HMS Glorious - The Most Infamous Carrier Sinking
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- Few sinkings are quite as infamous as HMS Glorious. Outside of the obvious ones like Yamato or Arizona, of course. Because Glorious had the misfortune to be the one and only fleet carrier...lost to enemy gunfire.
It was one thing to lose a carrier to air attack or to submarines. Battleships, though? That was a different story entirely. And this is why Glorious remains a contentious topic, in naval history circles.
Why was she sailing alone, with only two destroyers? Why were no planes scouting ahead? Why were no distress calls answered? Or, alternatively, why were none picked up?
It's such a contentious topic, actually, that I'll be doing a future video dedicated entirely to the sinking. Today's will focus more on Glorious service, in general.
Further Reading:
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Sinking Footage:
• The Sinking of the HMS...
Didn't help that her captain was an ex submariner who didn't understand about naval airpower and wanted to court-martial his Air commander for having the temerity to query the wisdom of a stupid order. That guy was lucky to be at Scapa Flow waiting for Glorious to get back when it was sunk.
Her captain had previously been Executive Officer of another aircraft carrier, HMS Courageous, and had spent some time on secondment to the Air Ministry. Unusually for a senior naval officer at the time, he had actually learned to fly.
The order given to J. B. Heath, Glorious' Commander (Air) was to carry out a strike in support of ground troops. This order had been given to D'Oyly-Hughes by his superior, Admiral Wells. HMS Ark Royal had carried out a number of similar attacks, without any objections from her Commander (Air).
Heath's refusal to plan the strike was on the grounds that it was 'not a proper use of naval aircraft,' which was not his decision to make, and rather went against the tradition that British forces would always seek to support each other in battle. In fact, many of Glorious' air crew thought that 'something should have been done.'
How fortunate that, when ordered to evacuate the BEF not long after this, Admiral Ramsay did not simply choose to disobey on the grounds that such an operation would not be a 'proper use of warships' wasn't it?
The documents regarding her sinkings remaining sealed from public view is one of the great mysteries
It is likely Winston Churchill is the one who gave the order allowing her to leave the battle zone early and lightly guarded -- thus, the records are sealed.
Won't be released till 2045
The Inglorious End of the Glorious: the Release of the Findings of the Board of Enquiry into the Loss of H.M.S. Glorious - it - was actually - released in late 2000 - During the evacuation from Narvik the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and her two escorting destroyers were sunk on 8 June 1940 by the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Analysis of the sequence of events is based on evidence at the subsequent Board of Enquiry (belatedly discovered by the author at the Public Record Office). Captain Guy D’Oyly-Hughes of the Glorious, who was one of 1500 fatal casualties, is criticized for the ship’s not being, in all respects, ready for action.
I was under the impression that Glorious was not warned of the presence of the German ships in order to protect the existence of Ultra intercepts and decoding of Enigma,am I mistaken?
@@NopiusMaximus One of the intelligence officers who worked with ultra asked for a warning to be sent but the admiralty declined. The Royal family (Norway) was used as an excuse for not sending assistance. It was more than a day before any ship arrived and most of the crew in the water died. Every attempt to get those document in parliament has been rebuffed. Only preserving Winston Churchill's reputation is a powerful enough reason not open the archives.
Frankly, I’d argue that she wouldn’t have needed any more escorts if she had aircraft up, and thus been able to find the Twins before they found her and move away undetected.
That said, I do think that even without that massive issue, she might instead have been lost in the same way as Courageous was, a submarine attack.
Once HMS Ardent had sunk, the only resistance left came from HMS Acasta, which had been attempting to protect the Glorious with a smoke screen. As she worked up to full speed, her captain, commander Glasfurd, told the crew, “Our chummy ship [Ardent] is sunk and the Glorious is sinking. You may think we are running away. We are not. The least we can do now is put on a show.” And so the Acasta charged through her own smokescreen to launch repeated torpedo attacks on the two enemy battleships. Despite a deluge of 11′ and 5.9″ gunfire, a torpedo struck Scharnhorst below her aft 11″ turret, causing enormous damage and serious loss of life. Both battleships were hit, but hardly damaged, by Acasta’s little 4.7″ shells. But eventually, German shells struck home, again and again.
As Acasta finally started to sink, and the damaged Scharnhorst limped away, aboard the German flagship Gneisenau the order was given for all men to stand to attention, as the battleship’s war flag was lowered in tribute to “the brave crew of the enemy destroyer, now sinking”.
