Did the decoy force actually send shells into Norway in order to sell it? If they did, they would probably warrant the same response as when Glowworm dueled with Admiral Hipper.
I know this is a subject we don't usually cover, But do we know the name of that brave? German pilot, who risked his aircraft to save the crew of the downed Torpedo Plane?
Regarding the comment at about 28:00 about how a RN officer couldn't imagine having a fast capital ship that close to a target like PQ17 without attacking, how would it have gone if the sides had been reversed?
My late father was a yeoman of signals on HMS Keppel during PQ17. He was on watch when the infamous signals came through and was obviously one of those who had to relay the signals to the convoy. This was one of the only times he spoke about the war, this was due to the High Court action for defamation taken by Broome against the "historian" David Irving, when he was accused of cowardice in Irving's book on the convoy. My father supported Broome all the way. He said that when Broome made his decision to join the cruiser force the crew assumed they were going into imminent action, and in his address to the ship's company stated that if necessary they would ram the Tirpitz. My dad's comment when he was telling me these events was they must have been stupid as they all cheered at this statement.
Wouldn't tirpitz have outgunned the Allied battleships or have been fast enough to disengage if it needed to? It wasn't exactly slow,being able to do 30 knots.
@Rellana1 No, the USS Washington was armed with nine 16 inch guns and the HMS Duke of York had ten 14 inch guns. Bothe were capable of 28 knots. While slightly slower than Tirpitz's 30 knots, the speed difference was not that great to guarantee that the Tirpitz could not be brought to battle. The Tirpitz was armed with eight 15 inch guns. The Washington's main battery was clearly superior to that of Tirpitz, while the Duke of Yorks's was probably roughly equal. The two allied battleships were clearly superior in fire power and would have quickly overwhelmed the Tirpitz. The speed differential was not great enough to guarantee that Tirpitz could escape. It would depend upon the tactical situation.
@@mahbriggs Tirpitz' guns penetrated as much armor as the 16/45 on the NC and SD classes, had less dispersion and had a faster ROF - and penetrated almost twice as much as the guns on KGV. Tirpitz' AP shell also had a larger bursting charge than the US super heavy shells and the British shells. The curator of the US battleship USS New Jersey compared the guns of his ship and Bismarck, and was surprised of how little difference there was in favor of New Jersey.
@@mahbriggs Indeed. With an aircraft-carrier out there as well 'Tirpitz' would have been at a disadvantage as once spotted the heavy cruisers would have vectored in on her position as well. Royal Navy commanders were expected to be aggressive even when technically out-gunned. 'Tirpitz' might have taken down a couple of large vessels but in a straight-up fight would have been overwhelmed before she could escape,
For those interested Captain Jack Broome in 1972 wrote a book "Convoy is to Scatter" following the court case. It has a lot of the Admiralty signals and orders regarding the convoy from its formation, and also includes witness statement quotes from the transcript of the court case., as well as Broome's own thoughts and feelings of the events.
Hi, I literally just stumbled across an old episode of BBC's Play For Today titled, 'P.Q. 17' It stars Richard Briers as Commander Jack Broome with Patrick Troughton as Commodore Londonderry. It's available on UA-cam and having just sat and watched it, I can highly recommend it. From the days when the BBC produced quality television, a time sadly passed. Amazing coincidence since I was looking for a Billy Connolly play.
During Desert Shield I sailed with the son of a PQ-17 survivor. His father was Chief Engineer on one of the ships. In 1994 one of my Ship Handling Simulator instructor was a PQ-17 Survivor. The instructor was drafted into the US Navy during the Korean War because "he didn't serve in WWII."
It took until 2012 for the UK government to authorise a medal for those involved in the Arctic Convoys. I got one for my late father and added it to his set framed on my wall. It meant that the old bugger then beat me by one medal 8 to 7, after all these years!
Nothing to see here, just a bunch of tanks in their natural habitat, sunning on top of the icebergs before they go hunting for seals and fish... Also love german u-boats getting in on "let's pretend we're icebergs" action.
@@korbell1089 Yeah, most islands don't have a wake! But also when you are on a ship & it's moving sometimes it's not easy to tell if something else is moving.
@@kennethdeanmiller7324 It's been a long while since I last read about that bit, but iirc the Crijnssen only traveled during night hours and the camouflage was mostly used to foil aerial spotting during the day when they anchored near other lagoons and as such would be quite easily missed.
What most surprised me whilst reading documents at Kew concerning the Arctic Convoys, was the ingratitude and belligerent behaviour of the Soviets when demanding replacements for materiel lost due to ships being sunk. These losses were vast and for us to replace them would have seriously undermined our own forces build up and supplies for the North African Campaign ...... yet the Soviets denigrated our aid as being both minor and insufficient both during and after the war.
Its funny because Soviet leadership begrudgingly admitted they won because of that aid. Hell, Stalin admitted it well before the war was over. ""At a dinner toast with Allied leaders during the Tehran Conference in December 1943, Stalin added: “The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.”" And their troops preferred allied equipment over their own, a fact Soviet leadership hated for many reasons. If you have a chance to compare the T-34 and M4 Sherman in person, do so. Its no surprise why Soviet tankers fought tooth and nail to keep their Shermans when they had them and refused to switch to T-34s. The T-34 is a veritable death trap for the crew in comparison, not to mention that if you throw away the mountain of myth around the vehicle (propaganda typically spread by tankies and unwitting idiots), it was very subpar in basically every aspect of its design and a far cry from being the Soviet supertank its depicted as. One of my favorite quotes on some of the main issues the T-34 faced from Aberdeen evaluators, "The deficiency of our diesels is the criminally poor air cleaners on the T-34. The Americans consider that only a saboteur could have constructed such a device." Men who faced them in Korea with Centurions and Shermans (their main competitors for over a decade by that point) had nothing good to say about the T-34s they faced. Not that they faired better in WW2. To quote Christos T.'s article myth busting the T-34: "According to a Soviet report (29) in the period summer 1943 - March 1945 the probability of the T-34’s armor being penetrated if hit was from 88-97%, thus any round that managed to hit the tank was practically certain to penetrate the armor." The armor also had a very high tendency to spall badly so even when you didn't get a penetration you'd still get a face full of shrapnel from your own armor anyways. But the Soviets wanted people to think they were best and baddest thing in the world to puff themselves up like a blowfish, and the Germans wanted their people to think the Soviets were the biggest and baddest to fearmonger and get more volunteers to fight them. And give the Germans another excuse as to why they were losing, much like the "Russian winter" one was used to cover up bad strategy and leadership. Quick aside, the Russian Winter myth is old as fuck, the other big notorious example being Napoleon, despite the fact that Napoleon never actually waged war/battle in the Russian winter and his army was out of Russia before winter even started. In Hitler's case, Rasputitsa played a bigger role than winter, the infamous "season of mud" that happens before and after winter. Winter didn't cause their invasion to fail, it was merely one of the final nails on a coffin that was basically already sealed shut (or a last kick in the balls, take your pick) due to a large amount of factors, command incompetence being very high on that list. Anyways, so now we have to deal with tankies acting like one of the worst tanks of WW2 for loss rates and crew survivability is actually a communist superweapon that nobody could match (just ignore the tens of thousands of destroyed T-34s that say otherwise). Sorry for the rambling, just thought it would be fun to share and give a random bit of insight on a topic (or several) that interests and amuses me. If you want to know more on the T-34 and its myths, look up the well-sourced article called "WWII Myths - T-34 Best Tank of the war" by Christos T.
