The Short S.25 Sunderland is a British flying boat patrol bomber, developed and constructed by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft took its service name from the town (latterly, city) and port of Sunderland in North East England.

Developed in parallel with the civilian S.23 Empire flying boat, the flagship of Imperial Airways, the Sunderland was developed specifically to conform to the requirements of British Air Ministry Specification R.2/33 for a long-range patrol/reconnaissance flying boat to serve with the Royal Air Force (RAF). As designed, it served as a successor to the earlier Short Sarafand flying boat. Sharing several similarities with the S.23, it featured a more advanced aerodynamic hull and was outfitted with various offensive and defensive armaments, including machine gun turrets, bombs, aerial mines, and depth charges. The Sunderland was powered by four Bristol Pegasus XVIII radial engines and was outfitted with various detection equipment to aid combat operations, including the Leigh searchlight, the ASV Mark II and ASV Mark III radar units, and an astrodome.

The Sunderland was one of the most powerful and widely used flying boats throughout the Second World War. In addition to the RAF, the type was operated by other Allied military air wings, including the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), South African Air Force (SAAF), Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF), French Navy, Norwegian Air Force, and the Portuguese Navy. During the conflict, the type was heavily involved in Allied efforts to counter the threat posed by German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. On 17 July 1940, a RAAF Sunderland (of No. 10 Squadron) performed the type's first unassisted U-boat kill. Sunderlands also played a major role in the Mediterranean theatre, performing maritime reconnaissance flights and logistical support missions. During the evacuation of Crete, shortly after the German invasion of the island, several aircraft were used to transport troops. Numerous unarmed Sunderlands were also flown by civil operator British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), traversing routes as far afield as the Pacific Ocean.

During the post-war era, use of the Sunderland throughout Europe rapidly declined, while greater numbers remained in service in the Far East, where large developed runways were less prevalent. Between mid-1950 and September 1954, several squadrons of RAF Sunderlands saw combat action during the Korean War. Around a dozen aircraft had also participated in the Berlin airlift, delivering supplies to the blockaded German city. The RAF continued to use the Sunderland in a military capacity up to 1959. In December 1960, the French Navy retired its aircraft, which were the last remaining examples in military use within the Northern Hemisphere. The type also remained in service with the RNZAF up to 1967, when they were replaced by the land-based Lockheed P-3 Orion. A number of Sunderlands were converted for use within the civil sector, where they were known as the Hythe and the Sandringham; in this configuration, the type continued in airline operation until 1974. Several examples were preserved, including a single airworthy Sunderland which has been placed on display in Florida at Fantasy of Flight.

Development

Origins
During the early 1930s, there was intense international competition to develop suitable aircraft to operate new long-range intercontinental passenger service between the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany. It was recognised that the United Kingdom had no existing equivalent to the new American Sikorsky S-42 flying boats or the German Dornier Do X. Accordingly, in 1934, the British Postmaster General declared that all first-class Royal Mail sent overseas was to travel by air, establishing a subsidy for the development of intercontinental air transport in a fashion similar to the U.S. domestic programme a decade earlier. In response, Imperial Airways announced a competition to design and manufacture a fleet of 28 large flying boats, each weighing  and having a range of  with a capacity for 24 passengers. A corresponding contract was issued to Short Brothers of Rochester for their design, which became the S.23 Empire.

While the Empire flying boat has often been credited as a predecessor of the Sunderland, according to aviation author Geoffrey Norris, this impression "is not strictly true". During November 1933, the British Air Ministry released Specification R.2/33, which called for the development of a next-generation long-range general purpose flying boat, intended to perform ocean reconnaissance missions. The specification envisioned an aircraft, either a monoplane or biplane, which would have to have performance equal to the recently delivered Short Sarafand flying boat, along with various other requirements, including the need to be powered by a maximum of four engines and to be much more compact than the Sarafand.

The release of Specification R.2/33 had been in advance of the publication of the commercial Imperial Airways requirement; by the time that Short received Imperial Airways' priority request, the company had already started planning the design of the prospective military flying boat. After reviewing both sets of requirements, Short decided to prioritise the development of the civil S.23 design but also to work on a response to specification R.2/33.

Chief designer Arthur Gouge had originally intended for a COW 37 mm gun to be mounted in the bow of the craft to accompany the single Lewis gun installed in its tail. As with the S.23, he made efforts to produce a fuselage that generated the lowest amount of drag possible, while a much longer nose than had been used for the S.23 was ultimately adopted.

Selection
During October 1934, Shorts settled upon the general configuration and geometry of the design, opting for a four-engine shoulder-wing monoplane configuration, similar to the Short Empire that had been ordered at the same time. The military flying boat design received the internal designation of S.25. While the S.25 design bore a strong resemblance to the civil S.23, it featured an improved aerodynamic form, and sheetmetal with curvature in more than one direction. This compound curve was more complex to manufacture but gave a more ideal shape.

During late 1934, the S.25 proposal was submitted by the company to the Air Ministry. Rival firm Saunders-Roe had also designed and submitted its own flying boat, known as the Saro A.33, as its response to the issuing of Specification R.2/33. Following an initial evaluation of the submissions, the Ministry decided to place orders for the production of prototypes for both the S.25 and A.33 proposals; this measure was originally made for the purpose of performing flight tests in support of a detailed evaluation, after which production order would be awarded to one of the competitors.

During April 1936, the Air Ministry was sufficiently confident in Shorts' submission that a development contract for an initial batch of 11 further S.25 boats was issued to the company. On 4 July 1936, the first of the Empire flying boats to be built, G-ADHL, named 'Canopus', conducted its first flight which affirmed the basic principles of the S.25's design while the crucial final design conference was held around the same time as the flight. The competitive fly-off was abandoned after the sole A.33 was destroyed due to a structural failure, resulting in the S.25 being the only candidate.

As construction of the prototype S.25 proceeded, several design changes were performed for various reasons. In terms of its armament, in response to feedback from Air Ministry and Royal Air Force (RAF) experts reviewing the project, it was decided to change its intended defensive weapons, resulting in the switch to a single 0.303 Vickers K machine gun for the nose turret while an arrangement of four 0.303 Browning machine guns in the tail position was also adopted at the same time. The tail turret was also changed to a powered version; Gouge therefore had to devise a solution to account for the resulting movement aft of the aircraft's centre of gravity, which was initially achieved via the presence of ballast positioned in the forward area. By the end of September 1937, the prototype had been completed.

Flight testing
On 16 October 1937, the initial S.25 prototype (K4774) performed the type's maiden flight, fitted with Bristol Pegasus X radial engines capable of generating  of power each. The more powerful Pegasus XXII model was unavailable at the time. Flown by Shorts' chief test pilot John Lankester Parker and Harold Piper, the initial flight lasted for around 45 minutes; later that day, a second flight of a similar duration was performed. Parker later declared his satisfaction with the basic design. Prior to the first flight, the type had received the name Sunderland.

Following early flight trials with the first prototype, the aircraft was returned to the workshop where it underwent further modifications; the adoption of a wing sweepback of 4° 15' was achieved via the addition of a spacer into the front spar attachments. This design change, which had been made to account for the changes in defensive armament, repositioned the flying boat's centre of lift enough to compensate for the altered centre of gravity; further alterations were necessary to maintain the hydrodynamics properties. On 7 March 1938, K4774 conducted its first post-modification flight, having been outfitted with the intended Bristol Pegasus XXII radial engines, each one capable of generating .

On 21 April 1938, the first Sunderland Mark 1 of the development batch conducted its first flight. By this point, manufacturer testing of the prototype had already been completed and the prototype had been transferred to the Seaplane Experimental Station at Felixstowe, Suffolk for its official evaluation by the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment (MAEE); on 8 March 1938, it was joined by the second production aircraft. On 28 May 1938, this second aircraft, which had been cleared for operations under tropical conditions, flew a record-breaking flight to Seletar, Singapore, stopping off along the route at Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Habbaniyah, Bahrain, Karachi, Gwalior, Calcutta, Rangoon, and Mergui.

Testing showed that the aircraft could be fully refueled in 20 minutes, and that its most economical cruising speed was about  at . At this speed and altitude, a consumption rate of  gave the aircraft an endurance of 18 hours, during which it could cover . The take-off distance was found to be .

Design

Overview

The Short S.25 Sunderland was a large four-engined flying boat developed for military use. The design of the S.25 shared much in common with the civil-orientated S.23, principally differing in its use of a deeper hull profile. As with the S.23, the interior of the Sunderland's fuselage contained two individual decks; the lower deck contained a total of six bunks, along with a galley outfitted with a twin kerosene pressure stove, a yacht-style porcelain flush toilet, an anchoring winch, and a small machine shop for performing inflight repairs. The crew was originally intended to total seven members; this was subsequently increased for later versions of the Sunderland to around 11 crew members and sometimes greater, dependent upon the specific mission being undertaken.

The Sunderland featured all-metal, mainly flush-riveted construction, except for the flight control surfaces, which used a fabric-covered metal frame construction. Of these, the flaps employed unusual Gouge-patented devices that slid backwards along curved tracks, moving rearwards and downwards to increase the wing area and generating 30% greater lift for landing. The thick wings, upon which the aircraft's four nacelle-mounted Bristol Pegasus XXII radial engines were carried, also accommodated a total of six drum-style fuel tanks, which possessed a total capacity of 9,200 litres (2,025 Imperial gallons, 2,430 U.S. gallons). In addition to the main fuel tanks, an arrangement of four smaller fuel tanks was installed behind the rear wing spar later on; with the extra tanks fitted, the Sunderland possessed a combined total fuel capacity of 11,602 litres (2,550 Imperial gallons, 3,037 U.S. gallons), which was enough to enable the type to conduct eight- to 14-hour patrols.

The specification to which the Sunderland was developed to conform with had called for an offensive armament of a 37 mm gun and up to  of bombs, mines or (eventually) depth charges. The ordnance was stored inside the fuselage in a purpose-built bomb room and was winched up to racks, under the wing centre section, that could be traversed out through doors on each side of the fuselage above the waterline to the release position. Defensive armament included a Nash & Thompson FN-13 powered turret with four .303 British Browning machine guns in the extreme tail and a pair of manually-operated .303 set on either side of the fuselage, firing from ports just below and behind the wings. These machine guns were later upgraded to 0.5-inch calibre Brownings. There were two different nose turret weapons, the most common, later, being two Browning machine guns. The nose weapons were later augmented by four fixed guns, two each side, in the forward fuselage that were fired by the pilot. Much later, a twin-gun turret was to be dorsal-mounted on the upper fuselage, about level with the wing trailing edge, bringing the total defensive armament up to 16 machine guns.

