HMS Queen Mary - The Largest Victim of Jutland

[@aquilarossa5191]

On training. It's a lot easier said than done. I trained crew at sea during the 1990s through to the late 2000s. You can not train crew on land, or even on a ship tied up. You have to be at sea to find out who can function at sea and who can not. A lot of people can not tolerate being on a ship working two six hour watches a day for several weeks. Sea sickness is the first hurdle, which is mostly down to a person's balance system in their ears -- your ears can go to sea, or they can not. Tiredness is the second. It's a feeling of exhaustion that is difficult to explain. People just break and lose all their get up and go. Once they break, very few learn how to overcome that and get their second wind day after day. I've seen ex-pro rugby players and soldiers not be able to cope, i.e., people who are strong and healthy on land. Then we get down to whether the person can actually do the work well and be consistent. There's also the matter of whether the person can work well with others or will be trouble. The attrition rate from all those factors is very high. At least 75%. It was difficult enough finding 75-100 good crew, let alone 1000s like these warships had (we poached most of our crew by offering better pay and food etc).

[@daleeasternbrat816]

Some very good Sailors can't function on submarines. Sea Sickness? Most people eventually adapt but some cannot. The warships of today are Luxury Liners compared to warships past.

[@aquilarossa5191]

@@daleeasternbrat816 Yes. It's something to do with the ears. If the person does not adjust within a day or two they usually never can. They just don't have the right ears. They may have even been okay on a speed boat or yacht, but once on a ship out on the ocean they start puking. Poor buggers. I have seen new crew have to be taken off by helicopter. The worst case was a shore engineer sailing with us from NZ to Tasmania to finish some refit work after dry dock. Rough seas. He began puking a few hours out and after a couple of days he could not hold down water. We were already closer to Aussie than NZ. Once in chopper range he was winched off in critical condition severely dehydrated. He was in hospital three days we heard. Now he knows. He has the wrong ears. It nearly cost him his life. The main reason people can not work at sea though is the exhaustion and not being able to find that second wind. I doubt its because they are not tough enough. I expect it's something physiological too. They get fatigue within a few days and stay that way for six more weeks or so (factory freezer trawlers). Others just kind of lose it over the intensity of the work and being couped up with 40-60 people, or something. They go on strike and refuse to work etc. Then they kind of slink around for a few weeks until the end of the trip, or when we can send them home on a ship that's going to port. I've seen a lot of that. I also saw new crew have full on nervous breakdowns. It's great if you can work out there though. You get to miss out on the rat race for 7-21 weeks depending on the roster. Once up that gang way all you have to think about is doing your job and coming home to a good looking bank account (unless your wife/partner is prone to straying - if you know what I mean, because that happened a lot -- one guy killed himself over it)

[@johnholt890]

Fascinating stuff. Particularly if drafted during a world war for example it must be psychologically very difficult to accept when one is not suited to the job and feels like they are letting their country down

[@davidhorsley8461]

Always great content and narrative

[@alephalon7849]

What a lovely-looking ship... The description of HMS Queen Mary and the other battlecruisers coming to the rescue at Heligoland Bight struck me as hard as the description of Thunder Child charging Martian Tripods. It's honestly a shame she was lost in such an unlucky way.

[@leeneon854]

It was 21 men, list is online, few sailors passed away due to there wounds later on, gunnery officer Benjamin Francis, gave a account after the battle, they were located in after most turret, slid down the side of the stern as screws were still revolving, and made there escape, most of the damage inflicted on seydlitz, was from queen Marys guns, plus she hit damaged derfflinger too, before she blew up.

[@colinmartin2921]

Her loss was due to the idiot Beatty, who only owed his own survival to one of his own hero officers. I wonder how he coped with having the deaths of all of those RN sailors on his conscience.

[@steve4nj]

like ay British officer back then he didnt give a shit

[@jamesricker3997]

It also had to do with British Cordite becoming unstable as it aged a few years. Beatty's lax ammunition handling procedures made the problem far worse.

[@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe]

Jellicoe did and where did it get him?

[@saltmerchant749]

Denial of his own responsibility, one expects. He was aided in this regard by the admiralty refusing to blame him because to do so, would admit that all had not gone well at Jutland and no-one was prepered to acknowledge that.

