Who was still in Hue . . . in a Vietnam growing even more hostile to its ethnic-Chinese minority since the naval clashes over those damned islands.

The battle was the first naval clash and first victory for the Royal Australian Navy.

The Battle of Lilybaeum was the first naval clash between the navies of Carthage and Rome during the Second Punic War.

During this naval clash Syrian missile boats launched missiles from within the port limits (actually launched while the missile boats were moored between the merchant ships in port).

The Spratly Islands have been the site of a naval clash, in which over seventy Vietnamese sailors were killed just south of Chigua Reef in March 1988.

Japan let the two ships escape, apparently into North Korean waters this morning, for fear that continued pursuit could lead to a naval clash with North Korea.

But it said five North Korean patrol boats were also damaged in the firefight, possibly the fiercest naval clash since the Korean war ended in 1953.

However, the decisive naval clash occurred at Salamis, where Xerxes' invasion fleet was decisively defeated.

On 27 May, North Korea announced that it would scrap an agreement aimed at preventing accidental naval clashes with South Korea.

There have been occasional naval clashes over the Spratly Islands.