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HMS King George V (41)

HMS King George V (pennant number 41) was the lead ship of the five British King George V-class battleship (1939) battleships of the Royal Navy. Laid down in 1937 and commissioned in 1940, King George V operated during the Second World War in all three major naval theatres of war, the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Pacific, as well as part of the British Home Fleet and Pacific Fleets. In May 1941, along with HMS Rodney (29), King George V was involved in the hunt for and pursuit of the GERMAN BATTLESHIP Bismarck, eventually inflicting severe damage which led to the German vessel's sinking. On 1 May 1942 the destroyer HMS Punjabi (F21) sank after a collision with King George V in foggy conditions. King George V took part in Operation Husky (the allied landings in Sicily) and bombarded the island of Levanzo and the port of Trapani. She also escorted part of the surrendered Italian Fleet, which included the battleships ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Andrea Doria and ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Duilio, to Malta. In 1945 King George V took part in operations against the Japanese in the Pacific.

King George V was made flagship of the British Home Fleet on 1 April 1941, she remained so during the rest of the war and became a training battleship in November 1947.

General characteristics
King George V was built by Vickers-Armstrong at Walker Naval Yard, Newcastle upon Tyne; she was laid down on 1 January 1937, launched on 21 February 1939 and commissioned on 11 December 1940. The ship had an overall length of 745 ft, a beam of 112 ft and a draught of 34 ft. She displaced 38,031 tons at normal load and 42,237 tons at full load. After her refit in 1944, she displaced 39,100 tons at standard load, and 44,460 tons at full load. She could carry 3,918 tons of fuel oil, 192 tons of diesel oil, 256 tons of reserve feed water and 444 tons of freshwater. Based on the designed fuel consumption, range was: 4000 nmi at 25 kn, 10250 nmi at 15 kn and 14400 nmi at 10 kn. However, in practice fuel consumption was much higher, and at 16 kn the actual range was about 6300 nmi with a five per cent reserve allowance. Designed within the tight 35,000 ton limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty, wartime service necessitated increases over the design displacement, seriously reducing freeboard and affecting seaworthiness. This was most acute at the already low bow. With too little buoyancy forward the bows were easily buried even in moderate seas, with spray washing up over both forward turrets. Heavy seas could flood 'A' turret, drenching both men and machinery within.

Propulsion
King George V was equipped with eight Admiralty boilers. This configuration was a little more conventional than the preceding Nelson-class battleship, with boiler rooms placed side by side and with each pair associated with a turbine room astern of them. The total heating surface of the boiler plants in King George V was 78144 ft2. The 416-ton boiler installation produced more than 100000 shp, giving a top speed of 28 knots. The eight boilers were more economic in space and fuel than the twenty-four boilers in the battlecruiser HMS Hood (51). Fewer, but larger, boilers lowered the weight per unit of heat delivered, as did increased boiler efficiency and consumption of fuel per unit area of heating surface. This made King George V the fastest battleship in the British fleet but slower than the German, French or the new Italian capital ships, or the battlecruisers HMS Hood, HMS Repulse (1916) and HMS Renown (1916).

King George V had four sets of Parsons geared turbines. Two main turbines were arranged in series and drove a shaft through double helical gears. An astern turbine was incorporated in the exhaust casing of the low-pressure turbine, and a cruising turbine was coupled directly to the high-pressure turbine. A speed of 28.5 knots was expected at standard displacement and 27.5 knots at full-load displacement on normal output; corresponding speeds at overload condition were 29.25 and 28.25 knots respectively. The turbine unit was a low-speed type (2,257 rpm) coupled to a single reduction gear which produced 236 rpm at the propeller shaft.

Main battery
The tight limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty raised many challenges and required difficult compromises if they were to be met. To avoid the class being outgunned by the new ships of foreign navies, especially as by the mid-1930s the Treaty had been renounced by Japan and Italy, Churchill wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1936, voicing strong objections to the proposed armament of ten 14-inch guns. His proposal was for nine 16-inch guns. However, when completed King George V mounted ten 14 in guns. They were mounted in one Mark II twin turret forward and two Mark III quadruple turrets, one forward and one aft. They could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees. Training arcs were: "A" turret, 286 degrees; "B" turret, 270 degrees and "Y" turret, 270 degrees. Training and elevating was achieved through a hydraulic drive, with rates of two and eight degrees per second, respectively. A full gun broadside weighed 15,950 pounds; a salvo could be fired every 30 seconds. The quadruple turrets weighed 1,582 tons, the twin turret 915 tons. The turrets were designed by the Vickers Armstrong's Elswick Works, but sets of each type of equipment were manufactured by Vickers Armstrongs in Barrow. A considerable amount of design effort was expended to make the turrets as flashtight as possible. This complicated the mechanical design of the turrets, particularly the quadruple mountings. Due to insufficient clearances and slightly distorted link mechanisms, failures in the intricate safety interlocks in the loading sequence for antiflash precautions caused jams during drills and practice firing. During the summer of 1941 the King George V-class battleships had their main armament turrets and turret linkages modified to correct the operational faults revealed during Bismarck's final operation. HMS King George V used an Admiralty Fire Control Table Mark IX to control her main armament.

Secondary battery
The secondary armament consisted of sixteen 5.25 in guns in eight twin mounts, weighing 81 tons each. They were grouped at the four corners of the citadel, with a twin mount on the main deck and another superimposed above it nearer amidships. This disposition gave better arcs of fire, freedom from blast, more separation of the magazines and a better arrangement of the ammunition supply. The cupolas for these mounts revolved on either the upper or superstructure deck; between deck mountings travelled on roller paths on the armoured deck. This permitted a flat-trajectory or high-angle fire. Loading was semi-automatic, normal rate of fire was ten to twelve rounds per minute. The maximum range of the Mk I guns was 24070 yd at a 45-degree elevation, the anti-aircraft ceiling was 49000 ft. The guns could be elevated to 70 degrees and depressed to 5 degrees. However, the guns could only practically fire seven to eight rounds per minute, due to the heavy weight of the shell and the fact that the 5.25-inch round was semi-fixed, requiring the crew to separately load the cartridge and shell into the breech. King George V introduced the High Angle Control System Mark IVGB anti-aircraft fire control system to the Royal Navy, which, along with the Mk IV Pom-Pom Director, pioneered the use of the Gyro Rate Unit.

Anti-aircraft battery
The King George V design had four 0.5-inch quadruple machine gun mounts, but in 1939 these were replaced by two Mark VI pom-pom mounts. In 1940, to combat air attack, four Unrotated Projectile mountings were fitted, on "B" turret, two on "Y" turret, one replaced a pom-pom mount added in 1939 at the stern. The pom-poms mounted in the King George V were designed and produced by Vickers Armstrongs as a result of a post-First World War requirement for a multiple mounting which was effective against close-range bombers or torpedo planes. The first model, tested in 1927, was superior to anything developed in other countries at the time and in 1938 the Mark VI* had a muzzle velocity of 2,400 feet per second, a 1.594-inch bore and a barrel length of 40 calibres. They fired a 1.8 lb shell at a rate of 96–98 rounds per minute for controlled fire and 115 rounds per minute for automatic fire. The range of the Mark VI* was 6800 yd, at a muzzle velocity of 2,300 feet per second. The Mark VI octuple mount weighed 16 tons. The Mark VII quadruple mount weighed 10.8 tons if power operated; it could be elevated to 80 degrees and depressed to 10 degrees at a rate of 25 degrees per second which was also the rate of train. The normal ammunition supply on board for the Mark VI was 1,800 rounds per barrel. King George V introduced the Mk IV Pom-pom director to the Royal Navy in 1940, becoming the first ship in the world to feature gyroscopic target tracking in tachymetric anti-aircraft directors.

