HMS Hermes

Ten ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Hermes, after Hermes, the messenger god of Greek mythology, while another was planned:

HMS Hermes (95)

HMS Hermes was an aircraft carrier built for the Royal Navy. The ship began construction during World War I and finished after the war ended. She was the world's first ship to be designed as an aircraft carrier, although the Imperial Japanese Navy's Hōshō was the first to be commissioned and launched. The ship's construction was delayed by multiple changes in her design after she was laid down. After she was launched, her shipyard closed and her construction was suspended. Most of the changes were made to optimise her design in light of the results of experiments with the existing carriers.

Commissioned in 1924, Hermes served briefly with the Atlantic Fleet before spending the bulk of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet and the China Station. In the Mediterranean, she worked with other carriers developing multi-carrier tactics. While showing the flag at the China Station, she helped to suppress pirates in Chinese waters. Hermes returned home in 1937 and was placed in reserve before becoming a training ship in 1938.

HMS Hermes (1811)

HMS Hermes was a 20-gun Hermes-class sixth-rate post ship built in Milford Dockyard. She was destroyed in 1814 to prevent her falling into American hands after grounding during her unsuccessful attack on Fort Bowyer on Mobile Point outside Mobile, Alabama.

Napoleonic Wars

Her first commander was Captain Philip Browne. Under Browne, Hermes first captured an American vessel laden with stores for the Brest fleet and then two vessels from New York and Baltimore. On 24 September, while near Cape La Hève (Le Havre), Hermes recaptured the Prussian brig Anna Maria which had been bound for London from Lisbon. A privateer managed to escape because of the nearness of the French coast.

Strong winds drove Hermes off station when near Beachy Head he discovered a large French lugger in the midst of a number of English vessels. The French privateer had already taken one prize and might have taken others had Hermes not arrived. After a chase of two hours, in which the lugger sustained some damage and had several men wounded, the privateer struck to Hermes. As Hermes slowed, the strong wind broke her maintop-sail-yard in the slings and her fore-sail split. The privateer immediately tried to escape on the opposite tack. Hermes managed to turn and by cramming on all sail caught up with the privateer although she had gotten a two-mile lead. Browne decided to run alongside, despite the gale to prevent the French vessel from escaping again. Unfortunately, as the lugger crossed Hermes's hawse a heavy sea caused Hermes to run over the lugger, sinking her. Hermes was unable to launch any boats and so was only able to save 12 out of the lugger's 51 men. (Another 10 men had been aboard the lugger's prize, which had escaped to France during the chase, taking with her the prize's crew.) The lugger turned out to be the Mouche of Boulogne, under the command of M. Gageux. She had carried fourteen 12-pounder and 6-pounder guns.