HMS Prince of Wales - A Prince Stricken From the Air

For all that her service life was short, HMS Prince of Wales is well-remembered in the modern day. From sailing with Hood against Bismarck, to her ill-fated voyage with Repulse. Her gunnery proved to be quite good in spite of malfunctions and if her sinking by airpower was unfortunate...
Well, she still fought well, right until the end.
Further Reading:
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[@MOTV88]

I just want to say I thoroughly enjoy your videos! Reminds me of the older Drachinifel videos, before all the collaborating podcasting format. Your knowledge, and relevant/time frame accurate images are greatly appreciated along with your wit and dry sense of humor. Thank you, keep'em coming!!!

[@snebbywebby2587]

My second favourite battleship, though she didn’t make it a year in service she fought as hard as her peers and did remarkably well. You did her justice. Fun fact: it was one of Leach’s descendants who lead the taskforce that retook the Falklands

[@metaknight115]

What is your most favorite battleship?

[@jimmiller6704]

@@metaknight115 Not sure about him-mine was the HMS Warspite.

[@williamdodds1394]

The Germans designed the best battleships nice and powerful they were planning battleships up to a 100 000 tons bigger than tirpits

[@lawrencelewis2592]

I have read that during the rescue efforts, a light signal was flashed from a Japanese plane. "We have finished our work and you may carry on." The next day, a Japanese plane flew over the site and dropped a wreath.

[@DohuuVi]

Those Mitsubishi G3M bombers took off from a base in southern Vietnam (then French Indochina) - Thu Dau Mot - about 30km north of Saigon.

[@alephalon7849]

Until today, I didn't consider how PoW's ultimate fate mirrored that of Bismarck. But after you brought it up, both were new ships that got crippled by aerial torpedoes to their stern. The irony is really something...

[@bkjeong4302]

All three capital ships present at Denmark Straits didn’t survive 1941. Two of them didn’t survive the operation and one of them didn’t even survive the battle. It’s like Prinz Eugen sucked up all their collective luck or something.

[@vincebenson1215]

They were sunk by friendly fire , or sent to a secret base to sit it out since it can't be found. The story would be proven false. They didn't want to admit that the navy was .mutiny or something that amounted to. It. Hood was probably taken over at denmark operation. They crue going to Russia to be stuck in some galag .maybe forever. Maybe they blew it up with sabotage, cause they worried about it and had a way to self destruct the ship. They lied about ships there, I'm not sure about damage and crew. They made em say they saw it and not really what happened. Maybe they didn't take part. Bismarck was infiltrated .they all were but the graf Spee maybe . The germans. Had no reason to fight English or French other than forced on things , the monarchy was taken over the king died in 36 . Not much came out about it. Riots in the street the people knew the illuminati bankers had taken the country with money and subversion . The USA should not have helped Britain just the people that's it

[@thetorturepenguin]

@@bkjeong4302 she sucked it all up and then survived two nukes... That being said- it has to be one of the only battles in history where all contestants were sunk at some point or another...

[@colinmartin2921]

Part of the reason why PoW and Repulse were so vulnerable to air attack was because Admiral Tom Phillips was of the opinion that aircraft were no threat to his battleships, but he was wrong.....

[@roberthuehn6562]

at Minute 2:55 she was hit by a 250kg bomb, not a 250 pound one which would be 113kg (we germans dont use pound and didnt had 113kg bombs either)

[@christopherhill4438]

The book "Battleship " covers the end of thr Prince of Wales and the Repulse and is well worth reading.

[@NorceCodine]

Its interesting to see how more hydrodynamic design was Bismark's hull then Prince of Wales', which basically retained WWI design. Germany pioneered the science of aerodynamics and hydrodynamics before the war, and Bismark's hull cut through the water very efficiently, despite its 36 m berth. The fact is that its not a narrow skinny design that is the most efficient in water, but one that results in laminar flow of the water around it at high speed. Just like an orca, which is very beefy and wide, and yet faster than a shark.

