HMS Grasshopper

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

HMS Grasshopper, was the name given to several boats, stations and ships of the Royal Navy.

• Launched in 1806, the first Grasshopper was a 16-gun brig of 383 tons captured in heavy weather off the Dutch island of Texel. On Christmas Day 1811 she was in convoy with the Hero and a transport Archimedes. Due to a navigation error, the two ships were wrecked, but the Grasshopper floated over a sandbar and was trapped. She surrendered the next day. Taken into Dutch service, she was renamed the Irene and saw active service in the Dutch East Indies. She was taken out of service in 1822.

• Grasshopper was a 2-gun screw gunboat, launched at North fleet in 1856.

• the fifth Grasshopper was a torpedo boat destroyer built in 1887

• The sixth Grasshopper would have been a turbine coastal destroyer built by Thorneycroft in 1907. It was renamed as "Torpedo Boat Number 9".

• the seventh Grasshopper was a turbine-engined torpedo boat destroyer, launched at Fairfield in 1910.

• The next Grasshopper was a gunboat of the Locust class gunboat. Designed for river patrols in China, the Grasshopper had a flat bottom, displacement of 585 tons and a crew of seventy-five. She was assigned to the British flotilla at Shanghai but may have only reached Hong Kong before withdrawing to Singapore due to increasing Japanese hostilities in the region. She was sunk, together with her sistership HMS Dragonfly, by Japanese forces south of Singapore on 14 February 1942 with heavy loss of life.
• Later in World War II the name HMS Grasshopper was used for the Royal Navy base at Weymouth.

[edit] References

• battleships-cruisers.co.uk