The ships had multiple armoured decks that ranged from 1 to 3 inches (25 to 76mm) in thickness. [54] Willis was relieved by Captain Thomas Walker on 31 January 1939. A salvo of torpedoes from a German submarine struck from close range on HMS Barham on November 25, 1941 in the Mediterranean. The shell devastated a messdeck and dented the armoured deck by a depth of 8 centimetres (3.1in), but caused no casualties. At 14:32, Beatty ordered a course change to south-southeast in response to the spot report. Before leaving the Bridge to make my attempt to escape, the conning tower of a submarine surfaced about one hundred and fifty yards from the port side, and remained exposed for perhaps half a minute before the U boat dived again. "There was my friend Ted Clow, from Oadby, but he died last December, aged 93.". Battleship sunk on 25 of November 1941. Shortly before the turn, one of his escorting light cruisers, Galatea spotted smoke on the horizon and continued on her course to investigate. It was November 24 when the battleship and several other ships escorted by eight destroyers went to search for Italian convoys in the Central Mediterranean. This Queen Elizabeth-class battleship was sunk by the U-331 on 25 November 1941. 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. This took some time and his ships had to slow down to 1218 knots (2233km/h; 1421mph) to avoid overrunning the 6th Division and blocking its fire. This meant that they were some 4,000 yards (3,700m) closer to the rapidly advancing High Sea Fleet. Hipper ordered his ships to turn to starboard, away from the British, to assume a south-easterly course, and reduced speed to 18 knots (33km/h; 21mph) to allow three light cruisers of the 2nd Scouting Group to catch up. [57] Now under the command of Captain Richard Scott,[53] Barham was assigned to the Home Fleet as the flagship of the 2nd Battle Squadron,[54] and deployed to the West Indies in JanuaryFebruary 1935 for training. 340, 346, 349, 354355, 358, Jones, pp. Three minutes later another shell hit the aft superstructure, severing the antenna cables of the main wireless station. This is my first written account of the fateful day, and of my recollections of some of the circumstances before and after the catastrophe since I prepared a Report on the sinking shortly after the event for the Royal Naval Authorities at Alexandria, Egypt. What is more, the coordinates are very close to those sent out by the Athenia's radio officer in his distress call, and recorded in the logbooks of the vessels that came to the rescue. And now within range of the battleships of the 3rd Squadron which opened fire on the 5th Battle Squadron as they made their turn. Craske), the Admiral and S.W.O. [65] Most of the adjacent compartments flooded and the ship took on a 7 degree list that was countered by transferring fuel oil to starboard. They hit Ltzow, Derfflinger and Seydlitz three times each between 17:19 and about 18:05. Lilly died in 2007, aged 86. Most of those who died were in two lifeboats that were smashed just as they were about to be saved. The British and the German fleets returned home; the British lost two cruisers to submarine attacks, and one German dreadnought had been torpedoed. He is now involved in efforts to change this. 219220; Raven & Roberts, p. 359; Shores, Cull & Malizia, pp. Three minutes later, she sighted the topmasts of Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer's battleships, but did not report this for another five minutes. During this time BARHAM was bombed and severely damaged by the Luftwaffe and had to go to Capetown for extensive repairs. Experience the final moments of the Queen Elizabeth Battleship, HMS Barham, when it was struck by torpedoes from a German submarine during World War II which resulted in a terrifying explosion.. "I was disorientated but reached out and felt the ship. Shortly after her return to the Mediterranean, Barham again became flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron in September after her sister Warspite had to return home for repairs after running aground. Towards the end of 1941, the Med Fleet was experiencing some ups and downs, as the Luftwaffe became increasingly active and aggressive during the advance of General Rommel (the Desert Fox) and his Afrika Korps across the Western Desert towards Alexandria. Beatty then altered course to the east, as he was still too far north to cut Hipper off. [79] She was briefly assigned to Force H, before she was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in November 1940. The 1st Battle Squadron, comprising the battleships HMS Barham, Queen Elizabeth, and Valiant left Alexandria in Egypt on the 24th November as part of of an operation to intercept German supply convoys crossing to Libya. [54] At that time, Captain Norman Wodehouse relieved Scott. It proved to be worse than expected and Barham had to be repaired at Durban, South Africa, as she was unfit to make the trans-Atlantic crossing for repair in the United States. Jan Lettens 02/08/2012. But barring a photograph I can say in my expert opinion there's a very, very high probability that that's Athenia. On 25 November 1941 one of the heaviest losses of life, and the only loss of a Royal Navy battleship to a submarine at sea, occurred off Bardia, when HMS Barham was torpedoed at extremely short range by U-331, and sank within four minutes. The damage allowed over 1,000 long tons (1,016t) of water to flood the stern and nearly knocked out the ship's steering gear. Barham was then transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet, where she covered multiple Malta convoys. Our C. in C. (Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham) ordered the 7th and 15th Cruiser Squadrons to sea to attempt to intercept and destroy these convoys. At the going down of the SUN, AND in the MORNING; WE WILL REMEMBER THEM, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM!! How surprising were the M3 Grant tanks to the Germans? BARHAM's explosion after being torpedoed. (1966). HMS Barham was a Queen Elizabeth -class battleship of the Royal Navy named after Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham, built at the John Brown shipyards in Clydebank, Scotland, and launched in 1914. [8] Two years later, her anti-aircraft defences were upgraded when the original three-inch AA guns were replaced with a pair of QF four-inch (102mm) Mk V AA guns between November 1924 and January 1925 and another pair of four-inch AA guns were added from October to November later that year. [81] Barham was loaded with 600 troops, including the men of 12 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery,[82] Force F departed Gibraltar on 7 November, escorted by Force H, rendezvoused with the main body of the Mediterranean Fleet three days later