HMS Ajax: How a lone British Cruiser destroyed an entire Italian Squadron, 1940 (Documentary)
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- Опубліковано 2 тра 2024
- The Battle of Cape Passero (1940) unfolded in the early hours of October 12, during World War II. British cruiser HMS Ajax, on a scouting mission after a Malta supply operation, encountered seven Italian torpedo boats and destroyers southeast of Sicily. Unaware, Ajax faced a fierce assault by a squadron of Italian torpedo boats and destroyers.
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0:00 Introduction
📚 Sources:
Written by House of History
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There is a minor video glitch when the battle begins (I accidentally cut a sentence which should have been part of the video), but it shouldn't detract from the overall experience. Apologies!
🧾This video is not sponsored. If you enjoy my videos and want early access to my content, consider supporting House of History at www.patreon.com/HouseofHistory!
Love your content! Keep up the good work
Like to see a video of the Naval Campaign of Guadalcanal.
A video on a Young Erwin Rommel in WW1 during the battles of isonzo would be pretty cool and a rarely explored topic. He apparently captured or killed 9000 men with no more than 500 at any given time.
Could you please lose the sparkly overlay on the old photos. That really does detract from the overall experience.
Why not reupload?
Crikey, Ajax went on a rampage there. She channelled her inner Warspite and unleashed hell.
I'd say she lived up to her name 🙂
She'd already survived a knife fight with Graf Spee - this was a cakewalk by comparison.
Italian Squadron: Surrender English ship we have you outnumbered
Ajax: come and have a go if you think you're hard enough old chap
@@HowlingWolf518 indeed. The commander of Admiral Graf Spee Hans Langsdorff was in command of a torpedo boat flotilla before.
So he had a tendecy to close range to much and not use the superior range of his guns.
or
Ajax : i likr those odds@@Lankygit01
Losing that many ships against a single opponent would have probably left lasting psychological impact.
Yep. So they organized series of events with HR department and deployed feedback culture.
It did in facts. On paper the Regia Marina, if we don't consider the lack of aircraft carriers, was better than the British Mediterranean Fleet but the initial engagements at the start of the war saw the Italian fleet always defeated even when it outnumbered the British. That's why the Italian resorted to keep the fleet in port and attack British Battleships in Alexandria port with naval special forces called MAS!
They managed to sink 2 Battleship which were saved by the shallow seabed! So even this was unfortunate for the Italians in the end.
Not on the Italian Navy. They were used to it. One forward speed and 5 reverse.
@@calogerosalvaggio1075wrong, the reason the Regia Marina kept most of their ships in ports is because they drastically lacked fuel
@@artful1967 We are trying to have an useful exchange here. Your joke is out of place and disrespectful to the fallen sailors.
A little fun fact for you:
There is a town in Ontario, Canada named after the Ajax. I grew up there, on a street called Exeter Rd. My best friend lived on Admiral Rd. One of the major roads is named after Commodore Harwood, and the other is named after Pay Bayly who was in charge of Camp X (spy stuff).
Hello from London!
I grew up and still live on Kings crescent
The town could’ve been named after a person.An Ancient Greek,if I’m right.
Know the Town well.
@@Russia-bullies This town was named after the ship after the Battle of the River Plate. The crew of Ajax, Exeter, and Achilles are also named in the streets and so on.
My late father, HHJ Gardiner, was abroad Ajax in this battle, also the River plate and Matapan. He was in many more, including convoys to Malta and Russia. I am so very proud of him.
As you should be. Respect and thanks to your dad.
Your dad and those that fought the Nazis and their allies are heroes without them we would be enslaved, Respect to your father
We hear and read a lot about the US Greatest Generation but don't think that the UK and it's empire was the Greatest Generation from 1939 onward.
The USN didn't have the large sea battles that the RN had. Pearl Harbor, ABDA, Coral Sea, Midway, Savo Island, and the kamikaze attacks+ the Battle of the Atlantic were our biggest and deadliest.
I always admired sailors and the bravery it took to engage the enemy at sea, I had a greater admiration for the men who manned the Merchant Navy ships despite having no armament's themselves they risked their lives to make sure that Britain had supplies of food and materials to make weapons, the people who were alive during two world wars were made of sterner stuff than I.
The Mediterranean Theater of WWII is often underrated and not talked about enough. So I commend the guy who runs this channel in his efforts to let us all know what happened in this very important theater of the war.
