Naval trawler

A naval trawler's gun crew mans a 12-pounder (76-mm) Mk V gun on the forecastle

HMT Northern Sky pitching and rolling at slow speed along her patrol lines. Operating off Iceland this trawler made the last attack of the Second World War on a U-boat.

The naval trawler is a concept for expeditiously converting a nation's fishing boats and fishermen to military assets. England used trawlers to maintain control of seaward approaches to major harbours. No one knew these waters as well as local fishermen, and the trawler was the ship type these fishermen understood and could operate effectively without further instruction. The Royal Navy maintained a small inventory of trawlers in peacetime, but requisitioned much larger numbers of civilian trawlers in wartime. The larger and newer trawlers and whalers were converted for antisubmarine use and the older and smaller trawlers were converted to minesweepers.^[1]

Armed trawlers were also used to defend fishing groups from enemy aircraft or submarines. The smallest civilian trawlers were converted to danlayers.

Some nations still use armed trawlers for fisheries protection and patrol. The Indian Navy used naval trawlers for patrol duties during its involvement in the Sri Lankan civil war.^[2] North Korea has notoriously used armed trawlers as spy ships. In 2001 the Japanese sank a North Korean naval trawler after a six-hour battle known as the battle of Amami-Ōshima. Somali pirates have commandeered trawlers and armed them for attacking freighters off the Horn of Africa; the action of 18 March 2006 involved a naval trawler used by pirate. Other incidents involving pirate trawlers are the actions of 30 March 2010, and of 1 April 2010, in which one naval trawler was sunk and another captured by the Seychelles Coast Guard and a US Navy frigate.^[3]

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Indian Navy

Indian Navy

The Indian Navy (IN) is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates significantly in the Persian Gulf Region, the Horn of Africa, the Strait of Malacca, and routinely conducts anti-piracy operations and partners with other navies in the region. It also conducts routine two to three month-long deployments in the South and East China seas as well as the western Mediterranean sea simultaneously.

Spy ship

Spy ship

A spy ship or reconnaissance vessel is a dedicated ship intended to gather intelligence, usually by means of sophisticated electronic eavesdropping. In a wider sense, any ship intended to gather information could be considered a spy ship.

Battle of Amami-Ōshima

Battle of Amami-Ōshima

The Battle of Amami-Ōshima, also known as the Spy Ship Incident in the Southwest Sea of Kyūshū , was a six-hour confrontation between the Japan Coast Guard and an armed North Korean vessel on 22 December 2001, taking place near the Japanese island of Amami Ōshima, in the East China Sea. The encounter ended in the sinking of the North Korean vessel, which the Japanese authorities later announced was determined to have been a spy craft. The encounter took place outside Japanese territorial waters, but within the exclusive economic zone, an area extending 200 nautical miles from Japanese land, within which Japan can claim exclusive rights to fishing and mineral resources.

Horn of Africa

Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa. Located on the easternmost part of the African mainland, it is the fourth largest peninsula in the world. It is composed of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti; broader definitions also include parts or all of Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda. The term Greater Horn Region (GHR) can additionally include Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania. It lies along the southern boundary of the Red Sea and extends hundreds of kilometres into the Guardafui Channel, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean and shares a maritime border with the Arabian Peninsula of Western Asia.

Action of 18 March 2006

Action of 18 March 2006

The action of 18 March 2006 occurred when two United States naval vessels were attacked by pirates. The U.S. ships were part of Combined Task Force 150.

Action of 30 March 2010

Action of 30 March 2010

The action of 30 March 2010 was a naval battle involving a patrol boat of the Seychelles Coast Guard and two groups of Somali pirate vessels. The encounter resulted in the freeing of twenty-seven hostages held by the pirates.

Seychelles Coast Guard

Seychelles Coast Guard

The Seychelles Coast Guard (SCG) is a branch of the Seychelles People's Defence Force created in 1993. It is a maritime, military, multi-mission service. They acquired responsibility for search and rescue for vessel incidents as well as environmental protection from the Seychelles Port Authority, formerly known as the Port and Marine Services Division.

Frigate

Frigate

A frigate is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat.

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Basset-class trawler

Basset-class trawler

The Basset class of Admiralty trawlers was a class of trawlers built for the British Royal Navy prior to the outbreak of Second World War. The vessels were intended for use as mine-sweepers and for anti-submarine warfare, and the design was based on commercial types, adapted for naval use. The purpose of the order was to make use of specialist mercantile shipyards to provide vessels for war use by adapting commercial designs to Admiralty specifications.

