Interesting fact - there were serious calls to prosecute the Prince of Wales' captain for cowardice for disengaging at the battle of Denmark Strait. They were dropped when the commanding officer of the KG5 announced that if anyone tried it, he would immediately resign to lead the defence.
To prosecute the Captain of Prince of Wales after Denmark Straight would be asinine. The ship was literally incomplete and exposed exactly why long shake downs and fit outs exist.
@@mattblom3990 asinine after action trials were not so uncommon in the second war... just look to the USS Indianapolis... the captain was charged and convicted with dereliction of duty for the loss of his ship on the grounds of failing to evade submarine torpedo attacks, despite his orders being to make best speed unescorted through areas where the US naval intelligence was fully aware of several active Japanese submarines.
@@MrRandalfscott And the Japanese sup captain testified in McVay's defense, saying that even if he was evading, it was impossible for all the torpedoes to have missed.
Actually it was Admiral John Tovey, commander of the Home Fleet (on board KGV) who resisted the calls to Court Martial Captian John Leach, and Admiral Frederic Wake-Walker, commander of Suffolk and Norfolk. He eventually threatened to resign his post and appear at the court martial as the defendants friend.
Fun fact: When the Prince of Wales was hit by a shell on the bridge, being a dud it still killed everyone but Captain John Leach and Edmond Knight, who has blindness in one of his eyes. Knight played Leach in “Sink the Bismarck”.
I once heard a story that, shortly after the POW was sunk, the Japanese sent divers down on it to investigate it's radar suite. POW was allegedly a state of the art ship for its time, because of her final resting place/position the divers could not get in to the equipment. Years ago I had a pub in UK, called the POW, it was named after a Steam locomotive. Shortly after moving in I took time to rummage one of the rooms filled with pub junk. I found an A3 bw phot of POW in a pretty poor cardboard frame, along with one or two other items from crew members. I scoured the Internet to find the photo in order to glean some info on it, location etc but to no avail. We moved after two years to a pub called the jolly sailor, the photo duly restored and framed in a quality frame took pride of place in the lounge over the fireplace.
The story about the photos reminds me of a similar situation. Last year, my family and I traveled to the San Francisco Bay area in California to visit the graves of relatives who were combatants of WWII and buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery. Before heading to the airport on the final day of the trip, we stopped at an old curios shop in Alameda. In the shop, I found some old USN photos of the USS New Jersey that were for sale. These photos show the ship in action during two different time periods. The first photo show her firing a full broadside of 16-inch guns adjacent to the 38th Parallel in 1951. The other photo shows the New Jersey after her refit in 1982 firing a Harpoon anti-ship missile at the Pacific Missile Test Range.
Aged seventy-three, raised on Clyde-side, I simply love battleships: their architecture; the staggering thickness and quality of steel; the massive and precise engineering; their weight; their appearance and lines; their variety; and most everything else about them, including, of course, the heroic men who sailed and fought in them. I also love your great historical videos. Thank you. 😊
Graves at sea are not uncommon. It's said every year the US Navy sends a ship to honor the lives lost at Iron Bottom Sound near Guadalcanal, and that while there, as the Navy considers it sacred waters, crews are to observe silence until they leave. And they don't even need to be war related. Titanic for example hasn't been raised despite the wreck being found as it is considered a sea grave for the lives lost when it sank.
The sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse caused panic and a loss of morale in the British forces in Malaya and Singapore. That contributed to the defeatist thinking of the ground forces. From the Roosevelt library in Hyde Park, the president remarked that the Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor first, and a few hours later the Philippines, Hong Kong and Malaya. This was a four prong attack from Japan.
Interested viewers should read Martin Middlebrook's excellent book on the subject of the sinkings of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. Although written nearly 50 years ago, the author had the advantage of being able to interview and quote many of the survivors from the ships and like all of his excellent books, it is extremely well researched and detailed. Highly recommended.
Based on the Japanese showing at the Battle of Samar (see other Drachinifel video on that) and the RN's record of turning enemy cruisers into fish housing while dodging torpedoes (see...well this video will do), I have a feeling it would have been particularly interesting for anyone interested in collecting tiny little pieces of Japanese cruisers.
@@ApothecaryTerry Yes, The RN had defeated a group of cruisers in the Med: *Italian cruisers, not IJN *Italian cruisers not armed with Type 93 torpedoes (Long Lance) *Italian cruisers not proficient in night fighting The Battle of Java Sea would have been a better comparison I'll put my $$$ on the Japanese
@@ApothecaryTerry Samar was a late war engagement that says very little about Japanese cruiser-destroyer force competence at the start of the Pacific war. It was fought using the ships that sat around uselessly when more practical combatants were being sent into the bloodbath that was the Guadalcanal and Solomon campaigns. IJN fought roughly a dozen nighttime engagements against US Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy, and Dutch navy forces in 1942. More often than not, they inflicted crippling losses against their enemies as in the battles of Java Sea, Sunda Strait, Savo island, and Tassafaronga. Long Lance Torpedoes were deadly and the Japanese were well practiced in night combat. If British radar were working, they'd probably be able to do serious damage to one or two cruisers. Then Renown and Prince of Wales would likely be crippled by torpedoes. Sinking would not be necessary. Japanese air superiority meant that crippled ships would be used as target practice similar to what the US did to IJN Hiei (or what eventually happened to Prince of Wales).
It's absolutely awful learning about the fate of several war Graves. I remember there being so many occasions we would render honors to various ships far beneath our keel or just to the general battle area itself.
More than just the remembrance ceremony at sea, I think they will lay flowers at the PoW and Repulse memorial at the harbour where they sailed from for their last journey as well when a british warship docks there. Used to work at the said harbour and saw them laying flowers every now and then.
I'd have to go find it in my archived info, but the inquiry into the sinking of the POW, as well as the last dives before the wreck was destroyed, showed how one tiny, penny-pinching decision by the Admiralty doomed the ship. It turns out that all of the ship's intercoms ran off the electrical system. That meant both when the initial rear compartments flooded along the propellor shaft, the seaman in the first occupied compartments couldn't communicate what had happened. In fact the bridge tried to determine what was happening and had slowed or stopped the propeller, dropping the speed to around 20 knots. Then, for one of the subsequent attacks, they brought the propeller up to a higher speed (180 rpm but I dont remember if that was the max rated rotation or what they increased it to) so they could maneuver better, resulting in the bent shaft widening the hole and destroying the packing around the shaft, resulting in the massive flooding that killed all the electrical systems to the stern. I maybe wrong, but I believe the warped shaft/propeller also fouled the adjacent one, now drastically reducing speed and maneuverability as all the power was off center to the opposite side. Also, when the electrical system failed, the blowers for propulsion plant compartments failed, making the boiler rooms lethal in minutes due to heat. They tried rotating men in and out, but along with the rising water they were doomed. BuShips for the US Navy had developed a backup comm system that was totally separate from the ship's regular electrical system. It was considered somewhat expensive, but they were adamant you had to have intraship communication for effective damage control. I dont believe any main combatant had a similar system. In practice it meant that even with the diesel generators down, you could communicate with compartments where the electricity failed. The Admiralty knew about the US system, and considered it an unnecessary. The POW may have doomed by any hit that reduced it's speed, as follow-up attacks would have been relentless. But for lack of a comm, the ship was lost. Does anyone have a link as to any inquiry into the sinking of the Repulse, and any diver reports from the wreck? I didn't have much luck when I found the POW reports a few years back, except a general description of the number and approximate locations of the hits. Nothing on the progression of the flooding, or the specific steps taken in an attempt to save her.
What an amazing ship, and really significant in Singapore and Malaysia’s history with Force Z. I saw a 1:350 scale model on display at Fort Canning and I was itching to get one! Glad to have her as my first model!
My late father served on The Prince of Wales. He was below deck sending out the SOS's. He wrote about a lot of things that were going on after the sinking. Yes, he was a survivor otherwise I wouldn't be here.
During the Battle Of Denmark Strait, the 15-inch shell from Bismarck that hit PoW's bridge did not explode, but went in one side and out the other. On the way through it hit the binnacle and fragments killed everyone on the bridge except Captain Leach.
Slight misstatement on the torpedo damage. The breakage of the prop shaft didn't cut the hull open near as much as it broke the seals leading back to the engine room. The flooding went right up the shaft alley all the way to port midships (the loss of trim made using the 5.25s difficult even without the power failure). Thus a hit almost at the end of the ship caused flooding in the center.
Another issue was that the ship was not configured for tropical use. The ocean around the hull was as warm as bathwater. To keep from dying from heat stroke, many of the doors were left open. When the shaft alley started to flood, the water flowed out the doors into the generator rooms, cutting the power. In the North Atlantic, all these doors would have been sealed, and the flooding contained.
6:40 The Pearl Harbor attack and the invasion of Malaya were almost simultaneous. The apparent full day between the two events is due to Hawaii being east of the International Date Line.
