HMS Lightning

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

• The first HMS Lightning was an 8-gun fire ship launched in 1691 and captured by the French in 1705.
• The second HMS 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 HMS Viper, launched in 1746, was converted to a fire ship and renamed Lightning in 1755. She was sold in 1762
• The 14-gun sloop HMS Sylph, purchased in 1776, was converted to a fire ship and renamed Lightning in 1779. She was sold in 1783.
• The fifth HMS Lightning was a Thais-class fireship launched in 1806, converted to a sloop in 1808, and sold in 1816.
• The sixth HMS 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 HMS 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 HMS Lightning, launched in 1895, was a Janus-class destroyer. She served in World War I until she struck a mine in 1915 that sank her.
• The tenth HMS Lightning (G55), launched in 1940, was an L-class destroyer that served in World War II. The German motor torpedo boat S-55 torpedoed and sank her on 12 March 1943 in the Strait of Sicily.

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 Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475. 

This article includes a list of ships with the same or similar names. If an internal link for a specific ship led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended ship article, if one exists.