SEVEN SISTERS HMS Prince of Wales Through the Ages

SEVEN SISTERS HMS Prince of Wales Through the Ages

From 1765 to the present day, seven Royal Navy ships have been named after the Prince of Wales. Charles Oldham tells the tale of the six ships that preceded the most powerful of them all – the current aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales (R09).

There have been a number of ships named Prince of Wales, stretching back to the 18th century, but the legacy of Royal Navy (RN) men of war bearing the name begins with a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line launched in 1765. This HMS Prince of Wales, broken up in 1783, was the first of six RN warships to bear the name. The second Prince of Wales was launched in 1794, a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line that served as Admiral Robert Calder’s flagship at the Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1805. The third Prince of Wales was a 38-gun transport purchased in 1795 and still in commission in 1801. The next was a product of the age of steam, one of a class of six screw-propelled, 121-gun three-deck, firstrate ships of the line. She was renamed Britannia in 1869, becoming a cadet training ship at Dartmouth after her engines were removed. She was broken up in 1916.

The first battleship HMS Prince of Wales was a 14,140-tonne Formidable-class pre-dreadnought commissioned in May 1904. Her armament included two twin 12-inch gun turrets, 12 6-inch guns, four torpedo tubes, and 16 12-pounder guns. She served throughout World War I, from the English Channel to the Dardanelles and the Adriatic, but as a pre-Dreadnought, she soon became obsolete and was decommissioned before being sold for scrap in 1919.

The Hunt for Bismarck

The most well-known ship to sail under the name HMS Prince of Wales was the King George V-class battleship. Her short and eventful life spanned the world’s oceans and some of the most famous naval engagements of all time. Commissioned on Jan. 19, 1941, HMS Prince of Wales displaced 44,500 tonnes fully loaded, and was armed with 10 14-inch guns; eight of them in two quadruple turrets, and two more in a twin turret. In addition, she was equipped with 16 5.25-inch dual-purpose guns and 32 2-pounders. Her completion had been rushed due to the urgencies of war, and she was hurried into battle when the RN realised that the German battleship Bismarck had sortied with orders to destroy British merchant shipping convoys. Having just completed builder’s trials and still far from being fully worked up, HMS Prince of Wales departed in company with the battlecruiser HMS Hood on May 22, 1941, to search for the Bismarck and her consort, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. She was so new that civilian contractors were still aboard correcting defects discovered during builder’s trials.

In the early morning hours of May 24, 1941, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Hood intercepted the German task force. At a tactical disadvantage because of their angle of approach, and with the vulnerable Hood with her thin deck armour in the lead, disaster struck only 10 minutes into the battle. Plunging fire from the Bismarck’s 15-inch guns pierced the Hood’s armour and apparently detonated her aft 4-inch and 15-inch magazines. The battlecruiser broke in two and both halves of the ship quickly sank in the frigid waters. There were only three survivors. HMS Prince of Wales now found herself under fire from both Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. She took seven heavy shell hits, but in turn struck a blow that would prove the undoing of Bismarck. Commander of the German operation, Admiral Günther

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on board Prince of Wales during his journey to North America to meet with President Roosevelt. The four 14- inch guns of Y turret are visible in the background.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on board Prince of Whales during his journey to North America to meet with President Roosevelt. The four 14-inch guns of Y turret are visible in the background.

Imperial War Museum Photo

Lütjens, had inexplicably neglected three opportunities to top off the battleship’s fuel bunkers before her sortie into the Atlantic. Now, 14-inch shells from HMS Prince of Wales ruptured fuel tanks aboard the German battleship, and damaged boiler and turbo-generator rooms. She began to leave a trail of oil, but even worse, could no longer access the 1,000 tons of fuel in her forward tanks, which had either become unreachable due to damage or contaminated by salt water. Not only had HMS Prince of Wales ended Bismarck’s mission to raid British convoys, but by depriving her of fuel, had left the admiral only one option: to make for a

French port for repairs. HMS Prince of Wales then shadowed Bismarck, along with RN cruisers and destroyers, until other RN forces could close in. While HMS Prince of Wales had to break off the action in order to refuel and repair her damage, she had done her job. Bismarck was engaged and destroyed while fleeing for the French coast.

Hosting Winston Churchill

After being repaired at Rosyth, HMS Prince of Wales played another important role in carrying Prime Minister Winston Churchill to Argentia,

HMS Prince of Wales photographed in 1941, sometime prior to her May 24, 1941 engagement with the German battleship Bismarck. She is lowering a Supermarine Walrus amphibian aircraft over the side.

Imperial War Museum Photo

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill seated on the quarterdeck of HMS Prince of Wales for a Sunday service during the Atlantic Conference, Aug. 10, 1941.

National Archives Photo

Newfoundland, to meet with American President Franklin D. Roosevelt in August 1941. The end result of the meeting was the Atlantic Charter, which defined the Allied goals for the postwar world, and became the basis for the modern United Nations.

The next month, HMS Prince of Wales was in the Mediterranean during Operation Halberd, escorting a vital convoy to Malta to resupply the besieged island, and shooting down several attacking Italian aircraft on the way.

In late October, she was dispatched to the Far East as a deterrent against the Japanese. She was to have formed Force Z with the battlecruiser HMS Repulse and aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable, but Indomitable ran aground off Jamaica, and therefore Prince of Wales and Repulse had to proceed without air cover. The two arrived in Singapore on December 2 and were tied up in the harbour when word came of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Force Z sortied on December 8, initially to attack Japanese transports off Kota Bharu. However, they were later ordered to proceed to Kuantan. Without HMS Indomitable’s defensive shield of aircraft, the capital ships were terribly exposed to attack, and on the morning of December 10, long-range Japanese bombers armed with bombs and torpedoes attacked in several waves. Within two hours, both warships were lost, becoming the first two capital ships sunk by air attack on the open ocean, and a sad epitaph to the age of the battleship. The future would now belong to aircraft carriers.