Sinking of the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse
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Shot from a Japanese airplane during the attack. The HMS Repulse can be seen in the lower left as it has just been hit by a bomb. Further impacts can be seen next to the ship. The HMS Prince of Wales , top right, attempts to escape at top speed.
| date | December 10, 1941 |
|---|---|
| place | South China Sea |
| output | Decisive Japanese victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 1 battleship 1 battle cruiser 4 destroyers |
88 aircraft
|
| losses | |
|
1 battleship |
Airplanes:
18 dead |
Operation Krohcol - Prince of Wales and Repulse - Jitra - Gurun - Kampar - Slim River - Gemas - Muar - Endau
1941
Thailand - Malay Peninsula - Pearl Harbor - Hong Kong - Philippines - Guam - Wake - Force Z - Borneo
1942
Burma - Rabaul - Singapore - Sumatra - Timor - Australia - Java - Salamaua - Lae - Indian Ocean - Port Moresby - Coral Sea - Midway - North America - Buna-Gona - Kokoda-Track
The sinking of the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse occurred on December 10, 1941 off the coast of Malaysia , when Imperial Japanese Navy Air Forces attacked and sank the two ships. The battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse were part of Force Z under the leadership of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips , whose job it was to prevent Japanese naval forces from landing on British colonial territory in Southeast Asia and Japanese destined for the invasion of Malaysia To intercept convoys .
The sinking of the two capital ships was of particular importance, as it was a clear sign of the strategic loss of importance of capital ships in relation to land and sea-based air forces , which was already apparent in 1941 .
prehistory
Due to the increasing danger of war in the Pacific , Prime Minister Winston Churchill saw it as essential to station an emergency squadron in the British colonial areas in Asia . He pushed through this decision on October 20, 1941 in a cabinet meeting against many votes against. Force Z , consisting of two battleships and four destroyers, was to form the foundation for this squadron . Further ships were planned to expand the fleet in 1942, including the new aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable .
The only limited modernized battle cruiser HMS Repulse was at the time in the port of Durban in South Africa and was given the order to sail to Singapore, since another battleship next to the modern HMS Prince of Wales did not seem to be dispensable. He met the other ships there on December 2nd. Admiral Sir Tom Phillips took command of the fleet that day, and the HMS Prince of Wales became his flagship .
The arrival of the ships did not go unnoticed by the Japanese who had followed the course. As a result of the British rearmament, the Japanese fleet commander in chief Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had a total of 36 Betty bombers moved to Indochina in order to build a powerful air fleet there.
In view of the situation, Admiral Phillips took a plane to Manila in the Philippines shortly afterwards to discuss the next steps with US General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Thomas C. Hart . Meanwhile sighted a reconnaissance aircraft of the Royal Air Force a Japanese fleet with course southwest toward the Isthmus of Kra . The news was immediately relayed to Manila. Thereupon Phillips interrupted the conversation and went back to Singapore, where he immediately went on board his flagship.
On December 8, 1941 at around 5:35 p.m. Force Z ran in the direction of the Gulf of Siam to intercept the reported Japanese troop convoys in the South China Sea . Several cruisers and destroyers also moored in Singapore were left behind because they were either too slow or were being repaired. Phillips knew that the Royal Air Force, equipped with only a few outdated aircraft, could not provide air security on site. However, he assumed that the Japanese planes would not be able to operate that far from their airports. In addition, no ship larger than a heavy cruiser had been sunk by aircraft in the open sea.
The destruction of the Force Z
On the afternoon of December 9, the formation was sighted east of the Anambas Islands , first by a Japanese submarine and later by aircraft on board the cruisers covering the convoys, and shadowed for a long time without being noticed by the British. In the evening the destroyer HMS Tenedos was released to Singapore because of lack of fuel. The remaining ships initially maintained their course until they turned off towards Singapore at around 8:55 p.m. at Kota Bharu as they could not find the Japanese formation. The Japanese reconnaissance aircraft, which arrived shortly afterwards, no longer found any ships.
At around 1:00 a.m., Phillips received the message that the Japanese army had landed at Kuantan , which later turned out to be an error. The Force Z then headed north again towards the Malay Peninsula . But Phillips did not inform the base in Singapore about his change of course, but kept radio silence.
At 8:00 a.m. on December 10th, Force Z reached Kuantan. Phillips found, however, that no Japanese landing operations had taken place. So he decided to walk south along the coast back to Singapore.
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At about 11:00 ten aircraft of the Japanese captured 22 Marine Air Wing , the Force Z and flew a first wave of attack, another 27 bombers and 61 torpedo armed aircraft followed a short time later. The ships fought back with violent flak fire and tried to evade, but with little success, this also due to tactical errors by Admiral Phillips.