The 2 pdr pom poms gave endless jamming problems in the tropics as gun crews didn't realize how heavily they'd have to oil the ammo and belts to prevent jamming. Tracer ammunition had just started to be issued by the end of 1942 ad it;s not likely the ship would have been carrying more that a few hundred round in the magazines. Most of the tracers would have come from the 20mm Oerlikons hurriedly mounted on November 20-21, 1941 in Cape Town. The crews had very little practice before the attacks and no experience in handling the early versions of the Oerlikons. They'd jam easily if charging the gun was done too briskly when a new magazine was mounted. It wasn't hard to clear the jam, but the PoW didn't have the time to spare as fire slowed down due to jams in the 20 and 40 mm guns. The 5.25" guns were almost useless without their directors since crews hadn't been adequately trained in how to use them under local control. The gunhouse were cramped to begin with, and having to hand pass and load shells after the dynamos failed made ROF no more the four rounds a minute, and that's when they didn't jam. The PoW just wasn't ready to provide adequate AA fire. The Repulse had adequate AA guns and better trained crews but wasn't able to fight off the air attacks without the full support of PoW. PoW's dynamo failures made the 5.25" guns and octuple 2 pdr mounts unuseable. Even if both ships had been operating at top efficiency it's unlikely they could have escaped the attacks. It was a sobering moment for the battleship admirals.
Even if she had full power, the 5.25 DP guns were slow and unwieldy unlike the US 5-inch/45 cal DP guns on the Dakota, New Jersey class battleships. The US weapons also had proximity fuses as well.
Another good piece of commentary and analysis Drachster. While living in Japan for many years I was fortunate enough to view some Japanese video footage made from the original attack wave aircraft's 8mm film of the action. It was a sad but stirring sight watching the two heavyweights dodging and weaving as they tried to counter and avoid the rain of ordnance from the successive waves of attack aircraft. As far as I know, this footage has not been widely available to the western media yet is quite commonly found in the libraries of country video stores in Japan and some of the larger city shop's historical sections. Keep up the good work and feel free to message me for any info re the Pacific War as it's quite a hobby of mine and I speak Japanese reasonably well. Subscribed.
The use of tracer ammunition to distract aircrew was also used by the Sir Bedivere during the Falklands war. Her defensive armament were 2 ×40mm Bofors guns, 4 x LMG's in twin mounts, and several GPMG's. At one point, being credited with shooting down of a Mirage. The LMG loadings were, first 5 tracer and every other tracer after that. The chances of seriously damaging a fast jet was unlikely, but putting the pilot off of his aim was a better option. The Bofors and LMG's were of WW2 vintage!
@@michaelpielorz9283 Given the locals are raping the sites of metal - not deep enough. A nation-state, even in the early 40's would have the technology to do this task.
How about a video of HMS Wanderer. V & W class destroyer that sank 5 u boats. The ship was so worn out by 1944 the captain refused to take her to sea. I named my traction engine in honour of her.
Question for Drydock: what would have happened had Force Z not been sunk. Would they have been re-diverted to Australia and what role would they have played in the Battle of Java Sea, Sundra Strait, Coral Sea???
Both those ships were going to be sent to Pearl Harbour as a show of unity with the battered US Pacific Fleet. Churchill correctly understood that the sight of the two RN capital ships sailing into Pearl would have a good effect on public opinion in the US. Unfortunately, the scenario that played out came before the Admiralty could issue those orders.
Churchill was in a stand off with John Curtin the Australian PM who could see the Japanese pushing across to the Indonesian archipelago and CurtIn saw Singapore as being Japans next victim.He wanted 2 divisions of soldiers brought home from the Middle East and Churchill withstood him,the end result 1 division eventually came back to Australia and 1 to Burma. Japan looked as though it was going to takes Papua New Guinea and Australian soldiers were fighting the Japanese in Malaysia.Churchill said Singapore would not fall,that it was impregnable and he then sent the 2 British ships which are now artificial reefs and Singaporè fell.The only way these ships,would have ended up in Australia would have been if they had escaped the Singapore debacle or had taken on board Australian and British soldiers and retreated to the Australian mainland before the Japanese imperial army had time to come ashore.Curtin was right the Japanese took Singapore with a huge amount of Australian and British POWs and they fanned down and into PNG .Churchill was using Repulse and Prince of Wales without air cover ,I don’t think he considered the war in the Pacific as anything more than a sideshow to the war in Europe
Had the HMS Indomitable joined Repulse and PoW, it would have added quite a punch to the ABDA squadron at Java Sea, especially if the Japanese weren't expecting them.
John Donnellan Churchill , to quote Raymond Callahan, Churchill was “engaged in a game of bluff and a display of some goods in the shop window”. It backfired!
Well... if they weren't sunk by bombers then it would very much assure deployment in the area entire Nagumo's Kido Butai (maybe not in Pearl Harbor 6 carriers strong setup but even 4 fleet carriers would be enough) which would seal the fate of those two anyway... There would be as well option fro Japan Naval HQ to deploy Kondo's battleship fleet (both Nagatos + two or three Kongous (depend on mentioned Kido Butai assignment at the same time, since Kongous were an essential part of carriers escort) not to mention cruisers and destroyers against British ships... which would put Phillips ships in rather... tight spot against such overwhelming odds... since Doorman's "patchwork" fleet at Jawa Sea (in regard of this scenario) wasn't a force which could threaten in any serious way Japanese "steamroll" in the area.... and reinforcing them by Force Z would be easily countered by IJN by deploying much bigger force into the area than they did initially.
HMS Prince of Wales was regarded as a 'Jonah' vessel by many in the Royal Navy due to the unsatisfactory part it played against the Bismarck and for several other reasons. The crew of the Repulse considered themselves doomed when they sailed with the POW to engage the Japanese landing forces in December 1941. They were sadly proven correct in their apprehension.
as a Singaporean, our history lessons emphasize heavily on the capsizing of the PoW and Repulse, and the spamming of Zeroes (it should be the Ki-43s, right?) that later decimated the air groups in Singapore that are equipped with Hurricanes and god-awful Buffaloes, which contributed to the fall of Singapore. It unfairly stated that the British did nothing much to protect Singapore, which is not quite true. Now i know better, thanks for the information!
@@joshuatan7628 I always had the misconception that the PoW and Repulse just got straightlinus-ed to death like in WoWS but hey, they fought damn hard. Even the Buffalo, which is a crap fighter here, is used to great effect by the Finnish air force. So much history to learn!
It wasn't that they didn't try. They were already stretched to thin. The misconception about Asians, and Japanese aircraft cost them the planes they had. Then the velocity of the Japanese advance and the tactics used kept the British in headlong retreat. Then the fact that they never believed anyone would attack across the Jahore straight. Apologies if I misspelled that. You end up with the Japanese Army in the streets.
Indeed. If I was in a position of power, I'd send a destroyer group to the area with the clear order to blow any vessel out of the water without warning if it attempts to desecrate the grave of our war heroes.
I love how in WOWS, 'bow on' is the way to play, when in real life, ships cant even fire over their bow without blowing off all their bow mounted AA or bow itself.....
The video is pretty dismissive about the RAF's willingness to provide air cover for Force Z. In fact, a Fleet Defence Squadron, equipped with Brewster Buffalo fighters, was designated. It's commander, Tim Vigors, developed plans that would enable at least 6 aircraft to be over the ships at any one time. But this depended on early notification of Force Z's deployment so that aircraft could be pre-positioned at forward coastal air bases in Malaya. These plans were discussed with Admiral Phillips' staff, including the air liaison officer. Call signs and radio frequencies were agreed. In the event, Air Command in Singapore received no notification that the ships had sailed. Radio silence meant no further communication was made, even after they had been spotted when that was futile anyway. The only call for help came from the Captain of Repulse after his ship was already under attack. By this time, it was too late and 453 sqn were unable to reach them in time.
Adm. Phillips first radio message to Singapur asked for tugs,not to send air cover, He and a lot of officers were unable to recognize the new threat to ships ;planes!!
@@michaelpielorz9283 Quite right! Phillips seriously underestimated the ability of the Japanese to attack and sink his two capital ships. Whether this was borne out of arrogance or ignorance is not easy to say, but it is clear that he did not regard as necessary the offered air cover.
Hate historical movies as they completely ignore Welsh involvement. Welsh longbowmen fought on both sides in the 100 years war. They were prized assets in the middle ages.
Thank You for posting this video. For many years I had wondered why the British didn't send a carrier group with these ships to Singapore. What a difference a pair of fleet carriers would have made. One thing I've wondered is this. After the war many American pilots did interviews praising the various aircraft they flew in battle both American and British aircraft including British Spitfires and Mosquito's. Even though the majority of the British Carrier air groups from 1943 on flew F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs as well as Avengers I've never seen an interview of a British pilot discussing these aircraft. I just wondered why?
