History of the Royal Navy 1914 to 1970

at the end of the 20th century the one Navy's role is defense the defense of the United Kingdom the allies and her interests abroad to fulfill the varied jobs brought about in this role the Royal Navy has 131 ships forty-five thousand five hundred men and women and two hundred and fifty six aircraft costing was 3.7 billion pounds each year in 1900 the world Navy's role is to defend the Empire an empire that stretches across the globe across the Atlantic is cannibal on the other side of the world is Australia and New Zealand and in between there are numerous territories in Africa and the Far East to defend these countries Britain as the largest and most powerful Navy in the world the steelworks of Britain are turning out ships faster than ever before and by 1900 the wild Navy has 36 battleships more than all her potential enemies put together on the horizon is a new class of battleship one that will make all others opposite the dread-nots and it's six sister ships were launched between 1906 and 1910 costing more than 1.8 million pounds each they have a revolution of steam to this means they're lighter than the conventional battleships which allows more than twice the armor for the first time ten massive 12-inch guns can be fired in one browser over the next few years the guns get even bigger the queen elizabeth-class has eight 15-inch guns this means that they can fire shells weighing almost 2,000 pounds over 13 miles they're also fast at 25 knots the speed brought about by switching from coal to oil fire boils in 1914 Britain goes to war against German the first British victory of the sea war is fought in the South Atlantic on the 8th of December 1914 Vice Admiral Sir Dufton sturdy uses the superior speed and armament of his battle cruisers the destroyer German force commanded by Admiral von Schmidt the Battle of the Falkland Islands revenge's the defeat a month earlier the British force of the Chilean coast at curry on the fleet's return to port king george v congratulate sturdy Elizabeth his presence on board ship shows the importance of the victory and the lessons learned from sturdy had concentrated his force to take advantage of his superior firepower there are now no German forces of any significance left at sea to attack merchant ship unfortunately the lessons are not put into practice during the largest fleet action of the war by 1960 the British Grand Fleet is trained to perfection but without an enemy in sight however the German commander in chief Admiral Scheer decides on a plan to lure the grand fleet from its base in Scapa Flow using an attack on merchant shipping as a decoy he hopes to find the fleet without destroy a protection and decimate it near the German coast Britain has already found the ability to intercept and decode German naval messages and so the grand fleet sails on the 30th of May 1960 first the two battlecruiser fleets engage the British under the command of Admiral Sir David Beaty find themselves outgunned and lose two ships Beetee however continues to pursue until the German high seas fleet is sighted he then turns the lure the enemy into the waiting guns of British battleships under the command of Admiral JAL Jellico deploys his ships brilliantly and the German field finds itself at a tactical and numerical disadvantage the German fleet reverses course and achieves a temporary escape however Scheer only blunders into the devastating fire of the grand fleet again as night falls the German fleet battles its way through the screen of light British forces between them and their home bases and slips home there is no doubt that otherwise there would have been an overwhelming defeat for the high seas fleet the next day two hundred and fifty ships fight the only major surface action of the war the British lose more ships 14 compared to the Germans 11 but strategically it is a British victory Jericho believes that he cannot win the war by defeating the German fleet but he can lose the war if he did not preserve his own his cautious manner leads to his replacement the following year by Admiral Beatty Beatty however continues with the cautious policy the grand fleet continues to blockade Germany for the rest of the war meanwhile shears failure at Jutland leads him to pursue the other half of his offensive policy war under the sea using both guns and torpedoes u-boats sink more than 11 million tons of Allied shipping in the winter of 1916 17 Britain is close to defeat at sea however the instigation of the convoy system in April 1917 is very successful essential supplies begin to flow again u-boat losses saw and with the introduction of new anti-submarine technology Britain supply route is secure you the streets between Dover and the French coast are vital to Britain across these few miles go all the supplies for the British Army despite German forces holding the Belgian Coast for most of the four years of the first world war their Navy singularly fails to interrupt the flow on occasions they do try taking on the Destroyers of the Dover Patrol in one of these attacks the German destroyers are soundly beaten by the crews of HMS Swift and HMS broker it is one of the few naval actions of the