The Danish Navy 1850-1943: Through The Lens

The Danish Navy 1850-1943 - Through the Lens

By Søren Nørby & Jakob Seerup

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Colophon

Front page: Ice accretion on the torpedo boat R3 Nordkaperen during the Second World War.

Version: This book was published in Danish in 2007 by Lindhardt & Ringhof. (ISBN: 978-87-614-0481-7). This version has been updated and translated in 2015. A few illustrations have been replaced and a number of new ones have been inserted.

ISBN: 9788799872633

Crediting: If not explicitly otherwise stated, the illustrations are from the Danish Defense Library’s archive, www.forsvarsgalleriet.dk.

Errors and omissions: If readers of this e-book find errors or omissions, the authors would be grateful to be notified. We can be reached at noerby@gmail.com

© Søren Nørby & Jakob Seerup, 2015. Smashwords Edition

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Table of contents

Foreword by Vice Admiral Tim Sloth Jørgensen

The authors' opening

The history of the Danish Navy 1850-1943

The Royal Dockyard – the Navy base for 300 years

Launches

Life at sea

The faces of the Navy

The Danish Navy and the Royal family

New weapons, new tactics

The Naval Air Service

Exercises and deployments

Accident and sinkings

The Navy and the colonies

The Danish Navy at war

Bibliography

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Foreword

The Danish Navy's development between the years 1850-1943 is undoubtedly one of the most exciting periods in its history. The period was in many ways a problematic time for the fleet, which over the years, through innumerable changes, became smaller and smaller until finally – on the 29th of August, 1943 – it actually ceased to exist. Nevertheless, or perhaps because of these challenges, the period is extremely interesting.

The period was characterized by tremendous technological advances, which also affected the Danish Navy. The introduction of corrugated breech loading guns, the steam engine and many other innovations shaped the fleet and the Navy’s personnel in both war and peace. The subject matter of this book, therefore, describes a highly pertinent period, which not only tells the history of the Danish Navy; the book also covers the technological changes, the tasks of the Navy, the sailors and their uniforms, life aboard the ships and many other aspects.

Not least the history of and pictures from the Royal Dockyard (Holmen) naval base throughout the years should inspire anyone with an interest in the Danish Navy.

Being a present-day sailor, it is a real pleasure to read this book – not least because of the many previously unknown pictures and photographs – about naval history in a period when the foundation stones of the fleet as we know it today were laid.

Vice Admiral Tim Sloth Jørgensen.

The corvette Dagmar fires a salute in Copenhagen harbor, June 1899, on the occasion of the French cadet ship Iphigenis' visit. It looked festive when a sailing vessel flagged the peaks as Dagmar is doing here. The firing of a salute is today still a festive part of larger events, but it is in fact an old tradition with a serious background. By firing the salute, a ship demonstrates that its canons are empty and that other ships therefore have nothing to fear. In the days before the emergence of the radio, cannon shots and signals by horn and flag were the only means of communicating between ships at sea. (J. Danielsen)

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Introduction by the Authors

The years 1850-1940 were marked by surging technological developments. This was especially true in the Danish Navy, where centuries of knowhow in a few short years became obsolete. Wooden ships of the line armed with smoothbore guns and manned by hundreds of sailors were soon only a distant memory, as the era of the sailing ship gave way to the century of the steam engine.

The development of new materials and technology altered the appearance of the ships. Now, from a long distance off, smoke from smokestacks, replacing the towering masts of the old sail-driven ships, announced that a ship was on its way.

Requirements for sailors and officers also changed. The knowledge of how to sail in all types of weather lost its importance and, gradually, the realization emerged that a good naval officer or chief also had be a good technician with knowledge of machinery, electricity, radio technology and many other specialized areas.

The fleet had always been an institution highly dependent on new technology, and although many people today would regard the old sailing ships as relics from a nostalgic past, it is worth recalling that a sail-carrying ship of the line in the 1700s was not merely a charming spectacle but also represented the peak of contemporary technological prowess.

The ship of the line Dannebrog under construction at the Royal Dockyard in 1849. This is the oldest known photograph (daguerreotype) of a Danish warship. The photographer is anonymous, and there is no indication of the year, but the oldest Danish daguerreotypes are from 1841, and the method was used in Denmark until the late 1850s. If one looks closely, one can see the ship's figurehead, a female figure with the flag in her right hand and her left hand pointing skyward, from where the Danish flag, Dannebrog, according to the legend fell in 1219. The ship looks almost ready for launching - stern first, and there is thus every reason to assume that the daguerreotype was taken immediately before the launch on the 25th of September, 1849 (Museum of Copenhagen).