Definitely
My Grandfather served on the HMS Nelson in that theatre. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to express my pride in him.
@@metalmorgan---your welcome
Oh dear, another UA-cam 'underrated' jockey. Will this lazy nonsense ever end? 🙁
The med wasn't the picnic that history, which is written by the victors made it out to be. While the Italian Regia Marina is often maligned and had very bad results in pitched battles, they had the highest arrival and survival rate of cargos vs any other navy as far as the entire war goes. Obviously if you take the allies survival rate the last few years of the war it is ecplised by the terrible results the first 3-4 years until victory was won agains the uboats but considering the Italians were on the losing side that is an impressive statistic. And while the RN won basically all of its naval force vs naval forced pitched battles, they had their hands full supplying the African campaign and Malta. The disappointing results on the field of battle for the Italians don't tell the whole story of what a struggle the fight for the Med really was.@@nathanielbugg7355
Lt Banfi, you were brought back in spite of your sacrifice, the world still needed you. Solid job manning your post until the end.
There was an australian captain CPT Waller who servedin the med. then took over HMAS Perth where he ran into a japanese battle fleet with only himself and two other ships. despite heroic efforts the Perth was sunk and Waller chose to go down with is ship. in his honor one of our current submarines is named after him HMAS Waller. These were brave, brave men. I 07 all the men lost at sea from all nations in that terrible period. Lest we forget!!
Alberto Banfi recovered from his wounds and was awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valor, the Italian equivalent of the Victoria Cross. He was promoted to commander, given command of the cruiser Pompeo Magno in 1943. After the war, he became the honorary president of the Italian Sailors' Association and was promoted to captain in 1953. He died of natural causes in 1958, at the age of 55.
Good old Ajax. In Wollongong, just up from North Gong Pub (North Wollongong Hotel), there are three streets in a group, named for Ajax, Exeter, and Achilles.
my great grandfather served on the HMNZS Achilles and had his leg blown off in a attack near Guadalcanal, made it home survived a house fire in which he lost his life savings hidden in the walls then when he was 62 he was struck by lighting while herding sheep into a shed during a storm, he lived till 98 the man was a machine and the unluckiest lucky man alive.
@@ITSaPendragon I would give you a like but you're at 13 likes, which I think is perfect under the circumstances.
Great you've covered this battle, barely ever gets attention and Ajax's feat gets forgotten
The Leander and Arethusa class cruisers often get overlooked but they really showed their worth in the Med. The battleships, carriers and bigger cruisers like the Town's get a lot of air-time, but the destroyers and light cruisers fought ever bit as hard and made their own major impact and contributions.
The Town class where light cruisers, but I get what you are saying and fully agree.
Light crusers abd destroyers are the argubaly morebimportend surface ships simply because they had a ton of them
Absolutely agree with you. HMS Aurora, for example, caused so much trouble for the Italians, Mussolini himself referred to her as “The Silver Phantom”.
0:59 The Fairey Barracuda is a Torpedobpmber from 1943.
In 1940, Fairey Swordfish and Albacore were in action in the Mediterranean.
Yes! Where’s the String Bag?
You know what they say, 'never let the facts get in the way.....'
Sounds like the Italians failed to coordinate their attack (admittedly difficult in the dark), engaged the the Ajax piecemeal and was defeated in detail.
Honestly even coordinated the Ajax had the squadron basically outgunned. Sure they'd have divided her fire but those larger guns Ajax had were more than capable or landing fatal blows with single hits and the destroyers 120mm guns were atleast partially insufficient to penetrate much of Ajax's armour, so they would have been very reliant on torpedoes to do the job which had the risk of putting them directly under Ajax's guns.
@@cgi2002 The italians had some good torpedoes in ww2 that had a range of 8-12km. a coordinated torpedo attack would likely deal with Ajax. But attacking piecemeal, one at a time gave Ajax the advantage of focusing all of its firepower on 1 or 2 ships at a time negating the italian number advantage.
@@thesayxxwell, they did attack with three at one at the start, and one was not even noticed before firing their torpedoes
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 and they shot only 7 torpedoes out of 17. also it was 3 torpedo boats vs light cruiser. if the 3 destroyers attacked it would be a different scenario imo
@@thesayxx saving torpedoes for a second volley is a choice. So is attacking before your entire force is ready. Failing to plan is planning to fail. The Allies often did the same. They could have decided to decrease speed so the others would catch up before they were in firing range. They could have altered course so they could fall on the Ajax when it encountered the others. They could have broken radio silence the second the torpedoes hit the water, so all others could get together in one formation again. They could have fired their torpedoes and made a 180.