twentieth century in which ramming and hand-to-hand fighting take place as well as protecting the supply route the Royal Navy also takes the fight to the enemy on the Belgian coast they build up a force of bombardment ships specially designed for this task they're called monitors the monitors fight out their own private war against German shore batteries with the German fleet effectively neutralized and the u-boat Menace countered by the use of convoy the Royal Navy then plays its part in reducing supplies to Germany this virtual blockade of German ports helps to hasten the end of the war the first world war at sea ends in stalemate Jutland proves to be the final action in history where two magnificent fleets of battleships meet on the high seas dreadnought and its sister ships had been a new breed but a breed that was to last for just a few short years for the day of the battleship is effectively you in 1921 of the east coast of the United States one event finally seals the long-term fate of the bearish general Billy Mitchell an exponent of airpower bombs and sinks a captured German ship the Austrian the supremacy of the battleship is over it is still a time away but the new capital ship for the world's navies is the aircraft carrier tried and tested during the first war the aircraft carrier gained strength during the 1920s and 30s initially they are little more than Colliers or ferries converted to seaplane carrots they cannot even launch an aircraft merely winching one over the side where it taxes and flies away however the theory develops and the flat top the people it's own runway soon appears the Navy had been the first of the British Armed Services to embrace the aircraft before the work now it is taking the lead in this new way of warfare for most of the 20 years between the wars the Royal Navy has little control over its own aviation a struggle between the Navy and the newly formed Royal Air Force is bitter with Sir David now Earl Beatty arguing with the arya they seem to be getting somewhere in 1924 when the Fleet Air Arm of the RAF is formed it has agreed that so-called fleet flights normally controlled by the RAF will be given over to the Navy when they're flown from aircraft carriers the struggle finally ends in 1937 with the Fleet Air Arm returning to the control of the Navy the hair craft carrier creates a new kind of water aircraft can now be carried as part of the fleet they can be used for heat protection and so purpose-built naval fighters are built they can also be used as part of a strike force against both sea and land targets and so carrier-borne bombers are ordered naval aviation brings forward specialist naval aircraft manufacturers among them is Blackburn aircraft based in brough near hub they build a number of torpedo bombers starting with the duck in 1923 its top speed is only a hundred and several miles per hour but its landing speed of just 38 miles per hour makes it a natural choice for aircraft carrier use the dart is followed by the ripple which sets the standard for British torpedo bombers until the arrival of the first of the mono planes in 1939 the Bristol bow by 1939 the carrier is an essential part of the world naval warfare is changing from ship versus ship conflict to aircraft versus ship with devastating effect Germany never embraces the carrier concentrations to fruition in the late 1930s naval aviation is not a priority he is however a confirmed believer in CPAP the anglo-german naval treaty of 1935 allows Germany to build a fleet up to 35% of the size of the Royal Navy this is based on OB t's belief that Germany is one country in the world we have nothing to fear in the way of an arms race the next few years the sight of German battleships and battle cruisers on the high seas will show how misguided these comments are the Royal Navy herself had seen severe cutbacks after the first world war but in 1936 as Hitler widens his sphere of influence in Europe more orders are placed for warships of every science at the outbreak of war the Royal Navy is once again the largest Navy in the world there are 12 battleships with nine more under construction three battle cruisers and numerous cruises destroyers and specialist chips but the reconstruction program to bring new types into services only just beginning it remains to be seen whether they can meet the threat of a rearming German Greeks marina the schleswig-holstein had been built in 1906 at the Germania yards as one of five Deutschland class ships of the line she fought at Jutland in 1916 before becoming flagship to the German field but on the first of September 1939 she fires the first shots in Hitler's campaign to invade by bombarding dancing she ignites a flame that will burn for almost six legs Germany's conquest of Poland is Swift the Polish Air Force is destroyed on the ground in two days as modern bombers wreak havoc on Polish airfields a week later the German blitzkrieg reaches the outskirts of the Polish capital although Warsaw itself holds out until the 27th of September effectively at the campaign is it a nation of 33 million people is crushed almost before the world the first attacks on German shipping in their northern German ports ik added out by Bomber