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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022: The Well-Traveled Admiral

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022: The Well-Traveled Admiral

Photo by Coote, R G G (Lt), Admiralty Official Collection Photograph A 11745 from the Imperial War Museums.

Above we see the King George V-class battleship HMS Howe (32) conducting full power trials at Scapa Flow with a bone in her teeth on 29 August 1942. The last “KGV” and the final British dreadnought built that would see combat, Howe joined the Home Fleet some 80 years ago this week.

Some 42,000 tons when at their fighting weight, these 745-foot long ships were brawlers. Capable of breaking 28 knots on a set of Parsons geared steam turbines, they were faster than all but a handful of battleships on the drawing board while still sporting nearly 15 inches of armor plate at their thickest. Armed with 10 BL 14-inch Mk VII naval guns and 16 5.25″/50 DP QF Mark I guns, they could slug it out with the biggest of the dreadnoughts of their day, possibly only outclassed by the American fast battleships (Washington, SoDak, Iowa-classes) with their 16-inch radar-guided guns and the Japanese Yamatos, which of course carried 18-inchers.

King George V class battleships, Janes 1946 plan

RN British battleship profiles ONI 201, circa 1944

The KGVs featured ten big 14″/45s in just three turrets, two 4-gun 1,582-ton Mark III mounts, and a single superimposed 2-gun 915-ton Mark II mount. They were capable of firing 1,590-pound Mark VIIB AP projectiles to 38,560 yards at maximum elevation and charge. The shells were able to penetrate 15.6 inches of side armor at anything closer than 10,000 yards.

Six of the 10 14-in guns of HMS Howe pointing to port as seen from a small boat alongside the battleship. IWM A 11755.

British Royal Marines fitting tampions to the guns of turret A or X aboard HMS Howe,

Workmen doing the same, HMS Howe (32)

Looking from the foc’sle towards the 6 forward 14 inch guns of HMS Howe, with the guns at maximum elevation and a group of sailors lined up in front of them

Royal Marines working on a 5.25 secondary turret on HMS Howe, August 1942. She had eight such mounts, the equivalent of a Dido-class light cruiser, and was capable of hitting up to 36,000 ft altitude in AAA mode

Note her AAA suite including 8-barreled pom poms

Part of a class of five mighty battleships whistled up as Hitler was girding a resurgent Germany, HMS Howe was ordered on 28 April 1937, just a year after the Austrian corporal-turned-Fuhrer violated the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by reoccupying the demilitarized Rhineland. Built at Glasgow’s famous Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company’s yards in Govan (all five KGVs were constructed at different yards to speed up their delivery), she joined the fleet as Montgomery was preparing to rebuff Rommel for good at El Alamein in Northern Africa. What a difference a few years can make!

One classmate, HMS Prince of Wales, had already been lost in combat before Howe was commissioned, sent to the bottom infamously by Japanese land-based bombers after surviving two encounters with Bismarck while still technically on her builder’s trials.

Originally to be named after the great Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beaty, she was instead the 6th RN warship since 1805 graced with the name of Admiral of the Fleet Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, KG, a career sea dog who at age 68 led his 25 ships of the line against a larger French fleet during the “Glorious First of June” melee in 1794. Howe succeeded in capturing or sinking seven French ships without losing any of his own.

C., H. ; Lord Howe on Board the ‘Queen Charlotte’ Bringing His Prize into Spithead, 1794; HMS Excellent; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/lord-howe-on-board-the-queen-charlotte-bringing-his-prize-into-spithead-1794-26045

Convoy Duty

Commissioned at her builder’s yard at Govan in June 1942 although she was not yet completed, Howe would spend the next three months in a series of trials while finishing outfitting.

RN British battleship KGV class HMS HOWE IWM A 10381

King George V class battleship HMS Howe during trials in August 1942

HMS Howe underway at sea, date unknown

HMS HOWE, BRITAIN’S LASTEST BATTLESHIP IN COMMISSION. 2 JULY 1942. (A 10514) HMS HOWE enters the dock for her finishing touches before taking her place with the Fleet. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205144216

An imposing shot of Howe from the waterline, showing off her secondaries

HMS Howe Joins the Fleet, Glasgow, Scotland, July 1942. Thousands of people gather on the banks of the Clyde to see the recently constructed British battleship HMS HOWE, towed out by tugs to join the Fleet. IWM A 10383

With HMS Howe. August 1942, on Board the Battleship HMS Howe. The fitting mascot for the great battleship is “Judy”, a thoroughbred bulldog. A 11770

HMS Howe. August 1942. The Lord Provost of Edinburgh, speaking to the ship’s company. IWM A A 11739

HM’s newest battleship would spend the rest of the year in a series of exercises and shake down evolutions, getting her green crew ready for war. Building on lessons learned from chasing down Bismarck and in fights with the Japanese off Java and Guadalcanal, lots of nighttime training.

