Naval Museums

The Viking ships, Oslo, Norway

These ships were excavated at locations in the UK and Norway. Considered as 9^th – 11^th century Viking long ships, a couple of them are beautifully reconstructed. Below is the exhibit showing the surviving part. What is amazing, however, is that the majority of the timber for these boats survived, so that these reconstructed ships use most of the original material. This is because these ships were used for burial of powerful people like chieftens, and somehow the soil preserved them. It is believed that these ships were not built specifically for burial. Perhaps the powerful Vikings wanted to be buried on ships they used throughout their lives? They are similar to those boats depicted on Bayeaux Tapestry, the comic book of the Middle Ages telling the story of the Norman invasion of England, 1066. So we might imagine that the Vikings did use this type of vessels for ocean crossing. The Viking ship is often small enough so it can be dragged on land, giving the Vikings overall land and sea mobility. They were the most feared amphibious raiders the Anglo-Saxon England didn’t know how to counter.

The Jylland (Jutland), Ebeltoft, Denmark

After some country drive from Denmark’s second city, Arhus, you’d suddenly find this fine ship museum in the sleepy town of Ebeltoft. This steam powered frigate participated in Scheswig-Holstein War precipitated by the rapid and meteoric rise of the Kingdom of Prussia. Bismarck, the Prussian Chancellor, famously advocated a policy to provoke short victorious wars so Prussia could gain more power. His successful wars against Denmark, Austria and France paved the way for the birth of the German Empire in 1870.

The Peder Skram, Copenhagen, Denmark

This modern warship of the Cold War era is now decommissioned and used as a museum ship, but open only with appointment I gather. It is a typical modern frigate, with the usual weapons arrays of naval guns, SSM tubes (Harpoon anti-ship missiles) and ASW weapons. Peder Skram is a Danish naval leader in the 16^th century, who played a major part in wars when Northern European states were locked in struggles for supremacy in the Baltic.

The Aurora, St. Petersburg, Russia

This is where the Russian Revolution started! Need to say more?

The Mikasa, Yokosuka, Japan

Now one of the Aurora’s nemesis, the Japanese Mikasa. Built by the British shipbuilder, Vickers, this modern warship helped the Japanese rise to the rank of the Great Powers at the beginning of the 20^th century. In 1905, led by the Mikasa, the Japanese battle fleet defeated the Russian Baltic Fleet, demonstrating superiority of British technology and training. (But then also that trying to engage a major modern combat fleet after getting your crew dead tired in a 3-month voyage around the globe is a bad strategy!)

The Mikasa can be found near Yokosuka USN base, Japan

The Averoff, Athens, Greece

This Italian made armoured cruiser, later modified in the US (notice the top mast), is the forgotten hero of the Greek wars against the Turks in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Obviously even the Greeks themselves don’t care much about the Averoff nowadays. If anything, young people use the aft deck for party or something, provoking furious reactions from good citizens of Athens!

But this ship fought off the Turkish fleet in the Balkan wars. At the conclusion of WW1, the Averoff was a part of the Greek fleet occupying Constantinople. When, taking advantage of the Turkish defeat in WW1, the Greeks launched the war of the Megali Idea, the Averoff was also in the thick of it, escorting troop carriers landing at Smyrna. The Greeks, trying to revive the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor, advanced further inland. Unfortunately, the modern Greeks were no Byzantines, and they got creamed by the Young Turks led by Kemal Ataturk, the founding hero of the Turkish Republic. The routed Greeks were ejected from Asia Minor for good. To settle this war between the Greeks and Turks, the Great Powers held the Lausannce Conference in 1923, where they settled their oil interests in the ex-Turkish territories, which are now called Syria, Iraq and Israel.

The Olympia, Athens, Greece

oh and by the way, there is another forgotten ship, the Olympia, the reconstructed Athenian Trireme. Originally an experiement led by an Anglo-Greek team of researchers, the Olympia was used to try out the rowing system of the ancient trireme warship. She is now sitting quietly in a shed next to the Averoff in Faliro Harbour, Athens.