I think that broadly speaking it's a matter of saturation, the FAA was relatively small in the Grand scheme of WW2 air forces and of that only a portion flew American aircraft, so finding an FAA pilot who flew American aircraft would be a fair bit harder to do than finding an American pilot who flew a British aircraft. :)
Yes, it's really unfortunate. The people who buy this steel knows where it comes from, because shipwrecks are the only reliable source of pre atomic age steel. It's very valuable for surgical and diagnostic instruments as it doesn't carry the radioactive isotopes that modern steel has from the decades of nuclear testing.
@@raymondcoventry1221 I believe there are processes to make LBR steel nowadays, but it's extremely expensive. Sickening what these grave robbers did to the only resting place these men have.
I cannot help but wonder whether had her guns functioned as designed would she have been able to sink/disable the Bismarck on her own, especially if her cruisers had tackled Prince Eugen? Furthermore, had she been fitted with her intended third quad turret and that also worked ok would she have had such an advantage as the triple turret 6" cruisers claim to have over an eight gun 8" cruiser?
One for you to do :- HMS Grimsby :- In remembrance of the 11 men who lost their lives when HMS Grimsby was sunk in the Mediterranean 82 years ago today (25th May 1941). My home town but not a Town Class ship ?
I didn't know that HMS Indomitable was intended to be with them (Force Z). I'd always presumed that the entire admiralty down to Phillips blithely and naively assumed everything would be alright. Unfortunate for them (among many aspects) that no RAF flights were provided and that the radars were out. Both capital ships dodging 17 torpedoes is impressive.
Earlier that year they used torpbombers to take out the Bismarck and the Italian fleet at Taranto.. They should know what risk they put the 2 ships at without any air support.
Yeah.....it's ironic. (Japan itself made the same mistake at the end of the war, but by then they needed every aircraft they still had for other purposes)
Bismark was rendered uanble to manoeuvre by a very lucky hit, but she wasn't sunk by aircraft. Taranto and Pearl Harbour were against battleships at anchor in harbour. This was the first instance of capital ships being sunk purely by aircraft while manoeuvering in open water. Air cover was definitely desirable, but the question of whether aircraft alone could sink a battleship was still an open one. Even without a carrier or land-based air cover, the outcome could still have been different if Prince of Wales' radar had been operational, or more tracer ammunition was available.
I love how you add in these very funny shall I say quips? You were talking about this one British ship being able to annihilate this Japanese ship. Just the way you said it made me feel so proud of you and your country.
Even though all the RAF had in the vicinity was some Brewster Buffaloes (hardly the latest-and-greatest), they'd have been plenty good enough to tangle with the unescorted Japanese bombers.
the RAF did provide air cover by a squadron Buffaloes but clever Adm Phillips, after the first attack radioed to Singapore "send tugs" the buffaloes arrived just in time to see the last japanese leaving.Adm.Phllips could have saved the ships,he willingly sacrificed to do a job suited for a destroyer when he ordered ForceZ to investigate a handful emptry barges!!
Part of the problem with force Z was it's commander, Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, who believed that Battleships couldn't be sunk by aircraft. What a rude awaking that must have been! He was warned about Japanese torpedo planes at Saigon, but ignored the warning, possibily basing their range on the swordfish he was familiar with. The 22nd air flotilla was a highly effective unit with 141twin engine G3M Nell's and G4M Betty's, far more effective than swordfish, as he found out firsthand. The Battleship factions of both the British and American Navy's, known as the gun club, were forced to admit they could no longer operate without air cover, the Aircraft Carrier replaced the Battleship as the deciding factor in naval warfare.
I think you are quite right about Admiral Phillips. A fairly detailed account of the lead up to the POW and Repulse sinkings from the RAF 's perspective is made in the book "No Time To Cry" by Tim Vigors. Vigors was the commander of 453 Sqn, based at Sembawang in Singapore, which had been designated Fleet Defence Squadron for Force Z. The video seems dismissive of the RAF's willingness and/or ability to provide air cover. This is unfair. Vigors devised detailed plans to provide continual air cover of at least 6 fighters for the ships by pre-deploying elements of his sqn at forward airfields Kuantan and Kota Baharu on the Malayan coast. These plans were discussed with Phillips' staff, including the air liaison officer, and call signs and radio frequencies agreed. Vigors had stressed with the Navy that his sqn would need to be given plenty of notice that the ships were to deploy if air cover was to be achievable. It is confirmed that Air Command in Singapore received no such notification that the ships were to sail. Once deployed, radio silence meant that no further contact with the RAF was made. Even after they were aware that a Japanese reconnaisance aircraft had spotted them and radio silence therefore pointless, no call for air support was sent until the captain of Repulse broke radio silence after his ship was being attacked. By this time, it was too late for 453 Sqn to get to them in time. All this leads to the supposition that arrogance, or at least misguided confidence that the Japanese could not launch credible air strikes on his ships, blighted Admiral Phillips' judgement which lost the Navy 2 capital ships.
Q - thank you for pointing out the fact that both of the wrecks were salvaged. ? Is it that cost effective ? Was the water relatively shallow? I ask because I understand that tens of thousands of tons of metal would be tempting to a scrapper but how is it done?
I don't know how I feel about the Japanese airman that left to The reef because if they had captured the surviving British sailors they would have been tortured enslaved and murdered because the Japanese had no regard for prisoners of war. yes it was a nice gesture but at the same time how the Japanese treated captured soldiers and civilians was inexcusable deplorable horrific and last but not least criminal.
If they were able to escape from Singapore to participate in the Java sea engagement, the Japanese might have sent in the Yamato and the Nagatos, which might have delayed the Midway operation, to the detriment of the Allies! Imagine the entire Kido Butai at Coral Sea!
While there were mistakes and poor decisions made by all of command, sadly the bulk of the blame for the lose of these ships has to go to Admiral Phillips, who was a naval big gun traditionalist who hadn't commanded a ship since the 1920s. It was his self imposed radio silence that doomed the ships, had he called for help the moment the attack started (or better yet, just turned back when he knew he was spotted) the RAF Buffaloes would have arrived with ample time to chase off the third wave and save the ships. It was Captain Tennant of Repulse who called for help when he (to his horror) found out that Phillips had sent no messages (actually he did send one message for help, it said 'send destroyers'...). Furthermore, had Phillips waited a day longer he could have sailed a fleet with two cruisers and 4 extra destroyers, as it was he didn't take all the ships he could have done. William Tennant of Repulse was a fine man btw, it was he who stayed on the beaches of Dunkirk till the end trying to save as many men as he could, and he was also the one in charge of the successful Mulberry Harbours and Pluto pipeline at D-Day. Truly a pity PoW's radar did not pick up the Japanese cruiser force so close, that would have been a battle (and just a few hours away were Kongou and Haruna). Again a mark against Phillips, they spotted a flare dropped in error *over* the Japanese ships, but he instead decided to run away from it instead of investigate.
It is absolutely true that Admiral Phillips was a staunch supporter of the fact that planes could never be a real danger to fully operational battleships. And yes, his last recorded words were >These cannot be torpedo planes< as he was looking towards the approaching japanese planes which were already in the process of goin down to torpedo attack altitude. Yes, he was most certainly the wrong commander at the wrong place. Which takes nothin away from his other merits which got him this command. Yet one has to consider that the main argument of the gun lobby was that no operational battleship had ever been sunk by planes before. And that remained true until the day HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse got sunk. Before that only the unmanned target ship (captured) SMS Ostfriesland and the Italian battleship Conte di Cavour in Tarento harbour had been sunk by planes. The details of the Pearl Harbour attack were of course unknown to Admiral Phillips, and there too only USS Arizona got completely destroyed. None of these ships had been under power and fully crewed. So, Admiral Phillips had the misfortune to be the first gun lobby Admiral to be proven wrong in actual battle.
Great job done by Japanese torpedo bombers. Prince of Wales had earlier managed to escape by launching smoke screen bombs ,in the Battle of Denmark Straits in May 1941 . The honour of sending HMS Prince of wales to the locker of Old Davy Jones was left for the Japanese.
Too bad they had so much trouble with the guns. Maybe the fight with Bismark might have been different. Who knows... And it was really sad it went and got sunk. They never should have continued without air cover and so a tragic loss. It was a nice ship.. But anyway, thanks for another good vid...
Just how much water did these ships go down in ??? If they're being dove on, to rob, they'd have to be less than 200 feet deep or so. I always thought they were caught out in open water without a possibility to beach herself or something like the USS Nevada did at Pearl Harbor.
The sinking of HMS Prince of Wales is the biggest humiliation the Royal Navy has ever had. Fortunately, the Japanese navy got the same fate a few years later.
