded destroyers?
• Admiral Henry Wolsey Bayfield had joined the Royal Navy by the age of eleven?
• Admiral Robert Holmes (statue pictured) of the Royal Navy destroyed 130 ships and burned the town of Terschelling for the loss of three men in the action Holmes's Bonfire?
• Horatio Nelson's first command in the Royal Navy was the brig HMS Badger?
• naval historian William James declared that HMS Seine's victory over the French ship Vengeance (pictured) showed that British ships were "more potent than American thunder"?
• Royal Navy Admiral Lawrence Halsted was the son of a naval captain, married the daughter of an admiral, and was the father of a vice-admiral?
• Rear Admiral Sir Richard Trowbridge was the twenty-fifth Governor of Western Australia and the first officer of the Royal Navy to rise from boy seaman to captain of the Queen's yacht HMY Britannia?
• Rear Admiral John Adams of the Royal Navy was the author of The Adventure of Charlie the Cone, based on stories about a traffic cone, that he made up for his children on long trips?
• Mount Bate, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is probably named after William Thornton Bate, a Royal Navy officer killed during the Second Opium War?
• HMS Benbow's (pictured) class, the Iron Dukes, were the first Royal Navy battleships to mount anti-aircraft guns?
• HMS Braak was seized and brought into the Royal Navy when the former Dutch ship anchored in Falmouth, unaware that the Dutch had gone to war with Britain?
• Plymouth Cathedral experienced subsidence after a Royal Navy officer fired new Turkish man-of-war guns in Plymouth Sound?
• ship's doctors were originally termed surgeons in the Royal Navy and were paid £5 for every 100 cases of venereal disease they treated?
• Sir Murray Maxwell, a celebrated Royal Navy officer, once spent weeks marooned on an island under attack from pirates following the loss of HMS Alceste in 1817?
• Kenneth Cummins was one of the last five confirmed British surviving veterans of World War I, having served in the Royal and Merchant Navies in the First and Second World War respectively?
• Kate Nesbitt, the first woman in the Royal Navy to be awarded the Military Cross for bravery in Afghanistan while attached to 3 Commando Brigade, is just 5 ft 0 in (1.52 m) tall?
• Sir Robert Kingsmill (pictured) was commander of the Royal Navy's Irish station during two French attempts to invade Ireland, in 1796 and in 1798?
• Thomas Herbert of the Royal Navy was involved in over 20 engagements and wounded three times in the War of 1812 against the United States?
• Duchess of Norfolk, a minesweeper in the Royal Navy during World War I, rejoined the Navy for World War II as Ambassador, but reprised her old role as a minesweeper?
• William Prowse joined the Royal Navy as an able seaman, saw action at the Glorious First of June, Cape St Vincent, Cape Finisterre and Trafalgar, and died a Rear-Admiral?
• William Hutcheon Hall of the Royal Navy earned the nickname "Nemesis Hall" for his services as commander of the Nemesis during the First Anglo-Chinese War?
• Unsinkable Sam was a ship's cat of both the Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy during the Second World War who survived the sinking of all three ships on which he served?
• jolly boats were carried on practically all types of warships of the Royal Navy during the age of sail, from ships of the line down to brigs?
• Henry Frederick Stephenson was the First and principal Naval Aide-de-camp to King Edward VII?
• HMS Ontario, an 80-foot sloop of war recently discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes?
• HMS Pique's service with the Royal Navy lasted for just three years after her capture in 1795 by HMS Blanche?
• HMS Ocean never anchored in British waters during her entire period of active service in the Royal Navy?
• HMS Fifi, a German warship captured and added to the Royal Navy during the First World War, was named to mean 'tweet-tweet' in French?
• HMS Canopus served for less than six months for the French Navy, and then for 89 years for the Royal Navy?
• HMS Prince Albert was the first Royal Navy warship to have her main armament mounted in turrets?
• HMS Swiftsure fought at the Nile for the British, and at Trafalgar for the French?
• Rear-Admiral Henry Blagrove, who died in the destruction of HMS Royal Oak in October 1939, was the first Royal Navy flag officer killed in the Second World War?
• Harry Pursey started his career as a boy seaman in the Royal Navy, retired with the rank of Commander, and served as a Member of Parliament for twenty-five years?
• HMT Bedfordshire was one of 24 Royal Navy anti-submarine vessels sent to assist the United States after its entry into World War II?
• HMS Tynedale, a destroyer of the Royal Navy, attacked and damaged a U-boat in 1942 that would sink her a year later?
• Able Seaman Just Nuisance is the only dog to have been officially enlisted in the Royal Navy?