HMS Shannon (1806)

Type

Frigate

Period

19th Century

Nation

Great Britain

Overview: HMS Shannon was a 38-gun Leda-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, best remembered for her single-ship victory over USS Chesapeake during the War of 1812, an action that restored British naval morale after several frigate losses to the U.S. Navy. Specifications: A 1,065-ton (bm) fifth-rate with a gundeck length of about 150 ft 2 in and a beam of roughly 39 ft 11 in, she carried a complement of 330 and mounted 28 x 18-pounder long guns on her upper deck alongside 9-pounder long guns and 32-pounder carronades on quarterdeck and forecastle. The Leda class was based on the lines of the captured French frigate Hébé, a design by Jacques-Noël Sané; naval historian Robert Gardiner called the type's defining virtue its "unspectacular excellence." Service History: Launched 5 May 1806 at Frindsbury, Kent, she spent her first seven years under Captain Philip Broke, whose relentless gunnery drills made her crew exceptional. She patrolled off Boulogne, took part in a rocket bombardment there, protected Greenland whalers, and captured a French privateer before being sent to North American waters, where on 1 June 1813 she defeated and captured USS Chesapeake off Boston in a battle lasting roughly fifteen minutes, then escorted the prize into Halifax. Notable Facts: The action was extraordinarily bloody for its brevity, killing Chesapeake's captain James Lawrence, whose dying command "Don't give up the ship!" became a lasting U.S. Navy motto, while Broke was severely wounded boarding and never went to sea again. Shannon later served as a receiving ship from 1832, was renamed St Lawrence in 1844, and was broken up at Chatham in 1859; her sister ship HMS Trincomalee survives today as a preserved museum ship, giving modelers a real Leda-class hull to reference for hull lines and deck arrangement.