The Battleships - The Darkness Of The Future

in the cold brooding waters of the North Sea more than 8,000 British and German sailors share a common grave they met their fate in May 1916 at the height of the First World War off the east coast of Danish Jutland the two largest battle fleets on earth confronted each other for the first time for little more than an hour the fate of the world hung on ships guns and nerves of steel up against a British fleet twice its size the German ships faced certain destruction but as night fell their commander Admiral Scheer made a brilliant escape but battles end 14 British and 10 German warships lay at the bottom of the sea both sides claim victory but the Battle of Jutland had failed to bring a promised end to the war and had shaken both countries confidence in the battleship as the supreme arbiter of naval light following the Battle of Jutland Britain remained in control of the sea lanes but questions immediately arose as to why her all-powerful battleships had not delivered a decisive blow to the German high seas fleet when a sense Jutland is an extremely good snapshot of the strengths and weaknesses of the battleship guns that can fire out to the horizon being directed by the mark one eyeball with some optical assistance but no radar ships being controlled by flag signal as Nelson had done so it's hardly surprising that it's very very difficult for commanders to maintain control it's relatively easy for fleets to get away it is difficult to to utilize this raw military strength of the battleship to bring about decisive results of the tactical and operational level very very difficult because the sensor and communications technology is not up to the job Germany's leaders on the other hand applauded their battlefleet for achieving a tactical victory against a fleet twice its size but the Kaiser and his naval commander Admiral Scheer agreed the risks of another battle were too high moreover further fleet action against the British offered little hope of forcing them to the peace table the scare of Jutland the amazing tactical victory there the German leadership realized the role that Luck and an amazing skill played in that and that the British were can let that happen a second time everybody knew that even when the ships which had come back would be repaired and would be ready for war again it would be unwise to risk such a battle again and this was what cher recommended to the Emperor only four weeks after Jutland following the Battle of Jutland the German High Command abandoned the battleship for a weapon proving far more successful in the war at sea the u-boat by January 1917 more than 2,000 British merchant ships had been sunk and Britain was facing the possibility of being starved into submission months later Germany started an unrestricted u-boat campaign all vessels would be sunk without warning even ships of neutral nations it was these indiscriminate attacks especially on American merchant ships which brought about a major turning point in the conflict on April 4th 1917 the United States government declared war on Germany within a month the first American troops embarked for Europe to make an all-out assault on the kaisers armies the major challenge was to ensure their safety across the u-boat infested waters of the North Atlantic the new allies Britain and America agreed to supply naval ships to protect convoys of truthers and merchant ships for the first time in the war the scale of sinkings by u-boats declined dramatically the main thing is we take American troops to Europe and we come with old American battleships cruisers destroyers are used for convoy escorts and a very large army is moved into Europe that army proves quite decisive five US battleships were also seconded to the British Grand Fleet USS Texas arrived in British waters in early 1918 armed with ten 14-inch guns she was one of America's first super dreadnaughts with a crew of over a thousand men Texas was a floating city boasting one of the finest hospitals on the high seas we were only allowed four hours a short time we're always under four hours any orders how they always hoped or expected that the German fleet would come out and we went out quite frequently I mean I'd say we're on maybe two or three times a month they get some rumor that there's some activity out there in the North Sea and we'd take off right there try to run them down throughout 1918 the Allied blockade of Germany tightened starving the nation of food and munitions but for those American seamen expecting enemy action there was disappointment the German Navy remained a virtual prisoner of fear rarely leaving port and allowing Britain and her allies to control the Seas in the final year of the war the only loss of a major warship was the spent is fan belonging to Germany's closest ally Austria as the vessel slid into the Adriatic Sea 89 sailors perished including the captain the destruction of a modern dreadnought by an inexpensive torpedo boat sent shockwaves through the world's major navies the throughout 1918 the scale and horror of land battles on the western front eclipsed in importance naval matters for both sides by mid-october Germany was negotiating with American President Wilson for a way out of the war then in late October 1918 British naval intelligence intercepted a German message that electrified the Admiralty with the war all but lost German naval staff had defiantly hatched a dramatic plan for one last sortie by their high seas fleet there is mounting frustration among the ship commanders at killing Wilhelmshaven when they feel if only all the future holds for them is to sit in a fleet inactive which will possibly be captured or even destroyed as the peers at war's end rather than surrender their ships the officers decided to challenge the British Grand Fleet in one final battle the desperate plan was to be kept secret from the Kaiser but rumors quickly spread amongst the ratings when the word gets out