Admiralty Actions 1919-1939

Introduction

   Great Britain emerged victoriously from the Great War in 1918, after losing nearly 3/4 million men and after having multiplied the National Debt by 14.  With all potential enemies laid low, the priority for its armed services after demobilisation had to be, and could be, economy. 

   As far as the Royal Navy was concerned, the snag was that the United States of America was intent on enlarging its navy very greatly.  If the RN was to maintain its pre-war basic policy of superiority over any other navy, although war with the USA was unthinkable, it would have to respond to that enlargement.  The question was, should it keep to that policy?

Overview of British Naval Expenditure, 1904 – 1938       Fig. 1

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Events prior to the Washington Naval Conference in 1921

   In 1916, although maintaining to the US electorate in an election year that he had no intention of embroiling the USA in the European war which had been raging since August 1914, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson was angered by the way Great Britain could interfere with the nation’s maritime trade as part of its blockade of Germany.  He concluded that the USA had to have a navy as large or larger than the Royal Navy so as to have a say in such matters.  He persuaded Congress, with a Democratic majority, to pass a bill in August 1916 for a huge expansion of the United States navy (USN).  This was to include 10 Battleships and 6 Battle-Cruisers with 16’’ guns.  They were to incorporate lessons learned from the May 1916 battle of Jutland and, with bigger guns, could be expected to be superior to British ships which pre-dated that event.

   The German announcement in January 1917 that they would wage an unrestricted submarine sinking campaign against all countries trading with Great Britain finally convinced Wilson to ask Congress to declare war on that nation.  This caused a suspension of most of the new programme while effort was switched to trade escort vessels.  It was re-activated after the war to complete the first batch of 4 battleships.  The US intention to have 16’’ gun battleships in the meantime had already led Japan, which was now regarded in the USA as a potential enemy, to laying down her own 41 cm (16.1’’) gun ships.

Nation	Battleships	Displacement (Std. Long Tons)	Guns	Laid Down
Japan	Nagato	33,000	8 x 16.1″	August 1917
	Mutu			June 1918
USA	Maryland	32,000	8 x 16″	April 1917
	Colorado			May 1919
	Washington			January 1920 [Approx]
	West Virginia			April 1920

     Despite having been allies in the war, there was a post-war majority in the USN which actually contemplated a possible conflict in the future with Great Britain.  This was opposed by, e.g., Admiral William S. Sims, who had commanded the squadron of US battleships which reinforced the Grand Fleet in 1918.  The “Navy bigger than the RN” advocates won, and 6 more battleships, bigger than the Colorado class, were laid down over 1920 – 1921 (see the table of dates on P.3).  This would complete the 10 ships authorised in 1916.  These were to be 43,000 tons with 12  16’’ guns.  The 6 Battle-Cruiser authorisation of 1916 was also to be carried out over 1920 -1921 with ships of 43,000 tons carrying 8  16’’ guns.     

   Japan responded to the new American Programme with her own new ships:- 2  battleships of 39,000 tons with 10  16.1’’ guns, immediately, followed by 4  battlecruisers of 46,000 tons also armed with 10  16.1’’ guns (see P.3).

   The RN, unwilling to cede supremacy to the USN, spent the years nearly to the end of 1921 considering its next step, possibly recalling the mid-Victorian principle of waiting to see what the rivals did so as to go one better and then out-build them.

The change of the US government

   The Democrats had already lost control of the US Senate to the Republicans in 1918 elections.  The latter had used their majority in that body in November 1919 to refuse to ratify the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, and its associated Covenant establishing the League of Nations, which Woodrow Wilson had negotiated in Europe with Great Britain and France.  The guarantee given jointly with Great Britain of the frontier of France was also repudiated.

   Then in November 1920 the Democrats were ousted completely from office in the USA by a landslide victory of the Republicans, with Warren B. Harding becoming President.  The new government took office in March 1921.  Wishing to return to an isolationist position the “Big Navy” desired by Wilson, which he had seen as a adjunct to keeping peace by providing force for the League, was now seen as an unnecessary expense. 

   To follow up the desired naval reduction, invitations were sent in Summer 1921 to the other major countries to attend a conference to be held in Washington on that subject.  It convened on the 21^st of November 1921. 

The Washington Naval Treaty

   There were several outcomes from the Washington Conference, (and one very important side agreement between the USA and GB which will be described later) but this note is here concerned with the agreement reached on technical naval matters. 

   The USA came armed with a comprehensive scheme for control of warship construction plus a proposal to limit base construction and fortification in the Pacific.  In a fairly short time practically all of it was incorporated in a treaty signed by the delegates in February 1922, although ratification by all nations concerned took until August 1923.  The major ship details are as follows.

Continued on P.4

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Capital ship building Programmes 1920 -1921

	USA	USA	Japan	Japan	Great Britain
	Battleships	Battle Cruisers	Battleships	Battle Cruisers	Battle Cruisers
Date Laid Down
1920
January	North Carolina
February			Tosa
March	South Dakota				Hood completed [42,000 tons, 8 15″ 31kts]
April
May	Iowa
June
July			Kaga
August		Constellation
September	Montana	Saratoga, Constitution, United States
October
November	Indiana
December				Amagi, Akagi
1921
January		Lexington
February
March
April	Massachusetts
May
June		Ranger
July
August
September
October					4 Ships
November				Atago	21 November, Opening
December				Takao	of Washington
					Naval Conference

All the ships laid down in these programmes were scrapped as a result of the Washington Treaty, except Saratoga, Lexington, Kaga, Akagi, completed as aircraft carriers by Washington dispensation.

   The decision of GB to “lay-down” simultaneously 4  battle Cruisers (G3s of 48,000 tons with 9  16’’ guns) in October 1921, after accepting the US proposal of a Conference looks suspiciously like a bargaining ploy.  The investigation of 4 battleships (N3) to follow, carrying 18’’ guns on 49,000 tons, may or may not have been leaked to the Conferees!  The Japanese were certainly contemplating another 4 battleships with 18’’ guns.

All of this was, of course, ruinously expensive at a time when the need to recover economically from the war was, or should have been, paramount.  Hence the Conference was readily accepted.

Continued from P.2

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• A 10 year pause in capital ship construction (with a certain exception, to be described below);
• A total tonnage of ships in certain classes for the 5 major nations in certain ratios:-

	USA	GB	Japan	France	Italy
Ratios	5	5	3	1.667	1,667
Imperial (long) tons k, standard displacement definition
Total for Capital Ships	525	525	315	175	175
Total for Aircraft Carriers	135	135	81	60	60

• Maximum Ship Displacement and maximum Armament

Battleships:- 35,000 tons: 16″ guns;
Battlecruisers:-  35,000 tons:  16’’ guns;
Aircraft Carriers:-  27,000 tons:  8’’ guns.  2 ships per nation were allowed at 33,000 tons;
“Cruisers”:-  10,000 tons:  8’’ guns *.

*The wording of the treaty was that “No vessel of war” except a Capital Ship or Aircraft Carrier could be built exceeding 10,000 tons, and this was interpreted as a “Heavy cruiser”.

   The non-fortification of new bases in the Pacific was also agreed (this had an important effect on US ship design with respect to range).

Dispensations

   As noted on P2 above, the Treaty not only meant the scrapping of many tons of existing ships but also the scrapping of all the ships laid down as recorded on the table, with the exceptions of 4 hulls which were allowed to be completed as aircraft carriers:-

              Saratoga and Lexington at 36,000 tons and 8 x 8’’ guns (an armament anomaly never followed by later carriers);  the displacement took advantage of a clause allowing +3000 for extra horizontal armour;

              Kaga  and Akagi, both declared as on the 27,000 tons Washington limit, but probably well under-reported…Also 10 or 6 x 8’’ guns respectively.

Dispensations (continued)

   Great Britain was specifically allowed to build 2  35,000 ton battleships with 16’’ guns directly after the Treaty signature, instead of waiting for the end of the 10 year moratorium, as she had no ships with that gun calibre.  These were the Nelson and Rodney (34,000 tons;  9  16’’ guns.  Laid down December 1922).

The “side agreement” between  the USA and GB

   Presumably never put into writing, the USA made it clear to GB privately at the time of the Conference that they would not continue with their Treaty proposal unless GB agreed not to renew the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902 which was due for expiry in 1922.  Despite the advantages which had accrued to GB under the 1902 Treaty, which had allowed Britain to concentrate her main fleet against Germany in 1914, plus valuable building contracts for Japanese warships pre-1914, GB gave in to the US démarche.  This was very badly received by the Japanese, who saw the English-speaking nations ganging-up on them.

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The results of the Washington 5-power Naval Treaty

   The Washington Treaty stopped a capital ship building-race which would have cost Great Britain more than they could afford after beggaring itself to win the 1914-1918 war.  This pause was intended to last 10 years from 1921.  From a national security point of view this was a good interval.  History shows that nothing disturbed the country in that period for which the post-Washington fleet was needed.  The Locarno Pacts of December 1925, on paper, improved peaceful relations in Western Europe, particularly between France and Germany.

   There was already a national policy over-lapping the Washington Treaty – the “Ten Year Rule”.  This had been adopted by the Coalition government in August 1919 and laid down that defence expenditure should be based on the premise that the nation would not be involved in a major war for 10 years.  In 1928 the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, had the rule extended so as to be carried forward annually unless some international event made it unsafe.  In September 1931 world peace was broken when Japan invaded Manchuria.  With this evidence of her aggressive intentions the 10 year rule was therefore terminated in March 1932.  History, again, tells us that it was 6 ½ years – to September 1938 – before Great Britain needed an air defence powerful enough to deter a potential German air attack.  This should have been more than time enough to achieve that purpose, even in the actual historical circumstances of appeasing post-1933 Nazi Germany.  If, instead of appeasement, the Versailles Treaty had been firmly enforced in Spring 1935, after Hitler flouted it to announce an army increase and an air force, by threatening French army action plus an RN blockade, no expansion of the armed forces would have been needed.  Even in March 1936 only police action with existing forces would have been needed to eject 3 German battalions sent into the de-militarized Rhineland by Hitler, which would almost certainly have resulted in his demise.