@CipiRipi00 Good point thanks for the info , I was thinking about the depth it was sunk at , was the ship shallow enough to allow divers to cut her up .? Perhaps it was a state sponsored effort to disturb the grave and keep it secret .
Poor Prince of Wales. She quickly built a reputation as an unlucky, unhappy ship. Her being crippled by a single torpedo strike, and her humiliating, long drawn out struggle before sinking only seem to confirm this opinion.
If only HMS Indomitable wasn't grounded en route and the RAF based on Singapore responded quickly, Prince of Wales and Repulse would have a better chance to survive. A battleship without air support regardless of how powerful the AA defense systems is basically doomed from the start. Plus the HACS (High angle control system) along with her surface-search radar was deteriorated and inoperable making her half blind prior to her sinking.
If Taranto, the hunt for Bismarck, Cape Matapan, and Pearl Harbour hadn't already shown that airpower > BBs, this sealed it. And people STILL kept building them afterwards....WTF was wrong with navies back then?
Because properly protected, battleships were still fearsome weapons of war and great AAA platforms. Plus not a whole lotta battleships were made after 42/43.
They were useful for carrier escort and shore bombardment. Keep in mind battleships take a long time to build, most battleships that would be later commissioned were still under construction by the end of 1941, so it may not have made sense to cancel construction if it's already so far along. The only exception would be the HMS Vanguard, that was a questionable build decision.
Even as AA carrier escorts or shore bombardment vessels, battleships were very inefficient compared to a larger number of smaller warships. And the reason battleships became obsolete had more to do with aviation having a much longer range and thus much more offensive capability. So even a properly defended BB would not really be fearsome compared to a carrier.
Oh the irony; A noble Japanese Navy Pilot dropping a wreath to honor the war dead from both sides, and grave robbers violating their sanctity, probably from a country those men died to free.
Awesome video, as always... EXCEPT for your referencing the ships as "it" rather than properly as "she" and "her"!!! Don't MAKE me come over there and emulate John Paul Jones' raid on England! When entering and departing Pearl Harbor, the USN renders honors when passing the USS Arizona. At least we did when I was serving, in the 1960's. I assume they still do. Would you please do a video on the ships tied up at Battleship Row December 7, 1941? One of my profs at college was a survivor of the U.S.S. Oklahoma. He and I were friends, so that has a special meaning for me. Also, I can vividly remember visiting the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial when my called in at Pearl.
@@arpitakodagu9854 The financial repercussions of the raid were enormous (insurance on shipping, diverting RN ships to convoy duty, etc) but nothing in comparison to the psychological impact on the British public. The Yankee doodles had raided English soil: not an attack on an overseas possession, but on England itself! Was the military significance all that great? No. But the raid was every bit as important as the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942.
It is very disgraceful that the wrecks of these two magnificent ships are being violated by salvagers😡 Treat the wrecks of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales with dignity and respect!!😡
Yeah, I would not be able to afford to go see it, but yes it's still a shame that others with the ability to view them is denied the opportunity by the breakers. Considering Warspite's record it would have been the perfect one to pick but unfortunately $$ was more important. It is a shame when money gets in the way of history.
Force Z was seriously out of its depth on December 9th but Allied planners could have done some thinking on November 1st when the Japanese had broken off talks or better still August 1st, 1941 when they imposed the oil embargo which which meant the Japanese could either eat crow and withdraw or go to war and concluded they needed to do something radically different. Combined with the American Asiatic fleet, 2 cruisers, Langley, 14 interwar destroyers 12 submarines and the Dutch fleet 2 light cruisers some 8 destroyers and 10 submarines with working torpedoes, Force Z sailing not on December 8th but on the 6th when Japanese invasions plans were obvious as the troop convoy was spotted on December 4th. Most of Hart's American squadron was either under way or getting ready to move to the safety of Borneo from Manila Bay and at 18 knots the Americans should have been able to reach the Gulf of Siam slightly behind the Japanese; the Dutch had about the same distance from Batavia. A night battle prior to the landing should have inflicted serious trauma on the Japanese fleet especially if half a score of Allied subs showed up the next day. And of couse the aerial tordepos for the Betty bombers did not arrive until December 7th.
Can I get a specific source for the doctrine of trying to discourage attacks with AA, as opposed to just destroying planes? I'd like to win an argument with someone.
US ships did both; put a gun any place they had room and open fire with everything. Something like 150 AA guns per ship did a lot to discourage and destroy.
dugclrk : they would, they may miss some due to trajectory and conditions, tracer as a deterrent works better when there is a near constant amount going into the target area. Consider the amount of AA guns on a battleship, if every 5th or 10th round is tracer that quite the fireworks show, even weapons firing at other targets near you will be grabbing a pilots attention. It a psychological tactic to test the nerve of pilots.
@7:45 Hey, that's another plausible alternate history battle you could cover. What would happen had the British BBs and Japanese CA's found each other?
It's easy to opine years later that someone had blundered in sending the two ships to the Far East without air cover, i.e. a carrier......but todays armchair critics can't fight yesterday's battles. The Govt. and the RN chiefs had to do something, with no previous battle examples to help them....you simply had to be there, with the future unknown to that bravest of generations.
Interesting fact - there were serious calls to prosecute the Prince of Wales' captain for cowardice for disengaging at the battle of Denmark Strait. They were dropped when the commanding officer of the KG5 announced that if anyone tried it, he would immediately resign to lead the defence.
To prosecute the Captain of Prince of Wales after Denmark Straight would be asinine. The ship was literally incomplete and exposed exactly why long shake downs and fit outs exist.
@@mattblom3990 Not only that, civilian dockyard workers were on board HMS Prince of Wales by the time she is en route to Denmark Strait.
@@mattblom3990 asinine after action trials were not so uncommon in the second war... just look to the USS Indianapolis... the captain was charged and convicted with dereliction of duty for the loss of his ship on the grounds of failing to evade submarine torpedo attacks, despite his orders being to make best speed unescorted through areas where the US naval intelligence was fully aware of several active Japanese submarines.
@@MrRandalfscott And the Japanese sup captain testified in McVay's defense, saying that even if he was evading, it was impossible for all the torpedoes to have missed.
Actually it was Admiral John Tovey, commander of the Home Fleet (on board KGV) who resisted the calls to Court Martial Captian John Leach, and Admiral Frederic Wake-Walker, commander of Suffolk and Norfolk. He eventually threatened to resign his post and appear at the court martial as the defendants friend.
Fun fact: When the Prince of Wales was hit by a shell on the bridge, being a dud it still killed everyone but Captain John Leach and Edmond Knight, who has blindness in one of his eyes. Knight played Leach in “Sink the Bismarck”.
I once heard a story that, shortly after the POW was sunk, the Japanese sent divers down on it to investigate it's radar suite. POW was allegedly a state of the art ship for its time, because of her final resting place/position the divers could not get in to the equipment.
Years ago I had a pub in UK, called the POW, it was named after a Steam locomotive. Shortly after moving in I took time to rummage one of the rooms filled with pub junk. I found an A3 bw phot of POW in a pretty poor cardboard frame, along with one or two other items from crew members.
I scoured the Internet to find the photo in order to glean some info on it, location etc but to no avail.
We moved after two years to a pub called the jolly sailor, the photo duly restored and framed in a quality frame took pride of place in the lounge over the fireplace.
The story about the photos reminds me of a similar situation. Last year, my family and I traveled to the San Francisco Bay area in California to visit the graves of relatives who were combatants of WWII and buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery. Before heading to the airport on the final day of the trip, we stopped at an old curios shop in Alameda. In the shop, I found some old USN photos of the USS New Jersey that were for sale. These photos show the ship in action during two different time periods. The first photo show her firing a full broadside of 16-inch guns adjacent to the 38th Parallel in 1951. The other photo shows the New Jersey after her refit in 1982 firing a Harpoon anti-ship missile at the Pacific Missile Test Range.
Aged seventy-three, raised on Clyde-side, I simply love battleships: their architecture; the staggering thickness and quality of steel; the massive and precise engineering; their weight; their appearance and lines; their variety; and most everything else about them, including, of course, the heroic men who sailed and fought in them. I also love your great historical videos. Thank you. 😊
I wasnt aware "war grave" was a thing. A true shame that these sites are/were pillaged.Youre videos are very informative.
Graves at sea are not uncommon. It's said every year the US Navy sends a ship to honor the lives lost at Iron Bottom Sound near Guadalcanal, and that while there, as the Navy considers it sacred waters, crews are to observe silence until they leave.
And they don't even need to be war related. Titanic for example hasn't been raised despite the wreck being found as it is considered a sea grave for the lives lost when it sank.
Illegal salvage are very rampant here. Japanese cruisers off Penang were heavily salvaged, some wreck sites near Indonesia too suffered the same fate.
knowing Chinese culture they have no respect for foreigners and scavenge far and wide
Sadly yes, look up the HNLMS De Ruyter
The Dutch cruiser De Ruyter has all but disappeared completely due to scrap thieves complstely cutting her up.
should set up minefields on them.
