Battle of Cape Matapan: Just Four Minutes to Cripple a Fleet
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- Опубліковано 9 тра 2020
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Sources:
The Battle of Matapan, SWC Pack
Engage the Enemy More Closely, Corelli Barnett,
Dark Waters, JE Harrold
Music:
Unnatural Situation by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Volatile Reaction by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Crypto by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/b... - Розваги
For unlimited access to the world’s top documentaries and nonfiction series go to go.thoughtleaders.io/167132020... and use the promo code 'historigraph' to get 30 days free access.
Buy Historigraph Posters here! teespring.com/stores/historigraph
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#CapeMatapan #Historigraph #Historigraph #CuriosityStream
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Sources:
The Battle of Matapan, SWC Pack
Engage the Enemy More Closely, Corelli Barnett,
Dark Waters, JE Harrold
That battle was bigger:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Calabria
or
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Spartivento
4 capital ships in the battle...
Your attention to detail in the precise maneuvers of individual ships and even individual aircraft(!) locked in combat is admirable and belongs in the syllabi of staff colleges.
Ann Onymous thank you- but bear in mind that a substantial amount of that is guesswork; record keeping to be able to tell precise positions of ships and aircraft is imprecise, particularly at night
@@historigraph it still belongs in wargaming and staff colleges, though then as a "what would be the optimal striking positions" "what were the likeliest striking positions taken". so much of war in fact is fog though i thought perhaps you were consulting training or tactical manuals.
You should get involved in S. China sea hypotheticals.
can you make a video about a single battle when the Germans or Italians wins...
Those aging Swordfish biplanes sure did a lot of work during WW2.... all things considered.
They were absolute legends
If I remember correctly the swordfish sank more tonnage of axis shipping than any other allied plane in the entire war.
Indeed those old Swordfish did a lot of work considering their age! If I remember correctly, the Bismarks rudder was damaged by an old Swordfish torpedo, which allowed the British task force to catch up and sink her.
@@conradflanagan5003 If you consider Japan as Axis then the SBD Dauntless sank quite a bit more, if you're talking about Europe alone, then yes.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taranto
Seemingly obsolete, the geriatric Swordfish was a surprisingly effective weapon. Being made entirely of balsa and tracing paper it was effectively impervious to bullets or cannon shell, which would pass straight through without exploding. Also, being manufactured by Airfix, they could be built by any competent 9 year old in two days, though their dads would probably have to paint them and fix the decals.
This was an amazing summary. You have a gift!
Perhaps so, but it's sucesses we're almost always when not facing air cover. Night raids, lone battleships with no cover etc.
@@Kevin-zt7lb Cute and fairly accurate though the plastic in the Airfix version might offer enough resistance to cause the shells to explode or at least break critical plastic parts.
@@testy462 yep. Any enemy aircraft and they'd be torn to pieces in seconds.
You seem .......... disappointed 😋
Just imagine that "WTF" moment those Italian sailors had when the HMS Greyhound suddenly activated it's searchlights, then to die instantly in a barrage of hellfire
It was a big risk because at that range a single torpedo could do a lot of damage to a battleship or carrier, but it sounds like the surprise was so overwhelming that not a single one was launched
From what I’ve read the guns on the Italian ships were still trained fore and aft and the crews weren’t even at action stations so it would have been one hell of a shock
@@Septimus_ii Then you remember the time when USS Washington was able to close to within 8 km of IJN Kirishima without detection at night, despite the IJN's well-known skill at night-fighting.
*IT'S A ME! MARIO!!!*
@@anzaca1 The Japanese were well trained at night offense, mostly as a relic from their practices in WWI, but those practices still served them well in the 1940s, as evidenced by the fact that Kirishima's crew was rather distracted by the ass-whooping they were giving to USS South Dakota at the time. That said, the Japanese in addition to being kind of busy shooting at things, and at the very least blinded by the flash of their own guns as much as the darkness around them, also had no training to defend against a night attack. While the Japanese did have very rudimentary radar, it was effectively only useful for telling the crew that a ship was in range - their sets were useless for determining what range that was and could only report direction by physically training the radar in a given direction and measuring the strength of the radar return, rather than having continuous oscillation like other contemporary radar sets. All the Kirishima's radar would have told her is that a ship was within radar range... which they knew, because they were shooting at it, or so they thought.
Their radars also might not have actually been able to detect anything that wasn't a Japanese battleship, as they had trouble detecting their own ships of every other type and while like most of their tech the design documents were destroyed before capture, it's likely the radar sets were only ever tested on the fuckoff huge pagoda superstructures of their battleships, and no thought was ever given to the idea that their excessive height might be allowing their ships to be detected unreasonably easily.
Sail a battleship up to point blank range and blast the crap out of the enemy. I get the feeling Nelson would have approved.
the battle was predictably hailed as a new trafalgar by the British press
If you're that close why not ram them? And didn't all RN vessels carry torpedoes? Destroyers, cruisers, ... battleships?
Stephen Jacks idk man maybe ramming would do damage to your own ship too. Also I don’t think British battleships had torpedo launchers fitted
@@RyanTheHero3 Its what the ancient Romans would do. Battleship has circa 12" steel armor skirt and cruiser has 6" skirt. Destroyer typically 1" hull penetrated by 50 calibre machine gun fire. Sub hull is thicker so could ram a destroyer. US was slow to adopt torpedo tubes on surface vessels. However the inexpensive incease in firepower meant the USN hung torpedo tubes on everything, and even battleships. (A glut of torpedoes helped.) Note that torpedos are more a weapon against capital ships, destroyers being maneuverable and shallow draft. Consider, some tanks today carry anti-tank missles.
@@historigraph Nelson would have been a gentleman and fought during daytime. Most naval battles at the time were fought during daytime.
My grandfather was a gunner on the destroyer Giosuè Carducci during the Battle of Cape Matapan: the ship was reduced to a floating wreck in just a couple of minutes of focused fire from only 3 km away, while attempting to lay down some smoke cover for the rest of the fleet.
