The Heroic End of HMS Rawalpindi and HMS Jervis Bay

we all know the story of David and Goliath the Philistine giant was defeated in combat by the much smaller youth David the whole world loves an Underdog Story triumph over incredible odds and in the face of impossible adversity in history there have been many similar Tales hopelessly outnumbered or outclassed forces doing their best to Stave off their fate battles like rocks drift cap Yong the Battle of Britain Stalingrad and to Brook they're all seared into memory and the history books but at se there have been some incredible Tales of heroism too in the face of incredible odds that can Inspire us today to rise up in the face of adversity and do our best to make a difference these are the stories of ocean liners and passenger ships that tried to do the impossible to take on some of the fiercest fighting ships in the world to save their friends and comrades ladies and gentlemen I'm your friend Mike Brady from ocean liner designs these are the incredible true stories of the passenger ships that fought back [Music] November 1939 War has engulfed Europe but it's not yet a world war France Britain and their allies stand against Nazi Germany the month prior the final resistance in Poland surrendered and the country fell at Sea Britain's Mighty Navy found itself pitted against an impressive Foe for years Nazi Germany had been secretly rearming with the Creeks Marina Germany's Navy fudging tonnage and weapons numbers to get around limitations imposed by the ver sigh and Washington Naval treaties in the end Hitler gave up even trying to hide his objectives constructing and launching massive modern battleships like bismar and tail pits in 1939 and early 1940 Britain and their allies were losing dozens and dozens of ships the real secret to The Creeks Marina's success early on was its submarine Fleet OTS began to hunt and Destroy Allied Shipping by their dozens in fact those early months of the war would be fondly remembered by ubot Crews as the happy times countermeasures were few and underdeveloped submarines could hunt in groups called wolf packs and Destroy Allied convoys but the convoys were vital Britain was making a stand against Nazi Germany but it is a relatively small island not enormously rich in natural resources that were required to keep the war effort moving ahead the nation Rel on Imports for food resources and material from Far flung places like Canada Australia and the United States the issue was that the crucial ships and their goods were being sunk at an alarming rate the merchant ships and convoys needed escorts to protect them but there were only so many Cruisers and destroyers to go around many of those were now needed to defend France and even Britain itself from a possible German attack instead the British admiralty had to get creative and they looked to the civilian passenger line companies for the answer sitting at anchor remor in ports across Britain and the Commonwealth were ocean liners vast passenger ships designed to maintain regular passenger services in peace time with the outbreak of the war their services were stopped leaving them without a job the admiralty had different ideas for them the concept of the Armed Merchant Cruiser or AMC was a bit of a stop Gap one the admiralty could take an ocean liner outfit it with deck guns and then press it into Service as a basic kind of escort ship for convoys it actually had some the ships were mostly already crewed by Royal Navy Reserve officers and crew with relevant training and skills but ocean liners had been designed to be fast in order to stay competitive on their respective routes so in a pinch they should be able to outrun most danger but more importantly at that dire hour they were plentiful the British Merchant Navy is one of the largest in the world it would be cheap and easy to take a selection of liners and convert them into AMC's but of course there were also massive drawbacks ocean liners are designed and built very differently to warships they cannot sustain much damage they're just not intended for torpedo hits or gunfights they have tall Silhouettes with towering funnels and super structures that rise up high out of the water making them a juicy easy target de guns were small and they often relied on local targeting and rang finding so it depended entirely on the skill of the gun crew to manage any hits but by contrast warships like battleships or Cruisers featured complex rangefinders that could train their massive guns using early computers to calculate ideal targeting information and generate accurate hits but even worse AMCs were essentially useless against submarines they might deter a ubot from trying to attack on the surface but once the submarine was submerged an AMC lacked the agility and speed to be able to run it down and attack with depth charges right away some of the biggest players in the peacetime Merchant world had their ships