 

HMS Howe firing her 14-inch guns near Scapa Flow, likely around 25 September to 5 October 1942. IWM A 12334.

“The brilliant flash from the guns which precedes the cordite smoke lasts only for a fraction of a second”

Howe moved from being passively in the fight to heading out for combat on New Year’s Eve 1942 when she sortied out from Scapa as part of the distant screening force for Convoy RA 51, heading to the UK from Murmansk, tantalizingly close enough for the German surface raiders in Norway to get a bite (if they wanted.) In this, she sailed with her sister, the battleship HMS King George V, and in future convoys would often steam alongside other sisters, HMS Anson and HMS Duke of York, the latter of which would end the career of the battleship Scharnhorst during the Battle of the North Cape on Boxing Day 1943– soaking the German warship in 446 14-inch shells across 80 broadsides.

Before leaving Scapa again to help cover Convoy JW 53 in late February as a distant cover force, our new battlewagon would host the king.

King George VI inspecting the ship’s company on board HMS Howe. The King pays a 4-day visit to the Home Fleet. 18 to 21 February 1943, Scapa Flow, wearing the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet, the King paid a four-day visit to the Home Fleet. IWM A 15210.

King George VI aboard HMS Howe with Captain C. H. L. Woodhouse and Admiral John Tovey, Scapa Flow, Scotland, Feb 1943. They are nearing the aft “X” turret. IWM A 15204

King George VI aboard HMS Howe, same day, a beautiful view of her bow turrets (“A” and “B”) with their unusual 4+2 arrangement. IWM A 15121

(A 15430) HMS HOWE firing her starboard 5.9 guns, as seen from the inward deck of HMS KING GEORGE V in Northern waters. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205148494

In March, she would join the cover force for Convoy RA 53 then in April, in work up for the Operation Fracture/Husky Landings in Sicily, would take part in exercise XCJ off Iceland.

The Med

Sailing for Gibraltar in the company of three destroyers, she arrived in the shadow of “The Rock” on 25 May and would join “H” Force, made up of Howe and her sister HMS King George V (flying the flag of Rear-Admiral A.W.LaT. Bisset, RN), along with the carrier HMS Formidable and nine British and Polish destroyers/escorts. Shipping out for Algiers from Gibraltar, the group would rename Force Z and ultimately head into combat off Sicily on 11 July– sans Formidable and four tin cans but adding the cruisers HMS Dido and HMS Sirius — under Howe’s skipper, Capt. Charles Henry Lawrence Woodhouse (who captained HMS Ajax in the Battle of the River Plate), the senior officer with 37 years in service.

HMS Howe July 1943, off Algiers

The role of Force Z would be to shell Trapani and Marsala along with the islands of Favignana and Levanzo in the dark pre-dawn hours on 12 July, serving as a decoy to the main landings on the west coast of Sicily. During the feign, Howe fired 17 salvoes from her 14-inch guns at the hills along Trapani harbor along with several star shells for illumination.

Following the diversion, Force Z would remain a fire brigade on short notice, scrambled in case Italian battleships wanted to come out and fight. It was in this role that CinC Malta, Vice Admiral Arthur John Power, would break out his flag on Howe on 8 September to sortie towards the incoming Italian fleet sailing from Taranto to surrender. The force would encounter the Italian battleships Andrea Doria and Caio Duilo (flying the flag of VADM Alberto Da Zara), along with the cruisers Luigi Cadorna and Pompeo Magno and a destroyer at sea, escorting them back to Malta.

Taking a break from accepting the surrender of Umberto II’s capital ships, Howe supported the Operation Slapstick landings of the British 1st Airborne Division outside of Taranto (with the Paras arriving by sea rather than by air). Then, on 14 September, Force Z would escort the surrendered Italian battleships Vittorio Veneto, Italia (Littorio), cruisers Eurgenio di Savoia, Emanuelle Filiberto Duca d’Aosta, Raimondo Montecuccoli and Luigi Cadorna; and the destroyers Artigliere, Velite, Grecale, and Nicoloso da Recco from Malta to Alexandria.