[@paulcosentino1140]

And to think its wreck is being scrapped in China

[@genericpersonx333]

I always felt the real tragedy was not the sinking of the ship, but the fact they were there in the first place. Force Z was a classic example of strategic miscalculation. The strategic goal was to "deter" Japanese aggression by placing two or three additional capital ships in the Pacific. Problem: The entire Imperial Japanese Navy was in the Pacific at the time, allowing for quick concentration of vastly superior forces anywhere it wanted within weeks. Force Z was EXACTLY what Japan wanted: a smaller fleet easily concentrated against to allow piecemeal destruction of enemy assets early in the conflict. Even if Force Z had not be wiped out by lucky air attacks within days of the war starting, it would have been just a matter of weeks before Japan had multiple battleships and carriers rushing down to find Force Z and annihilate it. This not some argument only conceivable in hindsight either. The Imperial Japanese Navy's ship lists were known and the quality of the crews generally accepted by British estimates as competent. While Britishers held their own fleet, ship for ship and sailor for sailor, superior, it was not a huge qualitative advantage. It was not a matter of one British ship being better than three or four Japanese ones, but maybe three British ships besting four or five Japanese ones. The problem was that Japanese definitely had more than three ships to the British one in 1941, and the European War was only going to ensure the Royal Navy was not changing that ratio in a meaningful way any time soon. End result: Force Z was just a blunder; it failed in its strategic and political goal of deterring Japan and fed them a tactical victory of considerable importance.

[@gildor8866]

I always thought Force Z to be a bit of a bluff: send Britains most modern battleship to the Far East to show Japan that regardless of the global situation, the required resources to defend the british colonies would be made available whatever the costs. And this wasn't only targeted at the Japanese, it was also to reassure the Australians whose troops were fighting in North Africa. In the end it didn't work, there probably was no chance because Japan had gotten a copy of the britisch document detailing the contingency plans for a war with Japan through a combination of stupidity and luck..

[@genericpersonx333]

@@gildor8866 As you say, the idea was to show the "required resources would be made available," but the Japanese understood perfectly well that Force Z was not remotely the required resources to fight them. To fight Japan required the Royal Navy to commit at least one ship for every Japanese ship, and Japan was convinced the Royal Navy was too thinly spread to effectively contest the Pacific. Force Z only reinforced this perception, being the minimal show of force that it was that only offered them an easy victory once the IJN caught it. So once again, it was clear, even at the time, that Force Z was not a good strategic move and the Empire would pay dearly for that blunder in more ways than one, beginning with the ships themselves.

[@MarkzOng]

You know what history often repeats itself. Just not too long ago , UK send their new shiny carrier back to the far East to act as a show of force. Any PLN regional command has more ships than the tiny force amass .

[@gildor8866]

@@MarkzOng But we have been here before indeed. When the first World War started in 1914 the german army had 98 divisions, the french had 72 and Britain could only send a pitiful 6 divisions, one less than the 7 of Belgium. But when the battle of the Marne stood upon the edge of a knife it were those six divisions that tipped the scales toward the side of the entente. Same argument for belgium: if the remnants of its army hadn't tied up two german corps the germans would have had the required forces to counter the british advance at the Marne. Its dangerous to ignore an opponent, even if he may be small.

[@MarkzOng]

@@gildor8866 The 6 Div are professional BER, as compare to the german conscript. Without good ol american involvement , you probably speak german by now. that is the case of 2 war worlds.

[@Acme633]

HMS Indomitable was lucky. Had it arrived on schedule, it undoubtedly would have been sunk. British naval aviation technology by then was already far behind that of the Japanese.

[@jollyjohnthepirate3168]

The KGV's were contemporaneous with the U.S. North Carolina class. Both navies had escalator clauses to up gun them. The U.S. chose to use this clause to replace the 14 inch guns with 16 inch 45 cal. guns. The British just needed new ships so they built the KGV's as they were.

[@Tundraviper41]

That's true. If not for the escalator clause, the US could have very well had a North Carolina class with 356/50 cailber guns in 3 quadruple gun turrets that probably would not break down as much.

[@thetorturepenguin]

the fact remains that the KGV ended up being better than the NC as well- much better armor, coupled with the 'less than stellar' speed results severely limited the capabilities of the NC class. They should have been fine ships, but historically failed to achieve their potential...

[@bkjeong4302]

While all WWII-gen battleships were unlucky-given when they entered service-this happens to be the one that not only had an especially unlucky career, but also proved decisively that the battleship era was over. A shame, because the KGVs are rather underrated designs.

