The sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse

Dear all,
Without attempting to put answers to all the factors raised, I would put forward my analtsis for the tragic sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse in the following.
We all know both ships were sent to pursue the Japanese ships ferrying raw materials especially oil to the mainland. The latter comodity was under embargo by USA which to the Japanese dispute prompted their attack on Pearl Harbor.

That said, I think that we were not only unprepared for War in the Far East but it is probable that breaking the Japanese code eas also in its infancy.
Secondly, I think what with the relief of USA entering the war it was felt that we had to be seen to be giving the Japanese a bloody nose especially in light of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the ensuing threat to the colonies.

Incidently, was it the Prince of Wales that took Churchill to the USA some months prior to her sinking?

Regards,
Waroffice

 

Waroffice:

Yes, Prince of Wales took Churchill to meet Roosevelt at the conference in Newfoundland.

I don't think I can agree that Force Z was intended for commerce raiding. I've read two good books about Force Z, and neither Martin Middlebrook nor Arthur Marder mention any such mission. As I understood it, Force Z was sent out primarily to act as a deterrent to Japanese aggression. When the war began, Phillips wasted no time attacking Japanese commerce (a secondary objective by that point), but tried to assist the army in the land battle by attacking the Japanese beacheads and the naval forces sustaining them.

 

Prince of Wales and Repulse went to the Far East mainly on a peacetime "show the flag" mission, and got caught in the maelstrom of events following Pearl Harbor as against-the-odds as possible, without any embarked air cover and trusting a superiority complex that just placed Japanese bombers and torpedo planes (and pilots, and soldiers, and sailors...) too far from being a believable threat.

From the beginning, the die was cast for Force Z to find a watery grave somewhere off the coasts of Malaya.

 

Dave the AA systems were not up to defending the ships , the point I was also going to make , from shakey memory on this the "Pom Poms's" may have been the issue.
The US ships seemed to have the asnwer to air attack in the sheer volume of lead they could put into the air.

 

TTH is correct, there were political reasons as well for the deployment of these ships.
Australia was very concerned about Japanese aggression in the Pacific and for many months had been badgering Churchill to reinforce Singapore. Singapore was regarded as the Fortress of the Far East and the bulwark to protect Australia from threats or even invasion. Unfortunately as the US and Japan played out their last few moves which could only lead to war, it was realised that defences in Singapore were unfinished and inadequate. Hence POW and Repulse were despatched to bolster British presence and reassure nervous Australians.
Perhaps ex Lord of Admiralty should have known better?

 

Sending HMS Hermes to replace HMS Indomitable was a non starter. HMS Indomitable was not missing from the action on 10th December 1941, she was never going to be in the action because it was never planned for her to be arriving at Singapore at the same time as Prince of Wales & Repulse. Even if she had not been damaged it would have been mid December at the very earliest that she would have reached Singapore. HMS Hermes only had Swordfish on board and it would have been impossible in November 1941 to find a squadron of Hurricanes or Martlets with carrier trained pilots to put on Hermes and get it to Singapore in time.

 

A Japanese air commander supposedly said late in the war that sending his planes against the American fleet was like, "Throwing eggs against a castle wall."

 

Force Z had problems with it's 40mm pom pom ammunition on the day, the fact it did not contain trace rounds helped the Japanese pilots as well, (if you can't see the rounds coming towards you it's not as frightening). Much has been said about the slow traverse and elevation speeds of the 5.25 D/P mounts? It is true that was a concern but it had no bearing in the loss of POW. The book "Battleship" clearly describes from eyewitness accounts that the Japanese torpedo planes were coming straight on at POW in their first torpedo attack, straight and level, a "gunners dream". They state that 12 aimed 5.25 salvo's were fired without hitting a thing, the airbursts were behind the attacking aircraft. The speed of the attacking aircraft is clearly the main factor here. The inexperienced crew simply failed to grasp how fast these aircraft were travelling and failed to set the fuses accordingly. Only one aircraft was brought down in that first attack and the general consensus is that it was the sole 40mm Bofors gun fitted on POW that brought it down. The solution quickly grasped by the USN and the RN was, put as many 40mm Bofors on your ships as possible, so that (as mentioned above) the enemy end up throwing eggs against the castle wall. I have often wondered if KGV had gone to Singapore instead of POW, whether or not her more experienced crew might have made a difference?

