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The Italians will tell you quite zealously that the Leonardo da Vinci was destroyed by sabotage, and they even caught the guy who did it.

Yeah, like the Germans "caught" the guy who burned the Reichstag...[:D]

ORIGINAL: Tiornu
The Italians will tell you quite zealously that the Leonardo da Vinci was destroyed by sabotage, and they even caught the guy who did it.

He was the same one who sank Benedetto Brin?

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

Hi Ron

Nice to see you back on the forum. I agree with the post somewhere above about Massie's "Castles of Steel" - fantastic book. Has anybody read his other books? What are they like?

'
"Dreadnought" is very good. You will learn more about the Britsha and German royal family that you ever wanted to know and about Bismark and jackie Fisher too...

Less well known is the loss of HMS Bulwark to a magazine explosion at Sheerness in November 1914.

http://www.nhcra-online.org/20c/bulwark.htm

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Pretty sure the only British dreadnougt lost to a non-combat related magazine explosion was HMS Vanguard at Scapa Flow during WWI. Italian Leonardo da Vinci met the same fate aroumd the same time too IIRC.

HMS Vanguard
by David Horne
Stand still! Stand Still! Ye leaping waves
And mourn along with me
For a gallant ship has crossed the bar
Of the great eternal sea:
A flash, a roar, a blood red flame,
Then a huge overwhelming cloud,
And a thousand souls are wrapped within
The ocean's winding shroud.

Ten thousand doors do ever lead
To death upon the deep:
Sometimes they open silently
Sometimes our hearts do creep
When a blinding flash, and a deafening crash
Sends a good ship to her doom
And her gallant crew are hid from view
Within a watery tomb.

Oh! Little we know of the price men pay
Who guard the silvery sea,
Who keep our homes inviolate
Each town, each winding lea;
We reckon it up in paltry cash
In bars of gleaming gold
But the ransom's dyed in a ruddy tide-
The blood of warriors bold!

So bare your heads ye landsmen all,
Who live at home in ease,
And pray the Lord that ye worthy be
Of the men that hold the seas;
Of the mighty Vanguard who are stood
So valiant in the strife,
Of her gallant crew that flashed from view
Through death to endless life!