HMS Prince of Wales (1939)
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | 29 July 1936 |
| Laid down: | 1 January 1937 at Cammell Laird Shipyard, Birkenhead, England |
| Launched: | 3 May 1939 |
| Commissioned: | 19 January 1941 (completed 31 March) |
| Fate: | Sunk 10 December 1941, off Kuantan, South China Sea |
| Struck: | 10 December 1941 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 43,786 Tons (deep) |
| Length: | 745 ft 1 in (227.1 m) (overall) 740 ft 1 in (225.6 m) (waterline) |
| Beam: | 112 ft 5 in (34.3 m) (max) |
| Draught: | 29 ft (8.8 m) (mean standard), 32 ft 6 in (9.9 m) (mean deep) |
| Propulsion: | 8 Admiralty three-drum small-tube boilers with superheaters 4 Parsons single-reduction geared turbines 4 three-bladed propellers, 14 ft 6 in diameter (4.42 m) 111,600 shp |
| Speed: | 28.0 knots (1941 trials) |
| Range: | 3,100 nm at 27 knots 14,400 nm at 10 knots |
| Complement: | 1,521 (1941) |
| Armament (December 1941): | 10 × 14 in/45 cal. (356 mm/45 cal.)(2 × 4, 1 × 2) mk VII 16 × 5.25 in/50 cal. (133 mm/50 cal.) dual purpose (8 × 2) 48 2 pdr (1.5 in) AA (40 mm) (6 × 8) |
| Armor: | Main belt: 14.7 in (374 mm) lower belt: 5.4 in (137 mm) deck: up to 5.38 in (136 mm) main turrets: 12.75 in (324 mm) barbettes: 12.75 in (324 mm). |
| Aircraft: | 4 Supermarine Walrus seaplanes, 1 double-ended catapult |
| Motto: | "Ich Diene" - German: I serve |
HMS Prince of Wales was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy, built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, England. The Prince of Wales had a brief but active career, helping to stop the Bismarck and carrying Churchill to the Newfoundland Conference; however her loss to Japanese land-based bombers in the Far East in 1941 is one of the events that led to the end of the battleship being considered the predominant class in naval warfare.
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[edit] Naming
The Admiralty ordered construction of the new King George V-class battleship on 29 July 1936. They immediately requested that the ship be named HMS King Edward VIII in honour of the new monarch Edward VIII. However King Edward who was perhaps sensing the possible future problems of his reign due to his relationship with Wallis Simpson, scratched out the name and substituted Prince of Wales. The new Prince of Wales became the seventh ship to bear the name.
[edit] Construction
At the time of the declaration of war the Prince of Wales was fitting out in Liverpool. The ship was damaged in August 1940 during the Liverpool Blitz. She suffered one near miss that exploded between her port side and the wall of the basin in which she lay, severely buckling and springing her outer plates in this area. The Admiralty determined that she would be needed in case the Bismarck or Tirpitz were deployed, so her construction was advanced by postponing several tests, shortening builders trials, and deferring post-shakedown availability. She was commissioned on 19 January 1941 under the command of Captain John Leach, but not physically "completed" until 31 March.
[edit] Service in the Atlantic
Shortly after her commissioning, Prince of Wales joined HMS Hood in stalking and attacking the German battleship Bismarck and the accompanying heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. The Prince of Wales sailed with civilian technicians still aboard. On 24 May, she and the Hood fought the two German warships at the battle of the Denmark Strait. Following the sinking of Hood, with an inexperienced crew, after receiving 7 large-calibre hits and with most of her weaponry out of action due to damage or other problems, the Prince of Wales disengaged under a smokescreen. During the brief battle she had struck three hits on Bismarck, one of which hit a forward fuel tank removing it from use. This forced the Bismarck to head for France for repairs. The Prince of Wales joined up with the cruisers HMS Suffolk and Norfolk that had been shadowing the Bismarck since before the Denmark Strait. Gunfire was exchanged with the Bismarck briefly at 0131hrs on 25 May. Twelve hours later, Prince Of Wales broke off pursuit due to her fuel running low. She then returned to the shipyard for 6 weeks of repair.
In August, the Prince of Wales carried British Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic to Argentia, Newfoundland, where he secretly met with the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt for several days in a secure anchorage, beginning on 10 August 1941. This meeting resulted in the signing of the Atlantic Charter on 12 August 1941. After this trip, she was assigned to the Mediterranean for convoy escort duty, where she shot down several attacking planes on 27 September.