Admiral Phillips' flagship Prince of Wales was the first target of the air strike in the center of the formation and was hit hard by torpedoes after a short time despite her efforts to evade and non-stop flak fire. A Japanese torpedo hit the well-protected port wall and caused minor damage, but another apparently hit the bearing block on which the shaft of the outer port propeller, running at full speed, left the ship wall. As a result of this hit in the wave trousers of the port outer wave, considerable vibrations arose until the wave stopped, causing numerous damage to installations and the seals of the watertight compartments inside the ship. The shaft running at high speed was torn from its bearings, which led to severe damage inside the ship. Thousands of tons of water quickly penetrated the associated engine room through the shaft tunnel of the hit wave and, due to the damaged bulkheads, also into several neighboring generator rooms . As a result, and due to a structural weakness in the on-board network, the power supply for the entire aft half of the ship failed. This made leak protection more difficult, and due to the failure of the electric fan, further machine rooms had to be vacated after a short time, as no more personnel could be there. Due to the power failure, half of the anti-aircraft gun on deck that was stationed on the aft half of the ship also failed. The ship took by the extensive flooding inside strong list to port one, which again considerably more difficult to rotate the flak towers themselves by hand. As a result of this chain reaction, the lead ship of the entire unit was largely incapacitated after a single hit.
The much lighter armored Repulse was able to stay out of the battle at the beginning and was only hit by a bomb in the first phase of the battle , which did not penetrate the armored deck and also caused only minor damage. The Repulse also managed to dodge a total of 14 torpedoes.
After a short break in the fighting, another attack followed, in which the still fighting HMS Repulse was hit by a total of four or five torpedoes. The only lightly protected battle cruiser was no longer buoyant and capsized within five minutes. The incapable of maneuvering Prince of Wales also received several bombs and torpedo hits shortly afterwards, and due to further water ingress and the failure of the power supply, she was practically helpless in the following attacks until the ship could no longer be stopped.
After a total of seven waves of Japanese attacks, the HMS Repulse sank at 12:33 p.m. and tore 513 men with it. The flagship Prince of Wales followed 45 minutes later . 327 crew members went down with the ship, including Admiral Phillips and the commander, Captain John Leach . The comparatively high losses of the HMS Repulse are due to the fact that immediately before her sinking she was still fully operational and fought, while the HMS Prince of Wales had plenty of time to evacuate the ship. The HMS Prince of Wales lost most of its casualties before sinking through an accidental bomb hit in the "cinema", in which hundreds of wounded and machine personnel waiting to recover died. The survivors were rescued in a committed manner by the escort destroyers and brought to Singapore.
The British armed forces in Southeast Asia were severely weakened as a result; further support could not be sent as all forces in Africa and Europe were tied up. Singapore subsequently fell to the Japanese and on December 26 the last British units surrendered in Hong Kong .
The importance for the strategic maritime location
The sinking of the only two capital ships that the Allies had in the Indian and southern Pacific Oceans was a severe blow to the British and seriously shook their belief in an Allied victory.
The ships had been sent to the Pacific for them
"[...] that vague threat that heavily armed capital ships with an unknown position exert on enemy fleet plans."
Late in the evening of December 9th, the war cabinet in London had discussed the further use of the two ships. Churchill had suggested that, as a grand gesture of unity, they should join the remnants of the US Pacific Fleet, which had been badly damaged two days earlier in Pearl Harbor , Hawaii . He later wrote in his World War II story:
“During the entire war, not a single blow hit me unexpectedly, [... until later] I realized the enormous scope of this news. […] Japan ruled unrestrictedly over the vast expanses of these oceans; we were naked and bare wherever you looked. "
It was the first time that battleships were sunk by planes in the open sea. The loss of the modern HMS Prince of Wales in particular was a great shock, as the catastrophic chance hit at the beginning of the battle and its consequences only became known through investigations of the wreck after the war. With this event, the era of invincible battleships came to an end and the rise of aircraft carriers as the dominant element of a fleet began.
US General Douglas MacArthur later wrote in his memoirs:
“Sir Tom went down with the Prince of Wales and an era with him. Never again were large ships sent into enemy waters without air support; Billy Mitchell was right. "
(General William "Billy" Mitchell was convicted and demoted by a military tribunal in 1926 for publicly criticizing his superiors for resisting the expansion of the US Air Force.)
gallery
HMS Prince of Wales in the port of Singapore
HMS Repulse is leaving Singapore
HMS Electra
HMS Express
See also
literature
- Richard Hough: The Hunting of Force Z: the brief, controversial life of the modern battleship and its tragic close with the destruction of the "Prince of Wales" and "Repulse. - London: Cassell Military Paperbacks, 1999. - ISBN 0-304 -35239-X
- Martin Middlebrook and Patrick Mahoney: The Sinking of the Prince of Wales & Repulse: The End of the Battle Ship Era - New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1979. - ISBN 0-684-16333-0 (Paperback: Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books, 2004. - ISBN 1-84415-075-5 )
Web links
- Complete overview page about the event (English)