Force Z with HMS Ark Royal waits for HMS Indomitable

[SaparotRob]

The problem with HMS Courageous was the guy in charge.

 

[MikeMeech]

My point was that amassing this hypothetical force at Ceylon may well strain deployments elsewhere, especially cruisers and carriers.

As for PoW, Repulse, and AR, if they're ordered to gather at Ceylon in October 41 and do not go to fight the Malay landings, they're available to help Australia if the Japanese defeat Fletcher in May.

Hi
You are quite right to bring up the problem of 'strain'. The OH 'The War at Sea 1939-1945' Volume I, page 538-539, mentions the dire situation in the Med in by December 1941:

The situation in the Far East in December 1941, according to the same source, is:

The USN could have been a very effective counter force with its submarine force, however, its 'unreliable' torpedoes made it fairly ineffective until much later in the war.
The Royal Navy was quite busy and its destroyer and escort force was in great demand for the many tasks it had, including protecting convoys, note the following convoy escort diagrams for 1940/41:

Not exactly flush with escorts, the Atlantic escorts 'available in June 1941 were as follows:

Moving ships from one theatre to another has consequences, luckily we don't suffer them with 'What ifs'.

Mike

 

[don4331]

The problem with HMS Courageous was the guy in charge.

I'd accept that there had to be issues with the guy in charge of HMS Glorious, but what was wrong with captain of Courageous.

The concept of using carriers to hunt u-boats was sound; the Hunter-Killer groups were based around a CVE and her escorts. RN might have had a little too much faith in ASDIC (reading their own press releases). And might not have been ideal for a fleet carrier, but when you don't have any CVEs to leave the ship in harbour while the populations lifeblood is being cut off wasn't going to happen.

 

[SaparotRob]

Ooops.

 

[Shortround6]

I'd accept that there had to be issues with the guy in charge of HMS Glorious, but what was wrong with captain of Courageous.

The concept of using carriers to hunt u-boats was sound; the Hunter-Killer groups were based around a CVE and her escorts. RN might have had a little too much faith in ASDIC (reading their own press releases). And might not have been ideal for a fleet carrier, but when you don't have any CVEs to leave the ship in harbour while the populations lifeblood is being cut off wasn't going to happen.

In Sept of 1939 the population's lifeblood was NOT being cut off. The Germans only had just of 50 U-boats all told and only about 20 could be at sea at any given time. Many if the German U-Boats were the type IIs with 3 torpedo tubes and two reload torpedoes (5 torpedoes total).

Don't confuse the weapons and tactics and sensors of even 1941 were what was available in 1939.

The whole Courageous fiasco smacks more of the Cressy, Hogue and Aboukir incident than anything else. Except in 1914 you might be able to argue that they didn't know any better.
In 1939 they did.
Risking large, fast, expensive fleet carriers to try to sink 250-300 ton coastal U-boats was not good planning, no matter how successful (or not) slow, cheap, converted merchantmen were.

 

[Peter Gunn]

I sometimes wonder what the US thought postwar when the British governor returned to Honiara on Guadalcanal after 1,600 U.S. troops were killed, over 4,000 were wounded and several thousand more died from disease retaking the place.

Not to nitpick, but it seems when Guadalcanal is brought up it's always, (and only) the Marine casualties listed. Not to knock that but what seems to never be mentioned is that something like twice as many U. S. sailors lost their lives in the Guadalcanal campaign, by my quick count, ~3,500+ and that's not including the two carrier battles of Eastern Solomon's and the Santa Cruz islands or the amount wounded/missing.

Those night battles in the Slot were ferocious, I'm mostly an AAF guy but I'm pretty much in awe of what those fellows went through, in fact at Savo Island, the USN lost almost 1,100 killed in one engagement.

Strange sometimes how certain things can get lost to history.

 

[EwenS]

Not to nitpick, but it seems when Guadalcanal is brought up it's always, (and only) the Marine casualties listed. Not to knock that but what seems to never be mentioned is that something like twice as many U. S. sailors lost their lives in the Guadalcanal campaign, by my quick count, ~3,500+ and that's not including the two carrier battles of Eastern Solomon's and the Santa Cruz islands or the amount wounded/missing.

Those night battles in the Slot were ferocious, I'm mostly an AAF guy but I'm pretty much in awe of what those fellows went through, in fact at Savo Island, the USN lost almost 1,100 killed in one engagement.

Strange sometimes how certain things can get lost to history.

