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HMS Prince Of Wales

The HMS Prince of Wales (Pennant number 53), the seventh British warship to bear that name, was a battleship of the Royal Navy, launched in 1939 and sunk 9 December 1941 in the waters of Malaysia by Japanese planes.

James Foster
James Foster
Mar 13, 20133.2K Shares59.6K Views
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HMS Prince Of Wales

The HMS Prince of Wales (Pennant number 53), the seventh British warship to bear that name, was a battleship of the Royal Navy, launched in 1939 and sunk 9 December 1941 in the waters of Malaysia by Japanese planes. It was used for the first time in a team with HMS Hood against Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, even with a group of workers on board who worked to complete the development of the machines. In the battle with the Bismarck, it was hit on the bridge and below the waterline but was able to retire to a smokescreen after the sinking of the Hood.

HMS Prince Of Wales

L ‘Admiralty ordered the construction of two new ships, King George V Class July 29, 1936 (the other is the King George V). It was initially intended that the boat was called King Edward VIII in honor of the new King Edward VIII, who, however, preferred the name, Prince of Wales, already foreseeing problems because of his relationship with Wallis Simpson, which led him to abdicate in fact, a few months after. The ship then became the seventh warship of the Royal Navy to bear this name.

Construction

At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Prince of Wales was still being completed in Birkenhead. It was damaged in August 1940 when a bomb exploded in the starboard hull and the wall of the basin in which he found himself, severely damaging the hull. The Admiralty decided that it would be necessary if the completion of the German battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz and then building proceeded apace, postponing numerous tests and materials. He entered the service on January 19, 1941, under the command of Captain John Leach, but was not completed before the following 31 March.

Atlantic Service

Shortly after the entry into service, Hood, along with Hood, sailed the ship to intercept the German battleship Bismarck and her escort, the battle cruiser Prinz Eugen.

The Prince of Wales left with still on board civil engineers engaged in the later works of decoration of the ship. On May 24, the two boats intercepted the German warships in the so-called Battle of the Denmark Strait.

Following the sinking of the Hood, the boat, with a crew with little experience and having had four hits and three 380 mm by 203 mm and with almost all the guns out of service because of damage or malfunction, withdrew from the ship's enemy in the shelter of a smokescreen. During the brief encounter, it had hit Bismarck three times, including one to a tank of fuel. This damage forced the German warship to head to France for repairs.

The Prince of Wales joined the cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk in Hunting Bismarck. After a brief exchange of fire in the night between 24 and 25 May, the ship left the hunting with little fuel; back at the port, it entered the pipeline for six weeks for repairs.

Setting sail on August 4 with an escort of destroyers from Scapa Flow, it carried British Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic to the naval base at Argentia, in the Dominion of Newfoundland, where he met U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt secretly for a few days from August 10. During this meeting, on August 12, it was signed the Atlantic Charter, the basis of international relations after World War II.

After this trip, it was transferred to the Mediterranean Sea with the task of escorting convoys. On September 27, during one of these missions, it shot down some enemy planes during an air raid.

Service In The East

On 25 October 1941, the Prince of Wales was assigned to the base in Singapore as part of Force Z, and battle and the destroyers. It became the flagship of the Eastern Fleet under the command of Tom Phillips and reached Singapore in early December.

The new aircraft carrier Indomitable was to gather the Force Z but ran aground during navigation tests in Jamaica, making necessary repairs. These ships were sent to Singapore as a deterrent to the Japanese about a possible invasion of Malaya and the East Indies.

The invasion began the same as December 8, in conjunction with the attack on Pearl Harbor, on the other side of the international line of the rollover. Admiral Phillips decided to intercept the invasion fleets, thereby sailing the Prince of Wales and the Repulse together with four destroyers, the ‘Electra’ s Express.

The ships were unable to intercept the Japanese fleet and were identified by the Japanese submarine I-65 as they returned to base. On December 10, the primary vessels, without any air cover, were attacked and sunk by torpedo bombers and 86 of the 22 Japanese Air Flotilla based in Saigon.

The Prince of Wales, a battleship of modern design, and the Repulse, a veteran of the First World War, suffered the same fate, with a few differences. One of the causes of the lethality of the Japanese was the failure of the radar of the Prince of Wales, which made ​​it impossible prior to Alert.

At the start of the battle, the ship was also hit by a torpedo at the stern, precisely at the point where the axes of the helices enter into the hull, causing severe flooding and making it impossible to maneuver. Another consequence of this blow was the loss of energy to the pieces to 133 mm.

The following loss of dynamo rendered impossible even the use of a good part of the pumps of the ship. Lack of energy left large parts of the boat in the dark, making it difficult the work of repair crews. The ship was hit by a total of four torpedoes and a bomb. Several hundred sailors died at the time of the sinking, including Admiral Philips and Captain Leach.

However, the increased thickness of the hull and the best division into watertight compartments allowed the ship to stay afloat much longer than the Repulse, allowing the rescue of a larger crew than the more old-fashioned companion to sink rapidly. They were the first two battleships to be dropped in an air attack, and often, this event was seen as an indicator of the decline of the battleships in modern warfare on the sea.

The wreck lies about 68 meters in depth position. On the site, there is a buoy with a British flag attached to the stern of the ship. The place was called “Secure Site” in 2001 according to the Protection of Military Remains Act (Law on the protection of military remains) in 1986, just before the sixtieth anniversary of the sinking. The ship’s bell was recovered in 2002 and, after restoration, was on display at MerseysideMaritimeMuseuminLiverpool.

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