[@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe]

@saltmerchant749 Jutland Report? Beatty tampered with it. What a Guy!

[@JGCR59]

The officer quarters forward was because the idea was that the officers would have had a shorter time to their watch or in case of quarters, action stations. Making your way from the stern to the bridge took a while and I think in some cases wasn't possible belowdecks under battle conditions. However, the percieved need to scramble to quarters wasn't that great because there was always ample warning time before action and in normal watch conditions officers probably prefered a slightly longer walk to always having machinery noise. The captain had a sea cabin on the bridge anyway and usually didn't use his spacious quarters on the extreme stern at all when the ship was underway.

[@mnoliberal7335]

Right. Plenty of time to stroll forward. It wasn't a submarine. "Clear the bridge! Dive! Dive! Dive!"

[@brandspro]

My Great-grand uncle Henry Reace went down with her. He was a Stoker 1st Class.

[@dscary1837]

This is the most pictures I've ever seen of this ship. I can't believe how long they are, way more than I realized.

[@George_M_]

Meanwhile the nearly identical Kongo's were viable in the 40s. German battlecruisers were the perfect counter to British ones - better armor, while their smaller guns were more than sufficient.

[@patrickmccrann991]

How were the Kongo's viable in the 40s? Kirishima destroyed by USS Washington, Hiei shot full of holes by cruisers and destroyers to suck a point she basically foundered, Kongo sunk by a sub, Haruna sunk at anchor.

[@mikepotter5718]

The Germans seem to have thought differently about the size of their guns.

[@JGCR59]

@@patrickmccrann991 Kirishima fell victim to radar and superior fire control. If she had hit Washington at that range she would have penetrated too. This engagement was so close armor thickness was irrellevant.

[@CaptainColdyron222]

@@JGCR59Kirishima hit South Dakota and didn’t penetrate her armor.

[@patrickmccrann991]

@JGCR59 Kiroshima never even detected Washington. The Kongo class was still only battlecruisers, only the Japanese called them battleships. So woefully under armored, they were penetrated by 8 and 6 inch gun cruisers.

[@roystone9932]

Good vid quite a few pics i'd not seen before .

[@lyedavide]

In just one action, Beatty lost 3 ships and almost 4,000 men. Although it was the improper handling of ammunition that caused the explosions that destroyed the 3 battle cruisers, it has to be said that Beatty was well aware of this but did nothing to address the dangerous practice. A clear demonstration that one carefully laid shot that takes 5 minutes to aim is worth infinitely more than 1,000 shells fired in one second, all of which doing nothing other than making nice splashes in the water. The rate of fire is worth nothing if you can't hit the target. Something the Royal Navy paid very dearly to learn at Jutland.

[@harrylor66]

Ah, the loss of the three battlecruisers is once again due to the ‘improper handling of ammunition’. Could it perhaps be that the presence of Imperial shells also played a small (though certainly very small😉) part in these losses?🤔 Twenty years later, almost to the day(!), the mighty H.M.S. Hood exploded after only 6 minutes of fighting.🤨 Was this still due to the ‘improper handling of the ammunition’...?🤔

[@brettcurtis5710]

And the fact that the German Gunnery Officers were very much on top of their game - superior optics and training had a lot to do with it!

[@73Trident]

Great as always . Thanks for the history.

[@roystone9932]

One of the " Splendid Cats ".

[@jeffblacky]

My world of warships Hms Queen Mary dies as easy every time I use it

[@johnholt890]

She was very marginally the largest lost at Jutland if at all, as SMS Lutzow was very close in size.

[@SuperMaxdragon]

Another victim of poor ordinance handling. At least lessons were learned.

[@ShizukuSeiji]

HMS Hood's crew would disagree with you.

[@joemaloney1019]

Adm Beattey was a firm believer in aggressively rapid fire and it is believed that ships under his command stockpiled gunpowder charges for rapid ready use. It is possible that flashtight hatches were left open as well. If an enemy shell penetrated the gun house and detonated the flash would penetrate the magazine and baboom!

[@nobbytang]

The major problem with the Royal Navy this day was the Abysmal A.P. ( armour penetration) shells we had ….the Germans were aware they were crap thanks to the Swedes who had evaluated them ….After the battle the Kreigmarine evaluation the damage and shell hits ( some were 15 inch hits) suffered on their German ships and concluded that if the British had AP shells of their quality then they would of lost between 6-8 capital ships ….resulting in a huge British win !!…

[@leeneon854]

It was a civilian population, making the munitions, after everything was changed, to military Trained workers.