All of which comes no where near touching the Japanese losses of over 20,000 who died either in combat or from disease or starvation, many without known graves. I went to school in the 1970s with the son of a Solomon Islands Govt Official and recall him saying that finding remains of Japanese troops was still a regular occurance 30 years after the campaign ended.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Risking large, fast, expensive fleet carriers to try to sink 250-300 ton coastal U-boats was not good planning, no matter how successful (or not) slow, cheap, converted merchantmen were.

Indeed, if you're going to play that game you use your older, smaller and more expendable carriers, HMS Argus for one, then if needs must, Hermes and Eagle. Ideally rush some hanger-less, planked over merchant conversions like HMS Audacity into service.

 

[SaparotRob]

The problem with the HMS Glorious was that it was not flying air patrols. If someone had been flying circles around the carrier they would have spotted the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the Swordfish would attacked without the defending Fw-190s.

I meant to write "the problem with HMS Glorious was the guy in charge." Not Courageous. It's still bugging me. Whiffed a perfectly good word play.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I meant to write "the problem with HMS Glorious was the guy in charge."

Indeed. Imagine had Glorious maintained a two or three ship Sea Gladiator CAP (she had nine aboard) circling the carrier along with her five torpedo-armed Swordfish on deck (with depth charges ready in case the threat turns out to be a uboat). Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would have been discovered with Glorious still over the horizon, the carrier could fire up all boilers, and the five Swordfish would be started, warmed up and launched within 20 mins and a radio call made to the Ark Royal CSG. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau will be lucky to make it home.

As it was the Norway campaign was a disaster for the German surface navy, with the cruisers Blücher and Königsberg sunk, plus ten destroyers sunk at Narvik, and Scharnhorst and Lutzow badly damaged by British torpedoes. It was a costly victory for Germany.

 

[Shortround6]

The Courageous was lost about 2 weeks after the Attack on Poland.
There really hadn't been anytime to plan much of anything unless the planning had been done over the spring and summer of 1939.
Of course there wasn't time for any food shortages or any other kind of supply shortage to show up yet either.

The whole thing smacks of a PR stunt.
The RN had to be seen as doing "something" (read "anything") while the real fighting was going on in Poland hundreds of miles away.
And the press was probably all over the sinking of the SS Athenia.
Granted there U-boats operating in British waters or approaches. The south western approach was vulnerable because with Erie neutral the British didn't have any land air bases (or sea bases) except a few in Cornwall.
The British had not organized the first east bound convoy until just before the Courageous was sunk so you had ships from all over the globe coming into the southern approaches as single ships, not groups.
The British had gotten lucky with the Ark Royal when the U-39s torpedoes fail to detonate when they hit the ship just 4 days before the Courageous was sunk.

The large part of the British anti sub effort in 1939 seems to have been amateur hour. A large part of what they had learned in the 4 years of WW I seems to have been forgotten.
That and the anti-sub forces seemed to have gotten the short end of the stick when the budget was divided up.
The escort destroyers and sub chasers and corvettes had all been designed and ordered, they just wouldn't be available in 1939.
And it wouldn't be part of the RAF job to secure the supply lines, the RAF would too busy bombing the Germans into submission using Battles and Blenheim's

 

[don4331]

The issue is HMS Argus is in the Mediterranean Sea, HMS Eagle is in Singapore which leaves only HMS Hermes in home waters (Along with Ark Royal, Courageous and Furious. Glorious is in India Ocean at this time). It is barely 2 weeks from declaration of war on Germany until HMS Courageous is sunk - not enough time to recall any of the light carriers even if Admiralty had wanted.

It's hard when you don't know when war will start to pull a working ship out of production and convert her to an escort carrier, noting even a "budget" carrier is a seriously expensive ship. Will the ship be needed in '39? Or '44 when 'Z-plan' is forecast to be complete? Can you afford to have delayed the next generation of fleet carriers by a year to allow architects/engineers/draftsmen/dockyard workers to design and build your escort carrier?

HMS Audacity was a captured ship and with a war on the niceties like a hanger, a lift, proper magazines, proper aviation fuel storage were relaxed. Note: It still took just under months from start of work to commissioning.​

I'm not confusing '41 capabilities with '39. RN went into WWII thinking they had the answer to the u-boat threat - Air Power (carrier) finds the German ship, and forces it to submerge, Destroyers arrive on scene. ASDIC on DDs picks up the u-boat, depth charges are dropped, and submarine eliminated. Rinse. Repeat if necessary

Sort of like the guys in army hoping the war wouldn't be over before they got to the front.​

​

It took a little dash of reality that German submarines were an order of magnitude quieter than those used in tests. Conditions weren't as perfect as lab environment. And either German u-boats were tougher than expected or you needed to drop charges closer or combination of both.