@@Rusty_Gold85 They don't have a lot of respect for themselves, either
The sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse caused panic and a loss of morale in the British forces in Malaya and Singapore. That contributed to the defeatist thinking of the ground forces. From the Roosevelt library in Hyde Park, the president remarked that the Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor first, and a few hours later the Philippines, Hong Kong and Malaya. This was a four prong attack from Japan.
It's my understanding that Prince of Wales' sinking by aircraft was a factor in the Shinano's construction being paused.
Interested viewers should read Martin Middlebrook's excellent book on the subject of the sinkings of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. Although written nearly 50 years ago, the author had the advantage of being able to interview and quote many of the survivors from the ships and like all of his excellent books, it is extremely well researched and detailed. Highly recommended.
Drach is on fire - his subscribers terrified!
Damn now we need to see a video on how the battle would have gone with those Japanese cruisers. Sounds like a interesting match up
Based on the Japanese showing at the Battle of Samar (see other Drachinifel video on that) and the RN's record of turning enemy cruisers into fish housing while dodging torpedoes (see...well this video will do), I have a feeling it would have been particularly interesting for anyone interested in collecting tiny little pieces of Japanese cruisers.
@@ApothecaryTerry
Yes, The RN had defeated a group of cruisers in the Med:
*Italian cruisers, not IJN
*Italian cruisers not armed with Type 93 torpedoes (Long Lance)
*Italian cruisers not proficient in night fighting
The Battle of Java Sea would have been a better comparison
I'll put my $$$ on the Japanese
@@ApothecaryTerry Samar was a late war engagement that says very little about Japanese cruiser-destroyer force competence at the start of the Pacific war. It was fought using the ships that sat around uselessly when more practical combatants were being sent into the bloodbath that was the Guadalcanal and Solomon campaigns.
IJN fought roughly a dozen nighttime engagements against US Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy, and Dutch navy forces in 1942. More often than not, they inflicted crippling losses against their enemies as in the battles of Java Sea, Sunda Strait, Savo island, and Tassafaronga. Long Lance Torpedoes were deadly and the Japanese were well practiced in night combat.
If British radar were working, they'd probably be able to do serious damage to one or two cruisers. Then Renown and Prince of Wales would likely be crippled by torpedoes. Sinking would not be necessary. Japanese air superiority meant that crippled ships would be used as target practice similar to what the US did to IJN Hiei (or what eventually happened to Prince of Wales).
@@paulbishop6932 PoW had surface radar installed in 1941 so who knows and most fights lost werent the better ships the RNavy had
@@hypothalapotamus5293 Repulse didnt do too badly 14 torpedo's dodged
Thanks for updating old vids with your voice, Drach!
It's absolutely awful learning about the fate of several war Graves. I remember there being so many occasions we would render honors to various ships far beneath our keel or just to the general battle area itself.
More than just the remembrance ceremony at sea, I think they will lay flowers at the PoW and Repulse memorial at the harbour where they sailed from for their last journey as well when a british warship docks there. Used to work at the said harbour and saw them laying flowers every now and then.
Last time I'm this early, 14 inch guns are still in fasion~
I'd have to go find it in my archived info, but the inquiry into the sinking of the POW, as well as the last dives before the wreck was destroyed, showed how one tiny, penny-pinching decision by the Admiralty doomed the ship. It turns out that all of the ship's intercoms ran off the electrical system. That meant both when the initial rear compartments flooded along the propellor shaft, the seaman in the first occupied compartments couldn't communicate what had happened.
In fact the bridge tried to determine what was happening and had slowed or stopped the propeller, dropping the speed to around 20 knots. Then, for one of the subsequent attacks, they brought the propeller up to a higher speed (180 rpm but I dont remember if that was the max rated rotation or what they increased it to) so they could maneuver better, resulting in the bent shaft widening the hole and destroying the packing around the shaft, resulting in the massive flooding that killed all the electrical systems to the stern. I maybe wrong, but I believe the warped shaft/propeller also fouled the adjacent one, now drastically reducing speed and maneuverability as all the power was off center to the opposite side. Also, when the electrical system failed, the blowers for propulsion plant compartments failed, making the boiler rooms lethal in minutes due to heat. They tried rotating men in and out, but along with the rising water they were doomed.
BuShips for the US Navy had developed a backup comm system that was totally separate from the ship's regular electrical system. It was considered somewhat expensive, but they were adamant you had to have intraship communication for effective damage control. I dont believe any main combatant had a similar system. In practice it meant that even with the diesel generators down, you could communicate with compartments where the electricity failed. The Admiralty knew about the US system, and considered it an unnecessary.
The POW may have doomed by any hit that reduced it's speed, as follow-up attacks would have been relentless. But for lack of a comm, the ship was lost.
Does anyone have a link as to any inquiry into the sinking of the Repulse, and any diver reports from the wreck? I didn't have much luck when I found the POW reports a few years back, except a general description of the number and approximate locations of the hits. Nothing on the progression of the flooding, or the specific steps taken in an attempt to save her.
Very interesting, thank you for the insights.
Another very informative video. Thank you Drach!
Would have been so interesting if the carrier was there for aircover and that matchup with the cruisers happened!
What an amazing ship, and really significant in Singapore and Malaysia’s history with Force Z. I saw a 1:350 scale model on display at Fort Canning and I was itching to get one! Glad to have her as my first model!
A 1:700 Bismarck was actually my first model but the bow cracked while I was painting it😢
My late father served on The Prince of Wales. He was below deck sending out the SOS's. He wrote about a lot of things that were going on after the sinking. Yes, he was a survivor otherwise I wouldn't be here.
During the Battle Of Denmark Strait, the 15-inch shell from Bismarck that hit PoW's bridge did not explode, but went in one side and out the other. On the way through it hit the binnacle and fragments killed everyone on the bridge except Captain Leach.
79 years ago today. RIP
Slight misstatement on the torpedo damage. The breakage of the prop shaft didn't cut the hull open near as much as it broke the seals leading back to the engine room. The flooding went right up the shaft alley all the way to port midships (the loss of trim made using the 5.25s difficult even without the power failure). Thus a hit almost at the end of the ship caused flooding in the center.
As someone who supplies marine bearings as part of my job, your comment makes total sense!
Another issue was that the ship was not configured for tropical use. The ocean around the hull was as warm as bathwater. To keep from dying from heat stroke, many of the doors were left open. When the shaft alley started to flood, the water flowed out the doors into the generator rooms, cutting the power. In the North Atlantic, all these doors would have been sealed, and the flooding contained.
So when HMS Vanguard was built, the designers improved the protection around the shafts and boiler rooms aft to prevent the same thing from happening.
6:40 The Pearl Harbor attack and the invasion of Malaya were almost simultaneous. The apparent full day between the two events is due to Hawaii being east of the International Date Line.
My suggestion would be the 1901 HMS Monmouth class. I'd love to know why these armored cruisers were so poorly armed.
The ships weren’t properly armed with enough anti-aircraft guns.
At the time AirPower doctrine wasn’t written in stone as it is today.
@@tdtvegas That really wasn't a factor when they were built, or when they served.
The 2 pdr pom poms gave endless jamming problems in the tropics as gun crews didn't realize how heavily they'd have to oil the ammo and belts to prevent jamming. Tracer ammunition had just started to be issued by the end of 1942 ad it;s not likely the ship would have been carrying more that a few hundred round in the magazines. Most of the tracers would have come from the 20mm Oerlikons hurriedly mounted on November 20-21, 1941 in Cape Town. The crews had very little practice before the attacks and no experience in handling the early versions of the Oerlikons. They'd jam easily if charging the gun was done too briskly when a new magazine was mounted. It wasn't hard to clear the jam, but the PoW didn't have the time to spare as fire slowed down due to jams in the 20 and 40 mm guns.
The 5.25" guns were almost useless without their directors since crews hadn't been adequately trained in how to use them under local control. The gunhouse were cramped to begin with, and having to hand pass and load shells after the dynamos failed made ROF no more the four rounds a minute, and that's when they didn't jam. The PoW just wasn't ready to provide adequate AA fire. The Repulse had adequate AA guns and better trained crews but wasn't able to fight off the air attacks without the full support of PoW. PoW's dynamo failures made the 5.25" guns and octuple 2 pdr mounts unuseable. Even if both ships had been operating at top efficiency it's unlikely they could have escaped the attacks. It was a sobering moment for the battleship admirals.
Even if she had full power, the 5.25 DP guns were slow and unwieldy unlike the US 5-inch/45 cal DP guns on the Dakota, New Jersey class battleships. The US weapons also had proximity fuses as well.