[@metaknight115]

Prince of Wales needs to be known for more than simply "the ship that had her wreck salvaged". She got the better of the gun duel with Bismarck despite having multiple malfunctioning guns, and fired on Bismarck two more times. I think Prince of Wales landed three hits on Bismarck, not two. She played arguably the most important role in Bismarck's sinking. If she didn't land those hits, Bismarck would have gone on the blockade and destroy convoys and never would have been sunk. I genuinely don't get the criticism of Prince of Wales by US navy stans and Kegsmarine stans. Her guns, while a bit small, used British made super charges to give her almost equal penetration to some 15-inch guns, and Prince of Wales guns only malfunctioned because she was fresh out of the drydock. KGV and Duke of York's guns worked flawlessly when facing off against Bismarck and Scharnhorst respectively. She carried some of the heaviest armor ever put on a battleships, with her belt only being beat out by the super battleships Yamato and Musashi, she was fast, and VERY accurate. She scored three hits on Bismarck with several malfunctioning guns, while Duke of York scored ten hits with frontal salvos from 14,000 yards and dozens more at 8,000 yards. Also, I think I'm the firs view, on this video....yay, give me my reward.

[@NashmanNash]

In which universe did KGVs and Duke of Yorks guns work"flawlessly"o.O Both ships had multiple malfunctions during their respective engagements against Bismarck/Scharnhorst,with King Georges guns not even working all that much better than PoWs

[@gildor8866]

@@NashmanNash Once the original problems had been found and fixed the guns operated with a reliability of 96%, at least in practice firings. The 15 inch/42, itself regarded as a highly reliable weapon, only managed about 90% in similar conditions (meaning the gun managed 9 salvos in the time it theoretically could have fired 10). Yes, the ships had their share of teething problems and then some but once they got finally fixed they worked very well.

[@WardenWolf]

@@NashmanNash British ships are like British cars, sadly. For all they get right, there's the "What the hell were they thinking?!" mistakes that tend to severely hamper their functionality. And it's not restricted to World War I and II era ships; HMS Sheffield sank during the Falklands War because some genius designed the class with only a single non-redundant water main so the fires burned out of control. Then there were the Nelsons which destroyed all the lightbulbs and plumbing fixtures in the entire front half of the ship when the guns fired, necessitating an immediate return for lengthy repairs. And if they fired aft of the beam, it blew out the bridge windows, too.

[@EarlJohn61]

@@WardenWolf you've, obviously, never owned a Rolls Royce.

[@ricoh.3162]

KGV and DoY guns worked flawless?maybe Take a look at the Battlereport of the two ships.The Turrets and guns are flawed till the end of the war.the Penetration wasnt almost equel If you compared it with any WW2 15inch guns.

[@Bebrun13]

The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal aircraft hit the Bismarck's rudder. That's what a stopped the Bismarck.

[@Otokichi786]

"A Fairey Swordfish Torpedo bomber from the HMS Ark Royal" did that, NOT the HMS Ark Royal alone.

[@snebbywebby2587]

Well, Bismarck turned to Brest because of the damage sustained from the Prince

[@Fricasso79]

One hit from Prince of Wales forced the end of Bismark's raiding mission and led to its eventual sinking. For context, at that time in 1941 Britain was losing the battle of the Atlantic, and if Bismarck had got loose, it could have been all over. Defeat for Britain in 1941 would have meant no D-Day, and no Arctic convoys to Russia. So, from a certain perspective... HMS Prince of Wales saved the world.

[@robertewing3114]

Saved the world from doubting UK ability at sea.

[@chriscolton6329]

The Japanese torpedo bombers were on fire early on in the Pacific conflict. The Vals and Kates were on a devastating roll at this point...

[@GeorgiaBoy1961]

That's true, and don't forget that Prince of Wales was sunk by land-based Type 96 "Nell" twin-engine bombers, some carrying bombs and some torpedoes, as well as by Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" medium bombers carrying torpedoes as well as their usual load of bombs. These aircraft, which were twin-engined, were not used from carriers, but from Japanese land bases in the region. Thanks to their excellent range, attacking targets at sea was not a problem for them. The single-engined "Vals" and "Kates" so typical of many IJN carrier operations during the war, were not dominant in this engagement.