Equipment and on-water management
As with all water-based aircraft, there was a need to be able to navigate on water and to control the craft up to and at a mooring. In addition to the standard navigation lights, there was also a demountable mooring mast that was positioned on the upper fuselage just aft of the astrodome hatch with a 360-degree white light to show that the aircraft was moored. The crewmembers were trained in common marine signals for watercraft to ensure safety in busy waters. The craft could be moored to a buoy by a pendant that attached to the keel under the forward fuselage. When the craft was off the buoy, the forward end of the pendant was attached to the front of the hull just below the bomb aimer's window. For anchoring, there was a demountable bollard that fixed to the forward fuselage from where the front turret was retracted to allow an airman to man the position and pick up the buoy cage or to toss out the anchor.

For taxiing after landing, the galley hatches were used to extend sea drogues that could be used to turn the aircraft or maintain its crosswind progress (by deploying the drogue on one side only), or to slow forward motion as much as possible (both deployed). When not in use, the drogues were hand hauled back inboard, folded, and stowed in wall-mounted containers just below the hatches. Operation of the drogues could be a very dangerous exercise if the aircraft was travelling on the water at speed or in strong currents, because the approximately  drogue would haul up on its five-tonne attachment cable end inside the galley very sharply and powerfully. Once deployed, it was normally impossible to recover a drogue unless the aircraft was stationary relative to the local tidal flow.

Portable beaching gear could be attached by ground crew so that the aircraft could be pulled up on land. The gear consisted of a pair of two-wheeled struts that could be attached to either side of the fuselage, below the wing, with a two- or four-wheel trolley and towbar attached under the rear of the hull. A standard stocked anchor was stowed in the forward compartment alongside the anchor winch. Depending on the operating area, a number of different kinds of anchor could be carried to cope with different anchorages. Another means of direction control on the water was by application of the rudder and aileron flight controls. The ailerons would cause asymmetric lift from the airflow and, ultimately, drop a float into the water to cause drag on that wing. The pilots could vary engine power to control the direction and speed of the aircraft on the water. In adverse combinations of tide, wind, and destination, this could be very difficult.

Access and servicing

The Sunderland was usually entered through the bow compartment door on the left forward side of the aircraft. The internal compartments—bow, gun room, ward room, galley, bomb room and the after compartments—were fitted with swash doors to keep them watertight to about two feet (610 mm) above normal water level; these doors were normally kept closed. There was another external door in the tail compartment on the right side. This door was intended for boarding from a Braby (U-shaped) pontoon that was used where there was a full passenger service mooring alongside a wharf or similar. This door could also be used to accept passengers or stretcher-bound patients when the aircraft was in the open water; this was because the engines had to be kept running to maintain the aircraft's position for the approaching vessel and the front door was too close to the left inboard propeller. Normal access to the external upper parts of the aircraft was through the astrodome hatch at the front of the front spar of the wing centre section, just at the rear of the navigator's station.

Bombs were loaded in through the "bomb doors" that formed the upper half walls of the bomb room on both sides. The bomb racks were able to run in and out from the bomb room on tracks in the underside of the wing. In order to load them, weapons were hoisted up to the extended racks that were run inboard and either lowered to stowages on the floor or prepared for use on the retracted racks above the stowed items. The doors were spring-loaded to pop inwards from their frames and would fall under gravity so that the racks could run out through the space left in the top of the compartment. The bombs could be released locally or remotely from the pilot's position during a bomb run.

Normally, the weapons were either bombs or depth charges and the racks were limited to a maximum of  each. After the first salvo was dropped, the crew had to get the next eight weapons loaded before the pilot had the aircraft positioned on the next bombing run. The fixed nose guns (introduced when in service with Australian units) were removed when the aircraft was on the water and stowed in the gun room just aft of the bow compartment. The toilet was in the right half of this same compartment and stairs from the cockpit to the bow area divided the two.

Maintenance was performed on the engines by opening panels in the leading edge of the wing either side of the powerplant. A plank could be fitted across the front of the engine on the extensions of the open panels. A small manually started auxiliary petrol engine, which was fitted into the leading edge of the right wing, powered a bilge pump for clearing water and other fluids from the fuselage bilges and a fuel pump for refuelling. Generally, the aircraft were reasonably water tight, and two people manually operating a wobble pump could transfer fuel faster than the auxiliary pump. In sheltered moorings or at sea, fuelling was accomplished by a powered or unpowered barge and with engine driven or hand powered pumps. At regular moorings, there would be specially designed refuelling barges to do the job, normally manned by trained marine crew. These vessels could refuel many aircraft during the course of the day. Handling of the fuel nozzles and opening/closing the aircraft fuel tanks would normally be an aircraftman's task.

Airframe repairs were either effected from the inside or delayed until the aircraft was in a sheltered mooring or beached. One serious problem that beset the aircraft was that the heat-treated rivets in the hull plates were susceptible to corrosion after a period in salt water (depending on the quality of the heat treatment process). The heads would pop off from stress corrosion, allowing seawater to leak into the bilges. The only option was to haul the aircraft out onto the "hard" and replace them, usually at the cost of many additional heads breaking off from the vibration of the riveting.

Damage control
A large float mounted under each wing maintained stability on water. With no wind, the float on the heavier side was always in the water; with some wind, the aircraft could be held using the ailerons with both floats out of the water. In the event of a float being broken off for some reason, as the craft lost airspeed after landing crew members would go out onto the opposite wing, to keep the remaining float in the water until the aircraft could reach its mooring. Marine growths on the hull were a problem; the resulting drag could be enough to prevent a fully loaded aircraft from gaining enough speed to become airborne. The aircraft could be taken to a freshwater mooring for sufficient time to kill off the fauna and flora growing on the bottom, which would then be washed away during takeoff runs. The alternative was to scrub it off, either in the water or on land.

Aircraft with lower hull damage were patched or had the holes filled with any materials to hand before landing. The aircraft would then be immediately put onto a slipway with its wheeled beaching gear or beached on a sandy shore before it could sink. More than two fuselage compartments had to be full of water to sink the aircraft. During the Second World War, a number of severely damaged aircraft were deliberately landed on grass airfields ashore. In at least one case, an aircraft that made a grass landing was repaired to fly again. On the Sunderland Mk V, fuel could be dumped from retractable pipes that extended from the hull and were attached to the bomb room side of the galley aft bulkhead. It was expected that dumping would be done while airborne, but it could also be performed while floating on the water, albeit with care to ensure that the floating fuel went downwind away from the aircraft.

The takeoff run of a flying boat was often dependent only on the length of water that was available. The first problem was to gain sufficient speed for the craft to plane, otherwise, there would never be enough speed to become airborne. Once planing, the next problem was to break free from the suction (from Bernoulli's principle) of the water on the hull. This was partly helped by the "step" in the hull just behind the craft's centre of buoyancy at planing speed. The pilot could rock the craft about this point to try to break the downward pull of the water on the surface of the hull. Somewhat rough water was a help in freeing the hull, but on calm days it was often necessary to have a high speed launch cross in front of the aircraft to cause a break in the water flow under the aircraft. It was a matter of judgement of the coxswain to get the crossing close enough but not too close. Because it was expected that some takeoffs would be protracted affairs, often the crews were not very careful to keep within maximum all-up weight limitations, and getting airborne just took a little longer.

Operational history

Second World War

At the outbreak of the Second World War, on 3 September 1939, 39 Sunderlands were in service with the RAF. Although British anti-submarine efforts were disorganised and ineffectual at first, Sunderlands quickly proved useful in the rescue of the crews from torpedoed ships. On 21 September 1939, two Sunderlands rescued the entire 34-man crew of the torpedoed merchantman Kensington Court from the North Sea. As British anti-submarine measures improved, the Sunderland began to inflict losses as well. A Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Sunderland (of No. 10 Squadron) made the type's first unassisted kill of a U-boat on 17 July 1940.

During its service, the Sunderland Mark I received various improvements. The nose turret was upgraded with a second .303 (7.7 mm) gun. New propellers together with pneumatic rubber wing de-icing boots were also fitted. Although the .303 guns lacked range and hitting power, the Sunderland had a considerable number of them and it was a well-built machine that was hard to destroy. On 3 April 1940, a Sunderland operating off Norway was attacked by six German Junkers Ju 88C fighters; during the engagement, it shot one down, damaged another enough to cause it to retreat and later perform a forced landing and drove off the rest. The Germans are reputed to have nicknamed the Sunderland the Fliegendes Stachelschwein ("Flying Porcupine") due to its defensive firepower.

Sunderlands also proved themselves in the Mediterranean theatre. They flew many evacuation missions during the German seizure of Crete, carrying as many as 82 passengers. One flew the reconnaissance mission to observe the Italian fleet at anchor in Taranto before the famous Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm's torpedo attack on 11 November 1940.

New weapons made the flying boats more deadly in combat. In 1939 during an accidental fratricidal attack, one  anti-submarine bomb hit the British submarine  doing no more damage than breaking its light bulbs; other bombs had reportedly bounced up and hit their launch aircraft. In early 1943, these ineffective weapons were replaced by Torpex-filled depth charges that would sink to a determined depth and then explode. This eliminated the problem of bounce-back, and the shock wave propagating through the water augmented the explosive effect.

While the bright Leigh searchlight was rarely fitted to Sunderlands, ASV Mark II radar enabled the flying boats to attack U-boats on the surface. In response, the German submarines began to carry a radar warning system known formally as "Metox", and informally as the "Cross of Biscay" due to the appearance of its receiving antenna, that was tuned to the ASV frequency and gave the submarines early warning that an aircraft was in the area. Kills fell off drastically until ASV Mark III radar was introduced in early 1943, which operated in the centimetric band and used antennas mounted in blisters under the wings outboard of the floats, instead of the cluttered stickleback aerials. Sunderland Mark IIIs fitted with ASV Mark III were called Sunderland Mark IIIAs. Centimetric radar was invisible to Metox and baffled the Germans at first. Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander of the German U-boat force, suspected that the British were being informed of submarine movements by spies. In August 1943, a captured RAF airman misled the Germans by telling them that the aircraft were homing in on the signals radiated by the Metox, and consequently U-boat commanders were instructed to turn them off.