Not sure the whole wreck has been taken but all the brass has
Another good piece of commentary and analysis Drachster. While living in Japan for many years I was fortunate enough to view some Japanese video footage made from the original attack wave aircraft's 8mm film of the action. It was a sad but stirring sight watching the two heavyweights dodging and weaving as they tried to counter and avoid the rain of ordnance from the successive waves of attack aircraft. As far as I know, this footage has not been widely available to the western media yet is quite commonly found in the libraries of country video stores in Japan and some of the larger city shop's historical sections.
Keep up the good work and feel free to message me for any info re the Pacific War as it's quite a hobby of mine and I speak Japanese reasonably well.
Subscribed.
Please upload this footage if you wouldn't mind. Or send it to Mark Felton. He would probably use the footage.
The use of tracer ammunition to distract aircrew was also used by the Sir Bedivere during the Falklands war. Her defensive armament were 2 ×40mm Bofors guns, 4 x LMG's in twin mounts, and several GPMG's. At one point, being credited with shooting down of a Mirage. The LMG loadings were, first 5 tracer and every other tracer after that. The chances of seriously damaging a fast jet was unlikely, but putting the pilot off of his aim was a better option. The Bofors and LMG's were of WW2 vintage!
As noted in another comment, I too have heard that the Japanese recovered the radar aboard the Prince of Wales - this would make a fascinating video.
nice myth how deep lies POW? how deep could (japanese) divers could go and work there?
@@michaelpielorz9283 Given the locals are raping the sites of metal - not deep enough.
A nation-state, even in the early 40's would have the technology to do this task.
Have you considered doing a special on the hunt and eventual capture of U-505?
8:55 This is a fascinating bit on AA philosophy!
How about a video of HMS Wanderer. V & W class destroyer that sank 5 u boats. The ship was so worn out by 1944 the captain refused to take her to sea. I named my traction engine in honour of her.
Question for Drydock: what would have happened had Force Z not been sunk. Would they have been re-diverted to Australia and what role would they have played in the Battle of Java Sea, Sundra Strait, Coral Sea???
Both those ships were going to be sent to Pearl Harbour as a show of unity with the battered US Pacific Fleet.
Churchill correctly understood that the sight of the two RN capital ships sailing into Pearl would have a good effect on public opinion in the US.
Unfortunately, the scenario that played out came before the Admiralty could issue those orders.
Churchill was in a stand off with John Curtin the Australian PM who could see the Japanese pushing across to the Indonesian archipelago and CurtIn saw Singapore as being Japans next victim.He wanted 2 divisions of soldiers brought home from the Middle East and Churchill withstood him,the end result 1 division eventually came back to Australia and 1 to Burma. Japan looked as though it was going to takes Papua New Guinea and Australian soldiers were fighting the Japanese in Malaysia.Churchill said Singapore would not fall,that it was impregnable and he then sent the 2 British ships which are now artificial reefs and Singaporè fell.The only way these ships,would have ended up in Australia would have been if they had escaped the Singapore debacle or had taken on board Australian and British soldiers and retreated to the Australian mainland before the Japanese imperial army had time to come ashore.Curtin was right the Japanese took Singapore with a huge amount of Australian and British POWs and they fanned down and into PNG .Churchill was using Repulse and Prince of Wales without air cover ,I don’t think he considered the war in the Pacific as anything more than a sideshow to the war in Europe
Had the HMS Indomitable joined Repulse and PoW, it would have added quite a punch to the ABDA squadron at Java Sea, especially if the Japanese weren't expecting them.
John Donnellan Churchill , to quote Raymond Callahan, Churchill was “engaged in a game of bluff and a display of some goods in the shop window”. It backfired!
Well... if they weren't sunk by bombers then it would very much assure deployment in the area entire Nagumo's Kido Butai (maybe not in Pearl Harbor 6 carriers strong setup but even 4 fleet carriers would be enough) which would seal the fate of those two anyway...
There would be as well option fro Japan Naval HQ to deploy Kondo's battleship fleet (both Nagatos + two or three Kongous (depend on mentioned Kido Butai assignment at the same time, since Kongous were an essential part of carriers escort) not to mention cruisers and destroyers against British ships... which would put Phillips ships in rather... tight spot against such overwhelming odds... since Doorman's "patchwork" fleet at Jawa Sea (in regard of this scenario) wasn't a force which could threaten in any serious way Japanese "steamroll" in the area.... and reinforcing them by Force Z would be easily countered by IJN by deploying much bigger force into the area than they did initially.
I can only hope that the people disturbing these war graves just to get some rusted steel will be terribly haunted for their lack of respect.
HMS Prince of Wales was regarded as a 'Jonah' vessel by many in the Royal Navy due to the unsatisfactory part it played against the Bismarck and for several other reasons. The crew of the Repulse considered themselves doomed when they sailed with the POW to engage the Japanese landing forces in December 1941. They were sadly proven correct in their apprehension.
R.I.P. stoker W.Parsonsge HMS PRINCE OF WALES..aged 21,of Caergwrle, Flintshire
as a Singaporean, our history lessons emphasize heavily on the capsizing of the PoW and Repulse, and the spamming of Zeroes (it should be the Ki-43s, right?) that later decimated the air groups in Singapore that are equipped with Hurricanes and god-awful Buffaloes, which contributed to the fall of Singapore.
It unfairly stated that the British did nothing much to protect Singapore, which is not quite true. Now i know better, thanks for the information!
Justice Served yeah same here. I always thought that our history lessons on the fall of Singapore never did the efforts of the British justice
@@joshuatan7628 I always had the misconception that the PoW and Repulse just got straightlinus-ed to death like in WoWS but hey, they fought damn hard. Even the Buffalo, which is a crap fighter here, is used to great effect by the Finnish air force. So much history to learn!
Yup definitely
It wasn't that they didn't try. They were already stretched to thin. The misconception about Asians, and Japanese aircraft cost them the planes they had. Then the velocity of the Japanese advance and the tactics used kept the British in headlong retreat. Then the fact that they never believed anyone would attack across the Jahore straight. Apologies if I misspelled that. You end up with the Japanese Army in the streets.
ki-43 just baarely entered service. It was mostly ki-27
I can't help but feel this was a hard luck ship. Bloody nose from the Bismark and then being sunk.
It beggars belief that anyone should rifle a war grave. When I first heard of this practice I was in deep shock.
Indeed. If I was in a position of power, I'd send a destroyer group to the area with the clear order to blow any vessel out of the water without warning if it attempts to desecrate the grave of our war heroes.
I love how in WOWS, 'bow on' is the way to play, when in real life, ships cant even fire over their bow without blowing off all their bow mounted AA or bow itself.....
It's mostly down to the massively High hit chances in WoWS.
Lukas Hei
Yeah. Even the Iowas had to be insanely lucky to hit anything at 30,000 yards.
Damn dude.......another vid.....bring en on.
The video is pretty dismissive about the RAF's willingness to provide air cover for Force Z. In fact, a Fleet Defence Squadron, equipped with Brewster Buffalo fighters, was designated. It's commander, Tim Vigors, developed plans that would enable at least 6 aircraft to be over the ships at any one time. But this depended on early notification of Force Z's deployment so that aircraft could be pre-positioned at forward coastal air bases in Malaya. These plans were discussed with Admiral Phillips' staff, including the air liaison officer. Call signs and radio frequencies were agreed. In the event, Air Command in Singapore received no notification that the ships had sailed. Radio silence meant no further communication was made, even after they had been spotted when that was futile anyway. The only call for help came from the Captain of Repulse after his ship was already under attack. By this time, it was too late and 453 sqn were unable to reach them in time.
Adm. Phillips first radio message to Singapur asked for tugs,not to send air cover, He and a lot of officers were unable to recognize the new threat to ships ;planes!!
@@michaelpielorz9283 Quite right! Phillips seriously underestimated the ability of the Japanese to attack and sink his two capital ships. Whether this was borne out of arrogance or ignorance is not easy to say, but it is clear that he did not regard as necessary the offered air cover.
The AA guns not having tracer rounds reminded me of the English using "night arrows" against the French in the movie Timeline.
Hate historical movies as they completely ignore Welsh involvement. Welsh longbowmen fought on both sides in the 100 years war. They were prized assets in the middle ages.
Thank You for posting this video. For many years I had wondered why the British didn't send a carrier group with these ships to Singapore. What a difference a pair of fleet carriers would have made.
One thing I've wondered is this. After the war many American pilots did interviews praising the various aircraft they flew in battle both American and British aircraft including British Spitfires and Mosquito's.
Even though the majority of the British Carrier air groups from 1943 on flew F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs as well as Avengers I've never seen an interview of a British pilot discussing these aircraft.
I just wondered why?
Yeah I really wonder who will win:
Advance designed Betty vs. Strange biplane that jammed an oversized pirate ship.