Battle-class trawler

Battle-class trawler

The Battle-class trawlers were a class of naval trawlers built for and used by the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) during the First World War. Between the wars, some remained in RCN service, but most were transferred to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, where they performed a number of functions, including working as lightships and fisheries patrol vessels. During the Second World War, a number of these trawlers were re-acquired by the RCN, but all the navy's Battle-class trawlers were decommissioned soon after the war. A number of the class remained in civilian government and commercial service for years after the war, although most had been disposed of by the early 1960s.

Castle-class trawler

Castle-class trawler

The Castle-class minesweeper was a highly seaworthy naval trawler adapted for patrol, anti-submarine warfare and minesweeping duties and built to Admiralty specifications. Altogether 197 were built in the United Kingdom between 1916 and 1919, with others built in Canada, India and later New Zealand. Many saw service in the Second World War.

Dance-class trawler

Dance-class trawler

The Dance class of World War II were armed trawlers of the Royal Navy. They were used for anti-submarine (A/S) and minesweeping work and were nearly identical to the Isles class, of which they are usually considered a subclass.

Isles-class trawler

Isles-class trawler

The Isles-class trawlers were a class of naval trawler used by the Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy and Royal New Zealand Navy during World War II.

Shakespearian-class trawler

Shakespearian-class trawler

The Shakespearian-class trawler was a series of anti-submarine naval trawlers of the Royal Navy. Ships in the class had a displacement of 545 long tons (554 t), a top speed of 12 knots and a crew of 40 men. The trawlers were armed with a QF 12-pounder [76 mm (3.0 in)] gun, three 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns and thirty depth charges. The class was nearly identical to the Isles-class trawlers, of which they are usually considered a subclass. Coriolanus, Horatio and Laertes were lost during the war. Othello, was transferred to Italy in 1946 and Rosalind to Kenya, also in 1946. By the end of that year, only Hamlet and Macbeth remained in service with the Royal Navy; both were sold in 1947.

Tree-class trawler

Tree-class trawler

Tree-class trawlers were a class of anti-submarine naval trawlers which served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. They were nearly identical to the Isles-class trawlers, of which they are usually considered a subclass.

Type 139 patrol trawler

Type 139 patrol trawler

The Type 139 patrol trawler was a class of vessel used as a training ship by the Federal German Navy. Both vessels in the class were originally built for the Royal Navy in 1942 as Isles-class naval trawlers.

Belgium

In the aftermath of the First World War, the Belgian Corps de Marine purchased several British war surplus naval trawlers. They were operational during the 1940 Battle of Belgium, and one of them, A4, evacuated a large quantity of the National Bank's gold reserves to Britain shortly before Belgium's surrender.

Brazil

As with Portugal, the British Royal Navy had a number of trawler-type warships on order from Brazilian shipyards. With the declaration of war by Brazil against Germany in 1942 these vessels were transferred to the Brazilian Navy for anti-submarine and escort duties.^[4]

China

People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) uses naval trawlers as spy ships, as well as fishing when PLAN was allowed to conduct business activities to supplement the huge military expenditure. In addition, prior to Chinese economic reform, it was relatively easy for PLAN to commandeer private vessels for military use in emergency situations when everything was government-owned in planned economy, but this has become increasingly difficult to do after the reform due to private ownership. However, PLAN has to keep a very large number of auxiliary minesweepers to prepare for war, and as a result, when naval trawlers had retired from their intelligence gathering role, they were converted to auxiliary minesweepers and placed in operational reserve of PLAN.^[5] In addition, environmental problems have caused constant geological/geographical/hydrographical changes in Chinese waters, hence creating huge survey requirement, thus a number of these naval trawlers retired from their spy ship roles have also been converted to survey vessels to meet the extremely heavy hydrographic survey requirement.^[6] Chinese naval trawlers include Type 113, Type 801, Type 8105, Type 8101, Type 8154 and Type 792 naval trawlers.

France

The French Navy used trawlers requisitioned from civilian use in wartime. In the Second World War 480 trawler-type vessels were in service as auxiliary mine-sweepers, and a further 60 as auxiliary patrol vessels.^[7]

Germany

During the Second World War the Kriegsmarine operated trawlers as Vorpostenboot (outpost boats) and as weather ships; the Lauenburg was an example. It also used a large number of Kriegsfischkutter, trawlers built after the 24m long model "G" of the scientifically developed fishing cutter models (seven "Reichsfischkutter"-models A to- G), redesigned for naval uses such as anti-submarine warfare, but intended for conversion to fishing vessel after the war.