called up for service and one of those was the famous line p and O the pen Ula and Oriental steam navigation company was a massive organization that had hundreds of ships operating from Britain to the Mediterranean India the Far East and Australia unlike predominantly transatlantic companies like kunard White Star Line P's ships were designed specifically to maintain extremely far ranging Services now the range of their ships was critical because it meant if they were converted to use as AMCs they could go a long time without needing refueling and one of the first P Ando liners called up for service was the RMS Royal pindy and it would prove to be a fateful decision that would end up pitting the Valiant little ocean liner against two of the most ferocious warships in the North Atlantic Royal pindy by 1939 was like a ship from a different world she had been built by the famous Shipyard Highland and wolf in Belfast in 1925 for service from Britain to Bombay in the 1920s Pio was in a bit of a strange place they were building ships in the tradition and styles of the Edwardian era the Interiors featured heavy dark wooden paneling and stuffy smoking rooms the thing is that era was long dead by then and the company had begun to realize it in the late 1920s they began to plan and build a new group of ships that would bring their Fleet into the Modern Age but back in 1925 they were still making them like they always had even when she was new Royal pindy just looked old she had been built to P's long-standing traditional aesthetic two tall black funnels you'd have seen on ships just like her 30 or 40 years earlier her super structure was painted a brownish color like the rest of the fleet instead of the usual brilliant white you'd expect to find on other ships she was the second of four sisters known as the RASS the Interiors of the ships were tasteful and restrained they were actually designed by the daughter of pio's chairman the four r-class ships were utilitarian but comfortable for their passengers who'd sail to India for weeks long voyages on August 26th 1939 a month before the outbreak of the war the admiralty feared they'd soon have a need for a stop Gap Fleet of armed Merchant Cruisers Royal pindy was called up she would be converted to go to war to highlight just how stop Gap this conversion was you only need to look at the ship's Armament Royal pindy was given 8 BL 6 in 150 mm guns which had first gone to Sea in 1899 by the second world war the elderly guns weren't seen as fit for Frontline service so reserves were handed out to AMC's and Troop ships to bolster defenses she was given 3 12 pounder or 3in 76 mm guns which could also serve as anti-aircraft guns so to make it easier to aim at aircraft and provide a wider Arc of Fire the ship's second funnel which was a dummy was cut off leaving Royal pindy with a funny kind of unbalanced silhouette Royal pindy was put to Navy work after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 under the command of 60-year-old Captain Edward kovaly Kennedy he'd been on the retired list for Navy service for 18 years but before that he' commanded no less than a battle cruiser and two light Cruisers after almost two decades behind a desk he was thrilled to be back at Sea he said to one friend that I am as content as it is possible to be to another one he said they've given me some Fine Guns and in this war I'm going to use them they would soon turn out to be prophetic words under his command was a crew of 276 men many of whom had been royal P's peacetime crew one old man was a Navy reservist had been a gunner aboard HMS Malaya at the Battle of Jutland some 23 years earlier with a captain Keen to serve his country and a well-trained crew roral pindy set off on her first assignments AMC's weren't just useful for escorting convoys they could also help blockade Germany to ensure the country's powerful warships couldn't escape into the open Atlantic to hunt the British and Allied Merchant ships or pindy with her World War I vintage guns wouldn't be expected to engage engage a German warship if she spotted one instead she'd have to radio the position and tail the warship while the battle Fleet steamed out to engage and destroy the enemy on the afternoon of November 23rd 1939 Ral pindy was patrolling the gray Seas North of the Pharaoh Islands now this was prime location for an attempted German breakout even worse it was known that the German pocket Battleship deut land was actually on the loose somewhere out there in the Atlantic Ocean Kennedy had actually been told to keep an eye out for her the ship rolled in the waves and the wind blew cold as men's eyes strained to keep Lookout and then from the Crow's Nest came a call oily black smoke was spotted on the horizon at 3:30 p.m. and Kennedy caught side of the ship in his binoculars slowly it came into view and then Kennedy muttered it's the deuts land all right he ordered his crew to action stations