Shipwreck Monday-HMS Prince Of Wales

 

HMS Prince of Wales was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy. HMS Prince of Wales built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, England.

HMS Prince of Wales was involved in several key actions of the Second World War. One was the battle of Denmark Strait against the Bismarck. Another HMS Prince of Wales operations escorting convoys in the Mediterranean, and her final action and sinking in the Pacific in 1941.

HMS Prince of Wales first encountered the Germans while being outfitted in her drydock, being attacked and damaged by German aircraft. She was heavily involved in the first contact with the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen.  HMS Prince of Wales landed 3 hits on Bismarck including two critical hits, one which caused extensive flooding forward, and another which exploded under Bismarck's armour belt causing machinery damage, the combined effected of both hits caused her to make the ill-fated decision to return to port. HMS Prince of Wales  suffered heavy damage during the engagement and had to return to Rosyth to be repaired.

HMS Prince of Wales transported Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Newfoundland Conference with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

On 25 October 1941, HMS Prince of Wales departed for Singapore to join Force Z, a British naval detachment. She docked there on 2 December with the rest of the force, and at 2:11 on 10 December Force Z was dispatched to investigate reports of Japanese landing forces at Kuantan. On arriving there they found the reports to be false. At 11:00 that morning, Japanese bombers and torpedo aircraft began their assault on Force Z. In a second attack at 11:30 torpedoes struck HMS Prince of Wales on the port side, wrecking the outer propeller shaft and causing the ship to take on a heavy list. A third torpedo attack developed against HMS Repulse but she managed to avoid all torpedoes aimed at her. A fourth attack by torpedo-carrying Type 1 "Bettys" sank HMS Repulse at 12:33. Six aircraft from this wave attacked HMS Prince of Wales, with four of their torpedoes hitting the ship, causing flooding. Finally a 500 kg bomb hit the catapult deck, penetrated through to the main deck and exploded, tearing a gash in the port side of the hull. At 13:15 the order was given to abandon ship and at 13:20 HMS Prince of Wales sank; Vice-Admiral Tom Phillips and Captain John Leach were among the 327 fatalities.

HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were the first capital ships to be sunk solely by air power on the open sea, a harbinger of the diminishing role this class of ships was subsequently to play in naval warfare. The wreck lies upside down in 223 feet (68 m) of water, near Kuantan, in the South China Sea.