The sinking of HMS Royal Oak

Yes it’s ironic that one of those “string bags” fucked it up.
I believe they torpedoed it’s rudder and slowed it down.

Swordfish torpedo bombers done the damage, damaged her steering gear which jammed her rudders into a turn, so she couldn't go anywhere. Bismarck was trying to head for Brest at the time, for repair to the damage caused at the battle of Denmark Strait.

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Balls of steel to fly one of those against one of the finest battleships ever built, especially as its top speed was only 139 mph
 


My mams family were all in the merchant navy, i was really pissed my off when I was younger and my mam told my their pay stopped the minute the ship sank, iirc the death rate was higher in the merchant navy, she also told me some people spit at them and called them cowards because they were in civies and were travelling home from a trip.

Some of the bravest men in the war. Have a read about the arctic convoys, especially PQ17. Jeremy Clarkson done a programme about it, it was on BBC iPlayer, but it been took off.
Met one of only 3 survivors from HMS Hood's sinking a few years ago. He was the only survivor left alive. Very humble bloke. Didn't have a clue what to say to him like. Ted Briggs was his name iirc.

Ted's on here. This is a good watch.

 
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Must have felt very exposed at sea. Recently been looking at the battle of Jutland in Ww1. 10, 0000 casualties , we lost 5 ships carrying over 900 each . You wouldn't even have seen the ship that was firing at you it was 15 miles away .
 
Greatest documentary ever made imo.

Just skipped a few episodes and decided to watch the battle of Stalingrad.


Superb, the best episode I've seen so far, about as good as you could make a documentary on the battle of Stalingrad with 54 minutes running time. Literally just went straight into the action immediately. 5 months, 1 week and 3 days that battle lasted, with nearly 2 million dead. :eek:

Honestly what amazes me as much as anything is the cameramen and journalists who went into all these places while the fighting was going on. Wild horses wouldn't drag to me to get into the middle of Stalingrad in late 1942 even if I was paid a million.

The whole battle was absolutely brutal, can't believe Hitler allowed his 6th army division to be completely surrounded so easily.
 
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Just skipped a few episodes and decided to watch the battle of Stalingrad.


Superb, the best episode I've seen so far, about as good as you could make a documentary on the battle of Stalingrad with 54 minutes running time. Literally just went straight into the action immediately. 5 months, 1 week and 3 days that battle lasted, with nearly 2 million dead. :eek:

Honestly what amazes me as much as anything is the cameramen and journalists who went into all these places while the fighting was going on. Wild horses wouldn't drag to me to get into the middle of Stalingrad in late 1942 even if I was paid a million.

The whole battle was absolutely brutal, can't believe Hitler allowed his 6th army division to be completely surrounded so easily.

The bit in the Operation Barbarossa episode where they explain how the Germans got lost in Russia as it was 1000 s of miles of flatness and the Russians removed any sign posts.
 
I wonder if there was much actual reporting of this tragedy at the time, I know the ministry didn't go over the top or even report a lot of the stuff widely due to the effect on morale and propaganda etc ?
I remember my grandad saying the country was shocked when the Hood went down, a real blow to morale.
 
Just skipped a few episodes and decided to watch the battle of Stalingrad.


Superb, the best episode I've seen so far, about as good as you could make a documentary on the battle of Stalingrad with 54 minutes running time. Literally just went straight into the action immediately. 5 months, 1 week and 3 days that battle lasted, with nearly 2 million dead. :eek:

Honestly what amazes me as much as anything is the cameramen and journalists who went into all these places while the fighting was going on. Wild horses wouldn't drag to me to get into the middle of Stalingrad in late 1942 even if I was paid a million.

The whole battle was absolutely brutal, can't believe Hitler allowed his 6th army division to be completely surrounded so easily.

HItlers arrogance and paranoia lost the Nazis the war - they ended up fighting the Russians in winter and there's only ever going to be one winner in that fight.
 
The Royal Oak was famous for her involvement in Jutland, which, weirdly was famous for the Germans irrational hatred of Sunderland - Sunderland being the target of a number of diversionary raids.
 
I'm a bit of WW2 novice and decided to read about the war in more detail for the first time that goes beyond basic school level knowledge.

I've reading about it chronologically so far. PBS America at 6:05pm starting in just over 10 minutes is The Sinking of the HMS Royal Oak, on October 14th 1939 by German U-47 at Scapa Flow.

835 people died, which is over half killed in the Titanic, horrific death toll for one ship. Apparantly its remains still lie at the bottom of the ocean and is left as a memorial.

Was this the first major attack on the British armed forces in the war by the Nazi's?

I watched this a few years ago and it just blew my mind.
 

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