and the enemy ship's position was reported quickly by the Radioman he knew the simple math in his mind rendy's top speed was 15 knots and deuts land and other German ships like her could do twice that the German ship flashed a more signal heave too but Kennedy decided he'd tried to turn away first for a fog Bank developing nearby and then the shelter of a large Iceberg but it was too late the German ship was gaining quickly but then there was another cry from the lookout a second ship had been spotted Kennedy and his crew hoped it was a friendly Cruiser arriving to help but it wasn't nor was the first ship the cre Cruiser deuts land Royal pindy had accidentally stumbled into two of the largest fastest German battleships afloat shanor and her sister ship the G now the ships had been built in the mid 1930s part of Hitler's ramped up military rearmament strategy in an attempt to comply at face value with postor War I limitations and a subsequent agreement with Great Britain the anglo-german naval agreement the ships had filed relatively small caliber main guns as their armament 9 28 CM or 11 11 in guns and triple turrets they were extremely Nimble with low slim Silhouettes with three turbines and screws and Fine Lines the warships could hit 31 knots they were extremely intimidating for British Merchant Sailors the sisters main caliber smaller guns wouldn't be very effective against well protected British battleships but they were ideal for picking apart Merchant ships in convoys the smaller caliber shells were less at risk of passing straight through the shell plating of a freighter Hull and they could achieve a higher rate of fire Royal pindy now found itself in a fight against two of Nazi Germany's most ferocious warships and all she had to hit back at them were eight relatively small guns from the first world war Kennedy made Full Steam for the shelter of the fog and then the iceberg hoping to obscure his escape with smoke floats the ship dropped them but they failed to ignite on the surface and shanor and G now watched on as the British ship tried to escape the Germans had so far held their fire Shan horse Skipper CT Caesar Hoffman had his crew signal to roll pindy to abandon their ship and surrender but Kennedy had other plans with his ship caught in a trap from which there could be no Escape he decided to make a stand he ordered the helm turned and Royal pindy was going to fight Hoffman ordered Royal pindy to surrender again and again by this point the ships had closed to Just 4 mil or 6 and 1 12 km which is almost point blank as far as Naval Combat goes then to his amazement where all P's guns suddenly burst into life Kennedy had greeted his chief engineer on the bridge and told him his plan said simply we'll fight them both they'll sink us and that will be that goodbye then he had ordered a salvo and his Gunners got to work their aim was impressively accurate the first Salvo straddled giz now and the second Salvo hurdled towards shanor they even scored a hit but the effect of Ro pindy 6-in guns against the heavy armor of the German warships was was like that of a bow and arrow against the lightning shanor and Gan now's turrets responded and their effect was deadly 11-in shells raked Royal pindy from stem to stern the first German Salvo hit the bridge directly and killed almost everybody in it more shells silenced 6-in gun turrets along the ship's side smashed through the hull and exploded in the engine room the beautiful old liner was never designed for anything like this she was meant to take excited passengers to Exotic ports in India and the Middle East now she was being shelled by two of the most powerful and modern warships in the Atlantic theater somehow Kennedy had survived the hit on the bridge he knew the gunfire control station had been hit and knocked out so he ordered his crew to fire on locally to do their best to hit the German ships on their own and Royal pindy would go down fighting the German ship's guns roared with murderously accurate fire Ral P's little guns were firing back but wildly and at random on board the liner was beginning to burn men lay dead around the decks and gun Crews had been knocked out men were going mad with Terror one Gunner was shouting orders at his crew who lay dead around him the fires began to burn out of control and sensing the end Kennedy had rushed after with some Sailors to try to set some more smoke floats to build a smoke screen to protect his crew as they Abandoned Ship but as he did so a shell burst killed him with their engines Fire Control and electrical power all knocked out and more shells coming the crew knew all they could do was to try to escape in their boats cordite and Munitions were burning on the upper decks and some Brave crew even picked them up and threw them overboard One Survivor said that Royal pindy was burning stemed to stern like a piece of paper the men crowded into the lifeboats but then one up