among the crews that the so-called death sortie is being contemplated and indeed approval is given by the high command to begin preparations there are a series of mutinies in one of the largest mutinous in history the German high seas fleet stood paralyzed at anchor but this time on the order of the common sailor not their supreme warlord and these times the newspapers are full of reports that the German side wanted to have a cease firing and the sailors and Stoker's they knew this development Admiral Scheer did his utmost to convince the men to fight an honorable battle by the fleet he said even if it is a fight to the death will sow the seed of a new German fleet of the future five times the order to put to sea was given and five times it was ignored the German sailors had resolved to bring the war to an end on the 9th of November the Kaiser was told that his navy could no longer be counted loyal it was the final straw the following morning with his nation on the verge of revolution and under pressure from the American president the Kaiser sought exile in Holland 24 hours later the war to end all wars came to an end the 21st of November 1918 was the most poignant moment for the Royal Navy since Nelson's victory at Trafalgar along with two squadrons of American and French battleships the entire British Grand Fleet set sail in full fighting order into the North Sea their mission to intercept the German high seas fleet from their bases at Kiel and Ville hems Harvin 91 warships of the kaisers beloved Navy set sail for the last time this was of course something which had deep impact on the psychology of the naval officer corps because for them instead of the day of victory this was a day of shame at 8:00 a.m. the German fleet appeared out of the haze as they that I remember standing on deck and seeing all these ships come in in line I don't have any the world there was quite a few of them though I could see that they were in a pretty rundown condition and and I don't think they've been maintained and it was a kind of a sad thing to see all these immense big ships come in there it was an overcast dull day and what we what show he says of a funeral day and it was a funeral the German Navy sandwiched between two columns of allied warships the pride of German engineering & seamanship was escorted back to British waters and the victory is rubbed it it did demonstrate the fact that the grand fleet had been able to keep command of the Seas of the world outside the North Sea it had been incapable of destroying the high sea fleet but it had been fully capable of neutralizing it and this ceremony symbolizes that over the coming months at Versailles the victors decided on their punishment for Germany and her allies the peace treaty stripped Germany of land and severely restricted the size of both its Army and Navy the Germans were for instance forbidden to have an Air Force they were to have no more submarines their fleet was restricted to pre-modern pre-dreadnought which in a case of war were useless as everybody knew at that time as talks continued at Versailles the German high seas fleet lay imprisoned in Scapa Flow awaiting its fate but the German officers feared their ships would be handed over to Britain and her allies they set into play a daring plan unprecedented in history the most midsummer 21st of July I was 10 year old and 300 children were invited down to visit the fleet both the British fleet and the German fleet were lying and scour flow and we went on with zeal in the pathway between the ships so they were very good view of the ships we had been warned by the teachers that were heading to make any noise or Chea and on our way down we got a message from another ship which said that the British fleet had gone out that morning for exercise and uh they were not returning until their goddess amazing news which of course was that the chairman fleet was sinking just after midday the German crews scuttled their ships the student of the vows they went over they dived the Sun love arose on the water I myself saw 12 capital ships gödel I'll never forget the sight of it 52 ships went to the bottom that day German honor salvaged by the greatest act of self-destruction in maritime history but to Admiral von Tirpitz the architect of the fleet the scuttling couldn't salvage Germany's dream of a global Empire the German people do not understand the sea he wrote in the hour of our destiny we did not use our fleet whether our grandsons will be able to take up the task again lies hidden in the darkness of the future after four long years war weariness was slowly replaced by unbridled optimism and zest for life for the British Royal Navy now was the time to take stock and plan for the future but with the German fleet lying at the bottom of Scarpa flow the British Parliament told Admiralty that the Royal Navy was too large for peacetime more than a hundred outmoded warships including the once revolutionary dreadnought was sold for scrap the United States however embarked on a different course now the world's leading industrial nation she deliberately set out to displace Britain as the dominant naval power by 1921 American yards were constructing six enormous battle cruisers and 12 of the largest and most powerful battleships ever designed once completed they would out class all existing capital ships and threaten the balance of global power in the Far East Japan watched America's naval buildup with unease during the first world war Japan had aligned itself with Britain and America against Germany but after the war Japan saw the United States is the main obstacle to her growing power in the asia-pacific region Japan is obviously the single most powerful naval nation in the West Pacific in East Asia the other Great Pacific power of course the United States it is not unnatural therefore that the two navies begin looking at each other even though their interests the interests of the two nations are not grossly antithetical