Langmaid, Rowland; The Surrendered Italian Fleet with HMS ‘King George V’ and ‘Howe’, 1943; National Maritime Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/the-surrendered-italian-fleet-with-hms-king-george-v-and-howe-1943-174942

Sent back to Scapa to resume Home Fleet duties in October, it was thought Howe could best serve with a new force being mustered to fight the Japanese now that the Med had calmed down and the Axis had lost its capital ships in that ancient sea.

To the Pacific!

Laid up at Devonport for a six-month refit that saw her packing on new radars (Type 274, 282, and 283 radar added; Type 273, 281, and 284 removed) and a serious AAA suite, Howe was destined for the new British Pacific Fleet, where she would be the force’s flagship. While her original 1942 “ack ack” fit was substantial– 6 octuple 40/39 2pdr QF Mk VIII “pom-poms” and 18 20mm/70 Oerlikon Mk II/IV singles– Howe could sail for the Far East in early 1944 with 8 pom poms (64 guns), 34 Oerlikon singles and 8 Oerlikon twin mounts (for a total of 50 20mm guns); and two quad 40mm Bofors mounts (8 guns).

Howe, Flagship of the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, passing through the Suez Canal on 14 July 1944 on her way to join the British Pacific Fleet. Naval History and Heritage Command original color photograph, NH 94456-KN, courtesy of The Imperial War Museum London

Swimmers from a local swimming club gather on a jetty to watch the passage of HMS Howe through the Suez Canal. Many of the battleship’s crew are on deck

While the fighting core of the BPF was to be RADM Admiral Sir Philip Vian’s 1st Aircraft Carrier Squadron (Task Force 57), ultimately including a half-dozen Illustrious-class armored carriers (supported by a mix of five replenishment and repair carriers) and 36 FAA squadrons flying from their decks, HMS Howe would be the first British battleship to return to the Pacific since Prince of Wales and her companion, the aging but beautiful battlecruiser Repulse, were sunk in December 1942. (*While several of the Great War vintage Revenge-class and Queen Elizabeth-class battleships along with the battlecruiser Renown would serve in the Eastern Fleet in 1943-44, their service was isolated to convoy escort and operations along the Burma coast and various island groups in the Indian Ocean.)

Passing through the Suez, stopping at Aden in late July, and arriving at Colombo on 3 August (where she exercises with the Free French battleship Richelieu), Howe joined the Eastern Fleet’s carrier forces (soon to be BPF carriers), consisting of the HMS Victorious and HMS Indomitable for Operation Banquet– a raid against Padang, Sumatra, in the Dutch East Indies (Aug 19-27) followed by Operation Light, a similar carrier raid (Sept 14-20) against the railway repair and maintenance center at Sigli, Sumatra.

Howe and her escorting destroyers, with Fraser aboard, arrived at Fremantle on 11 December 1944 from Colombo and Australia went crazy.

Relocating to Sydney on 17 December for a two-week pier side stand down, the enthusiasm was palpable, and Howe’s skipper at the time, Capt. H.W.U. McCall, DSO, RN, explicitly mentioned the battleship was there, two years after the fact, to avenge Prince of Wales and Repulse and “take our full share in bringing about the defeat of Japan.”

Once in the Pacific, Howe would soon be reinforced by her familiar sister, the hard-wearing HMS King George V, in February 1945 followed by siblings Duke of York and HMS Anson later in the summer (post-VJ-Day). They would comprise the 1st Battle Squadron of the British Pacific Fleet. Sadly, the four would never steam together as a fighting unit. The older but 16-inch gunned HMS Nelson (28) would arrive in the Pacific just in time for the surrender in Singapore on 12 September.

THE BATTLESHIP HMS HOWE IN NEW ZEALAND WATERS. JANUARY 1945, ON BOARD HMS HOWE, FLAGSHIP OF ADMIRAL BRUCE FRASER, C IN C BRITISH PACIFIC FLEET, WHEN SHE WAS IN NEW ZEALAND WATERS AND DURING HER VISIT TO AUCKLAND. (A 28861) Destroyer escort seen from the bridge of the HOWE. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205160182

THE BATTLESHIP HMS HOWE IN NEW ZEALAND WATERS. JANUARY 1945, ON BOARD HMS HOWE, FLAGSHIP OF ADMIRAL BRUCE FRASER, C IN C BRITISH PACIFIC FLEET, WHEN SHE WAS IN NEW ZEALAND WATERS AND DURING HER VISIT TO AUCKLAND. (A 28865) Captain H W U McCall, DSO, RN, with the HOWE’s dog mascot Guinness. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205160186

HMS Howe with a bone in her teeth

Working towards the Japanese surrender, KGV and Howe (as Task Group 57.1), joining the growing British carrier power that was TF57, were off to Okinawa for Operation Iceberg in March. They stood by the carriers amid the waves of incoming kamikazes (with one suicider crashing in flames 100 yards from HMS Howe after passing over the quarterdeck). Our battleship also got her guns on target, bombarding Hirara airfield and the runways at Nobara and Sukuma (4 May: 195 rounds of 14″ HE, and 378 rounds of 5.25″ HE).

