Kongo, a formidable warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, played a pivotal role in both World War I and World War II. As the inaugural battlecruiser of the Kongo class, she stood among the most heavily armed vessels across all navies at the time of her construction. Designed by British naval engineer George Thurston, her construction commenced in 1911 at Barrow-in-Furness in Britain, under the expertise of the Vickers Shipbuilding Company. Notably, Kongo marked the last instance of a Japanese capital ship being built outside Japan.

Formally commissioned in 1913, Kongo took on patrol duties off the Chinese coast during World War I. Subsequently, she underwent two significant reconstructions. In 1929, the Imperial Japanese Navy transformed her into a battleship, enhancing her armor, speed, and power. In 1935, her superstructure was entirely revamped, her speed increased, and she was outfitted with launch catapults for floatplanes. This transformation rendered her swift enough to accompany Japan's expanding carrier fleet, leading to her reclassification as a fast battleship.

During World War II, Kongo played a prominent role in key naval engagements. She provided cover for Japanese Army's amphibious operations in British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies in 1942. Kongo also participated in critical battles such as the Battle of Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign. Throughout 1943, she primarily operated from Truk Lagoon in the Caroline Islands, Kure Naval Base, Sasebo Naval Base, and Lingga Roads, responding to American aircraft carrier raids on Japanese bases scattered across the Pacific. Kongo notably contributed to the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, where she engaged and sank American vessels.

However, Kongo's illustrious naval career met a tragic end on 21 November 1944. While transiting the Formosa Strait, she was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine USS Sealion, marking a historic moment as the sole Japanese battleship to be sunk by a submarine during the Second World War.

The model was made entirely from boxwood and brass, fully planked. The base is made from spalted tamarind and the sea is carved and painted boxwood. The model was built from original drawings made by the RN.

The model contains several thousand pieces and was built to a scale of 28’ to 1” or 1/336. The hull is carved boxwood with individual planks are held to the hull with approximately 1,500 tree nails which were inserted into predrilled holes. Paint, as always, is from ScaleColors.

HMAV Bounty was a small collier purchased by the Royal Navy in 1787 for a botanical mission to Tahiti. Bounty, originally named Bethia, was built by Blaydes Yard, Kingston-upon-Hull, England and modified for her mission by the RN at Deptford Yard.

The ship was sent to the South Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the West Indies. That mission was never completed owing to a 1789 mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island.

HMS Queen Mary stood as the final battlecruiser built by the Royal Navy before the onset of the First World War, representing the solitary vessel of her class. Sharing striking similarities with the Lion-class battlecruisers, she boasted a formidable armament of eight 13.5-inch guns. Her construction was completed in 1913, and Queen Mary embarked on her wartime exploits shortly thereafter.

In 1914, Queen Mary played a crucial role in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, showcasing her might as a part of the Grand Fleet. Throughout the war, she, like her contemporaries in the British battlecruiser fleet, remained stationed in the North Sea, never venturing far from these waters. In December 1914, as a member of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, Queen Mary endeavored to intercept a German force that bombarded the North Sea coast of England, although the mission ended in disappointment.

In the early months of 1915, Queen Mary underwent refitting, causing her to miss the Battle of Dogger Bank in January. However, her defining moment came in mid-1916 during the Battle of Jutland, the largest fleet action of the war. During this intense encounter, Queen Mary found herself in the line of fire, sustaining two hits from the German battlecruiser Derfflinger. Tragically, shortly after these impacts, her magazines exploded, resulting in the swift and tragic sinking of the ship, resulting in the loss of 1,266 officers and men. There were only 18 survivors.

HM Cutter Alert was launched as a 10-gun cutter at Dover in 1777

During the American War of Independence, Alert engaged in significant naval encounters. On 19 September 1777, she confronted the American 16-gun brigantine Lexington in the English Channel. After a fierce two-hour battle, Lexington damaged Alert's rigging and attempted to escape, but Alert's crew swiftly repaired the damage, allowing them to catch up with the retreating Lexington. With the American vessel running out of ammunition, she surrendered after enduring another hour and a half of bombardment. In this encounter, Lexington lost 7 men killed and 11 wounded, while Alert suffered two killed and 3 wounded.

