When Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced to the House of Commons the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, on December 11, 1941, he indicated his apprehension of grave consequences. He said:
These two fast, powerful ships constituted an essential feature of our plans for meeting the new Japanese danger as it loomed up against us in the last few months.
These two ships had reached the right point at the right moment and were in every respect suited to the task assigned to them.
In moving to attack Japanese transports and landing craft where they were disembarking invaders of Siam and Malaya on the Kra Isthmus or thereabouts, Admiral Phillips was undertaking a thoroughly sound, well-considered offensive operation, not indeed free from risk, but not different in principle from any similar operations we have repeatedly carried out in the North Sea and the Mediterranean.
Both ships were sunk by repeated air attacks by bombers and torpedo aircraft. These attacks were delivered with skill and determination.
An estimate of the situation that has resulted from the sinking of the two powerful British capital ships indicates that the losses sustained are equal to the importance of the mission defined by Prime Minister Churchill.
Unchecked, the Japanese succeeded in the objectives which Prime Minister Churchill defined in his statement. Within 15 days, on December 25, the most disastrous consequence of the loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse was seen in the fall of Hongkong. The British stronghold and colony had been surrendered following the successful blockade by the Japanese Fleet under Vice Admiral Masai chi and two weeks of continuous attacks by land and air directed by the Japanese Lieutenant General Ruy Sakai. The Malaya states, Borneo, Sumatra, and Singapore itself had been invested by the Japanese in that short time.
A conservative estimate of the cumulative losses resulting from the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse indicates losses in excess of $10,000,000,000 to the British. The dollar value of Hongkong alone was many times greater than the cost of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. Malaya, Singapore, Borneo, Sarawak, Brunei, and Sumatra have strategic values in addition to the commercial values. They control the gateways to continents and the great trade routes. The tonnage of shipping sunk or seized by the Japanese also had a greater value under world war conditions.
As the major sources of rubber, tin, and other strategical materials, as well as on account of the routes to Persia, Suez, the Near East, and the Middle East, the United States and other American nations have a definite interest in keeping the gateways open.
It is, therefore, of great importance for the above reasons, as well as from the standpoint of national defense, that we draw such lessons as are justifiable from the event and the consequences.
Fortunately contemporary reports were made on the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the British Admiralty, British Headquarters at Singapore, and by an Eye-Witness and Cecil Brown, who were on board the Repulse when the Japanese planes attacked. Collectively they present an unusually complete picture of what happened, without marked conflict.
The attack made by the Japanese on the Prince of Wales and the Repulse was not a surprise attack in the dark, without notice of intent to declare war, as was the case with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The British Government had declared war on Japan on December 8, and as stated by the British Colonial Office, Japanese operations against the British at Hongkong
began on December 8, when they announced a blockade by the Japanese navy.
The first contact with the enemy was made December 9, when a raiding patrol was ambushed and wiped out. The Japanese, who attempted to push forward, were pushed back by fire. The Japanese launched a heavy attack on December 10, which was halted after the enemy had penetrated some forward positions.
Four months before, on August 24, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in reviewing the events surrounding the Atlantic Conference with President Roosevelt, had denounced Japan, saying:
They menace by their movements Siam; menace Singapore, the British link with Australasia . . . It is certain that this has got to stop.
Cognizance had, therefore, been taken by the British Government that Japan was menacing British Far Eastern strongholds. The Far Eastern Fleet, of which the Prince of Wales was the flagship, had been ordered to the Far East. In Prime Minister Churchill’s own words,
These two fast, powerful ships constituted an essential feature of our plans for meeting the new Japanese danger as it loomed up against us in the last few months.
The arrival of the British Far Eastern Fleet in Far Eastern waters had been a subject of daily comment by radio commentators and newspaper editors during the week preceding the British declaration of war on Japan. There was, therefore, no element of surprise attack without declaration of war, as was the case in the Pearl Harbor attack.
Evidence that the British naval expedition which ended with the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse had been carefully planned and that the veteran British naval officers in command expected action, appears clear. For instance, just before the air attack of December 10 Admiral Sir Tom S. V. Phillips, Commander of the Far Eastern Fleet, had signaled from his flagship, the Prince of Wales, to Captain W. G. Tennant of the Repulse as follows:
We are looking for trouble and no doubt we shall find it. We hope to surprise the enemy transports tomorrow and we expect to meet the Japanese battleship Kongo. I am very sure every one will give a good account of himself.
