“The Day…the Dreadnought…Died…”
This blog was inspired by another great read I discovered. No relation to Don McLean is intended, licensed or implied. No restrictions apply, see store for details…
Now that I’ve got the legal mumbo jumbo out of the way, today is about Battleships, and in particular that date which the battleship truly became obsolete. Most probably non-historian Americans would probably point to December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed and torpedoed the big gun line at Pearl Harbor. But you would be wrong for a few reasons.
First, these battleships, while impressive, were 25+ years old at the time of Pearl Harbor. The newest dreadnought was the West Virginia and she was commissioned in 1923! The ole lady of the fleet, Nevada was in service during the First World War. These ships were not the newest and best. As a result, they did not have the best AAA (anti-aircraft artillery) available at the time. The 5”/25cal was an extremely light round that barely had enough killing power at is was. Next was the 1.1” machine gun mounts that were good, but were extremely prone to overheating…not good in battle. Finally, the lowly “Ma-deuce” .50 Browning Ultra Heavy Machine Gun for close in. Solid gun, but not built for the newest in high speed aircraft of the early 1940s. Additionally, armor and subdivision had improved greatly since their construction. I mean, in the early 1920s, the US was still using bi-planes. The planes were slow, carried little heavy ordnance and were used for reconnaissance rather than actual combat. The battleships did not even have any anti-aircraft directors, unlike in 1941 when they were prepared to fight against aircraft.
Secondly, and just as important, these ships were at anchor. The helm, while depending on the navy, was used to varying degrees of importance (Japan, extreme maneuvers v. the US where it was highly discouraged), the helm still played a role in avoiding enemy ordnance. Even as late as 1942, it was possible for a ship to evade torpedoes from aircraft by showing them their “back side” (smallest profile possible). Dive bombers were harder to shove off, but it was possible to at least dodge the first few bombs with hard maneuvering.
So when did the dreadnought cease to be the king of the sea if not on December 7th? Well, actually, it was only a few days after Pearl Harbor on December 10th with the sinking of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales (hence to be referred to as PoW). Even then, that sinkings were a stroke of pure luck and the actual date could have been much later, but we shall see. Thus enter “Battleship: The Loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse” by Martin Middleburg and Patrick Mahoney. The book was published in 1977 with a mixture of official records and survivor accounts from both sides sprinkled in. I will say that from a historian’s eye, it does have a few inaccuracies, but these can be ignored due to change in information from then until now.
To recap, the two ships were sent to “deter” Japanese aggression towards the British Far East Fleet’s base at Singapore. HMS Repulse was a battlecruiser, meaning she was fast and heavily armed, but armor was not quite up to the par of the 1940s. Battlecruisers were supposed to rely more on their speed than armor to shrug off any hits. On top of that, the ship was in desperate need of upgrading, but there was no time for that. She was built during WWI and was not equipped with the latest AAA or nor the most up to date defense measures (anti-torpedo blisters). So Churchill and the Admiralty believed that she was an older, but powerful unit that could be used as a deterrent.
The PoW on the other hand was completely different. Launched in 1939 and commissioned earlier in 1941, Prince of Wales was supposed to be the epitome of British battleship design. Unfortunately, the London Naval Treaty hampered King George V’s design, the class that PoW belonged to: 35,000 ton weight limit, 14” gun diameter. Additionally, the British focused on operating close to home (British Isles), so their range was not up to par of the other battleships designed by the major powers. Protection was adequate. Finally, there was one more drawback to the KGV class: in order to make up for the smaller big guns, designers gave the class ten 14” guns. That meant two turrets of four guns each. None of the major powers attempted to create a quad gun turret. The weight, gearing and engines used to turn the turrets caused the turrets to jam and fail as did with other units of the class. But it was the best Britain had.
In the Admiralty’s defense, they planned to add a fleet carrier to the mix to make it a fairly solid Force (they were trying for an action group like in their pursuit of Bismarck earlier in the year). Unfortunately HMS Indomitable was working up her air group in the relative safety of the Caribbean and while training she struck an uncharted reef. This deprived Force Z of vital on scene air cover, but it was not to be.
One more thing must be examined when it comes to the loss of PoW and Repulse: the commanding officer on scene. Admiral Sir Thomas “Tom” Phillips was a veteran of WWI and had seen some action then. After rising through the ranks and commanding various ships, by 1941 Phillips was the equivalent of Deputy Chief of Naval Operations with the Admiralty. Though he hadn’t been to sea since 1939, he was a close friend of the 1st Sea Lord, Winston Churchill. So Churchill didn’t have to reach far to put a confidant in charge of the operation. Phillips was indeed an “old school” officer. His beliefs about the destruction of ships by air forces were the result of poor handling by ships’ captain and crew rather than the effectiveness of the air attack. While we have the advantage of hindsight, the aircraft in late 1941 had yet to actually sink a capital ship out on the open water. Middlebrook and Mahoney actually cite the examples in their book of capital ships sunk in European waters (by capital ship, they also include aircraft carriers). Page 17 – 18 is where it is listed:
17 September 1939 – HMS Courageous (carrier) was torpedoed by U29.
14 October 1939 – HMS Royal Oak (battleship) was torpedoed in Scapa Flow by U47.
17 December 1939 – Graf Spee (armored ship) scuttled after an engagement off the River Platte with cruisers HMS Exeter, Ajax and Achillies.
