Welcome to Historical RFA
Captain Frederick H Gething DSC RFA
UK Naval Oil Fuel Depots
UK Naval Oil Fuel Depots
The Oil & Pipelines Agency operate six Oil Fuel Depots (OFDs) around the United Kingdom. Gosport and Thanckes OFDs are located in southern England and support the adjacent HM Naval Bases, Portsmouth and Devonport respectively. The four remaining OFDs are located in Scotland. The Scottish site at Garelochhead supports its adjacent Naval base, whilst Loch Striven, Loch Ewe and Campbeltown provide bulk storage and regional support to visiting Royal Navy and NATO warships and Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers.
All bulk product delivery is by sea.
RFA Eaglesdale - Replenishment at Sea
RFA EAGLESDALE and Replenishment-at-Sea trials
On 4 March 1942 RFA Eaglesdale sailed from Londonderry, Northern Ireland to commence extensive Replenishment at Sea trials with RAS equipment from the captured German supply ship Gedania.
SS Gedania
Suez 1956: an overview
Suez 1956 : an overview
Tom Adams MBE
Just over half a century ago as the Hungarian Revolution was drawing headlines and a Presidential election was being run in the United States of America, the Suez intervention caught world attention. Frequently seen in Britain as a crisis it marked the eclipse of British world power and revealed a darker side to British political behaviour of collusion and deceit.
Introduction
The Suez Canal is a 163km (101-mile) waterway between the Mediterranean Sea at Port Said and the Red Sea at Suez. By reducing the need to circumnavigate the African continent via the Cape of Good Hope this largely manmade waterway became one of the world’s principal inter-ocean trade routes. Historically it was Britain’s main artery to India and the Empire. So strategically important that British armed forces were frequently stationed there until 1956.
The first ships transit the Suez Canal
History of the canal commences in the late 18th century when Napoleon conquered Egypt and ordered a ‘feasibility study’. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French counsel in Cairo, gained a concession from Mohammed Said Pasha, the Viceroy of Egypt, to create a company with the purpose of building and operating a shipping canal to connect the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The Suez Canal Company (Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez) was created in December 1856. Financed by French private investors and the Egyptian government it was based in Alexandria but its legal entity and administration were based in Paris.
A Suez Canal Share Certificate
At this time de Lesseps obtained a second concession that stated ‘the canal and the ports dependent on it shall be forever open, as neutral passages, to all merchant ships…on payment of dues and observance of the regulations’. Interestingly no mention was made of warships.