HMS Lightning

Ten ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Lightning.

• The first Lightning was an 8-gun fire ship launched in 1691 and captured by the French in 1705.
• The second Lightning was an 8-gun bomb vessel launched in 1740 and captured off Livorno during the War of the Austrian Succession in 1746.
• The 14-gun sloop Viper, launched in 1746, was converted to a fire ship and renamed Lightning in 1755. She was sold in 1762
• The 14-gun sloop Sylph, purchased in 1776, was converted to a fire ship and renamed Lightning in 1779. She was sold in 1783.
• The fifth Lightning was a 16-gun fire ship launched in 1806 and sold in 1816.
• The sixth Lightning, launched in 1823, was a paddle steamer. She served initially as a packet ship, but was later converted into an oceanographic survey vessel. She was used by Charles Wyville Thomson and William Carpenter to survey the north Atlantic in 1868.
• The seventh Lightning was an 18-gun sloop launched in 1829, renamed Larne in 1832 and broken up in 1866.
• The eighth HMS Lightning (1876), was a torpedo boat, built by John Thornycroft. She was the first seagoing vessel to be armed with self-propelled torpedoes. She was later known as TB-1.
• The ninth Lightning, launched in 1895, was a Janus-class destroyer. She served in World War I and was sunk by a mine in 1915.
• The tenth Lightning (G55), launched in 1940, was an L-class destroyer that served in World War II. She was torpedoed and sunk on 12 March 1943 in the Strait of Sicily by the German torpedo boat S-55.

References

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.