After spending most of the preceding year at sea, and with a move from the UK to Japan’s doorstep and a series of fast carrier raids behind her, Howe was pulled off the line to refit for the final push (Operation Olympic) — the invasion of the Japanese home island of Kyushu, set for November 1945. With that, Howe steamed from Manus for Sydney in early June, then arrived at Durban, South Africa– because no suitable facilities were available in Australia at the time– arriving on 27 June. There, her AAA suite was upgraded for a final time, landing most of her 20mm guns in favor of better-performing 40mm Bofors.

However, by the time her refit finished on 10 September, the war was already over.

Her sisters, Duke of York and KGV, were in Tokyo Bay when the instruments of surrender were signed.

HMS Duke of York in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, the day the Japanese Surrender was signed on USS Missouri BB-63. The Ensigns of all Allied nations were flown for a ceremonial “Sunset.” Note the two Quad QF 2-pounder/40mm “Pom-Pom” gun mounts and five smart Royal Marine buglers (center) ready to sound Sunset. Nimitz called upon ADM Sir Bruce Fraser aboard HMS Duke of York on the eve of the Japanese surrender ceremony. Nimitz noted that the visit was “partly on official business, partly because I like him, and mostly to get a scotch and soda before dinner because our ships are dry.” IWM – Cross, G W (Sub Lt) Photographer

Epilogue

Howe, the last of her class, remained in commission for the rest of the decade and became Flagship of the Training Squadron at Portland.

King George V class battleships listing, Jane’s 1946

Reduced to Reserve status in 1950 as the flag of the Devonport Division of the Reserve Fleet, she was placed on the Disposal List in 1957 along with her three surviving sisters.

Mothballs Devonport mid-1950s Fairmile D MTBs HMS Howe HMS Belfast and Dido class light cruiser, possibly HMS Euryalus

Battleships HMS Vanguard and HMS Howe lying in reserve at Devonport, 1956 HMS Unicorn Euryalus behind

Howe was sold to BISCO for demolition, arriving at Inverkeithing on 2 June 1958 for breaking up.

It would fall to the one-off HMS Vanguard (23), the last and never fully operational British battleship, completed in 1946, to hold the line for two further years until she too was decommissioned and scrapped in late 1960 to end the Admiralty’s 54 years run with dreadnoughts.

Howe is remembered in maritime art by some of the most gifted painters in the class.

Battleship in Suez Canal, HMS ‘Howe’ by Charles Pears. Photo credit: The National Archives

HMS Howe under attack from Japanese aircraft, torpedo-armed Vals by artist Terence Tenison Cuneo (UK Art Trust) 

Suez Transit by Wayne Scarpaci. Depicts the King George V class Battleship, HMS Howe, passaging through the Suez canal in 1944

Her bell was saved and installed in Edinburgh’s St. Giles Cathedral, lovingly tended by the HMS Howe Association while her giant circa 1937 1:96 scale builder’s model from Govan is on display in the Riverside Museum in Glasgow. Other relics of her are on display at assorted museums across the UK.

Her wartime movement logs are digitized at Uboat.net.

For their own reasons, the Royal Navy has not had a seventh HMS Howe. A shame. 

 

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Prince of Wales, Repulse Remembered

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The preserved bells of the backbone of Force Z, the battlewagons HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse – sunk on 10 December 1941 – have been put side-by-side on display at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth to mark the 80th anniversary of the tragedy.

The bells had spent six decades at the bottom of the Pacific.

(MoD Crown Copyright)

At least 842 men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines died when the two capital ships were lost to the Japanese air attack off Malaysia – just three days after the shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some 330 men went down with Prince of Wales, 512 with the Repulse.

The bells were recovered 20 years ago by Royal Navy divers – with the full support of survivors – as the wrecks were being plundered by unscrupulous salvagers and souvenir hunters.

“We hope our visitors take a moment to reflect on the enormity of the loss,” said Victoria Ingles, senior curator at the National Museum of the Royal Navy. “Ship’s bells are held in great affection by the crew and it was so important that both were retrieved, with permission, from the wreck sites in 2002. Their display is a fitting tribute to the many lives lost.”

