bing news | Palantir manifesto described as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ amid UK contract fears

AI generated summary, Read the full article for complete information.

MPs have condemned Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s recent “manifesto,” which praised American power, called for reinstating a US military draft, advocated AI‑driven state surveillance and suggested some cultures are inferior, describing it as a “parody of a RoboCop film” or the “ramblings of a supervillain.” The 22‑point post on X warned that autonomous weapons will be built regardless of debate and urged “hard power” to protect “free and democratic societies.” Critics say the extremist rhetoric raises fresh doubts about Palantir’s extensive UK contracts—including a £330 million NHS data platform deal and work with the police, Ministry of Defence and the Financial Conduct Authority—arguing the company’s ideology is unsuitable for handling sensitive public‑sector data. Palantir defended its work, claiming its software improves NHS operations, naval readiness and protects vulnerable people.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/21/palantir-manifesto-uk-contract-fears-mps

#AlexKarp #RachaelMaskell #Palantir #NHS #RoyalNavy #MartinWrigley #VictoriaCollins

AI generated summary, Read the full article for complete information.

Les sous-marins nucléaires lanceurs d’engins de la Royal Navy passent désormais plus de 6 mois en mer

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.opex360.com/2026/04/21/les-sous-marins-nucleaires-lanceurs-dengins-de-la-royal-navy-passent-desormais-plus-de-6-mois-en-mer/

La Royal Navy envisage de revendre trois de ses huit patrouilleurs hauturiers à l’Uruguay

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.opex360.com/2026/04/21/la-royal-navy-envisage-de-revendre-trois-de-ses-huit-patrouilleurs-hauturiers-a-luruguay/

The thread about John Paul Jones; the Scottish-American “pirate” who tried to capture Edinburgh and Leith but lived to tell the tale

This thread was originally written and published in December 2019.

It was on a day like this, 240 years ago, with a west wind howling up the Firth of Forth, rattling the window panes and lifting the roof tiles, that Edinburgh and Leith were saved from sacking by the fledgling United States Navy. The year was 1779 and it was the middle of the War of Independence when a squadron of American ships of war appeared in the Firth. Their objective; to disrupt shipping, spread panic and “raise a contribution” to the American war effort of two hundred thousand pounds from the wallets of the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith. These ships were the 36-gun Bon Homme Richard, the 32-gun Pallas and the 12-gun Vengeance and in command was one John Paul Jones. To the Americans a great hero, a father to their naval service:

To the British, a common pirate. Of course, they would say that, because he beat them at their own game, rattled the establishment to its core and made the mighty Royal Navy look rather impotent.

So who was John Paul Jones? For a start, he wasn’t born as John Paul Jones or an American, he was actually from Kirkcudbrightshire. He was born in 1747 as plain John Paul to John Paul (senior), a gardener and Jean Mcduff. In 1760, John junior was apprenticed to a sea captain in Whitehaven and took to the seven seas on the merchant ship Friendship. He sailed the Atlantic trade route, mainly between Britain and the colony of Virginia where his older brother was settled.

For quite a few years John kept this up, working his way up the ranks to First Mate by 1768. At this point fate begins to intervene and steer his life on a new course. In Jamaica, he decides to abandon his ship and work his passage back to Scotland. Once home, he finds a new ship – the appropriately named John – and is taken on as lower mate. When the master and leading mates unexpectedly die of fever, he takes command and brings the ship and her cargo safely home. In gratitude, the owners raise him to master. So at the tender age of 23, John finds himself a ship’s master with 10 years experience under his belt; life has worked out well for him. But then some things start to go wrong. On only his seconnd voyage as master he has someone flogged for insubordination. This was a very common and non-noteworthy act for the time, sailors were kept in check with fairly equal proportions of corporal punishment, alcohol and the promise of the occasional pay packet.

But the flogged man has connections back in Scotland and when he died (from Yellow Fever), the blame for his death is laid at the feet of John. As a young captain from a humble family he has little influence himself over matters once he’s off his ship and finds himself thrown in the Tolbooth of Kirkcudbright to await his fate. But clearly he is not without any friends as he is bailed and given some quiet advice to get far away from Kirkcudbright before the law has its way. This was sensible advice, which was followed.

As a result he quickly leaves Scotland for England and finds a new ship, the Betsy, and spends 18 successful months toing and froing in the Caribbean, before once again clashing with a subordinate crewmember. This time, he allegedly runs the man through with a sword in an argument over pay. He would claim this was self defence, but having fled from the law before he must have realised that he couldn’t go back and face any more music the music and so headed north to the Virginia colony in about 1772. He finds that his brother has died and so takes takes over his affairs there.

