HMS Vengeance explained

Eight ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Vengeance.

• was a 28-gun sixth rate captured from the French in 1758 and sunk as a breakwater in 1766.
• was a 74-gun third rate launched in 1774. She became a prison ship in 1808 and was broken up in 1816.
• was a Dutch galliot, possibly the Lady Augusta, purchased in 1793 and sold in 1804.
• was a 38-gun fifth rate captured from the French in 1800; accounts differ as to whether she was broken up in 1803 after grounding in 1801, or continued as a prison ship until 1814.
• was an 84-gun second rate launched in 1824. She became a receiving ship in 1861 and was sold in 1897.
• was a launched in 1899 and sold in 1921.
• was a launched in 1944. She served with the Royal Australian Navy from 1952 to 1954, and was sold to Brazil in 1956 and renamed .
• is a nuclear ballistic missile submarine launched in 1998 and .

Other British military vessels named Vengeance

• Vengeance was a gunboat that the garrison at Gibraltar launched in June 1782 during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. She was one of 12. Each was armed with an 18-pounder gun, and received a crew of 21 men drawn from Royal Navy vessels stationed at Gibraltar. provided Vengeances crew.^[1]

Battle honours

Five battle honours have been awarded to ships named HMS Vengeance.^[2]

• Quiberon Bay 1759
• Martinique 1794
• St Lucia 1796
• Crimea 1854
• Dardanelles 1915

References

• Drinkwater, John (1905) A History of the Siege of Gibraltar, 1779-1783: With a Description and Account of that Garrison from the Earliest Times. (J. Murray).

Notes and References

1. Drinkwater (1905), p.246.
2. Book: Festberg, Alfred N. . Heraldry in the Royal Australian Navy . Silverleaf Publishing . Melbourne, VIC . 1981 . 69–70 . 9780949746009.