HMS Sword

HMS "Sword" is the name of a fictional experimental submarine of the British Royal Navy, appearing in Jules Verne's 1896 novel "Facing the Flag".

As described by Verne, "Sword" was a "submersible boat of only twelve tons", carrying a crew of four and commanded by a lieutenant. Her screw was worked by a couple of dynamos fitted with accumulators that needed to be charged in port, and which enabled her to cruise for only one or two days.

She was divided into three water-tight compartments. The aft one contained the accumulators and machinery. The middle one, occupied by the pilot, was surmounted by a periscope fitted with lenticular portholes, through which an electric search-lamp lighted the way through the water. The forward compartment was used when she carried passengers.

In the 1890s, "Sword" was stationed in the Port of St. George at the Bahamas (see [http://stgeorge.caribeinsider.com/caribbeanhome.do] ), when authorities found out that the pirate Ker Karraje has established himself in a secret cavern, accessible only by submarine, in the seemingly desolate neighboring island of Back Cup. Karraje had with him the French inventor Thomas Roch who had agreed to place an extremely powerful new explosive at the pirate's disposal. The news had arrived through a message placed secretly in a keg by the engineer Simon Hart, held captive in the pirate stronghold.

"Sword", under Lieutenant Devon, was sent to secretly penetrate the pirate stronghold and take Roch and Hart aboard. This Devon and his men managed to do, but before they could leave they were discovered by the much bigger pirate submarine and sunk in the ensuing unequal battle. The British crew all perished while Roch and Hart were recovered by pirate divers, to take part in the cataclysmic end of the story.

Verne conceived of submarine fighting as being carried out mainly by ramming.

The book was written in one of the periods when Verne was feeling well-disposed towards the British (his attitude to them had gone through sharp fluctuations in his decades-long writing career). Lieutenant Devon is depicted as a noble and heroic officer, fully the equal of naval heroes in books by British writers.

Trivia

* The Royal Navy did, in 1943, give the name "HMS Sword" to a (surface) ship which was being laid out at Newport News, Virginia, and was going to be delivered to Britain as part of lend-lease. However, before it was completed the deal was off and the ship was eventually delivered to the United States' own navy - to be commissioned in 1944 as USS Rushmore and have a long and quite distinguished career under that name (see [http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/1214.htm] ).

External links

* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=11556 Complete translated text of the novel] from Project Gutenberg (English)