RN got its act together real quick but they went into the war a little over confident.

Add in concern of a population remembering what happened 20 years before and wanting to know what the population was doing about it and you have the perfect recipe for a disaster. One learns a lot more from their mistakes than from their successes. It's just too bad RN's mistakes were so costly.

Ships were coming into port all war long individually; a ship's owners/captain had to make the call to sail on their own or accept protection of a convoy.

In theory, the German's had to stop a single ship, confirm cargo was destined for UK (and/or ship as UK registered), remove crew (life boats not acceptable) before sinking the ship. Refer to efforts of German HSKs.​

If in a convoy, you were in theory protected by RN, but it also meant that KM could attack without worrying about confirming cargo/registry or safety of crew.​

 

[Shortround6]

I'm not confusing '41 capabilities with '39. RN went into WWII thinking they had the answer to the u-boat threat - Air Power (carrier) finds the German ship, and forces it to submerge, Destroyers arrive on scene. ASDIC on DDs picks up the u-boat, depth charges are dropped, and submarine eliminated. Rinse. Repeat if necessary

The British U class submarines were designed in 1936 and the first 3 entered service in 1938. They were designed to be clockwork mice to be used to train the anti sub surface ships.
How much they were used for this I don't know but they were modern subs close in size to the German U boats and they should have been quieter than the WW I relics they were testing Asdic on in the 1920s and early 30s.
Somebody should have figured out that all was not going to plan in 1938-39. The U class was also capable of about 10knts submerged instead of 8-9kts like most German U-boats.
So they are more challenging targets. Given even 15 minutes between sub submerging and DD arriving a 10 kt boat can be an area over 50% larger than an 8kt boat.
The British were still using the same depth charges that they used in WW I that sank at the same speed, and used the same fuses.
The 100lb anti sub bomb for aircraft was a gift wrapped present for the German U-boat forces.

It seems that once Asdic was developed and issued the U-boat problem was declared solved and everybody was off to the next problem. Like how to mount a couple of quad .50 cal machine guns on destroyers as AA guns.

 

[EwenS]

RN carrier disposition at the beginning of Sept 1939:-

Argus - Conversion to Queen Bee carrier completed July 1938. Exact location unknown at the start of Sept. Deployed to the Med by early Nov as the deck landing training ship to get better weather i.e. a replacement for Furious.
Furious - deck landing training ship based on east coast of Scotland until Oct when she embarked Swordfish from 816 sqn and a det of 818 to work up as an operational carrier in the Home Fleet.
Eagle - had been on the China Station since Feb 1937 and was completing a refit at Singapore. After that she formed part of Force I in the Indian Ocean with cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire. She remained in the IO on these duties and as escort to ANZAC troop convoys until transferred to the eastern Med in May 1940 just ahead of the outbreak of war with Italy.
Hermes - from July 1938 to Aug 1939 she had been employed as an accomodation ship for trainee officers at Devonport. She recommissioned for operational service on 24 Aug and was working up and performing ASW ops in the SW Approaches during Sept. Operated east of 12 degrees W. In Oct she joined French ships out of Dakar hunting raiders.
Courageous - last refit lasted from 1938 31 July 1939 when she recommissioned. Allocated to the Home Fleet and used for ASW operations in SW Approaches until sunk. Operated west of 12 degrees W.
Glorious - she had been the Med fleet carrier for a number of years. With the rest of the Mediteranean fleet based at Alexandria. Moved to IO in Oct until Jan when she returned to Malta to refit then home in April in time for the Norway campaign.
Ark Royal -Home Fleet carrier at Scapa Flow until deployed on ASW operations on 11 Sept in western Atlantic.
Albatross - seaplane carrier recommissioned 24 August 1939. After wwork up deployed to Freetown with 9 Walrus. Note she was the largest concentration of maritime patrol aircraft for over 1,000 miles.

Courageous & Hermes were under command of CinC Western Approaches. Ark was under CinC Home Fleet. Their use is often linked with Churchill's return to the Admiralty on 3 Sept and his desire for a more aggressive appoach to naval operations. It all stopped with the loss of Courageous hence Hermes redeployment to Dakar.

So at least one of the carriers is doing what AB wants! Then you need a training carrier or how else do you generate the crews to fill the slots in the expanding FAA. And you just can't abandon British interests in the Med and IO.

It is worth while looking at the state of RAF Coastal Command on the outbreak of war, remembering that CC was the poor cousin of both Bomber Command and Fighter Command at the time. Here is the map of the Group boundaries in 1939.

