By: paul178
- 10th August 2015 at 14:03Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
!,415 RN sailors lost their lives in the Hood and only 3 survivors. I met the last one Ted Briggs at a meeting a very nice unassuming man. The meeting was not about the Hood and it was only after that I found out who he was.
By: Creaking Door
- 10th August 2015 at 14:35Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
It is an utter disgrace that not a single Royal Navy battleship (as opposed to warship) was preserved from that era; no battleship, no destroyer, no frigate, no corvette, no submarine that saw service in the Second World War has been preserved (in wartime configuration).
By: Moggy C
- 10th August 2015 at 14:54Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Both Bismark and Prinz Eugen had gun-ranging radar, something that HMS Hood and (probably?) HMS Prince of Wales lacked
April 1941: The PRINCE OF WALES went to sea with HACS IVGB, with full radar ranging systems, and no less than nine AA fire control radars: four Type 285 Radars, one on each High Angle Director Tower and four Type 282 Radars, one on each Mk IV pom-pom director, and a long range Type 281 Radar which also had precision ranging panels for aerial and surface targets.
By: John Green
- 10th August 2015 at 14:56Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
As a schoolboy during the summer holidays, I was campng on the beach at Marazion, Cornwall when to seaward of Mounts Bay came a sea going tug towing the Warspite on her last voyage to the knackers yard and five million razor blades.
Don't forget we still have HMS Belfast and memories of her disagreement with Scharnhorst.
By: Moggy C
- 10th August 2015 at 15:21Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
.. I was campng on the beach at Marazion, Cornwall when to seaward of Mounts Bay came a sea going tug towing the Warspite on her last voyage to the knackers yard
Of course she never got to the breakers yard. Fighting to the last she grounded herself off Mounts Bay, where she was partially dismantled, once lighter she was moved to Marazion beach were her breaking was completed.
Tragic. She had served in both conflicts. But we were broke and that was a lot of valuable scrap.
By: Creaking Door
- 10th August 2015 at 15:23Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I didn't know HMS Prince of Wales carried radar at the Battle of the Denmark Strait.
Naval warfare contained a large element of luck in the 'big gun' era; when Bismark was finally cornered she failed to score a single hit on any of the Royal Navy warships present.
By: hampden98
- 10th August 2015 at 18:17Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The Bismark was not designed to engage naval ships, she was a surface raider. Perhaps her downfall was she never really wanted to
engage the Royal Navy in Battle.
Having said that she did take hits and was heavily damaged before the Swordfish engaged.
Ironically if the Swordfish had not attacked Sheffield by mistake and if she (Bismark) had stopped engines and had done nothing to defend herself against the Swordfish she probably would have survived.
My father served on HMS Anson during WW2. Those German sailors were brave men.
By: Creaking Door
- 10th August 2015 at 18:44Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Bismark was a battleship and absolutely was designed to engage enemy battleships; when launched she was the most powerful battleship in service with any European power. Admittedly her orders directed her to seek-out and destroy merchant convoys and to avoid engagements with Royal Navy capital ships but that was not because of her design.
The Graf Spee on the other hand could have been specifically designed as a commerce-raider; she could out-gun anything that she couldn't out-run and out-run anything that she couldn't out-gun.
By: paul178
- 10th August 2015 at 20:21Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Not deriding or taking away any thing for those who fought and died in protecting us in the utterly black days of 1940 and probably saving us from an invasion. Brave men to a man. But it still rankles slightly that the RN and this country can commemorate battle of britain day where 544 aircrew died but let HMS Hood that lost almost three time as many men in one action can slide into relative forgetfulness by most
By: John Green
- 10th August 2015 at 22:19Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
"can slide into relative forgetfulness"
And shortly to be followed by knowledge of the Battle of Britain unless we address the shortcomings in many State schools where it is claimed around 40% of schoolchildren no nothing of the Battle.
By: Moggy C
- 10th August 2015 at 22:36Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
... it still rankles slightly that the RN and this country can commemorate battle of britain day where 544 aircrew died but let HMS Hood that lost almost three time as many men in one action can slide into relative forgetfulness ...
And Bomber Command lost about three times as many men in the Battle of Berlin as the RN lost in the Hood.
I don't think the commemoration of the BoB is about the number of British / Commonwealth and other allied casualties
Moggy
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By: snafu
- 11th August 2015 at 01:42Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Did any Royal navy Capital Ships survive the Second World War, I can't think of one :)
Much easier to list those that sunk.
Seriously? On this forum?
More likely he meant the world in general.