Operational history
The first of her class to be completed, King George V was commissioned at her shipyard and sailed for Rosyth in Scotland on 16 October 1940; there she took on board her ammunition and began her sea trials. By the end of the year she had joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. She crossed the Atlantic early in 1941 to take Lord Halifax, the Ambassador to the United States, to Annapolis and covered an east-bound convoy on her return, arriving back at Scapa Flow on 6 February. Her next task was to provide distant cover for Operation Claymore, the Royal Marines raid on the Lofoten islands off the north-west coast of Norway. In March, she was assigned to escort two Atlantic convoys from Halifax, Nova Scotia, sailing from Scapa Flow on 9 March to escort HX 104 and HX 115 and arriving at Halifax, Nova Scotia on 15 March. King George V left Halifax the next day to search with HMS Rodney for the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau who were attacking convoy ships south of Cape Race, Newfoundland as part of Operation Berlin. However fearing a gathering of British capital ships, the two German battleships broke off their attacks and returned to France. King George V joined Convoy HX115 to provide escort on 20 March and returned to Scapa Flow at the end of March.

Action with Bismarck
When the German battleship Bismarck along with the heavy cruiser GERMAN CRUISER Prinz Eugen broke out into the Atlantic Ocean, King George V sailed on 22 May 1941 with the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious (R38) and eleven cruisers and destroyers in support of the cruiser patrols off Iceland. King George V was the flagship of Admiral Sir John Tovey, who commanded the force. King George V was still 300 to 400 mi away on the morning of 24 May, when sister ship HMS Prince of Wales (53) and Hood engaged both Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. Hood was sunk and Prince of Wales was damaged when taking fire from both Bismarck and Prinz Eugen and forced to retire. Bismarck, although damaged, continued south with Prinz Eugen.

The British re-located Bismarck at 10:30 on 26 May, when a Catalina flying boat of RAF Coastal Command sighted her, heading for the French port of Brest. Rodney and King George V were still about 125 mi away. The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (91) was ordered to launch an air attack, and at 22:25 her torpedo bombers, a flight of Fairey Swordfishes damaged Bismarck, slowing her down and jamming her rudder, forcing her to turn back out into the Atlantic, away from the safety of port. At 15:00 Rodney joined King George V and they maintained 22 knots – which was nearly maximum speed for Rodney. King George V had only 32 per cent of her fuel left while Rodney had only enough fuel to continue the chase at high speed until 8:00 the following day.

Admiral Tovey signalled his battle plan to Rodney just before sunrise on 27 May; she was free to manœuvre independently as long as she conformed generally to the movements of King George V. Both ships were to close the range to 15000 yd as quickly as possible, then turn for broadside fire.

At 08:15 the cruiser HMS Norfolk (78) spotted Bismarck and turned away out of range. She soon sighted the other British ships off her starboard quarter, and informed them that Bismarck was roughly 50000 yd to the southwest. By 08:43 King George V had Bismarck in sight, at 20500 yd. Four minutes later Rodney opened fire. King George V followed suit in less than a minute. Bismarck answered almost immediately, straddling Rodney on her second salvo. By 08:59 King George V had closed to 16000 yd and all her 14-inch guns were firing; Rodney was firing 16-inch salvoes. Bismarck concentrated all her remaining guns on King George V, but only an occasional shell came close. At 09:14 King George V, at 12000 yd, had opened fire with her 5.25-inch guns, and Rodney had moved to 8500 –.

At 09:27 a shell hitting Bismarck penetrated the hydraulic machinery in turret 'Anton' and disabled it, causing the guns to run down to maximum depression. Her topsides were wrecked, and a large fire burned amidships. After firing steadily for over 30 minutes, without any problems, King George V, by 09:27, began having trouble with her main battery, and from that point onward every gun missed at least one salvo due to failures in the safety interlocks for antiflash protection and from ammunition feed jams. At 10:21, with Bismarck silenced and obviously sinking, Admiral Tovey detailed the cruiser HMS Dorsetshire (40) to finish her off with torpedoes. King George V fired 339 14 in (356 mm) and over 700 5.25 in (133 mm) shells during the action. As both Rodney and King George V were low on fuel they returned to port at 19 kn, escorted by eleven destroyers to guard against German air or submarine attack. The next day, after the escort was reduced to three destroyers, four German aircraft did attack but scored no hits. Both King George V and Rodney returned to port safely, but the destroyer HMS Mashona (F59), sent ahead to refuel, was bombed and sunk.

Collision damage
After repairs and adjustments to her guns, King George V attacked German shipping in the Glom Fjord, Norway, in October 1941. She then covered convoys to Russia. On 1 May 1942 she was operating with USS Washington (BB-56) as an escort to Convoy PQ 15, and collided with the destroyer HMS Punjabi (F21), which had manoeuvred to avoid a mine and crossed her bow in dense fog. Punjabi was cut in two and sank; King George V had 40 ft of her bow badly damaged. King George V entered the Gladstone Dock in Liverpool on 9 May for repairs by Cammell Laird, and returned to Scapa Flow on 1 July 1942. The battleship did not leave Scapa Flow until 18 December when she finally resumed convoy escort duty, providing distant cover for the Arctic convoy JW 51A.

Mediterranean operations
In May 1943, King George V was moved to Gibraltar in preparation for Operation Husky. King George V and her sister ship HMS Howe (32) were allocated to the reserve covering group when the operation got under way on 1 July. The two ships bombarded Trapani in Sicily on 12 July and also helped defend against an air raid whilst in Algiers prior to departing for Operation Avalanche, (the Allied invasion of Italy). The two ships also bombarded the islands of Levanzo and Favignana, after which they were in the reserve group for the Salerno landings (Operation Avalanche) which began on 9 September. King George V escorted part of the Italian Fleet, including the battleships ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Andrea Doria and ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Duilio, to Malta after the armistice and with Howe provided cover for the 1st Airborne Division who were transported to Taranto in support of Operation Slapstick from 9 to 11 September by the cruiser USS Boise (CL-47) and the fast minelayer HMS Abdiel (M39). The battleship then escorted a naval force which occupied the Italian naval base at Taranto. She later escorted surrendered Italian ships from Malta to Alexandria. After bombarding German positions during the Salerno landings, King George V returned to the United Kingdom.

Pacific operations
King George V was in Liverpool for an overhaul from March to June, 1944; it included the installation of additional radar gear, more anti-aircraft guns, improved accommodation, and ventilation. On 28 October 1944 King George V sailed from Scapa Flow under the command of Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser to join other Royal Navy units assembling at Trincomalee in Ceylon. A stop at Alexandria en route enabled her to divert to Milos in the Aegean Sea to bombard German positions. On 1 December she resumed her eastward journey, arriving in Trincomalee on 15 December. King George V got under way again on 16 January 1945. The flotilla, known as TF 63, comprised King George V, the aircraft carriers HMS Illustrious (87), HMS Indomitable (92), HMS Indefatigable (R10) and Victorious, four cruisers and ten destroyers. The first stage of the voyage was covering the 11,000 nautical miles to Sydney; en route the force attacked oil refineries on Sumatra in Operation Meridian. They also practised replenishment-at-sea and beat off a Japanese air attack, with King George V's anti-aircraft crews shooting down one Mitsubishi Ki-21.

Joined by Howe and re-designated Task Force 57, the British Pacific Fleet was again involved in operations in late March 1945, when it launched attacks on the Sakishimo-Gunto airfields, a task it repeated in early May. On 4 May 1945 King George V led battleships and cruisers in a forty-five-minute bombardment of Japanese air facilities in the Ryukyu Islands. As the Allies approached the Japanese homeland, King George V was dispatched in mid-July to join the US battleships in a bombardment of industrial installations at Hitachi. King George V fired 267 rounds from her 14-inch guns during this operation. The task force then moved on to Hamamatsu in southern Honshu, where it carried out a further bombardment of aviation factories. During the Okinawa campaign, the battleship supported four fast carriers of the British Pacific Fleet. Her last offensive action was a night bombardment of Hamamatsu on 29 and 30 July 1945. With the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the surrender that followed, King George V moved with other units of the British Pacific Fleet into Tokyo Bay to be present at the surrender ceremonies.

Post-war activity
In January 1946 she conveyed the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester on an official visit to Australia, returning to Portsmouth in March. She was flagship of the Home Fleet until December 1946, after becoming a training vessel.

King George V's active naval career was terminated by the Royal Navy in June 1950, when she and her surviving sister-ships went into reserve and were mothballed. King George V was the first large warship to be preserved in this fashion. This involved sealing the armament, machinery and boilers against damp and installing dehumidifiers throughout. In December 1955, she was downgraded to extended reserve and in 1957 the decision was taken to scrap the four ships. The following year King George V was moved from her berth in Gareloch to the ship breaking firm of Arnott Young and Co. in Dalmuir to undergo dismantling.