The Germans responded to Sunderland attacks by fitting some U-boats with one or two 37 mm and twin quad 20 mm flak guns to fire back at their attackers. While Sunderlands could suppress flak to an extent with their nose turret guns, the U-boats guns had superior range, hitting power and accuracy. Attempting to shoot down Allied aircraft did, however, prolong the U-boat's presence on the surface, which made sinking the vessel easier. Nonetheless, fitting of substantial arrays of anti-aircraft guns temporarily decreased U-boat losses while both Allied aircraft and shipping losses rose. As a countermeasure to the increased defensive armament of the U-boats, the Australians fitted their aircraft in the field with an additional four .303s (7.7 mm) in fixed mounts in the nose, allowing the pilot to add fire while diving on the submarine before bomb release. Most aircraft were similarly modified. The addition of single .50 inch (12.7 mm) flexibly mounted M2 Browning machine guns in the beam hatches behind and above the wing trailing edge also became common.

1943 encounter with Ju 88s

The type's capacity to defend itself was demonstrated in particular by an air battle over the Bay of Biscay on 2 June 1943, when eight Junkers Ju 88Cs attacked a single Sunderland Mk III of No. 461 Squadron RAAF: EJ134, squadron code: "N for Nuts". The 11 crew, led by F/Lt Colin Walker, were on an anti-submarine patrol, while also watching for any signs of a missing airliner, BOAC Flight 777. At 1900 hours, the rear gunner saw the Ju 88s, which belonged to V.Kampfgeschwader 40 and were led by Leutnant Friedrich Maeder. Walker ordered the dumping of the bombs and depth charges, and took the engines to full power. Two Ju 88s made simultaneous passes at EJ134 from both sides, scoring hits and disabling one engine, while the pilots fought fires and took the Sunderland through corkscrew manoeuvres. On a third pass, the dorsal turret gunner badly damaged or shot down a Ju 88, although the Sunderland's rear gunner was knocked unconscious.

The next Ju 88 that attacked was hit by fire from the dorsal and nose turrets, and appeared to have been shot down. By this time, one crew member on the Sunderland had been mortally wounded and most of the others were wounded to varying degrees, while the aircraft's radio gear had been destroyed, among other damage. However, the rear gunner had recovered, and when EJ134 was attacked from behind, another Ju 88 was badly damaged and left the fight. The remaining Ju 88s continued to attack and the front gunner damaged one of these, setting its engines on fire. Two more Ju 88s were also damaged and the Germans disengaged. EJ134 was badly damaged and the crew threw everything they could overboard, while nursing the aircraft over the  journey to Britain. At 2248 hours, Walker managed to beach the aircraft at Praa Sands, Cornwall. The 10 surviving crew members were able to wade ashore, while the Sunderland broke up in the surf. Walker received the Distinguished Service Order and several other crew members also received medals. They claimed three Ju 88s destroyed. (With the exception of Walker, the crew returned to operations in a new "N for Nuts", which was lost over the Bay of Biscay two months later, in an attack by six Ju 88s. On 2 June 2013, a memorial was opened on the green at Praa Sands.)

Postwar

At the end of the Second World War, a number of new Sunderlands built at Belfast were simply taken out to sea and scuttled as there was nothing else to do with them. In Europe the type was removed from service relatively quickly but in the Far East, where well developed runways were less common and large land based maritime patrol aircraft like the new Avro Shackleton could not be used so easily, there was still a need for it, and it remained in service with the RAF Far East Air Force at Singapore until 1959, and with the Royal New Zealand Air Force's No. 5 Squadron RNZAF until 1967.

During the Berlin Airlift (June 1948 – August 1949) 10 Sunderlands and two transport variants (known as "Hythes") were used to transport goods from Finkenwerder on the Elbe near Hamburg to the isolated city, landing on the Havel river near RAF Gatow until it iced over. The Sunderlands were frequently used for transporting salt, as their airframes were already protected against corrosion from seawater. Transporting salt in standard aircraft risked rapid and severe structural corrosion in the event of a spillage. When the Havelsee did freeze over the Sunderland's role was taken by freight-converted Handley Page Halifaxes with salt being carried in panniers fitted under the fuselage to avoid the corrosion problem.

From mid-1950, RAF Sunderlands also saw service during the Korean War initially with No. 88 Squadron but shortly followed by Nos. 205 and 209 Squadrons. The three squadrons shared the operational task equally with rotational detachments of three or four aircraft and crews based at Iwakuni, Japan. Missions lasting 10 to 13 hours were flown daily throughout the war, and also during the Armistice period that followed, until September 1954. The Sunderland also saw service with the RNZAF until 1967.

The French Navy Escadrille 7FE, which received Sunderlands when it was formed in 1943 as No. 343 Squadron RAF, continued to operate them until December 1960, the last unit to operate Sunderlands in the Northern Hemisphere.

Variants

Prototype
The first S.25, now named the Sunderland Mark I, flew from the River Medway on 16 October 1937 with Shorts' chief test pilot, John Lankester Parker at the controls. The deeper hull and installation of nose and tail turrets gave the Sunderland a considerably different appearance from the Empire flying boats. The prototype was fitted with Bristol Pegasus X engines, each providing 950 hp (709 kW ), as the planned Pegasus XXII engines of 1,010 hp (753 kW) were not available at the time.

The 37 mm gun, originally intended as a primary anti-submarine weapon, was dropped from the plans during the prototype phase and replaced with a Nash & Thompson FN-11 nose turret mounting a single .303-inch (7.7 mm) Vickers GO machine gun. The turret could be winched back into the nose, revealing a small "deck" and demountable marine bollard used during mooring manoeuvres on the water. The change of armament in the nose to the much lighter gun moved the centre of gravity rearwards.

After the first series of flights, the prototype was modified to have a wing that was swept 4.25° to the rear, thereby moving the centre of pressure into a more reasonable position in relation to the new centre of gravity. This left the engines and wing floats canted out from the aircraft's centreline. Although the wing loading was much higher than that of any previous Royal Air Force flying boat, a new flap system kept the takeoff run to a reasonable length.

Sunderland Mark I
The RAF received its first Sunderland Mark I in June 1938 when the second production aircraft (L2159) was flown to 230 Squadron at RAF Seletar, Singapore. By the outbreak of war in Europe, in September 1939, RAF Coastal Command was operating 40 Sunderlands.

The main offensive load was up to  of bombs (usually ), mines () or other stores that were hung on traversing racks under the wing centre section (to and from the bomb room in the fuselage). Later, depth charges (usually 250 lb) were added. By late 1940, two Vickers K machine guns had been added to new hatches that were inserted into the upper sides of the fuselage just aft of the wing, with appropriate slipstream deflectors. A second gun was added to the nose turret. New constant speed propellers and deicing boots were installed as well during 1940.

The Sunderland had difficulty in landing and taking off from rough water, but, other than in the open sea, it could be handled onto and off a short chop, by a skilled pilot. Many rescues were made, early in the war, of crews that were in the Channel having abandoned or ditched their aircraft, or abandoned their ship. During May 1941, during the Battle of Crete Sunderlands transported as many as 82 armed men from place to place in one load. Steep ocean swells were never attempted, however a calm ocean could be suitable for landing and takeoff.

Beginning in October 1941, Sunderlands were fitted with ASV Mark II "Air to Surface Vessel" radar. This was a primitive low frequency radar system operating at a wavelength of 1.5 m, that used a row of four prominent "stickleback" yagi antennas on top of the rear fuselage, two rows of four smaller aerials on either side of the fuselage beneath the stickleback antennas, and a single receiving aerial mounted under each wing outboard of the float and angled outward.

A total of 75 Sunderland Mark Is were built: 60 at Shorts' factories at Rochester and Belfast, Northern Ireland, and 15 by Blackburn Aircraft at Dumbarton.

Sunderland Mark II

In August 1941, production moved on to the Sunderland Mark II which used Pegasus XVIII engines with two-speed superchargers, producing 1,065 hp (794 kW) each.

The tail turret was changed to an FN.4A turret that retained the four .303 guns of its predecessor but provided twice the ammunition capacity with 1,000 rounds per gun. Late production Mark IIs also had an FN.7 dorsal turret, mounted offset to the right just behind the wings and fitted with twin .303 machine guns. The hand held guns behind the wing were removed in these versions.

Only 43 Mark IIs were built, five of these by Blackburn.

Sunderland Mark III

Production quickly changed in December 1941 to the Sunderland Mark III, which featured a revised hull configuration which had been tested on a Mark I the previous June. This modification improved seaworthiness, which had suffered as the weight of the Sunderland increased with new marks and field changes. In earlier Sunderlands, the hull "step" that allows a flying boat to "unstick" from the surface of the sea was an abrupt one, but in the Mk III it was a curve upwards from the forward hull line.

The Mark III turned out to be the definitive Sunderland variant, with 461 built. Most were built by Shorts at Rochester and Belfast, a further 35 at a new (but temporary) Shorts plant at White Cross Bay, Windermere; while 170 were built by Blackburn Aircraft. The Sunderland Mark III proved to be one of the RAF Coastal Command's major weapons against the U-boats, along with the Consolidated Catalina.

As the U-boats began to use Metox passive receivers the ASV Mk II radar gave away the presence of aircraft and the number of sightings diminished drastically. The RAF response was to upgrade to the ASV Mk III, which operated in the 50 cm band, with antennas that could be faired into fewer more streamlined blisters. During the Mk III's life there were a large number of almost continuous improvements made, including the ASV Mk IIIA and four more machine guns in a fixed position in the wall of the forward fuselage just behind the turret (developed on RAAF aircraft first) with a simple bead and ring sight for the pilot. Sunderlands with upgraded ASV Mk III equipment were designated Mk IIIA.

Despite the 14-hour-long patrols expected of their crews, early Sunderland gunners were provided with only 500 rounds of ammunition each. Later 1,000 round ammunition boxes were installed in the turrets. The beam hatch guns were removed from Mk II aircraft but Mk IIIs and then Mk Is gained much more capable .50 (12.7 mm) guns, one each side.

Offensive weapons loads increased too. The introduction of the hydrostatically fused  depth charge meant that additional weapons could be carried on the floor of the bomb room in wooden restraints, along with ammunition boxes of  anti-personnel bombs that could be hand launched from various hatches to harass U-boat crews otherwise manning the twin 37 and dual quadruple 20 mm cannons with which U-boats were fitted.

As radar detection became more effective there were more night patrols to catch U-boats on the surface charging their batteries. Attacking in the dark was a problem that was solved by carrying one inch (25.4 mm), electrically initiated flares and dropping them out of the rear chute of the aircraft as it got close to the surface vessel. Sunderlands were never fitted with Leigh lights.