Out of 206 officers and sailors, only a few dozen survived that night. Then at dawn, while the British Navy was collecting the Italians sailors at sea, German planes drove the ships away, leaving many survivors to their fate. My grandfather and many others spent 6 nights and 6 days at sea, while capt. Alberto Ginocchio tried to keep the morale up by praying and singing. Many were killed by sharks, most by wounds and fatigue. Eventually they were saved by an Italian hospital ship on the 2nd of April. Only 35 survived.
Thanks for sharing his story!
Sounds like the Italian USS Indianapolis
Did your grandfather survive?
@@PlaceholderHistory Think, if he did'nt survive, then how could this story be passed down?
@@RandomboiSam quite easily actually. His father may already have been born and he may have heard the story from other survivors.
telling how battle happened is longer than battle itself
Admiral Günther Lütjens You must be so disappointed in your pasta allies
Not really!
@@nightlightabcd really !
@@IgnoredAdviceProductions as if the nazi navy did something that wasnt sinking in norway or get demolished.
And more boring
I love that quote, "The right range....to engage an enemy is point blank....at which range even a gunnery officer cannot miss."
someone was not impressed by British Navy's shot to hit ratio at Jutland
It would seem that he said it directly to the gunnery officer at the head of an organization of gunnery officers. 😂
you forgot one of the most important details of this battle.
when Pola lost power, her crew thought she was sinking and started to abandon ship, until after everyone was in the water and they began to notice that the ship didn't seem any closer to going under. They then climbed back aboard, soaking wet and cold, before taking off their wet clothes and breaking into the ship's alcohol stores to warm themselves up. The Royal Navy sailors boarded the Pola to find her crew half naked and roaring drunk, then took them prisoner and eventually scuttled the ship when towing it proved impractical.
There is a picture of the Pola taken just before she was sunk. The book is I think is cruisers of the world in world war 2?. I think?. By the looks of the ship it looks like the torpedo blew her bow's off and she took a lot of hits on her superstructure!. If anyone can find this book, please let me know!.
Oh, Italians. Captain of Costa Concordia proudly continue their maritime tradition of screwing things up.
This is the kind of naval history that keeps me obsessed with the subject
I was almost afraid when Captain Mack's destroyers showed up, I thought they were going to start blasting away the two drifting cruisers immediately, killing everyone
There was a 19-year-old Midshipman on the battleship HMS Valiant manning the search lights.
He was cited for conspicuous bravery at the Battle of Cape Matapan.
He later became the Duke of Edinburgh....RIP Prince Phillip.
Yes, under sustained heavy fire he trained his searchlight onto a nearby cloud and used his hands to project humorous images of Mussolini onto it, causing the the crew of the heavy cruiser Fiume to rush to one side of the ship to watch, resulting in its capsize at the height of the action.
@@TheRealBoroNutstop it. you'll confuse an American
@@heofonfyr6000As an American I have always been confused and a little afraid of shadow puppets. But I just can’t look away…
@@CorePathway Don't worry, old boy. I understand.
I seem to recall that he passed out top of his class at Dartmouth. As opposed to Mountbatten, who was described as "always being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, at the wrong speed" by ones of his peers in a documentary I saw many years ago.
I can't get used to these British carrier battles involving a single digit plane raids. I'm used to hearing about raid involving dozens if not hundreds of planes. Despite being so few these British air raids seem to be incredibly effective.
It is earlier in the war than the war in the Pacific.
As RogerWilco states. The USN and IJN were watching the actions in the Med from the sidelines with great interest.
@@rogerwilco2 I know, but the battle of the Coral Sea happened about 14 months after this battle and saw the use of dozens of planes in most attacks by both sides.
@@state135 You learn really, really fast in war.
@@state135 you have to remember, in the Pacific you could do deck parking, you can't in the med due to the sea state. Although not completely applicable here, but the use of night attacks by the Royal Navy, was one major difference to account for numbers, the Royal Navy may have sent relatively few, but they were the only naval service that could perform night time raids at the time, meaning even a few were infinitely more than any other navy could and being night that really made up for the lack in numbers. Also the further into the war the better anti aircraft guns become the more planes are needed, and the cycle continued on and on. Also not to mention due to the fact that there are major land masses all around in the Med I.e. unsinkable aircraft carriers with huge runways allowing for larger more heavily armed aircraft to take off. It means you have to have more fighters and also much thicker armoured ships limiting the number of aircraft. This was a bonus kater on as it did mean Kamikaze's just bounced off the decks of British carriers causing damage that took hours to fix. Whereas US unarmoured carriers would have to go into drydock for 6 months.
Lol, I guess rushing B whit carrier in first line is real thing.
Royal Navy only tactic since forever "There's the enemy, go and fucking kill it, no questions"
I thought Formidable was fighting with her secondaries.
Prasmit Das devs nerf secondary CV’s plz lol
@@ryanovski Graf Zeppelin would be a better secondary focused build. : )
Is that a World of Warships reference.
The last message of cruiser Fiume .
On 10 August 1952, 11 years after the battle, on a beach near Cagliari (Sardinia isle) crusted but well sealed bottle was found with wax which, inside, concealed, written on a piece of canvas torn from the cover of a machine gun, the following message:
"Regia Fiume Ship - Please gentlemen give my dear mother news while I die for the homeland. Sailor Chirico Francesco da Futani, via Eremiti 1, Salerno. Thank you gentlemen - Italy! "
After careful research, the name of the sailor was found among those of the missing of the cruiser Fiume, with which 813 Italian sailors of the crew found the death.
( sorry for my bad english )
Tragic story, and after such a long time, his family finally find out what really happened, all wars are a tragedy, it means that plenty of people will be sent to an early grave....
Regardless of country, war is devastating. A lot of good men die for their country and their sacrifice should be respected. Thank you for sharing this story. Much love.
grazie mille! 🎉
“It was a defeat for the Italians“ a sentence that was used very often in this war
@carmine paola Well, there are exceptions to every rule.
Said many times by Greeks.
