Cherubs and Fairies

[anteros_lmc]

Seriously, sometimes you have to wonder what the Royal Navy were up to when it came to naming their ships.

At one end of the scale, I have always wondered about the audacity (or foolhardiness?) of men who would sail into the uncharted wastes of the Arctic in ships call Erebus and Terror. Erebus in Greek mythology being the personification of darkness and son of Chaos.

At the other end of the scale, who in their right mind decided to call a ship of war the Cherub? A very successful ship of war she was though, with a famously loyal and dedicated crew. The Cherub is perhaps best known as the consort of HMS Phoebe. Both ships were despatched to the Americas in 1813 to track down and apprehend the frigate USS Essex which was wreaking havoc among British merchant vessels on the coast of Chile. The mission was eventually successful and the Essex run on shore and destroyed, though her captain David Porter later accused the captains of the British ships of dishonourable conduct.

Then yesterday when reading Edward Osler's Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth I came across a sloop of war called the Fairy. Turns out that the RN had no less than four small ships named Fairy between 1778 and 1840.

You know that scene in Retribution where Bush is rallying the sailors and marines during the assault on the fort in Samana Bay and he's bellowing "Renown's to me!!" It's not really going to have quite the same effect if your ship's called the Fairy or the Cherub is it?!

Really, you've got to love these guys :)

Comments

[vespican.livejournal.com]

Just looked through the list I have or Royal Navy Ships and Vessels, circa 1813. Here are a few that caught my eye with regards to the basic tenor of this post.
Cheerly
Cracker
Cheerful
Favorite
Fancy
Redbreast
Tickler
Swinger
Squirrel
Teaser
Sea Flower

Dave

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Tickler and Teaser?! Just when you thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous...

[vespican.livejournal.com]

With names like these, I'll not worry so much when it comes time to name vessels in my stories. Seems that just about anything one can imagine can be a legitimate ship's name. Especially so in a large service such as the Royal Navy. Unless one does a lot of research, who's to know if a name mentioned in some fiction work is real or not. It's a little different with the smaller US Navy of the time. Fictional ships seem to stand out as fictional to anyone who has any sort of knowledge of US Navy history and the ships of that period. (I'm currently reading C. S. Forester's THE CAPTAIN FROM CONNECTICUT, in which Josiah Peabody is captain of the frigate Delaware. Obviously a fictional ship, although there was a USS Delaware. It was a 74 launched some time after the War of 1812.)
Dave

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I think you can pretty much get away with anything when naming fictional RN ships! I'm less familiar with the US ships.