Refits
During her career, King George V was refitted on several occasions in order to update her equipment. The following are the dates and details of the refits undertaken:

title: HMS King George V (41)


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HMS Prince of Wales (53)

HMS Prince of Wales was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy that was built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead. Despite being sunk less than a year after she was commissioned, Prince of Wales had an extensive battle history, first seeing action in August 1940 while still being outfitted in her drydock, when she was attacked and damaged by German aircraft. In her brief career, she was involved in several key actions of the Second World War, including the May 1941 Battle of the Denmark Strait where she scored three hits on the GERMAN BATTLESHIP Bismarck, forcing Bismarck to abandon her raiding mission and head to port for repairs. Prince of Wales later escorted one of the Malta convoys in the Mediterranean, during which she was attacked by Italian aircraft. In her final action, she attempted to intercept Japanese troop convoys off the coast of Malaya as part of Force Z when she was sunk by Japanese aircraft on 10 December 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

She was sunk alongside her consort, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse (1916), in an attack by 85 Mitsubishi G3M and G4M bombers of the Japanese navy air service. Prince of Wales and Repulse became the first capital ships to be sunk solely by air power on the open sea, a harbinger of the diminishing role this class of ships was subsequently to play in naval warfare. The wreck of Prince of Wales lies upside down in 223 ft of water, near Kuantan, in the South China Sea.

In the 21st century, her wreck was illegally salvaged by scrap metal dealers.

Construction
In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race developing between Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. This treaty limited the number of ships each nation was allowed to build and capped the tonnage of all capital ships at 35,000 tons. These restrictions were extended in 1930 through the Treaty of London, however, by the mid-1930s Japan and Italy had withdrawn from both of these treaties, and the British became concerned about a lack of modern battleships within their navy. As a result, the Admiralty ordered the construction of a new battleship class: the King George V class. Due to the provisions of both the Washington Naval Treaty and the Treaty of London, both of which were still in effect when the King George Vs were being designed, the main armament of the class was limited to the 14 in guns prescribed under these instruments. They were the only battleships built at that time to adhere to the treaty, and even though it soon became apparent to the British that the other signatories to the treaty were ignoring its requirements, it was too late to change the design of the class before they were laid down in 1937.

Prince of Wales was originally to be named King Edward VIII but upon the abdication of Edward VIII the ship was renamed even before she had been laid down. This occurred at Cammell Laird's shipyard in Birkenhead on 1 January 1937, although it was not until 3 May 1939 that she was launched. She was still fitting out when war was declared in September, causing her construction schedule, and that of her sister, HMS King George V (41), to be accelerated. Nevertheless, the late delivery of gun mountings caused delays in her outfitting.

In early August 1940, while she was still being outfitted and was in a semi-complete state, Prince of Wales was attacked by German aircraft. One bomb fell between the ship and a wet basin wall, narrowly missing a 100-ton dockside crane, and exploded underwater below the bilge keel. The explosion took place about six feet from the ship's port side in the vicinity of the aft group of 5.25-inch guns. Buckling of the shell plating took place over a distance of 20 to 30 ft, rivets were sprung and considerable flooding took place in the port outboard compartments in the area of damage, causing a ten-degree port list. The flooding was severe, because final compartment air tests had not yet been made and the ship did not have her pumping system in operation.

The water was pumped out through the joint efforts of a local fire company and the shipyard, and Prince of Wales was later dry-docked for permanent repairs. This damage and the problem with the delivery of her main guns and turrets delayed her completion. As the war progressed there was an urgent need for capital ships, and so her completion was advanced by postponing compartment air tests, ventilation tests and thorough testing of her bilge, ballast and fuel-oil systems.

Description
Prince of Wales displaced 36727 LT as built and 43786 LT fully loaded. The ship had an overall length of 745 ft, a beam of 103 ft and a draught of 29 ft. Her designed metacentric height was 6 ft at normal load and 8 ft at deep load.

She was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts. Steam was provided by eight Admiralty boilers which normally delivered 100000 shp, but could deliver 110000 shp with forced draft. This gave Prince of Wales a top speed of 28 kn. The ship carried 3542 LT of fuel oil. She also carried 180 LT of diesel oil, 256 LT of reserve feed water and 444 LT of freshwater. During full-power trials on 31 March 1941, Prince of Wales at 42,100 tons displacement achieved 28 knots with 111,600 shp at 228 rpm and a specific fuel consumption of 0.73 lb per shp. Prince of Wales had a range of 3100 nmi at 27 kn.

Armament
Prince of Wales mounted 10 BL 14-inch (356 mm) Mk VII guns. The 14-inch guns were mounted in one Mark II twin turret forward and two Mark III quadruple turrets, one forward and one aft. The guns could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees. Training arcs were: turret "A", 286 degrees; turret "B", 270 degrees; turret "Y", 270 degrees. Training and elevating was done by hydraulic drives, with rates of two and eight degrees per second, respectively. A full gun broadside weighed 15950 lb, and a salvo could be fired every 40 seconds. The secondary armament consisted of 16 QF 5.25-inch (133 mm) Mk I guns which were mounted in eight twin mounts, weighing 81 tons each. The maximum range of the Mk I guns was 24070 yd at a 45-degree elevation, the anti-aircraft ceiling was 49000 ft. The guns could be elevated to 70 degrees and depressed to 5 degrees. The normal rate of fire was ten to twelve rounds per minute, but in practice, the guns could only fire seven to eight rounds per minute. Along with her main and secondary batteries, Prince of Wales carried 32 QF 2 pdr (1.575-inch, 40.0 mm) Mk.VIII "pom-pom" anti-aircraft guns. She also carried 80 UP projectors, short-range rocket-firing anti-aircraft weapons used in the early days of the Second World War by the Royal Navy.

Action with Bismarck
On 22 May 1941, Prince of Wales, the battlecruiser HMS Hood (51) and six destroyers were ordered to take station south of Iceland and intercept the GERMAN BATTLESHIP Bismarck if she attempted to break out into the Atlantic. Captain John Leach knew that main-battery breakdowns were likely to occur, since Vickers-Armstrongs technicians had already corrected some that took place during training exercises in Scapa Flow. These technicians were personally requested by the captain to remain aboard. They did so and played an important role in the resulting action.

The next day Bismarck, in company with the heavy cruiser GERMAN CRUISER Prinz Eugen, was reported heading south-westward in the Denmark Strait. At 20:00 Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland, in his flagship Hood, ordered the force to steam at 27 kn, which it did most of the night. His battle plan called for Prince of Wales and Hood to concentrate on Bismarck, while the cruisers HMS Norfolk (78) and HMS Suffolk (55) would handle Prinz Eugen. However the two cruisers were not informed of this plan because of strict radio silence. At 02:00, on 24 May, the destroyers were sent as a screen to search for the German ships to the north, and at 02:47 Hood and Prince of Wales increased speed to 28 kn and changed course slightly to obtain a better target angle on the German ships. The weather improved, with 10 mi visibility, and crews were at action stations by 05:10.

At 05:37 an enemy contact report was made, and course was changed to starboard to close range. Neither ship was in good fighting trim. Hood, designed twenty-five years earlier, lacked adequate decking armour and would have to close the range quickly, as she would become progressively less vulnerable to plunging shellfire at shorter ranges. She had completed an overhaul in March and her crew had not been adequately retrained. Prince of Wales, with thicker armour, was less vulnerable to 15-inch shells at ranges greater than 17000 ft, but her crew had also not been trained to battle efficiency. The British ships made their last course change at 05:49, but they had made their approach too fine (the German ships were only 30 degrees on the starboard bow) and their aft turrets could not fire. Prinz Eugen, with Bismarck astern, had Prince of Wales and Hood slightly forward of the beam, and both ships could deliver full broadsides.

At 05:53, despite seas breaking over the bows, Prince of Wales opened fire on Bismarck at 26500 yd. There was some confusion among the British as to which ship was Bismarck and thirty seconds earlier Hood had mistakenly opened fire on Prinz Eugen as the German ships had similar profiles. Hood's first salvo straddled the enemy ship, but Prinz Eugen, in less than three minutes, scored 8-inch-shell hits on Hood. The first shots by Prince of Wales – two three-gun salvoes at ten-second intervals – were 1,000 yards over. The turret rangefinders on Prince of Wales could not be used because of spray over the bow and fire was instead directed from the 15 ft rangefinders in the control tower.

