41-11-13 HMS Ark Royal 41-11-14

HMS Ark Royal Launch - April 13, 1937 > . 

HMS Ark Royal (91) > .

Sink the Bismarck! - Demise of Pride of the Kriegsmarine - WW2 > . 

Gibraltar: What's inside The Rock? - Forces > .

Buried Alive: Secret WW2 Bunker Hidden Inside Gibraltar’s Rock - Calum > .

21-7-24 Global Britain: Old Idea. Ripe for Comeback? Royal Navy - Explore > .

Strait of Gibraltar - Chink in Armor >> .

HMS Ark Royal (pennant number 91) was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that served during WW2.

Designed in 1934 to fit the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty, Ark Royal was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, England, launched on 13 April 1937, and completed in November 1938. Her design differed from previous aircraft carriers. Ark Royal was the first ship on which the hangars and flight deck were an integral part of the hull, instead of an add-on or part of the superstructure. Designed to carry a large number of aircraft, she had two hangar deck levels. She served during a period that first saw the extensive use of naval air power; several carrier tactics were developed and refined aboard Ark Royal.

Ark Royal served in some of the most active naval theatres of the Second World War. She was involved in the first aerial and U-boat kills of the war, operations off Norway, the search for the German battleship Bismarck, and the Malta Convoys.

Ark Royal survived several near misses and gained a reputation as a 'lucky ship'. She was torpedoed on 13 November 1941 by the German submarine U-81 and sank the following day; one of her 1,488 crew members was killed. Her sinking was the subject of several inquiries; investigators were keen to know how the carrier was lost, in spite of efforts to save the ship and tow her to the naval base at Gibraltar. They found that several design flaws contributed to the loss, which were rectified in new British carriers. The lack of backup power sources was a major design failure, which contributed to the loss: Ark Royal depended on electricity for much of her operation, and once the boilers and steam-driven dynamos were knocked out, the loss of power made damage control difficult. The committee recommended the design of the bulkheads and boiler intakes be improved to decrease the risk of widespread flooding in boiler rooms and machine spaces, while the uninterrupted boiler room flat was criticised. The design flaws were rectified in the Illustrious- and Implacable-class carriers, under construction at the time.

The wreck was discovered in December 2002 by an American underwater survey company using sonar mounted on an autonomous underwater vehicle, under contract from the BBC for the filming of a documentary about the ship, at a depth of about 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) and approximately 30 nautical miles (56 km; 35 mi) from Gibraltar.

http://www.kbismarck.com/ark-royal.html .

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_HMS_Ark_Royal.html .

https://web.archive.org/web/20110605231710/http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=12701 .

2020 What's It Like Serving In British Forces Gibraltar? > .  

Gibraltar: What's inside The Rock? - Forces > .

39-9-3 SS Athenia (1922)

.Sinking of the SS Athenia - NaGe > .

SS Athenia (1922) was a steam turbine transatlantic passenger liner built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1923 for the Anchor-Donaldson Line, which later became the Donaldson Atlantic Line. She worked between the United Kingdom and the east coast of Canada until September 1939, when a torpedo from the German submarine U-30 sank her in the Western Approaches.

Athenia was the first UK ship to be sunk by Germany during WW2, and the incident accounted for the Donaldson Line's greatest single loss of life at sea, with 117 civilian passengers and crew killed. The sinking was condemned as a war crime. Among those dead were 28 US citizens, leaving Germany to fear that the US might join the war on the side of the UK and France. Wartime German authorities denied that one of their vessels had sunk the ship. An admission of responsibility did not come from German authorities until 1946.

She was the second Donaldson ship of that name to be torpedoed and sunk off Inishtrahull by a German submarine. The earlier Athenia (1903) was similarly attacked and sunk in 1918.

On 1 September 1939 Athenia, commanded by Captain James Cook, left Glasgow for Montreal via Liverpool and Belfast. She carried 1,103 passengers, including about 500 Jewish refugees, 469 Canadians, 311 US citizens and 72 UK subjects, and 315 crew. Despite clear indications that war would break out any day, she departed Liverpool at 13:00 hrs on 2 September without recall, and on the evening of the 3rd was 60 nautical miles (110 km) south of Rockall and 200 nautical miles (370 km) northwest of Inishtrahull, Ireland, when she was sighted by the German submarine U-30 commanded by Oberleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp around 16:30. Lemp later claimed that the fact that she was a darkened ship steering a zigzag course which seemed to be well off the normal shipping routes made him believe she was either a troopship, a Q-ship or an armed merchant cruiser. U-30 tracked Athenia for three hours until eventually, at 19:40, when both vessels were between Rockall and Tory Island, Lemp ordered two torpedoes to be fired. One exploded on Athenia's port side in her engine room, and she began to settle by the stern.