Instead they decided to trade broadsides with a bloody cruiser.
Had they all been together, I doubt they would have been able to coordinate their efforts much better.
Please be aware I am not trying to talk down the bravery of these men. If anything, they were too brave
It is usually the IJN that gets all the night fighting honour because they had a couple of lucky nights vs a novice US Navy at Guadalcanal. But the real night fighting specialists were the RN who persistently showed this in the Med. Not just with surface forces but also with carrier based aircraft. Taranto was carried out at night and by early 42 the FAA had reliable airborne radar.
many historians have drooled over who would have been better in a night fight the RN or the IJN which sadly never came to fruition.
@@gregorturner9421 I'm not in doubt - the RN by far. The RN had been focussed on night operations since Jutland and had the fundamentals in place way before radar became reliable. A study into Mediterranean and North Atlantic operations will reveal the high efficiency of the RN at night. The real wolfpacks of WWII were RN surface ships operating at night! In the North Atlantic mainly on surface (lousy flying weather), but in the Med from the air as well. The IJN initially copied just about anything the RN did, incl night operations, but apparently never got far into night air operations, and when radar weighed in (41/42) the RN definately was way ahead. And yes, I know the RN didn't have the Long Lance torpedo, but that weapon IMHO was much overestimated and never got a chance to "shine" again 42. It had its day (or rather night) vs a rookie USN overconfident on early radar and in relatively confined waters. But the USN learned fast and never got caught again. At Surigao Strait in 1944 it was a "blind" IJN squadron being blown out of the water by radar guided gunfire from USN ships. In 1945 British destroyers sank a IJN heavy cruiser in a wolfpack like night action in the Mallaca Strait.
Italian Squadron: Surrender English ship we have you outnumbered
Ajax: come and have a go if you think you're hard enough old chap
This loss was a significant blow to the Regia Marina. They did everything by the book and their men were among the best in the RM, but the book was not very good and they were just not very good fighting at night. They had 12 torpedoes but fired only 7, lacked coordination and attacked piecemeal, had poor torpedo boat tactics and poor air surveillance, further poor coordination with contacting larger ships, and Ajax was "knocking down ducks in a gallery". Ajax had radar yes, but they were only for aircraft detection, and she used good old star shells, searchlights, and incendiary shells.
Overall a good naval documentary. It was never boring. I would have appreciated a brief summing-up of the ramifications of this battle - how it was received in Britain, and how it influenced subsequent events in World War II.
"im not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me!" - Ajax CO... probably
Here's a topic for you.. Swordfish successes in 1940, exceptional. including the sinking of the French battlecruiser 'Dunkerque'. Here's another:
"Flying over the port of Bomba Bay, between Tobruk and Benghazi, a group of three Swordfish from 813 Sqdn achieved great things. Capt Oliver Patch led the three aircraft, and one torpedo hit a submarine amidships, causing an explosion, and sinking it. The two other aircraft spotted another submarine, a destroyer and a depot ship in harbour. Lt Cheesman dropped his torpedo from 350 yards, hitting the depot ship. It also exploded, and set fire to the neighbouring destroyer. A second torpedo struck the depot ship, whose magazine exploded, destroying the submarine, too.
Back at base operations staff disbelieved the crews’ claim to have blitzed four ships with only three torpedoes. Although the available Swordfish strike force in Malta never exceeded 27 planes, it succeeded in sinking an average of 50,000 tonnes of shipping every month for a period of nine months, with 98,000 being the highest achieved in one month."
Second this, the swordfish was arguably one if the most useful planes of the war
Torpedo biplanes
@@colonelturmeric558 The swordfish while utterly outdated punched ridiculously above its weight.
Much awaited, much appreciated excellent insights as always from you.
Great to find this, my father was on board Ajax at the time. He was 16, he joined at 14 from collage. Hard to believe that would happen today! He mentioned it briefly, but not in detail. Thanks again.
When your main task is to do torpedo warfare, and you dont hit a thing.. stormtrooper mode!