[@pete0274]

2:57 Germans didn't use pounds as weight in bombs but Kg. The bomb was probably SC250 Kg which is 550 pounds bomb with a filling of 130 Kg equivalent in TnT explosive as trotyl, amatol etc. True, is a small bomb for a battle ship. Ju87 was notorious for precise bombing. With Ju 87 it is a high possibility that the bomb would have been an 500 KG bomb. JU 87 could carry 3x250KG or 2x250KG+1x500KG or 3x 500KG. Is hard to say now. The major error lay with the Captain -venturing without air support on 9th of December. Don't know if the decision came from pride or plain stupidity. Bot US and UK ignored the power and tactic of Japanese navy and paid dearly. They both had the intelligence of big range of Japanese fighters and bombers and ignore it. Good video though.

[@metaknight115]

Hey, I have an idea for future videos, you should cover underrated battle performances. We've certainly heard enough about Warspite crippling Guilio Cesare with the longest ranged confirmed naval hit, Enterprise sinking the four Japanese carriers at Midway, Zuikaku sinking USS Lexington at Coral Sea, Rodney and KGV beating the living Christ out of Bismarck, and Washington annihilating Kirishima at point blank range, there are several ships that preformed equally well at battle and don't get nearly enough credit for their incredible actions. Here are some examples. HMS Warspite gets a lot of attention, and rightfully so, but the other ships of the QE class had pretty great careers. Valiant, Barham, and Malaya all served at Jutland, where Barham helped to cripple the battlecruiser Von Der Tan and the battlecruiser Molke, Valiant helped to cripple the battlecruiser Molke, helped to damage the battleship Markgraf, and damaged the battleship Helgoland, and Malaya damaged the battlecruiser Derrflinger and helped to sink the battlecruiser Seydlitz, while surviving eight battleship caliber hits from the entire German battleline in fighting condition. In WW2, Valiant helped to sink the battleship Provence and helped to cripple the battleship Bretagne at the battle of Mirs El Kiber, while Barham helped to damage the battleship Richelieu at the battle of Dakar, before Malaya tangled with the battleship Conte De Cavour at the battle of Calabria. Malaya chased off the Scharnhorst twins when they were attempting to attack a convoy, while Barham and Valiant helped to sink the three heavy cruisers and two destroyers at Cape Mattapan alongside Warspite. IJN Chokai falls under the sad fate of every WW2 era cruiser besides KMS Prinz Eugen, USS Salt Lake City, HMS Exeter, and IJN Atago, where despite having a great career, they get no recognition for it and their actions are just attributed to their ship class as a whole. Chokai played an essential role in the battle of Savo Island, which was arguably the most devastating naval defeat in US history, four heavy cruisers sunk and two destroyers crippled with no Japanese losses suffered in exchange. This was a horrifically crippling defeat which destroyed the US navy’s ability to fight in surface engagements in Guadalcanal for a very long time. For her part, Chokai sank the heavy cruiser Vincennes via torpedoes and heavily contributed to the sinking of the heavy cruisers Astoria and Canberra with her gunfire, and survived heavy fire from the heavy cruisers Astoria and Quincy. Similarly, IJN Haguro saw great combat, but is ignored for the same reasons as Chokai. She saw various bombardment and carrier escorting duties, and saw major action at the battle of the Java Sea. She scored the longest ranged torpedo hits ever fired when she hit the light cruiser De Ruyter and the destroyer Kotenaer from 22,000+ yards, sinking both ships. She also crippled the heavy cruiser Exeter during the engagement, and finished off the crippled cruiser shortly afterwards. She saw combat at the battle of Empress Augusta bay, where she damaged the light cruiser Denver while being hit by multiple 6-inch (152 mm) cruiser shells, and partook in the battle off Samar, where she severely damaged the escort carrier Kalinin Bay while being hit by multiple 5-inch (127 mm) shells from the carrier. She finally partook in the very last surface engagement of WW2, where she fought a British destroyer line, damaging one of them while being hit by torpedoes from multiple ships, sinking soon afterwards. USS Massachusetts is rather underrated when compared to the four Iowas and Texas in the world of preserved battleships, but she had a better career than any of them. Fired the first and last US 16-inch (406 mm) shells, and fired the last naval artillery of WW2 mere hours before it ended. More importantly, she partook in the naval battle of Casablanca, starting off the battle by exchanging