Sunderland Mark IV

The Sunderland Mark IV was an outgrowth of the 1942 Air Ministry Specification R.8/42, for a generally improved Sunderland with more powerful Bristol Hercules engines, better defensive armament and other enhancements. The new Sunderland was intended for service in the Pacific. Although initially developed and two prototypes built as the "Sunderland Mark IV" it was different enough from the Sunderland line to be given a different name, the S.45 "Seaford".

Relative to the Mark III, the Mark IV had a stronger wing, larger tailplanes and a longer fuselage with some changes in hull form for better performance in the water. The armament was heavier with .50 inch (12.7 mm) machine guns and 20 mm Hispano cannon. The changes were so substantial that the new aircraft was redesignated the Short Seaford. Thirty production examples were ordered; the first delivered too late to see combat and only eight production Seafords were completed and never got beyond operational trials with the RAF.

Sunderland Mark V

The next production version was the Sunderland Mark V, which evolved out of crew concerns over the lack of power of the Pegasus engines. The weight creep (partly due to the addition of radar) that afflicted the Sunderland had resulted in running the Pegasus engines at combat power as a normal procedure and the overburdened engines had to be replaced regularly.

Australian Sunderland crews suggested that the Pegasus engines be replaced by Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp engines. The 14-cylinder engines provided 1,200 hp (895 kW) each and were already in use on RAF Consolidated Catalinas and Douglas Dakotas, and so logistics and maintenance were straightforward. Two Mark IIIs were taken off the production lines in early 1944 and fitted with the American engines. Trials were conducted in early 1944 and the conversion proved all that was expected.

The new engines with new Hamilton Standard's Hydromatic constant-speed fully feathering propellers provided greater performance with no real penalty in range. In particular, a Twin Wasp Sunderland could stay airborne if two engines were knocked out on the same wing while, in similar circumstances, a standard Mark III would steadily lose altitude. Production was switched to the Twin Wasp version and the first Mark V reached operational units in February 1945. Defensive armament fits were similar to those of the Mark III, but the Mark V was equipped with new centimetric ASV Mark VI C radar that had been used on some of the last production Mark IIIs as well.

A total of 155 Sunderland Mark Vs were built with another 33 Mark IIIs converted to Mark V specification. With the end of the war, large contracts for the Sunderland were cancelled and the last of these flying boats was delivered in June 1946, with a total production of 777 aircraft completed.

Transport variants

In late 1942, the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) obtained six Sunderland Mark IIIs, which had been de-militarised on the production line, for service as mail carriers to Nigeria and India, with accommodation for either 22 passengers with 2 tons of freight or 16 passengers with 3 tons of freight. Armament was removed, the gun positions being faired over, and simple seating fitted in place of the bunks. As such they were operated by BOAC and the RAF jointly from Poole to Lagos and Calcutta. Six more Sunderland IIIs were obtained in 1943. Minor modifications to the engine angles and flight angle resulted in a significant increase in the cruise speed, which was a relatively unimportant issue for the combat Sunderlands. In late 1944, the RNZAF acquired four new Sunderland Mk IIIs already configured for transport duties. In the immediate postwar period, these were used by New Zealand's National Airways Corporation to link South Pacific Islands in the "Coral Route" before TEAL Short Sandringhams took over after 1947.

Post-war civilian use
At the war's end BOAC obtained more Mark IIIs and gradually came up with better accommodation for its passengers, in three configurations. Bench seats were removed, and civil-standard seating installed: The H.1 configuration had 16 seats on one deck, while the H.2 had an additional promenade deck, and the H.3 had 24 seats, or sleeping berths for 16. These conversions were given the name Hythe and BOAC operated 29 of them by the end of the war. In February 1946, the first of these, G-AGJM, made a 35,313-mile route survey from Poole to Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo in 206 flying hours. It was the first British civil flying boat to visit China and Japan.

A more refined civilian conversion of the Sunderland was completed by the manufacturer as the postwar Short Sandringham. The Sandringham Mk. I used Pegasus engines while the Mk. II used Twin Wasp engines.

Operators

Military operators

Royal Australian Air Force
No. 10 Squadron RAAF
No. 40 Squadron RAAF
No. 461 Squadron RAAF
 Royal Canadian Air Force
No. 422 Squadron RCAF
No. 423 Squadron RCAF

French Navy
No. 343 Squadron RAF, later Escadrille 7FE
Flottille 1FE
Flottille 7F
Flottille 27F
Escadrilles 12S
Escadrilles 50S
Escadrilles 53S

Royal New Zealand Air Force
No. 5 Squadron RNZAF
No. 490 Squadron RNZAF
New Zealand Territorial Air Force
No. 6 Squadron TAF
 Norwegian Air Force
No. 330 Squadron RNoAF

Portuguese Navy

South African Air Force
No. 35 Squadron SAAF

Royal Air Force

No. 88 Squadron RAF
No. 95 Squadron RAF
No. 119 Squadron RAF
No. 201 Squadron RAF
No. 202 Squadron RAF
No. 204 Squadron RAF
No. 205 Squadron RAF
No. 209 Squadron RAF

No. 210 Squadron RAF
No. 228 Squadron RAF
No. 230 Squadron RAF
No. 240 Squadron RAF
No. 246 Squadron RAF
No. 259 Squadron RAF
No. 270 Squadron RAF
No. 235 Operational Conversion Unit RAF
 Air Headquarters Iraq Communication Flight

Commercial operators
Aerolíneas Argentinas
Ansett Flying Boat Services flew the Sunderland and its Sandringham variant from Rose Bay on Sydney Harbour to Lord Howe Island until 10 September 1974
Antilles Airboats (US Virgin Islands)
Aquila Airways
British Overseas Airways Corporation
Compañía Aeronáutica Uruguaya S.A. (CAUSA)
Compañía Argentina de Aeronavegación Dodero
Det Norske Luftfartselskap (DNL) – Norwegian Aviation Company (continued as SAS)
New Zealand National Airways Corporation
Qantas (orig. Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services)
Trans Oceanic Airways
TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Ltd, New Zealand)

Survivors

ML814 a Mark III, converted to Mark V and then for passenger work, is on display in Kermit Weeks' Fantasy of Flight in Florida, US. It was bought in 1993, and flown across the Atlantic from the UK. According to the FoF website ML814 is the "last 4-engined passenger flying boat that can still fly." Formerly RNZAF NZ4108 – SH.974b MR.5 went to Airlines of New South Wales as VH-BRF "Islander" and was converted to a Sandringham in Australia. Airlines of New South Wales subsequently taken over by the major Australian airline Ansett and became Ansett Flying Boat Services and operated from Rose Bay, Sydney, Australia until 1974. Currently it is the last four-engined passenger flying boat to have crossed a major ocean, although it is reported to be maintained in airworthy condition it has not been flown since 1996 and remained on display in the museum's main hangar for a majority of the 2000s occasionally being towed to the outdoor ramp for certain events.

In addition a few aircraft have been preserved as static museum exhibits.
ML824 is on display in Hangar 1 at the RAF Museum London at Hendon, which acquired it in 1971. The interior of the aircraft is accessible to visitors. Originally preserved at Pembroke Dock after final service with the French Navy. It made its last flight from Lanveoc Pouloc, near Brest to Pembroke on 24 Mar 1961.
ML796 is on display at Imperial War Museum Duxford in Cambridgeshire.
NJ203 RAF Short Sunderland IV/Seaford I S-45 NJ203. 1947 Converted to Short Solent 3 by Short Bros Belfast. 1949 BOAC G-AKNP "City of Cardiff". 1951 Trans Oceanic Airways of Australia as VH-TOB "Star of Papua". 1953 South Pacific Air Lines as N9946F "Isle of Tahiti". Last flew 1958. 1958 Howard Hughes – Hughes Tool Company. Since 1990 it has been on display at the Oakland Aviation Museum, California, USA.
NZ4111 located at the Chatham Islands. Serving with No. 5 Squadron 6 RNZAF March-11 April 1959, coded KN-D; it took part in a flypast to mark the opening of the Auckland Harbour Bridge on 30 May 1959. On 4 November 1959, it was badly damaged in an accident in the Chatham Islands when the Sunderland hit rocks in Te Whanga Lagoon while taxiing and sank in shallow water. It was stripped of usable parts and written off RNZAF books on 9 December 1959. This was the first of the RNZAF Mk.5 Sunderlands to be written off due to damage. The fuselage was broken into major components for use on a farm; the owners are now reassembling the hull and fuselage sections.
NZ4112 – Hulk used by Hobsonville Yacht Club until 1970, then scrapped. Cockpit and front of aircraft transported to the Ferrymead Heritage Park for the Ferrymead Aeronautical Society Inc. Christchurch, New Zealand.
NZ4115 SH.1552b MR.5. Previously SZ584 and BOAC G-AHJR is on display at the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland, New Zealand. The interior and cockpit having been extensively restored and hull repairs some reskinning having taken place to airworthy standards and the exterior repainted in NZ4115's later RNZAF maritime scheme Q for Quebec is now displayed inside the MOTAT Aviation Display Hall with Short Bros sister TEAL Short Solent ZK-AMO. Q for Quebec's turrets, armaments and radar and radar domes are being refitted while on display.

Sunderland T9044 was discovered on the seabed off Pembroke Dock in Wales in 2000. The site is protected and recovery of the aircraft is ongoing.

The wreck located by Calshot Divers at Calshot in 2010 is very likely to be that of ML883 and not PP118 as originally thought. This wreck site is awkward to dive due to its proximity to the Fawley Refinery, Solent shipping lane, Calshot RNLI station and public slipway.

Specifications (Sunderland III)

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography
 Barnes C.H. and Derek N. James. Shorts Aircraft since 1900. London: Putnam, 1989. .
 Bowyer, Chaz. Sunderland at War. Shepperton, Surrey, UK: Ian Allan Ltd., 1976. .
 Bridgman, Leonard, ed. "The Short S-25 Sunderland." Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II. London: Studio, 1946. .
 Buttler, Tony, AMRAeS. Short Sunderland (Warpaint Series No. 25). Milton Keynes, UK: Hall Park Books Ltd., 2000.
 Eden, Paul, ed. The Encyclopedia of Aircraft of WW II. Leicester, UK: Silverdale Books/Bookmart Ltd, 2004. .
 Evans, John. The Sunderland Flying-boat Queen, Volume I. Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire: Paterchurch Publications, 1987. .
 Evans, John. The Sunderland Flying-boat Queen, Volume II. Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire: Paterchurch Publications, 1993. .
 Evans, John. The Sunderland Flying-boat Queen, Volume III. Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire: Paterchurch Publications, 2004. .
 Grant, Mark. Australian Airpower 1914 to 1945. Marrickville, NSW: Topmill P/L, 1996. .
 Johnson, Brian. The Secret War. London: BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), 1978. .
 Kightly, James. "Sunderland Survivors." Aeroplane, February 2009.
 Lake, Jon. Sunderland Squadrons of World War 2. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2000. .
 Miller, David. U-Boats: The Illustrated History of The Raiders of The Deep. London: Brassey's Inc., 2002. .
 Norris, Geoffrey. The Short Sunderland (Aircraft in Profile number 189). London: Profile Publications, 1967. No ISBN.
 Nicolaou, Stephane. Flying Boats & Seaplanes: A History from 1905. New York: Zenith Imprint, 1998. .