Mirage Before the Storm, 80 Years Ago Today

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The new C-in-C of the Eastern Fleet, Adm. Sir Thomas Spencer Vaughan “Tom” Phillips GBE, KCB, DSO, (short guy, hands on hips) watches his flagship, the brand new (and still not fully complete) King George V-class HMS Prince of Wales, fresh from catching the Bismarck, berth at Singapore on 4 December 1941. The second officer on the Admiral’s right (holding briefcase by his side) is Chief of Staff Rear Admiral A F E Palliser.

Prince of Wales, being the flagship of Force Z, was given the best berth alongside the West Wall of the Naval Base, opposite the main office buildings. Meanwhile, her companion, the Renown-class battlecruiser HMS Repulse was left moored out in the stream like some sort of ugly cousin.

It was a happy time, as the “Gibraltar of the Pacific” seemed even more impenetrable with the arrival of the two battlewagons. Surely the Japanese would take notice and steer clear, looking for easier targets. 

Just six days later, both of the proud capital ships would be on the bottom with a loss of 840 of HMs officers and men – including Tom Phillips and flagship captain John Leach. The spell was broken. 

Palliser, meanwhile, would survive, go on to command the British part of the ill-fated ABDACOM, then ride a desk at Trincomalee and New Delhi before ending the war as Fourth Sea Lord– Chief of Supplies and Transport.

Continuity in ships’ tradition, across both sides of the Atlantic

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This week saw the christening of the new Ford-class carrier, USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) sponsored by no less a person than Caroline B. Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, and the late President’s only living child.

As you may well remember, a smaller Ms. Caroline also sponsored the new Kitty Hawk-class supercarrier, USS John F. Kennedy (CVA-67) in May 1967, some 52 years ago.

While CVN-79 is expected to be completed in 2022, CV-67 has been on red lead row since 2007 and is nominally set to be preserved as a museum ship.

Meanwhile, in Portsmouth, HMS Prince of Wales (R09) was commissioned this week as the Royal Navy’s second 65,000-ton Queen Elizabeth-class carrier, the largest class of warships ever to carry the White Ensign.

Aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth at Portsmouth this week

The last HMS Prince of Wales (53), a King George V-class battleship, was famously lost 77 years ago this week on 10 December 1941 by Japanese air attack off Kuantan, in the South China Sea

The stricken battleship’s original bell, salvaged in 2002, is on permanent display in the National Museum of the Royal Navy’s gallery.

The relic will be scanned and cast by Cammell Laird to provide a new bell for the aircraft carrier that bears her name.

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017: Who touches me is broken

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017: Who touches me is broken

Here we see the Renown-class 15in gun battlecruiser HMS Repulse of the Royal Navy sailing as part of Force Z from Singapore, 8 December 1941, the day WWII expanded to the Pacific in a big way with the entrance of the Empire of Japan to the conflict. Just 48 hours later, some 76 years ago this week and just three days after Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft caught Repulse and the new King George V-class battleship Prince of Wales in the South China Sea, unsupported and unable to resist the onslaught.

Originally part of the eight planned “R” type battleships of the Revenge-class, big 33,500-ton vessels with 8 15-in/42 cal guns, 13-inches of armor and a top speed of 21-knots on a 26,500shp plant, the last two of the class were carved off and improved upon a good bit. These ships, Renown and Repulse had much more power (126,000shp on 42 glowing boilers!) while sacrificing both armor (at their thickest point just 10 inches) and guns (six 15-inch Mark Is rather than 8). But what these two redesigned battlecruisers brought was speed– Renown making an amazing 32.58kts on builder’s trials, a speed not bested for a capital ship for almost a half-decade until the one-off HMS Hood reached the fleet in 1920.

HMS Renown and HMS Repulse in 1926, what beautiful ships

Our ship had a storied name indeed and was the 10th RN ship to carry the name introduced first for a 50-gun galleon in 1595 and last for a Royal Sovereign-class pre-dreadnought sold in 1911, earning a combined total of 7 battle honors between them. Her motto: Qui Tangit Frangitur (Who touches me is broken.)

Both Renown and Repulse were laid down on the same day– 25 January 1915, five months into the Great War, at two different yards. Repulse, built by John Brown, Clydebank, in Scotland, was the first one complete, commissioned 18 August 1916, just six weeks too late for Jutland.