Except that the Italians weren't told to miss and let Ajax escape.
😂
Honestly in the history of warfare unguided torpedoes have something like a 1% hit rate (probably even lower tbh) when fired at an aware and actively evading target. Same is true with most naval weapons before computers, achieving hit rates of above 2-3% was exceptionally uncommon.
@@cgi2002the reason the Japanese naval artillery had so many faults is their opponents never stayed afloat long enough after the initial torpedo exchange for the gunners to get any practice. 😛
Thanks, I like this format a lot; there are lots of videos on various subjects that use WWII B&W footage that is often SO incongruent with what the narrator is saying... Your animation and the photos hit the mark for me wonderfully. Keep up the good work, preserving WW2 history. Greetings from Poland!
Thank you!
Well presented, thank you.
Another well made video. I like the fact that you select less well known battles and engagements and expand upon those. Thank you.
Good video, thank you!
Like some other of your viewers, I too live in her namesake town in Canada.
While I have been generally aware of the history, your video adds knowledge and pride.
Thanks for sharing!
The Royal Navy wasn't really ready for war. But managed to deal with the Kraigsmarine, Marina militare and Vichy French Navies pretty well.
Which navy was ready for war then?
@@luisangelgonzalezmunoz7071 the IJN 🙂
@@tigerland4328 the British could handle the Kriegsmarine and the Italian navy. Not the Japanese. The Japanese probably had the best navy in the world up until the disaster at midway. And even then, it wasn’t until the massive USN ship building program started churning out the Essex class carriers, some laid down pre-war, and the stop-gap CVL’s, that they were definitively overtaken.
@@randallturner9094 the Royal navy had a superior number of every ship type apart from aircraft carriers in 1939. Also the British and Japanese are considered the two best navies at night fighting in ww2. The Royal navy could absolutely defeat the imperial Japanese navy one on one it's just this never actually happened in ww2. Remember even after 5 years of constant fighting and considerable losses the Royal navy still managed to deploy a massive fleet to the Pacific in 1944/45. In contrast After two and a half years of fighting The Japanese fleet was largely a spent force by 1944
@@tigerland4328 well, it’s a shame that aircraft carriers, with their associated air wings, were the only class that mattered. And, no. If the RN ever met the Kido Butai they’d have been dispatched straight away. Sorry, but even in 1942 the RN wasn’t in the top two.
Great video thank you!!
An old work colleague Johnny Cairns, was a sailor on the Ajax during WW2. I worked with him for over 10 years and he never mentioned this.. It was my old boss, a nautical cove in the 'Merch', that told me of Johnny' exploits, long after he had retired.
An excellent explanation.
Thank you, A very interesting piece of maritime history, As it happens my second cousin was aboard the Ajax at the time as a Royal Marine gunner. He missed out on the Battle of the River Plate only joining Ajax in March, 1940. However, he saw many scrap in the sea war in the Mediterranean. He is remembered in the Canadian town of Ajax by having a street named after him, although at the time it was meant for men serving at the time of the Battle of the River Plate. Some error occurred with the date of his joining Ajax.
I grew up and still live in Dunedin, NZ. Not far from I spent much of my first couple of decades was an Ajax St, Achilles St, Churchill St and Crete St. Very WW2.
The video works fine, enjoyed it, thank you.
Thank you!
Hey guys, what an amazing video!! I am currently researching my fathers service history and he was onboard this magnificent "tech enhanced" cruiser during this particular battle, from what I understand. You ask at the end of the video what viewers would like to see, and I would love to see more of your fantastic analysis, featuring battles in which the Ajax participated in during the Meditteranean campaign.
My father would never speak of his time on the Ajax to anyone, and I believe that was maybe out of respect for those that didn't make it back from this particular battle...
The city of Ajax Ontario Canada was named after this ship . It was to honour her involvement in the Graf Spee Incident 1939 . Also many streets are named after the Admiral & men who were serving at that time .
thank you for this
An excellent Video thank you.
Great video as always HOH!
Very well presented! Just the level of detail I prefer.
Wow ive watched a lot of naval battles but this one was just crazy. amazing she managed to dodge all those torpedos. it could have been just boatloads of inexperience though i guess. interesting video none the less.
Excellent video and a new channel to follow!
Welcome aboard!
Thanks very much for noticing the feedback. Good story telling
Great video.
Very good presentation!
Thank you kindly!