In a separate engagement on 17 June 1778, Alert faced off against the French 10-gun Lugger Coureur. After a intense 90-minute battle, Coureur succumbed to Alert's firepower and surrendered.

However, Alert's fortunes changed on 17 July 1778 when she was captured in the Channel by the French ship Junon. Recorded as Alerte in French archives, she was listed as a cutter armed with fourteen 4-pounder guns, valued as a prize at Lt 32,289. Tragically, Alert met her end in December 1779 when she foundered off the coast of America, marking the end of her eventful maritime exploits.

Giulio Cesare was a member of the formidable Conte di Cavour-class dreadnought battleships, commissioned by the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) in the 1910s. Completed in 1914, she saw minimal action and remained uninvolved in combat during the First World War. Her significant operational role came during the Corfu Incident in 1923. For much of the following decade, she languished in reserve until a comprehensive reconstruction between 1933 and 1937, which bolstered her firepower, armor, and speed.

With the outbreak of World War II, both Giulio Cesare and her sister ship, Conte di Cavour, engaged in the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, where Giulio Cesare sustained minor damage. The ships were also present during the notorious Taranto attack by British torpedo bombers in November 1940, though Giulio Cesare emerged unscathed. Subsequently, she escorted convoys to North Africa and participated in key naval clashes, including the Battle of Cape Spartivento in late 1940 and the First Battle of Sirte in late 1941.

In early 1942, Giulio Cesare was repurposed as a training ship. Following the Italian armistice in 1943, she managed a daring escape to Malta. Later, in 1949, she found a new identity under the Soviet flag, being renamed Novorossiysk (Новороссийск). Repurposed for training purposes by the Soviets, tragedy struck in 1955 when an explosion, likely caused by an old German mine, led to her sinking, resulting in the loss of 617 lives.

Subsequently salvaged in the following year, Giulio Cesare faced her final fate as she was dismantled for scrap, marking the end of her eventful and storied naval career.

HMS Captain stood as a significant warship commissioned by the Royal Navy, conceived as a semi-private venture following a disagreement between the designer and the Admiralty. Pioneering in her design, the ship boasted wrought-iron armor, steam propulsion, and a main battery housed in rotating armored turrets, showcasing apparent innovation and strength. However, due to flawed design decisions and alterations, she became overweight and ultimately unstable.

Despite initial appearances, the ship's seaworthiness was marred by her lower freeboard, causing her to be perceived as somewhat "sluggish" in the water in comparison to the higher freeboard turret-ship HMS Monarch. Tragically, this design flaw proved fatal. Merely five months after her commissioning, Captain capsized in turbulent seas, resulting in a devastating loss of nearly 500 lives. This tragic event highlighted the ship's inherent instability and the dire consequences of her flawed design choices.

HM Bark Endeavour, a renowned British Royal Navy research vessel, was under the command of Lieutenant James Cook during his inaugural voyage of discovery from 1768 to 1771, exploring Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia.

Originally launched as the collier Earl of Pembroke in 1764, the Royal Navy acquired her in 1768 for a pioneering scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean. Renamed His Majesty's Bark Endeavour, she embarked from Plymouth in August 1768, navigating around Cape Horn and reaching Tahiti in time to witness the rare 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun. Endeavour then ventured into uncharted southern waters, visiting islands such as Huahine, Bora Bora, and Raiatea, where Cook claimed them for Great Britain. In September 1769, she anchored off New Zealand, marking the first European arrival since Abel Tasman's expedition 127 years earlier.