Perhaps it is to cover his tracks that in Virginia he changes his name to John Paul Jones, with American folk legend suggesting that it was in honour of statesman Willie Jones. JPJ takes to his new home and when war breaks out with Britian he signs up to fight for his adopted homeland against that of his birth. Whether this was opportunism or patriotism is not clear but in 1775 he is part of the newly formed Continental Navy. As an experienced sailor and officer, JPJ’s potential is recognised by founding father Richard Henry Lee and he is appointed First Lieutenant of the frigate Alfred. Like most US ships of this time it’s a converted merchantman, but the line between smaller naval and civilian ships at this time was rather blurry so it was not that uncommon.

It is apparently JPJ who had the honour of hoisting the Grand Union Flag – the first national flag of the United States, on a US ship, for the first time. He and the Alfred sail to the Caribbean and raid Nassau, but after this this point he takes a demotion to a smaller ship, the sloop Providence, as a step on the ladder to commanding a frigate of his own.

Long story short, JPJ rapidly impresses his superiors with a combination of skill, aggression and good luck. By 1778 he is in charge of the new frigate Ranger. On February 14th, on the Ranger, he took a salute from a French naval squadron under La Motte Picquet in the Robuste at Quiberon Bay, the first official recognition of the young American state by a foreign government.

He is now sent to take the war to the British on the other side of the Atlantic but finds that his crew – and in particular his officers – are completely lacking, unwilling to take risks or to follow his orders. A raid on the sloop HMS Drake fails due to poor seamanship. A raid on Whitehaven, his old home port, fails due to a combination of poor weather and an uncooperative crew who decided to visit the pub instead of set fire to the shipping in the harbour.

JPJ next hatches a plot to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk for ransom from St. Mary’s Isle, but this scheme is foiled as the Earl is away; the Americans are instead cordially entertained by the Earl’s wife before leaving after helping themselves to some silverwear. (JPJ would later buy the loot back, at his own expense, and return it to the Selkirks).

The effect on British morale and general public alarm was much significant. Here were American rebels acting with impunity, not just in British waters but also on the land! It was a national scandal. But the reality was that his raiding around the Solway proved fruitless and resulted in a crew who were restless from the lack of prize money. And so JPJ sails the Ranger back across the Irish Sea and finally catches up with his previous quarry, the sloop HMS Drake, off of Carrickfergus. A roughly equal fight on paper, he deploys a ruse to get the initial jump on Drake before bettering her with skilful gunnery. Five of the British crew, including their captain and the first lieutenant, were killed in the fight and after an hour the Drake surrendered. This was another national scandal for the Royal Navy in home waters at the hands of the young man from Kirkcudbright.

JPJ has Drake sailed to Brest to be sold to the French as a prize. This was finally a great victory for him and the Continental Navy, but there was much acrimony between captain, second in command Lt. Simpson (who he tries and fails to have court-martialled) and the crew. In France, JPJ is given a bigger ship, the merchantman Duc de Duras, which has been gifted to the US Navy by a sympathiser. On conversion to a 40-gun warship he has her named Bonhomme Richard after Ben Franklin, who used the pseudonym “Poor Richard” to publish his almanac in Paris

JPJ assembles a little fleet and prepares for war in Lorient in June 1779 but is forced back from his initial cruise by bad weather and in need of repairs. A second attempt is made in August; Bonhomme Richard, Pallas and Vengeance are accompanied by the French naval cutter Le Cerf and two privateers, Monsieur and Granville. Monsieur falls out with JPJ only days out of port and leaves the fleet – falling out with his subordinates is quickly becoming something of a hallmark for JPJ’s expeditions. But this time the Royal Navy are better prepared and locate and attempt to chase the Americans. He is able to lead them on a merry dance around the north of Scotland before shaking the pursuers off. On his way, despite ongoing squabbles with other officers, he is able to take 16 merchant ships as prizes.

And so it was on the 16th September 1779 that there is great alarm on both banks of the Forth when John Paul Jones and his three remaining ships (the others had returned to France by this time with the prizes), appeared in the Forth intent on sailing up it and doing as they pleased.

A panic spreads through Edinburgh and Leith. The moneyed classes secure their goods and flee the city for their estates. The banks are locked up, the garrison barricade themselves in Edinburgh Castle, the church bells are rung and “neither a carriage nor a horse [was] to be seen“. Leith’s fortifications, the great Marian walls and the Cromwellian citadel are decrepit, having been partially slighted and then left to the elements and those intent on pilfering the masonry for building material. A more fundamental problem is that they were never designed to offer defence from seaward, but from landward. But the enterprising folk of Leith try to mount a defence of sorts as best they can. Three spare old cannon were retrieved from the Naval Victualling Yard on Constitution Street and manhandled along to the walls of the Citadel.

The remains of the citadel do at least provide something of a raised firing platform to cover the mouth of the harbour, but this battery was “extremely perilous to those who worked it“. Edinburgh sent down a couple more old cannon and gunners from the castle and these were posted near Newhaven with small arms were handed out to the Incorporated Trades of Leith. With this meagre defence, the town battened down the hatches and awaited its fate.