As an Australian, the fight between light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni would be worth looking at…
I created a video about the battle of cape Spada 2 weeks ago! Let me know what you think.
This is incredible. Really cool to hear about battles that are rarely discussed. May I suggest any there incredible yet staggeringly under known battle? ….
The raid on St. Nazaire also known as the ‘The Greatest Raid of them All’. Incredible story.
Jeremy Clarkson (yeah the top gear guy) did an excellent documentary about it a while back. It’s up on UA-cam. Well worth a watch.
Great video ❤
Interesting! Thanks!
AJAX (ΑΙΑΝΤΑΣ) Ajax, in Greek legend, son of Telamon, king of Salamis, described in the Iliad as being of great stature and colossal frame, second only to the Greek hero Achilles in strength and bravery. In Italian Ajax means "enjoy the pizza it's your last one".
great video
I love these naval battle videos! Can you do more on the First World War ???
You're amazing man! These naval videos are truly incredible
I think AI
Man, I hope you do a video on one of the battles where the Italians gave a better account for themselves, like Sirte.
On when torpedoboat Lupo fought alone the Royal Navy Force D
HMS Ajax had another moment of glory on June 6th 1944, when a German pillbox singled Ajax out for several shots from it's large calibre gun. A duel ensued, with Ajax and the pillbox exchanging shots, until one salvo from Ajax landed a shot right through the opening on the pillbox, where the gun was. Luckily, this occurred while the Germans were using the hydraulic lift inside the pillbox, to bring more ammunition up from the store underneath the pillbox. The resulting explosion blew the 3 foot thick reinforced roof of the pillbox quite some distance away, and the breech of the gun was afterwards found to be like an exploding cigar.. No trace of the crew of the gun were ever found....
gun-crew vapor?... no retreating foot prints, that sort of thing?
Outstanding Video!!!! Who was Ajax’s Commanding Officer???
Forgot one other 8" Cruiser. HMS Cumberland. She replaced the Exeter after she was very badly damaged in the engagement.
You are thinking of the battle of River Plate.
@@Colonel_Blimp Indeed!! The Battle of the River Plate was in deep water, some 50 miles East of there! Harwood's plan was simple - engage and do as much damage - or sink - the Graf Spee. He had the element of surprise and was aided by misidentification on the Graf Spee's part. Her captain had thought that was confronted was two destroyers and a heavy or light cruiser. Two light cruisers and a heavy cruiser. A fair force that could take on the Pocket Battleship. The Cumberland was at the Falklands having boilers checked and minor repairs done but her Captain immediately got her crew to get the ship sorted out and one day after recieving the news that the cruiser squadron was in action, set sail from the Falklands and made for the River Plate and Montedevideo!
Her arrival was unexpected but welcome on the 15/16th December of 1939. On reply from HMS Ajax. She sent this!
A N T I C I P A T I O N ! Plain language, but welcome plain language!
I guess there is nothing but to make a video on the Battle of the River Plate now...
check out The Operations Room for that and many others
Thank you.
what a feat for such ship for sure
You gotta hand it to the Italians they never gave up . Great work from the channel respecting such bravery on all sides
My Dad who was in the army was stationed Trieste after the war and we joined him there and I remember going on HMS Ajax to a children’s party they put on for all the service children in that area
Good story and video. Just one minor point to enhance the presentation further. I'm no language expert myself but I've found that if you go into Google Translate, pick the language (e.g., Italian), enter the word or name and then click on the loudspeaker icon, you find out how the name of the ship is pronounced (e.g., Alcione is "Al Choni."). Eliminates the guesswork for us English speakers. 🤓
Thanks for the feedback!
Thanks IU have never read anything about this. How about the Scrap Iron Flotilla ?
This is the first expose of this battle I have seen.
It really is unbelievable how one light cruiser could inflict such losses and damage on a whole flotilla of enemy ships. Were the Italians so poorly trained they could not offer a coordinated attack on Ajax? Not to mention the shear bravery of Ajax.
Er, no, that is the point of a cruiser, it should always be able to destroy small ships. That they attacked is a good sign of Italian motivation, but it sounds like they were not trained and operated sufficiently well to let their numbers and speed have some effect. A cruiser with good leadership and training, and ammo, should have had little trouble dealing with smaller ships, but there are plenty of examples where that was not the case, and a cruiser was sunk - for example, the Graf Spee, did everything wrong and got sunk (damaged sufficiently) by three smaller cruisers.