Conning tower and forward turrets with 15-inch guns of HMS Repulse at John Brown & Co_s Clydebank yard, August 1916 National Records of Scotland, UCS1-118-443-295

HMS Repulse, Rowena, Romola and Erebus at the John Browns shipyard at Clydebank in July 1916.

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Q 18131) British battle cruiser HMS Repulse. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205252642

THE ROYAL NAVY IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Q 74265) Battlecruiser HMS Repulse below the Forth Bridge. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205319053

Battlecruiser Repulse view of the tank and the compass platform

Repulse became the first capital ship to carry an aircraft, mounting a tiny 800-pound Sopwith Pup on two bullshit looking flying off platforms from her “B” and “Y” turrets in September.

Sopwith Pup N6459 sits on a turret platform aboard HMS Repulse in October 1917

Repulse did get a chance to meet the Germans in combat, however, as the flagship of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron during the ineffective scrap of the Heligoland Bight on 17 November 1917 with RADM Richard F. Phillimore’s flag on her mast. The most severe damage done to the stronger German force under RADM Ludwig von Reuter was when one of the Repulse‘s 15-inch shells hit on the light cruiser SMS Königsberg, igniting a major fire on board.

Win one for the Repulse!

She later finished the war uneventfully but was on hand at the surrender of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow.

Post-war, Repulse was extensively rebuilt with some 4,500-tons of additional armor and torpedo bulges, drawing on lessons learned about how disaster-prone battlecruisers are in combat (“There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today”) against battleships and submarines. This gave her a distinctive difference from her sister for years until Renown got the same treatment. This process is extensively documented by Ivan Gogin over at Navypedia.

She joined the brand-new HMS Hood and five “D” class cruisers in 1923-24 as part of the “Special Service Squadron” to wave the Royal Ensign in a round-the-world cruise that saw her visit several far-flung Crown Colonies as well as the U.S and Canada.

HMS Repulse entering Vancouver Harbor, as part of her round-the-world cruise in 1924 with HMS Hood

HMS Repulse off the coast of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, on 12 June 1924. Photographed from an aircraft flying out of Naval Air Station Pearl Harbor. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 57164

Photographed through a porthole, circa 1922-24. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 525-A

In 1925, Repulse undertook Royal Visits to Portugal, South Africa and east coast of South America with Prince of Wales then largely spent the next 10 years in a reduced status with up to a third of her crew on furlough, though she put to sea for a number of exercises to give a good show between yard periods and a lengthy reconstruction.

HMS Repulse Firing her 15-inch guns during maneuvers off Portland, England, circa the later 1920s. The next ship astern is sister HMS Renown. Photographed from HMS Hood. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 57181

HMS Repulse leading other Royal Navy capital ships during maneuvers, circa the later 1920s. The next ship astern is HMS Renown. The extensive external side armor of Repulse and the larger bulge of Renown allow these ships to be readily differentiated. Photograph by Underwood & Underwood. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 57183

She also picked up some deck-mounted torpedo tubes, always a waste on a capital ship!

Back to work after 1935, she was a common sight in the Med, protecting British interests.

HMS REPULSE (FL 12340) Underway. May 1936. She was serving extensively off Spain in this period during the Spanish Civil War. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205166001

1938- British Renown-class battlecruiser HMS REPULSE after 1930’s reconstruction leaving Portsmouth.

Renown Class Battlecruiser HMS Repulse at Haifa, July13th and 14th 1938. Note the extensive hot weather awnings over her decks in this image and the below.

HMS Repulse, from the stern, as a Royal Marine in tropical kit stands guard with a bayonet-affixed SMLE during her visit to Palestine in 1938. That pith helmet, tho!

Assigned to the Home Fleet at the outbreak of WWII, she sailed first for Halifax to provide cover in the western north Atlantic for HX and SC convoys then returned to the UK in early 1940 to screen the Northern Patrol and the Norwegian convoys, later operating off Norway itself, primarily in the Lofoten Islands, during the campaign there, just missing a chance to sink the cruiser Adm. Hipper.

Repulse then formed part of Force A, intended to block German surface raiders including Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as well as a variety of lesser cruisers from massacring Atlantic convoys.

She got a break in late 1940 with a refit at Rosyth where these great images were taken.

‘JACK OF ALL TRADES’. 1940, ON BOARD HMS REPULSE DURING HER REFIT IN DRY DOCK. (A 1337) Signalman May of HMS REPULSE repairing flags while in harbor. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205135733

TYPES OF SEAMEN. 1940, ON BOARD HMS REPULSE DURING HER REFIT. (A 1339) This Seaman, who has grown a beard since joining the Navy, is known on board as the ‘Bearded Gunner’. Here he is shouldering a 4-inch shell. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205135735

By March 1941, Repulse was assigned to Force H in the Med, and dispatched to Gibraltar where she would help shepherd Freetown convoys. However, in May the great German battleship Bismarck broke out into the Atlantic and Repulse took part in the effort to run her to ground– though she never contacted the Germans.