Equally @@AndrewGivens they were the only large alliy we had until the US swung into action ..... "needs must when the Blitzkreig drives" was probably Churchill's inclination.
Your conclusion matches my own from the first time I learned of PQ-17 in the series "Great Blunders of WW2" as a rare allied grand blunder. Though it didn't mention the admiral's brain tumor, which certainly must have been affecting his judgment. What puzzled me even then was wondering why they were trying to direct a battle from 2,000 miles away rather than simply passing the information on and letting the others like Broome do as they could. Even then, I remember being baffled by the fact that they were ordered to scatter when the heavy escort was nearby. "You have two battleships that are *each* a match for 'The Beast' on top of an aircraft carrier, against a naval unit notoriously poor at dealing with aircraft. You should *want* that thing to sally forth so you can kill it outside of its metaphorical protected "den."" So yeah, to me it seems that this is another example of "why attempting to micromanage is normally a bad idea." Thank you for your take on it, Drach. Been a rough past few weeks, so seeing your expert analysis, even if it is dealing with something so grim, was a nice treat. :)
I first learned about PQ-17 from "Great Blunders" as well- seems like it could have been a missed opportunity to kill Tirpitz had she actually sortied to intercept the convoy
22:27 During this attack, some of Wainwright's sailors drew rifles and ammunition from the ship's armory and took pot shots at the German bombers. There's a great photo of one sailor wearing a disposable cotton bandolier and armed with a Springfield M1903 with the rifle sling looped over his arm to steady his aim.
My father served the entire WWII as an RO (Sparks) in the Merchant Navy (Blue Flue line) - sailed on Arctic convoys for a time. Was never torpedoed or sunk throughout the conflict and became requested by Captains as a good luck mascot. I think that must have been unimaginable stress waiting/wondering......
Roger Hill, captain of the Ledbury was so appalled at the RNs abandonment of the Red Dusters during PQ17 he swore he would never do it again, no matter what his orders were. This had very important consequences as Ledbury was one of the destroyers that carried Ohio into Valletta harbour in August ‘42.
Contrast the orders to abandon the convoy issued by Pound to the philosophy espoused by Admiral Cunningham the year prior. "It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue." Clearly the wrong man was in charge of the Admiralty and had been for a while, belatedly corrected by replacing Pound with Cunningham after the former's death. Strangely, relations with between US Admiral King and the Royal Navy got a lot better after that happened.
Was coming into the comments to say I had read Destroyer Captain. Ledbury was in all the s**t missions of the early war, it seems. He would have done better to accept the suggestion he move to the Staff for a while; he might have had a longer career in the RN if he had, and it's easy to criticize from the outside...
Drach, Thanks for another fine video and for the photo of Liberty Ship Samuel Chase. (37:20) My father was crewman on that ship, Dec 44 to Jan 45. NY--Cherbourg--Swansea--Delaware. By coincidence I was just reading his fine 2-page memoir which brings to life the Chase and the N Atlantic. I give just a few examples. Approaching the British Isles, the escorts were more active, and dropping more depth charges. In a light moment, someone said "they were nearing the area where Irish subs could cause trouble." They arrived in France just after the Battle of the Bulge and my Dad noted the many wounded shipping back to England. He mentioned the hospital ship Llandovery Castle. The Samuel Chase stopped at Swansea Wales to take on ballast for the return trip. In mid-Atlantic a gale shifted the ballast causing a 15-degree list. To restore trim, hundreds of tons of slag and shale had to be repositioned. The deck gang turned to and, with no shovels on board, did it manually using buckets. "A tough way to do that job."' Finally back at Delaware Bay, my father noted a large unfamiliar warship, concluding it was a USN battle cruiser. I confirmed this detail. On 1/17/1945 the USS Guam departed Philadelphia for Okinawa. In sum: Despite arduous work, bad weather, and fear, it was always interesting. And not as bad as PQ-17. Thanks again
@@UchihaPercy To be fair, the First Sea Lord, who is the operational commander of the Royal Navy (so the RN's equivalent to Admiral King of the USN) was suffering from an at this point undiagnosed brain tumour. This was not diagnosed until July 1943, when it was diagnosed he resigned, and died shortly afterwards. Its a shame really, because until that tumour started affecting his judgement, and it did, he was known as a wily, cunning, and very capable commander. I wonder just how much that tumour affected his judgement in the case of PQ-17. Given how he deteriorated over the following months its probably safe to assume its effect was considerable, though probably not the sole reason behind the debacle.
In the nature of things, disasters tend to be preceded by a lot of mistakes. If you look into the history of a disaster, you should expect to see a lot of things go wrong. That is why it was a disaster. Of course, every great victory is a great disaster for someone.
@@alganhar1 Long before this, he was already known to be suffering from multiple medical maladies which *should* have disqualified him from command and he was known to fall asleep in actually important staff meetings. Or while briefing Churchill.
It makes Admiral King's absolute hatred of the British look a lot more reasonable, doesn't it? If this is the kind of idiocy he had observed from the Royal Navy...
Yes, HMS Ulysses was an excellent novel that I borrowed from the local library a few times. The shadow of PQ-17 hangs over the action of the story, and motivates many of the crew. BTW the first read of the novel was the first time I really learned about the PQ-17 disaster and its effects on the Atlantic naval war.
I recently re-read Captain Broome's book "Convoy is to Scatter". It really is an excellent account. I agree with him about joining the cruiser force, I don't see what else he could have done given what he knew at the time. He must have thought that the cruisers were going to sacrifice themselves in order to hold up the Tirpitz and whatever else came out long enough for the British battleships to arrive. And the destroyers would be a useful distraction as well as the direct danger to Tirpitz.
One of my treasured memories of my time as an active engine room volunteer aboard the SS JOHN W BROWN was working with a crusty but very approachable veteran marine engineer by the name of Charlie ("Blackie") Blockston [sp?] He used to joke about having been sunk by both sides during the war. His ship, the Lykes Lines SS CARLTON, was one of the ships of PQ17 sunk by the Germans. After three weeks in a lifeboat he was picked up by a Norwegian fishing boat. He was then interned as a prisoner of war in German-occupied Norway. He was then being transferred to a POW camp in Germany when the ship he was on was sunk by a British mine. He was again rescued and spent the rest of the war as a POW. I was astonished that after the war he continued as a marine engineer; he was Assistant Second Engineer on the SS UNITED STATES before she was taken out of service.
