IV WWI CANADIAN FISHERIES PROTECTION VESSEL HMCS GALIANO

IV – WWI CANADIAN FISHERIES PROTECTION VESSEL HMCS GALIANO Who would have thought on the evening of 18th June 1815 that a century later the Royal Nav...
Author: Sibyl Nash
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IV – WWI CANADIAN FISHERIES PROTECTION VESSEL HMCS GALIANO

Who would have thought on the evening of 18th June 1815 that a century later the Royal Navy would name two of its ships HMS Marshal Ney and HMS Marshal Soult – but they did

HMS Marshal Ney at sail and in action

HMs Marshal Soult at sail

(shore bombardment monitors)

15” battleship guns intended for HMS Ramillies, the siblings of the right hand gun outside the Imperial War Museum

And so with HMCS Galiano – a WW1 fisheries protection vessel – naval patrols, minesweeping training and trials – disappeared in a storm in 1918, the only Canadian vessel lost at sea in WW1

Named after Commodore Dionisio Alcala Galiano, who commanded the Bahama at Trafalgar - an anglophile, spoke English and regarded British mathematicians as far superior to French - no friend of France: half-drawn swords with Admiral Magon shortly before the Combined Fleet sailed from Cadiz - a native of Cabra (Córdoba) - 1775 entered the navy as a guardia de la marina and spent formative years as a junior officer in the River Plate region and in the Falkland Islands during the war against Portugal

- helped survey the coast of the Iberian peninsula for the first accurate maritime atlas of Spain. (Captain Henry Bayntun of the Leviathan had a copy of this atlas and used it in the Mediterranean in 1804 and 1805.) (We shall encounter Captain Bayntun again cf. no. 8)

- 1785 participated in an expedition to the Strait of Magellan

- 1788 occupied on the cartography of the Azores

- 1789 set sail for America with the expedition of Alessandro Malaspina, for the duration of which he was engaged in hydrographic, cartographic and astronomical work; sufficiently well-regarded by Malaspina to be promoted to the rank of captain even before the expedition reached Mexico

- 1792, together with his colleague Cayetano Valdes, aboard the schooners Sutíl and Mexicana, made a voyage into Vancouver Strait, in search of the Northwest Passage described by Juan de Fuca - sailed directly for Nootka Sound, on Vancouver Island, arriving there on 11th April 1792 and started surveys of the inland waterways in June. There the two Spanish commanders encountered the ships of a captain from King’s Lynn, one George Vancouver, at Point Roberts, causing Vancouver some concern that the Spanish had arrived there before him. However, the two expeditions amicably exchanged notes (according to one report Galiano at least spoke English with “great ease and fluency”), with the result that Valdes, impressed by Vancouver's ships and equipment, came subsequently to the opinion that further Spanish exploration towards the north-west would be pointless

- returned to active duty in the war against England - commanded a ship-of-the-line at the Battle of Cape Vincent in 1797, was responsible for the defence of Cádiz in 1798 and successfully made a daring trip to Veracruz to bring back to Spain much needed bullion to finance the war, eluding Royal Navy by use of unexpected routes and relying on instruments – 1802 promoted commodore

- at Trafalgar, he commanded the Bahama, a 74-gun ship, but which actually mounted 80 guns and 10 carronades and had a crew of 690. Before the battle started he nailed the ship’s

flag to mast to prevent its surrender. The Bahama locked horns with the Bellerophon and Galiano was first wounded in foot and then suffered a severe splinter wound to the face; bleeding profusely he refused to go below for treatment. The ship was further damaged when a small powder magazine exploded

For 2 hours he engaged the Bellerophon and the Colossus, refusing to withdraw lest the centre of the allied line collapse even when the Dreadnought and the Orion began to close on him. A broadside knocked his telescope out of his hand; as his coxswain went to retrieve it, he was killed by a cannonball and the next salvo decapitated Galiano himself. By that stage the mizzen and main masts had collapsed and water was rising in hold. The remaining crew decided to surrender

His youngest son, Antonio, watched the progress of the battle on the horizon from one of the rooftops of Cadiz (near the Torre de Tavira) and witnessed the explosion of the Achille at the end of the battle: “It had got very late in the day. Suddenly, an enormous blaze appeared on the horizon and as if drawn in the midst of this terrible splendour the shape of a ship. The light disappeared and the sound of the explosion was heard, a bang that felt far off but very powerful. There could be no doubt that a ship had blown up. As was natural, though without any foundation and wrongly, I believed that it was my father’s ship that had suffered this horrible disaster. I threw myself down the stairs and fled the tower, overwhelmed with horror and dread.”