Then, Churchill decided that HMS Prince of Wales, who did get in some licks on Bismarck, along with Repulse would be a terrific addition to bolster the defenses of Singapore against a lot of noise the Japanese– who had just taken over nearby French Indochina– were making.

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 6793) The battlecruiser HMS REPULSE, painted in a dazzle camouflage scheme, while escorting the last troop convoy to reach Singapore. Copyright: � IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205119433

British troop reinforcements come ashore at Singapore, November 1941 escorted by Repulse and Prince of Wales. These men would soon become Japanese prisoners of war.

When the Japanese entered the war with a vengeance, enemy troop convoys were spotted, and landings made at Kuantan in Malaysia– with Force Z directed to intercept. Bird-dogged by two Japanese submarines, the Japanese 22nd Air Flotilla, based out of the French facilities at Saigon, tracked the woefully unprepared British ships and some 90~ G3M “Nell” and GM4 “Betty” bombers soon took to the air to erase the Royal Navy from the Pacific on 10 December.

It was a slow-motion slaughter that lasted for hours as the aircraft hounded the British ships.

At approximately 12:30 midday, the battlecruiser Repulse which had dodged 19 torpedoes so far, finally rolled over, within six minutes of three simultaneous hits. At the same time the relatively new battleship Prince of Wales also took three torpedoes – leaving her in a dire situation. With a torpedo having already taken out two shafts earlier in the attack, she was now left with just one. With this and, incredibly, north of 10,000 tonnes of unwelcome seawater aboard, her speed was massively reduced. However, not yet slain her crew took up the fight with high level bombers as she clawed her way home. From that final wave of attackers, one 500lb bomb came to be the final nail and slowly rolling over to port, she settled by the head and sank at 13:18.

THE LOSS OF HMS PRINCE OF WALES AND REPULSE 10 DECEMBER 1941 (HU 2762) A heavily retouched Japanese photograph of HMS PRINCE OF WALES (upper) and REPULSE (lower) after being hit by Japanese torpedoes on 10 December 1941, off Malaya. A British destroyer can also be seen in the foreground. The sinkings were an appalling blow to British prestige. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205023031

THE SINKING OF HMS REPULSE AND HMS PRINCE OF WALES, DECEMBER 1941 (HU 2763) A Japanese aerial photograph showing HMS PRINCE OF WALES (top) and HMS REPULSE during the early stages of the attack in which they were sunk. HMS REPULSE had just been hit for the first time (12.20 hours). Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205022172

“Sea Battle off Malaya” Description: Photo #: SC 301094 Sea Battle off Malaya Japanese war art painting by Nakamura Kanichi, 1942, depicting Japanese Navy aircraft making successful torpedo attacks on the British battleship Prince of Wales (center) and battlecruiser Repulse (left) on 10 December 1941. Planes shown include Betty bombers. Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: SC 301094

In all, around 840 of HMs officers and men – including the task force commander Adm. Sir Thomas Spencer Vaughan “Tom” Phillips GBE, KCB, DSO, and flagship captain John Leach – lost their lives. The Japanese lost six aircraft and 18 aircrew. A squadron of land-based RAAF Brewster Buffalos, which were crap fighters compared to Zeroes but still could have fought off the lumbering twin-engine Japanese bombers, arrived after both ships were on the bottom. Four escorting destroyers, HMS Electra, Express, Vampire, and Tenedos, managed to pick up over 1,000 survivors.

Prince of Wales and Repulse were the first capital ships to be sunk at sea by aircraft alone, smothered in a wave of no less than 49 air-launched torpedoes, about 20 percent of which hit home. It was the final nail in the coffin in the air power vs the all-gun big warship debate following (ironically) the British raid on Taranto in November 1940 and, of course, Pearl Harbor. In the 13 months spanning these three engagements, there was a paradigm shift in naval warfare that found battleships on the bad end of the stick.

Of the attack, Winston Churchill said, “In all the war I never received a more direct shock. As I turned and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American capital ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbor who were hastening back to California. Over this vast expanse of waters, Japan was supreme and we everywhere were weak and naked.”

As for her crew, the survivors were scattered to the wind and continued as best they could once reaching dry land again, many winding up as prisoners of war when Singapore fell in Febuary 1942, a fate which some did not survive.