It is possible to say that, had PQ17 not broken up and Tirpitz sailed to engage, USS Washington would have become the only battleship in the war (feel free to double check that, especially my fellow naval history enthusiasts in the UK) to engage and sink 2 enemy Battleships. (Her confirmed kill being IJN Kirishima at Guadalcanal) And yes, I am aware this is HIGHLY optimistic. But it is fun to think about. Edit: I did not say anything about Duke of York since I had always understood Scharnhorst as a Battlecruiser rather than a Battleship, but it has been pointed out that it used those descriptions interchangeably so what I said also applies to Duke of York.
Well. That was a sh*tshow. Score one for the Nazis. Thanks for the video, Drach. It's important to learn the history of the losses as well as the victories.
Pound’s decision to order the convoy to disperse despite the views of almost all of his subordinates is probably the best example of “if you don’t listen to your advisors, why do you even have them” in the entire history of naval warfare.
Tuscaloosa. Think cheesy Italian accent commenting on an Elephant with a loose tusk. Great maps. Especially that map with the voyage broken down into days. Super stuff!
Great stuff as always Drach. Hearing the details told just makes me shake my head at the preventable loss. Makes one wonder as well what incremental effect the lost tanks, aircraft, other vehicles and munitions would have had in bolstering the Red Army at this critical time of the war.
Interesting & a good presentation up to your usual standard. I remember back in the 70's Ludovic Kennedy on the BBC trying to tell what went wrong in an hour long programme with maps & expert commentary by guests. On another note, a friend's father was in the RN on arctic convoys. As a qualified sniper he often was in the bow shooting at mines. He told of being keep waiting for 3 days outside a port while the Russians painted over any foreign signs on the cargo & labelled it with Cyrillic writing.
A Marine with whom I worked as an analyst, told me of his ARG being sent to deliver relief supplies to Bangladesh. The locals would not permit delivery of aid until crates and pallets had been repainted or labeled as having come from the government of Bangladesh. The ARG departed when it became clear that the three Bangladeshi trawlers several weeks to offload cargo.
And this is probably the single worst loss of WWII caused by overestimating the enemy, with the Battle of the Komandorski Islands probably being a distant second. Also: it’s ironic that Duke of York and Washington went on to be the only two of the 29 battleships of the era to actually do their job (killing enemy capital ships in the absence of more cost-effective alternatives)
@@snebbywebby2587 And South Dakota was there alongside the Washington, part of that fight, if more on the taking rather than dealing end, but surviving a beating is also a BB job.
My uncle Walter Vanaman worked on the Iranian infrastructure project and later on the Ledo-Stilwell road in India. He wrote extensively about his experience in Iran.
@@bkjeong4302 Without Tirpitz in the picture, the convoy would not have scattered. Including the ships and their cargo, roughly 500-600 million dollars went down - more than twice the cost of building all four of Germany's battleships.
I first learned about the convoy disaster many years ago watching Jeremy Clarkson documentary on UA-cam. Wasn't till I picked up the book The Battle of the Atlantic by Jonathan Dimbleby during Covid that I learned in detail of the convoy. I hope to pick up more books on it in the future
It sure seemed to my that the Allied escorts could have handled any surface threat that could have been sent after the convoy. The subsurface and aerial threats were a threat but to sacrifice over 40 ships was a huge mistake.
So much rage. The fallout led to artic convoys being put on hold for a bit, King going "You all are fucking idiots" and moving US forces to the Pacific.
In Kenneth Macksey's brilliant alternate history "Operation Sea Lion" (which reads as if it were an actual history from an alternate universe) the Kreigsmarine basically sends every warship they have afloat towards the English Channel in an effort to keep the Royal Navy busy long enough for the invasion fleet to cross the channel. It was of course expensive for the Kriegsmarine- but also for the Royal Navy. Germany losing the bulk of their surface fleet in 1940 in exchange for Great Britain was an excellent trade, given what happened to the Kriegsmarine in our timeline. This prevented the Americans from using Great Britain as an immense unsinkable aircraft carrier parked just off the coast of France. NOTE: Working from memory here- need to dig out my copy and reread it to check the details. This is a must read for any WWII history fan.
Unfortunately, Macksey's book is riddled with inaccuracies. The German surface fleet at the time, for example, in terms of operational ships, consisted of one heavy cruiser, seven destroyers, four light cruisers, seven torpedo boats (the equivalent of destroyer escorts) a handful of minesweepers, and around thirteen S boats. Compared to what the Royal Navy had in terms of the Home Fleet at Rosyth, let alone the 70 or so destroyers and light cruisers within five hours steaming of Dover, the supposed German Fleet would not have caused much, if any, delay at all. I fear Macksey was rather free and easy with facts, in order to make his idea of a German landing possible. Oh, and yes, I do have the book, and have read it several times.
I was bracing for a horror story. I vividly remember reading HMS Ulysses by Alastair McClean when i was young. I know it's a fictional parallel but it has always stuck with me and I think it's what started a life long love of the sea.
10:21 Unless someone from Alabama knows better than me, Tuscaloosa is pronounced as tuh-skuh-loo-suh, not toos-skuh-loo-suh. :) 22:07 "[...] which slipped through the escort screen, and promptly missed with all its torpedoes." I damn near spit out and choked on my drink at the same time.
My Great Uncle, Capt. J.O. Sieber, was Master of the SS 'Pan Atlantic', sunk on July 6 by aircraft attack. Another ship picked up the survivors days later, but this ship was torpedoed soon afterwards. When Capt. Sieber finally got back home to Mobile, he had nothing good to say about the Royal Navy.
"Coxswain in the northern convoys" by Sydney A. Kerslake RNR, is a brilliant read. It covers both PQ 17 and JW 51B (The battle in the Barents Sea) from the viewpoint of an ex-fisherman serving on an armed trawler, The Northern Gem. These small ships are often overlooked, as are the men who served on them.
If we’re playing what-if, if Washington suffered battle damage against Tirpitz in July, would she have been at Guadalcanal in November to sink Kirishima?
Very good, sir! And does Gatch's ship still get sent into the Slot at night on its own? And if it does, does she survive the encounter? She got away IRL with just the black eye and cauliflower ear because Lee weighed in so quickly, after all...
Could you PLEASE maybe do an alternate history video on that possibility of Tirpitz actually sailing and getting caught in a gunfight with Duke of York and Washington? That would be awesome!😃
I'm ex military NCO (Rock and a Hard Place)I understand the pre-guessing sweats, But I do also believe, the SAS moto, He Who Dares Win, and Nelson would have worn their badge encrusted in Diamonds upon his Sea-coat, But that's me Armchair Admiral bit out the way, But as a Brit yacht sailor, the thought of those Sailors deaths, give me nightmares, So for those, that go down to the Sea in boats, I salute you,
It would have been almost a repeat of the destruction of the Bismark, with Duke of York being the sister ship of the King George V, and the Washington nicely filling in for the Rodney, as both had 16" guns.
@@stuartaaron613 except the guns on the Washington were quite a bit more powerful than the ones on the Rodney. Plus Washington had modern radar gun control.
