TORDENSKJOLD, PEDER Danish naval hero, son of Jan Wessel of Bergen, in Norway, was born at Trond hjem on Oct. 28, 1691. Wessel ran away from home as a stow away in a ship bound for Copenhagen, made a voyage to the West Indies, and finally gained a cadetship. In 1712 he was promoted to a 20-gun frigate. Wessel was renowned for his audacity and his unique seamanship. The Great Northern War had now entered upon its later stage, when Sweden, beset on every side, employed her fleet principally to transport troops and stores to her distressed German provinces. The audacity of Wessel impeded her at every point. He was continually snapping up transports, dashing into the fjords where her vessels lay concealed.
When in 1715 the return of Charles XII. from Turkey to Stral sund put a new life into the jaded Swedish forces, Wessel fought numerous engagements off the Pomeranian coast, and did the enemy infinite damage by cutting out their frigates and destroy ing their transports. On returning to Denmark in the beginning of 1716 he was ennobled under the title of "Tordenskjold" (Thundershield). When Charles XII. invaded Norway and be sieged Fredrikshald (1716) Tordenskjold compelled him to raise the siege and retire to Sweden by pouncing upon the Swedish transport fleet laden with ammunition and other military stores which rode at anchor in the narrow and dangerous strait of Dynekil, utterly destroying the Swedish fleet with little damage to himself. For this, his greatest exploit, he was promoted to the
rank of commander.
Tordenskjold's last feat of arms (he was now rear-admiral) was his capture of the Swedish fortress of Marstrand, when he par tially destroyed and partially captured the Gothenburg squadron which had so long eluded him. He was rewarded with the rank of vice-admiral. Tordenskjold did not long survive the termination of the war. On Nov. 20, 1720, we was killed in a duel with a Livonian colonel, Jakob Axel Stael von Holstein. Although, Dynekil excepted, Tordenskjold's victories were of far less im portance than Sehested's at Stralsund and Gyldenlove's at Riigen, he is certainly, after Charles XII., the most heroic figure of the Great Northern War.
See Carstensen and Liitken, Tordenskjold (Copenhagen, 1887).