The sixth, ninth and thirteenth salvos were straddles and two hits were made on Bismarck. One shell holed her bow and caused Bismarck to lose 1,000 tons of fuel oil, mostly to salt-water contamination. The other fell short, and entered Bismarck below her side armour belt, the shell exploded and flooded the auxiliary boiler machinery room and forced the shutdown of two boilers due to a slow leak in the boiler room immediately aft. The loss of fuel and boiler power were decisive factors in the Bismarck's decision to return to port. In Prince of Wales, "A1" gun ceased fire after the first salvo due to a defect. Sporadic breakdowns occurred until the decision to turn away was made, and during the turn "Y" turret jammed.

Both German ships initially concentrated their fire on Hood and destroyed her with salvoes of 8- and 15-inch shells. An 8-inch shell hit the boat deck and struck a ready service locker for ammunition, and a fire blazed high above the first superstructure deck. At 05:58 at a range of 16500 yd, the force commander ordered a turn of 20 degrees to port to open the range and bring the full battery of the British ships to bear on Bismarck. As the turn began, Bismarck straddled Hood with her third and fourth four-gun salvoes and at 06:01 the fifth salvo hit her, causing a large explosion. Flames shot up near Hood's masts, then an orange-coloured fireball and an enormous smoke cloud obliterated the ship. On Prince of Wales, it seemed that Hood collapsed amidships, and the bow and stern could be seen rising as she rapidly settled. Prince of Wales made a sharp starboard turn to avoid hitting the debris and in doing so further closed the range between her and the German ships. In the four-minute action, Hood, the largest battlecruiser in the world, had been sunk. 1,419 officers and men were killed. Only three men survived.

Prince of Wales fired unopposed until she began a port turn at 05:57, when Prinz Eugen took her under fire. After Hood exploded at 06:01, the Germans opened intense and accurate fire on Prince of Wales, with 15-inch, 8-inch and 5.9-inch guns. A heavy hit was sustained below the waterline as Prince of Wales manoeuvred past the wreckage of Hood. At 06:02, a 15-inch shell struck the starboard side of the compass platform and killed the majority of the personnel there. The navigating officer was wounded, but Captain Leach was unhurt. Casualties were caused by the fragments from the shell's ballistic cap and the material it dislodged in its diagonal path through the compass platform. A 15-inch diving shell penetrated the ship's side below the armour belt amidships, failed to explode and came to rest in the wing compartments on the starboard side of the after boiler rooms. The shell was discovered and defused when the ship was docked at Rosyth.

At 06:05 Captain Leach decided to disengage and laid down a heavy smokescreen to cover Prince of Wales's escape. Leach then radioed Norfolk that Hood had been sunk and went to join Suffolk 15 to 17 mi astern of Bismarck. The British ships continued to chase Bismarck until 18:16 when Suffolk sighted the German battleship at 22000 yd. Prince of Wales then opened fire on Bismarck at an extreme range of 30300 yd. All 12 salvos missed. At 01:00 on 25 May Prince of Wales again regained contact and opened fire at a radar range of 20000 yd, after observers believed that she had scored a hit on Bismarck, Prince of Wales's "A" turret temporarily jammed, leaving her with only six operational guns. After losing sight of Bismarck owing to poor visibility, and after searching for 12 hours, Prince of Wales headed for Iceland. Thirteen of her crew had been killed, and nine wounded.

On Friday 6 June, while in dry dock, a hole was found just above the starboard bilge keel. After the inner space had been pumped out, an unexploded shell from Bismarck was found nose forward, with its fuse, but without a ballistic cap. The shell was removed by the Bomb Disposal Officer from HMS Cochrane

Atlantic Charter meeting
After repairs at Rosyth, Prince of Wales took Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic for a secret conference with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On 5 August Roosevelt boarded the cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) from the presidential yacht USS Potomac (AG-25). Augusta proceeded from Massachusetts to Placentia Bay and Argentia in Newfoundland with the cruiser USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) and five destroyers, arriving on 7 August while Potomac played a decoy role by continuing to cruise New England waters as if the president were still on board. On 9 August, Churchill arrived in the bay aboard Prince of Wales, escorted by the destroyers HMS Ripley, HMCS Assiniboine (I18) and HMCS Restigouche (H00). At Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, Roosevelt transferred to the destroyer USS McDougal (DD-358) to meet Churchill on board Prince of Wales. The conference continued from 10 to 12 August aboard Augusta and, at the end of the conference, the Atlantic Charter was proclaimed. Prince of Wales arrived back at Scapa Flow on 18 August.

Mediterranean duty
In September 1941, Prince of Wales was assigned to Force H, in the Mediterranean. On 24 September Prince of Wales formed part of Group II, led by Vice-Admiral Alban Curteis and consisting of the battleships Prince of Wales and HMS Rodney (29), the cruisers HMS Kenya (14), HMS Edinburgh (16), HMS Sheffield (C24) and HMS Euryalus (42), and twelve destroyers. The force provided an escort for Operation Halberd, a supply convoy from Gibraltar to Malta. On 27 September the convoy was attacked by Italian aircraft, with Prince of Wales shooting down several with her 5.25 in guns. Later that day there were reports that units of the Italian Fleet were approaching. Prince of Wales, the battleship Rodney and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (91) were despatched to intercept, but the search proved fruitless. The convoy arrived in Malta without further incident, and Prince of Wales returned to Gibraltar, before sailing on to Scapa Flow, arriving there on 6 October.

Far East
On 25 October Prince of Wales and a destroyer escort left home waters bound for Singapore, there to rendezvous with the battlecruiser HMS Repulse (1916) and the aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable (92). Indomitable however ran aground off Jamaica a few days later and was unable to proceed. Calling at Freetown and Cape Town South Africa to refuel and generate publicity, Prince of Wales also stopped in Mauritius and the Maldive Islands. Prince of Wales reached Colombo, Ceylon, on 28 November, joining Repulse the next day. On 2 December the fleet docked in Singapore. Prince of Wales then became the flagship of Force Z, under the command of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips. Admiral of the Home Fleet Sir John Tovey was opposed to sending any of the new King George V battleships as he believed that they were not suited to operating in tropical climates.

Japanese troop-convoys were first sighted on 6 December. Two days later, Japanese aircraft raided Singapore; although the Prince of Wales's anti-aircraft batteries opened fire, they scored no hits and had no effect on the Japanese aircraft. A signal was received from the Admiralty in London ordering the British squadron to commence hostilities, and that evening, confident that a protective air umbrella would be provided by the RAF presence in the region, Admiral Phillips set sail. Force Z at this time comprised the battleship Prince of Wales, the battlecruiser Repulse, and the destroyers HMS Electra (H27), HMS Express (H61), HMS Tenedos (H04) and HMAS Vampire (D68).

The object of the sortie was to attack Japanese transports at Kota Bharu, but in the afternoon of 9 December the Japanese submarine I-65 spotted the British ships, and in the evening they were detected by Japanese aerial reconnaissance. By this time it had been made clear that no RAF fighter support would be forthcoming. At midnight a signal was received that Japanese forces were landing at Kuantan in Malaya. Force Z was diverted to investigate. At 02:11 on 10 December the force was again sighted by a Japanese submarine and at 08:00 arrived off Kuantan, only to discover that the reported landings were a diversion.

At 11:00 that morning the first Japanese air attack began. Eight Type 96 "Nell" bombers dropped their bombs close to Repulse, one passing through the hangar roof and exploding on the 1-inch plating of the main deck below. The second attack force, comprising seventeen "Nells" armed with torpedoes, arrived at 11:30, divided into two attack formations. Despite reports to the contrary, Prince of Wales was struck by only one torpedo. Meanwhile, Repulse avoided the seven torpedoes aimed at her, as well as bombs dropped by six other "Nells" a few minutes later.

The torpedo struck Prince of Wales on the port side aft, abaft "Y" Turret, wrecking the outer propeller shaft on that side and destroying bulkheads to one degree or another along the shaft all the way to B Engine Room. This caused rapid uncontrollable flooding and put the entire electrical system in the after part of the ship out of action. Lacking effective damage control, she soon took on a heavy list.