British Naval Aviation

   British naval aviation is worth a special look because it showed forward-thinking to the credit of the Admiralty.

   The RN, thanks to the intense interest taken pre-war by the First Lord, Winston Churchill, had an Air Service from July 1914.  This was active throughout the war until a poor decision* amalgamated it with the army’s Royal Flying Corps on 1 April 1918 to form the Royal Air Force.

*After an aircraft raid on London in May 1917, which killed 95 people, the government asked Field Marshal Smuts to review the GB’s air services.  He recommended the amalgamation quoted.  This may have been appropriate for the mostly-land-based air fighting of the time but over-looked the specialist needs of the RN.

   A project of 1918, which would have been activated in the 1919 campaign, fortunately not needed, was to attack the Hochsee Flotte in harbour with torpedo-dropping aircraft.  For this operation the world’s first true aircraft carrier was built, flush-decked, on a war-suspended liner hull.  This was the Argus, 15,000 tons to carry 18 planes, completed in September 1918.

   The world’s first ship designed ab initio as a carrier had been laid down in January 1918, the Hermes of 11,000 tons to carry 15 aircraft.  With an offset bridge plus funnel this set a pattern followed by nearly every carrier since.  She was completed in 1923.  In the same period a discontinued Chilean battleship was finished as a carrier, the Eagle of 27,000 tons for 21 a/c.  Also post-war the 3 “Baltic-project” light battle cruisers were in turn converted to carriers:-  Furious, 23,000 tons, 33 a/c, flush-decked like Argus (Furious had been a “half-carrier” since November 1917), completed 1925;  Courageous and Glorious, 23,000 tons for 48 a/c, with a superstructure like Hermes, completed in 1928 and 1930 respectively.  By 1930, therefore, the RN had 6 carriers totalling 183 a/c capacity.  While the US giants Saratoga and Lexington could carry 180 a/c, this was a less flexible force.  In fact, the US later preferred ships of 20,000 tons and then 27,000 tons until 1945.

   A new carrier was laid down in September 1935, the Ark Royal of 22,000 tons to carry 60 a/c.  The RN had been trying to get other nations to agree to this 5,000 tons reduction from the Washington Treaty limit and so set this as an example.  As noted above, the US had already chosen 20,000 tons for the 2 new carriers Enterprise and Yorktown which had been laid down in May/July 1934 as part of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” make-work programme^2*.  These ships could carry 80 a/c, an example of the American ability to squeeze more planes into their ships.

^2* Little did he think that, with a sister ship Hornet built 3 ½ years later, these carriers would avenge the treachery of Pearl Harbor off Midway island.

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  By the 1918 decision the aviation for the RN had to be supplied by the RAF.  With that service trying to preserve itself by promising to make the others superfluous because air bombing could deter a potential aggressor, replacing the massive fleet and huge army needed in 1918, the needs of the RN took second place -if that.  This applied particularly to aircraft types, so that the carriers in 1939 still had mostly fixed undercarriage biplanes when the land-based squadrons were outfitting with retractable undercarriage monoplanes.  However, a 1938 decision^3* returned the Fleet Air arm to the control of the Admiralty in May 1939.

³*By Sir Thomas Inskip, the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence 1936-1939, advised by Winston Churchill.  This little-known lawyer (who finally became Lord Chief Justice) also recommended the crucial Cabinet decision in November 1938 that the RAF was to concentrate on the country’s fighter defence in re-armament production, opposing the Air Staff’s preference for day bombers.  This enabled the RAF to win the 1940 Battle of Britain “Just in time”.

   While crediting the Admiralty of 1918 with the equipment of the RN with a good number of carriers, it is not unfair to say that the seaman branch did not appreciate fully that a carrier’s pilots were its entire reason for existence and treat them accordingly.  No FAA pilot was promoted to command a carrier.  This contrasted with the USN where Marc A. Mitscher, Naval Aviator No. 33 in June 1916, by 1945 was a Vice-Admiral leading an entire Task Force of fast carriers which were fully acknowledged to be the fleet spearhead.  His contemporary commander of the RN carriers in the Pacific, while a gallant sailor, did not seem to have his feel for naval aviation.

Early WW2 actions of the FAA

   A knee-jerk reaction of Neville Chamberlain to guarantee Poland, after Hitler smashed the September 1938 Munich Agreement by invading in March 1939 the defenceless rump left to Czechoslovakia, led on 3^rd September 1939 to war with Germany for the second time in 21 years.  This fulfilled Marshal Foch’s 1919 prediction that the Treaty of Versailles was only a 20 years armistice – admittedly, because “The English-speaking peoples…unwisdom, carelessness and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm”, as Churchill later put it.

   The British carrier force was depleted within the month when the Courageous was, more or less, thrown away by hazarding it on an anti-submarine patrol.  A 500 tons U-Boat sent the 23,000 tons ship to the bottom.  This may have been the result of a misguided belief in the effectiveness of Asdic (of which more later).

   In the unforeseen Norwegian campaign of April 1940, FAA pilots with Skua dive bombers from the Orkneys sank the light cruiser Konigsberg alongside in Bergen harbour on 10^th  April^4*.  That campaign, however, led to another carrier loss.  After a brilliant feat by the pilots of No. 46 squadron in landing 10 Hurricanes on Glorious^5*when a withdrawal was ordered, the carrier sailed without a capital ship escort on 8^th June 1940.  Intercepted by the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau mounting 18  11” guns, she was quickly sunk.  Most of her crew were lost and only two of the RAF pilots survived.

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^4* The Skua was the only modern monoplane in FAA service at the time, but it was too slow, only 225 MPH.    The Konigsberg was the first major warship sunk by dive-bombing, although of course stationary.

5* Made possible by the ingenious addition of a 15 lb weight to the tailwheel so the plane could brake earlier. Tyres were also partly deflated.

   After Italy belatedly came to Germany’s aid in June 1940 (!), FAA pilots gave them a special and unique display of seaborne aviation power.  The proposed strike at the Hochsee Flotte in harbour had not been forgotten.  Flying antique Swordfish biplanes from a new carrier Illustrious (completed May 1940, 23,000 tons but carrying only 33 a/c because she was armoured) over the strongly-defended port of Taranto in the night of 11/12 November 1940 they torpedoed 2 battleships and put them on the harbour bottom.  Post the operation the initial parsimonious award of medals was an example of the “battleship navy” not properly appreciating the achievement of their carrier men.  Unfortunately for the USN just over a year later in Pearl Harbor the Japanese showed that they had taken note of what had been done.

   One more blow struck by the FAA aircrews came on 26^th May 1941.  Flying in atrocious take-off conditions from Ark Royal, another antique Swordfish managed a torpedo hit on the escaping Bismarck which jammed her port rudder and made her unable to steer a straight course.  This gave the pursuing battleships the chance to catch her and batter her into a helpless hulk which was scuttled.

The German “Pocket Battleships”

   Kaiser Wilhelm II, his generals and his admirals tried their best between August 1914 and November 1918 to defeat Great Britain, France and Russia. They succeeded with Russia but were themselves defeated by the Anglo-French nations, with some belated help from the United States of America.  The consequence was the Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28^th June 1919 (the 5^th anniversary of the murder of the heir to the Austrian throne which had ignited WW1).  The Treaty was intended to ensure that Germany, having disturbed the peace of Europe for the 2^nd time in 50 years, could never do so again. 

   With the ink of their plenipotentiaries signature scarcely dry on the Treaty, the heads of the German armed forces began to find ways to overcome the restrictions it placed on their future war-making potential.

   The German navy, having lost its Hochsee Flotte (interned and then scuttled the day before the treaty was signed) and also all its submarines (which had done much more harm to the British than the surface ships) was restricted to a small force of old ships.  These were to be retained until 25 years old and a replacement maximum size of 10,000 tons with guns under 11’’.

  By 1929 one ship was eligible to be replaced, the pre-Dreadnought Preussen.  Accordingly an Ersatz Preussen was laid down in February 1929.  Before its launch the general characteristics were published and received with surprise by the naval commentators of other nations.  They wondered how its 6  11’’ guns (in two triple turrets, a novelty for a German warship) could be carried by 10,000 tons at 26 knots (actual 28 +).  It seemed to offer the concept of being “More powerful than anything faster and faster than anything more powerful”.  Weight-saving by electric arc welding instead of riveting plus Al-alloy fittings replacing steel and even Al paint instead of oil-based were cited as reasons.  US experts noted that the first of their “Treaty 10,000 tons” cruisers (actually about 9,000 tons), the Pensacola with 10  8’’ guns, laid down in October 1926 had employed the same constructional novelties – the Germans may well have copied them.  The Panzerschiffe (“Armoured ship”, as she was described) had machinery restricted to about 50,000 HP for its design speed where the US cruiser had 107,000 HP for nearly 33 knots and that would have saved much weight except that Diesels were fitted, heavier than steam turbines.  Those oil engines did give exceptional range.

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   Noting the gun size, journalists called the ship a “Pocket Battleship”. It was a secret that the ship, named “Deutschland”, at 10,600 tons was a useful 6% over the declared Treaty limit.  Getting away with that small fraud, the admirals of the “Peaceful, democratic” Weimar republic then added more and then more armour to the following Panzerschiffes:-

                                           Admiral Scheer            laid down June 1931   11,550 tons;

                                           Admiral graf Spee         ‘’     ‘‘ October 1932   12,340  ‘’.

   Did the Admiralty know of the lying about displacement?  The Corps of Royal Naval Constructors could surely have detected the 23% excess in the Spee.  The weight of the Diesel machinery was published but could easily have also been falsified downwards.  Harland and Wolf were building large marine Diesels at that date and could have advised about the figures.  These examinations could and should have been made, which could have been supplemented with information from agents in Germany who also ought to have been in place.  However, whatever was known in England, nothing was done about it, which is all of a piece with known breaches of the Treaty in other areas.  They laid solid foundations for the rearmament of Germany which was accelerated by Adolf Hitler after January 1933.  Yet the Foreign Minister of Great Britain (Sir John Simon) said in the House of Commons on 6^th February 1934  “…Germany’s claim to equality of…armaments cannot be resisted and ought not to be resisted (author’s emphasis)” ^6* (quoted in “Why England Slept” by John F. Kennedy  Hutchinson  July 1940).  So, 16 years after a terrible struggle costing irreplaceable losses of blood and treasure to defeat and disarm a proven aggressor nation, when it had just fallen into the hands of a man who had already spelt out his aggressive intentions in his book “Mein Kampf”, all was ready for appeasement of his demands!