Only one man survived from the Acasta - a torpedo man who claimed to have fired the one that hit Scharnhorst. But his story of Acadia’s heroic fight was not believed, until it was shown to be true by German reports that became available after the war.
Commander Glasfurd ought to have been a sure bet for a posthumous Victoria Cross, but without the full story being known, he was awarded only a mention in dispatches. Even after the war, there was confusion as to which destroyer had hit the Scharnhorst. The Germans did not know which was which, and the mystery was only finally resolved when a survivor from HMS Ardent spoke out and said it could not have been his ship. Nobody had asked him before.
I've done several videos on the subject of her sinking. I'd recommend Artic Rescue by Ronald Healiss, a survivor of Glorious. It's truly a harrowing account.
"I torpedoed the Scharnhorst" by the destroyer survivor is a title I saw decades ago. Don't know if it's factual or based on records or a novel.
@@HACM-mk3qx Well Scharnhorst did receive a torpedo hit during the battle. I believe I read that first hand account in a book called “Carrier Glorious” or something like that.
@@ImportantNavalHistory She was under repair until November, 1940.
Analysis of the sequence of events is based on evidence at the subsequent Board of Enquiry (belatedly discovered by the author at the Public Record Office).
Captain Guy D’Oyly-Hughes of the Glorious, who was one of 1500 fatal casualties, is criticized for the ship’s not being, in all respects, ready for action.
source - The Inglorious End of the Glorious: the Release of the Findings of the Board of Enquiry into the Loss of H.M.S. Glorious
By James Levy, published August 2000
Britain has a bad history of ships with names that go against their fates: Audacious, Invincible, Glorious, Courageous, Vanguard
AUDACITY
I watched your video on Niizuki, and I think I've come up for a reason as to why she's credited with the torpedo hit. This is assuming that the range was indeed around 22,000-ish yards as is often stated. The other destroyers with her was the Yunagi, and elderly Kamikaze class destroyer, and the Nagatsuki, an elderly Mutsuki class destroyers. Neither of these destroyers were equipped with type 93 long lance torpedoes, and only had maximum ranges of around 15-16,000 yards, meaning Niizuki was the only destroyer of the force that could have scored the hit.
Fascinating
It seems the name, "FLORIDA" is particularly unlucky for ocean liners: in 1909, ANOTHER "FLORIDA" (Italian this time) struck the White Star liner REPUBLIC. Although the REPUBLIC stayed afloat for a long time, all the passengers and crew (that hadn't been killed in the collision, which amounted to 4) were able to take to the boats by being ferried to another ship (which had been drawn to the site by the Marconi operator Jack Binns). The rescue was SO successful that, 3 years later, when another White Star liner got into a rather precarious situation, nobody on board (being aware of the successful REPUBLIC evacuation), figured it would be much of a problem; they'd all be taken onto another undamaged ship, just like those on the REPUBLIC were. The name of THEIR ship was the TITANIC.
Also, the CAMPANIA had originally been a very important, cutting-age liner HERSELF when built in the 1890's. She and her sister ship LUCANIA had held the records for the Blue Riband (the award for the fastest Atlantic crossings) in their days.
Can you talk about Operation Paul and its connection to the loss of HMS Glorious? I think that’s why the documents are under seal still. England didn’t want to admit that it was going to attack Sweden.
I like this video a lot can you do a video on a test conversion designs for HMS glorious
Not sure even the wrecks have been even found, including 2 DD escorts
what is the destroyer at 10:17? the only D45 Pennant number I can find is for a ight Cruiser, (HMS Dauntless,) and the ship in the video looks like a destroyer.
The destroyer is HMS Westminster, a 'W' class boat which by WW2 had been converted to a 'Wair' AA destroyer. Between September 1919 and 1938, her pennant number was indeed D45, but it was changed to L40 after her conversion.
Most, if not all, Wair conversions received the L flag superior.
hey Skynea, I have published a video of the IJN Kongo, in the video, I have made a model of an outdated depiction of mine for how Kongo may look
Correction: HMS Royal Oak was the first British capital ship sunk in ww2 (14 October 1939), not Glorious.
...I didn't say Glorious was the first. I said *Courageous* was the first. Which she was. September 17th, 1939. Not even a month in.
Apologies you did say Courageous@@skyneahistory2306