fire with the near complete but battleworthy battleship Jean Bart. She was straddled and near missed by 14.9-inch (38 cm) gunfire, but scored multiple hits on Jean Bart, sinking the ship in port by the stern and disabling her main armament. Shells from Big Mammie that missed Jean Bart sank a destroyer, three troop ships, and a cargo ship in port. She then bombarded shores, while being hit from an 8-inch (203 mm) shore battery, and targeted various escaping French warships, where she evaded a salvo of four torpedoes, before she sank a light cruiser, three destroyers, and a floating drydock, while taking damage from multiple 6-inch (152 mm) cruiser shells. She sank eleven ships in total, one incomplete battleship, one light cruiser, four destroyers, three troop ships, a cargo ship, and a floating drydock, the most number of vessels sunk by a single warship in a single battle. She’s the only remaining US battleship to have fought in an actual naval battle and fought and sank an enemy battleship, instead of being stuck to shore bombardment duties where the most powerful opponent of the occasional 4.7-inch (12 cm) shore battery. While USS Johnston and USS Samuel B Roberts get the credit for chasing off Kurita (and to be fair, they deserve a lot of it), the other ships of Taffy 3 deserve credit as well. Hoel and Heerman forced the battleships Yamato and Nagato out of the battle for 20 minutes. USS Kitkun Bay sank Chokai and the cruiser Suzuya with hits from her bombs and helped to finish off the crippled cruiser Chikuma with air dropped torpedoes. Unlike her sistership Gambier Bay, USS Kalinin Bay survived quite a beating, being crippled by a 16.1-inch shell from the battleship Nagato which destroyed her ability to launch and recover aircraft, before being hit by fourteen 8-inch shells from Haguro and the cruiser Tone and managing to survive that. Speaking of Samar, an infamous fact about it is that there's a lot of confusion due to us basing our story off of US records only for a few decades, only for Japanese records to disprove much of what we though of as fact. Behind the circumstances of the sinking of Chokai (Japanese records and her wreck proved that she was sunk by a bomb from Kitkun bay dropped down the stack, and not a lucky 5-inch shell from USS White Plains to her torpedoes), the best example of this would be Yamato's perceived battle performance for a good six decades and her perceived gunnery performance as of March of 2023. Even by the late 2000s, Yamato's battle record was repeated as this, USS White Plains was....arguably hit by the longest ranged naval hit when a battleship shell from 34,500 yards landed mere feet underneath the keel and exploded, damaging her beyond repair, and Yamato was a possible candidate. She then possibly scored the three 6-inch shell hits that damaged Johnston after she was hit by three 14-inch shells from the battlecruiser Kongo, damage that eventually caused her to split in two and sink, before being forced out of the battle by torpedoes from Hoel and Heerman, rather pathetic. It was then in 2012 that Japanese records confirmed a much different story, off the bat confirming Yamato scored the hit/near miss to White Plains from 34,500 yards, as well as the 6.1-inch shell hits on Johnston. However, much more interestingly the "14-inch shells from Kongo" were not 14-inch shells from Kongo, they were 18.1-inch shells from Yamato, who recorded multiple main and secondary battery hits on a US "cruiser" at the exact moment Johnston was hit, as opposed to Kongo who did not confirm any hits on any ships when Johnston received her fatal damage. Keep in mind that Johnston was hit almost simultaneously by this damage, so imagine what Yamato could do to an enemy battleship. She was then forced out of the battle by torpedoes......for twenty minutes, before turning back to the battle and firing her guns once again. USS Gambier Bay was sunk, reportingly by an 8-inch cruiser shell, likely from IJN Chikuma, but none of the six cruisers present claimed the fatal hit, while Yamato confirmed a hit with her main battery on a US "fleet carrier" at the exact moment Gambier Bay received her fatal hit and claimed another main battery hit also claimed by Kongo (with most agreeing Yamato scored the hit due to having the shorter range and correct firing angle), and she scored numerous hits with her 6.1-inch guns on Hoel before the ship sank. Within a single document's release, we went from "Yamato did not confirm any hist" to "Yamato confirmed multiple primary and secondary battery hits on multiple ships, with many more claimed but disputed, sinking or contributing to the sink of three of the Taffys", a rather underrated performance in my opinion.