Guess there is always someone who wants to muddy the water.
Not muddying the water, raising a point. Thank you for your informative post; my information was that sites became war graves when it was known that members of the crew had died on board and the bodies were unable to be recovered or that their recovery was inviable due to, for example, being aboard a sunken vessel.
It is an utter disgrace that not a single Royal Navy battleship (as opposed to warship) was preserved from that era; no battleship, no destroyer, no frigate, no corvette, no submarine that saw service in the Second World War has been preserved (in wartime configuration).
Not strictly true... HMS Belfast has been mentioned already and HMCS Sackville, the last surviving Flower class corvette, is a museum vessel in Canada. HMS Alliance is preserved, having been launched in July 1945, the destroyer HMS Cavalier (commissioned 11/1944) is preserved, HMS Wellington, a 1934 sloop, is preserved as the headquarters ship of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners on the Victoria Embankment on the Thames. LCT7074, a landing craft tank, is under restoration in Portsmouth with a target date of 2019, the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The 1943 patrol boat HMS Medusa (ML1387) is preserved. The mini subs X24 (1944) and XE8 (1945) are both preserved. The Tribal class destroyer HMCS Haida (1942) is preserved in Canada. The River class frigate HMAS Diamantina (1944) is preserved in Australia, as are the Bathurst class corvettes HMAS Castlemaine and HMAS Whyalla (both 1942).
It is not easy to keep a huge hunk of metal like a warship preserved in Britain - we just don't have the weather for the mass survival of such beasts, nor the enthusiasm or (for that matter) the money.
Apart from the Duke of York's engagement with Scharnhorst the others don't seem to crop up very much, it always seems to be the ones that were sunk that you hear of the most, the size of that list surprises me. :)
But they were there, chasing around the Atlantic and Mediterranean, bombarding beach heads, you get the picture.
Some years ago (1986) I met a Hood sailor who was (lucky) posted dreckly before the ship sailed for Bismark..
Like a great uncle of mine and Jon Pertwee - both taken off at the last moment. A couple of other relatives were not so lucky.
By: paul178
- 11th August 2015 at 06:38Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Moggy,Yes I know about Bomber command losses. My point probably not put to well is that WW2 is sliding away in peoples memories. The last couple of generations seem to have very little knowledge of it and the freedom it gives them today.Ask most people about Jutland and you will get a blank stare.
Still lets see what is remembered on July 1st 2016.
By: charliehunt
- 11th August 2015 at 08:15Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
All quite true, Paul but with a teenage grandson who has grown up fully aware of both the world wars of the last century, I realise that he and his peers are the future and WW2 is twice as remote to them as WW1 was to me at the same age. The reality of the horror of the Nazi jackboot has the same relevance as the misery of 45 years of communist hegemony in half the world.
The realities are entirely different now, the dangers are totally different and the fears if any quite different. In ten years time there will be practically no one living born during the war and none living who has any experience or memory of the war. Battles of the two world wars will be remembered purely historically like Waterloo was for all of us a few weeks ago.
By: Moggy C
- 11th August 2015 at 08:28Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Battles of the two world wars will be remembered purely historically like Waterloo was for all of us a few weeks ago.
I think there is a significant difference in that moving images exist of WW1 and WW2 which will always make them at least a little 'more real' to those viewing them from the future.
By: Mike meteor
- 11th August 2015 at 08:50Permalink- Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
By 1941 the Royal Navy was routinely taking to sea better quality Radar, ( they still called it RDF) than the Kreigsmarine. German radar development at sea lagged well behind that of the British. As Moggy mentioned earlier, at Matapan the British battleships sat quite calmly watching the range come down as the Italian cruisers approached, just waiting for the right moment. When they eventually opened fire the Italians were caught completely unawares.
Graf Spee carried an early, experimental form, of Seetakt radar which was of no advantage on the day because visibilty exceeded the range of the radar set. Also, throughout the war, the Kreigsmarine was extremely cautious about using Seetakt, ( which they did not significantly develop), because they feared the possibility that detection equipment on allied warships might pick up radar transmissions and use them to home in on enemy vessels; when Scharnhorst was engaged by the cruiser Norfolk at North Cape she was caught with her guns trained fore and aft and unaware of the presence of British ships. As luck would have it, Norfolk's first, radar aimed, salvo took out Scharnhorst's own, switched off radar. Later, Duke of York would engage Scharnhorst almost entirely using her type 284 gunnery radar to spot for her guns. Conversely, the radar operators, as in Hood at Denmark Strait, could call the incoming shells from the opposition as they saw them approach on that same radar.