15 Group based at Plymouth - 2 Anson & 3 Sunderland squadrons
16 Group based at Chatham - 3 Anson squadrons plus 2 Vildebeest torpedo bomber squadrons (first Beauforts for them arrived in Nov but conversion was drawn out)
18 Group based at Pitreavie Castle in Fife - 3 Anson, 2 Hudson plus another converting from Anson to Hudson plus 2 squadrons of Saro London and 1 of Saro Stranraer flying boats.

Deliveries of the Hudson had only begun in Feb 1939 and the first squadron formed in May. The Sunderland was another new aircraft in service with only 42 production aircraft having flown before the outbreak of war. Some of these had gone to replace the Short Singapore III of 230 squadron in Singapore

 

[EwenS]

Indeed, if you're going to play that game you use your older, smaller and more expendable carriers, HMS Argus for one, then if needs must, Hermes and Eagle. Ideally rush some hanger-less, planked over merchant conversions like HMS Audacity into service.

The conversion of the very first escort carrier, Audacity, took 6 months (Jan - Jun 1941). Archer had been running as a merchant ship and was then converted. Again that conversion took 6 months in a US yard.

The quickest MAC ship conversions took two months, but that was ships being newly built. The tanker conversions from existing ships seem to have taken a bit longer.

The Admiralty were not blind to the trade protection carrier between the wars. The need for trade protection carriers was recognised but only to tackle raiders on the high seas. A number of designs for this type of ship based on liner hulls were worked out. But as always inter-war, money was tight so the matter got kicked down the road. It was believed that submarines could be dealt with by surface ships and shore based aircraft as they had in WW1. It was only in 1940, especially after the Germans gained use of the French Biscay ports to extend the reach of their U-boats far out into the Atlantic, that the need for escort carriers to accompany convoys beyond the reach of shore based aircraft became apparent. Until then the U-boats had been operating relatively close to British shores due to their need to transit from ports in Germany.

But of course many of the U-boat aces in the early days did much of their work at night when aircraft were not around. It was only from 1940 that ASV radar began to become available, 1942 for the Leigh Light and it was Jan 1944 before the first escort carrier began to regularly operate its aircraft at night (825 squadron on HMS Vindex)

 

[Shortround6]

2 squadrons of Saro London and 1 of Saro Stranraer flying boats.

I don't believe they were full squadrons?
More like 6-8 planes per squadron?

 

[EwenS]

The British U class submarines were designed in 1936 and the first 3 entered service in 1938. They were designed to be clockwork mice to be used to train the anti sub surface ships.
How much they were used for this I don't know but they were modern subs close in size to the German U boats and they should have been quieter than the WW I relics they were testing Asdic on in the 1920s and early 30s.
Somebody should have figured out that all was not going to plan in 1938-39. The U class was also capable of about 10knts submerged instead of 8-9kts like most German U-boats.
So they are more challenging targets. Given even 15 minutes between sub submerging and DD arriving a 10 kt boat can be an area over 50% larger than an 8kt boat.
The British were still using the same depth charges that they used in WW I that sank at the same speed, and used the same fuses.
The 100lb anti sub bomb for aircraft was a gift wrapped present for the German U-boat forces.

It seems that once Asdic was developed and issued the U-boat problem was declared solved and everybody was off to the next problem. Like how to mount a couple of quad .50 cal machine guns on destroyers as AA guns.

On the outbreak of war Britain only had about 55 submarines, including about 12 H & L class dating back to 1918/19. But even the latter were pressed into front line service in the early days of the war. About half the remainder dated to the late 1920s / early 1930s and had been designed for operations in the Far East against Japan. When transferred to the Med in late 1940 they suffered heavy losses being too big for the theatre. In the period 1935-38 the emphasis was on replacing those boats with the more modern T class. It was only with the 1939 War Programme (planned pre-war and implemented on 3 Sept 1939) that construction of the S class (from the early 1930s) was restarted and the U class set up for mass production. But it was July 1941 before the first wartime ordered U class began to enter service and March 1942 for the first of the wartime S class. Wartime submarine construction only managed to keep up with losses to at least the end of 1942.

The first boats to be used for the training role were the old WW1 boats. And that is both training of sub crews and AS ships. As the war went on the older subs were withdrawn from operational service and used in the training role. New subs working up would often find themselves deployed in the clockwork mouse role, it proving useful to both parties. Later the U/V class were used more in the trainng role, with 3 finding their way to Australia with the BPF in 1945 to fulfill just that role.