So used in fact that its better to be a french and surrender lol
Águila701 well to be fair they were there before the beginning
The Italians were so poorly trained and equipped as to be nearly worthless, just like in WW1. While they had a few successes, especially with their mini-subs and special ops frogmen, they really did not contribute much to the Axis. They had neither the resources, resolve, or training to do much. They were captured by the hundreds of thousands in North African and were destroyed at sea. No wonder they surrendered by 1943, only to have the Germans occupy their country as well.
HMS formidable: let me get closer I want to hit them with my *guns*
Cunningham: pls go away
There's a kind of funny moment just after the battleships turn north that they are effectively screened by the Aircraft Carrier, which has completelty inadvertently ended up at the head of the fleet
A funny fact. There was actually an American carrier (don’t remember the name) that actually sank a Japanese Heavy Cruisers with its small guns in the Pacific
@@stc3145 Pretty sure that's the USS White Plains, one of the Taffy 3 escort carriers in the Battle off Samar. Landed a hit on the deck torpedo battery on board the Japanese cruiser Chokai. The resulting detonation of multiple torpedos disabled the Chokai, and the Japanese ended up scuttling her later on in the day.
Marius Pontmercy lol a bloody 5 inch ended a cruiser
@@bobsemple3268 Yes, it was the single 5"/38 gun mounted on the stern sponson of USS _White Plains_ . . It was meant to discourage a pursing destroyer during a stern chase, not for a long range gunnery duel. The gunnery officer had been drilling the 5"/38 crew for weeks, using radar data passed from the bridge by sound telephone. _White Plains_ was nearly disabled by a near miss that exploded under her hull, knocking out the starboard engine and cutting all electrical power. The plume of black smoke coming from the sudden influx of air into the disabled boilers convinced the Japanese they had scored a direct hit. They shifted fire to other American ships, and this gave the damage control teams time to restore electrical power and once again get the radar operating. Again manually adjusting range using the radar data, the 5"/38 gun crew poured out a furious stream of fire, estimated at 20 rounds per minute for about six minutes. This would be a near record for a pedestal mounted gun without an integral ammo hoist. The gun crew claims they scored six hits on the Japanese cruiser _Chōkai_ , and they continued fire based on the fires and explosions observed on _Chōkai_ as her deck mounted torpedoes continued to explode.
Postwar Japanese records claim it was a bomb from an aircraft that set off the torpedoes. _Chōkai_ was only about 6,000 yards from _White Plains_, and given the training and use of radar data by the gun crew, it's plausible they did in fact score the hits they claim. _Chōkai_ sank in 17,000 feet of water, right at the edge of the Philippine Trench. The wreck was discovered in 2019, and an ROV dived it in May, 2019. They are scheduled to dive it again in 2020, and pictures brought back may enable the experts to decide if it was _White Plains_ or an aircraft that caused the fatal damage. Regardless of how that works out, it's a great war story.
Fun fact I wish was mentioned in the video: one of the young officers on board HMS Valiant was a certain Prince Philip. He would later marry Princess Elizabeth, future Queen Elizabeth II 😁😁 He was "mentioned in dispatches" for his service that day!
I was under the impression he was on Valiant?
nerd1000ify shit, apparently you're right. Allow me to correct the comment!
I understand that Prince Philip was in charge of the port searchlights on Valiant and did an excellent job of illuminating targets for all three battleships, hence the devastating gunnery and his being mentioned in despatches.
May he rest in peace.
@@Eubeenhadd Indeed. Whatever your views on royalty, you have to respect the courageous young officer who didn't shirk his duty.
My dad was on the Warspite when this kicked off and said it was over in minutes. From picking up the Italian ships on radar to illuminating them with searchlights and then the first broadsides Warspite's crew where being kept up to date over the ships Tanoy.
Nemosis You can guarantee that every lowbrow story like this one there will be a fantasist in the comments who claims their dad / uncle / grandpa was there. Get a life kid.
@@billyponsonby You do know that Warspite had a complement of between 1000 and 1200? Given that Warspite survived the war it is likely that there would be 2000+ children and 4000+ grandchildren of those who served on her, and of that number there would be some who would be interested in the achievements of their forefathers - and so click on a video such as this. What is more surprising to me, than a family member commenting on a video is the sheer number of rude pricks in the comments section.
Nemosis's statement is true Greg. My Grand mother was on Formidable as a Petty Officer.
@@tent7014 and I was in the cable locker cleaning brushes. I knew Nemosis' dad also your Grandmother
@@avipatable Mine was on 'spite at Jutland. That ship didn't go easy.
"Cunningham, in defiance of practical handling of battleships at night, turned his fleet together towards the unknown."
He is about to do, what the lads call, a "professional gamer move."
It reminded me of the opposite happening during the Battle of Jutland, when Admiral Jellicoe turned his fleet away from oncoming torpedoes during the German destroyer attack against the British battle line. I guess the British learned their lesson since then. But the reasoning was sound since the closing speed of the torpedoes would increase if you turned toward them and would make your battleships venerable if the turn didn't happen fast enough.
@@RaymondLastNam Or more likely, since WW1 torpedoes had mediocre range of about 6000 meters you could hope to outrun the point where their motors died.
More like a "Nelson" move
@Michael Halligan By the time the USA and USSR entered the war , the Royal Navy had already sunk a sizable proportion of the German , Italian and French surface fleets - effectively neutralising them for the remainder of the war .
In the Pacific many Japanese ships were sunk by the British , including , fittingly enough , the last surface action of the wat - the sinking of the Hagero.
You must be Irish , American or Ignorant .
His boldness was enabled by knowing that he had radar and the Italians did not. He essentially had night vision superpower and exploited that advantage fully.
That battle show how important of early warning is (ie. radar and air reconnaissance), if Italian fleet has just a simple radar at least they will have a fighting chance not just obvious to what is going on.
TBF ship-borne RADAR was in its early stages in the Royal Navy at this time. Matapan underscored its usefulness
Radar probably is one of the most important technologies of WWII and it's telling that the allies made way more extensive use of it than the axis.
@@hedgehog3180 Up there with the first computer thank god for British engineers and mathematicians!
