Thanks for taking the time to watch this video, I hope you enjoy it. I'm really excited about how the channel is coming together and you could help grow this community further by Subscribing and help me to create future videos for your enjoyment. Thanks.
Jackie Fisher was a mad genius with many good ideas but his notion that "speed is armour" was a disaster proven at Jutland. The "tin clads", which Courageous and her sisters were called, proved useless as gunships, they had too few main guns for long range accuracy and were so lightly built that they took damage from their own armament. Eventually they came into their own as carriers, a shame they were lost so early. RIP to two fine ships and the men who manned them. Thank you for a fine video, I love history and naval history is a passion of mine, please keep up the good work. You got a thumbs up and a sub from me. Cheers!
I was really glad to find this video, as my grandfather was Charles Colin Campbell and he was Stoker petty officer in the boiler rooms on board Courageous and went down with the ship when it was sunk. I never got to know him but the sea is in my blood.
When I see videos like this and names of people I like to see what happened to them. The name I saw was Lt. Otto Schuhart, he went on the command several U-Boots, survived WW2 and died at age 80 in 1990.
Thanks very much. It's still quite early days for my channel but things are progressing nicely. Receiving comments such as yours gives me sufficient motivation to continue moving forward.
A most interesting documentary. My great great grandad Victor Granville was lost on this ship. May he and his shipmates rest in piece. Lest we forget. Ross.
On its face, the loss of Courageous & Glorious was tragic and seemed quite preventable, but it was a crucial lesson, although costly, that the RN and later USN took to heart about protecting their carriers from submarine and surface attack at all times, if at all possible
Great Uncle Arthur was a Naval Airman on Courageous. Granny used to tell stories of digging the fuel oil out of his ears with a carving knife after the sinking, not sure how true that was.
Bunker oil (which is by fuel standards a lot of rubbish, still better than coal) reacts to salt water. Add the low temperature and you're there. It doesn't get quite solid but it becomes a sticky mess much like tar or bitumen. While working with bitumen, I found out it can only be removed from skin mechanically - or by lots of hand cream or cooking oil to dissolve it. Which leaves you with another mess of paper towels. Don't know about your granny's ears or the knife, but there is reason to believe it. Glad he made it, though. Three of my great uncles made a short trip to Russia in 1941 and never returned.
I love watching your informative docs. Most importantly hats off to the courage displayed by all, especially the destroyer crews. In the early years the British Navy upper echelons seemed to have an air of superiority and quite dismissive of real world scenarios. This is a classic example, another was the Admiralty basically calling the captain of the Prince of Wales a coward after the battle of Denmark Strait. Another, the arrogance and contempt for the fighting ability of the Japanese when the POW and the Repulse were sunk at Singapore. One thing for sure one can’t dismiss the courage and fighting ability of the British sailors.
Thanks for this video ... hard as is to watch ... my Dad was Sub -Lieut on that Ship --1939 -- he survived ... but his nightmares ..lasted... They were all courageous.... and RIP now....
My grandfather Frank Makings RM was one of the victims and is still the oldest Royal Marine to be 'killed in action'. My grandmother Annie had 5 children to bring up on her own, including my mother who was born during grandfathers last trip....nether saw the other.
R.I.P. George Crellin, stoker (2nd class). My mothers elder brother lost on H.M.S.Courageous, 17.8.39. Never forgotten by his little sister Marjorie and all family. Bless you Uncle George.
Interesting story. My mother, still with us recalls the event. She recall the U-boat 29 under her ship as it was heading to the US (carrying a US flag). My grandfather was a reporter for the NY post, station in London. Since the war broke out, my aunt and mother were sent back to Canada via US. She recall the airplanes taking off the deck, she was thinking it was a strange exercise. She asked the captain of her boat and the captain replied by telling her to “shut up”…! -Go down the hull and start ripping sheets as dressing. The sailor were chocking from the oil they swallowed, The first mate died and his dog that survived was hauling all night. At the time she was nine. She will be glad to share more details if this could help any out there! Good luck
Fun fact, the last aircraft to land on courageous was a Swordfish flown by Charles Lamb who after the war went on to write the benchmark FAA pilot, ‘War in a Stringbag’.
My father served on that ship as gunner. I've got his photo studio portrait where they would rest the cap on a table beside the person having their photo taken with the ship's name facing front. There are other scans I've taken of official postcards of the ship that he sent to my mother.
Ironic in the case of the Glorious being sunk by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau who wielded 11 inch guns when Glorious originally had 15 inch guns in its cruiser configuration . Did not know they were converted carriers from cruisers .
They were only described as large light cruisers to bypass a halt on new capital ships. An almost 800 feet long light cruiser with 15" guns is ridiculous. They were shallower draught flimsy battlecruisers, battlecruisers being built quite light in the first place.
The captain was thought to be eccentric but he had been ordered to leave Norway and return home with an escort of just two destroyers. All three ships were sunk when the carrier qas intercepted by two faster German battleships.
@@None-zc5vg I'd heard that the Captain was rushing to get back to Britain to attend a court-martial of his Ex-O who had informed the recently joined Captain that his tactics were lousy. Considering Glorious was caught with no aircraft aloft for scouting and no armed aircraft ready for launch in a war zone with minimal escort....................
Great video! Like everyone that watches these videos I'm fascinated by WW2 while at the same time being horrified the terrible human toll it took. How many thousand men were entombed in the icy depths of the Atlantic? How many perished in the Pacific? Quite the butcher's bill.😪🇺🇸 🇩🇪🇯🇵🇦🇺🏴
One point left out of your narrative is that HMS Courageous was stalked and hunted down because of her aircraft. The U-boat captain spied a Swordfish through his periscope coming to aid the stricken merchant vessel and deduced that an aircraft carrier was the source. The tragedy of HMS Courageous brought a sober end to the practice of hunting U-boats with aircraft carriers.