Repulse’s captain, Bill Tennant, survived the sinking and was not lost at Singapore, later going on to become one of the architects of the Normandy invasion, aiding in the setup of the Mulberry harbors and the Pluto pipelines. Sir William retired as an Admiral in 1949 and lived to the age of 73 and his earlier exploits during the miracle at Dunkirk before he arrived on Repulse were portrayed in large part by Kenneth Branagh in that recent film.

In 1945, when a major British fleet returned to the Pacific looking for a little payback and to take back Singapore and Hong Kong, it was centered around six heavily armored fleet carriers, escorted by a force of modern battleships slathered in AAA defenses– to include two sisters of Prince of Wales: HMS King George V and HMS Howe.

As for Repulse‘s own sister, Renown helped search for the pocket battleship SMS Admiral Graf Spee, traded fire with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, fought in the Med, covered the Torch Landings in North Africa, carried Churchill to the Cairo Conference and even made it to Java by 1944 to plaster the Japanese in honor of her lost classmate. She lived on to be scrapped in 1948 after 32 years of very hard and faithful service.

Both Renown and Repulse had their names recycled for an 8th and 11th time respectively, in the 1960s as two of the four Resolution-class Polaris missile submarines in the Royal Navy. Those boombers are currently laid up at Rosyth dockyard with their used nuclear fuel removed after three decades of deterrent patrols.

The 1941 loss of Repulse and Prince of Wales is still painfully remembered in the Royal Navy today, akin to the loss of the USS Indianapolis or the USS Arizona in the U.S. Navy.

The wrecks of Repulse and Prince of Wales were discovered in the 1960s and have been extensively visited and memorialized over the years.

There is now a campaign to urge recovery of some of the more important artifacts from Repulse (Prince of Wales‘ bell was salvaged some years ago) to beat illegal scrappers to the punch. As reported by the Telegraph, “The massive bronze propellers disappeared sometime between September 2012 and May 2013, followed quickly by components made of other valuable ferrous metals, such as copper. The scavengers have since turned their attention to blocks of steel and high-grade aluminum.”

And of course, she is remembered in maritime art across three continents.

Collinson, Basil; HMS ‘Repulse’, Sunk 10 December 1941; Royal Marines Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/hms-repulse-sunk-10-december-1941-25157

Repulse, sketched at Colombo in 1941, on the way to her fate with destiny. Via the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies.

HMS Repulse & HMS Prince of Wales

Freedman, Barnett; 15-Inch Gun Turret, HMS ‘Repulse’; IWM (Imperial War Museums); http://www.artuk.org/artworks/15-inch-gun-turret-hms-repulse-6934

Specs:

Displacement:
27,200 long tons (27,600 t) (normal)
32,220 long tons (32,740 t) (deep load)
35,000 full (1941)
Length:
750 ft. 2 in p.p., 794 ft. 1.5 in (oa.)
Beam: 90 ft. 1.75 in
Draught: 27 ft. (33 at FL)
Installed power: 112,000 shp (84,000 kW)
Propulsion:
4 × shafts, 2 × Brown-Curtis steam turbines steam turbine sets,
42 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers water-tube boilers
Fuel: 4243 tons oil for 4700nm range @12kts.
Speed: 31.5 knots (28 by 1939)
Crew: 967 (designed) 1,222 (1919) 1,250 (1939)
Armor:
Belt: 3–6 in (76–152 mm) (later increased to 9-inches)
Decks: 1–2.5 in (25–64 mm) (later increased to 4-inches)
Barbettes: 4–7 in (102–178 mm)
Gun turrets: 7–9 in (178–229 mm)
Conning tower: 10 in (254 mm)
Bulkheads: 3–4 in (76–102 mm)
Aircraft carried: 2 Sopwith Pups (1917-20) 4 Sea Walrus (1936)
Armament: (1916)
3 × 2 – 15-inch (381 mm) guns
6 × 3, 2 × 1 – 4-inch (102 mm) guns
2 × 1 – 3-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft guns
1x 3pdr Hotchkiss Mk I 47mm
2 × 1 – submerged 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armament: (1939)
3 × 2 – 15-inch (381 mm) guns
4 × 3 – 4-inch (102 mm) guns
6 × 1 – 102/45 QF Mk V
2 × 8 – 40mm (1.6 in) 2pdr QF Mk VIII “pom-pom” AA guns
4×4- Quad Vickers .50 cal mounts
8 × 21 in (530 mm) Mk II torpedo tubes

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