Fritz-Julius Lemp (19 February 1913 – 9 May 1941) was a captain in the Kriegsmarine during World War II and commander of U-28, U-30 and U-110.

He sank the British passenger liner SS Athenia in September 1939, in violation of the Hague conventions. Germany’s responsibility for the sinking was suppressed by Admiral Karl Dönitz and the Nazi propaganda. Lemp died on 9 May 1941 when the U-boat he commanded was captured.

Several ships, including the E-class destroyer HMS Electra, responded to Athenia's distress signal. Electra's commander, Lt. Cdr. Sammy A. Buss, was senior officer present and took charge. He sent the F-class destroyer HMS Fame on an anti-submarine sweep of the area, while Electra, another E-class destroyer, HMS Escort, the Swedish yacht Southern Cross, the 5,749 GRT Norwegian tanker MS Knute Nelson, and the US cargo ship City of Flint, rescued survivors. Between them they rescued about 981 passengers and crew. The German liner SS Bremen, en route from New York to Murmansk, also received Athenia's distress signal, but ignored it. City of Flint took 223 survivors to Pier 21 at Halifax, and Knute Nelson landed 450 at Galway.

Survivors in one of Athenia's lifeboats alongside City of Flint

Athenia remained afloat for more than 14 hours, until she finally sank stern first at 10:40 the next morning. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew members were killed. Many died in the engine room and aft stairwell, where the torpedo hit. About 50 people died when one of the lifeboats was crushed in the propeller of Knute Nelson. There was a second accident at about 05:00 hrs when No. 8 lifeboat capsized in a heavy sea below the stern of the yacht Southern Cross, killing ten people. Three passengers were crushed to death while trying to transfer from lifeboats to the Royal Navy destroyers. Other deaths were due to falling overboard from Athenia and her lifeboats, or to injuries and exposure. Ultimately, all deaths were the result of the U-boat violating orders and torpedoing a merchant passenger liner.

54 dead were Canadian and 28 were US citizens, which led to German fears that the incident would bring the US into the war.

It was not until the Nuremberg Trials after the War that the truth of the U-boat sinking of Athenia finally came out. The sinking was given dramatic publicity throughout the English-speaking world. The front pages of many newspapers ran photographs of the lost ship along with headlines about the UK's declaration of war. For example, the Halifax Herald for 4 September 1939 had a banner across its front page announcing "LINER ATHENIA IS TORPEDOED AND SUNK" with, in the center of the page, "EMPIRE AT WAR" in outsized red print.

A Canadian girl, 10-year-old Margaret Hayworth, was among the casualties, and was one of the first Canadians to be killed by enemy action. Newspapers widely publicised the story, proclaiming "Ten-Year-Old Victim of Torpedo" as "Canadians Rallying Point", and set the tone for their coverage of the rest of the war. One thousand people met the train that brought her body back to Hamilton, Ontario, and there was a public funeral attended by the mayor of Hamilton, the city council, the Lieutenant-Governor, Albert Edward Matthews, Premier Mitchell Hepburn, and the entire Ontario cabinet.

41-12-21 HMS Audacity

HMS Audacity > .
21-7-24 Global Britain: Old Idea. Ripe for Comeback? Royal Navy - Explore > .

HMS Audacity was a British escort carrier of the Second World War and the first of her kind. She was originally the German merchant ship Hannover, which the Royal Navy captured in the West Indies in March 1940 and renamed Sinbad, then Empire Audacity. She was converted and commissioned as HMS Empire Audacity, then as HMS Audacity. She was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat on December 21st, 1941.

On 22 January 1941, she was sent to Blyth Dry Docks & Shipbuilding Co Ltd, Blyth to be rebuilt as an escort carrier. Britain did not have enough aircraft carriers and shipping was vulnerable to attacks by U-boats in the Mid-Atlantic Gap, where there was no air cover. The Admiralty decided that small carriers were part of the solution and had a number of merchantmen, including Empire Audacity, converted. Empire Audacity was the largest ship handled at Blyth, which was more used to ships of 300 ft (91 m) length. The townsfolk of Blyth wondered why the superstructure of a perfectly good ship was being scrapped at a time when Britain was desperately short of ships. Empire Audacity was commissioned on 17 June 1941. She was the Royal Navy's first escort carrier.