I highly recommend the book “The Invention That Changed the World” by Robert Buderi. It is a history of the technology of radar, with an emphasis on the leaps made during WWII.
@carmine paola Germans didnt have Radar. They had an early firm of sonar called hydrophones which werent all that great. They knew about it and would later come up with something similar but the air war was won by the allies. Now go tuck your axis tail between your legs and run off, your lies are not backed by history.
Well except the jet engine, Gerrman Engineering is some of the best if a bit overworked for my tastes
British torpedo biplanes kicked so much ass in WWII. The pilots were incredibly brave.
It's my understanding that it was of these slow flying torpedo planes that disabled the Bismarck's steering which only permitted sailing in circles. This allowed the Royal Navy to pounce on it, and after hours and hours of gunfire, finally to sink it. These planes would have been worthless in the Pacific theater.
@@xtbum3339 The pacific theater was only the way it was because of the Swordfish. Before Taranto, people still thought naval warfare was about battleships. If it had happened 5 years earlier, Japan wouldn't even have bothered building the Yamato.
Taranto is another example..
@@xtbum3339 the AA guns on Bismarck were calibrated for faster moving planes plus the canvas on the swordfishes helped with the AA rounds passing through without damaging the planes
Without proper air protection most ships are sitting ducks to aircraft, new or old, and the Brits sure took advantage of this lesson.
The Americans did well against Japanese air attacks, but they had the most advanced AA defense and were helped by the Japanese planes tendency to catch fire rather easily.
It's worth noting that the royal navy at this time was the most experienced and trained at night fighting out of any navy, even before the implementation of RADAR.
Even if the Italians knew they were there, the Italians were at a major disadvantage.
Do you think it was better than the Japanese navy?
@@gn3441 Depends on when the battle takes place. If it happens after pearl harbour, then yes. In a duel between say Nagato and Warspite at night, Japanese optics may be able to see Warspite eventually but the radar on Warspite would pick up Nagato miles away.
GN they held the entire axis alone form 39-41 also show the Japanese torpedo attack.
ya overall they r better. After all they r the one who make the word “Britannia rule the waves”
Japanese officer were trained/schooled in british naval academies at england, years before ww1 started
@@tugg3024 They didn't do such a great job though. They held mostly because they had more ships than the axis to throw away
USS Johnston approves of aggressive action by the Royal Navy.
She just wishes she was there.
Formidable’s like “I was charging enemy battlefleets before Johnston was in diapers” (love the Johnston btw)
In fairness to the Italians a number of factors predetermined this outcome before battle was joined.
Firstly the surprise attack on Taranto that reduced Italian battleship strength to a third of it's strength, giving the British a severe advantage in any potential engagement to the Italian admiralty.
Secondly the Italian navy lacking radar and being trained largely for daytime operations always limited their options for engagement with the British.
Thirdly, extremely varied and often poor industry badly limited the quality and accuracy of Italian naval shells during the war.
The Regia Marina gets an undeserved reputation as a joke but they ran more sorties and escorts than their German counterparts by far and were designed and trained to fight the French, not the British.
Fourthly, the utter incompetence of Italian high command and air command in regards to coordinating with the surface fleet meant the navy was all too often operating with severe handicaps.
Grand Moff not to mention that this battle was lost not as a result of the Regia Marina being incompetent, they were not, but because German “intelligence” told them the Royal Navy in the area was only 1/4 as strong as it really was
@@coconutshrimp707 exactly, it didn't help as the war went on that with Axis codes broken and leadership at the top refusing change or to relinquish direct control of operational command to their commanders on the scene(a major issue with all three of the major Axis powers that caused innumerable military disasters) the Allies enjoyed a great advantage in the intelligence front as well as their commanders being able to act with relative freedom to the changing nature of battlefield situations rather than having to await high approval.
I don't believe anyone has suggested that the Regia Marina, the Italian sailors, or indeed their senior officers were incompetent or cowardly.
The simple fact is that the RN was better prepared for the battle - they had radar, and air cover. As the Japanese, anb indeed the Americans, found later in the war, both of these are vital in a naval engagement.
Battleships spotted oblivious cruisers visually, one sidedly. Whole line of battleships at that.
Lack of proper nighttime training and improper organization of lookouts, to be honest, is italian own problem. It's like between Japanese and Americans early in Pacific war: everyone has same eyes, but Japanese consistently spot, open fire, straddle and hit allies just a bit earlier than allies return the favor.
And this "just" took thousands of lives to finally fix.
British before the war were actually unique in training nighttime battleship offensive action, as well as battleship/carrier combination(even Japanese didn't, apart from division of Kongos) . This training simply paid off handsomely.
@@neniAAinen Man the Japanese train their navy at nighttime operations look the the battle of savo island the japanese cripple the joint US-Australian Cruiser force
My Dad was on Warspite all through the war.🇬🇧
Italy: *tries to take control of the Mediterranean for the 8000th time
Britain: “how many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man”
Italy: " UNTILL MY DEATH! "
Italy of 21st century: *finally, my navy is the strongest in the Mediterranean Sea.*
Imperium Romanum: *(sigh)* "Is this really my successor?"
*Ahh shiiet here we go again
Winston Churchill addressing parliament in 1940: "Gentlemen, today I come to speak to you about our enemy the Italian race. They are slow to learn, quick to anger, and reluctant to persevere at anything. I feel with them we will have no trouble."
The fact that the name Cunningham is barely known to anyone outside Naval circles in the UK and elsewhere is a damned shame. He was an amazing commander and achieved miracle after miracle in the Mediterranean to ensure the eventual defeat of the Axis in North Africa and enable Naval superiority to ensure the Italian Campaign could be commenced and maintained.
I'm glad he isn't well known. At least there won't be demands from massed gangs of crazies to have his statues destroyed because he fought for 'imperialism.'
“At which even a gunnery officer can’t miss”
BURNED
this is beautiful. Going to use it for a sea cadet lesson on naval history, this is one of the battles we have to learn about
Teach em about 2 battle ships nocked out of the war by 6 frog men bet you won't though.