The weather trawler programme was a major disaster for the German war effort; it has even been suggested that it was one of the major contributors to Germany's defeat. The British Royal Navy monitored and pursued them relentlessly, capturing or sinking many. The reason was not just the strategic importance of weather data, but that the trawlers were carrying Enigma encryption machines and information, which when captured helped the British to crack the Enigma code, enabling them to read Germany's secret communications; the Germans discontinued the use of weather trawlers as they were too vulnerable, though they had not understood how their weather missions compromised Enigma. ^[8]

India

The Royal Indian Navy operated trawlers mostly for wartime coastal defence; more than 50 Basset-class trawlers were ordered, but only 22 were completed, with four more being destroyed before completion when their shipyards were overrun by the Japanese in Burma. The remaining 25 were cancelled. They were used for coastal anti-submarine patrols and mine-sweeping duties.

Japan

Japanese armed trawler seen through the periscope of USS Albacore 17 November 1944

As the Second World War progressed, Japan commandeered some fishing vessels for use as picket boats. To augment these, and to replace losses, the Imperial Japanese Navy also ordered a group of 280 picket boats, built on trawler lines but to Navy specifications. This was the No.1 class auxiliary patrol boat, though ultimately only 27 were completed.

New Zealand

In World War II the Royal New Zealand Navy operated 35 minesweepers, including 20 purpose-built naval trawlers (13 Castle class, three Bird class four Isles class), five converted fishing trawlers, and ten converted merchant vessels.

Norway

Norway had a large fishing and whaling fleet industry. For the Second World War the Royal Norwegian Navy used six converted whalers and 22 other fishing vessels as minesweepers, and a further ten as patrol craft.^[9] The Royal Norwegian Navy also used a German naval trawler captured in April 1940 and put into service as HNoMS Honningsvåg. After the occupation of Norway the Free Norwegian forces used fishing vessels for their clandestine Shetland bus operations in support of the Norwegian resistance.

Portugal

Though Portugal was neutral or non-belligerent throughout the Second World War, a number of steel and wooden-hulled vessels were built there to trawler design for the Royal Navy. These Portuguese-class naval trawlers were delivered in 1942, but further construction was halted after protests from Nazi Germany. Later, as Portugal became more closely involved with the western allies, Britain transferred a number of Isles-class trawlers to the Portuguese Navy as anti-submarine vessels.^[10]

Romania

Romania acquired three German KFK naval trawlers in 1943.^[11]

United Kingdom

During the First World War, the Royal Navy operated 627 "Admiralty Trawlers" which had been purpose-built, purchased from foreign countries, or acquired as prizes. A further 1,456 trawlers were hired and operated, together with many other kinds of small vessel, by the Auxiliary Patrol.^[12] Trawlers were mainly employed in minesweeping, anti-submarine patrols and as boom defence vessels.^[13] 266 of the hired trawlers were lost while on active service.^[12]

Before and during the Second World War, the Royal Navy ordered many naval trawlers to Admiralty specifications. Shipyards such as Smiths Dock Company that were used to building fishing trawlers could easily switch to building naval versions. As a bonus, the Admiralty could sell these trawlers to commercial fishing interests after the end of the war. Many were sunk during the war, such as HMT Amethyst and HMT Force. In 1940 Lieutenant Richard Stannard was in command of the naval trawler HMT Arab when he won the Victoria Cross for his actions from 28 April to 2 May 1940 at Namsos in the Norwegian campaign. HMT Arab survived 31 bombing attacks in five days.