 Short Sunderland (AP1566). (Suffixes A through E for Mk I through V, -PN and Vols 1 through 4 for Pilots Notes, General Description, Maintenance, Overhaul and Parts Manuals). London: RAF (Air Publication), 1945.
 Simper, Robert. River Medway and the Swale. Lavenham, Suffolk, UK: Creekside Publishing, 1998. .
 Southall, Ivan. Fly West. Woomera: Australia: Angus and Robertson, 1976. .
 Tillman, Barrett. Brassey's D-Day Encyclopedia: The Normandy Invasion A-Z. London: Brassey's, 2004. .

 Werner, H. A. Iron Coffins: A U-boat Commander's War, 1939–45. London: Cassells, 1999. .
 Lake, Alan. FLYING UNITS OF THE RAF – The ancestry, formation and disbandment of all flying units from 1912. England: Alan Lake, 1999, .

External links

 Fighting the U-boats: Short Sunderland
 Short Sunderlands of 205/209 Squadron
 Sunderland Flying Boat 228 Squadron Malta (Photos)

 Flight article of 1939
 Calshot's Sunderland Wreck
 ITV Meridian's PP118 News Story

Sunderland
1930s British patrol aircraft
Flying boats
Four-engined tractor aircraft
High-wing aircraft
World War II British patrol aircraft
Four-engined piston aircraft

Short Sunderland


The Vezina Trophy is awarded every year to the National Hockey League's goaltender who is chosen as the best goaltender. At the end of each season, the 30 General Managers of the teams in the National Hockey League vote to determine the goaltender who was the most valuable to his team during the regular season. Before 1981, it was awarded to the goaltender(s) of the team allowing the fewest goals during the regular season; now, the William M. Jennings Trophy is awarded under this previous definition.

History
The Vezina Trophy was named for Georges Vézina, a very good goaltender with the Montreal Canadiens. Vezina was ill with tuberculosis. He felt sick during a game in 1925. When Vezina died, the trophy was given to the League by the former owners of the Montreal Canadiens, Leo Dandurand, Louis Letourneau and Joe Cattarinich. It was first awarded at the end of the 1926-27 NHL season.

Until the 1980–81 season, the trophy was awarded to the goaltender(s) of the team that gave up the fewest goals during the regular season. However, this system often meant the trophy went to the goaltender of the better team rather than the individual. A change was made to offer the William M. Jennings Trophy to the goaltender(s) playing for the team with the fewest goals against. Since 1981, the Vezina Trophy has been awarded by the NHL General Managers to the most outstanding goaltender. Billy Smith of the New York Islanders was the first winner of the Vezina under the current system.

There have been numerous instances of players receiving the trophy many times in different years. Players have also tied for the trophy. Jacques Plante holds the record for winning the most Vezinas with seven. Bill Durnan and Dominik Hasek both of who have won six. Hasek has won the most under the current system of honouring the best individual goalie. Players for the Montreal Canadiens have won the Vezina 28 times.

Under the original definition, there would often be multiple winners from the same team during one season. In the 1973-74 NHL season, Tony Esposito of the Chicago Black Hawks and Bernie Parent of the Philadelphia Flyers finished tied for the fewest goals against, the only time that there would be a tie between two players from different teams.

There are only three players that have won both the Vezina and Hart Memorial Trophy for the same season: Jacques Plante, who won both trophies for the 1961–62 season; Dominik Hasek who won both for the 1996–97 and 1997–98 seasons; and Jose Theodore, who won the Vezina and Hart for the 2001-02 NHL season. Two other Vezina winning goaltenders have also won the Hart Memorial Trophy: Roy Worters and Al Rollins. Chuck Rayner was the only goaltender to win the Hart Memorial Trophy, but never the Vezina.

The voting is conducted at the end of the regular season by the 30 general managers of the teams in the National Hockey League. Each individual voter ranks their top three candidates on a 5-3-1 points system. Three finalists are named. The trophy is awarded at the NHL Awards ceremony after the playoffs.

Winners

1927–1981
When introduced, the Vezina Trophy was awarded to the goaltender, or goaltenders, of the team that gave up the fewest goals in regular season play.

1982–present

The NHL adopted the current criteria for the Vezina Trophy beginning in 1982. The William M. Jennings Trophy was created as a new award for the goaltender(s) of the team that surrenders the fewest goals in regular season play.

Related pages
List of NHL players
List of NHL statistical leaders

References
General
Vezina Trophy history at NHL.com
Vezina Trophy history at Legends of Hockey.net
Specific

National Hockey League trophies and awards

Vezina Trophy


A zooid is a term for a small individual animal, part of a marine colony. The zooids in a colony are usually clones, and may be cytoplasmically connected. Though genetically identical, the zooids in a colony may serve different functions. This is the same as would be the case with a normal metazoan animal, but in a zooid colony the members are more like individuals.

The word is pronounced zō-oid, not like zoo. Some examples:

Individual members of a bryozoan colony.
Individual members of a living coral.
Individual members of a Portuguese Man o' War.

Zoology

Zooid


The Battle of Garris (Basque Garrüze) or Battle of Saint-Palais (15 February 1814) saw an Allied force under the direct command of General Arthur Wellesley, Marquess Wellington attack General of Division Jean Harispe's French division. The French defenders were driven back into the town of Saint-Palais in confusion. Because of this minor victory, the Allies were able to secure a crossing over the Bidouze River during this clash from the final stages of the Peninsular War.

In the Battle of the Nive on 9–13 December 1813, Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult's army failed to drive Wellington's forces away from Bayonne. After the Nive, bad weather imposed a 2-month pause in military operations, during which time the French confined the Allied forces to an area south and west of the fortresses of Bayonne and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. To break out of the region, Wellington launched an offensive toward the east in February, pressing back Soult's left wing. A column under Rowland Hill encountered Harispe's division at Garris. The next action was the Battle of Orthez.

Background
In the Battle of the Nive near Bayonne on 9–13 December 1813, Wellington with 36,000 British and 23,000 Portuguese defeated Soult with 65,933 troops. French casualties were 5,947 and 16 guns while Allied losses numbered 4,662. Another authority placed Allied losses at 5,000 while pointing out that the French lost 2,000 allied German troops who defected to the Allies. This action marked the end of the fighting for the year. Soult had found Wellington's army divided by the Nive River but failed to inflict a crippling blow. Afterward, the French withdrew into Bayonne and winter quarters.

Bad weather prevented Wellington's army from moving for the next two months. Heavy rains began soon after the fighting stopped, rendering the roads impassable and washing away the Allies' temporary bridges across the Nive. The Coalition allies begged the British commander to continue his campaign but Wellington politely declined to mount an offensive when the weather was so bad. He explained it would ruin his army to no purpose. After the Battle of Nivelle on 10 November 1813, Wellington's Spanish troops had run amok in captured French villages. Not wishing to provoke a guerilla war by French civilians, the British commander rigorously discouraged his British and Portuguese troops from plundering and sent most of his Spanish soldiers home. Only Pablo Morillo's Spanish division was retained since the men were regularly paid and fed by the British government. Wellington's policy soon paid off when his soldiers found it unnecessary to guard the roads in his army's rear areas.

In January 1814, Soult's army was reduced by three divisions and one brigade when Napoleon demanded reinforcements to help defend eastern France. Transferred to the Campaign in Northeast France were the 5,428-man 7th Infantry Division led by Jean François Leval, the 5,587-strong 9th Infantry Division commanded by Pierre François Xavier Boyer, a 2,866-man dragoon division under Anne-François-Charles Trelliard and a 554-man dragoon brigade directed by Louis Ernest Joseph Sparre.

Remaining with Soult were the 4,600-man 1st Division under Maximilien Sébastien Foy, the 5,500-man 2nd Division led by Jean Barthélemy Darmagnac, the 5,300-man 3rd Division commanded by Louis Jean Nicolas Abbé, the 5,600-man 4th Division directed by Eloi Charlemagne Taupin, the 5,000-man 5th Division commanded by Jean-Pierre Maransin, the 5,200-man 6th Division under Eugène-Casimir Villatte, the 6,600-man 8th Division led by Jean Isidore Harispe and the 3,800-man cavalry division under Pierre Benoît Soult. Marshal Soult's command also included 7,300 gunners, engineers and wagon drivers plus the 8,800-strong garrison of Bayonne and the 2,400-strong garrison of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. The original 8th Division was suppressed after the Battle of Nivelle. It was reconstituted by adding the brigade of Marie Auguste Paris, borrowed from Marshal Louis-Gabriel Suchet's army, to two brigades from Villatte's Reserve.

Wellington's army included the 6,898-man 1st Division under Kenneth Howard, the 7,780-man 2nd Division led by William Stewart, the 6,626-man 3rd Division commanded by Thomas Picton, the 5,952-man 4th Division directed by Lowry Cole, the 4,553-man 5th Division under Andrew Hay, the 5,571-man 6th Division led by Henry Clinton, the 5,643-man 7th Division commanded by George Townshend Walker, the 3,480-man Light
Division directed by Charles Alten, the 4,465-man Portuguese Division under Carlos Lecor and the 4,924-man Spanish Division led by Morillo. Stapleton Cotton commanded three light cavalry brigades under Henry Fane, 765 sabers, Hussey Vivian, 989 sabers and Edward Somerset, 1,619 sabers. In addition there were three independent infantry brigades, 1,816 British under Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer, 2,185 Portuguese led by John Wilson and 1,614 Portuguese directed by Thomas Bradford.