I think that broadly speaking it's a matter of saturation, the FAA was relatively small in the Grand scheme of WW2 air forces and of that only a portion flew American aircraft, so finding an FAA pilot who flew American aircraft would be a fair bit harder to do than finding an American pilot who flew a British aircraft. :)
@@Drachinifel That's a fair point. Thank you.
@@Drachinifel I thought you might like this.
Flight Deck Of British Aircraft (1945)
ua-cam.com/video/7SVZlWtJ7-c/v-deo.html
@@Drachinifel Thanks again Drach
BPF: Flight ops aboars HMS Illustrious, 1945
ua-cam.com/video/VuXqmGxELwY/v-deo.html
So sad to hear what scrappers did to the wrecks of repulse and prince of Wales. Do people have no shame?
it truly is sad there is nothing left of other wrecks like these of the two dutch cruisers that fought at the battle of java and hms exeter
Tomb robbing is as old as humans, I suspect.
Yes, it's really unfortunate. The people who buy this steel knows where it comes from, because shipwrecks are the only reliable source of pre atomic age steel. It's very valuable for surgical and diagnostic instruments as it doesn't carry the radioactive isotopes that modern steel has from the decades of nuclear testing.
Poor people who have families to feed don't feel the same as you and I.
@@raymondcoventry1221 I believe there are processes to make LBR steel nowadays, but it's extremely expensive. Sickening what these grave robbers did to the only resting place these men have.
a nighttime action against actually present japanese vessels with torpedos? Kamchatka violently fainting
I cannot help but wonder whether had her guns functioned as designed would she have been able to sink/disable the Bismarck on her own, especially if her cruisers had tackled Prince Eugen? Furthermore, had she been fitted with her intended third quad turret and that also worked ok would she have had such an advantage as the triple turret 6" cruisers claim to have over an eight gun 8" cruiser?
UK Historical Delusion at work here as well. Been a few years lads not too late to set the record straight. Truth will set you free.
One for you to do :- HMS Grimsby :- In remembrance of the 11 men who lost their lives when HMS Grimsby was sunk in the Mediterranean 82 years ago today (25th May 1941). My home town but not a Town Class ship ?
I didn't know that HMS Indomitable was intended to be with them (Force Z). I'd always presumed that the entire admiralty down to Phillips blithely and naively assumed everything would be alright. Unfortunate for them (among many aspects) that no RAF flights were provided and that the radars were out. Both capital ships dodging 17 torpedoes is impressive.
Earlier that year they used torpbombers to take out the Bismarck and the Italian fleet at Taranto.. They should know what risk they put the 2 ships at without any air support.
Yeah.....it's ironic. (Japan itself made the same mistake at the end of the war, but by then they needed every aircraft they still had for other purposes)
In defence of British, Sembawang airfield, supposed air support unit was bombarded before that. And radio silence make it harder.
Toronto was more or less a fault of italian unpreparedness rather than an example of what to do... Shitty torp nets aa crews sleeping etc
Bismark was rendered uanble to manoeuvre by a very lucky hit, but she wasn't sunk by aircraft. Taranto and Pearl Harbour were against battleships at anchor in harbour. This was the first instance of capital ships being sunk purely by aircraft while manoeuvering in open water. Air cover was definitely desirable, but the question of whether aircraft alone could sink a battleship was still an open one. Even without a carrier or land-based air cover, the outcome could still have been different if Prince of Wales' radar had been operational, or more tracer ammunition was available.
@@chongjunxiang3002 no
I love how you add in these very funny shall I say quips? You were talking about this one British ship being able to annihilate this Japanese ship. Just the way you said it made me feel so proud of you and your country.
I like to hear what happened to the RN request for Air cover in more depth
Even though all the RAF had in the vicinity was some Brewster Buffaloes (hardly the latest-and-greatest), they'd have been plenty good enough to tangle with the unescorted Japanese bombers.
the RAF did provide air cover by a squadron Buffaloes but clever Adm Phillips, after the first attack radioed to Singapore "send tugs" the buffaloes arrived just in time to see the last japanese leaving.Adm.Phllips could have saved the ships,he willingly sacrificed to do a job suited for a destroyer when he ordered ForceZ to investigate a handful emptry barges!!
Can we have all the Fs for mah boi Repulse? She dodged them torps like a goddamn champ!
F
F
F
Part of the problem with force Z was it's commander, Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, who believed that Battleships couldn't be sunk by aircraft. What a rude awaking that must have been! He was warned about Japanese torpedo planes at Saigon, but ignored the warning, possibily basing their range on the swordfish he was familiar with. The 22nd air flotilla was a highly effective unit with 141twin engine G3M Nell's and G4M Betty's, far more effective than swordfish, as he found out firsthand. The Battleship factions of both the British and American Navy's, known as the gun club, were forced to admit they could no longer operate without air cover, the Aircraft Carrier replaced the Battleship as the deciding factor in naval warfare.
I think you are quite right about Admiral Phillips. A fairly detailed account of the lead up to the POW and Repulse sinkings from the RAF 's perspective is made in the book "No Time To Cry" by Tim Vigors. Vigors was the commander of 453 Sqn, based at Sembawang in Singapore, which had been designated Fleet Defence Squadron for Force Z. The video seems dismissive of the RAF's willingness and/or ability to provide air cover. This is unfair. Vigors devised detailed plans to provide continual air cover of at least 6 fighters for the ships by pre-deploying elements of his sqn at forward airfields Kuantan and Kota Baharu on the Malayan coast. These plans were discussed with Phillips' staff, including the air liaison officer, and call signs and radio frequencies agreed. Vigors had stressed with the Navy that his sqn would need to be given plenty of notice that the ships were to deploy if air cover was to be achievable. It is confirmed that Air Command in Singapore received no such notification that the ships were to sail. Once deployed, radio silence meant that no further contact with the RAF was made. Even after they were aware that a Japanese reconnaisance aircraft had spotted them and radio silence therefore pointless, no call for air support was sent until the captain of Repulse broke radio silence after his ship was being attacked. By this time, it was too late for 453 Sqn to get to them in time. All this leads to the supposition that arrogance, or at least misguided confidence that the Japanese could not launch credible air strikes on his ships, blighted Admiral Phillips' judgement which lost the Navy 2 capital ships.
I still to this day never believed that the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse marked the end of the battleship/battlecruiser era.
I mean if you're to send a Battleship that's meant to run in the Atlantic to the Pacific there's bound to be problems.
Q - thank you for pointing out the fact that both of the wrecks were salvaged. ? Is it that cost effective ? Was the water relatively shallow? I ask because I understand that tens of thousands of tons of metal would be tempting to a scrapper but how is it done?
I don't know how I feel about the Japanese airman that left to The reef because if they had captured the surviving British sailors they would have been tortured enslaved and murdered because the Japanese had no regard for prisoners of war.
yes it was a nice gesture but at the same time how the Japanese treated captured soldiers and civilians was inexcusable deplorable horrific and last but not least criminal.
The people who think it is ok to decicrate a war grave really make my blood boil!
I suddendly want to play Battlestatins Pacific again.
Found It!
Q&A: how would the War have been affected if both ships survived.
If they were able to escape from Singapore to participate in the Java sea engagement, the Japanese might have sent in the Yamato and the Nagatos, which might have delayed the Midway operation, to the detriment of the Allies! Imagine the entire Kido Butai at Coral Sea!
While there were mistakes and poor decisions made by all of command, sadly the bulk of the blame for the lose of these ships has to go to Admiral Phillips, who was a naval big gun traditionalist who hadn't commanded a ship since the 1920s. It was his self imposed radio silence that doomed the ships, had he called for help the moment the attack started (or better yet, just turned back when he knew he was spotted) the RAF Buffaloes would have arrived with ample time to chase off the third wave and save the ships. It was Captain Tennant of Repulse who called for help when he (to his horror) found out that Phillips had sent no messages (actually he did send one message for help, it said 'send destroyers'...). Furthermore, had Phillips waited a day longer he could have sailed a fleet with two cruisers and 4 extra destroyers, as it was he didn't take all the ships he could have done.
William Tennant of Repulse was a fine man btw, it was he who stayed on the beaches of Dunkirk till the end trying to save as many men as he could, and he was also the one in charge of the successful Mulberry Harbours and Pluto pipeline at D-Day.
Truly a pity PoW's radar did not pick up the Japanese cruiser force so close, that would have been a battle (and just a few hours away were Kongou and Haruna). Again a mark against Phillips, they spotted a flare dropped in error *over* the Japanese ships, but he instead decided to run away from it instead of investigate.