But the folk of Kirkcaldy, on the opposite shore of the Forth, take an alternative approach to defence. They follow their minister, the Reverend Robert Shirra, down to the sea and begin to pray for almighty intervention.

Now deer Lord, dinna ye think it a shame for ye to send this vile piret to rob our folk o Kirkcaldy; for ye ken they’re puir enow already, and hae naething to spaire

And would you know the almighty happened to be listening? For no sooner had Kirkcaldy prayed for salvation than, in the words of John Paul Jones, “a very severe gale of wind came on, and being directly contrary obliged me to bear away after having in vain endeavoured for some time to withstand its violence“.

As the wind blew up, JPJ’s ships were not yet in the shelter of Leith Roads in the lee of Inchkeith island where they could ride out the storm, so despite being “in a cannon’s shot of the town” they were obliged to follow the wind back out to sea. In the process, the ship Friendship they had taken in prize was lost. The little fleet was blown straight out of the Firth and down the east coast. Edinburgh, Leith and Kirkcaldy have been saved!

A week later the Royal Navy finally encounters JPJ off Flamborough Head when he runs into a convoy of merchant ships under their protection and a somewhat scrappy and confused battle takes place. In the course of the action, the Bonhomme Richard is damaged so heavily that she will sink the next day, but JPJ in return manages to capture the British flagship HMS Serapis and takes her instead.

The outcome of the battle is still hotly debated; JPJ and the Americans can claim another embarrassing Royal Navy scalp, in sight of British soil and once again they have failed to stop JPJ. But the merchant convoy – the real prize – has slipped away unharmed. However that is a somewhat hollow strategic victory for the Royal Navy. Once Again, the Americans press have their hero and the British their villain.

After the battle, JPJ wants to head for France, but his subordinates insist they follow orders and head for the neutral Dutch island of Texel in the United Provinces. A tricky diplomatic incident ensues as they have lost the Continental Navy’s flags when Bonhomme Richard went down, and couldn’t fly the Royal Navy’s ensigns from the Serapis and so were technically operating under no flag. This allowes the British to claim that they were pirates. So, based on only a written description, (“colors should be white, red, and blue alternately to thirteen… [with a] blue field with thirteen stars… in the canton“) JPJ had his men run up a new – and rather unconventional – Continental Navy flag. The Dutch dutifully checked that the flag matched the description (they were very unlikely to know what the flag of an American warship should look like as they’d probably never seen one) and entered it with a sketch in their records to make it official.

With its 8-pointed stars and irregular groupings of red/white/blue tricolour stripes, the “Serapis flag” is unique, the true work of a sailor handy with needle and thread and not someone versed in the rigid conventions of vexilology. John Paul Jones’ wacky flag was enough to save him from international charges of piracy and now takes pride of place on the coat of arms of the US warships that have taken his name.

Back in Leith, plans were immediately drawn up for a new artillery fort to protect the port and the city of Edinburgh behind from the sea. These were drawn up by local celebrated architect James Craig – who laid out Edinburgh first New Town – despite him having no background in military engineering. The fort and the land on which it was built were provided “at the expense of the citizens of Edinburgh and Leith“. It was a fairly straightforward defensive structure, a half-moon battery of cannon facing out to sea, protected by a perimeter ditch, low masonry wall and a large earthen glacis heaped up infront of it to seeward. To the landward there is were a pair of blockhouse corner bastions to protect it from rear assaults. The Fort’s battery of guns covered the navigable channel of the approach to the Port of Leith.

So there you have it, the tale of the lad from Kirkcudbrightshire that the Royal Navy couldn’t sink, who tried to capture the Earl of Selkirk, who put the willies up the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith, who rocked the vexilogical world but who could not overcome a Kirk minister and the weather. Oh, and how this modern street on the site of Leith Fort got its name:

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Henry Robb at War: the thread about ships built in Leith during World War 2

I have previously gone into a bit of detail about the last days of Henry Robbs, Leith’s last shipyard. But thought I might also fill out a bit of the middle history too.

The company of Robbs was quite late on the Scottish shipbuilding scene, only forming in 1918 when one of the yard managers from Ramage & Fergusons, Leith’s then major shipbuilder, struck out on his own. That was Henry Robb and his company grew in the post-war slump by buying up slipway capacity from older shipyards. By 1934 they bought over Ramage & Ferguson themselves and became the only major shipbuilder in Leith. The company’s speciality was small, commercial vessels, coasters, tugs, dredgers, trawlers and the like. in the order of 500-1,500 tons displacement and up to 300 feet length. Practices were traditional, ships were riveted together and generally steam powered. In that respect they were little different from any other small Scottish shipyard outside the Clyde. As the clouds of war gathered in the late 1930s, the government suddenly needed *lots* of warships and ways had to be found to get small commercial shipbuilders to build them.