I mean, how did the author guy call him a coward? It seems like they took the unknown danger of enemy surface vessels over the known danger of enemy aircraft and submarines, not because they where afraid of the enemy but because the officers where afraid of ignoring their medically compromised senior officer's commands, and the consequences that would bring. I was only paying half attention though.
David Irving was a complete a*****e who got everything wrong about WW2. He was a rabid holocaust denier along with everything else. Irving tried to assert that Hitler knew nothing of the Holocaust. Irving also managed to ignore the fact that the entire PQ-17 operation was being directly micro-managed by the Admiralty in direct contravention to the entire history of the RN: leave the tactical decisions to the man on the spot. I cannot blame Pound too much for this debacle: his severe and lethal illness was not known at the time. We do not know to what extent the Admiralty had provided any opposing advice. As for Irving, that POS was sued successfully for libel and slander by the officer he libeled for what was then a record penalty levied by a British court.
Greetings and Salutations! Thank you Drax for another insightful and thrilling episode of Naval History. As an Icelander, I am very intrested in the History of the Russian Convoys. I am also intrested in the History of the HMS Ashanti. Was she involved in PQ 17? Perhaps as part of the 14 Destroyers screening the Home Fleet? All the best, thanks again, Billi.
Love the videos drach!, I'd be eager for some more in-depth breakdowns of ships engineering ect!, also side note, I hurd the jean bart had poison gass shells planned for her, is this accurate and how do you think this would work? Thanks drach!
Having incomplete and maybe out of date information - and / or sources of information that were conflicting or just plain wrong were things that the Admiralty could do little about. But the inability to provide clear and coherent orders was inexcusable.
Another great video Drach! I love your work, however, as I’m sure at least one other person has pointed out, the USS Tuscaloosa, which you pronounced Too-scaloosa is actually said Tusk-aloosa, in fact older maps of the town spell it Tuskaloosa. There’s probably only a few people that care but I thought you might want to know.
A good bit of advice. Don't scatter in a frozen ocean like the Artic. The elements hazards alone is as bad as an foe let alone if the weather changes with a storm. Convoy PQ 17 command had no sense as sure scatter in normal preferably calm seas but the Artic even today is lunacy. Honestly the are lucky only lost merchant shipping & no capital ships that could not be replaced easily.
Thing about _Ayrshire_ was that she also had some depth charges for anti sub work... So Gradwell had them all moved to the bow and him and the trawler's civilian engineer wired them all up to a detonator on the bridge cockpit - Gradwell's intentions being if he saw _Tirpitz_ to attempt to ram and do her in with the suicide attack. After her hiding trick, she then found other ships at an island attempting to discharge cargo and leave before leading them all in to great cheers from the Soviets
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Did the decoy force actually send shells into Norway in order to sell it? If they did, they would probably warrant the same response as when Glowworm dueled with Admiral Hipper.
Of all the Pre-Dreadnought classes, which was the most effective/the best
I know this is a subject we don't usually cover, But do we know the name of that brave? German pilot, who risked his aircraft to save the crew of the downed Torpedo Plane?
I'm curious who took the photo of the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen in her island disguise, was it a crew member, propaganda picture?
Regarding the comment at about 28:00 about how a RN officer couldn't imagine having a fast capital ship that close to a target like PQ17 without attacking, how would it have gone if the sides had been reversed?
My late father was a yeoman of signals on HMS Keppel during PQ17. He was on watch when the infamous signals came through and was obviously one of those who had to relay the signals to the convoy. This was one of the only times he spoke about the war, this was due to the High Court action for defamation taken by Broome against the "historian" David Irving, when he was accused of cowardice in Irving's book on the convoy. My father supported Broome all the way. He said that when Broome made his decision to join the cruiser force the crew assumed they were going into imminent action, and in his address to the ship's company stated that if necessary they would ram the Tirpitz. My dad's comment when he was telling me these events was they must have been stupid as they all cheered at this statement.
Wouldn't tirpitz have outgunned the Allied battleships or have been fast enough to disengage if it needed to? It wasn't exactly slow,being able to do 30 knots.
He wouldn't have expected to get close enough but he wanted his crew to be ready for a Fight.
@Rellana1
No, the USS Washington was armed with nine 16 inch guns and the HMS Duke of York had ten 14 inch guns. Bothe were capable of 28 knots. While slightly slower than Tirpitz's 30 knots, the speed difference was not that great to guarantee that the Tirpitz could not be brought to battle. The Tirpitz was armed with eight 15 inch guns.
The Washington's main battery was clearly superior to that of Tirpitz, while the Duke of Yorks's was probably roughly equal.
The two allied battleships were clearly superior in fire power and would have quickly overwhelmed the Tirpitz. The speed differential was not great enough to guarantee that Tirpitz could escape. It would depend upon the tactical situation.
@@mahbriggs Tirpitz' guns penetrated as much armor as the 16/45 on the NC and SD classes, had less dispersion and had a faster ROF - and penetrated almost twice as much as the guns on KGV. Tirpitz' AP shell also had a larger bursting charge than the US super heavy shells and the British shells. The curator of the US battleship USS New Jersey compared the guns of his ship and Bismarck, and was surprised of how little difference there was in favor of New Jersey.
@@mahbriggs Indeed. With an aircraft-carrier out there as well 'Tirpitz' would have been at a disadvantage as once spotted the heavy cruisers would have vectored in on her position as well. Royal Navy commanders were expected to be aggressive even when technically out-gunned. 'Tirpitz' might have taken down a couple of large vessels but in a straight-up fight would have been overwhelmed before she could escape,
For those interested Captain Jack Broome in 1972 wrote a book "Convoy is to Scatter" following the court case. It has a lot of the Admiralty signals and orders regarding the convoy from its formation, and also includes witness statement quotes from the transcript of the court case., as well as Broome's own thoughts and feelings of the events.
I'm sure you've probably seen it but Jeremy Clarkson did an excellent documentary/ movie on the subject PQ17 An Arctic Convoy Disaster
Hi, I literally just stumbled across an old episode of BBC's Play For Today titled, 'P.Q. 17' It stars Richard Briers as Commander Jack Broome with Patrick Troughton as Commodore Londonderry. It's available on UA-cam and having just sat and watched it, I can highly recommend it. From the days when the BBC produced quality television, a time sadly passed. Amazing coincidence since I was looking for a Billy Connolly play.
Thanks for recommendation, always for a new read.
During Desert Shield I sailed with the son of a PQ-17 survivor. His father was Chief Engineer on one of the ships. In 1994 one of my Ship Handling Simulator instructor was a PQ-17 Survivor. The instructor was drafted into the US Navy during the Korean War because "he didn't serve in WWII."
"Didn't serve in wwii,"
....sigh
@StevenPalmer-cs5ix Wow. See how narrow minded our gov't can be? Man, talking about getting screwed over?
@@kennethdeanmiller7324don't believe everything you read on the Internet
It took until 2012 for the UK government to authorise a medal for those involved in the Arctic Convoys. I got one for my late father and added it to his set framed on my wall. It meant that the old bugger then beat me by one medal 8 to 7, after all these years!
@alanlawson4180 who knows, the government couldnalways authorize a medal for something you did, after you're dead too. You couls still tie him.
