Ursa Minor The tradition of naming the northern constellations "bears" appears to be genuinely Greek, although Homer refers to just a single "bear". The original "bear" is thus Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor was admitted as second, or "Phoenician Bear" (Ursa Phoenicia, hence Φοινίκη, Phoenice) only later, according to Strabo (I.1.6, C3) due to a suggestion by Thales, who suggested it as a navigation aid to the Greeks, who had been navigating by Ursa Major. In classical antiquity, the celestial pole was somewhat closer to Beta Ursae Minoris than to Alpha Ursae Minoris, and the entire constellation was taken to indicate the
HMS Ursa (R22) watch and there was only one minor injury. After major damage control by the ship's crew, she made her way slowly to Greenock shipyard dry dock, where she was measured for a new bow and this was fitted in under four weeks. "Ursa" returned to Devonport dockyard, where the new bow (with a stylish rake of a few more degrees than that of her original one) was finished off with standard RN fixtures and fittings. "Battleaxe" was decommissioned and scrapped. In March 1963 "Ursa" relieved in the 8th Frigate Squadron and served as West Indies guard ship from June 1963