Command however the wrong fuses mean that even when bombs do hit they normally bounce off before exploding it is to be left to the Navy to score the first big hit the German pocket battleship the Graf Spee is cornered in Montevideo harbour in neutral Uruguay it has been the most successful of the surface Raiders sent out from German ports soon after the outbreak of war sinking nine ships in barely two months in the Indian Ocean British ships are sent to hunt her down the Grouch Bay has slipped back into the Atlantic three cruisers under the command of Commodore Henry Howard assemble off the mouth of the River Plate assuming that grouch Bay will aim for ships plying the trading routes south of Brazil on the 12th of December they bring graphs bata battle heavily outgun the British cruisers nevertheless inflict damage on the German ship which turns away and drops anchor in Montevideo hub knowing that graph space still constitutes a major threat the British ply the radio stations with misinformation about the strength of non-existent British forces in the area this precious graph space captain Hantz Langsdorff into cabling berlin for advice the alternatives are to fight their way out to Argentina where the government is sympathetic or face internment Hitler's reply recommends neither and so on the 18th of December in front of watching crowds and the world's press brav space slips out of harbour and transfers her crew to a waiting German steam within minutes the night sky is lit up by flames as her magazines are blown up with thunderous explosions two days after the scuttling of his ship captain Langsdorf commits suicide since the situation with Poland Europe has enjoyed an analytic peace but in April 1940 the focus switches to normal Germany has been receiving supplies of Swedish iron ore through Norwegian ports to avoid the British blockade of Germany to counter this the Royal Navy begins mining their coastal waters to protect his supply lines Hitler orders the occupation of Norway by the 9th of April German forces of land and are occupying the capital Oslo and the main ports of Trondheim Narvik and Berg and this is despite the presence of the Royal Navy's home fleet consisting of 30 ships which fight a number of small engagements that never bring the main German force to battle at sea the British fight back well in to operations at Narvik the 10th of April the destroyer flotilla enters the fjord and sinks three German destroyers and a number of merchant ships three days later the battleship Warspite and nine destroyers go back to deal with the remaining German ships the last eight German destroyers and a single u-boat a sunk leaving the Royal Navy in command of the fjord and the northern waters off normal with German forces neutralized the belated British landings take place however the few brigades of mainly territorials with no effective air cover for all that is available to take on seven German divisions two of the landings at NAMM sauce and and Alcinous but evacuated within three weeks only at Narvik does a mixed force of British French and polish troops succeed taking the town on the 28th but even this success is marred by events to the south the struggle for Norway is abandoned last allied troops are evacuated between the 4th and 9th of June the Norwegian campaign teaches the British forces many lessons combined operations with the Navy and Army work together need special training but above all is the need for specialized landing craft these lessons are well learned for the many amphibious landings that will take place later in the events to the south are the long-awaited German offense on the 10th of May the blitzkrieg is launched against Holland Belgium and France belief in the Maginot Line on their northern border that led the French to think they were impregnable the elaborate defenses had cost 160 thousand million pounds but incredibly it only covered part of the board on the 26th of May the order goes out to the Navy begin operation diamond the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk considered by some as a miracle the evacuation is in fact a carefully planned operation it calls upon the ingenuity of not just the Royal in merchant Maeby's but also the owners of hundreds of small craft many of which are only suitable for river cruising within 24 hours 7,000 men are lifted from Dunkirk the further 40,000 by the 29th of May by the end of the operation on the 4th of June a staggering three hundred and thirty-eight thousand men are risk three-quarters of the BEF together with many French troops but virtually all of their equipment is left behind you the whole operation is carried out under intense air attack Stu Kurzweil and dive overhead and men who still have rifles take potshots at nine destroyers are sunk together with many of the small craft but constant patrols over the beaches and ships by Spitfires and hurricanes of the RAF mean that losses are kept to a minimum 132 German aircraft is shot down the Navy had turned the tactical defeat into a strategic victory the equipment will be replaced and civilian morale is intact when the last British troops have left France Hitler concentrates the efforts of his forces on subduing