HMS Empire Audacity worked up in the Clyde. The first deck landing was by a Grumman Martlet of 802 Naval Air Squadron (FAA) on 10 July. A detachment of aircraft were based on Empire Audacity from 19–21 July. All her aircraft had to be stored on the flight deck, as the hasty conversion into an escort carrier did not include a hangar deck. The Admiralty disliked her merchant name, and HMS Empire Audacity was renamed HMS Audacity on 31 July 1941.

Convoy HG 76 sailed from Gibraltar on 14 December. Audacity had only four Martlet aircraft serviceable. The convoy came under attack from 12 U-boats. Martlets from Audacity shot down two Condors; U-131 was attacked on 17 December. U-131 shot down a Martlet, but was unable to dive after the attack, and was scuttled by her crew, who were taken prisoner.

As Audacity left the convoy on the night of 21 December, one of the merchantmen fired a "snowflake" flare which revealed her in silhouette to the German U-boats. The submarines had been given specific orders to sink her as she had caused a lot of trouble for the Germans both at sea and in the air. The first torpedo fired by U-751 under Kapitänleutnant Gerhard Bigalk hit her in the engine room and she began to settle by the stern. The next two torpedoes caused an explosion of the aviation fuel blowing off her bow. Audacity sank some 500 mi (430 nmi; 800 km) west of Cape Finisterre at 43°45′N 19°54′W. She sank in 70 minutes. 73 of her crew were killed. Her survivors were picked up by the corvettes Convolvulus, Marigold and Pentstemon, one of the survivors being pilot Eric Brown. The German commander had confused her with a 23,000 long tons (23,000 t) Illustrious-class aircraft carrier, the sinking of which was announced by Nazi propaganda sources. In reality Audacity was an escort carrier of 11,000 long tons (11,000 t).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Audacity .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_(pilot) .

41-11-25 HMS Barham

.Tragic End of HMS Barham - The Sinking of HMS Barham 1941 - NoHi > .

HMS Barham was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship built for the Royal Navy during the early 1910s. Often used as a flagship, she participated in the Battle of Jutland during the First World War as part of the Grand Fleet. For the rest of the war, except for the inconclusive Action of 19 August 1916, her service generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the ship was assigned to the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Home Fleets. Barham played a minor role in quelling the 1929 Palestine riots and the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. The ship was in the Mediterranean when the Second World War began in September 1939 and accidentally collided with and sank one of her escorting destroyers, HMS Duchess, on her voyage home three months later. She participated in the Battle of Dakar in mid-1940, where she damaged a Vichy French battleship and was slightly damaged in return. Barham was then transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet, where she covered multiple Malta convoys. She helped to sink an Italian heavy cruiser and a destroyer during the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 and was damaged by German aircraft two months later during the evacuation of Crete. Barham was sunk off the Egyptian coast the following November by the German submarine U-331 with the loss of 862 crewmen, approximately two thirds of her crew.

On the 25th of November 1941, the Royal Navy’s 1st Battle Squadron consisting of HMS Queen Elizabeth, HMS Valiant and HMS Barham along with 8 destroyers were on a hunt in the central Mediterranean looking for Italian convoys.

 
Also on the hunt was a German U-Boat and their paths were on a collision course. A collision that would send HMS Barham to the floor of the Mediterranean Sea along with over 800 of her crew.

HMS Barham had begun her service with the Royal Navy during World War 1 and played a role during the Battle of Jutland.

Following World War 1, HMS Barham had several refits and operated in the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet during the inter-war years.

During World War 2, HMS Barham took part in the the Battle of Dakar before taking part in escort convoys in the Mediterranean.

In November of 1941, during an escort mission, HMS Barham was attacked by U Boat U-331 under the command of Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen.

The attack caused a huge explosion in her magazine and rapidly sank, killing over 800 men.

2020-7-12 Bonhomme Richard Fire

24-4-25 US Navy - Punishments for Bonhomme Richard Fire - Shipping > .

USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) was a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship of the United States Navy commissioned on 15 August 1998. Like the previous five Wasp-class ships, Bonhomme Richard was designed to embark, deploy, and land elements of a Marine Corps landing force in amphibious assault operations by helicopter, landing craft, and amphibious vehicle, and, if needed, to act as a light aircraft carrier.

LHD-6 was the third ship of the United States Navy to bear the name first given by John Paul Jones to his Continental Navy frigate, named in French "Good Man Richard" in honor of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, the publisher of Poor Richard's Almanack who at the time served as U.S. ambassador to France.