My Uncle George Crellin was also a stoker on the Courageous and perished on that sad day, 17.8.39. May our brave Uncles be forever remembered and honoured.
One correction, you mentioned that the ship started as a light cruiser. It was not, it was a battle cruiser that was converted to a carrier to meet restrictions of the Washington naval treaty of the 1920's.
I hope you enjoy this video. To support this channel, it would be of huge help if you were to hit the 'LIKE' button and consider subscribing. Many thanks.
Fascinating history and really well told! Excellent video. It is surprising with the risks it did not have an aircraft flying but I assume that would have still been up to luck without radar anyway.
Great documentary, i really liked the choosing of pictures and colour sheme. On question I have: Could you include metric meassurments at least in the video, no need to narrate them also. Would be awesome!
My grandfather, Thomas Lucas, was Chief Shipwright on Courageous, including during commissioning and served on her at the Second Battle of the Heligoland Bight. I understand that he regarded her design as "problematic" right from the start. The recoil from the15 inch guns was too powerful for the relatively thin plating required to keep the tonnage down to international treaty size and the hull was likely to buckle. As someone else has said, her 15 inch guns were later used on HMS Vanguard, the last RN battleship.
It was the barn door that no sub torpedo could miss. You wonder why the admiralty didn‘t foresee the certainty of this vulnerability rather than just sailing right into it as subs were not new in 1939. In the absence of sonar in the early war years, the carrier planes should have been launched on constant surveillance, weather permitting.
Next to the Lexington/Saratoga I rate the Courageous/Glorious as some of the most successful carrier conversions, a shame their careers were brought to an untimely end by stupid decisions by the Admiralty which put them in places they should not have been...
Since Battle Cruisers are mostly obsolete by the end of The War to End All Wars, let`s turn Courageous into a carrier...and maybe the Renown too...but let`s keep the Hood...she has a date with Prince Eugen and Bismarck....at the time turning its hull into a carrier was a decent idea....I once saw a program on The History Channel about the HMS Hood and its sinking; I wanted to scream every time the History Channel "experts," called her a Battleship!!! And they just kept doing so for the entire histrionic show! LOL, I guess that`s why The History Channel went on to make such historical classics as The Vikings....thank goodness for guys like The Northern Historian...though I did cringe a little at the calling of the Courageous a light cruiser.....hey, still much much better than that over hyped, dramatized History Channel tripe on the Hood`s sinking engagement with Prince Eugen and Bismarck.....T U for this video. :)
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this comment, it's greatly appreciated. My channel is still new and I'm learning and trying different ideas but It's nice to get positive feedback.
The 'experts' were actually right about Hood. She was re-designed prior to building and had armour on a par with that of contemporary battleships. Indeed, her 12 inch belt matched that of the Washingtons and was only 0.1 of an inch thinner than that of the Iowas. She was far more of a fast battleship than a true battlecruiser. Glorious and Courageous were both referred to at the time of their construction as 'large light cruisers' by the way.
The Alaskas were called by some equivalent non-battlecruiser convenience designation. At least the Alaskas didn’t self destruct when firing their main armament.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 Courageous and Glorious cracked and bent their hulls when they fired, they were too light for 15” guns. Each time they fired in anger they needed extensive repairs. Furious never saw action as a battlecruiser-like ship.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 This sounds like one of those clever dodges people came up with when they wanted to pretend they were abiding by a treaty. Kind of like the way Japan abided by the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty that limited the number of battleships they were allowed to have by building the biggest battleships in the world.
@@elennapointer701 The Yamatos were post-treaty ships:. The Washington treaty, along with much else in the twenties, was a nasty blow to Japan, directing them to desperate social, diplomatic, and military measures in attempt to (unsuccessfully) compensate. World diplomacy had (or 'has'?) yet to achieve rationality.
Would have been nice if you not only used this infamous imperial system, but the metric system as well. It sucks to always need my pocket calculator.....
I have yet to hear a *cogent* explanation of exactly **WHY** by 1939--when almost all modern navies were preparing their aircraft carriers to work with tougher and faster metal monoplane fighters and bombers such as the Grumman Wildcat F4F and the Dauntless dive-bombers--the largest navy in the world at the time, the Royal Navy, was *still* using wooden, fragile, and slow biplanes such as the Fairey Swordfish on its aircraft carriers. This decision made the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier units look antiquated and obsolete, and did actually reduce the carriers’ effectiveness at bombing distant, heavily defended targets… I’ve always tried to imagine how much MORE successful the RN strike against the Italian Reggia Marina in the Battle of Taranto would have been had the HMS Illustrious had modern, fast, metal, monoplane Dauntless dive bombers to send out rather than slow, vulnerable Fairey Swordfish…..
Agrego este comentario porkr en otro me hice un lio y pensé ke la csusa del hunfimiento fue un submarino. Peto insólitamente dos acorazadps hundieron un portaaviones. Hay dos circunstsncias notables: 1- No había ni un avión volando de patrulla para proteger a su base flotante. Y 2- La certera puntería y rapidez de tiro de los bukes artilleros impidió cualkier reacción. Es un caso único y nunca repetido.