Soult established his headquarters in Peyrehorade and posted his divisions in a line running from the fortress of Bayonne on the west to the fortress of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on the southeast. He believed that Wellington would try to surround Bayonne by crossing the river Adour east of the city. To prevent this, the French marshal assigned three divisions to hold the line of the Adour from Bayonne to Port-de-Lanne. Facing southeast, four divisions defended the river Joyeuse from the Adour to the village of Hélette. Cavalry outposts covered the gap between Hélette and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, which was blockaded by Spanish guerillas under Francisco Espoz y Mina. Soult planned to strike the Allies when they tried to push across the Adour, but Wellington had other plans. The British commander planned to use the corps of John Hope, 4th Earl of Hopetoun against Bayonne, while pressing east with his other two corps in an effort to draw Soult's army away from Bayonne.

Soult could muster 60,000 soldiers and 77 guns while Wellington was able to put more than 70,000 into the field. The rains stopped in the second week of February and Wellington's began his offensive on 14 February. On the right flank was Rowland Hill's 20,000-man corps, including the 2nd Division, the Portuguese Division, Morillo's Spaniards and Fane's cavalry brigade. Hill was temporarily assigned the 3rd Division. On Hill's left was the 25,400-man corps of William Beresford with the 4th, 6th, 7th and Light Divisions plus the cavalry brigades of Vivian and Somerset. Hill's main column headed east for Hélette while Picton's 3rd Division marched toward Bonloc on the north and Morillo's division moved through the foothills farther south. In the face of this threat, Harispe's division at Hélette abandoned the line of the Joyeuse and fell back toward the Bidouze River at Saint-Palais. With his left flank uncovered, Villatte, facing Picton's 3rd Division, also backpedaled to the Bidouze.

Battle

Just west of Saint-Palais, Harispe found a defensible position at Garris. He deployed his division on a long ridge and awaited the Allied onset. The only escape route was the single bridge over the Bidouze at Saint-Palais. Late in the afternoon of 15 February, William Henry Pringle's brigade at the front of Hill's corps, came up to the position but merely skirmished with the French. The soldiers were tired from their long march and looked forward to camping for the evening. Suddenly, an aide-de-camp of Wellington galloped up and demanded, "Take that hill before dark". The troops quickly formed into close column and advanced toward the French.

Harispe deployed about 7,000 troops. They were two battalions each of the 9th, 25th and 34th Light Infantry and one battalion each of the 45th, 81st, 115th 116th and 117th Line Infantry Regiments. Against them, Wellington and Hill brought about 11,000 men, including two battalions of Pringle's brigade, the 1st Battalions of the 28th Foot and 39th Foot. In addition, there were Lecor's two Portuguese brigades under Hippolita Da Costa and John Buchan. Da Costa's brigade consisted of two battalions each of the 2nd and 14th Portuguese Infantry Regiments while Buchan's brigade was made up of two battalions each of the 4th and 10th Portuguese Infantry Regiments and the 10th Caçadores (light) Battalion.

Stewart's 2nd Division included three British and one Portuguese brigades, the 1st under Edward Barnes, the 2nd under the Earl of Strafford, the 3rd under Pringle and the Portuguese under Henry Hardinge. Barnes led the 1st Battalions of the 50th Foot, 71st Highlanders and 92nd Highlanders. Byng was in charge of the 1st Battalions of the 3rd Foot, 57th Foot and 66th Foot and the 2nd Battalion of the 31st Foot. Hardinge directed two battalions each of the 6th and 18th Portuguese Infantry Regiments and the 6th Caçadores Battalion. Another source stated that in Pringle's brigade the 39th Foot was absent drawing new uniforms and that the 2nd Battalion of the 34th Foot and the 1st/28th Foot were the only units present.

Pringle's battalions quickly fought their way to the crest of the ridge. The French defenders gamely counterattacked but failed to drive away their enemies. As this combat was going on, Morillo's Spanish and Lecor's Portuguese began to envelop the flanks of the outnumbered French division. Seeing the threat, Harispe ordered a withdrawal. With the Portuguese closing in on the bridge, the French retreat soon became a stampede to safety. Most made it across the bridge but the Allies captured some men on the east bank. The French lost 300 men killed and wounded and 200 prisoners. The Allies suffered 170 casualties, including 40 Portuguese. In a melee with the 81st Line, the 1/39th lost 43 men. The rout so demoralized Harispe's division that their general was unable to rally his soldiers in Saint-Palais and had to retreat west to Domezain-Berraute. Though the French engineers managed to set off demolition charges on the bridge, the work was done poorly and the Allies soon had the bridge back in operation.

Result
The Anglo-Allied army breached the line of the Bidouze. On 16 February, Soult recalled two of his divisions from north of the Adour leaving Abbé's division in Bayonne to make up a very powerful 14,000-man garrison. The French marshal assembled a field army with 32,000 infantry and 3,800 cavalry. He began reforming his line behind the Gave d'Oloron and Saison Rivers, from Peyrehorade through Sauveterre-de-Béarn and Navarrenx. Facing Soult were Wellington's 42,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry. Beresford's corps moved to Bidache on the lower Bidouze. By 18 February, Soult's units were all on the Gave d'Oloron line as Hill probed at Sauveterre and Beresford reconnoitered Hastingues, a French bridgehead on the south bank. That night it began to snow and sleet, causing Wellington to suspend operations for four days.

Meanwhile, the British carried a bold plan to surround Bayonne by crossing the Adour below the fortress. Since the river is  across with a tidal rise of , the French never suspected their enemies would attempt it and left no forces to guard the Adour below Bayonne. On 23 February, Hope sent eight companies across to set up a bridgehead. That evening 700 French troops sent to investigate were dispersed by Congreve rockets. The next day, 34 coasting vessels sailed into the channel and a bridge was constructed using the vessels as pontoons. Five cables were secured to the opposite bank by attaching each of them to a heavy 18-pounder cannon barrel. When the vessels and cables were in place, a roadway was built of planks. British troops poured across the span and by 27 February the city of Bayonne was completely invested by Hope's corps. On that day Battle of Orthez was fought.

Notes

References

External links

Battles of the Peninsular War
Battles involving France
Battles involving Portugal
Battles involving the United Kingdom
Battles involving Spain
Battle of Garris
Battle of Garris
February 1814 events
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Battle of Garris


An oil platform is a large structure placed in the sea. It is used to drill for oil or natural gas at the bottom of the sea. The platform may be attached to the sea floor (stationary)or it might be movable(mobile).

In general, oil platforms are located on the continental shelf. As of 2006, drilling for resources up to 8km away from the platform was possible.

Energy

Buildings and structures

Oil platform


War for the Oaks (1987) is a fantasy novel by American writer Emma Bull.  The book tells the story of Eddi McCandry, a rock musician who finds herself unwillingly pulled into the supernatural faerie conflict between good and evil. War for the Oaks is one of the first works in the subgenre of urban fantasy: although it involves supernatural characters, the setting (Minneapolis) is decidedly real-world.

Plot summary

Walking home one night through the streets of Minneapolis after quitting her rock band and breaking up with her boyfriend, Eddi McCandry discovers that she is being pursued by a threatening man and an even more threatening black dog. They turn out to be one and same: a shapeshifting prankster faerie known as a phouka, who drafts Eddi to be the linchpin in the ongoing battle between faerie's good and noble Seelie Court and the evil Unseelie Court, ruled by the Queen of Air and Darkness. Eddi soon finds herself in a struggle for survival against the Unseelie Court, all while trying to put a new rock band together. Meanwhile, her initial feelings of resentment toward the phouka develop into gratitude for his efforts to protect her against the dark queen, and ultimately turn into love. The novel climaxes in a rock concert playoff between Eddi and the Queen of Air and Darkness, which decides the fate of both faerie courts, as well as the fate of her loved one.

Characters
 Eddi McCandry The book's protagonist. A guitarist and gifted singer; the nature of her gift is revealed during the course of the novel. Several plot points in the book involve her relationships with her ex-boyfriend Stuart Kline, Willy Silver, and the phouka.
 Phouka  A trickster faerie deascribed in the novel as resembling the musician Prince with the ability to shapechange into a dog. He is never named in the book, although at one point in the novel he temporarily adopts the name Robin Goode, Robin Goodfellow being an alternative name for Puck, a character from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puck is an alternate spelling of puca or phouka. When he meets Eddi, he is nominally working on behalf of the Seelie Court, but it is revealed he has other motives for his actions.
 Carla DiAmato Eddi's best friend and confidante, and drummer for her band. Carla is instrumental to the formation of the band - she pressures Eddi into starting one and suggests their name, Eddi and the Fey.
 Dan Rochelle Keyboard player for Eddi's band. Eventually, he and Carla fall in love.
 Hedge Bassist who responds to Eddi's classified ad. He is reserved most of the time, but at one point sings a soft, tuneful folk song. Member of Faerie, allied to the Seelie Court.
 Willy Silver Lead guitarist who responds to Eddi's classified ad. Willy is one of the Daoine Sidhe and a member of the Seelie Court.

Allusions/references from other works
Many references are made to British folklore. During the course of the novel, Eddi meets a glaistig, the phouka, a brownie, and redcaps. Many traditional beliefs about faeries are incorporated; for example, their aversion to rowan berries and St John's wort.

Rock music also features prominently in the novel. Much of the novel is devoted to Eddi's efforts in putting together a rock band. Her band plays covers of songs by diverse musicians including Prince, Peter Gabriel, The Beatles, Kim Carnes, Men Without Hats, and Bram Tchaikovsky. Eddi also plays songs written by herself - in actuality of course, written by the author, Emma Bull. Some of these (including Wear My Face and For It All) were performed by the band Cats Laughing (of which Emma Bull is a member), and are on their second album Another Way To Travel.

There are also references to historical landmarks of Minneapolis as locations for the story. Eddi is chased down Nicollet Mall at night by the phouka; the Fey battles take place at Minnehaha Falls and at Como Zoo and Conservatory; and her band, Eddi and the Fey, plays at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at First Avenue, which is where the climactic playoff occurs for the fates of Minneapolis and the phouka. The opening band in that scene is Twin Cities Celtic-punk group Boiled in Lead, whose 1987 album Hotheads also appears in an earlier scene in Eddi's apartment.

Awards and nominations
War for the Oaks won the Locus Magazine award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
 Emma Bull and her husband, Will Shetterly, have adapted the book into a screenplay. In turn, this was made into an eleven-minute short film or trailer . In an appendix to the book's reprint in 2001, Bull included an excerpt of the screenplay, and it was published in full by Hollywood Comics () on August 31, 2004.