On 12 July 2020, a fire started on a lower vehicle-storage deck while the ship was undergoing maintenance at Naval Base San Diego. It took four days for firefighters to extinguish the fire, which injured at least 63 sailors and civilians and severely damaged the ship. After a lengthy investigation into the cause of the fire, a sailor was charged with arson but was acquitted at trial. Repairs to the ship were estimated to take up to seven years and cost up to $3.2 billion, so the ship was decommissioned on 15 April 2021 and sold for scrap.

The average cost of a Wasp-class landing helicopter dock (LHD) ship was estimated to be $750 million in 1989 ($1.6 billion in 2023) whereas the program unit cost of an America-class LHA (landing helicopter assault) was expected to be about $3.3 billion in 2015 ($4.1 billion in 2023). In 2020, the cost of replacing the ship was estimated to be about $4 billion.

1916-11-21 HMHS Britannic

The Sinking of the H.M.H.S. Britannic - BlSt > .

The Wreck of the H.M.H.S. Britannic - BlSt > .

Britannic: Patroness of the Mediterranean - Tita > .

What happened to the other 2 Titanics? - FiM > .

HMHS Britannic was the third vessel of the White Star Line's Olympic class of steamships and the second White Star ship to bear the name Britannic. She was the fleet mate of both the RMS Olympic and the RMS Titanic and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner.

Britannic was launched just before the start of the First World War. She was designed to be the safest of the three ships with design changes actioned during construction due to lessons learned from the sinking of the Titanic. She was laid up at her builders, Harland and Wolff, in Belfast for many months before being put to use as a hospital ship in 1915. In 1915 and 1916 she served between the United Kingdom and the Dardanelles. On the morning of 21 November 1916 she was shaken by an explosion caused by a naval mine of the Imperial German Navy near the Greek island of Kea and sank 55 minutes later, killing 30 people.

There were 1,065 people on board; the 1,035 survivors were rescued from the water and lifeboats. Britannic was the largest ship lost in the First World War. The loss of the ship was compensated by the award of SS Bismarck to the White Star Line as part of postwar reparations; she became the RMS Majestic.

The wreck was located and explored by Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1975. The vessel is the largest passenger ship on the sea floor.

1994 MS Estonia

MS Estonia | The story of her sinking - CaNa > .

The Estonia tragedy happened in 1994, in one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century. Ultimately, it was caused by the free surface effect due to seawater on the vehicle deck. 

Accident report: https://onse.fi/estonia/

45-3-19 USS Franklin (saved)

.45-3-19 American carrier U.S.S. Franklin - 1945, 19 March - BrMo > .

USS Franklin (CV/CVA/CVS-13, AVT-8), nicknamed "Big Ben," was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during WW2 for the United States Navy, and the fifth US Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in January 1944, she served in several campaigns in the Pacific War, earning four battle stars. She was badly damaged by a Japanese air attack in March 1945, with the loss of over 800 of her crew, becoming the most heavily damaged United States aircraft carrier to survive the war. Movie footage of the actual attack was included in the 1949 film Task Force starring Gary Cooper.

After the attack, she returned to the U.S. mainland for repairs, missing the rest of the war; she was decommissioned in 1947. While in reserve, she was reclassified as an attack carrier (CVA), then an antisubmarine carrier (CVS), and finally an aircraft transport (AVT), but was never modernized and never saw active service again. Franklin and Bunker Hill (damaged by two kamikazes) were the only Essex-class carriers not to see active service as aircraft carriers after WW2. Franklin was sold for scrap in 1966.

41-5-24 Hood

How Did The Bismarck Manage To Sink HMS Hood So Quickly? - Reel > .

Loss of HMS Hood - But why did it blow up?? - Drach > .

Refit of HMS Hood - But what if she had survived? - Drach > .

On 24th May 1941 at 05:52 the pride of the British fleet, HMS Hood, engaged the mighty German ship Bismarck in battle. At 06:00 the Hood was hit and it sank in less than 3 minutes. Only 3 of her 1418 crew survived – the single biggest loss of life in a single engagement in the history of the Royal Navy but why this 860 feet long ship sank so quickly has been a mystery for over 70 years. Now, the team that discovered the giant wreck eleven years ago is on its way back to finally find the answer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait .

http://www.hmshood.com/history/denmarkstrait/whyloss.htm .

Java Sea - Battles

.42-2-27 Battle of the Java Sea - WW2 > .

The Battle of the Java Sea was a decisive naval battle of the Pacific campaign of WW2.