8 June 1940 – HMS Glorious (carrier) sunk by gunfire by German battlecruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst.
3 July 1940 – French Bretagne (battleship) destroyed by Royal Navy fire in Oran.
12 November 1940 – Italian battleships Littorio, Conte Di Cavour, Caio Duilo torpedoed and sank at moorings in Taranto harbor by air attack from HMS Illustrious.
24 May 1941 – HMS Hood (battlecruiser) sunk by gunfire from German battleship Bismarck.
27 May 1941 – Bismarck scuttled after being crippled by Fleet Air Arm aircraft, but demolished by HMS King George V and Rodney (battleships) in gunnery action.
13 November 1941 – HMS Ark Royal (carrier) torpedoed by U81 off Gibraltar.
25 November 1941 – HMS Barham (battleship) torpedoed by U331 in the Mediterranean and magazines exploded.
So while it is difficult for us to understand why these two ships would have ever dreamed about sailing without air cover, I think from what Phillips knew, he figured he was OK since only one time did aircraft sink any capital ships and that was while they were in port. Looking at it from that perspective, it seems that Phillips’ attitude of “anything flying over my capital ships will be blown out of the sky” (or something to that effect. I’ve tried hard to find the exact quote from the book, but I can’t.) is quite justified. Even then, he expected his big ship to be well protected from the one major threat to his ships: torpedoes.
Phillips believed two things. One that his modern PoW was able to shrug off torpedo hits and he was right…to some degree. While no ship is truly unsinkable, PoW was solidly subdivided to be able to contain damage from flooding caused by a torpedo. Second, he believed (incorrectly) that the Japanese had no aircraft, land or carrier based that COULD sink his battleship. He and all the Admiralty were indeed duped by Japan looking at now obsolete aircraft diving on targets in China and there was little intelligence to suggest that Japan had otherwise. From an intelligence and strategic standpoint, Japan had the Western world fooled into what their armed forces were equipped with and capable of projecting.
Probably the closest example Phillips should have looked at was his own side’s attack on Taranto against the Italian fleet as to what aircraft could do. Fleet Air Arm’s own (truly) obsolescence aircraft the biplane Swordfish knocked out three Italian battleships at anchor. So this should have shown Phillips the potential of aircraft, but again, discounted it since the ships were at anchor, age of the ships and the Italian design system. Anchored ships have already been covered, so instead I’ll focus on the other two. Two of the Italian ships were WWI vintage, although they were extensively rebuilt between the wars (although the other one was of a modern design, Littorio of the Vittorio Venito class), but that leads me to the third facet. The Pugliese system was the primary Italian torpedo defense systems for their big battleships. From http://www.navweps.com/ here’s the description of the system:
“The Pugliese design filled the volume of the TDS with a large cylinder, which was in turn filled with closed tubes reminiscent of those in HMS Ramillies. Pugiese’s theory was that the torpedo would expend its energy crushing the cylinder. In practice the design failed miserably. Following the path of least resistance, the blast traveled around the cylinder and concentrated itself against the weakest point of the complex structure supporting the cylinder: the concave holding bulkhead.”
So Phillips felt completely justified in sallying forth when word reached him that a Japanese invasion convoy was approaching the Malayan coastline. He felt that if the Navy could do something to stop the invasion, he should. So he sortied the PoW and Repulse along with four destroyers to smash the transports. Had he waited though, he would have added HMS Exeter, a heavy cruiser would arrive from across the Indian Ocean within three days, and possibly HMS Mauritius, a modern light cruiser of Fiji design while undergoing engine repairs could have been ready to sail within 48 hours. That would have made a nasty threat to the Japanese, but alas, Phillips wanted to sail as soon as possible.
The Japanese set up minefields before war was declared and deployed submarines to block the believed route. However, Phillips maneuvered far to the east of the line, but the Japanese got lucky that the ships passed within sight of their eastern most submarine. For what would become a huge snafu for the Japanese, they mishandled the news for the first time and the vital information was received much too late to be of use. The force screening the Japanese troop convoy was much too small to truly defend the convoy, but due to an unexpected Japanese aerial flare being dropped it spooked both forces away from each other. Phillips was about to turn home empty handed, but within an hour, a new report was sent to him about a Japanese landing and decided to investigate. Once again, the force was sighted by a Japanese submarine and again passed the information on and again was delayed getting to the powers that be. The opportunity almost passed the Japanese by again by not equipping their strike force with enough torpedo bombers, but they managed to catch some breaks.