My grandfather was supposed to be on the RMI Fiume, but got sick and was left behind at the base. He then was incorporated into the San Marco battalion and fought all the way up north until the end of the war. He survived and then moved to Argentina where he died of lung cancer due to heavy smoking.
This vid is almost four times longer than the actual battle
Prince Phillip the late Duke of Edinburgh was present at this battle onboard HMS Valiant as a searchlight coordinator.
The “British” ships included several Australian ships. HMAS Stuart was one of them, the battle honours having been passed down to the two successive ship of the same name. I served on the second! 👍
Damn that's awesome
If I'm correct wasn't perth also in this battle?
@@Bald_Cat2007 you could be right, I’ll have to look it up…
Edit to fix my poor spelling, punctuation, and to add: You are correct!
to be fair they where all British built, designed ships HMAS Stuart started out as HMS Stuart
@@davidrenton very true, but they had become Australian ships well before WWII.
Here to pay respects to Prince Philip, who served on HMS Valiant during this battle
He was 'Mentioned in Despatches for “bravery and enterprise” in controlling the battleship’s searchlights in the night action which “greatly contributed to the devastating results achieved” by the guns.' Genuine war hero.
Was this before or after those energetic exercises in Oz
Well he was a God.
I kinda feel bad for the Italian Navy in WW2, they just seem so unlucky all the time.
bad luck, poor leadership and lack of fuel really hamstrung them. The ships themselves were extremely capable
Meanwhile Kriegsmarine in Jutland and Atlantic...
not bad, but criminal leadership. Some bad luck occurs but was only a side problem. The overcommand in chief, called "Supermarina" was in great dispute of power and politcal prestige with "Superaereo" (aviation counterpart) making the interforce actions actual impossible. More, the bureaucracy level for any decision was crazy, and gives no authonomy at all to the commanders on the field. More, the high class officiers were in most part raised as executors and not as decision-makers. Guess the final results of this politics in the whole 3 - year conflict...
If it's all the time it's nothing to do with luck, they just couldn't match the British, the country that has a song about how they rule the waves
@@historigraph I think that if History has shown us anything, the ship's company is what makes the ship capable. There are some great underdog stories where the better drilled and tactically savvy crew turned a disadvantage in equipment into a victory
Battle: 4 minutes
Video: *15 minutes*
The work involved at Bletchley Park to set it up, years.
Hardly a battle. Battle implies the other side is shooting back
Well they did shoot back various times just not the cruisers during the night ambush
*TARGET PRACTICE*
The destroyers put up a damn good fight especially considering the massive disadvantage they were in
@Michael Halligan
River Plate 1939? Destruction of the Graf Spee.
Norway 1940? Two battles of Narvik. 1st where an RN force defeated a German force twice its size, and the second where they totally annihilated the German force. Battle of North Cape? Death of the Scharnhorst.
Bismarck sank an old but much loved battlecruiser, then got sunk itself.
Tirpitz wouldn't come out...so we dropped a couple of big bombs on it.
Battle of the Atlantic...
The Germans only effective force was the U-boats..and they suffered catastrophic casualties, slightly less than the Kamikazes.
Yeah, the British couldn't face the German Navy 🥴😄
@Michael Halligan Firstly , the British defeated Germany many times - Alamein , Mareth , Sicily , Cassino , D-Day , Reichwald , Rhine Crossing .
Secondly , old saying " The British lose every Battle but the last " .
Something that the Italians had failed to take into account was the fact that Cunningham was terrifying crazy bastard. He was the perfect combination between aggression, skill, luck, and humanity. All commanders should aspire to be more like him
thesexybadger - definitely aggressive, at least. “ABC” knew very well the strengths and limitations of his ships, and handled his QE class battleships, now old but still tough and well armed, very well. Probably some of the best built ships of the 20th century, they did some serious service despite being considered second rate by the 1940s.
Mind you, with The Grand Old Lady, the Warspite there anybody would feel more confident. Why oh why was she not preserved?
It is told that in order to get the Warspite out of Alexandria without the Italians noticing it, he created a ruse by throwing a party on the Warspite, then leaving the harbour with haste as soon as it was dark. The most crazy part was that the Italians fell for it and never expected more than one battleship.
You read this correctly: Cunningham managed to sneak out a BATTLESHIP undetected.
@@the_tactician9858 that man was a fucking genius
@@the_tactician9858 a latter day Nelson
@@the_tactician9858 It was more than that, he made sure he was seen heading to a golf club with an overnight bag after the party - before sneaking back to Warspite and leaving before anyone noticed!
HMS Valiant was the ship that Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh was on during this battle. RIP.
"Cunningham for his part was determined simply to find the enemy as quickly as possible and get as close to him as he could." The legacy of Nelson is strong with this one.
Cunningham's bust is one of the ones mounted around Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square for a reason...the others are Jellicoe and, undeservedly, Beatty.
Italy: noooo, you can't just spot our ships at night with radar. We're supposed to extrapolate locations by calculating headings and speeds to decipher where the enemy fleet is AFTER we've already engaged!
Britain: haha, radar go beepbeepbeepbeep
Something even one-sided battles like this tells you, is that it takes a special kind of madman to captain a destroyer.
Their fleet was smashed by utterly overwhelming and horrifyingly accurate firepower from three of the most succesful class of battleship ever created, and the Italian destroyer squadron's response was to ride for death and glory right at them.
This tradition of unfailing aggression and elan is unique to destroyer captains, and cares not for nationality.
And even then, two out of three destroyers managed to lives and sail back to Italy!
100% agree. There were more than couple of destroyers vs impossible odds actions on all sides.
The Destroyer HMS Glowworm was sank actively ramming a German heavy cruiser
Destroyer crews truly are built different
I swear the Italians were being controlled by an easy AI during this war
The 225677th Fragment of the Man-Emperor of Mankind we need to boost the bot difficult
AI means artificial intelligence, yet I fail to see intelligence of any kind from them
Nah, they got up tiered.
The difference was in the radar.
Im glad you finally got a retrofit.
Lesson: never sortie without a gold SG radar.