In April 1770, Endeavour made history by becoming the first European ship to reach the eastern coast of Australia, with Cook landing at what is now Botany Bay. Continuing north along the Australian coast, she narrowly escaped disaster by avoiding the Great Barrier Reef, although some sacrifices were made, including jettisoning her cannons to lighten the load. Endeavour was grounded on the Australian mainland for seven weeks, allowing basic repairs before resuming her journey. She finally reached Batavia in October 1770, after which she rounded the Cape of Good Hope and arrived at Dover on 12 July 1771, concluding her remarkable three-year expedition.

Following her Pacific voyage, Endeavour served as a troop and cargo transport between England and the Falkland Islands for three years. In 1775, she was sold into private ownership and renamed, being repurposed for timber transportation from the Baltic. Later, during the American War of Independence, she was reacquired as a British troop transport and eventually scuttled during a blockade of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, in 1778, along with four other British transports. Historical records suggest the ship was sunk just north of Goat Island in Newport Harbor, marking the end of her notable maritime career.

HMS Agincourt, a dreadnought battleship constructed in the early 1910s in the United Kingdom, has a unique legacy in naval history. Originally intended for Brazil's participation in a South American naval arms race, she stood out by mounting an impressive array of heavy guns—fourteen in total—and seven turrets, a distinctive feature tailored to meet Brazil's specific requirements for a remarkable design.

Initially ordered by Brazil in 1911 from the British company Armstrong Whitworth under the name Rio de Janeiro, her fate took a different turn due to Brazil's changing circumstances. The collapse of Brazil's rubber industry and improved relations with Argentina, her primary rival, led to her sale while still under construction to the Ottoman Empire. Renamed Sultan Osman I, she was nearing completion when the outbreak of the First World War occurred. Seized by the British government, along with another Ottoman dreadnought also being constructed in Britain, the move caused discontent in the Ottoman Empire, contributing to their alignment with the Central Powers.

Under the Royal Navy's banner and renamed Agincourt, she became an integral part of the Grand Fleet in the North Sea during the war. Although her primary duties involved patrols and exercises, she did engage in the Battle of Jutland in 1916, a notable moment in her wartime service. Following the war, Agincourt was placed in reserve in 1919 and later sold for scrap in 1922 to adhere to the stipulations of the Washington Naval Treaty, marking the end of her illustrious naval career.

Duilio, an Italian battleship of the Andrea Doria-class, served in the Regia Marina during both World War I and World War II. She took her name from the esteemed Roman fleet commander Gaius Duilius. The construction of Duilio commenced in February 1912, and by May 1916, she was complete, armed with a formidable main battery comprising thirteen 12.0 in guns. However, in a significant reconstruction during the late 1930s, these guns were replaced with ten more powerful 13 in guns.

Despite being part of the Regia Marina, Duilio saw little action during World War I due to the relative inactivity of the Austro-Hungarian fleet. Throughout the 1920s, she patrolled the Mediterranean and became involved in the Corfu incident of 1923.

When World War II erupted, Duilio was engaged in numerous patrols and Mediterranean sorties, escorting Italian convoys to North Africa and attempting to intercept the British Mediterranean Fleet. In November 1940, during a British air raid on Taranto, Duilio sustained significant damage from a torpedo launched by a Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber. Extensive repairs, lasting about five months, were necessary before she could resume her duties.

The Italian fleet faced immobilization due to a fuel shortage in 1942, sidelining Duilio until the Italian surrender in September 1943. Interned in Malta until 1944, she returned to Italian waters after Allies granted permission. Surviving the war, Duilio continued to serve in the post-war Italian navy, primarily fulfilling training roles. However, by 1953, she was placed in reserve for the final time. Her naval service officially ended in late 1956 when she was struck from the naval register, ultimately being sold for scrapping in the following year.

Men Wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.

-E. Shackleton

S/Y Endurance was the sturdy three-masted barquentine that carried Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men on the renowned 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Originally named Polaris, the ship was constructed at the Framnæs shipyard in Norway and launched in 1912 from Sandefjord. A twist of fate led to her acquisition by Shackleton in January 1914 for the expedition, marking her maiden voyage.