The most pressing needs were for convoy escorts, and to get them build in yards such as Robbs they needed to be small enough, built to largely commercial standards and with traditional techniques. There was initially no time to introduce things like prefabrication or welding. So before war even began, like commercial yards across Britain, Robbs was getting orders for warships. Things started off quite simply but as the war went on, they would produce more, bigger and more sophisticated ships. The first 2 warships were HM Trawlers Hickory and Hazel, Tree-class vessels. Little more than militarised versions of large commercial steam trawlers, they had basic weapons for fighting submarines and were most useful as minesweepers. Both were laid down in 1939, and commissioned in March and April of 1940 respectively. Hickory would be lost 6 months later when she hit a mine and sank off of Portland. 20 men were lost, the survivors were picked up by sister ship Pine. Hazel survived the war.

The next 4 ships built were ordered in 1939 & 40 and were Flower-class corvettes. These were based on the design of a commercial steam whaler by the Smiths Docks Company. They were intended for coastal use but ended up being the initial mainstay of the North Atlantic convoys. Much has been written about the Flower”. One phrase that always follows them around is that “they would roll on wet grass“. They were much too small for mid-ocean use and you can imagine how the Atlantic bobbed them around like corks. But built they were and in large numbers too, and for all their design faults and shortcomings their were there and they were available. Robbs built HMS Dianthus, Delphinium, Petunia and Polyanthus in this initial batch.

Like most Flowers, Dianthus had a busy, tough war, but she also was quite “productive”, sinking the German submarines U-379 off Greenland on 8th August 1942 and U-225 off the Azores on 22nd February 1943.

That last picture is a depth charge; the standard anti-submarine weapon until late in the war. Basically a 400lb drum of high explosives with a hydrostatic detonator that would set it off at a pre-determined depth. It was projected out from the side of the ship by an explosive charge using a device called a “K-gun” (from the shape of the casting). The depth charge could also be simply rolled over the stern from a rack. You then had to vacate the area ASAP or risk being badly damaged by your own weapon. It was crude, it was imprecise, it was hard to use but it was devastating if it got close to a submarine

Polyanthus was assigned to the Newfoundland Command of the Royal Canadian Navy and was lost on September 21st 1943 in the mid-Atlantic, 1,000 miles from Iceland. She was hit by a German homing torpedo of the sort designed to target escort ships. Only 1 man survived. The survivor was picked up by the Frigate HMS Itchen. Just 3 days later, Itchen herself was hit by another homing torpedo and nearly all, including the survivor from Polyanthus were lost. These would be the first 2 ships lost to homing torpedoes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jcinanshan/16438349711

The others survived the war. Delphinium was scrapped, Dianthus and Petunia were sold into commercial service. The “Flowers” came from a commercial whaler design and were readily adaptable back into such a ship.

In 1940, 7 smaller warships were laid down. Two Bangor-class minesweepers, two Dance-class trawlers and three Bird-class minesweepers for New Zealand. The Bangors were small coastal minesweepers, named after seaside towns. Robbs built Sidmouth and Stornoway. The picture shows Sidmouth (left) next to Bangor. Both survived the war and were sold soon after

The Dance-class were very similar to the two “Trees” built by Robbs the previous year. They were HMT Saltarelo and HMT Sword Dance. Both were sold into commercial service after the war.

The three “Birds” were HMNZS Tui, Moa and Kiwi. Built as minesweepers for New Zealand, they were basically overgrown trawlers and originally intended as training ships for the fledgling service. The little Birds served far from Leith. Moa and Kiwi sank the Japanese submarine I-1 off of Guadalcanal in the pacific on 29th January 1943. Tui sank I-17 off of Noumea on 19th August 1943. Moa was hit by a Japanese bomb and sank while in harbour in the Pacific island of Tulagi. Five men were killed. Her two sisters would survive the war.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/42117802@N06/4374819037

In 1941, Robbs laid down 9 ships. Two more Flower-class corvettes, 2 Bustler-class salvage tugs, 2 Isles-class trawlers, 2 River-class frigates and a single landing craft. The Flowers were HMS Lotus and Pink. Both were commissioned in 1942. Lotus‘ first war action was part of the escort of the disastrous convoy PQ17 in June and July 1942. She sank the submarine U-660 off Oran in the Mediterranean with her sister Starwort on 12th November 1942. Days later they attacked another submarine contact and are credited with sinking U-605, although it may have been U-77 which would escape with damage.

The strange A-frame hung off the front of the ship is an “acoustic hammer”. Basically a modified jackhammer sealed in a steel drum that it would impact against, it was hung in the water and the terrific noise could detonate acoustic mines ahead of the ship. In theory.