It was not until 10 days later that Antonio discovered the actual fate of his father.

The Bahama was one of the few captured ships to survive the great storm after the Battle of Trafalgar, thanks to Galiano’s prescience in stowing a spare 5th anchor in the hold. The ship lost two anchors at Trafalgar and another two in the storm, but the 5th anchor was brought up and used to stabilise the ship off the shore of Cadiz whilst many if its sister vessels were thrown on to the rocks and dashed to pieces

Antonio Galiano became a member of Cortes and was one of the architects of the constitution of 1819-20. He fled to exile in London and in 1828 became the first professor of Spanish language and literature at University College London, the first such chair in the country. He returned to Spain in 1834, held several government positions and died in 1865

The British did not forget Galiano and Valdes. In the 19th century two of the islands off Vancouver were named Galiano Island and Valdes Island in their honour

Cf. his colleague Cosme Damian Churruca of the San Juan Nepomuceno

1761 born in Motrico, Guipúzcoa,

- 1776 joined the Naval Academies of Ferrol and Cadiz; performed heroically in the siege of Gibraltar, saving the crews of the floating batteries when they were set on fire. Like Galiano, he had helped to chart the Strait of Magellan - 1792 had sailed to Trinidad to map the Antilles - acting chief of staff at Cadiz between 1797 and 1798

- wrote a number of manuals - on naval discipline, training, ship engineering and gun aiming (including elevation and trajectory), to the last of which he proposed adding a section index showing the measurements of British ships. Like many of the Spanish captains he had not paid in years

- 1805 appointed to command the San Juan Nepomuceno: 74 guns

At the time of the battle in 1805 he had not long married Doña María Dolores Ruíz de Apodaca, niece of Don Sebastian Ruíz de Apodaca, an admiral of the Spanish fleet. Doña María was only 19 when Churruca died.

He wrote to his brother before the combined fleet sailed from Cadiz:

“If you hear that my ship has been captured you will know that I am dead.”

He witnessed Villeneuve’s decision to turn the fleet around and head back north towards Cadiz with disbelief, remarking to his second in command:

“The French admiral does not know his business. He is putting us all in danger.”

Now he tailed the line of the Combined Fleet instead of leading it as he had done hitherto. That cost him his life. He had the misfortune to run into the Dreadnought. Not only did the Dreadnought have 98 guns to the San Juan’s 74, but they were all of heavier calibre. In addition, the ship had been Collingwood’s flagship until he had transferred to the newlycoppered Royal Sovereign and he was reckoned to have worked up the gunnery until it was

the best in the British fleet, capable of firing 3 broadsides in 3½ minutes. The contest was short, bloody and wholly unequal. Churruca had been directing fire through a loud-hailer when a cannon ball took off his leg at the top of the thigh and he fell to the deck and died a few minutes later without losing consciousness first. In all some 250 of the crew were killed or wounded. The ship has no option but to surrender. The fight had lasted 15 minutes. With the deaths of Churruca and Galiano, within minutes and within a few hundred yards Spain lost two of her foremost mariners and explorers

Churruca’s cabin boy Gaspar Vasquez was the last survivor of the Battle, dying in April 1892 at the age of 105

The British held Churruca in great respect. According to one 19th century Spanish source, the name of Churruca was written in gold letters above the door of the cabin of the San Juan where he had died. As a mark of respect to his memory, visitors were required to doff their hats when they entered the cabin (see Roy Adkins’s Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle)

And talking of James Nicoll Morris of the Colossue - the oral tradition in his family about what Collingwood did in response to Nelson’s last signal. In response to “England Expects...” Collingwood was heard to mutter “I do wish Nelson would stop signalling; we know well enough what we have to do”, but in response to the next signal “Engage the Enemy more closely” he ran two black balls up the top of the masthead, which in 1805 meant pretty much the same as it does now...

And for James Bond fans: in George Lazenby’s sole outing as 007, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, after the title credits, Bond drives along a street, through a pair of imposing gates and stops outside a mansion which is M’s house; the house is in fact James Nicoll Morris’s house, Thames Lawn in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, (but don’t go looking for it - it burnt down in the 1970s and was replaced by a modern edifice; his earlier house in Mill Road has a blue plaque on it commemorating him)

Slides 16-24 16 HMS Marshal Ney 17 as 16 18 HMS Marshal Soult 19 HMCS Galiano 20 Dionisio Alcala Galiano 21 as 20 22 The Torre de Tavira in Cadiz 23 Cosme Damian Churruca 24 The Death of Churruca on the San Juan Nepomuceno

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