In an unfortunate turn of events, Endurance became ensnared in pack ice a year later and eventually succumbed to the icy depths of the Weddell Sea near Antarctica on 21 November 1915. Remarkably, all crew members survived the shipwreck, using the ship's boats to reach Elephant Island. Shackleton, alongside the ship's captain Frank Worsley and four others, embarked on a perilous voyage seeking help.

The long-lost wreck of Endurance was rediscovered on 5 March 2022, nearly 107 years after her tragic demise, by the Endurance22 search team. Resting 3,008 meters (9,869 ft; 1,645 fathoms) deep, the ship remains remarkably well-preserved. This historic site is now protected under the Antarctic Treaty System, serving as a testament to the bravery and resilience of those who ventured into the icy unknown.

SMS Emden was the second and final member of the Dresden class of light cruisers built for the Imperial German Navy. Named for the town of Emden, she was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig in 1906. The hull was launched in May 1908, and completed in July 1909. She had one sister ship, Dresden. Emden was armed with ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two torpedo tubes.

Emden spent the majority of her career overseas in the German East Asia Squadron, based in Tsingtao, in the Kiautschou Bay concession in China. In 1913, Karl von Müller took command of the ship. At the outbreak of World War I, Emden captured a Russian steamer and converted her into the commerce raider Cormoran. Emden rejoined the East Asia Squadron, then was detached for independent raiding in the Indian Ocean. The cruiser spent nearly two months operating in the region, and captured nearly two dozen ships. On 28 October 1914, Emdenlaunched a surprise attack on Penang; in the resulting Battle of Penang, she sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug and the French destroyerMousquet.

Müller then took Emden to raid the Cocos Islands, where he landed a contingent of sailors to destroy British facilities. There, Emden was attacked by the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney on 9 November 1914. The more powerful Australian ship quickly inflicted serious damage and forced Müller to run his ship aground to avoid sinking. Out of a crew of 376, 133 were killed in the battle. Most of the survivors were taken prisoner; the landing party, led by Hellmuth von Mücke, commandeered an old schooner and eventually returned to Germany. Emden's wreck was quickly destroyed by wave action, and was broken up for scrap in the 1950s.

HMS Ramillies was one of five Revenge-class super-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. They were developments of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, with reductions in size and speed to offset increases in the armour protection whilst retaining the same main battery of eight 15-inch (381 mm) guns. Completed in late 1917, Ramillies saw no combat during the war as both the British and the German fleets had adopted a more cautious strategy by this time owing to the increasing threat of naval mines and submarines.

SMS Seeadler was a three-master steel-hulled sailing ship. She was one of the last fighting sailing ships to be used in war when she served as a merchant raider with Imperial Germany in World War I. Built as the British-flagged Pass of Balmaha, she was captured by the German submarine SM U-36, and in 1916 converted to a commerce raider. As Seeadler she had a successful raiding career, capturing and sinking 15 ships in 225 days until she was wrecked, in September 1917, in French Polynesia.

SMS Viribus Unitis was an Austro-Hungarian dreadnought battleship, the first of the Tegetthoff class. "Viribus Unitis", meaning "With United Forces", was the personal motto of Emperor Franz Joseph I.

Viribus Unitis was ordered by the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1908 and was laid down in Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste on 24 July 1910. Viribus Unitis was launched from the shipyard on 24 June 1911 and was formally commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 5 December 1912.

During World War I, Viribus Unitis took part in the flight of the German warships SMS Goeben and Breslau. In May 1915, she also took part in the bombardment of the Italian port city of Ancona. Viribus Unitis was sunk by a limpet mine planted by Raffaele Rossetti, an Italian engineer and naval officer of the Regia Marina, and Raffaele Paolucci, an Italian surgeon and naval officer, on 1 November 1918.