"I intend to stay on the surface."
"So do I."
😂😂😂
Admiral idea
Ayrshire and his group of merchants pretending to be icebergs was one of the cleverest ideas i ever heard of. And one of most hilarious as well...
Nothing to see here, just a bunch of tanks in their natural habitat, sunning on top of the icebergs before they go hunting for seals and fish...
Also love german u-boats getting in on "let's pretend we're icebergs" action.
Reminds me of HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, though that one had to pretend to be a small island as there aren't that many icebergs in Indonesia.
@@theawickward2255 imagine the crew of a Japanese destroyer watching an island sail past them at 15knots.🤣🤣
@@korbell1089 Yeah, most islands don't have a wake! But also when you are on a ship & it's moving sometimes it's not easy to tell if something else is moving.
@@kennethdeanmiller7324 It's been a long while since I last read about that bit, but iirc the Crijnssen only traveled during night hours and the camouflage was mostly used to foil aerial spotting during the day when they anchored near other lagoons and as such would be quite easily missed.
What most surprised me whilst reading documents at Kew concerning the Arctic Convoys, was the ingratitude and belligerent behaviour of the Soviets when demanding replacements for materiel lost due to ships being sunk. These losses were vast and for us to replace them would have seriously undermined our own forces build up and supplies for the North African Campaign ...... yet the Soviets denigrated our aid as being both minor and insufficient both during and after the war.
Some things never change…
Its funny because Soviet leadership begrudgingly admitted they won because of that aid. Hell, Stalin admitted it well before the war was over. ""At a dinner toast with Allied leaders during the Tehran Conference in December 1943, Stalin added: “The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.”"
And their troops preferred allied equipment over their own, a fact Soviet leadership hated for many reasons. If you have a chance to compare the T-34 and M4 Sherman in person, do so. Its no surprise why Soviet tankers fought tooth and nail to keep their Shermans when they had them and refused to switch to T-34s. The T-34 is a veritable death trap for the crew in comparison, not to mention that if you throw away the mountain of myth around the vehicle (propaganda typically spread by tankies and unwitting idiots), it was very subpar in basically every aspect of its design and a far cry from being the Soviet supertank its depicted as.
One of my favorite quotes on some of the main issues the T-34 faced from Aberdeen evaluators, "The deficiency of our diesels is the criminally poor air cleaners on the T-34. The Americans consider that only a saboteur could have constructed such a device." Men who faced them in Korea with Centurions and Shermans (their main competitors for over a decade by that point) had nothing good to say about the T-34s they faced. Not that they faired better in WW2. To quote Christos T.'s article myth busting the T-34: "According to a Soviet report (29) in the period summer 1943 - March 1945 the probability of the T-34’s armor being penetrated if hit was from 88-97%, thus any round that managed to hit the tank was practically certain to penetrate the armor." The armor also had a very high tendency to spall badly so even when you didn't get a penetration you'd still get a face full of shrapnel from your own armor anyways.
But the Soviets wanted people to think they were best and baddest thing in the world to puff themselves up like a blowfish, and the Germans wanted their people to think the Soviets were the biggest and baddest to fearmonger and get more volunteers to fight them. And give the Germans another excuse as to why they were losing, much like the "Russian winter" one was used to cover up bad strategy and leadership.
Quick aside, the Russian Winter myth is old as fuck, the other big notorious example being Napoleon, despite the fact that Napoleon never actually waged war/battle in the Russian winter and his army was out of Russia before winter even started. In Hitler's case, Rasputitsa played a bigger role than winter, the infamous "season of mud" that happens before and after winter. Winter didn't cause their invasion to fail, it was merely one of the final nails on a coffin that was basically already sealed shut (or a last kick in the balls, take your pick) due to a large amount of factors, command incompetence being very high on that list.
Anyways, so now we have to deal with tankies acting like one of the worst tanks of WW2 for loss rates and crew survivability is actually a communist superweapon that nobody could match (just ignore the tens of thousands of destroyed T-34s that say otherwise).
Sorry for the rambling, just thought it would be fun to share and give a random bit of insight on a topic (or several) that interests and amuses me. If you want to know more on the T-34 and its myths, look up the well-sourced article called "WWII Myths - T-34 Best Tank of the war" by Christos T.
They were literally the worst allies to work with.
@@AndrewGivens They werent allies, they were enemies to both sides at some point in the war and to everyone after it.
Equally @@AndrewGivens they were the only large alliy we had until the US swung into action ..... "needs must when the Blitzkreig drives" was probably Churchill's inclination.
Your conclusion matches my own from the first time I learned of PQ-17 in the series "Great Blunders of WW2" as a rare allied grand blunder. Though it didn't mention the admiral's brain tumor, which certainly must have been affecting his judgment. What puzzled me even then was wondering why they were trying to direct a battle from 2,000 miles away rather than simply passing the information on and letting the others like Broome do as they could. Even then, I remember being baffled by the fact that they were ordered to scatter when the heavy escort was nearby. "You have two battleships that are *each* a match for 'The Beast' on top of an aircraft carrier, against a naval unit notoriously poor at dealing with aircraft. You should *want* that thing to sally forth so you can kill it outside of its metaphorical protected "den.""
So yeah, to me it seems that this is another example of "why attempting to micromanage is normally a bad idea."
Thank you for your take on it, Drach. Been a rough past few weeks, so seeing your expert analysis, even if it is dealing with something so grim, was a nice treat. :)
I first learned about PQ-17 from "Great Blunders" as well- seems like it could have been a missed opportunity to kill Tirpitz had she actually sortied to intercept the convoy
22:27
During this attack, some of Wainwright's sailors drew rifles and ammunition from the ship's armory and took pot shots at the German bombers. There's a great photo of one sailor wearing a disposable cotton bandolier and armed with a Springfield M1903 with the rifle sling looped over his arm to steady his aim.
My father served the entire WWII as an RO (Sparks) in the Merchant Navy (Blue Flue line) - sailed on Arctic convoys for a time. Was never torpedoed or sunk throughout the conflict and became requested by Captains as a good luck mascot. I think that must have been unimaginable stress waiting/wondering......
Roger Hill, captain of the Ledbury was so appalled at the RNs abandonment of the Red Dusters during PQ17 he swore he would never do it again, no matter what his orders were. This had very important consequences as Ledbury was one of the destroyers that carried Ohio into Valletta harbour in August ‘42.
@@geordiedog1749 Just read his story. Thank you for leading me to it.
and I thought the lack of ability to 'stick with the plan' was a recent phenomena
Yeah Tanker Ohio made the difference for Malta !!!
Contrast the orders to abandon the convoy issued by Pound to the philosophy espoused by Admiral Cunningham the year prior.
"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue."
Clearly the wrong man was in charge of the Admiralty and had been for a while, belatedly corrected by replacing Pound with Cunningham after the former's death. Strangely, relations with between US Admiral King and the Royal Navy got a lot better after that happened.