It is absolutely true that Admiral Phillips was a staunch supporter of the fact that planes could never be a real danger to fully operational battleships. And yes, his last recorded words were >These cannot be torpedo planes< as he was looking towards the approaching japanese planes which were already in the process of goin down to torpedo attack altitude. Yes, he was most certainly the wrong commander at the wrong place. Which takes nothin away from his other merits which got him this command. Yet one has to consider that the main argument of the gun lobby was that no operational battleship had ever been sunk by planes before. And that remained true until the day HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse got sunk. Before that only the unmanned target ship (captured) SMS Ostfriesland and the Italian battleship Conte di Cavour in Tarento harbour had been sunk by planes. The details of the Pearl Harbour attack were of course unknown to Admiral Phillips, and there too only USS Arizona got completely destroyed. None of these ships had been under power and fully crewed.
So, Admiral Phillips had the misfortune to be the first gun lobby Admiral to be proven wrong in actual battle.
Great job done by Japanese torpedo bombers.
Prince of Wales had earlier managed to escape by launching smoke screen bombs ,in the Battle of Denmark Straits in May 1941 .
The honour of sending HMS Prince of wales to the locker of Old Davy Jones was left for the Japanese.
Too bad they had so much trouble with the guns. Maybe the fight with Bismark might have been different. Who knows...
And it was really sad it went and got sunk. They never should have continued without air cover and so a tragic loss. It was a nice ship..
But anyway, thanks for another good vid...
different cultures place different value on respect versus greed, favouring greed
Just how much water did these ships go down in ???
If they're being dove on, to rob, they'd have to be less than 200 feet deep or so.
I always thought they were caught out in open water without a possibility to beach herself or something like the USS Nevada did at Pearl Harbor.
If i remember correctly, the water depth there is somewhat around 70 meters (~210 ft)
@@togmor6225
I didn't think it was that shallow......
It the deep side of amateur SCUBA but possible.....
I think Renown is in about 160 feet, PoW slightly deeper.
Hopefully someone got the captains hat.
The sinking of HMS Prince of Wales is the biggest humiliation the Royal Navy has ever had. Fortunately, the Japanese navy got the same fate a few years later.
Hard to believe that it would be worth while to salvage battleships at that depth
@CipiRipi00
Good point thanks for the info , I was thinking about the depth it was sunk at , was the ship shallow enough to allow divers to cut her up .? Perhaps it was a state sponsored effort to disturb the grave and keep it secret .
@CipiRipi00
But don’t you need divers with torches to go down and cut pieces off ? Divers can’t go very deep
Poor Prince of Wales. She quickly built a reputation as an unlucky, unhappy ship. Her being crippled by a single torpedo strike, and her humiliating, long drawn out struggle before sinking only seem to confirm this opinion.
Hands off! That ship does not say CaRedemptionValue on the side.
Damn it’s been 80 years since she sank with HMS repulse
The Battle of Singapore was a fiasco.
It honestly makes the fall of France look good by comparison.
If only HMS Indomitable wasn't grounded en route and the RAF based on Singapore responded quickly, Prince of Wales and Repulse would have a better chance to survive. A battleship without air support regardless of how powerful the AA defense systems is basically doomed from the start. Plus the HACS (High angle control system) along with her surface-search radar was deteriorated and inoperable making her half blind prior to her sinking.
@@BluePegasus1381 A better chance indeed, but I'm afraid Indomitable would have been just another juicy target! IJN 3, RN 0!
If Taranto, the hunt for Bismarck, Cape Matapan, and Pearl Harbour hadn't already shown that airpower > BBs, this sealed it.
And people STILL kept building them afterwards....WTF was wrong with navies back then?
Because properly protected, battleships were still fearsome weapons of war and great AAA platforms. Plus not a whole lotta battleships were made after 42/43.
They were useful for carrier escort and shore bombardment. Keep in mind battleships take a long time to build, most battleships that would be later commissioned were still under construction by the end of 1941, so it may not have made sense to cancel construction if it's already so far along.
The only exception would be the HMS Vanguard, that was a questionable build decision.
Even as AA carrier escorts or shore bombardment vessels, battleships were very inefficient compared to a larger number of smaller warships.
And the reason battleships became obsolete had more to do with aviation having a much longer range and thus much more offensive capability. So even a properly defended BB would not really be fearsome compared to a carrier.
Oh the irony; A noble Japanese Navy Pilot dropping a wreath to honor the war dead from both sides, and grave robbers violating their sanctity, probably from a country those men died to free.
Awesome video, as always... EXCEPT for your referencing the ships as "it" rather than properly as "she" and "her"!!! Don't MAKE me come over there and emulate John Paul Jones' raid on England!
When entering and departing Pearl Harbor, the USN renders honors when passing the USS Arizona. At least we did when I was serving, in the 1960's. I assume they still do.
Would you please do a video on the ships tied up at Battleship Row December 7, 1941? One of my profs at college was a survivor of the U.S.S. Oklahoma. He and I were friends, so that has a special meaning for me. Also, I can vividly remember visiting the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial when my called in at Pearl.
Raid? Lol. He caught an Earl napping. Some raid.
@@arpitakodagu9854 The financial repercussions of the raid were enormous (insurance on shipping, diverting RN ships to convoy duty, etc) but nothing in comparison to the psychological impact on the British public. The Yankee doodles had raided English soil: not an attack on an overseas possession, but on England itself! Was the military significance all that great? No. But the raid was every bit as important as the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942.
She seems about as much use as the new carrier,,,hopefully the later will last longer
Damn!
Human voice? Damn, i hopped for a dogs voice./ Good video.
Can you do a vid on the USS Vesuvious?
It's been done. The USS Vesuvius was a dynamite shit.
Luckily Prinz Eugen didn't sink her along with the Hood victory.
It is very disgraceful that the wrecks of these two magnificent ships are being violated by salvagers😡 Treat the wrecks of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales with dignity and respect!!😡
Yeah, I would not be able to afford to go see it, but yes it's still a shame that others with the ability to view them is denied the opportunity by the breakers. Considering Warspite's record it would have been the perfect one to pick but unfortunately $$ was more important. It is a shame when money gets in the way of history.
Great video as usual. BUT... c'mon; do Alaska v Scharnhorst... don't make me beg... OK OK I'm begging..
7:54 - WWII IJN cruisers and crew would have been far more of a challenge.
Yep - on the showing of Savo Island Japanese cruisers at this stage were VERY good at night fighting.
Force Z was seriously out of its depth on December 9th but Allied planners could have done some thinking on November 1st when the Japanese had broken off talks or better still August 1st, 1941 when they imposed the oil embargo which which meant the Japanese could either eat crow and withdraw or go to war and concluded they needed to do something radically different.
Combined with the American Asiatic fleet, 2 cruisers, Langley, 14 interwar destroyers 12 submarines and the Dutch fleet 2 light cruisers some 8 destroyers and 10 submarines with working torpedoes, Force Z sailing not on December 8th but on the 6th when Japanese invasions plans were obvious as the troop convoy was spotted on December 4th.
Most of Hart's American squadron was either under way or getting ready to move to the safety of Borneo from Manila Bay and at 18 knots the Americans should have been able to reach the Gulf of Siam slightly behind the Japanese; the Dutch had about the same distance from Batavia. A night battle prior to the landing should have inflicted serious trauma on the Japanese fleet especially if half a score of Allied subs showed up the next day.
And of couse the aerial tordepos for the Betty bombers did not arrive until December 7th.
The wrecks have been desecrated - so we just won't bother with them.... :-(
hms prince of wales: what a poor Bisamrck
Japanese Bombers: i'm about to end this mans whole career
And to once more emphasize how disgusting it is to plunder those ships. It is a graveyard!
WHO WOULD WIN
A BRITISH BATTLESHIP THAT SURVIVED THE BISMARCK
FIVE SQUADRONS OF THICC LAND BASED BOMBY BOIS
Can I get a specific source for the doctrine of trying to discourage attacks with AA, as opposed to just destroying planes? I'd like to win an argument with someone.
US ships did both; put a gun any place they had room and open fire with everything. Something like 150 AA guns per ship did a lot to discourage and destroy.
12:35 is that a real photo? I don't think so but it's a great picture nonetheless
It's mostly likely just an illustration
Am I wrong? Attacking aircraft can't see tracer rounds?
dugclrk : they would, they may miss some due to trajectory and conditions, tracer as a deterrent works better when there is a near constant amount going into the target area. Consider the amount of AA guns on a battleship, if every 5th or 10th round is tracer that quite the fireworks show, even weapons firing at other targets near you will be grabbing a pilots attention. It a psychological tactic to test the nerve of pilots.
What is the significance of the "?" slides?
Hi man
Coolio
@7:45 Hey, that's another plausible alternate history battle you could cover. What would happen had the British BBs and Japanese CA's found each other?
It's easy to opine years later that someone had blundered in sending the two ships to the Far East without air cover, i.e. a carrier......but todays armchair critics can't fight yesterday's battles. The Govt. and the RN chiefs had to do something, with no previous battle examples to help them....you simply had to be there, with the future unknown to that bravest of generations.
"but since you can't see a normal bullet"... Enter the Matrix.