You are correct in that there was a general over confidence in the ability of ASDIC to tackle the sub problem. But it was an active sonar not a passive hydrophone system so the noise level from the sub made little difference to its operation. But it was not helped by the huge influx of Hostilities Only personnel who took time to train fully to get the best out of it. July 1940 saw the setting up of the Anti-Submarine Training School at Tobermory in Scotland run by the much feared Commodore Stephenson, from HMS Western Isles, through which every new escort ship had to pass right to the end of the war. Jan 1942 saw the opening of the Western Approaches Tactical Unit in Liverpool to train Western Approaches officers in ASW. There was an article about this unit in the April 2022 edition of Britain at War.

Western Approaches Tactical Unit - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I don't believe that you are correct however about the depth charges used. While the Type D Mark III from WW1 was still in use in use in 1940, it was the Mark VII that was the main weapon for the first 3 years of the war and that was designed around 1939. A faster sinking heavy version was introduced in 1940. It was also used in an airborne version from 1941 due to the failure of the 100lb AS bomb. It was 1942 before the 250lb Mark VIII airborne depth charge entered service as the standard aircraft weapon for the rest of the war.

As the war went on, new weapons were introduced to make the escorts more effective. Hedgehog from 1942 Squid from mid-1944 and new ASDIC sets to make the best use of them. And with intelligence about the forthcoming Type XXI the Admiralty converted HMS Seraph as a fast target from mid-1944 to allow investigation of new ASW tactics in anticipation of their entry to service.

You will find much information about British submarines, including patrol diaries, on rather ironically U-boat.net!

Submarines - Allied Warships of WWII - uboat.net

The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. This section includes over 21.000 Allied Warships and over 11.000 Allied Commanders of WWII, from the US Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Canadian...

uboat.net

 

[EwenS]

I don't believe they were full squadrons?
More like 6-8 planes per squadron?

Don't know. If it was 6-8 per squadron it only makes the AS problem harder to tackle.

There were 30 production Londons built from 1936 and in use by 3 squadrons in 1939 so far as I can tell from a quick look. 57 Stranraers from 1937. So how many had been lost before 1939?

 

[Shortround6]

Don't know. If it was 6-8 per squadron it only makes the AS problem harder to tackle.

There were 30 production Londons built from 1936 and in use by 3 squadrons in 1939 so far as I can tell from a quick look. 57 Stranraers from 1937. So how many had been lost before 1939?

I think the British only had 17 Stranraers. The Canadians built 40 of them.

I believe there were 2 squadrons of London's in Britain, the 3rd was either in Gibraltar or Malta and flying back and forth?

There doesn't seem to be much to chose from between the MK III D and MK VII. 300lbs of HE vs 290lbs but the MK VII sinks at 9.9 fps vrs 7 fps.
Adding 150lbs of cast iron improved the sink rate to 16.9 fps

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

RAF mid/late 1930's flying boats.
London, 10 mark I and 20 mark II built April 1936 to May 1938
Stranraer, Britain 17 built April 1937 to March 1939
Stranraer, Canada 40 built November 1938 to December 1941. (2 in 1938, 8 from May to November 1939, 30 more from October 1940)
Singapore, 37 mark III built July 1934 to June 1937
Lerwick, 21 built June 1939 to June 1941 (4 by end August 1939, of which 2 had been sent to experimental establishments)
Sunderland I, production started in May 1938, with 39 built to end August 1939.

In September 1939, RAF flying boat squadrons
201 squadron in Britain, London II
202 squadron in Mediterranean, London II
203 Squadron in Iraq, Singapore III
204 squadron in Britain, Sunderland I
205 squadron in Singapore, Singapore III
209 squadron in Britain, Stranraer
210 squadron in Britain, Sunderland I
228 squadron in Mediterranean, Sunderland I (to Britain in September)
230 squadron in Far East, Sunderland I
240 squadron in Britain, (just finished?) changing from Lerwick and London II to only London II.

The Coastal Command Order of Battle for 3 September 1939 has
2 squadrons of London, total establishment 16, strength 9
1 squadron of Stranraer, total establishment 8, strength 6
2 squadrons of Sunderland, total establishment 16, strength 12

In addition Coastal Command had 9/200/115 Anson, 1/9/9 Hudson and 1/16/12 Vildebeeste.

RAF strength as of 3 September 1939,
London, 22 UK, 6 Malta,
Lerwick, 2 UK
Singapore, 10 UK, 6 Far East, 1 Iraq
Stranraer, 14 UK
Sunderland, 22 UK, 8 Far East, 4 Malta, 5 Middle East.