^6* This may have been influenced by an Admiralty pronouncement of Spring 1933 that Germany was entitled to “a moral right to some relaxation of the treaty” (of Versailles).  (source Wikipedia).  The 1^st Sea Lord then was Sir Ernle Chatfield (an undoubtedly gallant sailor, who had stood alongside Admiral Beatty in the battle of Jutland, whose other effects on Admiralty actions will be discussed later).  An interesting view on “morals” in relation to a Germany which invaded Belgium in August 1914, despite having guaranteed its neutrality, and then committed numerous atrocities on its population.

The “Blood Purge” of 30^th July 1934

   Over a period of 2 days around 30^th July 1934 there occurred in Nazi Germany, at the behest of Adolf Hitler, the execution without trial – murder – of scores of members of the Sturm Abteilung (SA), notorious street-fighting bullies who had been a major help to him in his rise to power.  They were then about 2 ½ million strong, led by Ernst Roehm.  This man had supposed that when Hitler became all-powerful he would become head of the armed forces, but his Fuhrer needed much more the professional officer corps.  The soldiers wanted rid of the SA.  Charges of planning a coup were trumped-up against Roehm and other senior members of the SA and they were shot out-of-hand by the Schutz Staffel (SS), an inner specially-dedicated Nazi guard.

   This should have been a warning to the other nations in their dealings with Hitler that he was not to be trusted.  Instead it seems that it was looked upon as just a clearing-out of undesirable elements.  The total lack of justice was overlooked.  The Daily Mail, owned by Nazi supporter Lord Rothermere, pronounced “…Hitler…has saved his country”.

The Anglo-German Naval Treaty

   Over 1934 to 1935 there were several steps by Adolf Hitler which made clear his intention to pursue his programme in “Mein Kampf” – for those not blinded by wishful thinking.

• Two more ships, ostensibly sisters to the nominally 10,000 ton Panzerschiffe were ordered in January 1934. In fact they were completely new designs which came out eventually at 32,000 tons, over triple the Treaty limit, with 9 x 11” guns (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau). Although Hitler ordered this enlargement to be kept very secret, the Admiralty soon learned of it, but – this is a constant refrain –the British National government effectively run by Stanley Baldwin not only did nothing about it but actually endorsed it later, as will be told below.

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    Construction of 8 twin-15” gun turrets by Krupp’s for 2 planned battleships of quadruple the Treaty limit was ordered in 1934 (these became the Bismarck and Tirpitz).

• Material for the construction of the first actual German U-Boats was in hand by Autumn 1934 and assembly was ordered in January 1935.
• A vast expansion of the illegal air force – the Luftwaffe – was ordered in January 1934 (design of the Dornier-17 high-speed bomber had already begun in August 1932 pre-Hitler). The 1^st bomber group was established in January 1934. Design of the Heinkel-111 bomber began in early 1934 – together with the Dornier this formed the backbone of the force which blitzed London in 1940.  By the end of 1935 the production rate was 300 aircraft per month (although not then the new types), because of the start 2 years earlier.
• The existence of the Luftwaffe was announced by Goering officially on 10 March 1935.  Hitler then claimed air parity with Britain in 1^st line aircraft, which meant about 800 machines according to Baldwin. This has since been questioned (although it seems that it was Baldwin who exaggerated the RAF strength!) but Churchill published a chart later, based on captured documents, which showed 900 1^st line Luftwaffe aircraft built in 1934.
• The reintroduction of universal conscription was announced by Goebbels on 16 March 1935, prior authorisation having been given secretly by Hitler to treble the nominal 100,000 size. The announcement specified an army of 36 Divisions – which would be trebled again by September 1939, including 6 tank Divisions.
• The German General Staff was brought officially back into the open at the same time

   What did the British do about the last three open breaches of the Versailles Treaty? Nothing!

   By this time, the overwhelming national attitude after the 1918 Armistice of “Never again!”, which had prompted the German disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, had deteriorated into simple pacifism – i.e. no war under any circumstances.  A pacifist Labour candidate had won a by-election by nearly 16% of the turnout in 25 October 1933 against the National Government candidate.  This powerful indication of the national mood was undoubtedly the reason behind Simon’s statement only 3 months later that Hitler’s intention to repudiate the Treaty and rearm Germany “cannot be resisted..” (author’s emphasis).  Then excused with “ought not”, as though it was an ethical attitude.

   The consequence was a shameful surrender by Britain, on the advice of the 1^st Sea Lord, under the leadership – or should that be ‘followership ’? – of Stanley Baldwin (just officially become Prime Minister) in making a Naval Agreement with Germany on 18^th June 1935, without consulting our Treaty co-signatory France.  This turned its back on the Versailles Treaty and allowed Germany to build her navy theoretically up to 35% of the Royal Navy tonnage but in practice as fast as her yards permitted for 6 years ahead, and with U-Boats up to full equality with Britain!  This latter to be subject to “friendly discussions” beforehand!  This concerning the weapon which had nearly brought Great Britain to its knees in 1917.  Although no size limitations appeared in the Agreement, in fact the Germans reported them according to the Washington classes – and they were all lies, as can be shown below with the numbers discovered post-WW2:-

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Ship	Laid Down	Completed	Standard Displ-	acement – Tons
			Declared	Actual	Excess
Admiral graf Spee	October 1932	January 1936	10,000	12,340	23.4%
Scharnhorst	June 1935	January 1939	26,000	32,100	23.5%
Bismarck	July 1936	August 1940	35,000	41,7007*	19.1%
Prinz Eugen	April 1936	August 1940	10,000	16,970	69.7%!
				7Limited by Kiel Canal

   Hitler was reported to be delighted with the Agreement – and why would he not be? 

• He had repudiated the Versailles Treaty and got away with it;
• He thought that by letting the RN have permanent ship superiority he had avoided the British animosity created in the pre-war days by the Hochsee Flotte and that, given supremacy on the seas, Britain would therefore allow him a free hand on land in the East;
• He had created French distrust of Britain’s selfishness;
• He could (and did, as shown above) bamboozle the British by secretly building stronger ships in each class, so they could win duels if necessary;
• If all else failed he could build and train a powerful submarine force and repeat the 1917 guerre de course.

   The now-ingrained pacifism of most of the British was re-affirmed when the results of a “Peace Ballot” were published 9 days after the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed.  Of the 38% of the adult population which voted, the summarised questions were answered:-

• Should GB remain in League of Nations?              96% Yes;
• Reduce World arms?                                              90% Yes;
• Abolish all military aircraft?                                    82% Yes
• Stop a war by economic sanctions?                       86% Yes
• Stop a war by arms?                                               58% Yes

   When a General Election was called for 14 November 1935 the National government clearly took note of the Peace Ballot and accordingly made the first three planks of its Manifesto:-                   

• The League of Nations   “…the keystone of British foreign policy”;
• Peace and Defence         “the object to which all their hopes and efforts are diverted”;
• Limitation of armaments             “…strictly confined to…make the country…safe…and to fulfil our obligations towards the League.

   However, some re-armament was mentioned:-  “…the actual condition of our defence forces is not satisfactory…we must in the course of the next few years do what is necessary to repair the gaps in our defences”.

   The government won with a much-reduced majority, the Labour Party, representing pacifism, gaining a net 102 seats.

German Invasion of the De-militarised Rhineland

   On 7 March 1936 German troops invaded the de-militarised Rhineland. Only 3 battalions actually crossed the Rhine.  They could have been chased back by the standing French army in a few days, probably without bloodshed, because they had orders to retreat if opposed.  The French asked for British support, which could have been made very effective by threatening to send the Royal Navy to blockade German ports.  Baldwin, having sold the pass of enforcing the Versailles Treaty the previous year with the Anglo-German Naval Treaty, would not give it.

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  So, neither the French nor the British enforced that essential clause of the Versailles treaty. The opportunity to prevent the Second World War very easily was lost. The reoccupation of the Rhineland allowed Germany to begin the frontier fortification we called the ‘Siegfried Line’ but for which their name, significantly, was the Westwall. The French army from that moment, mindful of the horrific losses they had sustained in assaulting German fortifications in 1914-1918, was deterred from any advance into Germany and so paved the way for the 1938-1939 swallowing-up of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Seeing these things happening and feeling unable to stop them (despite the Westwall being largely a building site with very few troops for 3 years) led to the demoralisation which was such a big factor in their collapse of May-June 1940, when the German army made the attack on France which Hitler had always intended – before turning again to the “ Drang nach Ostang ” for German Lebensraum.

   As usual when making an essentially aggressive move, Hitler accompanied it with a fine speech professing his desire for peace and friendship – and he continued to delude many people, including Neville Chamberlain, who became Prime Minister when Baldwin retired on 28 May 1937.

The 1936 London Naval Treaty

   There had been a 1^st London Naval Treaty, signed by GB, the USA, France, Italy and Japan in April 1930, which had concerned itself with non-capital warships but did extend to the end of 1935 a halt on building new capital ships.

   In the government’s General Election manifesto of November 1935, under the heading of “Limitation of Armaments”, they had announced that they had already summoned a new Naval Conference to meet in London.  This convened in December 1935.  The outcome on 25^th March 1936 was an agreement between only Great Britain, the USA and France.  Japan withdrew in January 1936 and Italy would not sign.  Germany did not attend.

