Greatest disaster for Royal Navy

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The Basket

Senior Master Sergeant
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Jun 27, 2007
What was the worst moment for the Royal Navy during World War 2?

Loss of the Hood?
Loss of Force Z?
Loss of Glorious?
Loss of Royal Oak?
Ceylon raid by the IJN in 1942?

Even the Italian frogmen attacks in Alexandria Harbour?
 
The Basket said:
What was the worst moment for the Royal Navy during World War 2?

Loss of the Hood?
Loss of Force Z?
Loss of Glorious?
Loss of Royal Oak?
Ceylon raid by the IJN in 1942?

Even the Italian frogmen attacks in Alexandria Harbour?
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I would have to say the loss of Force Z because it had the biggest immediate impact. Whilst the losses of Hood and Glorious were big blows, they had relatively little impact on the immediate course of the War. In Hood's case, the Bismarck was a goner regardless, the RN's surface fleet was so dominant in the Atlantic that it was just a matter of time. Glorious was returning from the abandoned Norwegian campaign and had little part to play in the coming Battle of Britain. And the Ceylon Raid did little more than cement the IJN's overall hold of the Western Pacific caused by the loss of Force Z. The loss of Force Z, however, meant the IJN could operate with virtual impunity off Malaysia, ensuring the eventual fall of Singapore.
 
The loss of the SS Automedon may have been the greatest disaster for the Royal Navy and Commonwealth in general.

This was caused by the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis which shelled and captured her.

They found top secret documents that gave the strength of British forces in the Far East and pretty much said the Royal Navy will do nothing if faced with A Japanese force and would not be able to send reinforcement.

This was a very damaging turn of affairs which gave the Japanese the green light.
 
All that flag waving meant that Hood did not get the refit she needed and was in poor shape to take on Bismarck.

The loss of Hood was the single highest loss of life from a RN single warship although the loss of Glorious plus Acasta and Ardent was higher.

The loss of the Lancastria was in the thousands but this wasnt a warship.
 
The German code breaking department B-Dienst broke the BAMS (British and Allied Merchant Ships) codes which meant Doenitz regulary knew the exact positions of Atlantic convoys and could dispose the few U-Boats at his command to the right places to intercept convoys.
 
I totally agree with this summary. The loss of a single ship is rarely a disaster in strategic terms for the RN as they had replacements or the loss was a small part of an overall plan. But as Mad Dog points out, Force Z was the plan, and with it, everything else went.
 
Force Z was a stab at gunboat diplomacy when Japan had the bigger gunboat.

I am not sure how much the Royal Navy knew about the threat they were facing apart from the obvious propoganda.

But sending PoW and Repulse was always going to end badly. The war had left battleships behind and Pearl Harbour, Taranto, the Swordfish attack on Bismarck and even the Skua bombing and sinking the Koningsberg showed the Battleship as vulnerable.

When an airplane considered as mundane as the Skua is sinking major warships then Force Z is just folly.
 
The Basket said:
When an airplane considered as mundane as the Skua is sinking major warships then Force Z is just folly.
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It might have been worse, or better for the British, depending on how matters played out. The carrier HMS Indomitable was supposed to accompany the PoW and Repulse, but she ran aground in Jamaica, thus ensuring that the ship wasn't able to reach Singapore to play any part in the action. The posibility of air cover over the British units might have changed the scenario advantageous to the British. Or it could have also meant the loss of another carrier. We can only surmise.
 
Force Z was a deterrent which never worked.
Japanese were considered weak and so their threat was vastly underestimated.
Admiral Phillips view on air power was not positive.
Fair enough it was a few bombers then yes it could survive but not wave after wave. And air power had yet to sink a fully operational battleship and PoW was as modern as it gets. So maybe hubris was not misplaced.
Oddly the air power offered was Brewster Buffaloes!

Even if not sunk the 2 ships would have faced IJN surface units such as cruisers and destroyers and 2 Kongos. So even a sea engagement would have been a tough ask.

Maybe a Kongo v PoW is a win for PoW but the destroyers would have fired long lances until empty and that would have not ended well either.
 
The Basket said:
Oddly the air power offered was Brewster Buffaloes!
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Still, the Buffalo was more than a match for a Japanese twin engined torpedo bomber. The problem was the British ships maintained strict radio silence until it was too late, around 12pm, and the Buff units were unawares of what was unfolding. The torpedo attack began at around 11am. 243 Sqn scrambled two Buffaloes and 453 sent ten. By the time they arrived, both ships had been sunk.
 
Force Z was a political force not a military.
So the idea was a bit of gunboat diplomacy and the Japanese would run for the hills rather than line up behind the bomb sight.

Force Z was publicly notified for this end which meant the Japanese were waiting.

But a modern fully operational battleship at sea had never been sunk before. And the Japanese aircraft are made from bamboo and Britannia rules the waves. So don't need no air power.

Would have to do more reading of what fighter escort the bombers had. But since they were made from bamboo too then hardly as issue.

Force Z entered a shooting gallery. And the results are pretty obvious today.
 