At the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the crews in Bismark and Prinz Eugen were aware for some time of the approach of British ships; they could hear them on their hydrophones, but they didn't spot them on radar, (switched off for the reason given earlier). The British, on the other hand, detected the Germans earlier on radar but Admiral Holland was forced by circumstance to make a slower approach than he had originally intended because Norfolk and Suffolk temporarily lost contact with Bismark and couldn't provide homing information.
Holland's original intention was to close the range fast, then turn to slug it out once Hood was safe from plunging fire which might easily pierce her deck armour. Sadly he was instead forced into a compromise which slowed his rate of approach and exposed Hood for longer than he wished. He had literally just amended his plan and signalled an alteration of course to open up the arcs of fire for his after turrets when Hood received her fatal damage.
Couple of points: many naval tacticians have speculated that a better course of action would have been for Holland to close in fast with Hood and leave the better armoured Prince of Wales to exchange fire at long range, thus splitting the German response. Instead he chose to manoeuvre his ships as a force, a cumbersome move. Also, the British misidentified the German ships and fired upon the leading vessel which was standard practice for them; unfortunately the leading ship was Prinz Eugen and so Bismark was left unchallenged at first; again the mistake was spotted but corrected too late.
The Germans were acutely conscious of the presence, in their rear so to speak, of the cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk and expected them to take a hand; they did not and it's an interesting thought as to what might have happened if they had. Their job, as far as Admiral Holland was concerned, was to shadow and report and this is what they did and as things turned out, just as well.
Remember too that radar had a detection range very much less than visual under most conditions and both Suffolk and Norfolk were inside Bismark's gun range for a lot of the time that they were shadowing. Given their almost non existent deck armour that's a sobering thought.
Finally, one of the British ships, sentiment likes to suggest it was Hood, scored a telling hit on Bismark. The latter's forward fuel transfer valves were knocked out and so several hundred vital tons of fuel became inaccessible. This dictated Admiral Lutjens future moves and forced him to turn for the French coast. And that, in no small measure, was the reason that Force H with Ark Royal's swordfish, were able to slow her up for the Home Fleet to finish her off; an interesting study in cause and effect.
Best account of the story? In my humble opinion, 'Pursuit' by Ludovic Kennedy. Terrific and unbiased account written by an outstanding journalist who served in one of the destroyers involved in the chase.
Posts: 2,841
By: paul178 - 10th August 2015 at 14:03 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
!,415 RN sailors lost their lives in the Hood and only 3 survivors. I met the last one Ted Briggs at a meeting a very nice unassuming man. The meeting was not about the Hood and it was only after that I found out who he was.
Posts: 16,832
By: Moggy C - 10th August 2015 at 14:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
From FAA archives an image of the inglorious end of the two Nelson class, and one Queen Elizabeth class.
Loss of life apart I think the ones that succumbed in battle had a more fitting fate.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]239781[/ATTACH]
Moggy
Posts: 9,739
By: Creaking Door - 10th August 2015 at 14:35 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
It is an utter disgrace that not a single Royal Navy battleship (as opposed to warship) was preserved from that era; no battleship, no destroyer, no frigate, no corvette, no submarine that saw service in the Second World War has been preserved (in wartime configuration).
Posts: 16,832
By: Moggy C - 10th August 2015 at 14:47 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Warspite contributed so much, she should have been saved.
Along with a Flower Class here in the UK
Moggy
Posts: 16,832
By: Moggy C - 10th August 2015 at 14:54 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Moggy
Posts: 6,535
By: John Green - 10th August 2015 at 14:56 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
As a schoolboy during the summer holidays, I was campng on the beach at Marazion, Cornwall when to seaward of Mounts Bay came a sea going tug towing the Warspite on her last voyage to the knackers yard and five million razor blades.
Don't forget we still have HMS Belfast and memories of her disagreement with Scharnhorst.
Posts: 16,832
By: Moggy C - 10th August 2015 at 15:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Of course she never got to the breakers yard. Fighting to the last she grounded herself off Mounts Bay, where she was partially dismantled, once lighter she was moved to Marazion beach were her breaking was completed.
Tragic. She had served in both conflicts. But we were broke and that was a lot of valuable scrap.
Moggy
Posts: 9,739
By: Creaking Door - 10th August 2015 at 15:23 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I didn't know HMS Prince of Wales carried radar at the Battle of the Denmark Strait.