Well in naval engagement tecnology and luck had always had an important role. But mainly the problem with italian navvy, an historical problem, is it's rampaging nepotism. So we could have great crews, coming from an hardy seamanship tradition, and some amazing capitans (like Fecia di Cossato or Valerio Borghese), but usually the case would be of promotion for seniority and connection, rather than merits or potential...
@@AndreaGiumetti yes, but that was a problem in the Church, the British aristocracy/army, and many other great organisations. I am preparing a book about the successes of the Italian armed forces, and the propaganda that erased them from history, so I will investigate Fecia and Valerio. Thanks for mentioning them. Please remember also the British disasters, caused by idiotic RN officers - I was just studying the sinking of HMS Glorious, a classic case of British idiocy. There doesn't even seem to be any question of nepotism, just stupidity. War is good at ridding the world of incompetence. Your name is almost Greek - another great seafaring nation.
@@helloxyz well yes, that is true endeed. We had great example of military, and human, valour, and it's really a shame that after-war propaganda worked to delete the memory of those incredibile man who gave their lives, in most cases, not for Mussolini but for Italy. But trust me, political leverage in Italy was, and is, truly a desastrous element... There are really multiple istances that could be reported as such, from the very foundation of the nation.
B.t.w. if you are interested in great italian military figures erased, or put out the lights by the mainstream, you should also search for general Giovanni Messe defence in Tunis, and above all Amedeo Guillet anti-british guerrilla in Eritrea
@helloxyz thanks for a generally good comment, however the Graf Spee was well handled, but the British and New Zealand ships that fought her were handled even better. Also the British managed to fool the Germans into thinking a whole squadron of Battleship, aircraft carrier etc was waiting for them outside Montevideo. The gallant German captain scuttled Graf Spee rather than needlessly throw away the lives of his crew, a genuine hero. The British, New Zealand etc allies had practised fighting a pocket battleship prior to WW11 and their excellent seamanship, leadership along with tactics to play to their their advantages won the battle against Graf Spee.
yey i just found your channle and i like your battleship videos,...plz more of em
It's a great level detail and I really like it. What would make it way better is synchronization between audio and animation as it seems to be lagging about ten seconds behind.
Unfortunately something went wrong during my editing, and the battle isn't fully in sync. It's a frustrating mistake and the first time something like this happened in over 200 videos. I caught it too late, which is a shame because of the time and effort put in the video, but also the overall enjoyment. My apologies.
Our Anglican minister used to fly Barracudas in the war. He was known to be a wild man when driving on the road. Takes a certain type of person. Rev. Kirkby NZ
Constructive feedback: The artificial 'noise' (white speckles) added to the still photos is very distracting. I think the images would be better without it entirely.
Have you considered looking at the Italian frogmen use of the merchant ship Olterra to strike at ships in Gibraltar during the war? Really fascinating. As I recall the British had no idea where the frogmen were coming from, and assumed Italian submarines were in the area.
Can you tell us the name of the tracks you're using in the background. Epidemic Sound has so much music that it's impossible to find the specific ones
Very in depth video, thanks
Thanks
Thank you!
Did I hear the WOW theme music? Nice touch.
Hi just followed your video on HMS Ajax it’s great could you do video on complete video history ‘s on HMS Hood, HMS Rodney and HMS Repulse all 3 ships where quite old when word war 2 Started. Would y like to know thing’s about them. Specials The Pride o the Royal Navy HMS Hood I am A Huge Fan of Hood.
It was the Naval version of a Jakie Chan fight.
Each enemy taking the hero on .. One on One
I lived in Devonport NZ by the RNZN base. At entrance was 6in turret of Ajax sister ship, RNZNS Achilles.
Could you do the Battle of Cape Bon?
Cool video. For WWII, everyone talks about how good the Imperial Japanese Navy was in night combat. The Royal Navy was just as good in night fighting and they had radar to back that up. The IJN were like the Italian Navy... Not much in the way of radar usage. Eventually that lack of radar cost the IJN their night battle superiority over the US Navy. But anyways, both the Japanese and British navies had night fighting doctrines before WWII began. Most everyone else, even the US Navy, were very ad hoc in night engagements when WWII started.