Release details
 1987, USA, Ace Books , Pub date 1987, Paperback
 2001, USA, Orb Books , Pub date 6 July 2001, Paperback

External links
 War For The Oaks Trailer, from The Green Man Review

1987 American novels
American fantasy novels
Contemporary fantasy novels
Urban fantasy novels
1987 fantasy novels
Novels set in Minneapolis
Ace Books books
Debut fantasy novels
1987 debut novels
Novels about music
Novels about fairies and sprites

War for the Oaks


Derby is a type of race for horses. The race is named after Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby. A Derby only allows a certain age of horse to race. Most Derbies in the United States and the United Kingdom require the horse be three years old to race. So if the horse misses the Kentucky Derby when he is three, he will not get another chance to race in it. Derbies in other countries sometimes require the horse to be four years old.

Famous derbies
Epsom Derby
Kentucky Derby

Horse riding

Derby (horse race)


Boxing is one of the world's oldest combat sports. It is held in a ring and played by two boxers (people who fight in boxing fights). They wear padded gloves and try to hit one another.

There are different ways to win in boxing. One is by way of a knockout, which is when a fighter is punched and falls to the ground and cannot get back up within ten seconds. Another way is by a technical knockout, which is when the fighter can not continue fighting thus the referee stops the fight. Technical knockout wins and losses are also knockout wins or losses for a boxer. Another possibility is winning on points, which a boxer gets by outboxing his or her opponent by hitting the opponent more often, harder, and more accurately.

There are also draws in boxing. What in other sports is called a "tie", in boxing is called a "draw". A referee can announce a technical draw due to an accidental cut or an accidental wound like a headbutt. Generally, it is considered a "no contest" (NC), in which case the fight is considered as not having taken place at all and not counting as a fight. However, after the fourth round, if the scorecards for both fighters are equal, the fight could be called a draw.

Each round lasts 3 minutes for men and 2 minutes for women.

Famous boxers
 Muhammad Ali
 Mike Tyson
 Rubin "Hurricane" Carter
 Nonito Donaire
 Jack Dempsey
 George Foreman
 Joe Frazier
 Evander Holyfield
 Lennox Lewis
 Joe Louis
 Rocky Marciano
 Manny Pacquiao
 Willie Pep
 Sugar Ray Robinson
 Max Schmeling
 Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
 Wilfredo Gómez
 Wilfred Benitez
 Sugar Ray Leonard
 Roberto Duran
 Oleksandr Usyk
 Vasiliy Lomachenko

Related pages
Punching bag

Summer Olympic sports

Boxing


The Thai script is the writing system used to write the Thai language. It is an abugida and brahmic script, which means that vowel markings must be attached to a consonant letter. The consonants are always written in order from left to right, but vowels have rules where it must be written to the left, right, top, or bottom of the first consonant in each syllable.

An example of this will use the Thai consonant ก to show where the following vowel must be written.

Spaces are not used to set words apart, but sentences and clauses. Punctuation markers are not normally used. For example, the sentence "I like to eat fried rice, but she likes to eat pad thai" would be written in Thai as ฉันชอบกินข้าวผัด แต่เธอชอบกินผัดไทย. If one were to place spaces in between each word (which Thai does not do), it would be written as ฉัน ชอบ กิน ข้าว ผัด แต่ เธอ ชอบ กิน ผัด ไทย.

History
The writing system was based on the Old Khmer Script, but it made changes because the Old Khmer Script did not show tones, which was an important part of the Thai language. To make the writing system suitable for the Thai language, the Thai script added new letters and tone markers that would show the tone of a word. It was the first known writing system in the world to show the tones of a word. Even though the Chinese writing system existed before the Thai script was invented and that Chinese was a tonal language at that time, there was no writing system that could show the tones of Chinese words until much later. The first time Chinese would be written using the Latin alphabet and tone markers was the Portuguese-Chinese dictionary written by Matteo Ricci and Lazzaro Cattanero written around the 16th century.

Letters
Thai has 44 consonant letters, 32 vowel markers and combinations, and 4 tone markers. This makes the total amount of letters in Thai 80, one of the largest out of any sound-based writing system used for a living language. Despite having so many consonant letters, the number of consonant sounds is actually far fewer, with 21 consonant sounds. For example, the "th" digraph used in RTGS, which would be the aspirated alveolar stop (written as [tʰ] in IPA), can be written in six different ways: ฐ,ฑ,ฒ,ถ,ท, or ธ. This is because the letters used in the word will decide what tone a word has and whether or not the words are loanwords.

Thai has five tones, mid, high, low, rising, and falling, and the reader is supposed to figure out what tone a syllable has based on the consonant class, whether it is a live syllable (meaning that it ends with a voiced consonant or long vowel) or a dead syllable (meaning that it ends with a voiceless consonant or a short vowel), and whether the vowel is long or short. When a syllable has a tone marker, different rules must apply alongside the ones already written above.

Thai borrowed some letters from loanwords of Sanskrit and Pali. Many of those letters sound or sounded differently in the languages they came from, but they now have the same pronunciation as other Thai sounds. Letters borrowed from Sanskrit and Pali are only used to write those same loanwords from those same languages.

Spelling vs. pronunciation
Thai words have a complicated relationship between spelling and their pronunciation. Many of the letters today have different sounds than when they were first used. While many Thai words have tone markers that show the tone of a word, many do not. However the word will still have a tone, and for words that do not have tone markers, one can still figure out the tone by the class of consonant (high, middle, or low), whether the syllable is a live or dead, syllable, and the length of the vowel. While the different classes of consonants made different phonemes, or distinct sounds, in the past, they now are set apart by which tones the words have.

Other difficulties include silent letters and consonant mutations. For silent letters, the word chanthra (written as จันทร์ in Thai) would be pronounced chan when spoken. Notice that the suffix -thra, written as ทร์ in Thai, is missing in the phonetic spelling. That is because the Thai spelling is based on the Sanskrit spelling of the word, the language where the word comes from. Many loanwords in Thai are based on the spelling rules of the language they came from rather than their Thai pronunciation. Also, Thai words cannot end in any consonant that is not a nasal consonant, semivowel, or voiceless stop, the final consonants that are not either one of those mutate so that they can become pronounceable in Thai. For example, the word wat (meaning "temple") is spelled as wad (written as วัด in Thai), but since -d, or ด, is a voiced alveolar stop, it must be pronounced as the voiceless alveolar stop -t. Also, the name Bhumibol (written as ภูมิพล in Thai) is pronounced as Phumiphon. The alveolar lateral approximant -l ,or ล, must be pronounced as the alveolar nasal -n. The English loanword bus (written as บัส in Thai) is pronounced bat in Thai. The voiceless alveolar fricative -s , or ส, must be pronounced as the voiceless alveolar stop -t.

References

Writing systems
Alphabets
Thai language

Thai script


Many of the most famous and best-loved works of art in the world were created during the time known as the Renaissance. The Renaissance began about 1400 and lasted until about 1600. Italy, and in particular the city of Florence is thought of as the home of Renaissance art.

Many Flemish painters from the area of modern Belgium were also very busy at this time. The style of their pictures, and their use of oil painting influenced the Italian painters.

Important artworks
 Competition for the Baptistry Doors
In 1401, a competition was held to find a sculptor to make a huge set of bronze door for the oldest church in Florence. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello all entered the competition. Ghiberti won. When he finished the first set of doors, he had to make another set. It took fifty years. In that time, dozens of artists helped Ghiberti to make the doors.

 Brancacci Chapel
On the walls of this family chapel at the church of the Carmelite Monastery, Massaccio painted pictures which were so realistic that everyone was amazed.

 The statue of the Smug Cat
The most famous sculptor of the Early Renaissance was Donatello. His most important job was to make a huge equestrian monument of a soldier (on horseback). The soldier's was called by his nickname, Gattamelata, meaning the Smug Cat (a Cat who is fed on Honey). Donatello had seen a huge equestrian monument before; there is one in Rome of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. No-one had made such a big bronze statue for more than a thousand years. Donatello's statue was a huge success. It still stands outside the Basilica of Saint Antonio, in the city of Padua.

 The painting of the Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci did one of the world's most famous paintings, the Last Supper on the wall of the dining room in a monastery in Milan while he was working there for the Duke. It shows Jesus, on the night before he died, sharing a meal with his disciples. It has been reproduced and copied thousands of times.

 The Sistine Chapel Ceiling
Michelangelo painted the whole ceiling of the Sistine Chapel all by himself over five years. The way that the figures were painted was to influence other artists for hundreds of years.

 Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda) is a 16th century portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel by Leonardo Da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance. The work is owned by the French government and hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France with the title Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.

The painting is a half-length portrait and depicts a woman whose expression is often described as enigmatic. The ambiguity of the sitter's expression, the monumentality of the half-figure composition, and the subtle modeling of forms and atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the painting's continuing fascination. Few other works of art have been subject to as much scrutiny, study, mythologizing and parody.

Related pages
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance music

Art
Renaissance

Renaissance art


The Mariana mallard or Oustalet's duck (Anas oustaleti) is an extinct species of duck of the genus Anas that was endemic to the Mariana Islands. Its taxonomic status is debated, and it has variously been treated as a full species, a subspecies of the mallard or of the Pacific black duck, or sometimes as a subspecies of the Indian spot-billed duck.

Taxonomy

The taxonomic status of the Mariana mallard is disputed, since it resembles an intermediate of the mallard and the Pacific black duck, two closely related allopatric species which frequently hybridise. Its males had two intergrading color morphs, called the "platyrhynchos" and the "superciliosa" types after the species they resembled more. It was first scientifically described by Tommaso Salvadori as a full species in the genus Anas, named after its collector, the French zoologist Emile Oustalet. Salvadori suggested it was related to the Pacific black duck. It was previously known to the Chamorro people, who called it ngånga' (palao) in Chamorro, and to the Carolinian people, who called it ghereel'bwel in Carolinian.

After Salvadori, most taxonomists, such as Dean Amadon and Ernst Mayr, considered it a subspecies of the mallard. Yoshimaro Yamashina examined those specimens in Japanese museums in 1948, and decided that the Mariana mallard was an example of hybrid speciation, and was descended from the mallard and the Pacific black duck's Palau subspecies (Anas superciliosa pelewensis). However, no molecular genetic evidence is available to support this hypothesis. Some scientists, such as Jean Delacour, have considered the Mariana mallard a simple hybrid, so it was absent from Delacour's four-volume monograph on the ducks and from the IUCN Red List. If Yamashina's hypothesis is correct, the Mariana mallard would have presumably evolved into near species status in only about ten thousand years.

