HMS Juno (1844)

{{Infobox ship image

| Ship image = The missing Training Ship, HMS 'Atlanta' - The Graphic 1880.jpg

| Ship caption = HMS Atalanta in 1880

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{{Infobox ship career

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| Ship country = United Kingdom

| Ship flag = {{shipboxflag|United Kingdom|naval}}

| Ship name = HMS Juno

| Ship ordered = 20 February 1837

| Ship builder = Pembroke Dockyard

| Ship laid down = April 1842

| Ship launched = 1 July 1844

| Ship acquired =

| Ship completed = By 30 October 1845

| Ship commissioned =

| Ship decommissioned =

| Ship reclassified = Water police ship in 1862

| Ship in service =

| Ship out of service =

| Ship renamed = *HMS Mariner on 10 January 1878

HMS Atalanta on 22 January 1878

| Ship struck =

| Ship honours =

| Ship fate = Lost, presumed foundered in the Atlantic between 12 and 16 February 1880

| Ship notes =

| Ship namesake = Juno

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{{Infobox ship characteristics

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| Header caption =

| Ship class = 26-gun {{sclass|Spartan|frigate|0}} sixth-rate frigate (later "corvette")

| Ship tons burthen = 923 1/94 bm

| Ship length = *{{convert|131|ft|m|abbr=on}} (overall)

{{convert|107|ft|m|abbr=on}} (keel)

| Ship beam = {{convert|40|ft|3.25|in|m|abbr=on}}

| Ship draught =

| Ship hold depth = {{convert|10|ft|9|in|m|abbr=on}}

| Ship sail plan = Full-rigged ship

| Ship propulsion =

| Ship complement = 240

| Ship armament = *Upper deck: 18 × 32-pounders (42cwt)

Quarterdeck: 6 × 32-pounder (25cwt) gunnades
Forecastle: 2 × 32-pounder (25cwt) gunnades

| Ship notes =

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HMS Juno was a 26-gun {{sclass|Spartan|frigate|0}} sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1844 at Pembroke. As HMS Juno, she carried out the historic role in 1857 of annexing the Cocos (Keeling) Islands to the British Empire. She was renamed HMS Mariner in January 1878 and then HMS Atalanta two weeks later.

Disappearance

Atalanta was serving as a training ship when in 1880 she disappeared with her entire crew after setting sail from the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda for Falmouth, England on 31 January 1880. It was presumed that she sank in a powerful storm which crossed her route a couple of weeks after she sailed. The search for evidence of her fate attracted worldwide attention, and the Admiralty received more than 150 telegrams and 200 personal calls from anxious friends and relatives after it was announced that the ship was missing, and possibly lost.The Times, 15 April 1880.

Investigation of the ship's loss was rendered difficult by the lack of any survivors, but one former member of her crew, Able Seaman John Varling, testified that he had found her "exceedingly crank, as being overweight, She rolled 32 degrees and Captain Stirling is reported as having been heard to remark that had she rolled one degree more she must have gone over and foundered. The young sailors were either too timid to go aloft or were incapacitated by sea sickness... Varling states that they hid themselves away, and could not be found when wanted by the boatswain's mate."The Times, 27 April 1880.

File:AtalantaRecord1844.JPG

The exact circumstances of the ship's loss remain uncertain, but the gunboat {{HMS|Avon|1867|2}} – which arrived at Portsmouth on 19 April from the Chile station – reported "that at the Azores she noticed immense quantities of wreckage floating about... in fact the sea was strewn with spars etc."The Times, 20 April 1880. Two days later, amid mounting concern that the loss of the ship might have been prevented had her crew not been so inexperienced, The Times editorialised: "There can be no question of the criminal folly of sending some 300 lads who have never been to sea before in a training ship without a sufficient number of trained an experienced seamen to take charge of her in exceptional circumstances. The ship's company of the Atalanta numbered only about 11 able seamen, and when we consider that young lads are often afraid to go aloft in a gale to take down sail... a special danger attaching to the Atalanta becomes apparent."The Times, 21 April 1880. A sunken wreck, with just the bow above water, was sighted at {{coord|46|42|N|7|45|W}} on 14 September by the German brig W. von Freeden. It was thought that this could have been the wreck of Atalanta.{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Casualties at Sea |date=4 October 1880 |issue=30003 |page=10 |column=E }}

A memorial in St Ann's Church, Portsmouth, names a total of 281 fatalities in the disaster. Among those lost was Philip Fisher, a lieutenant who had enlisted the indirect support of Queen Victoria to obtain an appointment to the ship.Mackay, Ruddock (1973). Fisher of Kilverstone. Oxford: Clarendon Press, p.149. He was the younger brother of the future Admiral of the Fleet Lord Jacky Fisher.[http://www.memorials.inportsmouth.co.uk/churches/st_anns/atalanta.htm Memorials & Monuments in St Ann's Church - HMS Atalanta -] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080316202136/http://www.memorials.inportsmouth.co.uk/churches/st_anns/atalanta.htm |date=16 March 2008 }}

Since the 1960s, the loss of HMS Atalanta has often been cited as evidence of the purported Bermuda Triangle, an allegation shown to be nonsense by the research of author David Francis Raine in 1997.{{cite book |last=Raine |first=David Francis |date=1997-01-01 |title=Solved!: The Greatest Sea Mystery of All |location=Bermuda |publisher=Pompano Publications |isbn=9780921962151}}{{cite news |last=Hainey |first=Raymond |date=2011-02-09 |title=Solving a mystery of military blunder |url=https://www.royalgazette.com/other/lifestyle/article/20110209/solving-a-mystery-of-military-blunder/ |work=The Royal Gazette, city of Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda |location=Bermuda |access-date=2021-07-27}}