@@tvgerbil1984 Yes, I know. But the principle was not flawed. Courageous had an escort of four destroyers. The danger arose when two were sent off on a rescue mission.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 The principle of carrier-centred hunter-killer groups was flawed in 1939 because it was centred on fleet carriers. The concept of escort carriers did not even exist then. The entire Royal Navy at the time only had 7 carriers. Three days before the sinking of Courageous, Ark Royal was almost hit by two torpedoes from U-39 in similar anti-submarine duties. U-39 missed and sank by Ark Royal's three destroyer escorts. The near miss and the fact that U-39 shot first should have sounded alarm bell. Having four destroyer escorts at all time was no guarantee in safeguarding RN's precious carrier force. Ark Royal was torpedoed and sank by U-81 in 1941 when it was escorted by 7 destroyers, one cruiser and one battleship.
@@tvgerbil1984 Actually, the concept of 'Trade Protection Carriers' within the Royal Navy had existed since the mid 1930s, and four liners had been identified for potential conversion. You can read about them in 'Convoy Rescue Ships, 1940-45,' by Arnold Hague. The old carrier 'Argus' had also been identified as a potential trade protection carrier, although she was never actually used in that role.
Row-Scythe? Is that how the name is pronounced? Okay, okay, seeing as you are the Northern Historian and have beautifully credible pronunciations in general this American will buy it and alter expectations. BTW, how are "Harwich" and "Bosham" pronounced in your neck of the woods? Oh, yeah.... LOVED your topic here, so very underreported! Usually Courageous gets about four lines in histories, barely a footnote.
British place names have very historic origins dating back thousands of years in some cases. A mixture of Norman/French, Latin, Anglo Saxon, Celtic etc. Even us Brits get place name from around our small island wrong. Rosyth is 'Ro-sithe'. Harwich is 'Harr-ich' (silent 'w'). Bosham is 'Bosh-um', don't over emphise the 'A' as in Ham.
Great video! Very interesting to note that this event caused the Admiralty to withdraw carriers from ASW groups. Was this the case for the remainder of the war? From what little I know I thought escort carriers were used in dedicated hunter-killer ASW groups later in the war.
Thanks, glad you liked the video. You are right in that later in the war Hunter Killer Groups were re-established but with a more focussed role in that they were intended to protect the Atlantic Convoys. The early HKGs were more general patrols looking for subs. Plus, the addition of US assets by 1942 meant the operation was far more effective.
@@TheNorthernHistorian Understood, thank you for filling me in! Clarification of mission and narrowing of scope seems to be of supreme importance - sending such an expensive asset to cast so wide a net in search of relatively small fry seems ill advised in hindsight. A cheap submarine is only worth risking a valuable carrier when said sub has 10,000 tons in its sights, it seems.
Hi Jack, thanks very much. I use Epidemic Sound for my music which is an online subscription library to ensure I have all licenses for the music and therefore no UA-cam copyright issues. That music is called The Portal by Bonnie Grace.
I wonder why Courageous sank so fast. Is there any explanation? The only clue I have is that the ship lost all power imidiatly. But it's a rather large ship, so how did it sink so fast?
I would imagine, being an aircraft carrier and having huge cavernous spaces, hanger decks etc, it would flood very rapidly. Unlike other types of ship with more numerous smaller compartments.
Mi comentsrio es mi idioms o sea español (de Argentina). Furious, Glorious y Courageous fueron en su origen una exageración o exacerbsción del concepto del battle cruiser: Mucha velocidad y potencia artillera. La protección reducida confiándose en la velocidad. Ya durante la Primera Guerra se demostró ese error: los pekeños cañones de los cruceros ligeros alemanes perforaban sin problemas esos costados. Fué un acierto convertirlos en portaaviones. El hundimiento por ataque de un submarino en realidad fue una falls de la escolta y no imputable al buque.
In the case of HMS Furious, she had a small, box like conning position right forward in the centre of the flight deck. It could be lowered during flying operations. She was fitted with a small island in early-mid 1939.
I had read the RN was initially keen to run down all the U-Boats in 1939, but who was the bright spark who thought using aircraft carriers in an ASW role was a good idea? I think this 'doctrine' did actually pre-date Churchill, or was from a subordinate, but am not sure. I know the Ilustriouses were coming, but tough on the RN & FAA to lose 1/2 its carrier force (excluding HMS Hermes) in the first 8 months of the war.
MY UNCLE WAS A STOKER ON BOARD THIS SHIP. hE WAS BEING TRANSFERED TO ANOTHER SHIP WHEN AS HE GOT ON DECK IOF THE OTHER SHIP HE LOOKED BACK AND SAW HIS OLD SHIP HIT BY A TORPEDO AND SINK, HIS HAIR WAS WHITE FROM THAT DAY .
The Irish Free State had only just negotiated getting the British Navy out of several Atlantic ports just before the start of the war, they would have compromised the recently independent country’s neutrality.
Surly sacrificing armour for speed is counter intuitive, battle ships and other ships need to dish out tremendous amounts of firepower whilst soaking up the enemy bombardment, going fast would surly impair the ability to rain down hell accurately, there is no point firing multiple salvos if only a few hits are recorded, aircraft carriers need speed to aid takeoff and landing operations but also to make a harder target for the enemy gunners, but hey, what do I know, I was RAF, our runways didn’t move, unless you count detachments to aircraft/helicopter carriers. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴
I know, sound weird but to try and get around the requirements of the Washington Naval Treaty they removed a lot of armour from traditional cruisers to get below the threshold of tonnage and referred to them as 'Light' Cruisers. It's one of the reasons they were often referred to as the 'Outrageous Class'
I read it was to get around directives from within the British government that nothing larger than light cruisers were to be built, so Fisher just had a relatively light battlecruiser designed and called it a "large light cruiser" even though it was outrageously heavy for a light cruiser. Didn't think it had anythi g to do with Washington treaty.