   It is with incredulity now to read that the restrictions continued or enlarged in the new Treaty – for capital ships 35,000 tons and now 14’’ guns – applied only to the three potential allies, which kept them with naive punctiliousness, while the three potential enemies, Japan, Germany and Italy signed nothing.  Admittedly the German signature on the Anglo-German agreement was already dishonoured, as shown above.  The Admiralty knew, or should have known about this.  Actually, the Japanese were honest enough to withdraw.  Behind a rigid security they planned and then laid down in November 1937 battleships of 64,000 tons with 9 x 460 mm (18.1’’) guns!

   The 14’’ gun limit was at the urging of the Admiralty.  While the USA accepted that, and actually first planned their next battleship for it, they had insisted on a clause in the 1936 Treaty which would raise the size permitted to 16’’if the Japanese had not adhered to the Treaty by April 1937.  As that did not happen, the US ships were therefore fitted with the larger gun. 

   Meanwhile, quite rightly eager to lay down new ships, the Admiralty had ordered new 14’’ guns and turrets in April 1936.  Presumably because of the time required to produce working drawings, the first two battleships (King George V and Prince of Wales) were laid down in January 1937.

The Re-Building of the British Armed Forces

   To give credit where it is due, in 1936 the words about defences in the Government election manifesto were given concrete form.  The Table below on P.13 lists the major specific actions.  In view of the bombing threat by the Luftwaffe and the advice to the government by the RAF of the estimated horrific consequences of that kind of attack, the “Scheme F” approval of February 1936 which increased the aircraft Production programme was probably the most important.  It had to be coupled with the decision in November 1938 to give Production priority to the new fighters which were ordered in June 1936.  The RAF in the ‘30s were badly mistaken in their belief in bombing, both in enemy effect on Great Britain and in their own potential deterrent effect on Germany.  Fortunately, the government Production decision over-riding their preferred priority choice of bombers meant that the Luftwaffe in 1940 could not bomb important targets at will in daylight^7* and could not find them at night^8*.  In reverse the RAF had to find out those facts for themselves later.

P.12 of 32

^7* Despite the 200 miles forward move of airfields from the unforeseen collapse of France.

^8* Once the radio beam blind-bombing aids had been discovered and bent.  The Blitz was indiscriminate, and its effect on civilian morale was nothing like what the pre-war air experts had prophesised.  That, too, was something the RAF found out in their own later bombing campaign.

   The RN was given what it wanted in new ship orders.  Whether what they wanted was the best that could have been built is discussed below.

   The army was third in line.  This is understandable, because in 1936 it was expected that the French army with its Maginot Line frontier fortifications, would be able to keep the Germans out.
Therefore, although late, within their budget priority was given to new Anti-Aircraft guns.

   History tells us that the results of the air programme were one year too late to avert war.  Apart from his personal horror of war, Neville Chamberlain at Munich in September 1938 knew that the modern fighter defence of the United Kingdom was not very strong.  Even so, a cooler evaluation of the possible strength of air attack on London from German air bases 250 miles away, which could not have been escorted by the Bf109, might have stiffened his response to Hitler’s demands.  Could the Production of Hurricanes, at least^9*, have been accelerated?

The answer is “Yes” if the rate of spend had not been constrained by Chamberlain himself.

^9* Spitfire output was delayed by the difficulty of making its elliptical wings.

   He was overly concerned by the desire to keep the UK financially strong but did not follow the reasoning about house insurance:- “If you think it is too expensive, just imagine what it will cost if the house burns down!”.  With 1-shift working the number of Hurricanes produced by late September 1938 was about 100; 2-shifts could have doubled that.

   There was also the fact that, if the RAF’s premature obsession with bombers had been overruled earlier, for every Battle^10* light bomber built they could have had an extra Hurricane instead.  Also with 2-shift working this would have increased the fighters then available from about 200 to 400..  With that force Chamberlain need never have demeaned himself to visit Hitler.  Alas, this history-making situation did not happen – 1937 was a “Quiet-Hitler year” – and Chamberlain failed to see the urgency required.

^10* In May 1940 the Battle was simply a useless death-trap for its crews, shot down by Messerschmitts and light Flak.

P.13 of 32

Defence Events in Great Britain, 1932 – 1940

The new Battleships:  guns and turrets

   The Ordnance experts of the Admiralty must be credited with having taken a long look at the preceding practices of their department before settling on the design of the new battleships authorised by the March 1936 Naval Estimates.  Their initial basis will have been the Nelson, built to the same Washington Treaty limit of 35,000 tons (figures below are the known resultant data -of course the designers will have been working to estimates for the new ships).

   Four points governed the major choice of armament, balancing it with armour and speed:-

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1. Knowing that the Krupp “Built-up” system of gun construction was about 11% lighter for a given performance than the “Wire-wound”^11* method used over many years for British ships (see P.18).  Apart from reducing barrel-droop (which actually straightened-out on firing and could be allowed for in range tables anyway), the weight-saving could be important with a limited Treaty displacement;
2. The 16’’ guns of the 1927 Nelson, which had followed the German practice of raising shell kinetic energy, with higher Muzzle Velocity (MV) firing a lighter shell, were known to cause more rapid barrel wear than desirable.  At 2048 lb the shell was about 9% lighter than in previous British practice (see P.18).
3. Weight could be saved if a smaller calibre was used;
4. Weight could be saved if a quadruple gun turret could be used.

   Some data on guns and shells are given on PP.17 and18.

^11* The “Wire” was square-section.

   These points coalesced in designing the new ships (which became the King George V class, henceforward “KGV”) to the following layout:-

                                                          12 x 14’’ guns in 3 x Quadruple turrets.

This would give a broadside of 12 x 1590 lb = 19,080 lb = 8.518 tons, which would be 3.5% heavier than the Nelson at 9 x 2048lb = 18,432 lb = 8.229 tons.  So far, so good, but 3 x 4-gun KGV turrets would weigh 3 x 1,582 tons = 4,746 tons, compared with the Nelson’s 3 x 3-gun turrets at 3 x 1,480 tons = 4,440 tons.  The extra 306 tons (or whatever the estimated figure was which emerged in, probably, 1936) is said to have caused the revised layout then decided in which the super-imposed B turret was reduced to 2 x 14’’ guns.  This author suggests that a reported stability problem was more likely to have impelled the radical alteration.  The small overweight could have been declared to the potential allies, USA and France, and it is very unlikely that they would have objected.  It did not matter that Germany would have made it an excuse for heavier ships, because it was already known that they were dishonest anyway.  The reduced turret saved 667 tons at the high level.  The broadside was reduced to 7.098 tons, 14% less than Nelson.

   With a new gun and a new 4-gun turret it is not surprising that a slippage occurred to the scheduled programme.  The KGV completion in December 1940 was 5 months late to the target of July 1940.  Although the change to B turret has been blamed, it is unlikely that this was the case.  Twin big-gun turrets to a similar pattern from 12’’ to 15’’ had been designed and made for many ships in the 38 years since the Albion of 1899.  The quadruple turret was 11 months later than intended, said to be due to a shortage of draughtsmen but novelty in manufacture must have had some effect as well.  The loss of time for “working-up” of machinery and crew showed in poor reliability during the fight with the Bismarck in May 1941.  The Prince of Wales was delayed further by bomb damage in August 1940 to March 1941 and actually had turret maker’s workmen on board coping with defects during her earlier combat with the German ship.  In the final battle the Nelson’s sister ship Rodney with the rejected nine 16’’ guns was able to much more than cover the KGV.  She was credited with knocking-out three of the enemy gun turrets, although having some gun problems.  The Hood was avenged.

   The 4-gun turrets were still not right when the Duke of York fought the Scharnhorst in December 1943.  It is reported that only 70% of possible fire output was achieved because of mechanical problems and “drill errors”.  However, with the large superiority of 10 x 14’’ radar-directed guns versus 9 x 11.14’’ whose radar had been knocked-out, plus cruiser and destroyer attacks, the German battle-cruiser was overwhelmed.  The Glorious was avenged.

P.15 of 32

Could better battleships have been built earlier?

   The answer is “Yes”.  but it would have needed 3 things to happen in early 1936 after Hitler invaded the demilitarised Rhineland:-

1. Stanley Baldwin (Prime Minister) and Neville Chamberlain (Chancellor of the Exchequer) had to realise that, although they had just started significant RAF and RN re-armament, “time was the essence of the contract” and given orders to push the programme urgently.  Regarding the RAF the possible benefit of doing that has been described above.  The RN had to be ordered to design battleships which could be built in 3 years, not 3 ½ (which turned out to be 4), so that the first 2 ships would be completed by mid 1939;
2. Admiral Chatfield, 1^st Sea Lord, obeying his orders, would have had to rein in his Ordnance enthusiasts desire for a new 14’’ built-up gun -meaning also a new quadruple turret to get a sufficient broadside – and tell them “The better must not prevent the use of the good”.  That is, to fit three of the 16’’ triple turrets of the identical Nelson type– quicker and cheaper because ready to be built immediately from existing tooling, de-bugged by 10 years in service and with a cadre of fully-trained gun crews and ordnance mechanics.  The simple cure for the barrel wear was already designed and also ready to be made (a heavier shell [2,250 Lb] fired at lower Muzzle Velocity).  The hulls would have been the same, with modern machinery providing 28 knots^12*.
3. Chatfield would have to tell the co-signatories of the 1936 2^nd London agreement that there would be a small excess weight (361 tons ^13* ) over the 35,000 tons figure^14*.  Being the potential allies, as has been said above, this would be the easy bit.

^12* Fig2 gives a comparison of speeds between Nelson and KGV versus the factors which principally govern speed.

^13* 3 x Nelson turrets = 3 x 1,480 tons = 4,440 tons, where the reduced 14’’ solution was 2 x 1,582 tons + 1 x 915 tons = 4,079 tons.  With the new 2,250 Lb shell fired at the same MV as the excellent 15’’ gun of 1915 the broadside would have been 9 x 2250 Lb = 20,250 Lb = 9.04 tons, compared with the reduced 14’’ figure of 7.098 tons, an advantage of 27%.  B turret would be superimposed as in the Nelson, which had no stability problem.

^14* Of course, it would have been more sensible never to have written that agreement, but, as described above, the government had promised the naval conference “to reduce armaments” in their 1935 Election manifesto as a sop to the pacifists.