[@vespelian]

That was very good but you didn't mention Blinker Hall!

[@kruelunusual6242]

No mention of risky powder storage and handling practices??? Sunk the Invincible at Jutland for the same reasons if memory serves!

[@stuartlesliemason]

Hi I live in hythe Hampshire one of are churches has a memorial plaque to a local man who was in command of A turret, there is a old video that showed this turret and is was very morning to watch. I think it was a documentary about the battle and showed them diving on her wreck.

[@MR-rp3xr]

The faulture over speed over armour because of crew quarters and lavish officer led to demise of these ships in which German Ships were slower crew slept in gangway in hammocks but had thicker armour

[@Aubury]

The Queen Mary was the most valuable RN ship lost at Jutland.

[@toxified3937]

I keep hoping you will develope a more.. "fluent" reading style.. I enjoy your stuff. Sound a bit, robotic? though ngl.

[@JohnSchuetze]

German gunnery.

[@malcolmmacdougall]

very thin armour

[@woogbear]

It was not the armor that failed. It was the poor and dangerous powder handling that doomed the ship.

[@Buddieboy1957]

​@woogbear I agree. Tiger was similarly armoured, took a great deal of punishment and still remained fighting in the line. Some more recent research shows that the loss of Queen Mary was due to poor cordite handling in the magazines. HMS Lion survived a cordite explosion because her gun crews followed fleet instructions on handling it.

[@malcolmmacdougall]

@@Buddieboy1957 yes i agree with you now too because that other video explains it in much more detail..... what they had to do to increase the rate of fire was indeed to store cordite beside the breaches ready to shove it in double quick ......... this is the only reason their rate of fire was faster than the Germans'........ so in reality it was much worse than we think because they made damn sure that there was always loads of cordite in the turret..... and if they i'm incorrect, i doubt it........... no flash protection doors in operation makes sense, because you can't get the cordite into the turret quickly enough if you're using them.

[@Buddieboy1957]

@malcolmmacdougall The only reason HMS Lion survived was the Gunnery Officer limited the number of "ready use" charges, and the flash tight doors were closed. There are clear photos from the wrecking sites showing cordite charges stacked ready for use.

[@donaldhill3823]

Your videos can be interesting but it would help if you worked on switching from a monotone voice to a normal conversation voice. The monotone puts people to sleep & distracts from the content.

[@CaptainSeato]

At least it's his voice, and not an AI voice.

[@Exsubmariners]

But it sounds like it ​@@CaptainSeato

[@Jpdt19]

I appreciate your comment but I disagree. Skynea's focus to me seems to be more on detail than presentation. The narration is clear and....neutral...if he will forgive me. It's good. And allows one to focus on the content not the speech

[@Exsubmariners]

@@Jpdt19 can you imagine this guy telling a joke 🤣🤣

[@Jpdt19]

@@Exsubmariners yes. In his natural tones. But this manner of chat is not for jokes or comedy 🤣

[@steve-qc8hd]

KGV class of 1911 also had the rear officer's accommodation

[@Tempestzzzz]

Total waste of men. For what? Empire?

[@George_M_]

For the upholding of poorly advised treaties made for the sake of, yes, imperial dick measuring.

[@nathansullivan4433]

That’s the most tragic thing about WWI. Millions of boys and young men sent to die for some empire that would likely collapse a few years later.

[@Tempestzzzz]

@@nathansullivan4433 I got in my KZbin feed a comparison of 1930 and current ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. After watching that it puts you in a certain state of mind.

[@graham2631]

Without control of the sea the war on land would have been different. There was a problem with spiked helmets at the time.

[@ShizukuSeiji]

WWI was won by the Royal Navy. The blockade of German maritime trade strangled their war industry, made near-starvation a thing and brought about the collapse of the Kaiser's regime. You need to take off your 21st C hat and wear one from the early 1900s to understand the Dreadnought battleship arms race, why it happened and what its effects were. I'm not defending what happened I am just saying you need to view those events with a contemporary mindset rather than a modern one. Germany had declared war on France and Great Britain, we had to respond accordingly.