It was also commissioned 6 years before the Washington naval treaty, and even if the Washington naval treaty had been in effect when it was built it would absolutely have not passed as a light cruiser as all warships not designated as battleships, battlecruisers, or aircraft carriers were limited to 10,000 tons.
@@bradleyjames1340 You are correct. The Glorious & Courageous entered service in 1917, well before the Washington Treaty. After Jutland, when the loss of the battlecruisers had been (probably, incorrectly) attributed to their weak armour, the idea that a 'battlecruiser' with a 3 inch belt could join the fleet was unacceptable (Queen Mary, the best protected of the Jutland losses had a 9 inch belt, and the other two 6 inch belts) and the term 'large light cruiser' was used instead. These two, and Furious, were intended to be part of John Fisher's 'Baltic Project' which, probably wisely, never occurred.
Flycatcher was a very reasonable little fighter, with all the strange charm one could expect from the Fairey shop. She was also the only singleseat fighter of the FAA until the eve of WW2, an isolated spark of reason in an otherwise horridly confused aviation organization. Uglycute.
You have to know she wasn't traveling at flank speed, at full speed with those passant biplanes she didn't need to turn into the wind, at 25 knots, those things would just about achieve VTOL status, so I'm thinking it was 15 knots or less, don't want to blow the deck crew into the weeds. You will note it sank in a few minutes even on a war footing the brits had a bad habit of leaving all watertight bulkheads unsealed to facilitate the movement of the crew and move around weapons and shells, as the opening and closing of watertight doors would impede the quick movement of the crew. Lot's of dead crew will attest to that bad habit, of course it allows fires to spread, ask the Hood. So she fills with water and over she goes and British sailors were never taught how to swim, me if I'm aboard, if I'm out of my bunk I'm wearing a PFD. If you are on a war footing you have to assume the little green men are indeed Martians set upon killing you.
If I was referring to the actions of a British submarine, I may very well have referred to it as a hidden predator. As no British submarines feature in this video I feel you're putting words in my mouth somewhat. Thanks for your comment Bob.
@@TheNorthernHistorian I wanted to say that history is written by those who Won, yet it puts us in a Danger of repeating it, since we need to show a respect to an Enemy from which we also learn. Anybody who was underestimated and feels that a victorious side rejoice over his defeat is seeking for revenge. That part is very disturbing. To forgive, or even to forget, is not going to solve a problem yet it is to be a Man with a full sense of Honor and not to rejoice over Enemy.
Thanks for taking the time to watch this video, I hope you enjoy it. I'm really excited about how the channel is coming together and you could help grow this community further by Subscribing and help me to create future videos for your enjoyment. Thanks.
your videos are very detailed & very well done. enjoyed it.
Jackie Fisher was a mad genius with many good ideas but his notion that "speed is armour" was a disaster proven at Jutland. The "tin clads", which Courageous and her sisters were called, proved useless as gunships, they had too few main guns for long range accuracy and were so lightly built that they took damage from their own armament. Eventually they came into their own as carriers, a shame they were lost so early. RIP to two fine ships and the men who manned them.
Thank you for a fine video, I love history and naval history is a passion of mine, please keep up the good work. You got a thumbs up and a sub from me. Cheers!
Thanks for your comment Tim. Glad you enjoyed the video.
Great production and very informative for a 10min clip. Keep up the good work!
Thank you very much.
My grandfather Kenneth Batt was a flight sergeant on the Courageous, he was on the last list of survivors ❤️
My uncle was on courageous he survived as well
I was really glad to find this video, as my grandfather was Charles Colin Campbell and he was Stoker petty officer in the boiler rooms on board Courageous and went down with the ship when it was sunk. I never got to know him but the sea is in my blood.
When I see videos like this and names of people I like to see what happened to them. The name I saw was Lt. Otto Schuhart, he went on the command several U-Boots, survived WW2 and died at age 80 in 1990.
My grandmother's cousin was on that ship Mark Watt RIP x
May he rest in peace.
Quality vs. views of this is off the charts. Some perhaps one day the UA-cam gods will smile upon it.
Thanks very much. It's still quite early days for my channel but things are progressing nicely. Receiving comments such as yours gives me sufficient motivation to continue moving forward.
Torpedoed by the UA-cam algorithm?
@@thishominid871 😂
A most interesting documentary.
My great great grandad Victor Granville was lost on this ship. May he and his shipmates rest in piece.
Lest we forget.
Ross.
On its face, the loss of Courageous & Glorious was tragic and seemed quite preventable, but it was a crucial lesson, although costly, that the RN and later USN took to heart about protecting their carriers from submarine and surface attack at all times, if at all possible
Very good video. Many pictures and informations.
Thank you very much
Great video. Britain had some stiff luck with carrier losses early in the war. The controversy over loss of Glorious continues...
Thanks, and I agree. I am planning a future video on HMS Glorious
Great Uncle Arthur was a Naval Airman on Courageous. Granny used to tell stories of digging the fuel oil out of his ears with a carving knife after the sinking, not sure how true that was.
That sounds awful!! I can quite possibly believe it though. Luckily he survived the sinking though.
Bunker oil (which is by fuel standards a lot of rubbish, still better than coal) reacts to salt water. Add the low temperature and you're there. It doesn't get quite solid but it becomes a sticky mess much like tar or bitumen. While working with bitumen, I found out it can only be removed from skin mechanically - or by lots of hand cream or cooking oil to dissolve it. Which leaves you with another mess of paper towels.