turned on the davits and the occupants were spilled into the sea they struggled to stay afloat and the other Boats were trying to lower when the end came suddenly and violently a shell had found the main ammunition storage it detonated and roal pindy went up in a huge explosion that blew the ship clean in two it had only been less than an hour and the Valiant little liner had gone down fighting Like a Warrior against impossible odds shanor for her part stopped to assist the survivors the Germans pulled 37 men from the ocean when their own Lookout cried out a British warship had been spotted on the horizon Ral P's message had not gone unheeded a floating Armada of British battleships Cruisers and destroyers had immediately altered course to hunt the German ships down and Destroy them in something of a panic the shanor and Gan now made steam they were now in a sticky spot they had been caught out and had lost the element of surprise Royal pindy had made an accurate positional report and now the powerful British home Fleet could trap and kill them but then Fortune turned in favor of the Germans the weather began to turn foul and then a rain Squall obscured them from Vision In The Bleak gray Sea and the driving rain the pair escaped British detection and disappeared into the vast ocean Royal P's action wasn't totally in vain it had given away the German ship's positions and delayed them sufficiently for a tailing Force to arrive if not for the poor weather it's likely the German warships would have been hunted down and destroyed early in the war which would have been a huge blow for the Crees Marina who already lack sufficient numbers of surface warships the fact that Royal pindy had even stood her ground and fought was in itself a morale boost for the British people and the Armed Forces 11 of royal pindy men were rescued from the ocean by the British they were rushed home and marched to horse guard's parade where they were greeted by a crowd of people who called out encouragement and words of gratitude the Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed Parliament and said of Royal P's crew that their glorious fight against overwhelming odds deserved the respect and honor of the House of Commons and the nation years later a BBC reporter would look back on the conflict and say that it showed people that they could still rely on the Navy and that even in a ship manned by pensioners and reservists the Navy was going to fight this Wars battles as it had in the past whatever the outcome whatever the cost that reporter's name was Ludovic Kennedy and his father had been Captain Edward Kennedy Commander HMS roal pindy almost exactly one year later in November 1940 things were looking even Bleaker for Britain and the Allies France had fallen earlier that year along with Norway Holland and the low countries and then Germany had begun bombing London the Battle of Britain had been fought and narrowly won and the risk of a German invasion was lessened but at Sea the convoys were still being picked apart by the uots the HX convoys were making their way from Halifax Nova Scotia to Liverpool they were carrying vital supplies but they were painfully slow the ships were only capable of between 9 and 13 knots which is about 50 mph or 24 km per hour at a maximum as ever a wide variety of escorts were put to the task and on October 28th 1940 the Convoy hx8 set off some 38 Merchant ships in all they were a juicy Target for the Germans and all they had to fend them off was another converted ocean liner the brave HMS Jervis Bay JIS Bay was one of five sister ships built for and operated by the Australian Commonwealth line just after the first world war the company was run by the Australian government who were keen on getting skilled British migrants out to Australia thanks to the ravage of war in the nature of technological advancement their Fleet had been fairly rag taged so they committed to building five modern elegant liners to do the job they were each named after an Australian Bay from a different state Jervis Bay was named after a spot in New South Wales she was a fine ship of about 14,000 gross registered tons and 550 ft or 167 m in length no giant by any means but for her job she was beautifully designed and more than Adept the bay class of ships as they were were known served well leading up to the war but with the admiralty sensing a coming conflict Jervis Bay and three of her sisters were requisition for combat like roal pindy the fact that they were all intended to service far ranging distances made them ideal for service as armed Merchant Cruisers Jervis Bay received the usual conversion and changes her peacetime colors were replaced with drab war paint of various Grays and her decks received guns seven of those BL 6in guns that Royal pindy had had and the Dual per purp qf 3 in to act as a rudimentary kind of Dual Purpose secondary and anti-air defense now that kind of armament was of