During the 1982 Falklands War the Royal Navy hired a flotilla of five trawlers from Kingston-upon-Hull, which were hastily converted to minesweepers, as the Ton-class minesweepers then in service were unsuitable for the long voyage and the heavy seas of the South Atlantic. Although employed with the Task Force on various other auxiliary duties, after the Argentine surrender the trawlers were able to sweep ten naval mines which had been successfully laid in Port Stanley harbour; eleven others had failed to deploy or had broken adrift.^[14]

United States

The US Navy generally favoured custom-built warships to civilian conversions, but in the first months of World War II the acute shortage of vessels for coastal defence and anti-submarine work led to the formation of a mosquito fleet. Twenty steel-hulled and more than 40 wooden-hulled trawlers were commissioned as auxiliary minesweepers (AM designation), but confined to coastal waters and not rated for offensive or convoy escort duties. A further 70 tuna clippers were called up as minesweepers (Amc designation), ten as harbour patrol craft (YP) and 50 as coastal transports (APC).^[15] The United States Coast Guard requisitioned ten Boston fishing trawlers for the Greenland Patrol.^[16]

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Belgian Navy

Belgian Navy

The Belgian Navy, officially the Belgian Naval Component of the Belgian Armed Forces, is the naval service of Belgium.

Belgian ship A4

Belgian ship A4

Patrol vessel A4 was a small Mersey class operated by Belgium during the Second World War. Originally built for the British Royal Navy, as HMS John Ebbs, the ship is notable for its role in evacuating Belgian gold reserves to England during the Battle of Belgium in May 1940. The success of the operation not only allowed the Belgian government in exile to fund its operations but deprived the German occupiers of an important asset to support their war effort. After the Belgian surrender, the vessel and its crew interned themselves in neutral Spain. Both crew and vessel were released in 1946 and A4 was scrapped soon afterwards.

National Bank of Belgium

National Bank of Belgium

The National Bank of Belgium has been the central bank of Belgium since 1850. The National Bank of Belgium was established with 100% private capital by a law of 5 May 1850 as a naamloze vennootschap (NV). It is a member of the European System of Central Banks and the Eurosystem. Until January 1999 when Belgium adopted the euro, the bank was responsible for the former national currency, the Belgian franc.

People's Liberation Army Navy

People's Liberation Army Navy

The People's Liberation Army Navy, also known as the People's Navy, Chinese Navy, or PLA Navy, is the maritime service branch of the People's Liberation Army.

Spy ship

Spy ship

A spy ship or reconnaissance vessel is a dedicated ship intended to gather intelligence, usually by means of sophisticated electronic eavesdropping. In a wider sense, any ship intended to gather information could be considered a spy ship.

Chinese economic reform

Chinese economic reform

The Chinese economic reform or Chinese economic miracle, also known domestically as Reform and Opening-up refers to a variety of economic reforms termed "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of China (PRC) that began in the late 20th century. Guided by Deng Xiaoping, who is often credited as the "General Architect", the reforms were launched by reformists within the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on December 18, 1978, during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period. The reforms briefly went into stagnation after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, but were revived after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992. The reforms led to significant economic growth for China within the successive decades; in 2010, China overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP and in the 2010s became the world's largest economy by GDP (PPP).

Planned economy

Planned economy

A planned economy is a type of economic system where the distribution of goods and services or the investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economic plans that are either economy-wide or limited to a category of goods and services. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, participatory or Soviet-type forms of economic planning. The level of centralization or decentralization in decision-making and participation depends on the specific type of planning mechanism employed.

Minesweeper

Minesweeper

A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping.

Environmental issues in China

Environmental issues in China

Environmental issues in China had risen in tandem with the country's rapid industrialisation, as well as lax environmental oversight especially during the early 2000s. China was ranked 120th out of the 180 countries on the 2020 Environmental Performance Index.

Survey vessel

Survey vessel

A survey vessel is any type of ship or boat that is used for underwater surveys, usually to collect data for mapping or planning underwater construction or mineral extraction. It is a type of research vessel, and may be designed for the purpose, modified for the purpose or temporarily put into the service as a vessel of opportunity, and may be crewed, remotely operated, or autonomous. The size and equipment vary to suit the task and availability.

Type 792 naval trawler

Type 792 naval trawler

Type 792 naval trawler is a Chinese auxiliary ship of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), deployed as intelligence gathering spy ship. Type 792 and its predecessor Type 8154, along with Type 8105 naval trawlers have all received NATO reporting name FT-14 AIT class, meaning Fishing Trawler - 14 Auxiliary Intelligence-gathering Trawler.

Kriegsmarine

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war Reichsmarine (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches, along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe, of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.

• Daily life aboard a First World War naval trawler
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  Wheelhouse of a naval trawler

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  Wireless operator

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  Engine room

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  Stoker shovelling coal from a bunker

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  Cleaning the gun

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  Slipping the "kite" which controls the mine sweeping depth

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  Cook in the galley

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  Cards in the fo'c's'le

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  Mail day