A reasonable interpretation is that Admiral Phillips anticipated that the Japanese transports carrying the troops to Malaya would be escorted by such battleships as the Kongo, and the Prince of Wales and the Repulse would destroy the Japanese capital ships, while the destroyers and other auxiliary ships would sink the transports.
The report of the Eye-Witness evidences that Admiral Phillips was on the alert for surprise attacks in darkness. He wrote:
A Japanese reconnaissance plane seen in the darkness approached and the fleet changed its course during the night.
Daylight came without signs of the Japanese. It was a clear, sunlit day, with good visibility. Just the kind of a day for the big guns of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse to match their power with those of the Japanese Kongo. Two days before, the Japanese authorities had announced the blockade of Hongkong by the Japanese Navy. Shooting was in order. Cruisers and auxiliary vessels were sent to look for the enemy. That we may surmise from the fact that most of them were two hours in coming to rescue the survivors when the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were sunk a few hours later.
The reports of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse created a mystery. They depicted the two mighty British capital ships as being so isolated that it was some time before destroyers arrived to rescue the survivors, who were hanging on such floating debris as they could get hold of.
The mystery arises from the announcements made by the British authorities and dispatches from Singapore over a week before the sinking of the arrival in Far Eastern waters of the Far Eastern Fleet, with the Prince of Wales as its flagship. References to the fleet were a main topic during the week preceding Japan’s declaration of war on the United States, and following the shocking report of the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7. During the days that passed between that attack and the sinking of the two British capital ships the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were cited as the possible avengers.
The disparity between the naval formation comprised in a fleet and the two isolated capital ships and a few destroyers was too great to be glossed over by silence. The Japanese official statement on December 10 referred to sighting the fleet as follows:
The British Far Eastern Fleet was sighted off the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula at 11:30 o’clock this morning and Japanese aircraft immediately went into action.
Two capital ships and a few destroyers do not constitute a fleet, nor a squadron, which consists of eight ships. But it may constitute a division, though theoretically there are four ships to a division.
The possible answer is that the other units of the Far Eastern Fleet were elsewhere in Far Eastern waters, carrying out the plans referred to by Prime Minister Churchill as “our plans for meeting the new Japanese danger as it loomed up against us in the last few months.”
The Japanese attack on the Prince of Wales and the Repulse on December 10 subjected to a supreme test the two major types of British capital ships whose respective merits in naval architecture, armor, armament, and unsinkability have been the subject of disagreement among the world’s highest authorities.
The Prince of Wales incorporated the outstanding features evolved by the highest British naval experts to achieve maximum gun power and general efficiency within the 35,000-ton limit set by the Washington Treaty of 1922 and the limitation on capital-ship building imposed until 1937 by the London Naval Treaty of 1930 and the 1936 agreement.
The substitution of ten 14-inch guns, carried in two quadruple and one double turrets, for the 16-inch guns, mounted in pairs, of the Nelson and Rodney class, gave the Prince of Wales a saving of 680 tons in gun mountings alone. The 14-inch guns weigh 80 tons against the 16-inch 105 tons. The 14-inch shells weigh 1,560 lb. each as against the 16-inch 2,000 lb. That saving of approximately 20 tons on every 100 shells made the total weight-saving in the ship’s magazines substantial.
Since the 14-inch guns afforded a firing speed of 75 shells to the 16-inch 60, and a volume of fire of 468 to the 16-inch 432, there was a compensation for the reduction of shell power due to lighter shell.
That great saving in weight made possible, theoretically, thicker armor and protective deck, greater secondary armament and anti-aircraft batteries, and bulges and buoyance spaces, or unsinkable qualities.
When subjected to practically identical attacks, made on both ships at practically the same time, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse exhibited practically the same degree of vulnerability to bomb and torpedoplane attacks and sank within half an hour of each other.
In assessing the causes of the cumulative catastrophe we find the outstanding fact that no air protection had been provided for the Prince of Wales, the Repulse, and their auxiliaries.