[@michaelpielorz9283]

So sorry to say but Warspite isn`t the record holder, with its 15" guns it is a ship with 11" guns, more worse it`s german (:-)

[@bkjeong4302]

I’m going to dispute that Massachusetts’s performance is underrated: if anything it’s badly overrated, with the fact Jean Bart was vastly outmatched due to being incomplete being glossed over, same with the fact Ranger had to get involved to put her down: On that note, I’d argue Ranger is a ship with an underrated combat performance. And while Yamato’s combat performance at Samar was most definitely underrated for over half a century, her actual combat performance (multiple hits on Johnston, damaging multiple near misses/possible hit on White Plains, near misses and possibly hits on a few other ships) still isn’t nearly enough to push her into “actually an useful warship” territory (though granted, very few battleships of her generation ever got close to that territory, so it’s still fair to say she gets a lot more stick than she deserves). Also, as a side note, before the 2010s we thought Yamato did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during that battle (to the point you still find people arguing she ran away the moment Taffy 3 showed up without firing a shot)-the damage she did to Johnston and White Plains was only recognized as her work after 2014.

[@thetorturepenguin]

@@michaelpielorz9283 actually Warspite hit Guilio Cesare from 120 yards further away. Warspite did score the longest range naval hit ever- though it was close.

[@socaljarhead7670]

10 December, 1941 was the end of the battleship as the major force in naval warfare.

[@Cat-y4w]

👎

[@Jesusisking2785]

And now her war grave robbed by scrappers

[@Cat-y4w]

👎

[@emilpetersen3365]

Please tell the story of the IJN Nagato

[@metaknight115]

Nagato was a battleship built for Japan, commissioned in 1920. She was 216 meters (708 eet) long, 29 meters (95 feet) wide, and displaced 32,720 tons. Upon her commissioning, she was the most powerfully armed battleship ever made, equipped with eight 16.1-inch (41 cm), twenty 5.5-inch (14 cm) guns, and four 3-inch (76 mm) dual guns. She carried a 12-inch (305 mm) belt and a 2.7-3-inch (69-75 mm) deck, as well as 12-inch (305 mm) barbettes and 14-inch (356 mm) turret armor. She was the fastest battleship in the world upon commissioning (of course, assuming you count HMS Hood as a battlecruiser and not a battleship), capable of 26.5 knots. Nagato helped out in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake, before partaking in target practice alongside her sistership Mutsu where they sank the hulk of the battleship Satsuma. Nagato then saw various peacetime patrol duties, before being completely modernized in the mid 1930s, first being enlarged to 738 feet (225 meters) long, 114 feet (34.6 meters) wide, and 39,510 tons in displacement. She received a new pagoda mast, and was rearmed with the improved 16-inch (41 cm) guns intended for the Tosa and Kii class battleships and Amagi class battlecruisers, and had her 3-inch (76 mm) dual guns removed and replaced with eight 5-inch (127 mm) dual guns and twenty eight 1-inch (25 mm) machine guns.. Her armor was drastically increased. While her belt remained the same, she now sported new and shiny 2.7-3.9-inch (69-100 mm) deck armor, 18-inch (457 mm) barbette armor, and 18.1-inch (46 cm) turret armor. She saw various patrol and escorting duties until the start of WW2, where she served as the flagship of the attack on Pearl Harbor. She saw service at the battle of Midway, but never saw combat, and saw various escorting duties until 1944. She saw various AA upgrades in the late part of the war, upgraded to 98 1-inch (25 mm) machine guns, before seeing her first action at the battle of the Philippine Sea as a carrier escort where she was hit by several 1,000 pound AP bombs. After a half a year, she then saw action at the battle of Leyte Gulf, surviving a few bomb hits during the battle of the Sibuyan Sea. She partook in the battle off Samar a day later, her first and only time engaging enemy ships, where she straddled the escort carrier Saint Lo at long range. A battleship caliber shell to the hanger bay crippled the escort carrier Kalinin Bay. IJN Haruna never claimed any hits, while IJN Yamato and IJN Kongo never targeted Kalinin Bay, thus meaning that by process of elimination, Nagato landed the hit. She was then forced out of the battle by torpedoes, and upon returning fired five salvos from her main guns and ten from her secondaries, claiming to have damaged one US “cruiser” (likely the destroyer Heerman). After the surface engagement, she survived several air attacks enroute back to the Philippines, before dashing off to mainland Japan alongside the rest of the Japanese navy. Nagato spend the rest of her career in the Japanese fleet docked in her moorings, never to leave for battle again. she would be hit by the same air attacks that sank the battlecarriers Ise and Hyuga and the battlecruiser Haruna in port, but managed to survive, partially due to the fact that the crew flooded Nagato to make it appear as if she sank in port. She survived the war intact, the only axis warship to do so, and was the only Japanese battleship present at the Japanese surrender at Tokyo Bay. She was then taken into US service, renamed to USS Nagato. As she was in very poor shape due to unrepaired bomb damage, she would be expended in Operation Crossroads. Nagato managed to survive both nuclear bomb detonations, and sank after a few weeks due to minor leaks. Copy and pasted from my answer to www.quora.com/Did-any-of-the-German-or-Japanese-battleships-survive-World-War-II on Quora.

