HMS Saracen

Six ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Saracen, after the Saracens, a Medieval European term for Muslims:

See also

HMS Saracen (P247)

HMS Saracen was an S-class submarine of the Royal Navy, and part of the Third Group built of that class. She was built by Cammell Laird and launched on 16 February 1942.

Career

Her first pennant was P213, to which her commissioning crew objected because of the unlucky connotations of 13, so the Admiralty changed it to P247 (which still added up to 13). She started her wartime career in home waters, where she sank the German submarine U-335 in the North Sea. There were only two survivors out of a crew of 44, one of whom died shortly afterwards after refusing to be rescued, the other being taken prisoner.

She then served in the Mediterranean, where she sank the Italian submarine Granito, the Italian auxiliary submarine chaser V 3 / Maria Angelette, the French tugs Provincale II and Marseillaise V, the Italian merchant ships Tagliamento and Tripoli and the German merchant vessel Tell. She also attacked and damaged two sailing vessels and the French (in German service) tanker Marguerite Finally. She also attacked a number of convoys, torpedoing and sinking the Italian merchant ship Francesco Crispi. Saracen had less luck attacking other convoys, firing three torpedoes against one made up of the small Italian tanker Labor, the German merchantman Menes, which were escorted by the Italian torpedo boats Calliope and Climene. All torpedoes fired missed their targets. On another occasion, she fired four torpedoes against the German transport ship Ankara and one of her escorts, the Italian destroyer Camicia Nera. Again, all torpedoes fired missed their targets.

HMS Saracen (1804)

HMS Saracen was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Perry, Green & Wells at Blackwall Yard and launched in 1804. She had a relatively short and uneventful career before she was broken up at Chatham in 1812.

Service

Saracen was commissioned in August 1804 under Commander William Proctor for the Irish station. In February 1805 Commander James Prevost took command and by May 1805 she was cruising the Channel.

By 3 January 1806 she was with Sir John Borlase Warren's squadron at Saint Helena. Nine days later she sailed to Madeira to gain intelligence of Vice Admiral Leissègues's squadron. By 28 December she was back at Falmouth.

During the summer of 1807 Saracen was in the Rio Plata with Sir Home Popham's forces. From there she brought home the naval and military dispatches after the surrender of the British forces by General Whitelocke on 5 July.

She sailed for the Mediterranean on 15 November and in 1808 was off Cadiz. Saracen brought back to Great Britain a copy of the treaty for the peace of the Dardanelles signed on 6 January 1809 with the Ottoman Empire.

Saracen

Saracen was a generic term for Muslims widely used among Christian writers in Europe during the later medieval era. The term's meaning evolved during its history. In the early centuries CE, Greek and Latin writings used this term to refer to the people who lived in desert areas in and near the Roman province of Arabia. They were distinguished as a people from others known as Arabs. In Europe during the Early Medieval era, the term came to be associated with Arab tribes as well. By the 12th century, "Saracen" had become synonymous with "Muslim" in Medieval Latin literature. Such expansion in the meaning of the term had begun centuries earlier among the Byzantine Romans, as evidenced in documents from the 8th century. In the Western languages before the 16th century, "Saracen" was commonly used to refer to Muslim Arabs, and the words "Muslim" and "Islam" were generally not used (with a few isolated exceptions).

Early usage and origins

Ptolemy's Geography (2nd century CE) describes "Sarakene" as a region in the northern Sinai peninsula. Ptolemy also mentions a people called the "Sarakenoi" living in north-western Arabia (near neighbor to the Sinai).Eusebius of Caesarea refers to Saracens in his Ecclesiastical history, in which he narrates an account wherein Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, mentions Saracens in a letter while describing the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius: "Many were, in the Arabian mountain, enslaved by the barbarous 'sarkenoi'." The Historia Augusta also refers to an attack by "Saraceni" on Pescennius Niger's army in Egypt in 193, but provides little information as to identifying them.

Saracen (disambiguation)

Saracen is a European medieval term for Muslims, adopted from Latin.

Saracen or Saracens may also refer to:

Art, entertainment,and media

Fictional characters

Literature

Opera

Television

Enterprises

Military

Sports

Saracen (comics)

Saracen is a fictional villain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as an enemy of the antihero the Punisher. He was created by Mike Baron and Erik Larsen, and first appeared in The Punisher Vol. 2, #22 (August 1989)

Publication history

Saracen was introduced in The Punisher Vol. 2, #22-23, and reappeared in The Punisher War Journal #25-27, as well as The Punisher Vol. 2, #47-48, and The Punisher War Journal #33. The character was then killed off in the one-shot comic book The Punisher: Empty Quarter, though a version of him from an alternate universe was later featured in Exiles Vol. 1, #99.

Saracen received profiles in Marvel Encyclopedia #5, and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update #1.

Fictional character biography

A globe-trotting mercenary and assassin whose actions, such as plundering cruise ships and blowing up airliners, have resulted in him being branded a terrorist, Saracen hails from an undisclosed Arabian country, and is said to be happily married.