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Frederic Logghe
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King George V


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The second HMS King George V was the name ship of the King George V class of battleships of 1939.

Following the tradition of naming battleships after the current monarch, she was originally to be named King George VI (after George VI). However the King instructed the Admiralty to name the ship in honour of his father, George V. King George V was built by Vickers-Armstrong at Walker's Naval Yard, Newcastle upon Tyne and laid down on 1 January 1937, launched on 21 February 1939, and commissioned on 11 December 1940.

She was the flagship of the Home Fleet under the command of Admiral Sir John Tovey, and was involved in the chase for the German battleship Bismarck. On 27 May 1941, she and Rodney poured a large number of shells into to the hull of the ill-fated ship.

While escorting convoy PQ-15 to Murmansk on 1 May 1942, King George V collided with the destroyer HMS Punjabi, resulting in the sinking of the latter ship and minimal damage to the battleship.

In the Mediterranean, King George V covered the Operation Husky landings at Sicily, as well as having the honour of transporting the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, back to Britain from the Tehran Conference.

From 1944 until the surrender of Japan, King George V served with the British Pacific Fleet, and was present at Japan during the official surrender ceremony.

She was recommissioned as flagship of the Home Fleet in 1946. Just three years later, King George V was decommissioned into the Reserve Fleet and subsequently scrapped at Dalmuir in 1957.

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Prince of Wales


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HMS Prince of Wales was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy, built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, England. The Prince of Wales had a brief but active career and helped to stop the Bismarck; however her loss to Japanese land-based bombers in the Far East in 1941 is one of the events that led to the end of the battleship being considered the predominant class in naval warfare.

At the time of the declaration of war the Prince of Wales was fitting out in Liverpool. The ship was damaged in August 1940 during the Liverpool Blitz. She suffered one near miss that exploded between her port side and the wall of the basin in which she lay, severely buckling and springing her outer plates in this area. The Admiralty determined that she would be needed in case the Bismarck or Tirpitz were deployed, so her construction was advanced by postponing several tests, shortening builders trials, and deferring post-shakedown availability. She was commissioned on 19 January 1941 under the command of Captain John Leach, but not physically "completed" until 31 March.

Shortly after her commissioning, Prince of Wales joined HMS Hood in stalking and attacking the German battleship Bismarck and the accompanying heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. The Prince of Wales sailed with civilian technicians still aboard. On 24 May, she and the Hood fought the two German warships at the battle of the Denmark Strait. Following the sinking of Hood, with an inexperienced crew, after receiving 7 large-caliber hits and with most of her weaponry out of action due to damage or other problems, the Prince of Wales disengaged under a smokescreen. During the brief battle she had struck three hits on Bismarck, one of which hit a forward fuel tank removing it from use. This forced the Bismarck to head for France for repairs. The Prince of Wales joined up with the cruisers HMS Suffolk and Norfolk that had been shadowing the Bismarck since before the Denmark Strait. Gunfire was exchanged with the Bismarck briefly at 0131hrs on 25 May. Twelve hours later, Prince Of Wales broke off pursuit due to her fuel running low. She then returned to the shipyard for 6 weeks of repair.

In August, the Prince of Wales carried British Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic to Argentia, Newfoundland, where he secretly met with the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt for several days in a secure anchorage, beginning on August 10, 1941. This meeting resulted in the signing of the Atlantic Charter on August 12, 1941. After this trip, she was assigned to the Mediterranean for convoy escort duty, where she shot down several attacking planes on 27 September.

On 25 October, Prince of Wales, along with the destroyers HMS Electra and Express, left for Singapore to become the flagship of the Far East Fleet under Admiral Sir Tom Philips. She arrived at Singapore in early December, joining the battlecruiser HMS Repulse. The new aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable was also scheduled to join Force Z, but she ran aground in Jamaica during trials, and needed repair.

These ships were sent to Singapore to serve as a deterrent to Japanese aggression. However, the Japanese were not deterred and commenced their invasions on December 7, the same day that they attacked Pearl Harbour. Admiral Phillips decided to try and intercept the landing fleets, and Prince of Wales and Repulse set off, along with four destroyers, HMS Electra, Express, Tenedos, and HMAS Vampire, to search for the Japanese. However, they were not successful and the Japanese submarine I-65 spotted them as they returned to Singapore. Japanese aircraft and submarines shadowed the fleet, and on December 10, 1941, without any air cover, both the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were attacked and sunk by 86 Japanese bombers and torpedo bombers from the 22nd Air Flotilla based at Saigon.

