Forgotten Heroes

Forgotten Her es Hit! You Sunk My Battleship

By Avi Heiligman

The crew of the HMS Hood. Only four survived after it was sunk The German battleship Tirpitz

Some of the largest capital (the most important to a navy at any given time) warships to set sail and participate in battles during the two World Wars were battleships. Their importance to a fleet was soon overshadowed by aircraft carriers, but battleships still

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played an important role. Their size and firepower made them a fierce opponent. However, this also made them large targets that opposing navies spent considerable amount of resources trying to neutralize. Many battleships on both sides of conflict were sunk, and each sinking deserves its own story.

During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), several Russian pre-dreadnought battleships were sunk, including six during the Battle of Tsushima Strait in May 1905. The crucial battle was the first naval battle fought by steel battleships and proved that the larger the ship and the bigger guns it carried would be a decisive factor in future battleship warfare. A decade later, during World War I, it was the British Navy that suffered heavy battleship losses with three lost to German U-boats, one to a destroyer and one to a naval mine. At the start of World War II, it was again a British battleship that was the first of its class sunk during the war. The HMS Royal Oak was sunk by a U-boat while anchored at Scapa Flow, Scotland. Both the Japanese and German navies had formidable battleships during World War II and sinking them became a priority for the allies.

Naval treaties after World War I limited the amount and size of warships that nations could build, but these were ignored as it became increasing clear that Nazi Germany was gearing up for another war. During the interwar years, the Nazis built several large ships, including two that would be the center of enormous efforts to sink by the British.

The Bismarck, commissioned in 1940, was the lead ship in her class of two battleships, while the Tirpitz, the only other ship in the class, was completed in 1941. The Bismarck set off in May 1941 with the goal to raid Allied shipping. Accompanying her was a cruiser, and together their mission was to attack convoys in the Atlantic Ocean. Allied intelligence gained valuable information from the Swedish envoy to Berlin, and he revealed to the British some of the Bismarck’s characteristics. Her movements and timetable were provided to the British fleet by code breakers at Bletchley Park. A British fleet consisting of the newly commissioned HMS Prince of Whales and the battlecruiser HMS Hood set off looking for the Bismarck.

Early on the morning of May 24, 1941, the Bismarck and the Hood traded salvos 14 miles apart in the Denmark Strait. At 6 a.m., an armor-piercing shell ripped through the Hood and exploded the ammunition magazine. A huge explosion erupted, and the Hood broke in two as it sank in less than a minute. There were only three survivors of

The HMS Royal Oak at the bottom of the ocean The 50,000-ton Bismarck

the over-1,400 crewmembers onboard. The Bismarck sustained heavy damage during the battle.

The British were now bent on avenging the loss of the Hood and sent all available warships in pursuit before the Bismarck could make it to a port. The sinking had hit home and Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the order: “Sink the Bismarck!”

Three hits during the Battle of the Denmark Strait had hurt the Bismarck, and she was now on her own. On May 26, the Bismarck was spotted by a flying boat. The two ships in the area that could stop her were the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and the battlecruiser HMS Renown. A flight of antiquated Fairy Swordfish torpedo biplane bombers were sent off the Ark Royal and scored two hits on the German ship. Pilot John Moffat was credited with hitting the Bismarck with his torpedo that badly damaged her port rudder. This caused it to lose steering, and soon the Bismarck was sunk by other ships of the Royal Navy.

The Tirpitz posed a grave threat to Allied merchant shipping as well as smaller warships since her commissioning in 1941. Even though the Tirpitz never sunk an Allied merchant ship, the threat that she posed was enough for the British inventor Sir Barnes Wallis to develop a 12,000-pound bomb named the Tallboy just to penetrate the armor of the Tirpitz.

In September 1944, 38 Lancaster heavy bombers took off from a base in northern Russia to attack the massive battleship in the waters off of Norway. One Tallboy struck the Tirpitz and exploded deep in the hull. The damage was so extensive that the Germans decided not to make her seaworthy again. The British didn’t know this fact and were determined to sink her once and for all. On November 12, two Tallboys from Lancaster bombers hit the Tirpitz in her magazine storage. A large explosion followed, and the largest ship in the German Navy capsized. Sinking large ships like the big the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. The Japanese battle plan was complex, and they were to be part of task force sent to bombard the beaches in the Philippines where American troops had landed. Scout planes discovered this force in the Sibuyan Sea and sent the message to the American fleet. Several waves of American Helldivers, Hellcat fighters and Avenger torpedo bombers from the carriers USS Lexington and the USS Essex were sent in and

A huge explosion erupted, and the Hood broke in two as it sank in less than a minute.

German battleships took the efforts of large fleets. In the Pacific, the Americans used submarines and aircraft to do the job of sinking the two largest warships ever built. There were supposed to be five battleships in the Japanese Yamato class of battleships but two were cancelled and one was converted into an aircraft carrier. The two that were built were the Yamato and Musashi. These weighed in at over 70,000 tons and had 18.1-inch guns that could fire a shell a distance of 26 miles.

As with the large Nazi warships, these battleships were heavily targeted by the Allies. The Americans finally got a crack at them during attacked the Center Force. Many hits were scored – the Musashi was on the receiving end of 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs. Her captain tried to save the ship but efforts proved fruitless as the mighty battleship capsized and sank.

The Yamato was the flagship of the Combined Fleet, and she was present at the Battle of Midway as well as at other engagements. The mighty battleship had been the target of two American submarine attacks, one of which a torpedo from the USS Skate caused significant damage. During the opening stages of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, she received damage in the attack that sank the Musashi. The Yamato was able to continue on and fired her batteries on small American warships during the final stages of the complex battle. The American commander thought that the battleships were sunk and went after Japanese carriers. However, it was a ruse by the Japanese commander, and the mighty battleship, along with several cruisers and destroyers, almost attacked the landing beaches. A small group of escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts with the call sign Taffy 3 fought back ferociously and had the Japanese commander convinced that they were facing the might of the American fleet.

On April 7, 1945 the Yamato was sighted and sunk by bombers and torpedo bombers that had been launched by aircraft carriers.

The role of battleships greatly diminished after the war, and currently there are none in service. During the first half of the 20th century, battleships were feared by all navies for their size, speed, and firepower. Colossal efforts to sink these behemoth warships did not always prove successful. Several American battleships still remain as museum ships and are a testament to the brave men who served gallantly on the biggest warships in history.

Avi Heiligman is a weekly contributor to The Jewish Home. He welcomes your comments and suggestions for future columns and can be reached at aviheiligman@gmail.com.