[edit] Service in the Pacific
- See also: Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse
On 25 October, Prince of Wales, along with the destroyers HMS Electra and Express, left for Singapore to become the flagship of the Far East Fleet under Admiral Sir Tom Phillips. She arrived at Singapore in early December, joining the battlecruiser HMS Repulse. The new aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable was also scheduled to join Force Z, but she ran aground in Jamaica during trials, and needed repair.
These ships were sent to Singapore to serve as a deterrent to Japanese aggression. However, the Japanese were not deterred and commenced their invasions on 8 December, the same day that they attacked Pearl Harbour on the other side of the International Date Line. Admiral Phillips decided to try and intercept the landing fleets, and Prince of Wales and Repulse set off, along with four destroyers, HMS Electra, Express, Tenedos, and HMAS Vampire, to search for the Japanese. However, they were not successful and the Japanese submarine I-65 spotted them as they returned to Singapore. Japanese aircraft and submarines shadowed the fleet, and on 10 December 1941, without any air cover, both the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were attacked and sunk by 86 Japanese bombers and torpedo bombers from the 22nd Air Flotilla based at Saigon.
As a modern battleship, the Prince of Wales was expected to fare better than the World War I veteran Repulse but this was not so. Even before setting out, the Prince of Wales's surface scanning radar was inoperable, depriving Force Z of one of its most potent early-warning devices. Early in the battle, the Prince of Wales was disabled by a lucky torpedo hit where the propeller shaft entered the hull, which caused severe flooding, rendered the rudder useless, and cut the power to her 5.25 inch DP guns. Two further torpedo hits struck her weakest section, the area damaged by the German bombing in 1940 and never completely repaired. Altogether, she suffered 6 torpedo and 1 bomb hits in this action. Several hundred men were killed when the ship sank, with Vice-Admiral Phillips and Captain Leach being among those lost when they chose to go down with their ship. However, the stronger hull of the Prince of Wales enabled much of the crew to be saved, in stark contrast to the older Repulse which suffered a heavy loss of life.
They were the first capital ships to be sunk solely by airpower on the open sea [albeit land-based rather than carrier-based aircraft], a harbinger of the diminishing role this class of ships was to play in naval warfare thereafter. It is often pointed out, however, that a contributing factor to the sinking of the Prince of Wales was her inoperable radar and the early critical damage she had sustained from the first torpedo. The British Director of Naval Construction's report on the sinking also claimed that the ship's anti-aircraft guns could have "inflict[ed] heavy casualties before torpedoes were dropped, if not prevent[ed] the successful conclusion of attack" had crews been more adequately trained in their operation. See also Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse
The wreck lies nearly upside down in 155 feet of water at approximately 3 degrees 33.6 minutes North Latitude, 104 degrees 28.7 minutes East Longitude. A British flag attached to a line on a buoy that is tied to a propeller shaft is periodically renewed. The wreck site was designated as a 'Protected Place' in 2001 under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, just prior to the 60th anniversary of her sinking. The ship's bell was raised in 2002 with the blessing of the Ministry of Defence and The Force Z Survivors Association. It was restored, then presented for permanent display by First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Alan West, KCB DSC ADC to the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool.
[edit] References
- William H. Garzke, Jr., and Robert O. Dunlin, Jr., Battleships: Allied Battleships in World War II (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1980). Gives a detailed history of the design, operational history, and battle damage to the ship, and includes pictures of the ship under construction and of battle damage received.
- Siegfried Breyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905-1970 (Doubleday and Company; Garden City, New York, 1973) (originally published in German as Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905-1970, J.F. Lehmanns, Verlag, Munchen, 1970).
- Martin Middlebrook and Patrick Mahonehy Battleship: The Sinking of the Prince Of Wales and the Repulse (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1979)
- Lt Cdr. Timothy J. Cain HMS Electra (Frederick Muller, LTD., London, 1959) ISBN 0-86007-330-0 Includes a description of the final battle off Kuantan, and the rescue of the survivors.
- Military Heritage did a feature on the Prince Of Wales and its sinking (Joseph M. Horodyski, Military Heritage, December 2001, Volume 3, No. 3, pp.69 to 77).
[edit] External links
- List of Crew
- Maritimequest HMS Prince of Wales Photo Gallery
- Institute of Naval History, HMS Prince of Wales
| King George V-class battleship |
| King George V | Prince of Wales | Duke of York | Anson | Howe |
| Preceded by: Nelson class - Followed by: Lion class (planned) |
List of battleships of the Royal Navy |