course pitiful against anything more intimidating than a surface submarine but it was better than nothing and it might actually act as a deterrent to keep smaller enemy vessels at Bay for fear of receiving a hit after all as woefully inadequate as Jervis Bay's First World War era guns might be against larger ships a single hit could actually Doom an enemy submarine the ship got to work as an escort for the convoys braving the C hold wild Atlantic at a crew keeping an eye out for enemies in command was Captain Edward Fagan a veteran Skipper who' started out as a midshipman on board the legendary HMS dreadn in the first world war he commanded a destroyer as it rushed to the rescue of the crew of a burning vessel receiving a gallantry medal for the efforts he spent a little time with the Australian Navy at a college located at of all places jerva Bay in New South Wales before he took command of a series of smaller warships throughout the mid to late 30s then and finally in 1940 he was appointed the master of Jervis Bay and given an unenviable task to protect the convoys with his makeshift warship he had served in a destroyer Cruisers and M sweepers but now he'd need to make a warship out of a passenger liner late October 1940 saw Jervis Bay become the sole escort ship for a massive Convoy of some 37 Merchant vessels carrying invaluable supplies for the British mainland the Convoy HX 84 set out from Halifax Nova Scotia for Liverpool and battled through the freezing wintry Seas but unbeknownst to all on board a hunter was stalking them British radio messages had been intercepted by the German intelligence and news of a large Convoy was tantalizing roaring through the North Atlantic had been the German Heavy Cruiser Admiral sheer like Shan horiz now she too mounted the quick firing smaller caliber 11-in guns that were adept at picking apart merchant ship if Admiral Shear could intercept the Convoy it wasn't impossible the ship could knock out all of the Freighters and sink them there could be no escape the Convoy ships were crawling along at 13 knots maximum but the Admiral Shear could cut through the ocean at up to 28 knots she set a course for the Convoy and would attempt an intercept if sheia found them the Convoy would be in massive trouble late in the afternoon of November 5th Jervis Bay's Lookout spotted a smudge of smoke on the horizon it had been an uneventful few days out of Halifax but the sight of smoke was a worrying one Captain Fagan hoped it might be a friendly ship and he ordered his signalman to flash a challenge to the stranger but to his surprise and amusement The Stranger flashed the challenge right back there was an exchange back and forth a few times as the challenge was repeated but not properly answered soon the ships were only 15 M or 24 km apart but Fagan must have sensed the danger the final challenge went unanswered so he ordered his men to run rushed to action stations and warned the Convoy with a roar Red Rockets surged into the sky a signal for the Convoy to scatter the smudge of smoke had belonged to the funnel of the German Heavy Cruiser Admiral shear and her Captain had played a bluffing game with Jervis Bay as he drew closer and closer and now all that stood between him and that juicy Convoy was a single escort vessel but unfortunately for the Germans that escort ship had no plans to escape quite the opposite Fagan and his men would fight Jervis Bay maneuvered herself between the Admiral shear and the Convoy which was still struggling to break formation and Scatter into the late afternoon Gloom the Admiral Shear's guns trained onto their target and at about 4:42 p.m. the first German Salvo burst through the air and missed Jervis Bay by only 100 yard or 91 M Fagan ordered his men to set a smoke screen by dropping some of those chemical smoke floats over the side but then instead of steering for the cover of the smoke he ordered the be swung toward the German ship fager knew that if he could keep the German warship occupied then the Convoy ships had more chance of Escape Darkness would soon come he would need to sacrifice his own vessel Jervis Bay would die but she would go down fighting like a lion Admiral Shear blasted away her 11-in guns lobbing devastatingly accurate fire at the British ship and then it happened the third Salvo hit her dead center knocking out the wireless office and setting fires that single Salvo effectively finished Jervis Bay as a fighting vessel her Fire Control station was knocked out and so were all of her electrics the Germans watched as Jervis Bay reeled under the Salvo and began to burn satisfied that she was through Admiral Shear then went to alter course trained their guns on the merchant ships to cut off the Convoy but then there came a shout Jervis Bay began to come around and steer straight for the German warship Fagan ordered Full Speed Ahead he was going to charge the Admiral Shear Jervis Bay's guns fired wildly