Neither Mariana mallards nor their progenitor species are known from fossils on the Marianas, casting into doubt the assumption that a resident black duck population had been long established on the islands. However, most rock shelters and caves on the Marianas were obliterated in the 1944 Battle of Guam. A species of flightless duck is known from a prehistoric bone found on Rota in 1994; it was apparently not closely related to the Mariana mallard.

Description

Mariana mallards were  long and weighed approximately , making them marginally smaller than mallards. Two intergrading color morphs were found in males, called the "platyrhynchos" and the "superciliosa" type after the species they resembled more.

Only the former had a distinct nuptial (breeding) plumage: the head was green as in mallard drakes, but less glossy, with some buff feathers on the sides, a dark brown eyestripe and a faint whitish ring at the base of the neck. The upper breast was dark ruddish chestnut brown with blackish-brown spots. The wing patch (speculum) and the tail was also like in mallard drakes' nuptial plumage, including curled-up central tail feathers, but the tips of the speculum feathers were buff. The underside was a mix between the vermiculated grey feathers of the mallard and the brown ones of the Pacific black duck. The remainder of the bird looked like a male Pacific black duck with lighter underwings. The bill was black at the base and olive at the tip, the feet reddish orange with darker webs and the iris brown. The eclipse plumage looked similar to a dark eclipse mallard drake.

Males of the "superciliosa" type resembled a Pacific black duck with a less distinctly marked head, the supercilium and cheeks being buffy and the cheek (malar) stripe hardly visible. The upper breast, flank and scapular feathers had broader buff edges, and the underwings were lighter. The speculum was usually as in the "platyrhynchos" type, i.e. mallard-like, but at least two specimens have the green speculum of the Pacific black duck. The bill was like that of A. superciliosa, and the iris and legs similar to the "platyrhynchos" type.

Females looked essentially like a dark mallard female with the orange of the feet and near the bill tip usually a bit more pure.

Distribution

It occurred, in recent times at least, on the islands of Guam, Saipan and Tinian. Two unidentified ducks were seen on Rota in 1945, but as no movement of A. oustaleti between Saipan and Tinian, which are just  apart, was recorded, these were probably vagrant migrating ducks, although Marshall (1949) suspected from circumstantial evidence that such movement did indeed take place. However, the distance between Guam and Rota is nearly , making intentional migration between these islands unlikely.

Ecology and behaviour

The Mariana mallard inhabited wetlands, mostly inland but occasionally also in coastal areas. On Guam, it was most abundant in the Talofofo River valley, on Tinian on Lake Hagoi and Lake Makpo (before it was drained and known as Makpo Swamp), and on Saipan on the Garpan Lagoon and on and around Lake Susupe. The birds were rather reclusive, preferring sheltered habitat with plenty of wetland and water plants – fern thickets (Acrostichum aureum) and reed beds (Scirpus, Cyperus and Phragmites), where they also nested. Usually, pairs or small flocks were encountered, but in the key habitats larger groups of dozens and rarely up to 50–60 individuals could be found. Apart from possible inter-island movement, the birds were not migratory.

Feeding and reproduction are not well documented, but cannot expected to differ significantly from its immediate relatives. The Mariana mallard fed on aquatic invertebrates, small vertebrates and plants, and although they were not observed up-ending like mallards, they probably did so.

Breeding was recorded from at least January to July, with a peak in June–July at the end of the dry season. One male specimen taken in October was also in breeding condition; thus, the birds may have bred nearly year-round at least on occasion. The courtship behavior, which in the strongly sexually dimorphic mallard is focused more on presentation of visual cues than in the monomorphic Pacific black duck (although it is generally similar in both species), was never recorded. Clutches consisted of 7–12 pale grey-green oval eggs, measuring 6.16 x 3.89 cm on average. Incubation lasted around 28 days, males took no part in it and neither in caring for the ducklings. The precocial and nidifugous young fledged when about eight weeks old and became sexually mature the following year.

Extinction
The birds declined due to draining of wetlands for agriculture and construction. Hunting pressure was probably heavy, despite a ban on gun ownership under Japanese control (1914–1945), as the birds were unwary to traps, and at any rate the gun ban was lifted after World War II. By the 1940s, flocks of more than a dozen birds were seldom seen. On Guam, the last sightings were in 1949 and 1967—the latter being a single, possibly vagrant, bird—and on Tinian in 1974. As Lake Susupe offered the most plentiful and least accessible habitat, although it too suffered from pollution by sugar mill wastes, the Saipan population lingered on for a few more years. The Mariana mallard was listed as federally endangered on June 2, 1977. In 1979, two males and a female were found on Saipan and caught; one male was later released, the last wild bird ever to be encountered. The pair was brought to Pohakuloa Training Area, Hawaii, and later to SeaWorld San Diego, where it was attempted to have them reproduce in captivity. However, this was unsuccessful and the species became extinct with the death of the last individual in 1981. Surveys were conducted in the following years, but the species was certainly gone by then. It was removed from the USFWS Endangered Species List on February 23, 2004, due to extinction.

Collection of specimens for museums and private collections must have had a temporary impact during the Japanese control over the islands. Although fewer than 100 specimens are on record, most were taken in the 1930s and 1940s for Japanese collectors; given the rather sedentary habits and small population size of the species, this may have jeopardized local populations to the point of extinction. Outside Japan, 7 specimens (including the type) are in the National Museum of Natural History, Paris, one in the Natural History Museum at Tring, two in the National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C. and six in the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. There are reports of additional specimens in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Lisbon.

References

External links
Pacific Worlds article on Saipan wetlands

Anas
Ducks
Extinct birds of Oceania
Bird hybrids
Bird extinctions since 1500
Controversial bird taxa
Birds described in 1894
Fauna of the Mariana Islands

Mariana mallard


Marta Colvin Andrade (born 22 June 1907 in Chillán, Chile, died 27 October 1995 in Santiago, Chile) was a sculptor.

Colvin began sculpting in Chillán years after marrying and forming a family. After the 1939 earthquake, Marta Colvin lived in Santiago. While there, she went to the Belle Arts School of the University of Chile. Her teachers were Julio Antonio Vásquez and Lorenzo Domínguez. In 1943, she worked as an instructor at the Vasquez Factory. She became a professor there in 1950. In 1948, she traveled to France to study at the Academy Grand Chaumiere with the sculptors Ossip Zadkine and Henri Laurens. In 1951, she was invited by the British Council to study in the Slade School of the University of London, England. Colvin spent the next thirty years working and studying in France. Her talent was known world-wide. In 1970, she was awarded the National Prize of Art.

Other websites
  http://www.portaldearte.cl/autores/colvin.htm
  http://www.memoriachilena.cl/archivos2/pdfs/MC0015818.pdf "Premio Nacional de Arte"

Chilean sculptors
People from Bío Bío Region
1907 births
1995 deaths

Marta Colvin


A metric ton is a unit of measurement for mass. It is equal to 1000 kilograms, or one megagram (one million grams). When people talk about a ton, in countries which use the SI system of units, they mean the metric ton. The metric ton is usually abbreviated to t.

Related pages
 Short ton
 Long ton

Units of mass

Metric ton


Edmund "Eddie" Irvine, Jr. (Born 10 November 1965, Newtownards, County Down) is a former racing driver from Northern Ireland. He raced under a British Driving License.

Irvine spent time in the 1980s and early 1990's in Formula Ford and F3000. He joined Formula One in 1993, scoring a point on his debut as he replaced Emanuele Naspetti. He stayed on for Jordan in 1994 and 1995, before going on to drive for Scuderia Ferrari in 1996. His results were not as successful as Michael Schumacher's, including eight straight DNF's (Did not Finish) in a row in 1996. He eventually improved, scoring more podiums as he went along with the team.

In 1999 Michael Schumacher, the "#1 driver" for Ferrari was injured during a race at Silverstone. Irvine was made the #1 driver. The team put all their efforts towards Irvine winning a driver's championship. It wasn't successful, but Irvine did place second in the championship. Irvine left Ferrari after that season because he was frustrated with Ferrari's policy on team orders, which meant that one driver was labelled as "being #1." So, Irvine joined the new Jaguar Racing team in 2000, where he finally became the lead driver. However, the car was not competitive and reliable, so Jaguar, despite having lots of experience with Irvine, had little results. Irvine obtained the only two podiums Jaguar would ever see, and Irvine retired from Formula One after 2002.

References

1965 births
Living people
British Formula One drivers
Northern Irish sportspeople

Eddie Irvine


1559 was a common year.

Events
January 15 – Elizabeth I of England is crowned in Westminster Abbey.
March 23 – Emperor Gelawdewos of Ethiopia, defending his lands against the invasion of Nur ibn Mujahid, Sultan of Harar, is killed in battle. His brother Menas succeeds him as king.
April 3 – Peace of Cateau Cambrésis – France makes peace with England and Spain.  France gives up most of its gains in Italy (including Savoy), keeping only Saluzzo, but keeps the three Lorraine bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and the formerly English town of Calais.
July 10 – Francis II becomes King of France following the death of his father, Henry II in a jousting accident.
End of the Italian Wars.
 The Decameron expurgated.
 A royal edict in France makes heresy punishable by death.
 Elizabeth I establishes the Church of England, with the Act of Uniformity 1559 and the Act of Supremacy 1559.

1559


The Mimeo Revolution (or Mimeograph Revolution) of the 1960s and 1970s was an active period of small-scale, non-commercial, literary publishing facilitated by the accessibility of the mimeograph. It is distinguished from the traditional private press by its emphasis on quick, cheap production.

Presses associated with the Mimeo Revolution often published experimental and underground work, and were important venues for poets, writers and artists ignored by mainstream magazines. Their emphasis was often (but not always) on poetry, including work by the Black Mountain poets, the poets of the Beat Generation, the New York School, and the San Francisco Renaissance, as well as such experimental genres as Concrete Poetry. Unlike mainstream literary magazines, they were usually published by the poets and communities of poets whose work appeared in them.

Significant Mimeo Revolution magazines and presses include 7 Flowers Press, Angel Hair, Beatitude, Big Table, "C" Press, Duende, Floating Bear, Fuck You, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, Little Caesar, Ole', Toothpaste, White Rabbit Press, Wormwood Review and Yugen.

See also
Samizdat
Alternative newspaper

External links
 A Little History of the Mimeograph Revolution, an excerpt from A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980, by Steven Clay and Rodney Phillips, New York Public Library/Granary Books, 1998
 Granary Books site for A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980
 How an Obsolete Copy Machine Started a Revolution by Greta Weber, National Geographic, June 24, 2016

Publishing
Revolutions by type

Mimeo Revolution