Two types of Japanese aircraft attacked British Force Z: The “Nell” and “Betty” bombers. Both were medium bombers that could be equipped with bombs or torpedoes. They also had a further range than contemporary British aircraft, so Phillips believed he was out of aerial danger (despite a Japanese aerial attack on Singapore the first day of the war). Unfortunately, when his force was spotted, Japanese aircraft turned to converge on his position. Even then, his force’s days were not numbered.
That occurred when PoW was attacked by several Japanese aircraft. Phillips believed his flagship only sustained one torpedo hit, but in fact sustained two. The first one struck the ship amidships on the port side and was absorbed by the torpedo defense system. The second one, however, was much more serious. Again hitting on the port side, this torpedo struck just ahead of the number four shaft. This hit essentially flooded the entire propeller shaft all the way back to the engines, boilers, and dynamo (generator) rooms and flooded them. This one disabled took out the ship’s electrical power, disabling everything:
- · Pumps – According to Middlebrook and Mahoney, the PoW was equipped with fourteen 350 tons/hr. pumps and four 1,000 tons/hr. emergency bilge pumps. Unfortunately, the rear ones were without power due to dynamo flooding and the failure of the electrical system.
- · Counter flooding – When a ship sustains damage to the hull, one of the most common defense mechanisms is counterflooding. An equal amount of water can be pumped into the hull to offset the list or degree off the horizon the ship is. Again, won’t work if there is no power. This also affected the ships AAA armament: they need a platform within 10 degrees of the horizon to work (plus they will be covered a bit later).
- · Communication – With the power out, phone systems were down. Messages had to be passed by hand and accurate assessments could not be done. For instance, one electrical repair party was attempting to provide power to the 5.25” turrets by emergency wires when the system to redistribute power from the front half of the ship to the rear went unchecked.
- · Ventilation & Lighting – Even the warm air on the main decks were cooler than the engine spaces of PoW. As a result of no power, air stopped moving and men began to overhead down in the few working boiler, engine and dynamo spaces. This made it very difficult to get the damage under control as well.
- · Steering – Prince of Wales’ steering motors were cut off from power, thus making the ship near impossible to maneuver when the next inevitable attack came.
- · Anti-aircraft armament – As stated earlier, PoW’s 5.25” guns needed less than 10’ list on the deck to function properly…and then they needed power to work. The aft ones were completely without power and thus were useless, and the four forward guns were out of action due to the list of the ship.
(All these were summarized from Middleburg and Mahoney’s book)
So Prince of Wales was out of action, though not sinking, not maneuvering, not doing a whole lot of anything. The Japanese aircraft were heading out of the area headed for Saigon. Phillips had no way of knowing there were many more aircraft headed towards Force Z’s location. The lull brought a 20 minute respite, but more aircraft droned in overhead. This time, with a crippled PoW and an ill protected Repulse stood on the verge of being slaughtered. Japanese torpedo bombers quickly struck their torpedoes home on the stern again and caused PoW to slowly begin settling by the stern. Repulse, under the helm of Captain Tennant, continued to evade torpedoes. She managed to shake off one torpedo hit before taking an attack from a force of nine Japanese aircraft originally intending to attack PoW, but not really needed since the ship was settling. This squadron launched a coordinated attack on port and starboard simultaneously so that Captain Tennant could not avoid them all. Three more torpedoes hit port side and the ship shuddered to a halt before the ship’s list increased before turning turtle and sinking. Prince of Wales lasted longer, but ultimately, both ships sank to the bottom of the South China Sea.
I think a little creative thinking is necessary at this juncture. Could PoW and Repulse have survived? Quite possibly. As shown by Bismarck, no matter how modern, a ship is still vulnerable at the stern. The torpedo hit was indeed a fluke and did hit beyond the battleship’s citadel (the armored part in the center, protecting the the boilers, engines and dynamos). But what it did was flood back and bypasses the armor protection of the ship. I believe any battleship (even Wisconsin or the mighty Yamato) struck in the place would have serious problems. As much as people say that oil is the lifeblood of a battleship, it is the boilers that generate steam for boilers and generators. Even then, electricity is what powers everything on a ship. When that goes out, everything is lost until that can be fixed. Had the torpedo struck somewhere else (as demonstrated by the second hit on PoW), it may not have seriously affected PoW. Even keeping PoW around after 10 December may have seriously hampered Japanese efforts to taking the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). I mean, imagine what would have happened with the ABDA force at the Battle of Java Sea? This would have certainly affected Japanese strategy in their operation to take Java and forced them to reinforce their attack force with modern battleships or perhaps even the Kido Butai (First Air Fleet).
Even if PoW and Repulse survived their sortie, when would the battleship’s reign have ended? Again, this is an area of conjecture and speculation, but it may have taken a much longer time, although again the US Navy would have probably gone with carriers as their lead capital ships only out of necessity.