Allied navies suffered a disastrous defeat (2 light cruisers sunk, 3 destroyers sunk, 1 heavy cruiser damaged, 2,300 sailors killed) by the Imperial Japanese Navy, on 27 February 1942, and in secondary actions over successive days. The American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) Strike Force commander— Dutch Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman—was killed. The aftermath of the battle included several smaller actions around Java, including the smaller but also significant Battle of Sunda Strait. These defeats led to Japanese occupation of the entire Dutch East Indies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Java_Sea .

Airplane tender USS Langley (CV-1/AV-3) - scuttled.

The oiler USS Pecos, and destroyer USS Edsall, carrying Langley survivors, were subsequently sunk by Japanese.

Battles of the Java Sea, Sunda Strait, Bali Strait

The Eastern Strike Force, consisted of two heavy cruisers (HMS Exeter sunk 42-3-1 and USS Houston), three light cruisers (Doorman's flagship HNLMS De Ruyter, HNLMS Java, HMAS Perth), and nine destroyers (HMS Electra, HMS Encounter, HMS Jupiter, HNLMS Kortenaer, HNLMS Witte de With, USS Alden, USS John D. Edwards, USS John D. Ford, and USS Paul Jones).

The Japanese task force protecting the convoy, commanded by Rear-Admiral Takeo Takagi, consisted of two heavy (Nachi and Haguro) and two light cruisers (Naka and Jintsū) and 14 destroyers (Yūdachi, Samidare, Murasame, Harusame, Minegumo, Asagumo, Yukikaze, Tokitsukaze, Amatsukaze, Hatsukaze, Yamakaze, Kawakaze, Sazanami, and Ushio) including the 4th Destroyer Squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Shoji Nishimura. 

The Japanese heavy cruisers were much more powerful, armed with ten 8-inch (203 mm) guns each, and superb torpedoes. By comparison, Exeter was armed only with six 8-inch guns and only six of Houston's nine 8-inch guns remained operable after her aft turret had been knocked out in an earlier air attack.

40-11-5 Jervis Bay

.Sinking of HMS Jervis Bay - Wartime Farm > .

HMS Jervis Bay was a British liner later converted into an armed merchant cruiser, pennant F40. She was launched in 1922, and sunk on 5 November 1940 by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer.

After her acquisition and commissioning, Jervis Bay was initially assigned to the South Atlantic station before becoming a convoy escort in May 1940, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. Given brief repairs at Halifax, Nova Scotia, she became the sole escort for the 37 merchant ships of Convoy HX 84 from Bermuda and Halifax, Nova Scotia to Britain (the Jervis Bay had escorted a convoy from Bermuda which had merged at sea with a convoy from Halifax, as was the practice; a single large convoy being relatively easier to protect than two smaller ones due to the decreased ratio of the circumference of a circle as its area is increased).

When the convoy encountered the German warship Admiral Scheer about 755 nautical miles (1,398 km) south-southwest of Reykjavík, the Captain of Jervis Bay, Edward Fegen, ordered the convoy to scatter, and set his own ship on a course towards the German warship to draw its fire. Jervis Bay was hopelessly outgunned and outranged by the 28 cm (11 inch) guns of the German ship, but it attacked the larger ship with its guns, firing more to distract the German ship from the merchantmen than with hopes of doing any damage. Although the German's shells ravaged the Jervis Bay, and Fegen was wounded and many crew killed, Fegen and the surviving crew fought on until their ship was sunk. Captain Fegen and many of the crew went down with the ship.

Sixty-eight survivors of Jervis Bay's crew of 254 were picked up by the neutral Swedish ship Stureholm (three later died of their wounds). Guy Byam was one of the survivors of the sinking; he was later killed while covering an air raid over Germany for the BBC.

Captain Fegen was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross as a result of this action.

40-6-17 RMS Lancastria

RMS Lancastria sinking of St Nazaire, June 17, 1940 .

RMS Lancastria was a British ocean liner requisitioned by the UK Government during World War II. She was sunk on 17 June 1940 during Operation Ariel. Having received an emergency order to evacuate British nationals and troops in excess of its capacity of 1,300 passengers, modern estimates range between 3,000 and 5,800 fatalities—the largest single-ship loss of life in British maritime history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lancastria#Sinking

Troopship sinkings:
SS Oronsay was a British ocean liner and World War II troopship. She was sunk by an Italian submarine on 9 October 1942.

Troopships that survived:

Post-war RMS Cameronia was used to transport people emigrating to Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Cameronia_(1920) .

1915-5-7 Lusitania Sinking

1915-5-7 Lusitania Sinking - time > .

The sinking of the Cunard ocean liner RMS Lusitania occurred on Friday, 7 May 1915 during WW1, as Germany waged submarine warfare against the United Kingdom which had implemented a naval blockade of Germany.