A third torpedo attack developed against Repulse and once again she avoided taking any hits.

A fourth attack, conducted by torpedo-carrying Type 1 "Bettys", developed. This one scored hits on Repulse and she sank at 12:33. Six aircraft from this wave also attacked Prince of Wales, hitting her with three torpedoes, causing further damage and flooding. Finally, a 500 kg bomb hit Prince of Wales's catapult deck, penetrated to the main deck, where it exploded, causing many casualties in the makeshift aid centre in the Cinema Flat. Several other bombs from this attack scored very near misses, indenting the hull, popping rivets and causing hull plates to split along the seams and intensifying the flooding. At 13:15 the order to abandon ship was given, and at 13:20 Prince of Wales capsized to port, floated for a few brief moments upside down, and sank stern first; Admiral Phillips and Captain Leach were among the 327 fatalities.

Aftermath
Prince of Wales and Repulse were the first capital ships to be sunk solely by naval air power on the open sea (albeit by 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 contributing factors to the sinking of Prince of Wales were her surface-scanning radars being inoperable in the humid tropic climate, depriving Force Z of one of its most potent early-warning devices, and the critical early damage she sustained from the first torpedo. Another factor which led to Prince of Wales's demise was the loss of her dynamos, depriving Prince of Wales of many of her electric pumps. Further electrical failures left parts of the ship in total darkness, and added to the difficulties of her damage repair parties as they attempted to counter the flooding. The sinking was the subject of an inquiry chaired by Mr. Justice Bucknill, but the true causes of the ship's loss were only established when divers examined the wreck after the war. The Director of Naval Construction's report on the sinking claimed that the ship's anti-aircraft guns could have inflicted heavy casualties before torpedoes were dropped, if not preventing the successful conclusion of attack had crews been more adequately trained in their operation.

The wreck
The wreck lies upside down in 223 ft of water at 3.56°N, 104.47833°W.

A Royal Navy White Ensign attached to a line on a buoy tied to a propeller shaft is periodically renewed. The wreck site was designated 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 manually raised in 2002 by British technical divers with the permission of the Ministry of Defence and blessing of the Force Z Survivors Association. It was restored, then presented for display by First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Alan West, to the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool. The bell has been since moved to the National Museum of the Royal Navy at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard for display in the Hear My Story Galleries.

In May 2007, Expedition 'Job 74', a dedicated survey of the exterior hull of both Prince of Wales and Repulse, was conducted. The expedition's findings sparked considerable interest among naval architects and marine engineers around the world; as they detailed the nature of the damage to Prince of Wales and the exact location and number of torpedo strike holes. Consequently, the findings contained in the initial expedition report and later supplementary reports were analysed by the SNAME (Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers) Marine Forensics Committee and a resultant paper was drawn up entitled Death of a Battleship: A Re-analysis of the Tragic Loss of HMS Prince of Wales, and was subsequently presented at a meeting of RINA (Royal Institution of Naval Architects) and IMarEST (Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology) members in London in 2009 by Mr William Garzke. This report was also presented to the IMarEST, this time in New York, in 2011. However, in 2012 the original paper was updated and expanded (and renamed Death of a Battleship: The Loss of HMS Prince of Wales. A Marine Forensics Analysis of the Sinking ) in light of a subsequent diver being able to penetrate deep into the port outer propeller shaft tunnel with a high definition camera, taking photos along the entire length of the propeller shaft all the way to the aft bulkhead of 'B' Engine Room.

In October 2014, the Daily Telegraph reported that both Prince of Wales and Repulse were being "extensively damaged" with explosives by scrap metal dealers. It is a tradition for passing Royal Navy ships to perform a remembrance service over the site of the wrecks. In May 2023, it was reported that a Chinese ship, Chuan Hong 68, illegally scavenged the wreck for its low-background steel. In July 2024, this same vessel, Chuan Hong 68, suspected of not only looting the wrecks of Force Z but other WWII wrecks in Asian water's, was back 'working' in the region and was subsequently detained by Malaysia authorities for ‘paperwork violations’.

Replica bell for successor
In spring 2019, Cammell Laird was commissioned to make a replica of the ship's bell for the ship's successor, HMS Prince of Wales (R09), the second Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier. The original at the National Museum of the Royal Navy's Portsmouth Historic Dockyard location was surveyed as part of the process. Cammell Laird were able to contact Utley Offshore in St Helens, the foundry that made the original bell and that of RMS Titanic, who still had the pattern based on the 1908 Admiralty design. Compared to the bronze or bell metal that is used in most modern ship bells, nickel silver was used for authenticity. The engraving was done by Shawcross in Birkenhead, while Cammell Laird shipwrights constructed the hardwood base. Cammell Laird COO Tony Graham presented the finished replica to commanding officer Captain Darren Houston during the ship's week-long visit to Liverpool in March 2020.

Refits
During her career, Prince of Wales was refitted on several occasions, to bring her equipment up to date. The following are the dates and details of the refits undertaken.

Web

 * The survey report of the wreck of HMS Prince of Wales compiled after Expedition 'Job 74', May 2007
 * 2012 update analysis of the loss of Prince of Wales, by Garzke, Dulin and Denlay
 * Description of lower hull indentation damage on wreck of HMS Prince of Wales
 * SI 2008/0950 Current designation under Protection of Military Remains Act 1986
 * Navy News 2001 Announcement of designation under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986
 * Link to a 2008 survey report, specifically regarding the stern torpedo damage to PoW.
 * Naval Staff History Second World War Battle Summary No. 14 (revised) Loss of H. M. Ships Prince of Wales and Repulse 10 December 1941.
 * Naval Staff History Second World War Battle Summary No. 14 (revised) Loss of H. M. Ships Prince of Wales and Repulse 10 December 1941.
 * Naval Staff History Second World War Battle Summary No. 14 (revised) Loss of H. M. Ships Prince of Wales and Repulse 10 December 1941.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: HMS Prince of Wales (53)


text:
HMS Duke of York (17)

HMS Duke of York was a King George V-class battleship (1939) battleship of the Royal Navy. Laid down in May 1937, the ship was constructed by John Brown and Company at Clydebank, and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 4 November 1941, subsequently seeing combat service during the Second World War. In mid-December 1941, Duke of York transported Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the United States to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Between March and September 1942 Duke of York was involved with convoy escort duties, including as flagship of the Heavy Covering Force of Convoy PQ-17, but in October she was dispatched to Gibraltar where she became the flagship of Force H.

In October 1942, Duke of York was involved in the Allied invasion of North Africa, but saw little action as her role only required her to protect the accompanying aircraft carriers. After the invasion, Duke of York was involved in Operations Camera and Governor, which were diversionary operations designed to draw the Germans' attention away from Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. On 4 October, Duke of York operated with her sister ship HMS Anson (79) in covering a force of Allied cruisers and destroyers and the American carrier USS Ranger (CV-4), during Operation Leader, which raided German shipping off Norway. The attack sank four merchant ships and badly damaged a further seven.

On 26 December 1943 Duke of York was part of a task force which encountered the GERMAN BATTLESHIP Scharnhorst off the North Cape of Norway. During the engagement that followed, Scharnhorst hit Duke of York twice with little effect, but was herself hit by several of Duke of York's 14-inch shells, silencing one of her turrets and hitting a boiler room. After temporarily escaping from Duke of York's heavy fire, Scharnhorst was struck several times by torpedoes, allowing Duke of York to again open fire, contributing to the eventual sinking of Scharnhorst after a running action lasting ten-and-a-half hours. In 1945, Duke of York was assigned to the British Pacific Fleet as its flagship, but arrived too late to see any action before Japan surrendered. After the war, Duke of York remained active until she was laid up in November 1951. She was eventually scrapped in 1957.

Construction
In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race developing between Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. This treaty limited the number of ships each nation was allowed to build and capped the displacement of capital ships at 35000 LT. These restrictions were extended in 1930 through the London Naval Treaty, but by the mid-1930s Japan and Italy had withdrawn from both of these treaties and the British became concerned about the lack of modern battleships in the Royal Navy. The Admiralty therefore ordered the construction of a new battleship class: the King George V-class battleship (1939). Due to the provisions of both the Washington Naval Treaty and the London Treaty, both of which were still in effect when the King George Vs were being designed, the main armament of the class was limited to the 14 in guns. They were the only battleships built at that time to adhere to the treaty and even though it soon became apparent to the British that the other signatories to the treaty were ignoring its requirements, it was too late to change the design of the class before they were laid down in 1937.