Don't know about your granny's ears or the knife, but there is reason to believe it. Glad he made it, though. Three of my great uncles made a short trip to Russia in 1941 and never returned.
I love watching your informative docs. Most importantly hats off to the courage displayed by all, especially the destroyer crews. In the early years the British Navy upper echelons seemed to have an air of superiority and quite dismissive of real world scenarios. This is a classic example, another was the Admiralty basically calling the captain of the Prince of Wales a coward after the battle of Denmark Strait. Another, the arrogance and contempt for the fighting ability of the Japanese when the POW and the Repulse were sunk at Singapore. One thing for sure one can’t dismiss the courage and fighting ability of the British sailors.
Great video, thanks for posting.
Glad you enjoyed it
Thanks for this video ... hard as is to watch ... my Dad was Sub -Lieut on that Ship --1939 -- he survived ... but his nightmares ..lasted... They were all courageous.... and RIP now....
Much enjoyed it thanks and I have subscribed. The family firm supplied the Admiralty with deck and tube glands for many years.
Thanks very much David. Much appreciated.
My grandfather Frank Makings RM was one of the victims and is still the oldest Royal Marine to be 'killed in action'.
My grandmother Annie had 5 children to bring up on her own, including my mother who was born during grandfathers last trip....nether saw the other.
sad
@@ottomeyer6928 Thank you, Otto.
Excellent video with fascinating details. Great work! You've got yourself another subscriber :)
Brilliant, thanks very much!
R.I.P. George Crellin, stoker (2nd class). My mothers elder brother lost on H.M.S.Courageous, 17.8.39. Never forgotten by his little sister Marjorie and all family. Bless you Uncle George.
Very good.Im a new subscriber.Well put together,great photos and animation.👍
Thanks very much. Your comments are greatly appreciated.
Interesting story. My mother, still with us recalls the event.
She recall the U-boat 29 under her ship as it was heading to the US (carrying a US flag).
My grandfather was a reporter for the NY post, station in London. Since the war broke out, my aunt and mother were sent back to Canada via US.
She recall the airplanes taking off the deck, she was thinking it was a strange exercise.
She asked the captain of her boat and the captain replied by telling her to “shut up”…! -Go down the hull and start ripping sheets as dressing.
The sailor were chocking from the oil they swallowed,
The first mate died and his dog that survived was hauling all night.
At the time she was nine.
She will be glad to share more details if this could help any out there!
Good luck
Fun fact, the last aircraft to land on courageous was a Swordfish flown by Charles Lamb who after the war went on to write the benchmark FAA pilot, ‘War in a Stringbag’.
My father served on that ship as gunner. I've got his photo studio portrait where they would rest the cap on a table beside the person having their photo taken with the ship's name facing front. There are other scans I've taken of official postcards of the ship that he sent to my mother.
They were a gallant and brave crew, every one of them. We owe them huge thanks.
My Grandad was on this ship, he was a Junior Radiographer I think, he was only 19. He survived and made it home.
Ironic in the case of the Glorious being sunk by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau who wielded 11 inch guns when Glorious originally had 15 inch guns in its cruiser configuration . Did not know they were converted carriers from cruisers .
The main armament that was removed from her and her sister was reused on HMS Vanguard
They were only described as large light cruisers to bypass a halt on new capital ships. An almost 800 feet long light cruiser with 15" guns is ridiculous. They were shallower draught flimsy battlecruisers, battlecruisers being built quite light in the first place.
The loss of Glorious was from even worse incompetence.
It certainly was. I may make a video on that ship
The captain was thought to be eccentric but he had been ordered to leave Norway and return home with an escort of just two destroyers. All three ships were sunk when the carrier qas intercepted by two faster German battleships.
@@None-zc5vg I'd heard that the Captain was rushing to get back to Britain to attend a court-martial of his Ex-O who had informed the recently joined Captain that his tactics were lousy. Considering Glorious was caught with no aircraft aloft for scouting and no armed aircraft ready for launch in a war zone with minimal escort....................
@@jimmiller5600 and two of it's boilers shut down so she couldn't run for it .
Brilliant! Thank you.
You're very welcome!
Excellent documentary. Many thanks
Glad you enjoyed it
Great video! Like everyone that watches these videos I'm fascinated by WW2 while at the same time being horrified the terrible human toll it took. How many thousand men were entombed in the icy depths of the Atlantic? How many perished in the Pacific? Quite the butcher's bill.😪🇺🇸 🇩🇪🇯🇵🇦🇺🏴
One point left out of your narrative is that HMS Courageous was stalked and hunted down because of her aircraft. The U-boat captain spied a Swordfish through his periscope coming to aid the stricken merchant vessel and deduced that an aircraft carrier was the source. The tragedy of HMS Courageous brought a sober end to the practice of hunting U-boats with aircraft carriers.
Very informative and interesting…….thank you. My great uncle John H Purnell (23) lost his life at the sinking of the Courageous.
Well done, a credit to your research and presentation. Excellent vocal appraisal of this subject. Good continuation.
Really well done video and very informative. I'm hoping to see you grow 😁
Thank you very much!
My Uncle Bill was a stoker on Courageous sadly he perished.
Sorry to hear that.
My Uncle George Crellin was also a stoker on the Courageous and perished on that sad day, 17.8.39. May our brave Uncles be forever remembered and honoured.
@@iananderson1031 Reseached
Update
Daniel J Buckley
Stoker 1 C
DK1574
Served together died together
RIP
Very informative video
Thank you
One correction, you mentioned that the ship started as a light cruiser. It was not, it was a battle cruiser that was converted to a carrier to meet restrictions of the Washington naval treaty of the 1920's.