nevertheless the two naval establishments begin to see in a very hypothetical sense yeah that fell over there they give us problems in the future for its origins and traditions the Japanese Imperial Navy had looked to Britain her naval officers were sent to Britain for training and British shipyards supplied Japan with a majority of her battleships but now Japan was determined to stake its claim in Asia and secure it with its own homegrown battle fleet and we see the the laying down of a series of Japanese capital ships which at the time that they were launched were simply the more powerful more heavily armed than anything else afloat America's naval buildup was also viewed with suspicion in Britain after the first world war the main enemy for war planning becomes America there is a committee that looks into the future of the battleship in Britain and all the scenario planning is done with America as the enemy reads a little strangely now the assumption was that our trade caused Wars and it would be a big competition for world trade the United States was the greatest economic power in the world the British would obviously resist us and so there might be some explosion except that those who would write these things never quite explained how this explosion would ever happen by the early 1920s Britain was embroiled in a new and expensive arms race when she could neither afford not afford to lose the Magnificent HMS hood completed in 1920 reassured Britain's the Royal Navy could rally to the challenge with her eight 15-inch guns and an extraordinary maximum speed of 31 knots hood blended the firepower of a battleship with the speed of a battle cruiser but hood was designed in 1915 a year before the Battle of Jutland America's new ships however were designed after Jacqueline and reflected the hard-won lessons of that battle ships of greater firepower of greater protection than any existing British warship so the plans of the American Navy would lead to a battle fleet vastly superior to the British if the British didn't rebuild their battle fleet with America building superior ships British Admiralty called for even larger heavily armoured and faster vessels mounting super guns of up to 18 inches with the triumphant allies of the great war appeared totally blind to their folly battleships were the most expensive weapons on earth yet in the entire four years of hostilities there had confronted each other in only one battle and for little more than a single hour now they were the focus of a new arms race the contest that could bankrupt nations and spark a new global catastrophe suddenly in 1921 American politicians had second thoughts US Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes called for a conference to be held in Washington and attended by the five major naval powers its primary focus arms limitation of the battleship here we see battleships as symbols because if you're going to disarm or limit armaments what better way to make that case than to get rid of battleships or not to build new ones and basically what happens at this conference is that the Americans say look none of us want an able race do we really let's agree to cut back our programs to a point where we and the British have parity and where the Japanese have 3/5 of the individual strength of Britain and America to protect their own sphere in the Pacific the magic 5 5 3 ratio the Washington conference was unprecedented both in its aims and results the major naval powers agreed to a dramatic reduction in the quantity firepower and size of their capital ships the American Navy would destroy for existing dreadnaughts and 17 under construction the Royal Navy would scrap 22 existing dreadnaughts and for partly built battle cruisers but the most surprising outcome was Japan's agreement to limit its fleet to 60% the tonnage of both the US and British battle fleets even though hardliners in the Imperial Navy believed the treaty and affront to Japan's ambitions too low a blatant y'know by Iran take a mocha curse on you knew an percent riska REO tsuitachi on toes Empress scooter moko cuca bankruptcy sona Equis determine our internal candy in the back civilian culture commercially which they are hinto ji call not an orchestra even small navies were victims of the agreement the flagship of the fledgling Australian Navy the battle cruiser Australia was considered a British ship in April 1924 she was scuttled of Sydney heads but in the end it was Britain which lost on the deal with the stroke of a pen she surrendered her long-standing supremacy of the Seas but by sharing the balance of power with America she avoided an unrestricted arms race she could barely afford so therefore Washington caps this arms race an arms race which if it hadn't been capped could have had some quite serious effect it's often said as a criticism of Washington that Washington didn't prevent Pearl Harbor Washington didn't prevent World War two of course it didn't but it perhaps prevented the great Anglo Anglo American war of 1928 The Washington treaty was universally welcomed diplomacy had brought an end to the spiraling arms race and fostered a new sense of global security at least for the 10-year term of the agreement but in military circles debate continued over the strategic value of battleships in modern war in 1921 United States army aviator general Billy Mitchell made the controversial suggestion that the battleship was obsolete in future wars he said aircraft would prove the dominant weapon he called for the United States to create an Air Force separate from the Navy and army because they were too conservative and surface oriented to prove his point he challenged the Navy to a showdown between the bomber and the battleship in some circles he was viewed as brilliant and visionary in other circles he was viewed as an eccentric and a crackpot he arranged bombing tests by land-based aircraft and his idea was that fleets and armies were no longer relevant that strategic