Duke of York was the third ship in the King George V class, and was laid down at John Brown & Company's shipyard in Clydebank on 5 May 1937. The title of Duke of York was in abeyance at that time, having been that held by King George VI prior to his succession to the throne in December 1936. The battleship was launched on 28 February 1940 and completed on 4 November 1941, and joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow.

Description
Duke of York displaced 36727 LT as built and 42076 LT fully loaded. The ship had an overall length of 740 ft, a beam of 103 ft and a draught of 29 ft. Her designed metacentric height was 6 ft at normal load and 8 ft at deep load.

She was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts. Steam was provided by eight Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers which normally delivered 100000 shp, but could deliver 110000 shp at emergency overload. This gave Duke of York a top speed of 28 kn. The ship carried 3700 LT of fuel oil, which was later increased to 4030 LT. She also carried 183 LT of diesel oil, 256 LT of reserve feed water and 430 LT of freshwater. At full speed Duke of York had a range of 3100 nmi at 27 kn.

Armament
Duke of York mounted 10 BL 14 in Mk VII guns, which were mounted in one Mark II twin turret forward and two Mark III quadruple turrets, one forward and one aft. The guns could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees, while their training arcs varied. Turret "A" was able to traverse 286 degrees, while turrets "B" and "Y" could both move through 270 degrees. Hydraulic drives were used in the training and elevating process, achieving rates of two and eight degrees per second, respectively. A full gun broadside weighed 15950 lb, and a salvo could be fired every 40 seconds. The secondary armament consisted of 16 QF 5.25 in Mk I dual purpose guns which were mounted in eight twin turrets. The maximum range of the Mk I guns was 24070 yd at a 45-degree elevation, the anti-aircraft ceiling was 49000 ft. The guns could be elevated to 70 degrees and depressed to 5 degrees. The normal rate of fire was ten to twelve rounds per minute, but in practice the guns could fire only seven to eight rounds per minute.

Along with her main and secondary batteries, Duke of York carried 48 QF 2 pdr (40 mm) Mk.VIII "pom-pom" anti-aircraft guns in six octuple, power-driven, mountings. These were supplemented by six 20 mm Oerlikon light AA guns in single, hand-worked, mounts.

Second World War
In mid-December 1941, Duke of York embarked Prime Minister Winston Churchill for a trip to the United States to confer with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She arrived at Annapolis, Maryland, on 22 December 1941, made a shakedown cruise to Bermuda in January 1942, and departed for Scapa Flow on 17 January with Churchill returning home by air.

On 1 March 1942, she provided close escort for Convoy PQ 12 in company with the battlecruiser HMS Renown (1916), the cruiser HMS Kenya (14), and six destroyers. On 6 March, that force was reinforced with one of Duke of York's sister-ships, HMS King George V (41), and the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious (R38), the heavy cruiser HMS Berwick (65), and six destroyers as a result of Admiral John Tovey's concerns that the battleship GERMAN BATTLESHIP Tirpitz might attempt to intercept the convoy. On 6 March, the German battleship put to sea and was sighted by a British submarine around 19:40; no contact was made, however, except for an unsuccessful aerial torpedo attack by aircraft from Victorious.

Later that month, Convoy PQ 13 was constituted and Duke of York again formed part of the escort force. In early April, Duke of York, King George V, and the carrier Victorious formed the core of a support force that patrolled between Iceland and Norway to cover several convoys to the Soviet Union. In late April, when King George V accidentally rammed and sank the destroyer HMS Punjabi in dense fog, sustaining significant bow damage, Duke of York was sent to relieve her. She continued in these operations through May, when she was joined by the American battleship USS Washington (BB-56). In mid-September, Duke of York escorted Convoy QP 14.

In October 1942, Duke of York was sent to Gibraltar as the new flagship of Force H, and supported the Allied landings in North Africa the following month. During this time Duke of York came under air attack by Italian aircraft on several occasions, but the raids were relatively small scale and were swiftly dealt with by the "umbrella" provided by the aircraft from the accompanying carriers Victorious, HMS Formidable (67) and HMS Furious (47). After this action, Duke of York returned to Britain for a refit.

With her refit completed, Duke of York resumed her status as flagship from 14 May 1943 pending the departure of King George V and Howe for Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily. Operation Gearbox in June 1943 involved a sweep by Duke of York and HMS Anson (79), in company with the US battleships USS Alabama (BB-60) and USS South Dakota (BB-57), to provide distant cover for minor operations in Spitsbergen and the Kola Inlet, while the following month diversionary operations, code-named "Camera" and "Governor of Norway," were carried out to draw the Germans' attention away from Operation Husky. On 4 October, Duke of York and Anson covered a force of Allied cruisers and destroyers and the American carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) under Operation Leader, which raided German shipping off Norway. The attack resulted in the sinking of four German merchant ships and damage to seven others, which forced many of them to be grounded.

Action against Scharnhorst

In 1943 the German battleship Scharnhorst moved to Norway, a position whence she could threaten the Arctic convoys to Russia. With Tirpitz and two armoured ships also in Norwegian fjords, it was necessary for the Royal Navy to provide heavy escorts for convoys between Britain and Russia. One of these was sighted by the Germans in early December 1943, and Allied intelligence concluded that the following convoy, Convoy JW 55B, would be attacked by the German surface ships. Two surface forces were assigned to provide distant cover to JW 55B, which had left Loch Ewe on 22 December. On 25 December 1943, Scharnhorst was reported at sea. Force 1 cruisers, Belfast, Norfolk and Sheffield, with four destroyers, made contact shortly after 09:00 on 26 December. A brief engagement occurred around 09:30, but Scharnhorst outdistanced her pursuers, and again outran them after a brief skirmish around noon.

Meanwhile, Force 2, including Duke of York, the cruiser Jamaica and four destroyers, was closing, and it was estimated that a night action with Scharnhorst would commence around 17:15. But Scharnhorst altered course, and contact was made at 16:32, at a distance of 29700 yd. Force 2 manoeuvred for broadside fire. Belfast, with Force 1, fired starshells at 16:47 to illuminate Scharnhorst. This failed, so Duke of York fired a starshell from one of her 5.25 in guns, taking Scharnhorst by surprise with her main battery trained fore and aft. By 16:50 Duke of York had closed to 12000 yd and opened fire with a full ten-gun broadside, scoring one hit. Although under heavy fire, Scharnhorst straddled Duke of York a number of times and hit her twice. A 28.3 cm shell passed through the mainmast and its port leg without detonating, but fragments from the hit destroyed the cable for the main search radar. A 15 cm shell also pierced the port strut of the foremast without exploding. At 16:55 a 14 in shell silenced turrets Anton and Bruno, but Scharnhorst maintained speed so that by 18:24 the range had opened to 21400 yd, when Duke of York ceased fire after expending fifty-two broadsides. One shell from the final salvos hit and exploded in Scharnhorst's number one boiler room, slowing the ship and allowing the pursuing destroyers to overtake her.

Force 2's destroyers then attacked with torpedoes, firing 28 and scoring hits with three. This slowed Scharnhorst, and at 19:01 Duke of York again opened fire, at a range of 10400 yd. She ceased fire at 19:30 to allow the cruisers to close on Scharnhorst. Ten 14-inch shells had hit the German battleship, causing fires and explosions, and silencing almost all of the secondary battery. By 19:16 all of the main turrets aboard Scharnhorst had ceased fire and her speed had been cut to 10 kn. Duke of York ceased fire at 19:30. In the final stages of the battle the destroyers fired a total of 19 torpedoes at her, causing Scharnhorst to list badly to port, and at 19:45 she sank after a running action lasting ten-and-a-half hours from the first, taking with her over 1,700 men. Following her sinking, and the retreat of most of the other German heavy units from Norway, the need to maintain powerful forces in British home waters was diminished.