SCF4 = [(Displacement tons)^-0.109 x (Length-Ft)^0.616 x (Beam-Ft)^-0.214 x (Power-SHP)^0.134 ]

[For general interest an expanded chart for “Ship Speeds – 1873 to 1943” is given on p. 16.]

P.16 of 32

Continued from p.15

   The actual KGV was 5 months late to programme, completing in December 1940.  This was because of delays to the new quadruple turret.  That could have been avoided with Nelson-type turrets.  The Prince of Wales could have been completed at the same time, mid 1940.  With experienced crews and no “novelty” problems, both ships would have been more-than ready to fight the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen in May 1941.  The Duke of York would have been completed by end 1940 and could have joined in the battle, fully “worked-up”. 

  The total broadsides would have been 27 x 2250 Lb = 60,570 Lb = over 27 tons, against a total German 7.3 tons.  Enough said.

   This virtual result, of course, did not happen.  Neither Baldwin nor Chamberlain had the wise judgement to see the urgency which was needed in 1936.  St Paul wrote, in Corinthians 14:8

              “If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”

   Until March 1939, the Prime Ministerial trumpet did not sound the right note.

   Having reviewed the possibilities of an alternative approach to the new battleship design, it is appropriate to discuss the battle over the 4 days 24^th to 27^th May 1941 when they were put to their ultimate test as surface combatants.

P.17 of 32

Continued on P.21

Naval Guns Specific Weight
Year	Ship	Calibre	(D)^3	Length	(D)^3* L	Gun	Shell
		Inches	Cu. In.	Calibres	Cu. In.	Weight Tons*	Weight Lb.
			British	Wire-	Wound
1906	Dreadnought	12	1728	45	77760	57	850
1912	Orion	13.5	2460	45	110717	78	1400
1915	Queen Elizabeth	15	3375	42	141750	100	1920
1917	Furious	18	5832	40	233280	149	3320
1927	Nelson	16	4096	45	184320	108	2048
1928	Kent	8	512	50	25600	17.5	256
			British	Built-Up
1940	King George V	14	2744	45.9	125950	79.6	1590
* Includes Breech
			German	1934-type	Built-up
1939	Scharnhorst	11.14	1382	54.4	75206	52.4	741
1940	Bismarck	14.96	3348	48.4	162047	111	1764
1940	Prinz Eugen	7.99	510	59.9	30554	20.4	269

British Naval Guns and Shells are continued on p.18

P.18 of 32

The proliferation of British Naval Guns 1937 – 1940

   When it came to arming the ships ordered from 1934 onwards the Admiralty seems to have lost control of the variety.  The following new types of guns and mountings were designed:-

1. 14’’ calibre in Quadruple Turret, for KGV class battleships;
2. 14’’ calibre in Twin Turret, for KGV class;
3. 5.25’’ in Twin Turret, Dual-Purpose, 2ndy armament for KGV class. Also primary armament for Dido class Anti-Aircraft cruisers;
4. 6’’ calibre in Triple Turret for Southampton class cruisers;
5. 4.7’’ in Twin Shield for Tribal class destroyers. Also in J, K, N destroyers;
6. 4.7’’in Twin Turret (“Gunhouse”) for L, M Destroyers;
7. 4.5’’ in Twin Shield for Anti-Aircraft armament in carrier Ark Royal;
8. 4.5’’ in Twin Turret (Low-line) as Dual-Purpose, 2ndy armament for re-constructed Queen Elizabeth (also Valiant and Renown re-builds). Also Anti-Aircraft armament for Illustrious class carriers.

P.19 of 32

These 8 combinations are illustrated in the diagram on Fig.3 below, (shown at date of ship completion).   

   They may be compared with the designs of guns and mountings for the USN over the same time period, which were as follows:-

These guns/mountings are shown on Fig.4. on P. 20

1. 16’’ calibre in Triple Turret for the North Carolina class battleships.
2. 12’’ calibre in Triple Turret for the Alaska class “Large Cruisers”.
3. 5’’/38 calibre Dual-Purpose gun for the 1934 Farragut class destroyer. This weapon was then standardised for all subsequent destroyers, fitted as 2ndy armament for all battleships, carriers, cruisers, and as primary armament for Anti Aircraft cruisers.     There were essentially three main mountings:
   1.   Single Shield for a few destroyers; 
   2.   Single Gunhouse for many destroyers  and destroyer-escorts;   
   3.   Twin Gunhouse for the great majority of ship types (slight difference for Porter class destroyers).

These guns/mountings are shown on Fig.4. on P. 20

P.20 of 32

  Design effort saved in having so few types was, of course, the mere tip of the iceberg compared with the saving of resources in mass production of weapons and spare parts, common ammunition and gun-crew and ordnance specialist training.  The choice of 5’’ calibre, with mechanical fuse setting, power-ramming and a radar-guided director, was very satisfactory for Anti-Aircraft action.  This was greatly enhanced when the radar-operated proximity fuse was introduced, which had its first success in January 1943 in the Pacific.

 

USS Iowa, 48,500 tons, 9 x 16’’guns + 20 x 5’’/38 calibre dual-purpose guns 2ndy armament.

Completed February 1943

P.21 of 32

Continued from P.16

The battle of the Denmark Strait

   The sea-fight over 24 to 27 May 1941 had an uncomfortable resemblance to Jutland just about 25 years earlier – British capital ships blown up after a few minutes duelling (Indefatigable, Queen Mary, Invincible then, Hood in 1941) and German ships battered into a hulk but not sunk by gunfire (Lutzow, Seydlitz then, Bismarck in 1941).

   The loss of HMS Hood on 24 May led to two Admiralty enquiries:-  the first was brief and concluded a 380 mm shell had penetrated her armour;  the second, very shortly afterwards was exhaustive and concurred.  Since then the loss has been much written about.  The best re-examination, including post-WW2 data, is by the specialist commentator William J. Jurens:-

(nav.weaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Hood.php) in 1987.  Since then the wreck has been examined twice and a little more data obtained.

   This note adds a few thoughts which occurred to this author.

1.  Admiral Holland’s approach into gun range with Hood leading and Prince of Wales close in echelon (a ship not fully “worked-up” and with workmen aboard still dealing with turret defects) superficially gave the Prinz Eugen (leading)and Bismarck the advantage of “Crossing his Tee”.  Actually they were at an angle of 53⁰ off the bow, moving right to left.  With the rear turrets of Hood and PoW able to train to 30⁰ /45⁰ respectively off the bow all guns could have fired at the enemy.  The resultant comparative weights of fire could have been:-

Hood  8 x 1920 Lb = 15,360 Lb + PoW  10 x 1590 = 15,900 Lb,  total 31,260 Lb;

Pr. E  8 x 269 Lb = 2,152 + Bismarck  8 x 1764 = 14,112,  total 16,264 Lb, 48% less.

For some reason neither British ship fired its rear turrets, up to the minute before the Hood blew up when both her X and Y turrets fired.  This may have been to avoid some blast damage with the guns trained forward.  If so, it was a mistake.  However, it still left Holland with an advantage of 17,220 Lb to 16,264 Lb, nearly 6%.

2.  Although hard to calculate because of the complexity of layout, the Immune Zone (IZ) of the Hood against 380 mm AP shells was about:-

Resistance to direct penetration beyond   22,500 yards;

Resistance to plunging fire up to              29,500 yards      IZ = 7,000 yards.

At the 28 knots approach speed the IZ would be traversed in 7 ½ minutes.

3.  Hood opened fire at 05.52– on the Pr E unfortunately, due to the two German ships having identical silhouettes – at 25,000 yards   She did not score any hits either then or later.  At about 05.55 Holland signalled for a 20⁰ turn to port at about the same time as Pr E scored a hit on the boat deck.  This impact-fused HE shell caused a substantial fire fed from lockers of ready-use ammunition for 4’’ AA guns and Un-rifled Projectors (UP).  It is not known why these things had not been taken below or thrown overboard before a surface action.  The Admiral ordered the fire to be left until the ammunition had been burnt. The blaze could have made a beacon for Bismarck’s gunners.  The range was then about 20,000 yards (the best figure from an inconsistent set, this being 18 Km from Bismarck’s gunnery 2ic).  The Hood had therefore over-run her IZ by 2 ½ minutes^15* and was then vulnerable to direct 380 mm shell penetration of her 12’’ armour.  At 0600, the 2^nd Admiralty enquiry concluded, a 380 mm shell did penetrate Hood’s side armour, set off the aft 4’’ magazine and this set off the aft 15’’ magazine.

4.  At a 53⁰ angle off the bow to the Germans, the Hood would have presented 60% of her length to them.  The 2001 wreck investigation found that the rudder was set for the 20⁰  turn.  The fact that X turret had fired just before the explosion shows that some of the ordered turn had been completed and it was safe to fire.  If it is guessed that 10⁰ had been accomplished then the angle was 43⁰  and 73% of the ship would have been in view  The Bismarck’s guns would have been fired about ½ minute before the strike.

5.  If on the 23^rd May 1941 Winston Churchill had been offered a straight exchange between the Hood and the Bismarck it would have been his sad duty to have accepted.  In fact that is what occurred over 4 days.  A tactical defeat in the Denmark Straight, very costly in British lives (only 3 men survived), was followed by a strategic win 600 nm from Brest, also very costly in life to the enemy^16*.

P.22 of 32

^15* The Admiralty enquiry did not highlight the mistake which caused the IZ to be over-run.                                       

^16*British ships began to pick up survivors from the Bismarck but had to steam away after a U-boat alarm, leaving many to perish.  This is always reported and it has even been called a “War crime”.  What has not often been stated is that it was due directly to a German action in September 1914 by Kapitan-Leutnant Otto Weddigen.  Commanding U9 he torpedoed and sank the cruiser Aboukir.  When her sister ships Hogue and Cressy stopped to lower boats for rescue, he then sank them in turn.  Totaler Krieg.  Over 1,400 elderly reservists with families died.    In case the Weddingen action was forgotten, Kapitan-Leutnant Otto Kretschmer reminded the RN in November 1940.  After sinking the armed merchant cruiser (AMC) Laurentio he then sank a sister AMC, Patroclus, when she stopped to pick up survivors.  Kretschmer described the latter’s captain as “unkriegerisch” – “unwar-wary”.          Would a 1941 U-boat captain have given up the chance to sink a British heavy cruiser and a large destroyer because they were saving German lives?  We shall never know.