Here is a remarkable British Pathé newsreel of HMS “Pink” being launched in Leith, on a chilly day in February 1942.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCoGMllwwjc

Pink heavily damaged the submarine U-358 in the North Atlantic on 5th May 1943, but was torpedoed a year later in the English Channel and was a “Constructive Total Loss”, i.e. she didn’t sink but she would never sail again. She was scrapped in 1947

Lotus was ordered as HMS Phlox, but her name was changed. She was transferred to the Free French Navy as Commandant d’Estienne d’Orves. She survived the war, was returned by France in 1947 and was converted into a whaler, joining Leith’s own Christian Salvesen fleet as Southern Lotus. Her last whaling season was 1962/3. She was towed from Leith (South Georgia) to Norway and laid up to be sold for scrapping in 1966, but was wrecked on tow to Belgium.

The two tugs were Bustler and Samsonia, unusual for British ships of this time in that they were diesel-powered. These were military tugs, designed to sail with convoys and act as rescue and salvage ships. Robbs would build eight Bustlers during the war.

The two Isles-class trawlers were again very similar to the earlier Dance and Tree classes. They were the main class of British WW2 naval trawlers, with some 145 built. Robbs built HMT Skye and Staffa, both of which survived the war.

The landing craft built by Robbs would be the only one they ever built. She was ordered as a Mark II LCT TLC.47 but renumbered LCT.115 for service (LCT = Landing Craft, Tank) She was bombed and sunk off Kasteleriso in the Dodecanese on 28th October 1943.

The last pair of ships from 1941 were the River-class frigates HMS Ness and Nith. The frigates were a much better design of ocean convoy escort than the Flowers, they were basically two sets of corvette machinery in a longer hull. They also incorporated much of the newly developed anti-submarine equipment and weaponry from scratch and many of the lessons of how to try and make the ships more habitable and efficient for their crews.

Nith was present at the Normandy landings. She would be hit by a “Mistel”, a gigantic remote control flying bomb with a 1.8 tonne warhead, on 23rd June 1944 but somehow survived with only light damage. 10 men were killed but Nith was returned to service. In 1948 she was transferred to Egypt as Domiat. In 1956 she was sunk by the cruiser HMS Newfoundland during the Suez crisis after picking a fight she couldn’t hope to win. She became the only ship sunk during the conflict. 69 of her crew of around 110 were rescued.

In 1942, seven ships would be launched. That year was also the peak of production at Robbs in terms of both total launches and total displacement of ships launched. Two Bustlers, four River-class frigates and another Isles-class trawler were laid down. The tugs were Growler and Hesperia. For reasons I’m unclear about, the latter was renamed from Boisterous before commissioning. She was wrecked off Libya in February 1945. Growler was sold in 1947. The trawler was HMT Wallasea, commissioned on 31st July 1943 she would be lost in Mounts Bay just 5 months later on 5th January 1944 after the convoy she was escorting was attacked by German “E-boats”. 17 of the crew of 40 were lost.

The four Rivers laid down in 1942 were Derg, Glenarm, Windrush and Wye. They each took between 350 and 448 days to build, commissioning between June 1943 and February 1944.

Glenarm, named after the Northern Irish river, sank the submarine U-377 on January 17th 1944 in company with the corvette Geranium and the old destroyer Wanderer. She was renamed Strule in February of that year before transferring to the Free French as Croix de Lorraine.

She joined her sister Windrush, which had transferred to France in February as Découverte. Both survived the war and were decommissioned in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Derg would be present in Tokyo Bay in September 1945 when Japan officially surrendered. She was scrapped in 1960. Wye would also survive the war, to be scrapped in 1955.

1943 saw 8 ships laid down and 7 launched. Those laid down were three Castle-class corvettes, three Loch-class frigates and two more Bustler-class tugs. The Castles were an attempt to keep small slipways productive by building a smaller than ideally desirable escort ship that incorporated wartime advances and all the lessons learned with the Flowers. Some prefabrication was used but generally they remained built to old commercial practices.

Flint Castle survived the war, she appeared in the 1955 film “Cockleshell Heroes” portraying a German warship. She was sold for scrap in 1958. The other two Castles were HMCS Orangeville and HMCS Hespeler, they lacked castle names as they were transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy while building. Both were sold for merchant use in 1947, the former to China and the latter in Italy.

The Loch class were a new design based on the earlier Rivers, a design for an ideal anti-submarine ship, incorporating wartime lessons and technology and a design rationalised for rapid building, and modern prefabrication and welding. They had the latest radar, sonar and direction finders, but the main advance was the “Squid”, a weapon that threw three bombs ahead of the ship to land in a triangular pattern around a submerged target.

The Lochs carried two “Squids”. The bombs from one were set to detonate slightly below the other, creating a pressure wave in which the submarine target would be trapped and crushed. It was a horribly effective device, with a 34% success rate; by comparison it could take hundreds of depth charges dropped over hours (or longer) to sink a submarine. Robb-built HMS Loch Insh demonstrated the effectiveness, sinking U-307 in the Barents Sea on 29th April 1945 then U-286 later the same day with the frigate Anguilla and the corvette Cotton. She was sold to Malaysia after the war.