Subsequent operations
On 29 March 1944, Duke of York and the bulk of the Home Fleet left Scapa Flow to provide a support force for Convoy JW 58. The ship operated in the Arctic and as cover for carriers conducting the Goodwood series of air strikes on Tirpitz in mid to late August. In September, when she was overhauled and partially modernized at Liverpool, radar equipment and additional anti-aircraft guns were added. She was then ordered to join the British Pacific Fleet and sailed in company with her sister-ship Anson on 25 April 1945. A problem with the ship's electrical circuitry delayed her while she was at Malta and, as a result, she did not reach Sydney until 29 July, by which time it too late for her to take any meaningful part in hostilities against the Japanese.

Nevertheless, in early August, Duke of York was assigned to Task Force 37, along with four aircraft carriers and her sister-ship King George V. From 9 August, TF 37 and three American carrier task forces conducted a series of air raids on Japan, which continued until 15 August when a surrender came into effect. After the conclusion of hostilities, Duke of York, alongside her sister-ship, King George V, participated in the surrender ceremonies that took place in Tokyo Bay. The following month Duke of York sailed for Hong Kong, to join the fleet that assembled there to accept the surrender of the Japanese garrison. She was the flagship of the British Pacific Fleet when the Japanese surrendered, and remained so until June 1946, when she returned to Plymouth for an overhaul.

Post war
Duke of York was flagship of the Home Fleet following the end of the war and remained in active service until April 1949. She was laid up in November 1951, and on 18 May 1957, she was ordered scrapped. She was broken up by Shipbreaking Industries, Ltd., in Faslane. The ship's bell was salvaged and given to the Duke of York School (since renamed the Lenana School) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Refits
During her career, Duke of York was refitted on several occasions to bring her equipment up-to-date. The following are the dates and details of the refits undertaken.

title: HMS Duke of York (17)


text:
HMS Anson (79)

HMS Anson was a King George V-class battleship (1939) battleship of the Royal Navy, named after Admiral George Anson. She was built by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Shipyard on the River Tyne and launched on 24 February 1940, being completed on 22 June 1942. Her completion was delayed to allow the fitting of fire-control radar and additional anti-aircraft weapons. She was originally to have been named Jellicoe, but was renamed Anson in February 1940.

Anson saw service in the Second World War, escorting nine Russian convoys in the Arctic by December 1943. She took part in diversionary moves to draw attention away from Operation Husky in July 1943. In October the same year she took part in Operation Leader. In February 1944 she provided cover for Operation Tungsten, the successful air strike against the GERMAN BATTLESHIP Tirpitz. Rear Admiral Cecil Harcourt accepted the surrender of Japanese forces occupying Hong Kong on board Anson in August 1945, and after the end of the war the vessel became the flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron of the British Pacific Fleet.

Anson arrived back in British waters on 29 July 1946, spending the next three years in active service with the post-war navy. She was finally placed in reserve and "mothballed" in 1949, spending eight years in this condition. On 17 December 1957 she was purchased for scrap by Shipbreaking Industries, Faslane.

Construction

In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race developing between Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. This treaty limited the number of ships each nation was allowed to build and capped the displacement of all capital ships at 35,000 long tons. These restrictions were extended in 1930 through the London Naval Treaty, however, in 1935 Japan and Italy would not agree to the Second London Naval Treaty for further armament control.

Concerned by a lack of modern battleships within their navy, the Admiralty ordered the construction of a new battleship class: the King George V class. The calibre limitation clause introduced in the Second Treaty meant that the main armament of the King George V class was limited to 14 in and the unusual arrangement of the guns in the three turrets was an attempt to maximise firepower. Due to the pressing need for the ships, the British, unlike the US, could not delay to take advantage of an escalator clause that would allow 16-inch guns. The ships were the only ones to be built at the time to adhere to the treaty and even though it soon became apparent to the British that the other signatories to the treaty were ignoring its requirements, it was too late to change the design of the class before they were laid down in 1937.

The keel of the fourth ship of the class was laid at the Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Shipyard on the River Tyne on 20 July 1937. She was originally to have been named Jellicoe, after Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, the commander of the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, but she was renamed Anson in February 1940. Anson was launched on 24 February 1940 and was completed on 22 June 1942. Completion was delayed largely because of the inclusion of fire-control radar, and additional anti-aircraft weapons.

Description
Anson displaced 42600 LT on trials in 1942 and 45360 LT fully loaded in 1945. The ship had an overall length of 745 ft, a beam of 103 ft and a draught of 31 ft. Her designed metacentric height was 6 ft at normal load and 8 ft at deep load.

She was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines driving four propeller shafts. Steam was provided by eight Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers which normally delivered 100000 shp, but could deliver 110000 shp at emergency overload. This gave Anson a top speed of 27.62 kn. The ship carried 4210 LT of fuel oil. At full speed Anson had a range of 3150 nmi at 27 kn while burning 36 LT of fuel per hour.

Armament
Anson's main armament was ten BL 14 in Mk VII guns. The 14-inch guns were mounted in three turrets; one Mark III quadruple turret forward and one aft, and one Mark II twin turret forward firing over the quadruple turret. The guns could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees. A full gun broadside weighed 15950 lb, and a salvo could be fired every 40 seconds. Her secondary armament consisted of 16 QF 5.25 in Mk I guns which were mounted in eight twin mounts. The maximum range of the Mk I guns was 24070 yd at a 45-degree elevation, the anti-aircraft ceiling was 49000 ft. The guns could be elevated to 70 degrees and depressed to 5 degrees. The normal rate of fire was ten to twelve rounds per minute, but in practice the guns could only fire seven to eight rounds per minute. Along with her main and secondary batteries Anson carried six 8-barrelled QF 2-pounder Mk. VIII (40 mm) "pom-pom" anti-aircraft guns. These were supplemented by eighteen 20 mm Oerlikon light AA guns.

Operational history
After her commissioning in 1942, Anson was sent to the Arctic Sea with most of the Home Fleet as an escort ship for Russian convoys. On 12 September 1942 Anson was part of the distant covering force for Convoy QP 14, along with her sister ship HMS Duke of York (17), the light cruiser HMS Jamaica (44) and the destroyers HMS Keppel (D84), HMS Mackay (D70), HMS Montrose (D01) and HMS Bramham (L51). On 29 December Anson provided distant cover for Convoy JW 51B along with the cruiser HMS Cumberland (57) and the destroyers HMS Forester (H74), HMS Icarus (D03) and HMS Impulsive (D11). On 23 and 24 January 1943 Anson provided distant cover for Convoy JW 52 along with the cruiser HMS Sheffield (C24) and the destroyers HMS Echo (H23), HMS Eclipse (H08), HMS Faulknor (H62), HMS Inglefield (D02), Montrose, HMAS Queenborough (G70), HMS Raider (H15) and the Polish destroyer ORP Orkan (G90). On 29 January, Convoy RA 52 departed from the Kola inlet, with distant cover provided by Anson, the cruiser Sheffield and the destroyers Inglefield, HMS Oribi (G66), HMS Obedient (G48) and the Polish destroyer Orkan from 30 January.

In June 1942, the pre-First World War battleship HMS Centurion (1911) was disguised as Anson in the Mediterranean Sea, acting as a decoy during Operation Vigorous. In July 1943 Anson took part in the diversionary moves designed to draw attention away from the preparations for Operation Husky, and in October that year, with Duke of York and the US cruiser USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37), provided cover for Operation Leader, in which the US aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) mounted air strikes against German shipping off Norway. In February 1944, in company with the FRENCH BATTLESHIP Richelieu and a force of cruisers and destroyers, Anson stood by in the same capacity while aircraft from the aircraft carrier HMS Furious (47) carried out air strikes against German targets in Norway during Operation Bayleaf, and on 3 April she provided cover for Operation Tungsten, a successful air strike against the GERMAN BATTLESHIP Tirpitz, during which she served as flagship for Vice Admiral Sir Henry Moore.

Anson was decommissioned for a refit in June 1944 and did not return to the fleet until March 1945, when she sailed with Duke of York to join the British Pacific Fleet. By the time she arrived in the theatre, hostilities were all but over. She left Sydney on 15 August for Hong Kong with Duke of York, and along with a task force of other ships from Britain and the Commonwealth, accepted the surrender of the Japanese forces occupying Hong Kong. She was also present in Tokyo Bay during the official Japanese surrender aboard USS Missouri (BB-63).