   Relatively un-trained as her gunners were and with some guns out of action, Prince of Wales nevertheless scored two hits on Bismarck.  One holed a fuel bunker and some oil was lost.  The other, penetrating below the side armour, flooded an auxiliary machinery space and caused it to leak into a boiler room.  After Hood’s destruction German fire was aimed at the PoW and she was damaged and had to turn away.  The damage to Bismarck led to the abandonment of her convoy-destruction mission.

P.23 of 32

 

HMS Ark Royal and her Fairey Swordfish, one of which so crippled the Bismarck with a small (18’’) torpedo that she was caught and battered into a hulk by HMS Rodney (LHS below) and King George V (RHS below).

Bulges and Asdic

   On 21 October 1939, when just re-appointed as 1^st Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill wrote about capital ships:-

“We have been able to protect them by bulges and Asdics against U-boats”^17*.  

                    This confidence was based on

(A):  his general knowledge of warships as developed with “bulges”^18* in the Great War;                                    

(B):  having attended a special Asdics briefing and exercise laid on at the RN Portland anti-submarine base on 15 June 1938.

^17*Although no technical expert, WSC was entitled to believe he could judge technical cases put to him by those who were, e.g. in 1912 as 1^st Lord he had supported the proposal for novel (and expensive) 15’’-gun oil-fuelled fast battleships. Apart from the extra cost of ship construction there was the cost of creating all the necessary oil supply and storage.  The ships were a great success (although mis-used by Beatty and Jellicoe).  Rebuilt they were still a major part of the fleet in 1939. 

^18* External extra skins at some distance from the hull to detonate torpedoes.  Post-Great War ships had internal compartments for the same purpose.

Bulges

   Both of these beliefs had actually been invalidated already:-

P.24 of 32

Asdic

   Asdic as a means of detecting submerged submarines via sound echo-ranging had begun at the end of the Great War and was steadily developed by the RN thereafter (it appears that the supposed origin of the acronym as “Anti-Submarine Detection Indication Committee” was a spoof, the real origin unknown).  It was later given by the Americans the snappy name “Sonar”, analogous to their “Radar” for UK “Radio Direction finding”.

   On 15 June 1938 Admiral Chatfield, 1^st Sea Lord, arranged for a demonstration of Asdic at the Anti-Submarine base at Portland and invited Winston Churchill to accompany him.  Although he was well out-of-office, the RN obviously thought he might well become their political chief again in the near future.  The visit provided a briefing and an illustration of capabilities at sea.  WSC was very impressed and wrote to Chatfield afterwards “[Asdic]..has, as I feel convinced, relieved us of one of our great dangers.”.  This belief was shared fully by the RN.  However, the officer who organised the demonstration (Maurice Usherwood) recalled 50 years later (Obituary D/Tel 4 October 2011) “The conditions had been ideal.. the success of his Asdic operators that day had amazed even him.  He had been asked to demonstrate the capabilities of Asdic, not its limitations, and that was what he had done”.   It looks rather defensive, since the limitations of Asdic then were quite numerous but the seniors did not want to know them:-

   Actually, it was not Asdic limitations but tactics which were the main cause of heavy losses from convoys due to U-boat attack.  The head of the U-boat command, Karl Doenitz, had realised before the war that Asdic could be defeated by attacking on the surface, necessarily at night.  Before short-wave-length radar was available, the small silhouette of a U-boat could get it right into a convoy without being detected visually.  Some attacks like this had been made in the 1914-18 war (before Asdic was available anyway).  Between the wars, the RN had spent no time thinking or practising the tactical escort of convoys, because faulty reasoning had labelled it “defensive” (really the ability to go where you wanted with whatever you chose to carry without the enemy being able to stop you was the opposite).  There was also the false confidence in Asdic –probably it would have been better if the 1938 demonstration had never been made.

P.25 of 32

Doenitz added the principle of concentrating his U-boats into “wolf packs”. As this required the use of radio from the boat which made the initial sighting, plus commands from the HQ ashore, ultimately this was the Achilles’ Heel of his attack. Ultra, when it could decrypt the transmissions (after overcoming an extra rotor added to shipboard Enigma in mid-1942 purely as a routine precaution), enabled convoys to be routed away from the packs. Shipboard high frequency direction finding (HF/DF), was eventually developed to locate the reporting submarine. Gradually adding more and better-equipped escort ships, escort carriers (even using the old-and-slow Swordfish, made dangerous with 8 x 3’’ rockets), airborne searchlights, long-range aircraft (when they could be extracted from the “bomber barons” of the US and British air forces), and shorter wave-length (10 cm) radar afloat and airborne, all eventually enabled the Battle of the Atlantic to be won. This despite the enemy’s counter measures in detecting early long wavelength radar pulses, adding flak to the boats, arming with sound-seeking torpedoes and fitting “Snorkels” to permit running Diesels to re-charge batteries while at periscope depth. Then Great Britain was built up with American and Canadian troops to become with the British army the launching pad for the liberation of Western Europe.
The mass production of the German Type 21 submarine (in widely-dispersed finished modules) with higher underwater speed and greater battery endurance, came much too late to affect the issue. Allied bombing delayed assembly. Only two of those boats made patrols and sank nothing.

   The Battle of the Atlantic is summarised in the chart.

P.26 of 32

   In addition to the personnel were the tons of supplies shipped over the Atlantic:-  Lease/Lend to the UK, equipment and maintenance for the US forces arriving for the Cross-Channel attack and stockpiles totalling 2.5m tons for use once they were ashore in Europe.

The RN and Anti-Aircraft Gunnery

   The RN’s basic approach to Anti-Aircraft (AA) guns is shown by their refusal call them that – they were labelled “High-Angle”(HA)!

  Nevertheless, AA was not neglected, just reluctantly accepted and gradually improved, as shown in the following table.

Date                    Ship                                   HA/AA/DP (Dual-Purpose)              Notes

1914                    Iron Duke class                   2 x 3’’                                Other battleships were retrofitted with this outfit during the Great War.  Sometimes a 4’’ gun replaced a 3’’.  These guns were to counter the Zeppelins used for scouting.

1920                    Hood                                  4 x 4’’

1927                    Nelson class                       6 x 4.7’’                             The 6’’ 2ndy armament (6 x Twin turrets) had 60⁰ elevation and theoretically could be used for AA (but see comment below re 8’’ on County cruisers).  The main guns (9 x 16’’) had 40⁰  elevation and on one occasion at least were fired as AA (private info).

1928                    County class cruisers         4 x 4’’                                The fixed ammunition (shell + cartridge) weighed about 80 lb, the most that could be loaded manually for sustained fire.

The 8’’ main armament had 70⁰ elevation and in theory could be used as AA, but it has been stated that no AA director was provided and the mountings were not agile enough for AA purposes.

                             Later ships had                 8 x 4’’                                In twin shields, which became the standard AA mounting for many ship classes.  It was dual-purpose (DP), i.e. usable for surface action.

1931                    From this date “High Angle Control Systems” were available to direct AA fire.  They were intended to combat high-level bombers flying straight and level, which was thought to be the principal danger from aircraft at that date, but were not very good at that^19* .  Dive-bombing was neglected.  Torpedo attack was to be countered on capital ships by the octuple 2-pounder “Pom-pom” being produced at about the same date (trialled 1928).

^19* There is a case reported where in 1937 a radio-controlled pilotless “Queen Bee” target being fired at by the Mediterranean fleet flew round it for an hour at 100 MPH without a single hit being recorded (this would be relative to a deliberate known offset to preserve the target).  A 2013 obituary of an RAF officer who had charge of such aircraft confessed that on one occasion in early 1939 he had been ordered to crash it into the sea after the RN had failed to hit it, so as to impress some German observers.  The successful tests of the multiple pom-pom would have been against the FAA’s Blackburn Dart torpedo-dropper which had a top speed of 107 MPH with the missile.

 1935                   Dedicated AA ships          10 x 4’’                              Single mountings on retrofitted C class cruisers.  Later AA retrofits (1939) had 8 x 4’’ in the standard twin shield.

1938                    Ark Royal                         16 x 4.5’’                           In twin shields.

1939      Improved Town class cruisers        12 x 4’’

1940                    KGV class battleships       16 x 5.25’’                         DP in 8 twin turrets.  Also used on Dido (1940)class AA cruisers.  These had 10 x 5.25’’ with the forward 3 turrets super (B) and super-super-imposed (Q) (this layout had been used first in the Hawkins class cruisers of 1919).

P.27 of 32

RN AA anti-aircraft Weight of fire

   In the 26 years between 1914 and 1940 the weight of fire from capital ships of the RN had increased from 2 x 16 lb = 32 lb to 16 x 80 lb = 1280 lb.  A multiple of 40 and Director-controlled, but not enough, as will be recorded in the next section.

The failure of RN AA gunnery

   The RN found out from the April 1940 Norwegian campaign onwards that their ship-borne AA gun provision was inadequate.  This punctured pre-war complacency rather like that which affected anti-submarine provision.  At first this mostly applied to destroyers, which had negligible AA armament (quadruple 0.5’’ machine guns) in the waters around Great Britain, and the enemy weapon was the dive-bomber (Junkers Ju87 and 88).  One heavy cruiser was very badly damaged off Stavanger and the CinC of the Home Fleet took his big ships out of range.  Eighteen months later while supporting the hopeless Greek and then Cretan campaigns in April to June 1941 in the Mediterranean many cruiser losses were added despite their AA outfits.  Again, this was to divebombing.  Italian torpedo-bombers damaged several cruisers and Nelson but sank no major warships.  This may have given a false impression of the effectiveness of this type of attack.