The other Lochs were Loch Fada, Loch Achanalt and Loch Katrine. The latter was built in a remarkable 364 days, entering service on 29th December 1944. Loch Achanalt took a more leisurely 645 days and commissioned just before the war’s end. Both ended up in New Zealand service.

The 1943 Bustlers were Mediator and Warden; the former completed in November 1944 and was sold in 1965, the latter in December 1945 and was sold in 1946. By 1944, with the outcome of the war much more certain, orders were scaled back a bit with only 5 ships laid down, although production of existing orders reached a peak, with 9,347 tonnes of warships launched in Leith.

1944s ships were another pair of Bustlers and three Bay-class frigates. The Bustlers were Turmoil, which completed in July 1945 to be sold in 1946 and Reward. The latter was sold in 1963 but returned to naval service as a tug in 1970. In 1975 she was converted to a patrol vessel to help protect North Sea oil interests as HMS Reward. She was rammed and sunk in an accident in the Firth of Forth, just a few miles from where she was launched, off of Inverkeithing the following year on August 10th by the German cargo vessel Plainsman. She was salvaged the following month and scrapped.

The Bay class were Lochs that had been re-purposed as anti-aircraft vessels. This decision was made as these sorts of ships were much more in need for the Pacific theatre than anti-submarine vessels. None of the three Bays built by Robbs, Cardigan Bay, Padstow Bay or Carnarvon Bay would see any active service in WW2, completing too late.

No more warships were laid down by Henry Robb during WW2, the launches in 1945 being outstanding orders. Three 1943 orders for Lochs were cancelled that would have been 1945 lay-downs; Loch Nell, Loch Odairn and Loch Kishorn. In the 6 years of WW2, Henry Robbs built 42 warships in Leith totalling 42,725 tonnes displacement;

• 7 trawlers
• 8 tugs
• 9 corvettes
• 12 frigates
• 5 minesweepers
• 1 landing craft

1942 was the peak year for number of launches, although a marginally greater displacement was launched in 1944 as fewer, larger vessels were built.

Leith would also be the principle fabrication and assembly yard for parts of the “Mulberry Harbours” used off of the Normandy Beaches, but that’s another story (which you can now read over on this thread).

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

Redemption in Leith: the thread about HMS Cossack

The neat, well kept war graves at Seafield Cemetery include 5 men from the destroyer HMS Cossack, who lost their lives in an accident at sea on November 7th 1939, when their ship collided with the Leith steamer Borthwick off the Isle of May.

The protagonists in this accident were the Cossack, one of the Navy’s big, new “Tribal class” destroyers: two and a half thousand tons of guns and torpedoes which could cut through the sea at 36 knots (over 40mph).

The other was the George Gibson & Co. steamer Borthwick, a ship built and owned in Leith which plied the North Sea on the Antwerp and Rotterdam route. She was much smaller than the big warship’,; over 100 feet shorter, about 1/4 her displacement and barely capable of double digit speeds on her single steam engine which had an output 1/300th of that of Cossack.

It was a dark winter night on the Firth of Forth and ships were showing only the bare minimum of navigation lights. The Borthwick and Cossack were on a parallel course, heading east off the Isle of May, with the destroyer overtaking the little steamer when, for reasons of his own, Captain Daniel De Pass of the Cossack turned across the path of Borthwick. De Pass had a bit of a reputation for poor seamanship, having done something like this before on pre-war exercises. The outcome was inevitable, the bows of the Borthwick cutting into the side of Cossack, right into the seamen’s mess where the men were just sitting down to dinner. Three men died where they sat. Able Seaman Heatherley and Ordinary Seaman Clarke were pulled into the cold, dark North Sea as the water rushed in to their compartment, never to be seen again. Three more men were seriously injured (Ordinary Seaman Clifford Harmer would be invalided out of the Navy with a hand injury) and those in the mess below were trapped for an hour, up to their necks in water. Their ship limped back to Leith for extensive repairs, the men boarded in the Seamen’s Mission. In an interview in 2005, a survivor – Trevor Tipping – pointed out the steel plate of the ship was only 3/8 inch thick and “folded back, like a sardine tin” when the collision happened.

The repairs – by Leith shipyard Henry Robb – took almost 2 months and cost £11,250 (£504k in 2023). Captain De Pass faced a Board of Inquiry, which put him 75% at fault. He was court martialled, relieved of his command and posted away elsewhere before taking retirement. His replacement was the dashing yet thoroughly competent Captain Philip Vian.

The men of Cossack, cooling their heels in Leith while their ship was repaired, raised a subscription to fund a memorial stoner to their lost shipmates out of their own pockets. It was erected in Seafield cemetery, and is situated by the Cossack war graves.