It is therefore no surprise that it was at the Navy’s shipyard in Copenhagen that Denmark's first steam engine was established in 1790. It drove the great hammer used to forge the large anchors for the warships, until it unfortunately burned along with large parts of the city in 1795.

The royal family with King Christian X in front arrives with the royal yacht Dannebrog in Aarhus in 1912. All are wearing black as a sign of grief following the death of King Frederik VIII. Note that the photographer has captured another photographer trying to capture the event for posterity. This image was subsequently sold as a postcard (Royal Danish Naval Museum)

Among the many innovations that saw the light during the 18th century, one deserves particular mention – the camera, which made it possible to capture moments on photographic paper. The pioneers of Danish photography used their devices both to depict the reality that they were about to say goodbye to – e.g., the last ships of the line – and the modern reality that the photograph itself was a part of.

In their choice of motifs, the photographers often showed an enthusiasm for the new technological creations. New ships, new weapons and industrial facilities were all obvious motifs for 19th-century photographers. In the early years of the new era, however, men and women were the most frequent motifs, and photographed portraits became very popular. Naval officers also allowed themselves to be portrayed in this way. Mostly officers, but sometimes also the common sailor and others, were photographed. These images represented a social revolution. Before the invention of the camera, it had been almost unthinkable that an artist would depict a group of ordinary seamen. The camera changed this, and soon officers were seen in photographs along with their crew.

Before the invention of photography, it had been left to the painters to depict the ships and life at sea. The best-known Danish maritime painter is C.W. Eckersberg (1783-1853), who throughout his career produced numerous paintings showing Danish and foreign ships. He especially liked painting warships and was obviously fascinated by the challenge in reproducing the complex patterns that the ropes in ships' rigging made against the sky. Only rarely did his gaze turn from ships silhouetted against the sky and to situations on deck.

Around the year 1830, C. W. Eckersberg made this sketch of a corvette, ready for launch at the Royal Dockyard.

Paintings of battles were an older genre than Eckerberg’s refined naval paintings from the golden age of Danish painting. Depictions of battles at sea had gained popularity already in the 17th century, when the frequent Danish wars against the Swedes gave ample occasion for this kind of artistic expression. The often very large paintings served as ostentatious decorations in the royal palaces, as one can still see at Frederiksborg Castle, for instance, where Møinichen’s dramatic depictions of naval battles in the war 1676-1679 are preserved as ceiling decorations. The chief purpose of the paintings and tapestries, however, was to impress viewers and not to document the battles. The painters had often not been present at the battles but relied on eyewitness reports, or let their own imaginations shape the scenes. These paintings, therefore, cannot be considered objective documentation of the depicted events.

From the first years of the 19th century, however, another type of images appeared. They were not produced with the intention to boost royal reputation but were more a kind of reportage images, in which the country's citizens, who had not been present, could study how the battle had taken place.

One of the best-known examples of this is C.A. Lorenzen's painting of the Battle of Copenhagen on April 2nd, 1801. The picture is unique, since Lorenzen was an eyewitness to the battle. From the top of Our Saviour Church steeple at Christianshavn, he made his first sketches while the battle was going on a few miles from his vantage point. Lorenzen then invited the surviving Danish officers to his studio, where they were encouraged to point out the mistakes that they found in the sketches. This was a laborious process, but necessary since Lorenzen wanted to show a proper view of the battle. He succeeded, and the consensus today is that Lorenzen's painting, with high accuracy, depicts the battle as it was taking place shortly before one o’clock in the afternoon of the 2nd of April, 1801.

J.F. Clemens' engraving of the Battle of Copenhagen. Although the main focus of the picture was to represent the battle as accurately as possible, the artist was not aiming for photographic accuracy. Thus, the buildings at the Royal Dockyard are only shown schematically, and a number of them were removed so that there was more room for the battle scene in the middle. In December 1801, the Danish Crown Prince Frederik bought the painting for 1,000 Rigsdaler, and soon engravings of the painting were sold around the country for five Rigsdaler. Even Vice Admiral Nelson, who had lead the English force during the battle, ordered an engraving of