 

I read somewhere that the Royal Navy AA fire control predictors were not up to much.

 

When I see some of the suggestions about sticking Sea Hurricanes or Martlets onto ships like Hermes in 1941 it is clear that there is a lack of knowledge about the strength of the FAA in that period.

Aircraft

The Martlet. Between Aug 1940 and April 1941 a grand total of 81 aircraft arrived in the UK from the factory (81 from French orders as Martlet I less 10 lost at sea, plus the first 10 from the British order as Martlet III). In addition 30 from a Greek order went to the Middle East. All these aircraft had fixed wings and the French aircraft needed modified before they could enter service. 802 squadron seems to have been the only squadron to take them to sea, aboard HMS Audacity.

Britain then decided to delay further orders so that it could receive aircraft with folding wings. So the rest of the initial British order (90 aircraft) were accepted from Oct 1941 to April 1942 as Martlet II. Those aircraft went mostly to the squadrons in Illustrious and Formidable that sailed for the Far East in the early months of 1942 or were delivered direct to the Far East as attrition replacements for those squadrons. Lend Lease deliveries followed after that with 220 Martlet IV accepted Jun-Nov 1942.

While Sea Hurricanes began to be received from March 1941 only 2 squadrons reached operational status that year. 804 provided a pool for the CAM ships operating in the Atlantic and 880 went to Indomitable in Sept. Another 5 squadrons formed between July & Dec and were working up, one of which converted to Martlets before joining Illustrious.

Aircraft loss rates

In Aug 1939 the FAA was working on the basis of 4 months reserve of aircraft to cover a 20% per month wastage rate about half of which might be repairable. So not every aircraft received by the FAA could go immediately to a front line squadron. A reserve of aircraft had to be maintained to cover that wastage and also to cover for aircraft that needed larger overhauls, if they survived long enough. In reality wartime losses were higher.

Aircrew

The other factor that is not well understood is that the FAA simply didn’t have the aircrew to man any squadrons sooner than they were being formed during the early part of the war. In mid-1939 the training programme was designed to deliver aircrew to new squadrons about 3 months prior to the completion of each new carrier they were to go to. War meant that that programme needed to be ramped up dramatically to cover additional squadrons and aircrew losses. But it takes about 1.5-2 years to train a pilot (a bit less for an Observer). So any trainees taken on around the start of the war were only beginning to come out of the training pipeline in mid-1941. So for example Gordon Wallace, who wrote “Carrier Observer” joined up as an Observer about June 1940 and joined his first squadron in Indomitable in Oct 1941 just before she sailed for the Caribbean. Norman Hanson, who wrote “Carrier Pilot” joined the FAA in early 1941 and didn’t finish his pilot training until about June 1942.

So quite simply no matter how much people like to speculate about what would happen if Hermes was given Martlets or Sea Hurricanes in the latter part of 1941 the truth is that neither the aircraft nor the trained pilots were available to allow that to happen.

Indomitable

The Admiralty War Diary shows that she was due to complete her work up on 22nd Nov and arrive at Gibraltar on the 29th Nov 1941. After that she might have been sent east but there does not appear to have been anything definite prior to the outbreak of war in the Far East. If war had not broken out in the Far East when it did I could see her being retained in the Med to cover for the loss of Ark Royal or to allow the latter to go for a long overdue refit had she survived past Nov 1941.

As it was her grounding cost her 3 weeks. She arrived at Cape Town en route east on 31 Dec 1941 after a condensed work up. PoW and Repulse had passed through on the 16th Dec. She was then diverted to act as transport for RAF Hurricanes badly needed in Singapore.

For anyone interested in the loss of the PoW here is a link to an investigation into her loss

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

 

I agree about Indomitable being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet. Imagine if she had not been damaged and completed her work up training on schedule. With the loss of HMS Ark Royal on 13th November 1941, the Mediterranean Fleet was without a modern aircraft carrier. The newest Aircraft Carrier in the RN then turns up at Gibraltar to prepare for deployment to still peaceful Singapore, not a chance, she would have been ordered to replace Ark Royal and Singapore would have to wait until a replacement was available.