Gonna leave my respects to Prince Phillip who fought in the battle of Matapan. RIP Midshipman Phillip
You’re right that he was a Midshipman during the battle, but he was a Commander when he left active service.
I believe he had charge of the searchlights that lit up the Italian cruisers so that the guns could target them. Got a gong for his efforts.
Did you mean Prince Philliphos of Greece? wasnt he a cousin of the Queen ? i mean talk about loosing your husband and your cousin the same day mate :)
@@HellStr82. Third cousin as far as I’m aware.
Not that I really care.
May he rest in peace god save the queen
Royal Navy used Radar. It was devastatingly effective!
“You can’t just use old planes in an age of ever improving technology 😡😭😭”
“Haha swordfish go brrrrrr”
Everyone gangsta till a British fleets appear at 3000 yards
"An aircraft carrier has no place in a line formation."
HMS Formidable: "Hold my beer chaps, back in a tick."
Prince Philip was mentioned in dispatches for spotlighting the cruisers.
Without decrying Italian skills, courage or valour, this only goes to show the value of aggressive spirit and a willingness to press home the attack in determining the outcome of any engagement, especially a meeting engagement such as this. Something that was almost religiously schooled into Royal Navy officers and men.
That's the point. Aside from some technical disadvantages, what really crippled the Italian Navy was the lack of a proper and decent command.
@@pikapiciu You only have to look at Mussolini to see that is true. He was the most useless war leader. We used to chant "Musso da wop, he's a biggar de flop" All us kids used to chant this.
The Nelsonian sprit: "No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy."
I recall reading about this engagement in "World War II At Sea" by Craig L. Symonds. It was awesome to be able to see the action visualized in this way, animation really helps one to get a grasp of what happened more than just reading about it can. Great video!
This is one of the second world war's more important battles, a surface action(!) and doesn't get enough attention. There really is a great book waiting to be written about the war at sea in the mediterrean. Historiograph did yet another great video! Liked, commented and of course subscribed.
@@michaelmueller7405 that's just....wrong. Even if Rommel ever had problems with resources, you can't hold the Regia Marina accountable for them since during the conflict over 92% of cargo reached home without any issues. Matapan in itself, while certainly being a great loss for Italy didn't slow down the routes to North Africa in any meaningful way, as even in the most deadly part of the conflict (around 1941) over 90% of cargo was still safely received. Matapan was by no means one of the most important battles in WW2 and it didn't "cripple" the italian navy like the title states.
There is, it's called Struggle for the Middle Sea by Vincent P. O'Hara, a very good read.
@@user-vv1pb6kq5g thats actually a pretty darn high loss rate! Higher than the Battle of the Atlantic overall.
you'd think the British having nearly complete surface and air superiority would play a rather rimportant role in that theater. But that's besides the point. The performance of the Regia Marina barely had any bearing on the success (or lack thereof) of Rommel's campaign, even though he loved to use the most classic scapegoat ever to excuse his own logistic failures: blame the italians!
Keeping the Mediterranean routes wasn't an easy task at all with the complete lack of cooperation of the italian airforce (and the German one too) as well as the crippling lack of oil that plagued the bigger units of the italian fleet. Over 92% of cargo reaching its destination was indeed an impressive feat in such a situation, no matter how you put it.
@@tim8431 almost like the Atlantic convoys only had one threat to worry about whereas Allied and Axis convoys in the Med faced submarine, surface and aerial attacks regularly....
For such a important battle it’s a shame I haven’t heard of it before
Probably because nothing against the italians was ever important. Heck even small hungary and finland were far more important in the war than italy.
@@xXdnerstxleXx ok no, that's too far. Hungary is never mentioned anywhere and Finland never even officially joined the axis
@@andreabianchi6156 Hungary is never mentioned anywhere? Are you living below a rock? And even if Finland was not part of the Axis they were still fighting the Soviets and were a key part at the siege of Leningrad.
@@xXdnerstxleXx I'll explain myself. What I meant is that Hungary's contribution to the war effort is nowhere near Italy's. Just like Italy's contribution is nowhere near Germany, they are in totally different leagues. For what concers Finland, yes they where instrumental in the Continuation war but had the advantage of not being at war with the allies, that's why I wouldnt compare the two
@@xXdnerstxleXx you seriously and deeply studied ww2, compliments
My grandfather was on the Zara. His name was Carmelo Russo. My Mom ended up in America because of this battle.Lost her father and then her mother. War is a true horror!
12:41 I like to think that Formidable’s captain was just gonna go along with the whole “aircraft carrier taking part in a battle line” before something figured out it shouldn’t be there. Apparently it fired at least 1 salvo from its 4.5 inch guns which I believe makes her and USS Gambier Bay as the only aircraft carriers to participate in a gunnery dual with enemy surface ships.
Apparently the Adm Cunningham had forgotten about the presence of HMS Formidable until she open fire with her 4.5" dual-purpose guns at the Italian cruisers; at that point she was sharply ordered out of the battleline. However HMS Formidable is probably the only aircraft carrier in any fleet in WW2 to have engaged an enemy surface force with her guns.
In the historic Battle of Samar (Battle of Leyte Gulf), against overwhelming odds--4 Japanese Battleships, inluding IJN Yamato--at least 5 heavy cruisers, and numerous destroyers, after a heroic battle with little American destroyers & destroyer escorts that pummeled the Japs with torpedoes and gunfire taking out 3 heavy cruisers, raking the battleship Haruna with significant 5-in. gunfire that severely damaged the battleship's superstructure, the USS Gambier Bay, a "jeep" carrier in the Battle of Samar (Battle of Leyte Gulf), being chased by Jap heavy cruisers, opened fire with her rear 5-inch guns and hit the Japanese Heavy Cruiser Chikuma, that helped in putting the heavy cruiser out of action, and later sunk.
I understand that Prince Philip was involved in this battle. Please could you do a video specifically about his involvement and his ship.
He served on the battleship HMS Valiant. He was manning one of the ships searchlights during the battle.
@@jorzbelin1130 thank you. A real hero. I understand that Prince Andrew used his helicopter to lure missiles away from the warships during the Falklands war. A brave family.