HMS Ajax was experienced and was a larger, more heavily armed ship compared to the smaller torpedo boats and destroyers she encountered in this battle. This is exactly the sort of fight that Cruisers are supposed to deal with by outclassing smaller ships. Eight 6" guns is substantially strong firepower against the sort of ships Ajax encountered here.
Superior Royal Navy night fighting capability would show itself again and again. A few weeks after the Battle of Passero, the RN conducts a carrier borne night attack of the port of Taranto. It should be noted that carrier night attacks was first done by the British. It didn't happen with the Pacific naval powers until way, way later in WWII. Then in March 1941 we had the Battle of Cape Matapan with the RN coming out clearly on top of this one sided fight.
This was all happening in 1940-1941. The US Navy wouldn't get a clue in night fighting until 1943, and before that had to endure several embarrassing night battles at the hands of the Japanese Navy.
My city is named after this ship and my street named after Admiral Woodhouse her commander during the battle of the river Plate - the first naval battle of the 2nd WW. 🙂
can you do the battle of middle august?
I would be really pleased if you would do a video on Operation Demon, the evacuation of Crete.
Thanks.
My grandad was wounded on the deck of his ship by a Stuka bomber in Tobruk harbour.wou
D love some details of that harbour battle. He was blinded but gained sight back in one eye as he travelled home via different hospitals around the med. wish I could get info of his ship etc.
The skipper of the Ajax...I like these odds !!!
Nobody crossed the English channel unopposed in those days.
ty 🙏🙏
Wellllll. this should be made into a film
Boy howdy! That was one hell of a dogfight! And Ajax definitely lived up to her name!
Can't wait for you to cover cape Matapan. Also, I think you confused the "Regia Marina" with "Supermarina"?
Supermarina was the headquarters of Regia Marina. I'm definitely covering Matapan!
@HoH Oh, didn't know that actually! Thank you, and keep up the good work!👍
Thank you for this video, my grandad was a royal marine fighting in the Mediterranean during ww2, my grandad told me about him and his shipmates , however I never got to know what he and some other marines got upto in(what was) Yugoslavia, any chance you can find out and make a video???? I know whatever it was, my grandad wouldn't reveal anything
Whats the name of the track at 9:54 . Would highly appreciate it if someone knows❤
You do make mention, but one of the factors that probably told in this battle, was the sheer amount of experience that Ajax's crew and officers had under their belt - one of the busiest (and rightly celebrated) vessels in the whole Atlantic/Med theatre. All the same, this proper OK Corral stuff.
So Ajax cleaned everything up
Don't know if you want an opinion, but the sparkly white blobs you put over B&W photographs to make them look news-reelish are a distracting waste of time and effort. Fine otherwise.
Good to know, thanks!
I kinda dug it, I was thinking like copyrights original format releases and such but news reelish thing I guess I missed
@@HoH I think it's a cool effect, not distracting. Don't listen to lone dissent ers
Agreed. They add nothing, except to make me think of a Disney film denoting “magic” being used. Quite silly actually.
I believe I'll stick with how very good the content always is. Thank you H of H !!
The battle of HMCS Oakville against the UBoat in The Carribbean would be interesting. Especially the capture of the crew by a naked Canadian sailor.The movie Greyhound alluded to it but placed the Corvette in the North Atlantic.
Glad that Alcione managed to rescue the sailors, Glad that Bamfi was rescued, I always think it's a shame the captain decides to go down with his ship seems pointless to me. It does show how practiced the RN was at night fighting even in 1940, whether radar played a role or not.
Sounds like Ajax n her crew handled herself with great aplomb destroying and heavily damaging several enemy ships. A great maritime tale, Thks. (I think Trevor Howard would hv played the Ajax Captain in the film …)
My Grandad served on that ship at the battle of the River Plate .
Where is Toe Brook?
And what is an "ant eye" aircraft gun?
You did such a great job with the Italian ship names that it hit me like a battering ram when you referred to the "Graf Spee" (rhyming with "she") instead of the correct German pronunciation of "Grahf Shpay".
Thank you, you're absolutely right about Spee's pronunciation.
Usually english speakers are bad in german pronuntiations. Did you hear ever how they say Einstein???
One can blame the movie probably.
There is not one Italian ship name which is pronounced decently.
What about what He Did with TOBRUK!!!🙉🙉🙉
Not sure about some of the pronunciation used in the narrative!