The Japanese bombers attacking Force Z had no escorting fighters. That said, presence of RAF fighter defences would likely have prompted escorts for subsequent waves. The key question is how much attrition could the Buffalos have inflicted before they either ran out of time or were engaged by (likely) A6Ms.

The question of air cover remains confused. It seems AHQFE informed Phillips that they could not guarantee air cover from airfields in northern Malaya which Phillips duly misunderstood as an inability to provide any air cover. In fact, 453 Sqn at Sembawang had been placed on immediate stand-by in case Force Z requested fighter cover. Also, at Kallang, Buffalos of 243 Sqn were able to respond if needed. Unfortunately for the sailors of Force Z, the RAF received no request until it was too late.
 
The Buffaloes could have been a big blocker so not necessarily shooting down but their presence could have stopped coordinating torpedo strikes. So the bombers would have been more likely to miss and run for home. Would need to find out if IJA fighters were about to see if they could be called in.

But as soon as it was a shooting war then Force Z should have beat a very hasty retreat Although in the Royal Navy not a good idea. The PoW captain was almost court martialled for cowardice against the Bismarck so running twice would have been a slight issue.

Nelson touch and all that.
 

This bit of "everybody knows" is simply wrong.

While HMS Indomitable was certainly scheduled to join Force Z in Singapore, the grounding made no difference whatsoever to her availability to be sunk with POW and Repulse.

That is because she was not scheduled to actually arrive in Singapore until long afterwards - most likely in early January 1942!

This document gives much info about dates and times of travel... Eleven months aboard HMS INDOMITABLE - royalnavyresearcharchive

Indomitable had traveled to Jamaica to conduct training before heading to Singapore... she ran aground on 2 Nov. 1941.

After repairs in Norfolk, USA, she arrived back in Jamaica on 24 Nov. 1941 - a delay of 22 days.

She departed the Caribbean for Cape Town South Africa from Trinidad on 17 Dec. 1941. That's 23 days of training etc.

She arrived at Cape Town on 31 Dec. 1941, and left on 2 Jan. 1942.

She arrived in Aden on 11 Jan. 1042, then in Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast on 14 Jan. 1942 - 28 days travel from Trinidad to where she picked up 50 Hurricanes & personnel for Singapore.

She made the Cocos Islands on 25 Jan. 1942. That is as far east as she went before returning to Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

So, remove the 22-day delay from running aground, and we see that she would likely have arrived in Cape Town, South Africa on 9 Dec. 1941... thousands of miles from Singapore.

Since Force Z left Singapore the day before (8th) and was sunk on the 10th, there is no way that the grounding in any way "saved" Indomitable - OR robbed Force Z of air cover.
 
GreenKnight121 said:
Since Force Z left Singapore the day before (8th) and was sunk on the 10th, there is no way that the grounding in any way "saved" Indomitable - OR robbed Force Z of air cover.
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All right then.

My understanding of the situation after reading Sea Flight by Hugh Popham. Indeed he states the following on page 78: "On December 7th 1941 the Japanese let loose their carrier borne aircraft on Pearl Harbour, the mainAmerican naval base in the Pacific, on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands; and three days later Prince of Wales and Repulse were sent to the bottom of the Gulf of Siam while attempting to intercept a Japanese force of the Malayan coast. Did we have an uneasy feeling that but for that inexplicable error of navigation off Palisades we should have been there to give the two battleships the air-cover for lack of which they were sitting ducks to the Jap [sic] bombers and torpedo craft?"

Down the bottom of the same page: "If we did, we were right. In Vol III of The Second World War, Winston Churchill writes (p.524): "It was decided to send the first instalments of our Far Eastern Fleet both the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, with four destroyers, and as an essential element of the modern armoured aircraft carrier Indomitable. Unhappily the Indomitable was temporarily disabled by an accident." What might have happened if we had been there makes exciting guesswork."

So you can see why I might have thought this.

This bit of "everybody knows" is simply wrong.
Click to expand...

Don't be so presumptuous. That's not why I posted it. I did however find this in the wake of you refuting my statement.

"Contrary to post-war accounts, Indomitable was not allocated to Force Z. Neither Admiralty plans during the period, nor the secret session of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 19 December concerning the loss of Force Z, nor the 7 December tabulation of current and intended fleet strength in the Far East, allocate the carrier to the Eastern Fleet. The carrier did not receive any orders to this effect prior to grounding in Kingston, Jamaica, on 2 November, at the start of a three-week work-up. Joining Force Z by 8 December would have required no grounding and abandoning the work-up."

From here: Force Z - Wikipedia
 
I would say that the light reading of Force Z I done always implied that a carrier should have been there but for the damage to Indomitable made this not happen.

That would have offered 21 fighters of 9 Sea Hurricane and 12 Fulmar.

Kamikaze attacks such as the Acasta and Ardent against Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
And the almost court martial of Captain Leach shows that running is not part of the plan even when odds are against you.
 
The loss of all those cruisers and destroyers and the Island of Crete in the same timeframe as the Bismarck action was more serious than any loss of capital units. Battleships were for headlines. Smaller units dominated the med outside of shore-based air. The damage to the two QE class battleships by maiale was serious too, but the Italian big units achieved nothing from their opportunity, so the impact of it was diminished.
 
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