The Borthwick was patched up and soon back on the dangerous Leith to Holland route. She was sunk 4 months later – on March 9th 1940 – by the German submarine U-14 off the River Scheldt, on her way home from Rotterdam to Leith. All 21 on board survived and were picked up. The newspapers celebrated on 11th March when news reached home that the men of the Borthwick had all been landed safely in Flushing.

Cossack did not leave Leith until 10th January, but was back 3 days later for more repairs after an embarrassing – but fortunately minor – collision with the cable laying ship Royal Scot in Leith Roads. She left again, returning to the 4th Destroyer Flotilla with Captain Vian now installed in command. But she wouldn’t be gone long and would return with the month. This time should would be an international hero, the victor of the daring “Altmark Incident“, a swashbuckling tale that can always do with retelling.

On the face of it, Altmark was a humble German merchant ship. In reality, she was a supply tanker for the Kriegsmarine – the German Navy – and had on board almost 300 British and Allied prisoners, merchant seamen whose ships had been sunk by the “pocket battleship” commerce raider Admiral Graf Spee in the South Atlantic.

The Graf Spee had been scuttled just off Montevideo after the Royal Navy had cornered her into a fight in the Battle of the River Plate on December 17th – while Cossack was laid up in a Leith drydock undergoing repairs. Before the battle she had transferred most of her prisoners to her supply ship, which was heading back to Germany. Conditions on board caused the British press to call her a “hell ship” and a “floating concentration camp“.

Captain Dau of the Altmark intended to sneak back home by hugging the coasts of the (then) neutral Greenland, Iceland and Norway. He had almost made it when, on Feb. 15th, reconnaissance aircraft out of RAF Leuchars spotted her in Norwegian waters off Bergen. The British destroyers HMS Ivanhoe and Intrepid from Vian’s squadron made to board her but the Altmark sought refuge in the safety of Jøssingfjord. The Royal Navy could only look on as the German ship was escorted into the fjord by the Norwegian Navy, who politely but firmly affirmed their neutrality and turned the British ships around.

Captain Vian, as commander of the squadron, made contact with the ancient Norwegian gunboat Kjell but was asshured that the Norwegian had searched the Altmark, that all was in order and it was a simple German merchant ship and not an armed, Kriegsmarine prison ship. Vian knew this was rubbish, but had no option but to retreat a respectful distance and to signal the Admiralty for orders.

Further reconnaissance flights by the Royal Air Force confirmed that the Altmark was safely holed up right at the end of Jøssingfjord. Meanwhile, Vian’s signal found its way to the desk of the First Lord of the Admiralty, a man who had a reputation for sticking his oar in to operational matters and trying to direct operations from Whitehall. You might be familiar with his name, it was Winston Churchill.

Churchill sent Vian a signal telling him that if the Altmark wasn’t escorted to Bergen for inspection under a joint Anglo-Norwegian guard, he was to board her and free the prisoners, that he had permission to use lethal force in order to do so and that he was to politely but firmly make sure the Royal Norwegian Navy butted out of matters. This was a blatant violation of Norwegian neutrality of course, but there was not a lot the little old gunboat Kjell could do to stop the Cossack beyond yell at her – Vian had permission to fire on her if they fired first, but to stop when they stopped.

And so Vian was set on a course of action and turned his ship around, entering the mouth of Jøssingfjord at 2200 hours on February 16th 1940. He once more went on board the Kjell, this time to give her Captain the ultimatum to either escort the Altmark to Bergen with him, or step aside. When he declined, Vian invited him aboard the Cossack for a grandstand view of what was about to follow, but again he declined. On board the Altmark, Captain Dau saw the threatening shape of the destroyer looming down the Fjord towards him. At first he made to ram her, but instead ended up running his ship aground instead. He next tried to dazzle the Cossack with his searchlight, but the British ship was brought skillfully alongside and in true Nelsonian fashion, a party of 2 officers and 30 men leapt across the gap and boarded the German ship. Legend has it that 4 cutlasses, kept on board for ceremonial purposes, were carried by the boarding party. If true, it would be the last boarding action in which such a weapon was known to be used in anger.

There was a brief skirmish on board but the German crew were soon overpowered. Just as things were almost over however, a German sailor fired at and injured a British sailor, and for his trouble 9 of his shipmates were shot and wounded in the return fire; 4 died and a further 4 were fatally wounded. Having taken the Altmark, the boarders now combed the ship looking for the captives they knew were held somewhere within. One sailor called “Any Englishmen in there?” into a dark hold and on hearing a cheer replied the immortal words “The Navy’s here! Come up out of it!“

Less than two hours after she first entered the fjord, Vian’s ship was on her way out again with 299 freed prisoners on board (including one, an Indian seaman, suffering from Leprosy). She plotted a course for Leith and set off for home at top speed. The Cossack had last entered Leith with a cloud hanging over her reputation, but on her return on February 17th she did so triumphantly. The press cameras were assembled and waiting to welcome her back and to make the most out of this propaganda opportunity.