   The real shock came a short distance from Singapore three days after Pearl Harbor (10 December 1941), when the modern battleship Prince of Wales was sunk quite quickly in the open sea by Japanese torpedo-bombers, with little loss to themselves.  Her 16 x 5.25’’ AA guns and 6 octuple 2 pdr pompoms plus several Bofors 40 mm added at Singapore did not save her and only a 20 mm Oerlikon scored once (her 25-year-old consort Repulse, also sunk, shot down 2 attackers with her 3 octuple 2pdr pompoms).

   Her guns having failed to repel the first 9-strong wave of Mitsubishi G3M attackers, one had a lucky torpedo strike on the port outer propeller shaft and distorted it.  The secondary damage then doomed her, as damaged glands allowed water to flood compartments with subsequent loss of electrical power to control AA weapons and steering, darkness and no Tannoy..

   The details are available in

pacificwrecks.com/ships/hms/prince_of_wales/death-of-a-battleship-2012-update.pdf.

   This note offers a few extra thoughts.

P.28 of 32

Background to the loss

   The tragedy on 10 December 1941 had its root long before, in 1902.  Great Britain was confronted since 1900 with a German intention to build a large ocean-going fleet.  With a stirring movement at home to spend more money on social welfare, and so unwilling to spend the money to build and maintain three fleets – one in home waters against Germany, another in the Mediterranean against France and a third in the Far East based on Wei-hai-Wei and Hong Kong against Japan, the government of the day agreed a long-term treaty of friendship with the latter and ran down the Eastern fleet.  Two years later it settled its problems with France and ran down the Mediterranean fleet as well.  From then on, all efforts were concentrated against a potential war with Germany.  That war erupted in 1914.

   Japan joined the coalition against Germany and used it to enhance its own position.  Post the Great War, as has been described, the USA, with its own suspicion of Japan’s intentions, pressured Britain not to renew its treaty with them.  It was necessary then for Britain to find a strategy to defend its Eastern possessions and also Australia.  The conclusion was to build a naval base at Singapore which would receive a fleet sent from the home country if hostilities broke out with Japan.  The money to rebuild a Far Eastern fleet in the weakened state of the country after the Great War simply was not available.

   It took until 1928 to start the new base and until 1938 to finish it.  To guard the area before the theoretical fleet from England arrived a powerful submarine force – 11 boats strong – was based there.  The dilemma which had always existed then arose – suppose the fleet for Singapore was needed elsewhere?  Having at last stood up to Adolf Hitler in 1939, England soon found itself at war with Italy as well and the totally unexpected collapse of France meant there was no ally to guard the Mediterranean route to the Empire.  Specifically, the Eastern submarines had to be transferred to that sea in 1940.  That collapse also meant that Japan was able to seize control of French Indo-China and move its launching pad for a strike against Singapore 1,100 miles nearer than Formosa^20*.

^20* This was one of 7 consequences of the French collapse which had never been foreseen in any pre-war strategical review:-

1.  The loss of the French armed forces;
2. The loss of French industrial capacity;
3. An advance of 200 miles towards England for the Luftwaffe air bases;
4. The German army on the Channel, 21 miles from England;
5. The German navy on the West coast of France with immediate access to the Atlantic;
6. The French army no longer a threat to Italy in Tunisia, leaving her free to invade Egypt;
7. The Japanese seizing bases in French Indo-China.

   When Germany invaded its erstwhile ally, Russia, in May 1941, it was expedient to assist that country with weapons.  Specifically, with Hurricanes which otherwise might have been sent to Malaya.  This was in keeping with an unofficial agreement between the planners of Great Britain and then-neutral USA in March 1941 to make the defeat of “Germany first” in joint strategical objectives if they became allies in a fully-declared war (Roosevelt’s policy was then “All aid short of war”).

   However, the USA’s attempt to divert Japan from its 4 years old invasion of China by cutting off strategical supplies led to ominous tension with that nation.  Reacting to this, likely to involve Britain, PM Churchill decided to send a small capital ship force to Singapore to fulfil (at least slightly) the long-time promise to the British interests in the Far East, particularly Australian, and, he hoped, act as a deterrent to Japan.  Despite the objections of the CinC Home Fleet Prince of Wales and Repulse were chosen.  The PoW departed the UK on 24 October 1941.  The new carrier Indomitable was intended to accompany them to give air cover (she had Sea Hurricanes aboard), but was sent to the Caribbean first to work up and was there, 15,000 nautical miles from Singapore, on 2 November 1941.  It must be remembered that, when this capital ship move to Singapore began, there was no hint that hostilities were actually imminent.  US and English logic said that Japan would wait to see if the German army could capture Moscow with any subsequent result on Russia’s further resistance before deciding their next move.  But this Western logic did not penetrate the Japanese military mentality, led by General Tojo from 16 October 1941.

P.29 of 32

The Indominable being damaged on a coral reef on 3 November, needing repair at the US base at Norfolk Va, meant that she could only reach Singapore by early 1942.   Whether any consideration was given to sending a Dido class AA cruiser with the PoW is unknown.    Meanwhile, the big gun ships had been at the new base for 5 days when, without declaring war, Japan struck at Pearl Harbour by air from a carrier fleet which had departed the Kurile Islands on 26 November.  Simultaneously troops transported from Indo-China invaded the middle Malaysian peninsula.

The loss of the Prince of Wales, 10 December 1941

   Certain general points can be made about this tragic event:-

1. The British had never previously fought Japan.

The Japanese fighting man did not fear death.  This attitude had been inculcated for centuries.  It meant that nothing but his death or disablement would stop him from attacking^{21*, 22*} .

^21* Curiously, this “Victory or death” mindset did not apply to Japanese Admirals on 5 famous occasions:-

• • On 7 December 1941 Nagumo refused to order a 3^rd strike to destroy the un-touched oil fuel tanks at Pearl Harbor and withdrew.
  • On 8^th May 1942 Inouye (at Truk) had had the best of the 1^st carrier action in history in the Coral Sea but ordered a retreat of his ships and the projected Port Moresby landing force.
  • On 9^th August 1942, having badly beaten the force covering the US landing on Guadalcanal, Mikawa did not press on to annihilate the transports still unloading there but withdrew.
  • On 12^th November 1942 Abe won a battle to open the way to bombard the airfield at Guadalcanal and cover a reinforcement of troops but withdrew.  Failure to destroy the planes then cost him his flagship.
  • On 25^th October 1944, when Kurita with a still powerful gun-ship fleet had the US transports in Leyte Gulf at his mercy, apart from light forces, but retreated instead.

^22* In torpedo-bombing in particular many English-speaking crews showed the same disregard of the long odds against survival:-  the Swordfish crews which attacked Taranto and the Bismarck;  the RAF Beaufort crew which torpedoed the Gneisenau in Brest harbour in April 1940 (the pilot was awarded a posthumous VC);  the Avenger, Marauder and Devastator crews which sacrificed themselves in vain attacks on the Japanese fleet during the Midway battle of June 1942.

2.   The RN had never before fought in the Tropics.

The December daily range for Singapore, practically on the equator, is:- Temperature 24 to 30C;  Relative Humidity 68 to 97 %. This affected both men and machines.

3.   The quality of Japanese aircraft was unknown, but not believed to be high.

Since the mid-‘30s the Japanese had kept very tight security on their technology.

Some of the features of some Japanese warships were known, being visible.  The aero performance could not be so evaluated, although perhaps more should have been learnt from the Chinese conflict.

4.   The KGV class of battleship had only come under air attack once before.

The Prince of Wales had experienced air attack in the Mediterranean in October 1941, without damage.

5.   Short of a carrier there was no AA support from escorting destroyers and negligible from PoW’s consort Repulse.

   To now add detail to the above points.

1. The British had never previously fought Japan.

   This meant in particular that close-range barrage fire from the famous “Chicago Piano” multiple pom-poms (920 RPM 2pdr shells ), which it was thought would at least deter any pilot at the critical moment of torpedo-dropping, would not do that to a Japanese.

P.30 of 32

2. The RN had never before fought in the Tropics.

   Apart from not wanting to part with a battleship, the CinC Home Fleet, based on high temperatures experienced in the PoW in the Mediterranean in October, warned against sending the ship to the tropics.  The response to that was probably a shrug and “Oh well, it can’t be helped!”

   By report the effect of humidity was two-fold:-

• On performance of the radar (presumed to be over-heating of radio valves);
• By deterioration of ready-use pom-pom ammunition.  This affected Repulse as well as PoW, but that ship shot down 2 planes with her pom-poms.

   The effect on the crew’s gunnery performance does not seem to have been reported, but it must have been significant.  No hits were made by the 5.25’’ DP guns.  At a subsequent enquiry the Director of Naval Construction opined that their crews were insufficiently trained.

   There is no report of any use of main guns for splash barrage.

3. The quality of Japanese aircraft was unknown, but not believed to be high.

The chance of torpedo air attack at a distance of 500 st miles from Saigon may have been thought zero.  Although full load-range data of the British Bristol Beaufort torpedo-bomber cannot be found, a comparison scaled from published extreme ranges suggests it could drop up to 250 st. miles.  Admiral Phillips’ staff could have briefed him on that and given him false confidence.  Japanese designers got more range by leaving out crew armour and self-sealing fuel tanks – another part of their war-fighting philosophy.

  The Japanese, who in some cases had trained specially when it was known that capital ships were being sent to Singapore (so much for deterrence), dropped at 1,000 to 2,000 yards from extraordinary heights at possibly 200 MPH – 200 to 300 feet using torpedoes apparently without air tails, with the missiles entering the water at 25⁰ to 40⁰ and proceeding at 42 knots.  They reported afterwards that guns had continued to fire at them after they had dropped, instead of seeking loaded aircraft.

4. The KGV class of battleship had only come under air attack once before

   The Mediterranean experience may have given the PoW people a false confidence.  She was reported to have done well with her 5.25’’ guns and claimed 3 aircraft.  But details say that 2 were shared with a cruiser – and the 3^rd was an FAA Fulmar which obviously was not attacking.