the French army on the 10th of June German forces cross the River Seine this act alone removes the French will to resist fearful of what might happen to their capital the French government leaves Paris declaring it an open City just two days later German troops marched down the shores alizée the French capital now belongs to Germany france's President Paul Reynaud resides and his successor Marshall Peter wastes no time in asking Hitler for an armistice in a show intended to humiliate the French the surrender is accepted at a meeting at ritand in the forest of compiègne on the 22nd of June the scene is a railway carriage the same one that saw the surrender of the German forces to Marshall for at the end of the First World War with the collapse of France Germany now controls the channel coastline and all its ports the Luftwaffe is also able to move forward to landing fields from which it can launch an attack against Britain the opening phase of the ensuing battle is attacks against convoys in the English Channel designed to clear the sea lanes for Hitler's proposed invasion by August the 11th 1940 but his ships have stopped using a channel in daylight and the Royal Navy has withdrawn from Dover to Portsmouth round 1 to German but the Luftwaffe has not succeeded in wearing down RAF Fighter Command the Battle of Britain is a decisive British victory the invasion is postponed and Britain is safe from German while the Battle of Britain is in progress Italy declares war claiming the Mediterranean for herself the Royal Navy is hard-pressed to find ships to cover this vast tract of sea and the bulk of responsibility lies with the Mediterranean food placed at Gibraltar it is commanded by one of the most brilliant minds in the Royal Navy Vice Admiral Andrew Campbell and possibly Cunningham's great estate of ours is a night attack on the attack Anto Hobbit on the 11th of November in the world's first ever carrier strike against a fleet in a defended base Cunningham's aircraft destroy or severely damaged elements of the Italian fleet this action goes a long way to restore the balance of sea power in the Mediterranean chief Destroyer is the ferry swordfish the swordfish had entered service with the Fleet Air Arm in 1936 at the start of the war it was already obsolete but it was the only torpedo bomber available to equip every aircraft carrier in the Royal Navy the swordfish has a top speed of only 139 miles per hour and at low level during attacks even this speed cannot be achieved to an extent this is to her benefit flying low and slow many ships find that their armament is unable to depress far enough and the bullets fly harmlessly over the aircraft however when faced by enemy fighters it is a different story the swordfish is illustrious career continues to the end of the war by which time almost 2400 of building Egypt holds the key to the Suez Canal and the Middle Eastern oil fields but Egypt is at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea this means of the lifeline between the British port of Gibraltar besieged island of Malta and Alexandria in Egypt is the longest in history convoys supplying the British forces in Egypt have to run the gauntlet of both new boats and land-based enemy air therefore they have to be well protected by Royal Navy ships one such fundable is codenamed medicine between the 10th and the 15th of august 1942 14 cargo transports are escorted by 32 Royal Navy ships to Malta incessant attacks sink 9 of the merchantman as well as a carrier and two cruises just five of the original merchant convoy reach Mulder among them is the tanker Ohio full of fuel to keep the islands fighters fly Malta could fight on the only way that supplies can be stopped from reaching the Axis forces in North Africa is by the British submarines based at Malton Britain's own u-boats are 6 submarines called urghhh unbeaten unique Ursula upright and upholding they inflict heavy losses on German and Italian convoys by October 1942 the Mediterranean is CP we supplied Montgomery's ap army attacks at El Alamein and pushes Rommels Afrika call out of Egypt harried all the way down along post world the Axis forces finally abandoned North Africa in May 1943 on the morning of the 24th of May in 1941 the British wake to hear terrible news the pride of the Royal Navy and the largest ship in the British fleet HMS hood has been sunk by a broadside from Bismarck the battleship Prince of Wales is also badly damaged the Bismarck is a huge parish that have been commissioned as recently as 1940 with its 815 inch guns multitude of smaller armament and the top speed of 30 knots it is considered by the Germans to be virtually unsinkable it is also considered enemy number one by the Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Admiral Sir John toke commander-in-chief of the home after the sinking of the Hood Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz eigem survived an attack from swordfish off HMS victorious and shake off the British ship shadowing for two days RAF reconnaissance aircraft from RAF Coastal Command try to find her which route will the bismuth take the sea battle had taken place in the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland this gives a vast array of possible routes for Bismarck to enter the North Atlantic and attack merchant shipping British cruisers use their radar to try to find her but to no avail finally a message from Admiral Luo Tian's onboard Bismarck is intercepted the Catalina of coastal command knowing where to search spots Bismarck through a break in the clouds and signals its bearings back to the British field the Admiralty had been so concerned at the thought of Bismarck free to attack merchant shipping the Bayard ordered force H to leave its base at Gibraltar and enter the South Atlantic with bismarck steaming towards the Bay of Biscay the swordfish of HMS Ark Royal find themselves in range for an Astra on the afternoon of May the 26th swordfish are launched from the pitching deck of the carrier expecting just one ship in the area they attack believing their target is bhisma luckily no torpedoes hit as they are actually attacking the British Cruiser is Shafie rapidly another strike is launched courageously flying through a fierce hail of gunfire the swordfish drop their torpedoes this time on the correct time two hits are registered including one on the stern which completely wrecks and steering Bismark is homeless as the British fleet booms it the flagship from Georgia v batters Bismarck with fire from her 16-inch guards so many shells are fired that the deckplates on king george v buckled to the hatch of the recoil of the guards finally Bismarck is nothing but a blazing the coup de Gras is delivered by the destroyer door searcher which sinks Bismarck with three torpedoes the sinking of the bhisma is a great victory for the Royal Navy ships that had taken part in the action a proud to add the name of Bismarck to their will rebel however it is not forgotten that Bismarck was only one of the many powerful surface raiders available to the German Navy two of the finest are Scharnhorst and Gneisenau both ships have been out into the Atlantic earlier in the war but in 1942 they're holed up in Brest on the French coast despite the presence of the Luftwaffe it proves impossible to protect the port against ever stronger RAF attacks it is decided to bring the ships home to German normally the unsafe passage would be via the long route this would take the ship swell west out into the Atlantic round Britain and Ireland and back to Germany this time they follow Hitler's personal advice the best thing to do he said is to steam up the channel completely unexpected at 11 o'clock on the evening of the 11th of February 1942 with an air raid in progress and smoke shrouding the port the great ships slip quietly out of Brest in the lead is shallowest with Vice Admiral Otto silly axe commander of the group on board it is followed by Nisan al and finally Prince Ivan the heavy cruiser that had survived the Bismarck operation throughout the morning they steam without trouble by good planning they have caught the British completely by surprise by good luck the British radar reconnaissance network has broken down it is not until midday that the feet is spotted by two Spitfires on patrol even then it's a further 90 minutes before any attack begins first it is the Shogun's of Dover firing at the limit of their range and scoring no success then it is six Fairey swordfish attacking with torpedoes all six of these ancient aircraft are shot down by the heavy fire put up by the German ships even when Scharnhorst hits a mine it barely interrupts her passage for more than thirty minutes soon the ships will be at their home port of vilhelm south there they will join the German home fleet and become a new menace to the convoy rounding the North Cape as Grand Admiral Raider inspects the ship and its crew he is not to know that the day of the German surface Raider is virtually over now at the Battle of North Cape on Boxing Day 1943 Scharnhorst is sunk by the big guns of HMS Duke of York and a flotilla of destroyers and cruisers this leaves one mighty battleship to do the enormous sistership of Bismarck the Turbots disabled on a number of occasions by [ __ ] submarines and carrier-based aircraft it is left to the heavy bombers to finish off completely 4 a.m. Sunday 12th November RAF Lancaster's take off on a 1,200 mile flight to Norway 29 of the 4 motored crafts head for Tromso fjord where the turbines last of Germany's big battleships had alluded to recent attacks the first on 15th September was unsuccessful owing to an amazing smoke screen created by thousands of smoke pots these pictures taken from a reconnaissance plane of 13,000 feet show how effectively the Tirpitz was concealed no hits were scored by the RAF on this run in these British films the Tirpitz is seen fired here 15 inch guns as the second attack was attempted on 29th October again the smokescreen this time combined with bad weather made bullseye bombing a hazardous venture however the RAF managed to score one hit with a twelve thousand pounder as long as the Tirpitz remained afloat she was a potential threat to the Russian convoy route tying up strong forces of British war

Channel: James Lyon

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Length: 52min 41sec (3161 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 16 2016