When Lusitania was built, her construction and operating expenses were subsidized by the British government, with the provision that she could be converted to an Armed Merchant Cruiser if need be. At the outbreak of WW1, the British Admiralty considered her for requisition as an armed merchant cruiser, and she was put on the official list of AMCs.

The Admiralty then canceled their earlier decision and decided not to use her as an AMC after all; large liners such as Lusitania consumed enormous quantities of coal (910 tons/day, or 37.6 tons/hour) and became a serious drain on the Admiralty's fuel reserves, so express liners were deemed inappropriate for the role when smaller cruisers would do. They were also very distinctive; so smaller liners were used as transports instead. Lusitania remained on the official AMC list and was listed as an auxiliary cruiser in the 1914 edition of Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships, along with Mauretania.
The ship was identified and torpedoed by the German U-boat U-20 and sank in 18 minutes, and also took on a heavy starboard list. The vessel went down 11 miles (18 km) off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, killing 1,198 and leaving 761 survivors. The sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany, contributed to the American entry into World War I and became an iconic symbol in military recruiting campaigns of why the war was being fought.

By early 1915, a new threat to British shipping began to materialise: U-boats (submarines). At first, the Germans used them only to attack naval vessels, and they achieved only occasional—but sometimes spectacular—successes. U-boats then began to attack merchant vessels at times, although almost always in accordance with the old cruiser rules. Desperate to gain an advantage on the Atlantic, the German government decided to step up its submarine campaign. On 4 February 1915, Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone: from 18 February, Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning. This was not wholly unrestricted submarine warfare, since efforts would be taken to avoid sinking neutral ships.

Lusitania fell victim to torpedo attack relatively early in the First World War, before tactics for evading submarines were properly implemented or understood. The contemporary investigations in both the United Kingdom and the United States into the precise causes of the ship's loss were obstructed by the needs of wartime secrecy and a propaganda campaign to ensure all blame fell upon Germany. Argument over whether the ship was a legitimate military target raged back and forth throughout the war as both sides made misleading claims about the ship. At the time she was sunk, she was carrying over 4 million rounds of small-arms ammunition (.303 caliber), almost 5,000 shrapnel shell casings (for a total of some 50 tons), and 3,240 brass percussion fuses, in addition to 1,266 passengers and a crew of 696. Several attempts have been made over the years since the sinking to dive to the wreck seeking information about precisely how the ship sank, and argument continues to the present day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_sunk_by_submarines_by_death_toll .

2022-4-14 Moskva

22-4-15 Why The Sinking Of Russia's 'Moskova' Battleship Matters - MSNBC > .

23-9-10 Battle for Black Sea. R-U: Geopolitics, Grain, Naval Drones > .

23-4-13 Happy Neptune Day (April 13) - [Anniversary of Moskva Sinking] > .

23-1-5 How Ukraine Changed the Power Balance in the Black Sea - K&G > .

22-12-4 Humor: Krumblin Presents: The Little Warship (Under the Sea) - UA > .

22-5-28 Sinking of Cruiser Moskva: History, Importance, Consequences - K&G > .

Moskva Cruiser: What You Need To Know - H I Sutton - Covert Shores > .

2o22-2-24+ Special Invasive Operation - Fyrd Færeld >> .

Чорне море - Black Sea Front - αλλο >> .

Moskva (Москва, lit. 'Moscow'), formerly Slava (Слава, lit. 'Glory'), was a guided missile cruiser of the Russian Navy. The ship was the lead ship of the Project 1164 Atlant class and was named after the city of Moscow. She was the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and helped lead the naval assault during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. With a crew of 510, she was the most powerful surface vessel in the region. The cruiser had previously been deployed in several military conflicts, including in Georgia (2008), Crimea (2014), and Syria (2015).

She sank on 14 April 2022 in the Black Sea. Ukrainian officials and the US Defense Department said Ukraine attacked the cruiser with two anti-ship cruise missiles. The Russian Ministry of Defence said a fire caused a munitions explosion. The Russian Navy attempted to tow the damaged ship toward Sevastopol but she sank before reaching port. Moskva is the largest warship to be sunk in combat since World War II.

Ukraine war: Dramatic images appear to show sinking Russian warship Moskva .

22-10-29 Zinking? ..

41-12-10 Repulse, Prince of Wales

.Malaya 1941: The Sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales > .

The sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse was a naval engagement in WW2, as part of the war in the Pacific, that took place on 10 December 1941 in the South China Sea off the east coast of the British colony of Malaya (present-day Malaysia), 70 miles (61 nautical miles; 110 kilometres) east of Kuantan, Pahang. The Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse were sunk by land-based bombers and torpedo bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. In Japanese, the engagement was referred to as the Naval Battle of Malaya (マレー沖海戦, Marē-oki kaisen).

The objective of Force Z, which consisted of one battleship, one battlecruiser and four destroyers, was to intercept the Japanese invasion fleet in the South China Sea north of Malaya. The task force sailed without air support. Although the British had a close encounter with Japanese heavy surface units, the force failed to find and destroy the main convoy. On their return to Singapore they were attacked in open waters and sunk by long-range torpedo bombers. The commander of Force Z, Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, elected to maintain radio silence and an alert was only sent (by the Repulse) one hour after the first Japanese attack.

With the attack on Pearl Harbor only three days earlier, the Malayan engagement illustrated the effectiveness of aerial attacks against even the heaviest of naval assets if they were without air cover. This added to the importance for the Allies of the three USN aircraft carriers in the Pacific: USS Enterprise, Lexington, and Saratoga. The sinking of the two ships severely weakened the British Eastern Fleet in Singapore, and the Japanese fleet was only engaged by submarines until the Battle off Endau on 27 January 1942.

1944-8-20 SS Richard Montgomery

.Why Has Nothing Been Done? | SS Richard Montgomery - Casual > . skip ad > .

How A Cargo Ship Helped Win WW2: The Liberty Ship Story > .

Rise and Fall of the Liberty Ship - It's History > .

Liberty Ships: Extraordinarily Ordinary - Mega > . skip ad > .

SS Richard Montgomery was an American Liberty cargo ship built during World War II. She was named after Richard Montgomery, an Irish officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

The ship was wrecked on the Nore sandbank in the Thames Estuary, near Sheerness, England, 20 August 1944, while carrying a cargo of munitions. About 1,400 tonnes (1,500 short tons) of explosives remaining on board presents a hazard but the likelihood of explosion is claimed to be remote.

When Richard Montgomery arrived off Southend, she came under the authority of the Thames naval control at HMS Leigh located at the end of Southend Pier. The harbourmaster, responsible for all shipping movements in the estuary, ordered the ship to a berth off the north edge of Sheerness middle sands, an area designated as the Great Nore Anchorage.

On 20 August 1944 she dragged anchor and ran aground on a sandbank around 250 m (820 ft) from the Medway Approach Channel, in a depth of 24 ft (7.3 m) of water. The general dry cargo liberty ship had an average draft of 28 ft (8.5 m), but Richard Montgomery was trimmed to a draft of 31 ft (9.4 m). As the tide went down, the ship broke her back on sand banks near the Isle of Sheppey about 1.5 mi (2.4 km) from Sheerness and 5 mi (8.0 km) from Southend.

A Rochester-based stevedore company was given the job of removing the cargo, which began on 23 August 1944, using the ship's own cargo handling equipment. By the next day, the ship's hull had cracked open, causing several cargo holds at the bow end to flood. The salvage operation continued until 25 September, when the ship was finally abandoned before all the cargo had been recovered. Subsequently the vessel broke into two separate parts, roughly amidships.

During the enquiry following the shipwreck it was revealed that several ships moored nearby had noticed Richard Montgomery drifting towards the sandbank. They had attempted to signal an alert by sounding their sirens, but without avail because Captain Wilkie of Richard Montgomery was asleep. The ship's chief officer was unable to explain why he had not alerted the captain. A board of inquiry concluded that the anchorage the harbour master assigned had placed the ship in jeopardy, and returned the captain of Richard Montgomery to full duty within a week.

1914-12-8 SMS Scharnhorst

German WWI wreck Scharnhorst discovered off Falklands: 

The wreck of a WW1 German armoured cruiser has been located off the Falkland Islands, where it was sunk by the British navy 105 years ago. SMS Scharnhorst was the flagship of German Vice-Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee's East Asia Squadron. It was sunk on 8 December 1914 with more than 800 men on board, including Vice-Adm von Spee himself (in 1934 a new heavy cruiser was named after him, and was scuttled after the Battle of the River Plate).

A British squadron had pursued and engaged the German squadron. HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible inflicted substantial damage on SMS Scharnhorst, causing it to sink with all 860 people on board. The Royal Navy then gave pursuit to the remaining German ships.

2022-3-24 Saratov destroyed

22-3-24 Ukrainians destroy Russian warship in occupied port of Berdyansk > .

2o22-2-24+ Special Invasive Operation - Fyrd Færeld >> .

