HMS Minden
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HMS Minden was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, named after the German Hanoverian town Minden. She was built by the Indian company Jamshedji Bomanji Wadia in 1810. Christened and launched from the Duncan docks in Bombay on June 23 of that year, she was the first RN ship built outside of the British Isles. It was named Minden because of the decisive victory of British and Prussian forces over French in Seven Years' War in the town.
Service
Minden saw service during the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake Bay. In 1816, Minden participated in the Battle of Algiers. It was also served in Java and Australia.Toward the end of her career Minden saw duty as a hospital ship in Hong Kong from 1842 because a naval hospital on the shore was destroyed in typhoon. It severed those suffered from malaria in the early colonial years. Its role was replaced by HMS Alligator in 1857. The ship was sold for scrap and broken up in 1861 in Hong Kong.
In memory of the ship, two streets of Minden Row and Minden Avenue behide Signal Hill of Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon of Hong Kong were named after it.
Trivial
Some accounts state that Francis Scott Key was aboard the HMS Minden when he wrote the Poem "The Defense of Ft. McHenry", later renamed "The Star Spangled Banner". These accounts are not true.External links
- [Photo of a scale model of Minden]
- [The American Connection to Minden Row (A brief history of HMS Minden)]
- [The Royal Naval Hospital, Hong Kong]
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