As a modern battleship, the Prince of Wales was expected to fare better than the World War I veteran Repulse but this was not so. Even before setting out, the Prince of Wales's surface scanning radar was inoperable, depriving Force Z of one of its most potent early-warning devices. Early in the battle, the Prince of Wales was disabled by a lucky torpedo hit where the propeller shaft entered the hull, which caused severe flooding, rendered the rudder useless, and cut the power to her 5.25-inch DP guns. Two further torpedo hits struck her weakest section, the area damaged by the German bombing in 1940 and never completely repaired. Altogether, she suffered 6 torpedo and 1 bomb hits in this action. Several hundred men were killed when the ship sunk, with Vice-Admiral Philips and Captain Leach being among those lost when they chose to go down with their ship. However, the stronger hull of the Prince of Wales enabled much of the crew to be saved, in stark contrast to the older Repulse which suffered a heavy loss of life.

They were the first capital ships to be sunk solely by airpower on the open sea [albeit land-based rather than carrier-based aircraft], a harbinger of the diminishing role this class of ships was to play in naval warfare thereafter. It is often pointed out, however, that a contributing factor to the sinking of the Prince of Wales was her inoperable radar and the early critical damage she had sustained from the first torpedo. The British Director of Naval Construction's report on the sinking also claimed that the ship's anti-aircraft guns could have "inflict[ed] heavy casualties before torpedoes were dropped, if not prevent[ed] the successful conclusion of attack" had crews been more adequately trained in their operation. See also Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse

The wreck lies nearly upside down in 155 feet of water at approximately 3 degrees 33.6 minutes North Latitude, 104 degrees 28.7 minutes East Longitude. A British flag attached to a line on a buoy that is tied to a propeller shaft is periodically renewed. The wrecksite is designated as a protected place under the Protection of Military Remains Act. The ship's bell was raised in 2002 and is currently on display at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool.

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Duke of York



HMS Duke of York was a King George V class battleship of the Royal Navy, and the second of the name, the predecessor having been a 4-gun cutter purchased in 1763 and sold in 1766. The ship was originally to be named Anson but adopted its final name in December 1938.

Built at the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland, and launched in 1940, she was commissioned too late to see action against the Bismarck, or any other German naval surface raider in the early Atlantic battles of World War II. However, Duke of York did play a pivotal role in reducing German naval power. On her shakedown cruise in December, 1941, she embarked Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill for a trip to confer with United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, arriving in Annapolis on 22 December 1941. In March, 1942, she escorted the Russia-bound convoy PQ-12 with the intention of intercepting the German battleship Tirpitz. On 6 March, Tirpitz did put to sea, but no contact was made.

In late December 1943, Duke of York was part of the Home Fleet, covering convoys between the UK and the Soviet Union. German surface vessels based in Norway were a constant threat to these convoys, and the German fleet in being forced the retention of powerful naval forces in British home waters.

One of those vessels was the battlecruiser Scharnhorst. During the passage of convoy JW55B, Scharnhorst left her base and steamed to engage. In the unfolding battle, Duke of York scored a vital hit in Scharnhorst's boiler room which prevented her escape and led to her destruction in the Battle of North Cape. After the sinking of Scharnhorst and the retreat of most of the other German heavy units from Norway, the need to maintain powerful forces in British home waters was diminished. After a modernization in Liverpool during 1944 which included the enhancement of her anti-aircraft armament, Duke of York headed east to join the British Pacific Fleet, then assembling to take part in the invasion of Okinawa. The ship performed a vital anti-aircraft protection role for the aircraft carriers of the fleet and also bombarded Japanese positions on several occasions. She was flagship of the British Pacific Fleet when Japan surrendered.

Following the end of the war, Duke of York remained in service until April 1949. Battleships were now, whilst not completely obsolete, certainly rapidly approaching obsolesence. They were also money- and crew-intensive units, two things that Britain of the postwar era could not afford. The ship was scrapped in 1957 at Faslane.

A distinguishing feature of the Duke of York was the extended fire control platform located on the after funnel. On this ship it extended out over the boat deck (after the refit during which the aircraft equipment was deleted from the ship's configuration).

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Anson


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HMS Anson was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy, named after Admiral George Anson.

Built at the Swan Hunter shipyard in Wallsend and launched in 1940, the ship was originally to be named Jellicoe, after the Grand Fleet commander at the Battle of Jutland, but she was renamed Anson in February 1940.

Anson saw service in the Second World War, but was the only ship of her class not to fire her guns in anger at the enemy. She was scrapped along with the other three survivors of her class in 1957.

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Howe



HMS Howe was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy, named after Admiral Richard Howe.

Built at the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd. shipyard in Govan and launched in 1940, the ship was originally to be named Beatty after the commander of the British battlecruisers at Jutland, but she was renamed Howe in February 1940.

Howe was part of the Home Fleet in 1942 and early 1943, then joined Force H in the Mediterranean. She was refitted between October 1943 and June 1944 then joined the British Pacific Fleet. After the war she was used as a training ship.

Howe was broken up along with the other three ships of her class which survived the Second World War in 1957.

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