and inaccurately hoping to score a hit on the Germans but it was hopeless Admiral Shear had over 4 cm of 1.8 in of deck armor and Jervis Bay had none Admiral Shear's Gunners answered Jervis Bay's Valiant gesture with devastating gunfire the German shell hits began to rake her from stem to stern and every single one did incredible damage then one hit the the bridge it set the command center on fire and Fagan had lost an arm but in spite of the physical pain and the destruction of his ship underfoot the captain knew he had to battle on to buy the Convoy more time it was a completely one-sided battle hit after hit caused Carnage on Jervis Bay one 6-in gun was blown right off the bow fires spread completely unchecked and Men jumped overboard for fear of burning or out of panic after 20 minutes Jervis Bay had been reduced to a flaming wreck she' put up a gallant fight but it was a hopeless one Captain Fagan had been killed by a shell hit and his vessel was finished Jervis Bay slipped beneath the waves at last leaving a plume of smoke and an oil slick on the surface but they had done their task Admiral Shear was now badly delayed in attacking the Convoy because they had been caught up in the gun duel with the escort ship she made full speed for the remaining vessels which had successfully scattered began to overtake them inevitably she caught up SS maid was sunk then the TR wellard kenbane head beerfood then the SS Fresno City but that was it 37 Merchant ships had been in the Convoy hx8 but Admiral Shear was only able to sink five of them the time spent engaging Jervis Bay had enabled the vulnerable Freighters enough time to scatter and disappear into the early evening's Darkness at last with the sun down they made good their escape and the Admiral Shear broke off the chase frustrated at the wasted opportunity JIS Bay had put up a hell of a fight it was extremely fortunate they'd been intercepted by the Admiral Shear so close to the evening but then that was no coincidence either the German ship had been rushing to intercept the Convoy hours earlier when they stumbled into a single vessel the mopan which had been acting as a screen ahead of the main body of the Convoy Shia ordered the mopan be abandoned and forbade them from transmitting a distress call the British crew complied but they took their sweet time evacuating the ship buying the Convoy more time as Darkness approached Admiral Shar then engaged the mopan to sink it quickly and move on to the Convoy but for some reason the ship proved strangely reluctant to sink it shwed up an hour and a half of the German warships time and it meant that when they finally spotted Jervis Bay in the Convoy they had precious little time to do any actual damage if Jervis Bay had surrendered or turned to run the Convoy could have been doomed but instead Fagan and his men stood their ground and rushed the German ship it was a tragic sacrifice but it hadn't been in vain their comrades and M had got away and 80% of the Convoy survived the ordeal of the action vice admiral Charles Kennedy pervis said now that is a tremendous decision to take when you are faced with overwhelming odds but I know that in Captain Fagan's case there were no second thoughts Jervis Bay was lost with her Skipper and 190 of her crew but fortunately 68 men were later fished out of the ocean Alive by a Swedish ship that's coincidentally almost one man for every merchant ship that the Jervis Bay had sacrificed herself trying to protect the news again bucked up the British public who now endured German bombing by night which set the capital of Blaze Fagan Jervis Bay and her men had shown the sacrifice and courage in the face of impossible odds could achieve great things it went hand inhand with the blitz Spirit Hitler had hoped that nighttime bombing of London would break the British spirit and see them sue for peace but instead the British public got on with their lives with a cheerful kind of indifference for his part Captain Fagan was postured L awarded the highest British military honor the Victoria Cross and his men were also honored with memorials across Britain Canada and Bermuda Fagan's poignant Victoria Cross citation summed it all up well it said for Valor in challenging hopeless odds and giving his life to save the many ships it was his duty to protect crippled in Flames unable to reply for nearly an hour the Jervis Bay held the Germans fire so she went down but if the merchantman Albert four or five were [Music] saved

Channel: Oceanliner Designs

Views: 172,338

Keywords: great ocean liners, maritime history, ocean liners, famous oceanliners, ships documentary, history of ships, engineering, history, ships, documentary, origins explained, world history project, animated history, open educational resources, titanic, shipwreck, sinking, boats, ocean, disaster, tragedy

Id: gcArdpht_rw

Length: 29min 37sec (1777 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 10 2023