bombing could accomplish all that one wanted to in the way of warfare in his most controversial demonstration Mitchell's set out to destroy an old German dreadnought the Ospreys land after numerous unsuccessful bombing raids against the stationary target Mitchell defied his commanders and ordered his pilots to pound the battleship until it succumbed which proved that an old German battleship with no damage control stopped in the water with no anti-aircraft guns could be sunk by bombers to which the Navy could only say big deal it proved very little Billy Mitchell didn't get his independent Air Force instead he was caught marshaled four years later for insubordination but Mitchell had given the world's neighbors a glimpse of a technology that would continue to evolve while the battleships stagnated under the Washington treaty for the victors of the Great War the 1920s delivered peace and stability but for vanquished Germany it meant humiliation and bankruptcy the Treaty of Versailles had left the nation's political and economic life in disarray by the end of the decade the harsh war reparations and a worldwide economic crisis had plunged Germany into depression in Germany political and economical situation today is extremely difficult Digitalism not only of having lost of all form with a book are the outcome of the fact that Germany's former enemies are wedding layer evolved in humans when the German government complained it was too poor to pay its war debt American banks agreed to generous loans funds had channeled into rebuilding German industry and national pride but some of the loans were siphoned into a controversial series of warships the Deutschland Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer with the size of cruisers but built in battleship fashion and at 14,000 tons well over the 10,000 ton limit dictated by the peace treaty the British press sounded the alarm calling them pocket battleships their stated purpose was to serve as convoy protection in the event of war but even to a naive observer the fitting of the latest diesel engines capable of 26 knots and a stunning range of 20,000 miles required an ulterior motive armed with six 11 inch guns in two triple turrets these vessels were designed to destroy merchant shipping anywhere on the high seas even British Admiralty mitad they could be destroyed only by a handful of its most powerful capital ships these big German cruisers were called armored cruisers by the Germans or armored ships but everyone else is a pocket battleship it's like a little battleship because of the guns well how do you deal with this thing you can't deal with it with regular cruisers they don't have the guns or at least it doesn't seem that way you got to build a bigger one for Germany's neighbors that had suffered in the Great War the resurrection of its Navy was viewed with deep suspicion the French response was highly provocative they would build two new battleships even though they could barely afford to do so the 27,000 tonne Dunkirk and her sister ship Strasbourg were twice the tonnage and more than four knots faster than Germany's Papa battleships the 813 inch guns was spread across two turrets and offered superior firepower over their German rivals in 1934 Italy further increased tensions by building three powerful battleships once completed the Victoria Veneto class ships would be capable of 30 knots and be heavily armed with 915 inch guns but at over 41,000 tonnes these massive battleships flow in the face of the Washington treaty limit of 35,000 tons a dangerous new arms race had begun the naval powers decided that they would build these big expensive monsters because other people were building the big expensive monsters and the only thing you could be sure that really could kill you the other person's big expensive monster was a big expensive monster of your own but of all the major naval powers Japan was the wild card in the early 1930s her grievances with the West were plentiful and deep the United States and Britain were deliberately blocking Japanese trade to their markets and their colonies in Asia stood in the way of her ambitions for the region but it was bitterness over further naval limitations forced upon Japan at London in 1930 that finally pushed her to a breaking point it in effect brought down the Japanese government because the Japanese naval minister who was at London who agreed to sign the treaty was denounced by the Navy General Staff the the Japanese premier who had agreed who also put his imprimatur upon the treaty was later assassinated at Tokyo the Tokyo railway station and by a right-wing nationalist largely because he was seen as somebody who would betray Japanese national security in 1931 Japan became the only Washington treaty member to go to war after annexing Manchuria she prepared to assert her growing power over China and throughout the Far East big because of the love and use the patient of color by her military Ethan what been when the League of Nations condemned her aggression Japan walked out vowing never to return Japan finds herself all alone in London in 1935 at another round of naval talks Japan stunned the meeting head of the Imperial Navy Admiral Yamamoto proposed the complete abolition of the battleship the only weapon that could threaten Japan these ships he said alike elaborate religious Scrolls which old people hang up in their homes they are purely a matter of faith not reality the battleship he claimed was as useful in modern warfare as a samurai sword but Yamamoto's proposal was dismissed out of hand and Japan withdrew from the talks the treaties that had kept the world from war were falling apart the Japanese quite deliberately destroy the Washington treaty system to spurt ahead to maximize their naval strength by the end of the 1930s so that they can cash in that naval strength to carve out the Great East Asia co-prosperity sphere one analyst is call this the race to Pearl Harbor unknown to the world