The Soviet designation Project 1171 (Tapir-class) landing ship (NATO reporting name: Alligator) is a class of Soviet / Russian general purpose, beachable amphibious warfare ships (Soviet classification: large landing ship, Russian: БДК, большой десантный корабль).

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, in the aftermath of the Battle of Berdiansk, BDK-65 Saratov was reported as destroyed by a Ukrainian attack on 24 March 2022 while in the harbour of Russian-occupied Ukrainian Port of Berdiansk. Video showed a large fire, smoke, and explosions, with one explosion engulfing the bow of the ship. The ship was originally reported as having been Orsk, but the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces later reported that Saratov had been destroyed, and two Ropucha-class ships, Caesar Kunikov and Novocherkassk damaged.

41-3-26 Souda Bay - Pericles, York

41-3-26 tanker Pericles sunk, HMS York damaged - Italian MT speed boats > .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Souda_Bay .

Explosive Speed Boats ..

Sub-chaser warships - ASW WW1

A (WW1) Navy Warship Goes Down Weeks Before the End of WW2 > .

ASW - Detecting Submarines - Mil TV > .

The sinking of the U.S. Navy warship Eagle 56 off the New England coast in April 1945 has long been a mystery. The Navy's official report concluded it was a mechanical failure, while others pointed to a startling killer: a Nazi U-boat hunting within sight of American shores.

Survival at Sea

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23-7-17 Rescue of Submariners - Forces > .

23-7-17 Firefighting on RN warship - Forces > .

22-8-31 WW2 Rescue Buoys - 'Floating Hotels' of English Channel - Calum > .

20-1-15 Survival at Sea - fire / sinking / exploding / disagreeable - Dra > .

15-2-25 Heroes of World War 2: RAF High Speed Launch - Engine P > .

Coastal Command (1942) The Movie > .

Titan's Implosion

23-6-26 Exposing the OceanGate Submersible's Tragic Designs - Ziroth > .

23-7-8 Questionable Engineering of OceanGate [Titan submersible] - Real > .

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Mishaps, Disasters - Naval Gazing >> .

Ocean Exploration - Naval Gazing >> .

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That Sinking Feeling - Naval Gazing >> .

1912-4-14 HMS Titanic

. 1912-4-14 Flat Calm on a Moonless Night NakSci > .

1912-4-14 Sinking of the Titanic | Britannica > .

1912-4-14 HMS Titanic ..

1912-4-14 HMS Titanic Sinks ..

6pm Sunday 14th April 1912, the Titanic had just changed course and was heading in a westerly direction across the Atlantic. The captain believed he was heading to a safe area of the Gulf Stream where there are no icebergs. But in 1912 a phenomenon took place that allowed icebergs to travel further south than was thought possible, the cold Labrador Current had pushed itself into the Gulf Stream, forming a cold protective layer around the iceberg.

The iceberg was 10 times the mass of the Titanic and 130 miles away. It had now been seen by the steamship Californian which had sent a warning message to the Titanic. While Philips rested in the cabin next to the wireless room, his assistant Bride was manning the wireless. Although Bride heard the message from the Californian he did not respond. Although Philips and Bride were well trained wireless operators they were poorly paid and had to rely on sending passenger messages to earn their wages.

At 7:20pm Bride finished his accounts and then intercepted the message from the Californian, it warned of 3 large icebergs, seen at latitude 42 degrees north, longitude 49 degrees west. But Captain Smith had already left the bridge and was now dining with passengers. Had Bride taken down the message earlier the captain would’ve received it and could’ve taken evasive action. None of the surviving offices recall ever seeing this vital message. To this day nobody knows if the message was delivered.

○ SA - Sinkings - aircraft

40-6-17 RMS Lancastria ..
40-11-11 Taranto Raid - Operation Judgement ..
44-11-12 Tirpitz - Sinking ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ships_sunk_by_German_aircraft .

○ SA - Sinkings - mines

 1916-11-21 HMHS Britannic mined ..

○ SN - Sinkings - naval battles

41-5-27 Bismarck Sunk .. 

40-7-3 Battle of Mers-el-Kébir - Operation Catapult ..

1914-12-8 SMS Scharnhorst ..

Naval losses 

2020-7-12 Bonhomme Richard Fire .. 

○ SU - Sinkings - submarines

39-9-3 SS Athenia (1922) .. 

39-10-17 German U-47 Raid at Scapa Flow ..

21st 

2023-8-23 PLAN Type 093 Submarine Lost ..

Submersible 

23-6-18 Titan Implosion ↠