Her majesty Ship!
I absolutely love the names of British warships!
Brilliant video thank you (:
Glad you enjoyed it!
A painful lesson never to waste aircraft carriers like THAT.
My Ex wifes Grand father was killed whilst on board, 17th September 1939, Rip Royal Marine Cornish.
RIP
I hope you enjoy this video. To support this channel, it would be of huge help if you were to hit the 'LIKE' button and consider subscribing. Many thanks.
Fascinating history and really well told! Excellent video. It is surprising with the risks it did not have an aircraft flying but I assume that would have still been up to luck without radar anyway.
Great documentary, i really liked the choosing of pictures and colour sheme. On question I have: Could you include metric meassurments at least in the video, no need to narrate them also. Would be awesome!
Hi. Thanks for the comment also the feedback regarding measurements. I'll look to do that in future videos. Cheers.
My grandfather, Thomas Lucas, was Chief Shipwright on Courageous, including during commissioning and served on her at the Second Battle of the Heligoland Bight. I understand that he regarded her design as "problematic" right from the start. The recoil from the15 inch guns was too powerful for the relatively thin plating required to keep the tonnage down to international treaty size and the hull was likely to buckle. As someone else has said, her 15 inch guns were later used on HMS Vanguard, the last RN battleship.
Good video. Thanks for uploading
Glad you enjoyed it
It was the barn door that no sub torpedo could miss. You wonder why the admiralty didn‘t foresee the certainty of this vulnerability rather than just sailing right into it as subs were not new in 1939. In the absence of sonar in the early war years, the carrier planes should have been launched on constant surveillance, weather permitting.
Asdic did exist in 1939. It was turning into wind to launch aircraft which left Courageous open to attack.
With 15 inch main guns it couldn't possibly called a light cruiser as she was basically a battlecruiser.
It was sold to Parliament as a 'Large Light Cruiser.'
@@dovetonsturdee7033 wrong naming then.
But that government was aware of the trick?
I wonder why they did that.
Next to the Lexington/Saratoga I rate the Courageous/Glorious as some of the most successful carrier conversions, a shame their careers were brought to an untimely end by stupid decisions by the Admiralty which put them in places they should not have been...
Good vid thanks
Since Battle Cruisers are mostly obsolete by the end of The War to End All Wars, let`s turn Courageous into a carrier...and maybe the Renown too...but let`s keep the Hood...she has a date with Prince Eugen and Bismarck....at the time turning its hull into a carrier was a decent idea....I once saw a program on The History Channel about the HMS Hood and its sinking; I wanted to scream every time the History Channel "experts," called her a Battleship!!! And they just kept doing so for the entire histrionic show! LOL, I guess that`s why The History Channel went on to make such historical classics as The Vikings....thank goodness for guys like The Northern Historian...though I did cringe a little at the calling of the Courageous a light cruiser.....hey, still much much better than that over hyped, dramatized History Channel tripe on the Hood`s sinking engagement with Prince Eugen and Bismarck.....T U for this video. :)
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this comment, it's greatly appreciated. My channel is still new and I'm learning and trying different ideas but It's nice to get positive feedback.
The 'experts' were actually right about Hood. She was re-designed prior to building and had armour on a par with that of contemporary battleships. Indeed, her 12 inch belt matched that of the Washingtons and was only 0.1 of an inch thinner than that of the Iowas. She was far more of a fast battleship than a true battlecruiser.
Glorious and Courageous were both referred to at the time of their construction as 'large light cruisers' by the way.
The Alaskas were called by some equivalent non-battlecruiser convenience designation. At least the Alaskas didn’t self destruct when firing their main armament.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 'At least the Alaskas didn’t self destruct when firing their main armament.' Which ships did that?
@@dovetonsturdee7033 Courageous and Glorious cracked and bent their hulls when they fired, they were too light for 15” guns. Each time they fired in anger they needed extensive repairs. Furious never saw action as a battlecruiser-like ship.
Yep, I’ve seen this, thanks :)
Liked & sub'd 👍
Awesome thank you!
Great but Also sad documentary my Granddad went down with this ship Bramwell Gilbert (petty officer)
They really packed 15" guns onto a light cruiser? That's battleship-calibre, isn't it? Wow.
The ‘cruisers’ were about 790 feet long. South Dakotas were 680 feet long.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 This sounds like one of those clever dodges people came up with when they wanted to pretend they were abiding by a treaty. Kind of like the way Japan abided by the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty that limited the number of battleships they were allowed to have by building the biggest battleships in the world.
@@elennapointer701 The Yamatos were post-treaty ships:. The Washington treaty, along with much else in the twenties, was a nasty blow to Japan, directing them to desperate social, diplomatic, and military measures in attempt to (unsuccessfully) compensate. World diplomacy had (or 'has'?) yet to achieve rationality.
Would have been nice if you not only used this infamous imperial system, but the metric system as well. It sucks to always need my pocket calculator.....
I have yet to hear a *cogent* explanation of exactly **WHY** by 1939--when almost all modern navies were preparing their aircraft carriers to work with tougher and faster metal monoplane fighters and bombers such as the Grumman Wildcat F4F and the Dauntless dive-bombers--the largest navy in the world at the time, the Royal Navy, was *still* using wooden, fragile, and slow biplanes such as the Fairey Swordfish on its aircraft carriers. This decision made the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier units look antiquated and obsolete, and did actually reduce the carriers’ effectiveness at bombing distant, heavily defended targets…
I’ve always tried to imagine how much MORE successful the RN strike against the Italian Reggia Marina in the Battle of Taranto would have been had the HMS Illustrious had modern, fast, metal, monoplane Dauntless dive bombers to send out rather than slow, vulnerable Fairey Swordfish…..
title of the vid is 'The Sinking of HMS Courageous 1939' talks about the actual sinking for less than a quarter of the video.......