If someone asks you why radar and aircraft carriers were important in WW2, send them this video.
@Lovecraft yeah, that's one of the problems that people engaging in warfare encounter. You often assume your tactics are sound and that there's no way the enemy can deal with what you've got (think about the Italians with their bigger guns and faster ships) but in reality, sometimes the enemy either knows you're coming or is much much better prepared than you think.
@Lovecraft _laughs in USS Washington_
Did the HMS Glorious have radar? She along with a couple of destroyers were sunk by a couple of German battleships with a great loss of life about a year earlier.
@@xtbum3339
Glorious did not. Gneisenau and Scharnhorst were spotted via their smoke on the horizon. Understandably, there was and still is a furious investigation as to how an aircraft carrier was surprised by two battleships. Glorious had no planes patrolling and none ready for launch on deck. They were fish in a barrel for the German battleships.
It's considered an utterly catastrophic blunder, compounded by the loss of the carrier HMS Courageous and the old battleship HMS Royal Oak to U-boats. The loss of these three capital ships were massive blows to the pride, ego and morale of the Royal Navy, mitigated only by the defeat of the KMS Admiral Graf Spee and the Norwegians sinking the cruiser Blucher with antiquated (German made) guns at Drobak Sound.
Cape Matapan: the 1st battle that the Duke of Edinburgh saw action in; Okinawa - the last; what a character; what a generation (he turns 99 in 2 weeks)!
Prince Philip was the midshipman on the Valiant's searchlights that lit up the Italian cruisers seconds before they were shot to pieces and was mentioned in dispatches for his work.
Air strike + radar... That was such a massive advantage...
Oh, anda By the Way... Italian defeat is based on 2 strategic massive flaws from Germany:
1) they didn't bother to tell their closest allie about radar existence.
2) they provide a false info about only one battleship being active
There is a comment about the Italy code being broken
@@psychiatry-is-eugenics this was true however the only Italian code the British had that was remotely relevant, only gave them the information that some ships not sure which, will be setting off maybe soon-ish, to somewhere in the Mediterranean, and are looking for merchant ships.
Even if you had no planes and 3 battleships(steroid royal oak,valiant and warspite) you will still win with minimal damage on all 3 ships
Thanks so much for that well-told story! This is the first video that gave me exactly what I wanted in this battle, with the animation clearly showing location and direction of movement. Congratulations on a great job
Great video, but I think you missed a point about 1:41. The Sunderland was sent to give the Italians a resonable explenation for why the RN knew they where out and disguise the codebreaking. Before the codebreaking was made public the Sunderland was given as the explenation for how how RN knew of the Italian fleet. I think that is given as the explenation in the official history of the RN.
Yes I am kicking myself for forgetting to include this
@@historigraph Don't. This is the best video reconstruction of the battle I've seen. Great work! :)
I think people sometimes forget that the Italian navy was a serious threat to the allies during the war. People focus on the German one because it had a few lucky successes but it was always small fry, never being able to field more than a few cruisers and battleships. The Italian navy however was one that was ready to take on the Royal Navy and was also in a position where it could threaten vital trade links. It's a very good thing that it ended up under performing so badly because if it hadn't it could probably have done much more to extend the length of the war than the Germans could.
Dismissing the Kriegsmarine as "small fry" is an aggressive position, but defensible *if* you limit your consideration to the surface fleet alone. If you include the U-boat war in the Atlantic, however, the Kriegsmarine was a long way from small fry--they were a very serious threat to the North Atlantic trade route (surely *the* most vital one for the Allies) into 1943, and remained a dangerous force for most of the rest of the war. (Had they been able to deploy the Type XXI boats in numbers, they might have posed a serious threat again, although we'll never truly know how good the Type XXI boats would have been in combat. Allied air power and German production blunders combined to make that not happen.)
I'm not disagreeing with your main point, though. The Regia Marina was far from a joke.
I agree if the Regia Marina was just competent enough to disrupt the trade in the Mediterranean, it would have meant the loss of effectively half of the UK's colonial holdings.
I wonder what would happen to the food supply in the UK if Indian food stocks wasnt able to be quickly imported to the UK. The famine might not have happened, although it would come at a cost of severe lack of supplies to the Indian Armies defending Burma.
The Brits were masters of the sea for hundreds of years, the Italians relative new comers. If the Brits had more modern aircraft on their carriers like the US and Japanese, the fighting would have been over with well before their capital ships would have arrived on scene.
They had a very good strategic position to dominate the med. A powerful enemy fleet in the middle of the med meant convoys had to be protected by a similar force for most of each voyage. Had the Italians kept their fleet, it would’ve occupied more British ships that were needed in the Battle of the Atlantic and the Pacific. Atlantic convoys may have been cancelled due to lack of protection from potential German battleships which would have scattered convoys like PQ-17 leaving each merchant at the mercy of U-boats.
@@oveidasinclair982 US and Japan let their Navies develop aircraft specifically for aircraft carriers. British kept their aircraft under the control of the RAF instead of the Navy so the usual friction hindered them (see HMS Glorious).
Formidable fired at least one salvo making her the only aircraft carrier ever to fight in a battle line
You and BazBattles are like the Brit Chads of history videos. You put out content that's a lot better than most stuff on the actual History Channel. Keep up the really great work man!
After studying the Pacific War for so long... it feels so weird to hear "[ships] were forced to break off after attacked by less than 6 aircraft".
This is why half of US casualties at Iwo Jima were from Japanese Kamikazee attacks. Also this is relative to the size of the fleets.
@@joenelson4235 Not sure how either statement really applies... The IJN and USN doctrines of massed, coordinated attacks meant there were almost always dozens of planes in each attack during the first half of the Pacific War. Even later in the war when Japan turned to kamikaze attacks, the raids launched were in massed groups of dozens/hundreds of planes because they knew that was needed to get through USN fighter and AA screens, and to compensate for green pilots.
In addition, most of the early engagements (pre-1944) primarily involved Task Groups of roughly the size of the fleets engaged in this battle.
