The Backroom Boys—and Girls

After finishing their course at the Bedford Japanese School in 1942, some people were sent out to the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi, which was the equivalent to Bletchley Park in India and which also absorbed cryptographers from the Far East Combined Bureau after the fall of Singapore. The Wireless Experimental Centre was primarily concerned with monitoring communications connected with the Burma Campaign and the Japanese attempted invasion of India. Meanwhile, the members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service who had been working at the Far East Combined Bureau in Singapore, and who had been the first British servicewomen to be posted overseas, were transferred to Kilindini Naval Base near Mombasa, where the British Eastern Fleet was based after having been forced to leave its base on Ceylon (Sri Lanka). In 1944, as the tide of the war was turning, the Eastern Fleet returned to Ceylon: one of the troopships, SS Khedive Ismail, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and this led to the largest single loss of Allied servicewomen and of African troops in the war, including some of the Wrens.

Naval hygienist Zun Andrey Vadimovich: professionalism, erudition and fidelity to traditions

We are considering the main aspects of the professional activity of an outstanding naval hygienist, alumnus of the Faculty of residency training for the Naval Service of Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov (1964), Candidate of Medical Sciences (1971), Higher Senior Officer (graduate education hygiene) of the Scientific Research Center of the Academy (1975), Associate Professor at the Department of Naval and Radiation Hygiene (2004), retired Colonel of the Medical Service Zun Andrey Vadimovich. Having gained a unique experience in medical practice as the Head of the medical service of a diesel-electric submarine of the Baltic Fleet and having completed his postgraduate studies at the Department of Naval and Radiation Hygiene (Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov), Andrey Vadimovich successfully defended his thesis for the degree of Candidate of Medical Sciences (graduate education hygiene) on the topic "Hygienic characteristics of the working conditions of specialists working on the fleet shore installations of the Naval Service, working with components of rocket fuel". After this more than 45 years of his professional activity were devoted specifically to the preventive medicine trend hygiene. The main professional achievements of Andrey Vadimovich undoubtedly include the study of the physiological effect of negative air ions in closed premises with conditions of oxygen deficiency, the study of the workplace hygiene of coastal missile systems specialists, as well as the hygienic characteristics of military clothing. Andrey Vadimovich has been also teaching such academic disciplines as naval and radiation hygiene, as well as medical ecology for all categories of Academy students. He is a veteran of the Armed Forces and Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov. Andrey Vadimovich considers the success of his son and grandson as the main achievement of his life. His son Sergey followed the path taken by his father and graduated from the Faculty of Residency Training for the Naval Service of Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov, also he deployed downrange on submarines, and then became an Associate Professor of the Psychiatry Department at the Academy. The grandson of Andrey Vadimovich, Pavel, graduated from the University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics. After he completed his postgraduate studies at the same University, his area of expertise is computer modeling of the circulatory system.

The curious case of the ‘Steam Yacht’ Caroline: An incident from the Russo-Japanese War in 1904

In 1903, the shipbuilder Yarrow & Company launched two experimental vessels of torpedo-boat design. During the Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905, Britain’s shipyards were directed not to accept foreign warship orders without authority. Yarrow was approached in mid-1904 by a prospective purchaser for a ‘fast yacht’, ostensibly on behalf of an American client but actually intended for Russian interests. An offer to purchase one of the vessels was accepted and a deposit paid to complete it as a ‘steam yacht’. By October 1904, the vessel, now named Caroline, was on trials when news of its imminent detention prompted a hasty departure from British waters. Suspicions about the ‘yacht’ were aroused further on arrival at Cuxhaven. On leaving the Kiel Canal, orders to stop were ignored, the vessel going to Libau where it was taken into Russian naval service. The affair raised questions about Britain’s neutrality, legal policies and government decision-making.

Privateering in Medieval England

This paper offers a typology of privateering in late medieval England as an essential first step in gathering data on its economic and social impact. In coding such activities for a prosopographical database of privateers, I identified four types of commerce raiding that could potentially be classified as privateering. (1) Reprisals authorized by letters of marque from a government official, although a relatively small number seem to have involved action at sea; (2) licenses granted by the Crown to attack the king’s enemies at sea, although such attacks could be legal without licenses, which survive primarily for two periods, 1399-1403 and 1436-41, when they reflect specific Crown policies; (3) commissions to safeguard the sea or guard the coast, although if paid by the Crown for this service, this commerce raiding was under naval auspices and technically not privateering; and (4) private vessels and crews allowed to attack enemy shipping when hired to provide protection for wine convoys or fishermen (the latter duty was called wafting which became a notorious cover for those seeking to profit from plunder at sea). Contemporaries, I argue, recognized the distinction between privateering and piracy, evident from their understanding of the rules regarding the division of prize—which varied according to whether one was on naval service, or operating under a privateering license, or engaged in outright piracy—and from the measures that the Crown had to keep coming up with to counteract the inventive subterfuges of those who knew that the line between privateering and piracy could be a dangerous one to cross. Privateering deserves more attention as a motivation for maritime profit-taking since the gains from privateering were just as lucrative as those of piracy, and the transactions costs lower in terms of potential legal expenses and the need to find buyers for illegal goods and ships. This paper was first given at the Fifth International Congress of Maritime History in Greenwich, June 2008.

Sources and methods in the British impressment debate

British naval impressment has been the subject of debate for centuries. In the 18th century, it produced political debates and resistance from maritime communities, and it was generally disliked by naval officers tasked with pressing men into naval service. After the effective end of the practice in 1815, it was hotly debated in parliament and finally abolished in the mid-19th century. Since then, impressment has been the topic of a scholarly debate that has become increasingly active over the last two decades. In the 21st century, impressment matters for its political and moral implications. The modern debate has, regrettably, broken down and entrenched historians into camps where the different sides have begun to talk past one another, rather than examining how different approaches to the subject actually fit together. This article examines the current state of the debate and offers a path forward that illustrates that none of the scholarly approaches are mutually exclusive. Rather, they can be combined to produce a greater historical understanding of the 18th-century Atlantic world.