😔
Great video, but 15” guns on ‘light’ cruiser? Needs revision 😊
The design was sold to Parliament as a 'Large Light Cruiser.'
Agrego este comentario porkr en otro me hice un lio y pensé ke la csusa del hunfimiento fue un submarino. Peto insólitamente dos acorazadps hundieron un portaaviones. Hay dos circunstsncias notables: 1- No había ni un avión volando de patrulla para proteger a su base flotante. Y 2- La certera puntería y rapidez de tiro de los bukes artilleros impidió cualkier reacción. Es un caso único y nunca repetido.
A list of all those who died in this attack would have given this tragic event greater merrits
she did well!
Oh, yeah...summareen? I like it, gonna use it.
With hindsight, sending a capital ship to hunt U-boats in 1939 had to be one of the daftest ideas ever.
Carriers were routinely used to hunt U-Boats from 1943, albeit escort carriers. In retrospect, Hermes might have been a better choice.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 Escort carriers were not capital ships. Fleet carriers were. Courageous was a fleet carrier.
@@tvgerbil1984 Yes, I know. But the principle was not flawed. Courageous had an escort of four destroyers. The danger arose when two were sent off on a rescue mission.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 The principle of carrier-centred hunter-killer groups was flawed in 1939 because it was centred on fleet carriers. The concept of escort carriers did not even exist then. The entire Royal Navy at the time only had 7 carriers. Three days before the sinking of Courageous, Ark Royal was almost hit by two torpedoes from U-39 in similar anti-submarine duties. U-39 missed and sank by Ark Royal's three destroyer escorts. The near miss and the fact that U-39 shot first should have sounded alarm bell. Having four destroyer escorts at all time was no guarantee in safeguarding RN's precious carrier force. Ark Royal was torpedoed and sank by U-81 in 1941 when it was escorted by 7 destroyers, one cruiser and one battleship.
@@tvgerbil1984 Actually, the concept of 'Trade Protection Carriers' within the Royal Navy had existed since the mid 1930s, and four liners had been identified for potential conversion. You can read about them in 'Convoy Rescue Ships, 1940-45,' by Arnold Hague.
The old carrier 'Argus' had also been identified as a potential trade protection carrier, although she was never actually used in that role.
Row-Scythe? Is that how the name is pronounced?
Okay, okay, seeing as you are the Northern Historian and have beautifully credible pronunciations in general this American will buy it and alter expectations.
BTW, how are "Harwich" and "Bosham" pronounced in your neck of the woods?
Oh, yeah.... LOVED your topic here, so very underreported! Usually Courageous gets about four lines in histories, barely a footnote.
British place names have very historic origins dating back thousands of years in some cases. A mixture of Norman/French, Latin, Anglo Saxon, Celtic etc. Even us Brits get place name from around our small island wrong. Rosyth is 'Ro-sithe'. Harwich is 'Harr-ich' (silent 'w'). Bosham is 'Bosh-um', don't over emphise the 'A' as in Ham.
Great video! Very interesting to note that this event caused the Admiralty to withdraw carriers from ASW groups. Was this the case for the remainder of the war? From what little I know I thought escort carriers were used in dedicated hunter-killer ASW groups later in the war.
Thanks, glad you liked the video. You are right in that later in the war Hunter Killer Groups were re-established but with a more focussed role in that they were intended to protect the Atlantic Convoys. The early HKGs were more general patrols looking for subs. Plus, the addition of US assets by 1942 meant the operation was far more effective.
@@TheNorthernHistorian Understood, thank you for filling me in! Clarification of mission and narrowing of scope seems to be of supreme importance - sending such an expensive asset to cast so wide a net in search of relatively small fry seems ill advised in hindsight. A cheap submarine is only worth risking a valuable carrier when said sub has 10,000 tons in its sights, it seems.
They hunted U-boats with expendable category slow carriers.
Realy nice video, like your animations. Also love the music, where is that track from 4:38 from? It's beautifull epic.
Hi Jack, thanks very much. I use Epidemic Sound for my music which is an online subscription library to ensure I have all licenses for the music and therefore no UA-cam copyright issues. That music is called The Portal by Bonnie Grace.
@@TheNorthernHistorian Thank you very much for your fast answer. Keep up the great work, you have a new subsciber now :-)
@@jackmoik4894 Cheers!
I wonder why Courageous sank so fast. Is there any explanation?
The only clue I have is that the ship lost all power imidiatly. But it's a rather large ship, so how did it sink so fast?
I would imagine, being an aircraft carrier and having huge cavernous spaces, hanger decks etc, it would flood very rapidly. Unlike other types of ship with more numerous smaller compartments.
WW1 era ships all had ineffective torpedo protection.
Mi comentsrio es mi idioms o sea español (de Argentina). Furious, Glorious y Courageous fueron en su origen una exageración o exacerbsción del concepto del battle cruiser: Mucha velocidad y potencia artillera. La protección reducida confiándose en la velocidad. Ya durante la Primera Guerra se demostró ese error: los pekeños cañones de los cruceros ligeros alemanes perforaban sin problemas esos costados. Fué un acierto convertirlos en portaaviones. El hundimiento por ataque de un submarino en realidad fue una falls de la escolta y no imputable al buque.