Was coming into the comments to say I had read Destroyer Captain. Ledbury was in all the s**t missions of the early war, it seems. He would have done better to accept the suggestion he move to the Staff for a while; he might have had a longer career in the RN if he had, and it's easy to criticize from the outside...
Drach, Thanks for another fine video and for the photo of Liberty Ship Samuel Chase. (37:20) My father was crewman on that ship, Dec 44 to Jan 45. NY--Cherbourg--Swansea--Delaware. By coincidence I was just reading his fine 2-page memoir which brings to life the Chase and the N Atlantic. I give just a few examples.
Approaching the British Isles, the escorts were more active, and dropping more depth charges. In a light moment, someone said "they were nearing the area where Irish subs could cause trouble."
They arrived in France just after the Battle of the Bulge and my Dad noted the many wounded shipping back to England. He mentioned the hospital ship Llandovery Castle.
The Samuel Chase stopped at Swansea Wales to take on ballast for the return trip. In mid-Atlantic a gale shifted the ballast causing a 15-degree list. To restore trim, hundreds of tons of slag and shale had to be repositioned. The deck gang turned to and, with no shovels on board, did it manually using buckets. "A tough way to do that job."'
Finally back at Delaware Bay, my father noted a large unfamiliar warship, concluding it was a USN battle cruiser. I confirmed this detail. On 1/17/1945 the USS Guam departed Philadelphia for Okinawa.
In sum: Despite arduous work, bad weather, and fear, it was always interesting. And not as bad as PQ-17.
Thanks again
51:25 By all means, Drach - PLEASE speculate. That would be a hell of a video.
Some of my favorite vids of his are the Last Ride of the High Seas Fleet and the one about Ching Lee meeting Center Force off Samar.
History: Hey, British Admiralty! How many egregiously bad mistakes do you want to make in one operation?
British Admiralty: Yes!!!
US High Command: I know I make my fair share of mistakes but what the fuck?
@@UchihaPercy To be fair, the First Sea Lord, who is the operational commander of the Royal Navy (so the RN's equivalent to Admiral King of the USN) was suffering from an at this point undiagnosed brain tumour.
This was not diagnosed until July 1943, when it was diagnosed he resigned, and died shortly afterwards.
Its a shame really, because until that tumour started affecting his judgement, and it did, he was known as a wily, cunning, and very capable commander. I wonder just how much that tumour affected his judgement in the case of PQ-17. Given how he deteriorated over the following months its probably safe to assume its effect was considerable, though probably not the sole reason behind the debacle.
In the nature of things, disasters tend to be preceded by a lot of mistakes. If you look into the history of a disaster, you should expect to see a lot of things go wrong. That is why it was a disaster. Of course, every great victory is a great disaster for someone.
@@alganhar1 Long before this, he was already known to be suffering from multiple medical maladies which *should* have disqualified him from command and he was known to fall asleep in actually important staff meetings. Or while briefing Churchill.
It makes Admiral King's absolute hatred of the British look a lot more reasonable, doesn't it? If this is the kind of idiocy he had observed from the Royal Navy...
Sometimes it seems like the World Wars play out like some demented Monty Python movie due to various ironies, friendly fire and dumb luck.
After watching the WW1,WW2 and now korea week by week channel. That analogy fits well. www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo
wars are just like that, it's part of the tragedy
The implication of Tirpitz, the idea of it conceptually, did far more damage to the allied war effort than the actual ship ever did.
Fleet in being? more like fleet living in your walls
Is Tirpitz in the room with us now?
Very well done. Your restraint regarding the First Sea Lord and his physician are noted and appreciated.
With hindsight, Dudley Pound should not have been First Sea Lord at that time
Thank you for this. Heard a lot about this convoy over the years, but this is the best account I've seen.
You are the only UA-camr I don’t have to watch on 2x speed. Thank you.
David Irving is very wrong about another aspect of WW2 history? How shocked I am.
You mean Irving was also wrong in saying that Hitler was the protector of Jews in Europe and that gas chambers were a fairytale? Shocking indeed.
My school friend's father(Rodger Milner) helped write the 1981 BBC dramatization of PQ17. He also played the part of Admiral Naismith
This is the fullest explanation of the story that I have heard.
Thanks you.
And this inspired HMS Ulyses, one of those "if only this was made into a decent film" books.
Yes, HMS Ulysses was an excellent novel that I borrowed from the local library a few times. The shadow of PQ-17 hangs over the action of the story, and motivates many of the crew. BTW the first read of the novel was the first time I really learned about the PQ-17 disaster and its effects on the Atlantic naval war.
HMS Ulysses and The Cruel Sea probably are required reads for the period, fictional novels or not.
I doubt one movie would do justice to the story. Maybe a good miniseries could cover the full book.
I still remember listening to the audiobook while painting my kitchen about 20 years ago.
I recently re-read Captain Broome's book "Convoy is to Scatter". It really is an excellent account. I agree with him about joining the cruiser force, I don't see what else he could have done given what he knew at the time. He must have thought that the cruisers were going to sacrifice themselves in order to hold up the Tirpitz and whatever else came out long enough for the British battleships to arrive. And the destroyers would be a useful distraction as well as the direct danger to Tirpitz.
153 men lost seems like an absurdly low toll for a mess of this size.
Especially in the Arctic. The rescue efforts were obviously superb, when you bear into account the rough seas and the freezing everything 😮
"No one here but us ice burgs :3"
50:05 That brief pause before "...author" :D.
The perfect personification of the phrase "lions led by donkeys".
the five minute guide that lasted 52 minutes. I loved every minute of it.
One of my treasured memories of my time as an active engine room volunteer aboard the SS JOHN W BROWN was working with a crusty but very approachable veteran marine engineer by the name of Charlie ("Blackie") Blockston [sp?] He used to joke about having been sunk by both sides during the war.
His ship, the Lykes Lines SS CARLTON, was one of the ships of PQ17 sunk by the Germans. After three weeks in a lifeboat he was picked up by a Norwegian fishing boat. He was then interned as a prisoner of war in German-occupied Norway. He was then being transferred to a POW camp in Germany when the ship he was on was sunk by a British mine. He was again rescued and spent the rest of the war as a POW.
I was astonished that after the war he continued as a marine engineer; he was Assistant Second Engineer on the SS UNITED STATES before she was taken out of service.
I always like the additional information you provide about events. They provide reasoned logic and understanding.
It is possible to say that, had PQ17 not broken up and Tirpitz sailed to engage, USS Washington would have become the only battleship in the war (feel free to double check that, especially my fellow naval history enthusiasts in the UK) to engage and sink 2 enemy Battleships. (Her confirmed kill being IJN Kirishima at Guadalcanal)
And yes, I am aware this is HIGHLY optimistic. But it is fun to think about.
Edit: I did not say anything about Duke of York since I had always understood Scharnhorst as a Battlecruiser rather than a Battleship, but it has been pointed out that it used those descriptions interchangeably so what I said also applies to Duke of York.
A very cool "what if" battle
If Washington and Duke of York jointly sank Tirpitz then Duke of York would have two kills as she sank the Scharnhorst in 1943.