Naval warfare contained a large element of luck in the 'big gun' era; when Bismark was finally cornered she failed to score a single hit on any of the Royal Navy warships present.
Posts: 16,832
By: Moggy C - 10th August 2015 at 15:44 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Nor did I. I just assumed the shadowing cruisers were the only ones equipped.
But Mr Google is my ally, as always.
Moggy
Posts: 2,536
By: hampden98 - 10th August 2015 at 18:17 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The Bismark was not designed to engage naval ships, she was a surface raider. Perhaps her downfall was she never really wanted to
engage the Royal Navy in Battle.
Having said that she did take hits and was heavily damaged before the Swordfish engaged.
Ironically if the Swordfish had not attacked Sheffield by mistake and if she (Bismark) had stopped engines and had done nothing to defend herself against the Swordfish she probably would have survived.
My father served on HMS Anson during WW2. Those German sailors were brave men.
Posts: 9,739
By: Creaking Door - 10th August 2015 at 18:44 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Bismark was a battleship and absolutely was designed to engage enemy battleships; when launched she was the most powerful battleship in service with any European power. Admittedly her orders directed her to seek-out and destroy merchant convoys and to avoid engagements with Royal Navy capital ships but that was not because of her design.
The Graf Spee on the other hand could have been specifically designed as a commerce-raider; she could out-gun anything that she couldn't out-run and out-run anything that she couldn't out-gun.
Posts: 2,841
By: paul178 - 10th August 2015 at 20:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Not deriding or taking away any thing for those who fought and died in protecting us in the utterly black days of 1940 and probably saving us from an invasion. Brave men to a man. But it still rankles slightly that the RN and this country can commemorate battle of britain day where 544 aircrew died but let HMS Hood that lost almost three time as many men in one action can slide into relative forgetfulness by most
Posts: 6,535
By: John Green - 10th August 2015 at 22:19 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
"can slide into relative forgetfulness"
And shortly to be followed by knowledge of the Battle of Britain unless we address the shortcomings in many State schools where it is claimed around 40% of schoolchildren no nothing of the Battle.
Posts: 104
By: buccaneer66 - 10th August 2015 at 22:33 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Don't forget we could have lost one of the best Dr Whos as Jon Pertwee was an HMS Hood crew member.
Posts: 16,832
By: Moggy C - 10th August 2015 at 22:36 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
And Bomber Command lost about three times as many men in the Battle of Berlin as the RN lost in the Hood.
I don't think the commemoration of the BoB is about the number of British / Commonwealth and other allied casualties
Moggy
Posts: 2,748
By: snafu - 11th August 2015 at 01:42 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Much easier to list those that sunk.
More likely he meant the world in general.
Not muddying the water, raising a point. Thank you for your informative post; my information was that sites became war graves when it was known that members of the crew had died on board and the bodies were unable to be recovered or that their recovery was inviable due to, for example, being aboard a sunken vessel.
Not strictly true... HMS Belfast has been mentioned already and HMCS Sackville, the last surviving Flower class corvette, is a museum vessel in Canada. HMS Alliance is preserved, having been launched in July 1945, the destroyer HMS Cavalier (commissioned 11/1944) is preserved, HMS Wellington, a 1934 sloop, is preserved as the headquarters ship of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners on the Victoria Embankment on the Thames. LCT7074, a landing craft tank, is under restoration in Portsmouth with a target date of 2019, the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The 1943 patrol boat HMS Medusa (ML1387) is preserved. The mini subs X24 (1944) and XE8 (1945) are both preserved. The Tribal class destroyer HMCS Haida (1942) is preserved in Canada. The River class frigate HMAS Diamantina (1944) is preserved in Australia, as are the Bathurst class corvettes HMAS Castlemaine and HMAS Whyalla (both 1942).
It is not easy to keep a huge hunk of metal like a warship preserved in Britain - we just don't have the weather for the mass survival of such beasts, nor the enthusiasm or (for that matter) the money.
But they were there, chasing around the Atlantic and Mediterranean, bombarding beach heads, you get the picture.
Like a great uncle of mine and Jon Pertwee - both taken off at the last moment. A couple of other relatives were not so lucky.
Posts: 2,841
By: paul178 - 11th August 2015 at 06:38 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Moggy,Yes I know about Bomber command losses. My point probably not put to well is that WW2 is sliding away in peoples memories. The last couple of generations seem to have very little knowledge of it and the freedom it gives them today.Ask most people about Jutland and you will get a blank stare.
Still lets see what is remembered on July 1st 2016.
