Volunteers of the Flying Squadron, firing the shipping, Siege of Taganrog, 1855
Illustration by William Heysham Overend (1851-1898) from Cassell's Century Edition History of England, pub circa 1901. Info from wiki: In the autumn 1854, a squadron of three British warships led by Miranda left the Baltic for the White Sea, where they shelled and destroyed Kola. An attempt to storm Arkhangelsk proved abortive. While the Anglo-French naval squadron successfully shelled the town, a landing of 800 sailors and marines was repulsed.[citation needed] On 3 June 1855 at Siege of Taganrog on Sea of Azov, Boatswain Henry Cooper and Lieutenant Cecil William Buckley of Miranda landed destroying equipment and setting fire to government buildings. This despite the town being under bombardment and garrisoned by 3,000 Russian troops. For this action the pair were awarded the Victoria Cross. Captain Edmund Moubray Lyons of Miranda reported on 29 May 1855 that in the first four days of the squadron entering the Sea of Azov, the enemy had lost four steamers of war, 246 merchant vessels, together with corn and flour magazines to the value of at least £150,000. The Siege of Taganrog is a name given in some Russian histories to Anglo-French naval operations in the northeastern part of the Sea of Azov between June and October 1855 during the Crimean War. British and French forces were implementing a strategy of destroying the supply lines for the main Russian army which ran across the Sea of Azov. Taganrog was one of the major logistical hubs of the Russian army and was attacked and destroyed as a military depot on 3 June 1855 (NS) as part of a series of attacks on all major Russian supply bases in the area, except Rostov-on-Don, which could not be reached due to the large shoals not admitting any available warship
Size: 3228px × 2376px
Photo credit: © Historical Images Archive / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 3, 1855, 19th, aim, azov, boatswain, british, buckley, captain, cecil, century, christian, cooper, crimean, decline, depot, destroyed, destroying, eastern, edmund, empire, engraving, era, firing, flying, gaining, henry, history, hms, holy, illustration, image, june, land, lieutenant, lines, lyons, military, minorities, miranda, moubray, naval, nineteenth, operations, ottoman, picture, power, prevent, rights, russia, russian, sea, shipping, siege, squadron, strategy, supply, taganrog, territory, victorian, volunteers, war, william