[@emilpetersen3365]

@@metaknight115 Thank you for the reply

[@stevenmoore4612]

She was nearly stricken by the Bismarck, but thankfully for the prince Bismarck’s captain let her escape just to be sunk by aircraft six months later. Definitely a tragic end to a short lived warship not even being in service for a year.

[@MisterTee]

They should have named it ‘Prince of Whales’

[@katyalacrua6793]

Here became of Esmond Knight

[@michaelpielorz9283]

Sunk by one torpedo a fine example of flawed british designs aka: the one-hit-wonders, starting with HMS Audacious (:-)

[@davedixon2068]

Suggest you rewatch major part of damage caused by propellor shaft same would have happened to most other ships

[@genericpersonx333]

​@@davedixon2068 Bearing in mind also that HMS Prince of Wales was arguably one of the most well-protected battleships ever to sail in terms of underwater protection scheme, it is extremely strange that it only took a single small aerial torpedo to do what it did. This suggests a flaw somewhere in the system. Given that no one really has proven the captain's management of the damage control was poor, the fact that the torpedo could basically cause a catastrophic flood along the entire propeller shaft and knock out so other many systems says the ship itself was not as well-designed as believed.

[@davedixon2068]

@@genericpersonx333 You try stopping a few tens of tons of shaft wrecking everything around it if you cant stop it quickly enough as in this case. The shaft opened the whole of one engine room to the sea, the resulting flooding wasn't stopped, bad design no, unfortunate hit, yes, in the same way that the torpedo hit on Bismarks rudders was unfortunate not bad design. I suspect the only way to design the problem out was to do away with the drive shaft altogether, the trouble is they hadn't built Azimuth pods that long ago

[@genericpersonx333]

@@davedixon2068 Considering whipping shafts were a known problem going back to the age of Steam in the 19th century, it seems odd that the Royal Navy didn't have better systems in place to deal with it on a ship that was designed to be the most durable of warships yet built by the Royal Navy. For example, one could not have so little space between the outer shaft and the outside hull. Not so easily for a shaft to rip open the side of the ship if the side of the ship is many meters further away. One could install the engines closer to the propeller, so even if the shaft whips, the total volume of space that could be flooded is less. One could compartmentalize the engine rooms more, ensuring that if a shaft break admits water to the engine room, only the compartment closest to the shaft end is flooded. One also could not have had so much exposed shaft external to the ship, allow for such a big target for a torpedo to break it in the first place. The designers clearly understood the danger of torpedoes since the shaft is on the same level as the hull's main torpedo protection, but for some reason, they leave many meters of shaft hanging right out there behind the hull, right on the same level as a torpedo would be! These are just a few ideas that are not anachronisms. People had built ships using one or more of these design principles before Prince of Wales. The engineers had knowledge of a potential problem and they failed to adequately design the ship to handle it, allowing a small weapon to be fatal that otherwise could have just been obnoxious.

[@michaelpielorz9283]

@@davedixon2068 nice try to defend the design.