Deidryt Different situations really. At the time the RN was largely fighting the combined Axis navies by itself, meaning it was spread fairly thin. Germany and the other European axis nations also had small navies relative to the RN. Meaning there were very few (if any?) engagements on the same scale as in the Pacific. As that was 2 large naval powers operating over a comparatively smaller area.
@@jorelemes That... doesn't explain anything at all. My initial point was the scale of the air attacks... how here attacks were a half dozen aircraft... whereas in the Pacific, dozens was considered a small attack.
At no point do I discuss how many ships are involved in each action besides making a point that scale was not the primary reason for this difference.
@@deidryt9944After the battle of Midway, the IJN was essentially on a defensive footing.
This is one of those channels that I like before I start watching the upload. Good job dude, polished and high quality as always.
Great work buddy! I’m learning so much from your videos. Always been so fascinated with ww1 and ww2 and having these visual representations of the battles is amazing. Thank you 🙏
HMS Warspite, the most decorated ship in all of Naval history!
Any sources to back this up?
@@jorelemes And they scrapped her? Whos the fucking idiot on that one, hell we still have a wooden frigate manned due to how instrumental it was for 1812 (good ole ironsides here to stay)
@@joshuasitzema9920 that's really only because post WWII Britain no longer has a "jingoistic" attitude towards world colonialism and world domination we moved away from that. We have had many thousands of years of history where the USA does not so with the odd exception such as HMS Victory or HMS Belfast it was more important to utilise the resources from scrapping ships than to preserve them just for the sake of memory. There is nothing glorious in war... America is still young and has a lot of learning to do - one day they might realise this but that day has not yet come to pass.
There's a new Warspite on the way, one of the new dreadnought class submarines is to be named Warspite, let's hope that she doesn't have to live up to the name.
It certainly has the most citations and decorations in the Royal Navy
I have a book on the entire history of naval combat during WW2 illustrated in paintings, the one of Matapan shows the RN battleships opening fire on the Italian cruisers at point blank range.
Yes what is the book??
@@NotWithinNormalLimits War at Sea 1939-1945 by John Hamilton, Guild Publishing London 1986
@Bertolazzi Apparently there are 4 books on Amazon, though only 1 seems to still have its cover, War at Sea 1939-1945 by John Hamilton, Guild publishing London 1986
@@NotWithinNormalLimits at least one on Ebay for £16.00 not including post n packaging, four others found too, brilliant book in my opinion.
The first broadside from Warspite sent 'A' turret of the Italian cruiser 100 feet into the air.
The turret must weigh in at at least 100 tons
When I heard the first song that played in the video I just immediately thought of filthy frank commanding a battleship.
God I miss him.....
These are probably the best historical videos you UA-cam currently. Keep up the great work and thank you
Thanks for the detailed description of the battle. While I have read a number of books on the Med, Campaign I never could find one giving this amount of detail.
Outstanding video about this battle. The animated graphics really do help, and you excellent narration (writing and speaking) is easy to follow and clear. Well done! I will subscribe to your channel based on this single video, but will watch more. Keep up the good work.
The quality of the content is amazing. Keep it up!
Warspite seemed to consist of a diet of mainly Italian ships and enemy fire... when they get a chance to fire back that is. :D
And German ships... See Jutland and the 2nd Battle of Narvik...!
@@ScienceChap i imagine every German destroyer crew broke into a cold sweat at the thought of Warspite. xD
one swordfish crew lost their lives in doing so helped destroy an entire heavy cruiser fleet
Albacore, but yes
@@historigraph do you know if that crew of 3 was rescued by the Italian fleet? Or were all hands lost?
@@bogdangabrielonete3467 All records I've seen indicate that all three aircrew were, unfortunately, lost in the crash.
@@anantr99 manly tears*
The mere presence of the Italian navy's worst nightmare, Warspite, already sealed their fate.
Best thing to see a notification for
Was waiting for this for a very long time,keep up the good work as always!
Thanks for this! Excellent presentation as always!
Finally a new video :D
P.S. If you could do a video about the Kriegsmarine Operations in the Arctic and how far did they go into Soviet waters?
Yeah I'll definitely be doing something about the naval stuff in the arctic at some point
Historigraph The sinking of the Scharnhorst is an interesting story
@@historigraph What about the Battle of Sunda Strait?
RIP Prince Philip who was there
Excellent presentation and narrated at a sensible speed. Thank you.
Wow that was one of the best videos on the war at sea I have seen. Good Graphics and a nice clear human voice with out the fake humour of a nother channel.
The initial sighting of the Italian fleet by the Sunderland was arranged by the British to ensure that their pre-knowledge of the Italian fleet leaving harbour through the use of Enigma intelligence was not discovered.
Time for the grand old lady to shine
Been waiting for this.. Amazing job!
Finally, a well produced video that gives insightful analysis of naval tactics. Y'know it's hard for us aeroplane types to understand how it all works at 20 or 30 kts and with such gigantic guns and armour.
Well told, nice work!
RIP Prince Philip
Let me just recommend a book: "Sette colpi a bordo" by Carlo De Risio. it's in Italian (I can translate the title into "seven shots on target"). It explains why the Regia Marina (i.e. the Italian Navy during WW2) was able to put only 7 shells (mid and large caliber) on target during the whole war! pretty interesting
Another brilliant video, look forward to the next one
I love the amount of ww2 naval history you have on the channel! That's a big part that most history channels neglect
11:48 epic editing moment
British: *Turns on lights* Nothing personal kid
Italians: gulp
Piers Courtney it’s strictly business
“The truth is, the game was rigged from the start” - Benny - fallout new Vegas
This is a very good and detailed video. It has sure as hell helped me in some of my WW2 essays. Well done and thank you!!!!
Love you videos, especially about these lesser known battles.
Literally all of this, as with most of the war is how Bletchley Park saved the day
That albacore pilot has such gargantuan balls I'm surprised his aircraft took off.
To be fair people were surprised when any Albacore took off and even more surprised when they came back.
Truly one of the most under-performing aircraft in RN history.
man, this is such a great video, you deserve more than 112K subscribers