   The performance of the extra Bofors (number unknown) which had been mounted at Singapore is only referred to regarding a gun on the quarterdeck.  It was thought more effective than (known defective ammo) pom-poms.  This may be because it fired tracer (the pom-poms did not) and could therefore be quickly adjusted in aim.  However, it, and its mates wherever they were positioned, did not shoot down any planes and save the ship.  In this connection it can be recalled that the Bismarck had 16 x 37 mm guns (similar to the Bofors 40 mm) and they did not save her either, even against 100 MPH Swordfish.

   A comparison between the close-range weapons, both firing 2 lb shells, shows:-

Gun	Cooling	RPM	Calibre	Barrel Length	Propellant	Max. Horizontal range
			mm	Calibres	Oz	Yards
pom-pom	Water	115	40	39	4.7	7,500
Bofors	Air	120	40	56	8.75	10,800

Both guns should have been able to shoot down an attacking aircraft long before it dropped its missile at 1,000 to 2,000 yards.  Defective ammo explains the pom-pom score limited to two by Repulse.

P.31 of 32

Lack of air cover from Singapore

   No-one can now be sure why Admiral Phillips did not call Singapore to send air cover from the available 10 Brewster Buffalos as soon as his ships came into their combat radius on 10^th December.  Not until the first wave of 9 Japanese aircraft had attacked did the captain of Repulse on his own initiative make that call and they took 1 hour to arrive, too late.

  To summarise the probabilities which have been written above:-

• The possibility of air attack had been discounted from data known of British capability;
• The AA gunnery effectiveness at long and short range had been over-estimated.

   Although very 2^nd class fighters the 300 MPH Buffalos with 4 x 0.5’’ MGs would have been adequate to prevent the first unescorted bomber attack wave from causing the fatal damage to the Prince of Wales that they did.

However, just calling for air cover would not have solved the whole problem, because to maintain a CAP would have needed aircraft in relays.  Whether more than 10 machines could have been made available is not known.

The Achilles’ Heels of battleships

                 In air attack the Achilles’ Heels of battleships were the propellers and rudders.

              For Bismarck in May 1941 it was the rudder;

              for Prince of Wales it was a propeller shaft.

  When (then-)Sub Lieutenant Pattinson dropped his torpedo from 90 feet at 900 yards range at about 100 MPH on Bismarck’s starboard side it does not seem that he had time to choose the stern as his target.  The rudder damage was therefore a bonus for his courage.  Perhaps the Japanese, who had taken careful note of what the FAA had done at Taranto, had from the success against the German ship later briefed their flyers to go for stern shots.  Setting a target and pilots remembering it in the heat of the AA fire would be something else.  Probably the damage to PoW’s propeller shaft was just bad luck for the ship.

 The release of the Irish ports

   Having reviewed the consequences of the equipment and attitudes of the RN up to the end of 1941, it is necessary to return to 1938 to describe one act concerning the RN which strikes the reader nowadays as totally incredible.  This was to release the Eire government from allowing the RN in time of war the use of 3 ports in Ireland (Queenstown and Berehaven in the South and Lough Swilly in the North).  This had been part of the 1921 Treaty which separated Southern Ireland from GB, conceded willingly by Collins, the then-leader of that part of the island.  For a payment of £10M to settle a trade dispute Chamberlain gave up that right in April 1938.  Neither the First Lord of the Admiralty (Duff Cooper) nor Chatfield (still 1^st Sea Lord) objected.  There may have been some idea that de Valera (become Eire PM) would still let GB use those facilities in wartime, in which case Chamberlain’s naivety is of a piece with his whole approach to foreign affairs.  Ireland declared neutrality.

   This forced British convoy escorts from 1939 into many extra miles of un-necessary steaming and time lost in guarding merchant ships.  What it cost in terms of blood and treasure is incalculable.

P.32 of 32

Conclusions

1. The Washington Treaty, imposed by governments on their navies, saved Great Britain from spending more than it could afford in a pointless “battleship race” with the USA, which it would never fight.
2. The “Ten Year Rule”, set by the British government in 1919 initially, was another sensible way of keeping military expenditure at a level the country could afford. When the international situation deteriorated in 1932, it was terminated in good time to re-arm if necessary.
3. Had PM Baldwin been a leader and not a follower of a pacifist tendency, the menace of a re-arming Hitlerite Germany would have been eliminated jointly with France in a cost-free way in 1935, or 1936 at the latest.
4. Failing 3, and once a decision to re-arm Great Britain had been taken in 1936, vigorous action on modern fighter aircraft at some extra cost could have equipped PM Chamberlain with adequate defensive air strength by September 1938 and so avoided abandoning Czechoslovakia.
5. Had the Admiralty not insisted on a new main gun and a new quadruple turret for the new battleships authorised in 1936, there could have been 3 “Super-Nelsons” in the fleet in May 1941.
6. Had the Admiralty not convinced itself pre-1939 that “bulges”, Asdic and “High-Angle” gun systems had disposed of the danger to ships from the submarine and aircraft many losses due to this complacency could have been avoided in the war forced on Great Britain in September 1939
7. Despite being treated as a poor relation while the Royal Air Force for 20 years was supplying aviation to the Royal Navy, because of a mistaken government decision of April 1918, the Fleet Air Arm did very well over 1939-1941 with antiquated aircraft. 

Sources

   As this review was the result of many decades of reading and analysis it is not possible to give references to all works consulted, but recently used sources are listed below:-

• Jane’s Fighting Ships 1937. F. McMurtrie  Sampson Low, Marston  Dec 1937.
• A. Watts..Macdonald & Jane’s  1978.
• Aircraft Carriers. Brown..Macdonald & Jane’s  1977.
• Sea Power. Preston & L. Casey  Phoebus  1979.
• American Battleships, Aircraft Carriers & Cruisers. Lenton  Macdonald  2nd Ed 1970.
• Warship Profile No. 6 Prinz Eugen.  Schmalenbach  1971.
• Warship Profile No. 19   R. Robertson  1972.
• British Submarines at War..A. Mars Purnell 
• Main Fleet to Singapore. Grenfell  Faber  1951.
• World Crisis 1911-1918. 3  W. S. Churchill  Odhams. 1949.
• The Second World War 1  W. S. Churchill  Cassell  Ed. 1949.
• ‘’        ‘’          ‘’         ‘’     3     ‘’       ‘’                ‘’              1950.

 

www details of the losses of HMS Hood and Prince of Wales are referenced and linked in the text.

wikipedia and navweaps.com were consulted for specific details of ships, aircraft and weapons

              Derek S. Taulbut.  April 2021.

P.S.
See Pages PS. 1 and PS. 2.

P.S. 1

HMS Vanguard

   This review suggests that Great Britain would have been served better if the new battleships authorised in 1936-37 had been “Super-Nelsons”, saving money and, more importantly, time.

   Another batch of battleships, unhampered by Treaty displacement rules and with 9 x 16’’ guns, was authorised in 1938-39 (the Lion class).  During 1939 it was apparent that a war was coming for which these ships would not be ready for some years beyond their likely usefulness.  Ironically, a quicker solution was to build a “Super-Hood” around 4 x 15’’-twin turrets left in store after their removal from Courageous in 1928 and Glorious in 1930 when those ships had been converted into aircraft carriers.  When war came the 16’’ ships were soon cancelled to provide resources to build the desperately-needed convoy-escort vessels.  The menace of the Bismarck and Tirpitz was dealt with in various ways so the ersatz battleship carried on in fits and starts and was eventually completed in 1946 as HMS Vanguard.  The turrets were modified to increase elevation to 30⁰ .  The 2ndy armament was like the KGVs (16 x 5.25’’ DP in twin turrets) but the close-range AA outfit was increased to no-less than 71 x 40 mm Bofors (10 completely new 6-barrelled mountings, a quad and 7 x singles).  Too late, of course.  No-one would ever think of sending this battleship into action without a carrier in company equipped with first-class fighters, whose bomber aircraft would be the spearhead of any conflict at sea in any case.  In fact, like the Iowa class in the Pacific in 1943-45, which never fired their 16’’ guns at any surface ship, the expensive battleship would be the AA cover for the carrier!

   The Vanguard had two valuable hull innovations for British battleships.  Like the 1938 conversions to the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau she was given an Atlantic bow (with considerable sheer) because at long-last the Admiralty had scrapped the requirement that ‘A’ turret had to be able to fire ahead at 0⁰ elevation*.  The other, following the 1940 Colony class cruisers, was a transom (square-cut) stern.  This was estimated to be worth an extra 0.3 knot and assisted in Vanguard being a fast ship for her characteristics at 31.6 knots (as shown on P. 16 chart).

   The Atlantic bow proved its worth in a 1952 NATO exercise during a Force 12 storm in that sea when she was able to maintain 24 knots for several hours steaming to the help of a submarine in distress, while the rest of the allied fleet (including the Missouri , which was damaged) were reduced to 6 knots (D/Tel letter from a crew member, 23 May 2003).  The Iowa class, having a high but narrow “ogee” bow (see photo on P. 20), were not so good in a rough sea.

 

*From the ‘C’ class of late Great War date a “knuckled” or “trawler” bow had been included in the design of cruisers.

P.S. 2

Great War Ship Speeds

   Further to the Ship Speed chart on P. 16 some extra data for Great War ships are given here.

   The correlation is not so good for this group, but some points may be noted:-

• “Standard” ship displacement was not defined until the Washington Treaty of 1922 so “normal” figures may be different and variable between nations;
• In the years before the Great War the rivalry in naval shipbuilding was intense and may have led to publication of dis-information, e.g. speeds may have been at particularly light load or may even have been deliberately exaggerated;
• German ships completed after the war began were trialled in the shallow water of the Baltic, which led to lower speeds than would have been obtained in deep water because of the “Squat” effect from Bernoulli under-keel flow.  A correction was applied to the Koenig (via Wiki) by comparing it with the previous pre-war class.  No correction has been applied to Hindenburg or Bayern.
• The Queen Elizabeth class – all completed after the war began – were known to be disappointing by 1 knot below design speed of 25.   Reason unknown.  While “Jane’s Fighting Ships” quoted precise trials SHP figures for each of the 5 ships the speeds were left blank.  This was presumably a war security measure.