Posts: 11,141
By: charliehunt - 11th August 2015 at 08:15 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
All quite true, Paul but with a teenage grandson who has grown up fully aware of both the world wars of the last century, I realise that he and his peers are the future and WW2 is twice as remote to them as WW1 was to me at the same age. The reality of the horror of the Nazi jackboot has the same relevance as the misery of 45 years of communist hegemony in half the world.
The realities are entirely different now, the dangers are totally different and the fears if any quite different. In ten years time there will be practically no one living born during the war and none living who has any experience or memory of the war. Battles of the two world wars will be remembered purely historically like Waterloo was for all of us a few weeks ago.
Posts: 16,832
By: Moggy C - 11th August 2015 at 08:28 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I think there is a significant difference in that moving images exist of WW1 and WW2 which will always make them at least a little 'more real' to those viewing them from the future.
Moggy
Posts: 197
By: Mike meteor - 11th August 2015 at 08:50 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
By 1941 the Royal Navy was routinely taking to sea better quality Radar, ( they still called it RDF) than the Kreigsmarine. German radar development at sea lagged well behind that of the British. As Moggy mentioned earlier, at Matapan the British battleships sat quite calmly watching the range come down as the Italian cruisers approached, just waiting for the right moment. When they eventually opened fire the Italians were caught completely unawares.
Graf Spee carried an early, experimental form, of Seetakt radar which was of no advantage on the day because visibilty exceeded the range of the radar set. Also, throughout the war, the Kreigsmarine was extremely cautious about using Seetakt, ( which they did not significantly develop), because they feared the possibility that detection equipment on allied warships might pick up radar transmissions and use them to home in on enemy vessels; when Scharnhorst was engaged by the cruiser Norfolk at North Cape she was caught with her guns trained fore and aft and unaware of the presence of British ships. As luck would have it, Norfolk's first, radar aimed, salvo took out Scharnhorst's own, switched off radar. Later, Duke of York would engage Scharnhorst almost entirely using her type 284 gunnery radar to spot for her guns. Conversely, the radar operators, as in Hood at Denmark Strait, could call the incoming shells from the opposition as they saw them approach on that same radar.
At the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the crews in Bismark and Prinz Eugen were aware for some time of the approach of British ships; they could hear them on their hydrophones, but they didn't spot them on radar, (switched off for the reason given earlier). The British, on the other hand, detected the Germans earlier on radar but Admiral Holland was forced by circumstance to make a slower approach than he had originally intended because Norfolk and Suffolk temporarily lost contact with Bismark and couldn't provide homing information.
Holland's original intention was to close the range fast, then turn to slug it out once Hood was safe from plunging fire which might easily pierce her deck armour. Sadly he was instead forced into a compromise which slowed his rate of approach and exposed Hood for longer than he wished. He had literally just amended his plan and signalled an alteration of course to open up the arcs of fire for his after turrets when Hood received her fatal damage.
Couple of points: many naval tacticians have speculated that a better course of action would have been for Holland to close in fast with Hood and leave the better armoured Prince of Wales to exchange fire at long range, thus splitting the German response. Instead he chose to manoeuvre his ships as a force, a cumbersome move. Also, the British misidentified the German ships and fired upon the leading vessel which was standard practice for them; unfortunately the leading ship was Prinz Eugen and so Bismark was left unchallenged at first; again the mistake was spotted but corrected too late.
The Germans were acutely conscious of the presence, in their rear so to speak, of the cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk and expected them to take a hand; they did not and it's an interesting thought as to what might have happened if they had. Their job, as far as Admiral Holland was concerned, was to shadow and report and this is what they did and as things turned out, just as well.
Remember too that radar had a detection range very much less than visual under most conditions and both Suffolk and Norfolk were inside Bismark's gun range for a lot of the time that they were shadowing. Given their almost non existent deck armour that's a sobering thought.
Finally, one of the British ships, sentiment likes to suggest it was Hood, scored a telling hit on Bismark. The latter's forward fuel transfer valves were knocked out and so several hundred vital tons of fuel became inaccessible. This dictated Admiral Lutjens future moves and forced him to turn for the French coast. And that, in no small measure, was the reason that Force H with Ark Royal's swordfish, were able to slow her up for the Home Fleet to finish her off; an interesting study in cause and effect.
Best account of the story? In my humble opinion, 'Pursuit' by Ludovic Kennedy. Terrific and unbiased account written by an outstanding journalist who served in one of the destroyers involved in the chase.