Ambulances were ready and waiting to take the injured away to hospital while the newsreel cameras rolled.

It was a rare bit of good news so early in the war, so reporting restrictions were not observed. The Scotsman carried a full page spread of photos. Many of those pictured coming ashore had lost all their possessions, some had been prisoners for almost 6 months and their families had no word of what had become of them. For weeks the papers were full of stories of reunions and heroes welcomes.

The Dundee Courier and Advertiser printed a picture of some 1940s medical care, with a nurse at Leith Hospital lighting a recuperative cigarette for Third Officer Leslie Ross of the ship Huntsman. 250 of the his companions were sent to the Eastern General Hospital in Leith for attention, with officials from the City and the Shipwrecked Mariner’s Society on hand to sort out replacement clothing, papers, money, cigarettes etc. and arrange lodging and travel. The sailor who had been suffering from Leprosy was taken to the Infectious Diseases Hospital (the “City Hospital”).

In Stornoway, the Daily Record interviewed the 75 year old Elizabeth Mackenzie of Newton Street, who had not heard from her merchant seaman son – Donald Morrison – for over a year. She was making a public appeal for his whereabouts, he had last written to her over a year ago and was last known to be on the SS Newton Beech: that ship had been sunk by the Graf Spee on 5th October 1939. “I have been very worried because I am going blind, and I am living here with a brother who is over 80” she told the reporter. “I haven’t many friends, but the Lord is my friend, and that is enough.” The happy news about the safety of her son was soon brought to her by Donald Macleod, another Leodsach sailor who had been with him on the Altmark. “It is good news my boy is safe” she told the Record. Donald Murdo Macleod of Tolsta Chaolais had been on the SS Tairoa which had been intercepted by the Graf Spee in the middle of the South Atlantic on December 2nd 1939. Tairoa had been the penultimate victim of the German raider, and had managed to transmit a distress signal that eventually allowed the the Royal Navy to catch up with her assailant.

Donald Morrison however seemed reluctant to return home and instead went to Hull, telling Macleod to let his mother know he “might go home later“. Instead he went back to sea. It seems the whole experience may have left an indelible mark on him and changed his character. He forfeited bail of £1 in Buckhaven on a charge of drunkeness in February 1941. He was soon in trouble again for going absent from his ship. In May 1941 he was hauled before the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth at the Police Court there, again for deserting a ship. Morrison could offer no explanation for being 31 hours overdue and potentially making his ship miss its convoy, beyond “I just had a good time, that is all“. The Master had dismissed him but told the court he was of good character and had been through “unpleasant experiences” and would gladly take him back again. It turned out Morrison had another ship sunk from underneath him recently and had once again lost all his papers and possessions. The Lord Mayor fined him £5 (half a month’s wages) and allowed him to return to his ship on account of his value to the war effort. He won’t have been the only merchant sailor in the War in the Atlantic to have an experience such as this, and in retrospect we can understand his reluctance to return to his ship and potential death and to want to have one more night of fun on earth…

Back in Leith, the Fife Free Press reported that the Altmark Incident was commemorated with the gift of £500 to the Leith Hospital by an anonymous benefactor on the condition that a bed be dedicated to HMS Cossack for rescuing the prisoners. For his “outstanding ability, determination and resource” and “for daring, leadership and masterly handling of his ship“, Captain Vian received the Distinguished Service Order medal and was promoted off of Cossack in July 1941. He would go on to have a glittering wartime career, and would retire in 1952 as Admiral of the Fleet. Cossack had an eventful 18 months after the Altmark, taking part in the 2nd Battle of Narvik and the hunt for the German Battleship Bismarck

The ship’s luck would soon run out however and she was torpedoed and sunk in October 1941 by the German submarine U-563, west of Gibraltar. In November 1941, the Edinburgh Evening News reported that three local men were missing, presumed killed, from her:

• Petty Officer Alexander Burton Colthart, 22, 20 India Place
• Petty Officer Douglas Maurice Gammack, 32 Parsons Green Terrace
• Assistant Cook Robert “Sonny” O’Hara, 23, 205 Crewe Road North

Her cat, Oskar, survived this sinking: legend has it that he had been the ship’s cat on the Bismarck and was plucked from the Atlantic by Cossack after her sinking. His name was said to have been derived from the code letter for “O” (with a German spelling) which was used to mean “man overboard“. Further legend has it that after surviving the loss of his second home he went on to serve on HMS Ark Royal and survived her sinking also. The whole thing was probably just a sailor’s yarn but Unsinkable Sam has garnered a cult following on the internet: you will find Facebook pages, pop history articles, Youtube videos and even computer game cameos in his memory.

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