HMS Vulture

Several vessels of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Vulture, including:

• HMS Vulture (1648), a Royalist ketch captured by the Parliamentary forces in 1648.
• HMS Vulture (1656), a Dunkirk privateer captured in 1656, and sold in 1663.
• HMS Vulture (1673), a sloop of 1673, sold 1686.
• HMS Vulture (1690), a fireship of 1690, lost to the French in 1708.
• HMS Vulture (1744), a 10/14-gun sloop of 1744, sold in 1761.
• HMS Vulture (1763), a 14-gun ship-sloop of 1763, taken to pieces in 1771.
• HMS Vulture (1776), a 14/16-gun ship-sloop of the Swan class that served in the American Revolution; transported Benedict Arnold as he escaped following the failed attempt to surrender West Point to British forces; sold in 1802.
• HMS Vulture (1803), a 16-gun sloop launched in 1801, bought 1803, and disposed of 1814.^[1]
• HMS Vulture (1843), a steam paddle frigate launched in 1843 which served in the Crimean War, sold 1866.
• HMS Vulture (1869), a screw gunboat launched in 1869, disposed of 1885.^[2]
• HMS Vulture (1898), a torpedo boat destroyer launched in 1898, broken up in 1919.^[3]
• HMS Vulture was also the official designation for RNAS St Merryn, a Naval Air Station in Cornwall, England, from 1940 until 1953, with the associated bombing and gunnery range being HMS Vulture II.

See also

• HMS Vautour (1810), ("Vautour" being French for vulture), an 18-gun brig-sloop, captured in the Netherlands in 1809, commissioned in 1810, and foundered 1813; sometimes called Vulture, despite the ship above being active.

References