and unloaded their cargo at Malta later that day. 137144, 2-pounder (40mm (1.6in)) Mk VIII "pom-pom", https://www.navy.gov.au/media-room/publications/hm-ships-enemy-action-wwii, HMS Barham Explodes & Sinks: World War II (1941), List of dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HMS_Barham_(04)&oldid=1131403965, World War I battleships of the United Kingdom, World War II battleships of the United Kingdom, Ships sunk by German submarines in World War II, World War II shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 5,000nmi (9,260km; 5,750mi) at 12 knots (22km/h; 14mph), This page was last edited on 4 January 2023, at 00:34. The marine scientist first got involved in the search for the wreck in a commission from the BBC. 201202, Edmunds, Simeon. Multiple air strikes by Formidable's Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers damaged the battleship Vittorio Veneto and crippled the heavy cruiser Pola later that evening. If it happened, British Path filmed it. [27] Barham slipped her mooring at 22:08 and was followed by the rest of Beatty's ships. [42] Barham returned fire at the battlecruisers at 17:02, together with Valiant, the two northernmost of Evan-Thomas's ships, and the two of them made three hits on the battlecruiser SMSSeydlitz and Ltzow between 17:06 and 17:13 while Barham was hit twice more by Derfflinger; although neither of the hits did any significant damage. Hindered by poor visibility, no significant damage was inflicted and Richelieu was not hit before the bombardment was called off after 20 minutes. David Mearns: "My research rules out all other shipwrecks in this area". A German submarine torpedoed the ship hours after Britain declared war on Hitler in 1939 - more than 100 people, including many Americans, were killed. The ships were fitted with four submerged 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, two on each broadside. . Barham was able to dodge them, but Resolution was struck by one torpedo amidships that caused a heavy list, and she fell out of line. During a port visit to Corfu in July, the ship was visited by King George II of Greece. [102], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}3234N 2624E / 32.567N 26.400E / 32.567; 26.400. As a result, the operation was confined to the northern end of the sea. The sea, which had fortunately been smooth as BARHAM sank was, as far as I could see, a vast area of oil fuel and debris, with at that time no signs of life. Naval Historical Society of Australia Inc. Barham played a minor role in quelling the 1929 Palestine riots and the 19361939 Arab revolt in Palestine. 1. Fragments from this hit caused flooding that spread throughout the bow, while the ship's speed caused water to enter directly through the hole in the side. In response the Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet, totalling some 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. [46], Following Jutland, Barham was under repair until 5 July 1916. While making the turn,[40] Barham was struck by two 30.5-centimetre shells beginning at 16:58, probably from the battlecruiser SMSDerfflinger. The ship had been hit amidships by torpedoes on the port side. Barham. To the untrained eye, sonar imagery can be difficult to interpret, but Mr Mearns says the dimensions of the target match exactly what would be expected of a 160m-long, 13,500-tonne passenger liner. Nov 24, 2021. The battleship and the other ships of Force F were tasked to ferry troops to Malta, before continuing on to Alexandria. [84] Barham became the flagship of the 1st BS in December. By this time the 5th Battle Squadron was about seven point five nautical miles (13.9km; 8.6mi) northwest of Beatty. A new beautiful success. On her return I teamed up with P-W again when he shifted his flag back to the, Battleships. Duchess capsized and sank, with the loss of 124 of her crew. Actually, my last time in Pearl (around 1994) I saw petrol bubbles coming from the wreck. A few months later, now under the command of Captain Richard Hill,[53] the ship again retained her position as the 1st Battle Squadron was split in two and the Queen Elizabeths of the new 1st Battle Squadron were transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet on 1 November 1924. Ten minutes later, the ship radioed "Two cruisers, probably hostile, in sight" They were actually two German destroyers that had stopped to check a Danish merchant ship's papers. The detonation blew a 7-by-7-foot (2.1 by 2.1m) hole in the main deck, sent fragments through the middle and lower decks and burned out the casemate for starboard No. After the Battle of Jutland, 1 inch (25mm) of high-tensile steel was added to the main deck over the magazines and additional anti-flash equipment was added in the magazines. Rawlings took over temporarily from P-W who became Vice Admiral Light Forces. The impact was right on the joints between several armour plates and drove them inwards and destroyed part of the hull behind them. 2. [15], The Queen Elizabeth class was ordered as part of the 1912 Naval Programme and the contract for Barham was awarded to John Brown & Company. [101], Helen Duncan, considered the last person to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act 1735, came to the attention of the authorities after claiming to have contacted the spirit of a sailor of Barham, at the time when the ship's sinking was being hidden from the general public. Barham was herself was struck twice during the "Run to the South": the first was a 28.3-centimetre (11in) shell from von der Tann that failed to do any damage when it hit the waterline armour and the battlecruiser SMSLtzow fired a 30.5-centimetre (12in) shell that detonated in the aft superstructure. Copyright 2023. Second World War (1939-1945) Sidi Barrani. The following day, 1 October, Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, commander of the 5th Battle Squadron, hoisted his flag aboard his new flagship. A very detailed account by a surviving officer of her loss is at this link. Throughout the next day, Jellicoe and Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the High Seas Fleet, received conflicting intelligence; after reaching the location in the North Sea where they expected to encounter the High Seas Fleet, the British turned north in the erroneous belief that they had entered a minefield. The enemy struck at 4.25pm as Richard was on a tea break and talking with a friend. The following year the UP mount was replaced by a pair of quadruple Vickers 0.5-inch machine gun mounts and another pair of eight-barreled "pom-pom" mounts were added abreast her conning tower. [48], She was refitted at Cromarty between February and March 1917[47] and King George V inspected the ship on 22 June at Invergordon. 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