Japan was already planning a new and extraordinary series of battleships in 1937 Nagasaki and curiosity construction began on two vessels that would outrange an out gun any warship afloat the Japanese were completely committed to this policy of technological superiority they knew they couldn't out building numbers so they had to out build in quality and the result was the two biggest and most spectacular battleships in the history of navies Yamato and Musashi once completed Yamato and Musashi would be almost twice the tonnage of the largest British and American battleships they would be armed with nine 18 inch guns the most powerful ever placed aboard a capital ship they were deemed so sensitive details of their construction were kept secret even from the Japanese public yamato damashii daemon hua Shan Tsutsui is Seiko community-owned methodist with a genius in can National MS Candis Cayne e3 Yamato Sachi Janaki ste Tony no sand Enzo Oh No yo-yo no Tony no cha-ching they are nasty creo que dicen contoso no happy or TRADOC Akuma Nia Baroni sir Moretti Douglas name in the late 1930s there were some intelligence reports interestingly that came out of Italy but seemingly authentic that the Japanese were introducing some monster new type of battleship with larger guns than were allowed under the expiring international limitations on armor armament agreements so this gave some stimulus to the United States to put more capability into its own warships with the fracturing of the Washington treaty and a growing mistrust of Japan the United States committed itself to a huge capital ship construction program between 1937 and 1941 American shipbuilders would lay down ten fast battleships the 35,000 tonne North Carolina was the first commissioned 9 16-inch guns spread three apiece across three turrets would now be the standard armament for all American battleships with its powerful new battle fleet now under construction the United States sent Japan a clear message that it would out build her whatever the cost the Japanese who believe that their naval security demanded unfettered naval construction simply refused to come to grips with the fact that the Americans could ultimately out build them for Britain the new naval race was unwelcome her shipbuilding and weapons factories had suffered severe cutbacks due to the Washington treaty when the agreement terminated her crippled facilities were revived by an injection of political panic by 1937 a formidable shipbuilding program was in place with two of five king george v class battleships under construction at 37,000 tons they would be heavily armored with belts 15 inch thick but the rush to build them came at the cost of firepower the vessels were fitted with 10 14-inch guns the Admiralty unable to wait an extra year for the manufacture of 16-inch guns favoured by Japan and the United States but for britain time was the compelling factor everywhere she looked she saw potential enemies by the mid-1930s Europe was a boiling caldron of militarism in Germany Adolf Hitler led a new Nazi government he turned his back on the League of Nations and prepared his people to fashion the future with blood and iron soon after he came to power Hitler further strengthened his Navy regardless of Germany's obligations under the Treaty of Versailles Hitler's view basically is I don't care about trees I don't care about limitations I want the real thing Hitler is also very much entranced by the romance if you like of battleships they cost the earth but boy they're great symbols of national power so he starts building battleships in the late 1930s the new Reich Navy commissioned two formidable 32,000 tonne capital ships nice now and Shawn host they were armed with 9 11 inch guns but their ingenious design allowed for later replacement with 15 inch guns then in early 1939 Hitler presided over the launch of the two most powerful German capital ships ever built Bismarck and Tirpitz these the ships were named of the Bismarck interprets for political reasons because they demonstrated a German strength at more than 42,000 tons Tirpitz and bismarck would carry eight 15-inch guns and be the best protected warships yet designed with its stunning new capital ships Germany had reemerged in less than 20 years as a major naval power but Hitler had an even bolder vision for his Navy in 1938 he authorized the construction of a fleet of eight super battleships five battle cruisers and two aircraft carriers in spring 1938 Hitler said to the Navy well in a long term you must prepare for this war situation and I want to build up a fleet who is able to fight a next war against Great Britain plan Z as it was called was to be completed by 1944 a year Hitler had earmarked for war his most ambitious plan was for a battleship to end all battleships a 144,000 ton nameless giant more than twice the size of the Japanese Yamato and Musashi capable of 34 knots than carrying eight 20 inch guns this demonically inspired ship if built would extinguish all competition and take the battleship into a frightening new realm but Hitler startling vision for his navy would only be partly realized the events of his own making had intervened in late August 1939 an old German battleship schleswig-holstein sailed into the Polish harbor of Danzig on a so-called friendly visit it was to be a turning point in history six days later without warning the battleships guns opened up on polish fortifications these shots from an aged battleship signaled the start of the Second World War and the beginning of a naval conflict that would spread to all the world's oceans for the phoenix-like German Navy and the men responsible for its resurrection the darkness of the future had finally arrived you

Channel: Artas1984

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Keywords: the, battleships, documentary, battleship, The, Darkness, Of, Future

Id: otvrS-AYq80

Length: 52min 6sec (3126 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 17 2011