Good stuff. V interesting.
I don't really understand the design of islandless CVs since if the bridge is not on deck then where is it?
In the case of HMS Furious, she had a small, box like conning position right forward in the centre of the flight deck. It could be lowered during flying operations. She was fitted with a small island in early-mid 1939.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 oh ok thanks
I had read the RN was initially keen to run down all the U-Boats in 1939, but who was the bright spark who thought using aircraft carriers in an ASW role was a good idea? I think this 'doctrine' did actually pre-date Churchill, or was from a subordinate, but am not sure.
I know the Ilustriouses were coming, but tough on the RN & FAA to lose 1/2 its carrier force (excluding HMS Hermes) in the first 8 months of the war.
The profiles need work; the photos are great.
MY UNCLE WAS A STOKER ON BOARD THIS SHIP. hE WAS BEING TRANSFERED TO ANOTHER SHIP WHEN AS HE GOT ON DECK IOF THE OTHER SHIP HE LOOKED BACK AND SAW HIS OLD SHIP HIT BY A TORPEDO AND SINK, HIS HAIR WAS WHITE FROM THAT DAY .
Wow, that's a lucky escape
No metric measuring units, that is how it has to be...
What is it with the west coast of Ireland?Courageous,Lusitania,Carpathia and many more....
Gateway to the Atlantic I guess
@@TheNorthernHistorian Yeah it just dawned on me,like wow between the two wars there has to be a considerable number of ships down there.
Western Approaches.
The Irish Free State had only just negotiated getting the British Navy out of several Atlantic ports just before the start of the war, they would have compromised the recently independent country’s neutrality.
Surly sacrificing armour for speed is counter intuitive, battle ships and other ships need to dish out tremendous amounts of firepower whilst soaking up the enemy bombardment, going fast would surly impair the ability to rain down hell accurately, there is no point firing multiple salvos if only a few hits are recorded, aircraft carriers need speed to aid takeoff and landing operations but also to make a harder target for the enemy gunners, but hey, what do I know, I was RAF, our runways didn’t move, unless you count detachments to aircraft/helicopter carriers. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴
Subed gd work
A 20,000t light cruiser?
I know, sound weird but to try and get around the requirements of the Washington Naval Treaty they removed a lot of armour from traditional cruisers to get below the threshold of tonnage and referred to them as 'Light' Cruisers. It's one of the reasons they were often referred to as the 'Outrageous Class'
I read it was to get around directives from within the British government that nothing larger than light cruisers were to be built, so Fisher just had a relatively light battlecruiser designed and called it a "large light cruiser" even though it was outrageously heavy for a light cruiser. Didn't think it had anythi g to do with Washington treaty.
It was also commissioned 6 years before the Washington naval treaty, and even if the Washington naval treaty had been in effect when it was built it would absolutely have not passed as a light cruiser as all warships not designated as battleships, battlecruisers, or aircraft carriers were limited to 10,000 tons.
@@bradleyjames1340 You are correct. The Glorious & Courageous entered service in 1917, well before the Washington Treaty. After Jutland, when the loss of the battlecruisers had been (probably, incorrectly) attributed to their weak armour, the idea that a 'battlecruiser' with a 3 inch belt could join the fleet was unacceptable (Queen Mary, the best protected of the Jutland losses had a 9 inch belt, and the other two 6 inch belts) and the term 'large light cruiser' was used instead.
These two, and Furious, were intended to be part of John Fisher's 'Baltic Project' which, probably wisely, never occurred.
Rest Easy.
Nice but we have the metric system now
they were battlecruisers-not cruisers!
What do you expect from a plane called “flycatcher” LOL
Flycatcher was a very reasonable little fighter, with all the strange charm one could expect from the Fairey shop. She was also the only singleseat fighter of the FAA until the eve of WW2, an isolated spark of reason in an otherwise horridly confused aviation organization. Uglycute.
Music too loud
I agree. This is one of my earlier videos and I'm experimenting and learning as I go. I appreciate the feedback, it helps me get better.
Cool
Thanks
You have to know she wasn't traveling at flank speed, at full speed with those passant biplanes she didn't need to turn into the wind, at 25 knots, those things would just about achieve VTOL status, so I'm thinking it was 15 knots or less, don't want to blow the deck crew into the weeds. You will note it sank in a few minutes even on a war footing the brits had a bad habit of leaving all watertight bulkheads unsealed to facilitate the movement of the crew and move around weapons and shells, as the opening and closing of watertight doors would impede the quick movement of the crew. Lot's of dead crew will attest to that bad habit, of course it allows fires to spread, ask the Hood. So she fills with water and over she goes and British sailors were never taught how to swim, me if I'm aboard, if I'm out of my bunk I'm wearing a PFD. If you are on a war footing you have to assume the little green men are indeed Martians set upon killing you.
Methinks a Geordie
britons have submarines, yet Germans have "hidden predator". Strange neutrality of some kind of historian it is.
If I was referring to the actions of a British submarine, I may very well have referred to it as a hidden predator. As no British submarines feature in this video I feel you're putting words in my mouth somewhat. Thanks for your comment Bob.
@@TheNorthernHistorian I wanted to say that history is written by those who Won, yet it puts us in a Danger of repeating it, since we need to show a respect to an Enemy from which we also learn. Anybody who was underestimated and feels that a victorious side rejoice over his defeat is seeking for revenge. That part is very disturbing. To forgive, or even to forget, is not going to solve a problem yet it is to be a Man with a full sense of Honor and not to rejoice over Enemy.