It is reported that Anson never once fired her main armament in anger.

Post-war era
Following the war Anson was the flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron of the British Pacific Fleet and helped to liberate Hong Kong. After a brief refit, Anson sailed from Sydney to Hobart in February 1946 to collect the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester (the Duke was then Governor-General of Australia) and return them to Sydney.

Anson arrived back in British waters on 29 July 1946 and after a short refit was returned to peacetime duties. In November 1949, Anson was placed in reserve and in 1951 she was towed to Gare Loch. On 17 December 1957 she was purchased for scrap by Shipbreaking Industries, Faslane. A selection of her timbers would be reused to make souvenirs of different types.

Refits
During her career, Anson was refitted on several occasions in order to update her equipment. The following are the dates and details of the refits undertaken:

title: HMS Anson (79)


text:
HMS Howe (32)

HMS Howe (pennant number 32) was the last of the five British King George V-class battleships of the Royal Navy. Built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, she was laid down on 1 June 1937 and launched 9 April 1940. She was originally to have been named Beatty but this was changed to Howe, after Admiral Richard Howe.

Howe was completed on 29 August 1942 after her building time was extended, as supplies were diverted to work of a higher priority such as the construction and repair of merchant ships and escort ships. Like her sister-ship HMS Anson (79), Howe spent most of her career in the Arctic providing cover for Russian convoys.

In 1943, Howe took part in Operation Husky and bombarded Trapani naval base and Favignana in support of the Allied landings. Along with HMS King George V (41), Howe escorted two surrendered Italian battleships to Alexandria. Howe was also sent to the Pacific and attached to the British Pacific Fleet (Task Force 113), where she provided naval bombardments for the Allied landings at Okinawa on 1 April 1945.

After the war, Howe spent four years as flagship of the Training Squadron at Portland, before she was placed in reserve in 1950. The battleship was marked for disposal in 1957, sold for scrap in 1958 and broken up by 1961.

Construction
In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race from developing among Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. This treaty limited the number of ships each nation was allowed to build and capped the tonnage of all capital ships at 35,000 tons. These restrictions were extended in 1930 through the Treaty of London, however, by the mid-1930s Japan and Italy had withdrawn from both of these treaties and the British became concerned about a lack of modern battleships within their navy. As a result, the Admiralty ordered the construction of a new battleship class: the King George V class. Due to the provisions of both the Washington Naval Treaty and the Treaty of London, both of which were still in effect when the King George Vs were being designed, the main armament of the class was limited to the 14 in guns prescribed under these instruments. They were the only battleships built at that time to adhere to the treaty and even though it soon became apparent to the British that the other signatories to the treaty were ignoring its requirements, it was too late to change the design of the class before they were laid down in 1937.

The keel of Howe, the last ship of the King George V class, was laid on 1 June 1937 at the Fairfield Shipyard in Govan. She was originally to have been named HMS Beatty, after Admiral David Beatty, commander of the British battlecruiser squadron at the Battle of Jutland, but the name was changed to HMS Howe, after Admiral Richard Howe. Howe was launched on 9 April 1940 and completed on 20 August 1942. She carried improved anti-aircraft armament and radar equipment as a result of lessons already learned in World War II.

Design
Howe displaced 39150 LT as built and 44510 LT fully loaded. She had an overall length of 744 ft, a beam of 103 ft and a draught of 29 ft. Her designed metacentric height was 6 ft at normal load and 8 ft at deep load.

The ship was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts. Steam was provided by eight Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers, which normally delivered 100000 shp but could produce 110000 shp at emergency overload. This gave Howe a top speed of 27.62 kn. The ship carried 4210 LT of fuel oil. She also carried 183 LT of diesel oil, 262 LT of reserve feed water and 442 LT of freshwater. At full speed Howe had a range of 2600 nmi at 27 kn.

Armament
Howe mounted 10 BL 14 in Mk VII guns. The 14-inch guns were mounted in one Mark II twin turret forward and two Mark III quadruple turrets, one forward and one aft. The guns could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees. Training arcs were: turret "A", 286 degrees; turret "B", 270 degrees; turret "Y", 270 degrees. Training and elevating was done by hydraulic drives, with rates of two and eight degrees per second, respectively. A full gun broadside weighed 15950 lb, and a salvo could be fired every 40 seconds. The secondary armament consisted of 16 QF 5.25 in Mk I guns which were mounted in eight twin mounts, weighing 81 tons each. The maximum range of the Mk I guns was 24070 yd at 45 degrees with HE shell at 2672 ft/s, the anti-aircraft ceiling was 49000 ft. The guns could be elevated to 70 degrees and depressed to 5 degrees. The nominal rate of fire was ten to twelve rounds per minute, but in practice the guns could only fire seven to eight rounds per minute. Upon commissioning, along with her main and secondary batteries, Howe carried 48 QF 2 pdr 1.575 in Mk.VIII "pom-pom" anti-aircraft guns and 18 20 mm Oerlikon AA guns

Home Fleet
Howe joined the Home Fleet on 30 August 1942, her building time extended, owing to more urgent demands of the industry. Like her sister ship Anson, she spent the early years of her combat career in Arctic waters, covering convoys bound for Russia. On 31 December 1942, Howe and her sister ship HMS King George V (41) provided distant cover for convoy RA 51, which safely arrived in Loch Ewe on 9 January 1943. Howe and King George V also provided distant cover for convoy RA 53 on 1 March 1943 and helped to recover merchantmen whose ships had been sunk. In 1943 Howe was transferred to Gibraltar with King George V to take part in Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily; the US battleships Alabama and South Dakota substituted for their absence from the Home Fleet. The two British ships shelled Trapani naval base and Favignana during 11–12 July. Based in Algiers, the pair also offered cover during Operation Avalanche—the Allied landings at Salerno—setting out on 7 September. On 14 September Howe and King George V escorted the surrendered Italian battleships Vittorio Veneto and Italia to Alexandria.

By the end of October 1943, Howe and King George V had returned to Britain. At the end of year, Howe underwent a long overhaul at Devonport, where a number of alterations were made. Her anti-aircraft armament was increased, changes were made to her radar, and her watertight integrity in the stern was improved. Modifications were accomplished in the officers and crew quarters for operations in tropical climates; these included changes in insulation, and the extensive use of air-conditioning equipment.

Pacific operations

On 8 August 1944, Howe arrived at Trincomalee in Ceylon to join the Eastern Fleet. She was the first modern British battleship to be deployed in eastern waters since the loss of Prince of Wales in December 1941. Howe was put into action quickly, providing cover for carrier based air operations against targets in Sumatra. In December she moved to Sydney, where she sailed to Auckland, New Zealand, to show the flag. In February 1945, Howe and King George V sailed from Sydney to begin operations in earnest in the Pacific theatre; together with four carriers, five cruisers and fifteen destroyers, they made up Task Force 113.

The first major undertaking for Task Force 113 (now redesignated TF.57) was Operation Iceberg—offshore support for the US landings at Okinawa—which got under way on 1 April 1945. The force was subjected to sporadic Japanese kamikaze attacks, but the two ships emerged unscathed from these actions. Howe's anti-aircraft batteries also succeeded in shooting down an attacking kamikaze plane. The two ships' principal roles were air defence and land bombardment, the latter being carried out very accurately, particularly by Howe against anti-aircraft installations on the island of Miyako, half way between Okinawa and Formosa.

Post-war activity
By the first week of June 1945, Howe was back in Sydney, and almost immediately it was decided to send her for a refit in Durban. It was here that she saw out the remainder of the war. She was relocated back to Portsmouth by January 1946. In 1951, Howe was placed in reserve and towed to Devonport. She was ordered scrapped in 1957. On 27 May 1958, Howe was towed to Inverkeithing to be broken up by Thos. W. Ward. The Royal Navy presented the ship's bell to St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. In 2012, it was reported that parts from one of the gun turrets may still exist, having been re-used as a turntable at Dounreay nuclear laboratory.

Refits
During her career, Howe was refitted on several occasions to bring her equipment up to date:

Artefacts
A large model of HMS Howe, from her builder around the time she was laid down, is on display in the Riverside Museum in Glasgow.

title: HMS Howe (32)