2 REAL battleships, unlike Duke of York.
I just say that because I know it'll get somebody going.
@@bradenhagen7977 That, sir, is an inmitigated frabrication!
@@bradenhagen7977 The Kongo's were not real Battleships either... They were Battlecruisers pretending to be Battleships.....
Well. That was a sh*tshow. Score one for the Nazis. Thanks for the video, Drach. It's important to learn the history of the losses as well as the victories.
Pound’s decision to order the convoy to disperse despite the views of almost all of his subordinates is probably the best example of “if you don’t listen to your advisors, why do you even have them” in the entire history of naval warfare.
Tuscaloosa. Think cheesy Italian accent commenting on an Elephant with a loose tusk.
Great maps. Especially that map with the voyage broken down into days.
Super stuff!
Disguising your ship as an iceberg--Jack Aubrey would be proud.
Great stuff as always Drach. Hearing the details told just makes me shake my head at the preventable loss. Makes one wonder as well what incremental effect the lost tanks, aircraft, other vehicles and munitions would have had in bolstering the Red Army at this critical time of the war.
Interesting & a good presentation up to your usual standard.
I remember back in the 70's Ludovic Kennedy on the BBC trying to tell what went wrong in an hour long programme with maps & expert commentary by guests.
On another note, a friend's father was in the RN on arctic convoys. As a qualified sniper he often was in the bow shooting at mines. He told of being keep waiting for 3 days outside a port while the Russians painted over any foreign signs on the cargo & labelled it with Cyrillic writing.
A Marine with whom I worked as an analyst, told me of his ARG being sent to deliver relief supplies to Bangladesh. The locals would not permit delivery of aid until crates and pallets had been repainted or labeled as having come from the government of Bangladesh. The ARG departed when it became clear that the three Bangladeshi trawlers several weeks to offload cargo.
Great way to start the morning. Thanks Drach!
And this is probably the single worst loss of WWII caused by overestimating the enemy, with the Battle of the Komandorski Islands probably being a distant second.
Also: it’s ironic that Duke of York and Washington went on to be the only two of the 29 battleships of the era to actually do their job (killing enemy capital ships in the absence of more cost-effective alternatives)
KGV, Rodney and the salvaged standards did too
Uhh, aren't you forgetting a few ships there?
@@snebbywebby2587 And South Dakota was there alongside the Washington, part of that fight, if more on the taking rather than dealing end, but surviving a beating is also a BB job.
Bismark managed to do that too.
DoY certainly did her part, but Scharnhorst was overwhelmed by an entire battlegroup and hit by no less than 11 torpedoes.
Bout time ye got around to this one Drach, thank you 🙏
The most under subbed channel on UA-cam. Thank you Drach for yet another superb lecture in my on going education.
Consistently awesome videos. Thanks Drach.
Do agree, just amazing!
Sailed with a captain who had been on PQ17 as a young cadet. He hated the RN with a passion.
I've been waiting for you to do a video on PQ-17 for many years, and I am so glad it's finally arrived.
Another video ideal for data entry and listening to while managing a museum collection.
Thanks drach
My uncle Walter Vanaman worked on the Iranian infrastructure project and later on the Ledo-Stilwell road in India. He wrote extensively about his experience in Iran.
Tirpitz wins by doing absolutely nothing.
Tirpitz remains a failure, Nazi Germany wins (or gets the chance to pull off a win) by doing nothing and not using their failure of a ship.
Sounds like some of my management..
But doing it very well.
Whole point of a fleet in being! A bit like MAD Doctrine but with less Bang & Glowing.
@@bkjeong4302 Without Tirpitz in the picture, the convoy would not have scattered. Including the ships and their cargo, roughly 500-600 million dollars went down - more than twice the cost of building all four of Germany's battleships.
The Admiralty was acting like Supermarina. And Cape Matapan had already proven why one shouldn't act like Supermarina...
I first learned about the convoy disaster many years ago watching Jeremy Clarkson documentary on UA-cam.
Wasn't till I picked up the book The Battle of the Atlantic by Jonathan Dimbleby during Covid that I learned in detail of the convoy.
I hope to pick up more books on it in the future
It sure seemed to my that the Allied escorts could have handled any surface threat that could have been sent after the convoy. The subsurface and aerial threats were a threat but to sacrifice over 40 ships was a huge mistake.
One can only imagine what happened when the reports on PQ 17 reached Admiral Ernest J. King.
So much rage. The fallout led to artic convoys being put on hold for a bit, King going "You all are fucking idiots" and moving US forces to the Pacific.
At times, I've been convinced that Adm. King likely hated his own mother. g
This really highlights the Admiralty's command and control verses the US Pacific Fleet. Nimitz would never try to direct a battle from shore.
In Kenneth Macksey's brilliant alternate history "Operation Sea Lion" (which reads as if it were an actual history from an alternate universe) the Kreigsmarine basically sends every warship they have afloat towards the English Channel in an effort to keep the Royal Navy busy long enough for the invasion fleet to cross the channel. It was of course expensive for the Kriegsmarine- but also for the Royal Navy. Germany losing the bulk of their surface fleet in 1940 in exchange for Great Britain was an excellent trade, given what happened to the Kriegsmarine in our timeline. This prevented the Americans from using Great Britain as an immense unsinkable aircraft carrier parked just off the coast of France.
NOTE: Working from memory here- need to dig out my copy and reread it to check the details. This is a must read for any WWII history fan.
Unfortunately, Macksey's book is riddled with inaccuracies. The German surface fleet at the time, for example, in terms of operational ships, consisted of one heavy cruiser, seven destroyers, four light cruisers, seven torpedo boats (the equivalent of destroyer escorts) a handful of minesweepers, and around thirteen S boats. Compared to what the Royal Navy had in terms of the Home Fleet at Rosyth, let alone the 70 or so destroyers and light cruisers within five hours steaming of Dover, the supposed German Fleet would not have caused much, if any, delay at all.
I fear Macksey was rather free and easy with facts, in order to make his idea of a German landing possible.
Oh, and yes, I do have the book, and have read it several times.
Been waiting for you to cover this I was just looking and histograph was the best I could find last week - super pumped
That 3 Vs 1 battleship beatdown would have been impressive. Or even 4 heavy cruisers Vs the 2 panzerschiff.
PQ 17 carried cargo worth 700 million dollars - 10 times the cost of building Tirpitz.
I was bracing for a horror story.
I vividly remember reading HMS Ulysses by Alastair McClean when i was young. I know it's a fictional parallel but it has always stuck with me and I think it's what started a life long love of the sea.
Perfect video to listen to while purging xenos
Im doing the exact same thing! To arms brother
For Emperor and Imperium!
Is that a euphemism for morning dump?
@@davidkanengieterIt is a reference to alien species in Warhammer 40K, which just had a game released for it that is very popular.
