HMS Valiant - Rammed, Mined, Almost Sunk in Port
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- Some ships are unlucky in battle. Some have unfortunate mishaps in peacetime. HMS Valiant is a bit of an odd duck, in that her bad luck came almost entirely in port.
From being rammed by Warspite, to being mined by Italians. And another incident, in 1944, that ended her career. It's interesting to look at, considering the rest of her career was fairly lucky. Especially at Jutland.
In any event, we'll be looking at her story in today's video. An interesting one, even if it lacks the fame of Warspite or Barham.
Further Reading:
www.amazon.com/British-Battle...
www.amazon.com/British-Battle...
www.amazon.com/Struggle-Middl...
www.amazon.com/Jutland-Unfini...
www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chr...
When I was just a child I met a very old man who was a long time friend of my family (he was friend with my great uncles) this man name was Emilio Bianchi, a former navy officer and WW2 veteran, to be more precise he was a frogman, he was captured alongside his mate Luigi Durand de la Penne in Alexandria after they placed a mine under the Valiant.
He told me some cool stories but sadly passed away in 2015 when I was 10; I recently bought a book he made about his war experience that he had made in his last years
My father served abroad Valiant and I still have his memorabilia from the ship. 👍🏻🏴
Awesome. :)
So did mine.
He was at the battle of Mataram.
Valiant is quite underrated, nice to see a video on her.
The Queen Elizabeth class were all legendary. Malaya for example. She was the most damaged surviving battleship at Jutland (more than Warspite), starboard battery explosion and cordite fire (she had many burn victims including the world first facial reconstruction patient), underwater hits, rammed an unknown submarine or sinking ship that tore up her hull even more (at 1 June 0400 if you're checking the times), yelled at the C-in-C and Admiralty the whole way through the battle, disobeyed orders by turning to the north early and at an impossible speed (27 knots when their max is 23-24 knots), and went home without a fuss. Later, her mere presence in a convoy drove off Scharnhorst and Gneisenau even though she was unmodernised and very slow. Incidentally, the BBC also called Malaya the Grand Old Lady of the First World War.
On pennant numbers, Dreadnought was 01 (taken over by Malaya when Dreadnought was decommissioned), Valiant was 02 and Warspite was 03. Britain's first SSNs followed that numbering system with S101, S102, and S103 respectively, and the latest SSBNs have them in the same order, so I am sure that their pennant numbers will again follow suit.
Originally, Valiant was supposed to be named Oliver Cromwell.
I still grieve for poor scrapped Warspite. A travesty.
in fairness she made the scrappers work for it. they never did get all of her out of prussia cove
7:07 Britain had borne the financial and physical burden of two world wars. She had no money to preserve even the most famous ships - not a cheap exercise. I cannot blame the government for prioritising rebuilding and welfare. It is a pity she was scrapped, but there was no real choice.
Barham is pronounced differently- the first part of the name BAR is pronounced as in barracks- it is the name of a mansion near Maidstone in Kent. Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham, who took his title from Barham Court where he ultimately died is the inspiration for the battleship's name. I found out the correct pronunciation from hearing a Royal Navy admiral discussing the ship. Another great analysis. Thank you.
Even as a brit myself, to me that just sounds wrong lol. Admittedly I've only ever heard it pronounced like in the video so only going off imagination
@@hammer1349 The chances are the pronunciation will become the one we have all used as the older version will just disappear completely- not enough RN admirals around! The "witchcraft trial" is of course another interesting aspect to the sinking of HMS Barham- the medium Helen Duncan being one of the last people prosecuted under the 1735 Act.
Look at Renown’s wake 😍. Can see why Repulse was able to avoid so many torpedoes
Nice work Skynea, thanks for making a video on one of the less famous ships of the Queen Elizabeth class, also, if you like the topic of Italian special forces attacking surface warships of the Royal Navy, look up the sinking of the HMS York, which was crippled by Italian explosive motorboats in Suda Bay, on the Greek island of Crete, in March of 1941. The topic is not well known, other then the fact that York was the sistership of HMS Exeter, the same ship that crippled the Graf Spee in December 1939, and later sank in the Second Battle of the Java Sea in early 1942.
The only heavy cruiser the RN and Commonwealth navies would lose to the Germans or Italians. The other four were lost to the Japanese.
Interesting
I always wonder why there doesn't seem to be a single photo of the Trincomalee dry dock incident. Maybe british archives have some but they were never published
Very interesting,many thanks for posting.
Great job covering another of the Queen Elizabeth class battleships. In my humble opinion, they certainly justified the costs of their construction with exemplary service.
Thanks for this. I knew about the frogmen attack but not much else about Valiant.
Nice presentation. It seems that serious repairs were underway at the end of the war that would have restored her to being fully operational. This was said to include a much increased AA battery indicating that Pacific service (invasion of Japan) was perhaps intended. I have never found any hard and fast information on this and was hoping you would have so it remains one of life's mysteries I guess.
Re the transfers, as I understand it, the Royal Navy rotated the 5 R class and 5 Queen Elizabeth class between Home Fleet and Mediterranean on a regular basis. Not sure why but it surely provided a nice change of scenery for the crews
HMS Valiant WAS sunk in port. But later re-floated.
Try as I might in diligent searching I have NEVER found pictures of that floating drydock accident. I bet there are photos-but not declassified.
Big up's to Backward looking and his family, everyone how serves on a warship knows they are sailing into danger,much respect
Lovely review, thanks. Did any battleship ever use its torpedoes in battle?
HMS Rodney claimed a torpedo hit on Bismarck in the final battle. I don't think it was decisive since Bismarck had pretty much had it by then. They were 24.5 inch torpedoes with a 750 ish pound warhead - which would have hurt !
Rodney is the only BB to have an almost (like 99%) confirmed torpedo hit on Bismarck during that ship's final battle. The big issue is Dreadnought style BB's had massive main gun ranges, usually had to be used in a fleet since your opponent would likely be in a fleet themselves and if you were fighting enemies up close enough to use torpedoes either something had gone really right and the torpedoes were 'win more' (as in Rodney and KGV vs Bismarck... the critical hits the BB's got in were all done by 16" / 14" shells) or something had gone very wrong and the torpedoes were either KO'ed already or otherwise useless.
Barham exploding. Every battleship ever to sink.
Italian, German, Japanese...they somehow all look like Barham according to the "history" channel.
Don't forget the poor Szent Istvan.
The late Prince Phillip served on her as a searchlight operator.