😂😂😂
My great grandfather was a ships master of one of the liberty ships in PQ-17. His ship was sunk by U-255
35:50 I love the idea of a maneuver kill by a trawler lmao
10:21 Unless someone from Alabama knows better than me, Tuscaloosa is pronounced as tuh-skuh-loo-suh, not toos-skuh-loo-suh. :)
22:07 "[...] which slipped through the escort screen, and promptly missed with all its torpedoes." I damn near spit out and choked on my drink at the same time.
Tus-ka-loosa. I live in Tuscaloosa, AL. ROLL TIDE ROLL !!!!
My favourite state for hunting elephants, because in Alabama the tusk are looser.
Thank you Groucho.
My Great Uncle, Capt. J.O. Sieber, was Master of the SS 'Pan Atlantic', sunk on July 6 by aircraft attack. Another ship picked up the survivors days later, but this ship was torpedoed soon afterwards. When Capt. Sieber finally got back home to Mobile, he had nothing good to say about the Royal Navy.
32.28...REALLY gonna need that list of curses someday. Historically, I'd imagine they've changed.
16k views in 7 hours on naval history; good people around, no doubt
Wouldn't it have been something for the Washington to have both the Kirishima and the Tirpitz on her scorecard?
@@ald1144 or Duke of York to have Scharnhorst and Tirpitz..
@@teddywoo83 Indeed.
An excellent example of the power of a Fleet In Being
Last time I was this early, PQ - 17 was still a cohesive unit!
"Coxswain in the northern convoys" by Sydney A. Kerslake RNR, is a brilliant read. It covers both PQ 17 and JW 51B (The battle in the Barents Sea) from the viewpoint of an ex-fisherman serving on an armed trawler, The Northern Gem. These small ships are often overlooked, as are the men who served on them.
I have the brass builder's plate off of the Liberty Ship S.S. SAMUEL CHASE, one of the 11 PQ17 survivors.
Butterfly effect in action: a single cell in one mans brain mutating indirectly leads to scores of dead sailors.
Such is life for those doing the frontline job.
The realm of speculation?
Nah, we’re definitely getting a Tirpitz vs Duke of York and Washington video!
Brilliant, thanks Drach
If we’re playing what-if, if Washington suffered battle damage against Tirpitz in July, would she have been at Guadalcanal in November to sink Kirishima?
Very good, sir! And does Gatch's ship still get sent into the Slot at night on its own? And if it does, does she survive the encounter? She got away IRL with just the black eye and cauliflower ear because Lee weighed in so quickly, after all...
I could never narrate this.
Much respect!
Could you PLEASE maybe do an alternate history video on that possibility of Tirpitz actually sailing and getting caught in a gunfight with Duke of York and Washington? That would be awesome!😃
I'm ex military NCO (Rock and a Hard Place)I understand the pre-guessing sweats, But I do also believe, the SAS moto, He Who Dares Win, and Nelson would have worn their badge encrusted in Diamonds upon his Sea-coat, But that's me Armchair Admiral bit out the way, But as a Brit yacht sailor, the thought of those Sailors deaths, give me nightmares, So for those, that go down to the Sea in boats, I salute you,
The prolific.... ...author... ..classic
Outstandingly done sir.
Duke of York and Washington together could certainly have handled that older German Dreadnaught
It would have been almost a repeat of the destruction of the Bismark, with Duke of York being the sister ship of the King George V, and the Washington nicely filling in for the Rodney, as both had 16" guns.
@@stuartaaron613 except the guns on the Washington were quite a bit more powerful than the ones on the Rodney. Plus Washington had modern radar gun control.
@@kevinbarry71 Which would have made things even worse for Tirpitz.
I mean, how did the author guy call him a coward? It seems like they took the unknown danger of enemy surface vessels over the known danger of enemy aircraft and submarines, not because they where afraid of the enemy but because the officers where afraid of ignoring their medically compromised senior officer's commands, and the consequences that would bring. I was only paying half attention though.
David Irving was a complete a*****e who got everything wrong about WW2. He was a rabid holocaust denier along with everything else. Irving tried to assert that Hitler knew nothing of the Holocaust. Irving also managed to ignore the fact that the entire PQ-17 operation was being directly micro-managed by the Admiralty in direct contravention to the entire history of the RN: leave the tactical decisions to the man on the spot. I cannot blame Pound too much for this debacle: his severe and lethal illness was not known at the time. We do not know to what extent the Admiralty had provided any opposing advice.
As for Irving, that POS was sued successfully for libel and slander by the officer he libeled for what was then a record penalty levied by a British court.
Greetings and Salutations! Thank you Drax for another insightful and thrilling episode of Naval History. As an Icelander, I am very intrested in the History of the Russian Convoys. I am also intrested in the History of the HMS Ashanti. Was she involved in PQ 17? Perhaps as part of the 14 Destroyers screening the Home Fleet? All the best, thanks again, Billi.
I've heard about this convoy before, and now I get to find out why
There is a great Norwegian film about this tragedy called "Konvoi" and i highyl reccomend it.
Thanks!
Again, nice wwork Drach. Episode sugestion: Sinking of HMS Victoria in 1893.
Love the videos drach!, I'd be eager for some more in-depth breakdowns of ships engineering ect!, also side note, I hurd the jean bart had poison gass shells planned for her, is this accurate and how do you think this would work?
Thanks drach!
Flustercluck
Having incomplete and maybe out of date information - and / or sources of information that were conflicting or just plain wrong were things that the Admiralty could do little about. But the inability to provide clear and coherent orders was inexcusable.
British Admiralty: "We have reviewed our own actions, and discovered that we have done nothing wrong."
I wonder if the US Navy reviewed Ernie King's actions, which led to the second Happy Time and the loss of over 600 allied merchantmen?
A universal issue.
@@EneTheGene Doesn't make it any less wrong.
@@treyhelms5282 True that.
Drach, so British to describe a sinking ship as 'started to settle'
Another great video Drach! I love your work, however, as I’m sure at least one other person has pointed out, the USS Tuscaloosa, which you pronounced Too-scaloosa is actually said Tusk-aloosa, in fact older maps of the town spell it Tuskaloosa. There’s probably only a few people that care but I thought you might want to know.
A good bit of advice.
Don't scatter in a frozen ocean like the Artic.
The elements hazards alone is as bad as an foe let alone if the weather changes with a storm.
Convoy PQ 17 command had no sense as sure scatter in normal preferably calm seas but the Artic even today is lunacy.
Honestly the are lucky only lost merchant shipping & no capital ships that could not be replaced easily.
Again Fascinating and informative thanks very much.
Excellent Video, as always
Walrus vs 138, certainly an interesting fight
Great topic, great video!
Thing about _Ayrshire_ was that she also had some depth charges for anti sub work... So Gradwell had them all moved to the bow and him and the trawler's civilian engineer wired them all up to a detonator on the bridge cockpit - Gradwell's intentions being if he saw _Tirpitz_ to attempt to ram and do her in with the suicide attack. After her hiding trick, she then found other ships at an island attempting to discharge cargo and leave before leading them all in to great cheers from the Soviets
Jury-rigging depth charges for a spicy smooch. That's the most ACME thing I've ever read.
And I'm all for it.
Superb assessment. Period. Bravo.
Thanks Drach.