Prime Minister Churchill’s report to the House of Commons on the loss of the two capital ships and the reports of the Eye-Witness and Cecil Brown are silent on the subject of British air protection. The existence of a plane on board the Repulse is revealed by the following reference in Cecil Brown’s report:
Simultaneously another [bomb] struck the Repulse on the catapult deck, penetrating the ship and exploding below in the marines’ mess and hangar. Our plane was subsequently unable to take off.
The existence of land-based British air forces in the neighborhood on the fatal day is disclosed by the following reference in the official communique from the Singapore British Headquarters on the day after the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse:
There are no reports of further attempts to land in the Quantan area, nor were any enemy ships seen in that direction by air reconnaissance during yesterday.
Apart from this, Japanese mobile air and sea forces are probably still engaged in raiding operations in wide spaces of the Pacific.
While there is reference to observing for Japanese ships, it appears that the planes which did the observing were land-based. Their failure of being on the alert to protect the capital ships may be explained by this part of the official communique:
Heavy scale air attacks on northern airdromes have rendered a number of them unserviceable.
The fatal omission of air protection as an integral part of the British naval force operating with the Prince of Wales and the Repulse was explained by Prime Minister Churchill by the statement that a carrier was not available for the Pacific Area.
The loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse and the consequent disasters could have been averted by the four planes with which the Repulse was supposed to be equipped as a standard practice.
An estimate of the situation indicates that conditions were favorable for the Repulse’s four planes—had they been launched—as follows:
(1) The engagement lasted only one and a half hours. The planes could have remained in the air and in action without having to land for gas.
(2) The engagement took place in sunlight, in the midday hours, the attackers in full sight of the defenders.
(3) The Japanese planes attacked in single line ahead formation, therefore they could be fought individually, as they came on.
Had the Japanese planes been in line abreast or V formation, they could still have been intercepted by the Repulse’s planes.
(4) The fact that the Japanese attacked alternatively from 10,000 feet, then horizontally, then from 1,000 feet, then again horizontally, then again from high level afforded greater opportunity for defense than if they had made a frontal mass attack in which the Repulse’s planes would have been greatly outnumbered.
(5) The absence of Japanese fighters as escort to the high level bombers and the torpedoplanes would have placed the Japanese bombers and torpedoplanes at a disadvantage. The speedier British fighters could have maintained the offensive, making it difficult for the attackers to drop their bombs or launch their torpedoes at the Prince of Wales and the Repulse.
With over 5,000 air engagements to their record the British Air Arms had certainly had abundant experience. There is nothing in the official, the Eye-Witness, and Cecil Brown reports to indicate the presence of any obstacle to the operation of the Repulse’s planes.
As we read the statements of Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on December 11, and of the eyewitnesses of the battle which resulted in the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, we are reminded that Rear Admiral B. A. Fiske, U.S.N., who invented the torpedoplane, stated in 1911, at the time the claims for his patent application were being drafted:
“I have invented not only a new weapon, but a new method of warfare.” The first two claims in the patent No. 1,032,394, dated July 16, 1912, granted by the United States Patent Office to Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, United States Navy, read:
I claim
(1) The method of directing and delivering the attack of a self-propelled submarine torpedo upon a floating target, which consists:
First, in transporting said torpedo through the air to a point of desired proximity to said target;
Second, training said torpedo in the desired direction;
Third, starting the propelling mechanism of said torpedo, and
Fourth, releasing said torpedo to fall by gravity to the water.
(2) The method of directing and delivering the attack of a self-propelled submarine torpedo upon a floating target, which consists:
First, in transporting said torpedo through the air over a path of relatively high elevation to the vicinity of said target;
Second, swooping downward to a point of relatively low elevation and training said torpedo in the desired direction;
Third, starting the propelling mechanism of said torpedo, and
Fourth, releasing said torpedo to fall by gravity to the water.
Other claims covered the devices for holding, launching, propelling, and releasing the torpedoes from airships. Admiral Fiske was well aware of the importance of his invention.
The Japanese succeeded by using the formula expressed by Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman in his statement to the Naval Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives on January 2, 1919, when he said:
If we had in our fleet ships to carry 15 planes fitted with torpedoes, there is no question that if we could get in close proximity to the enemy’s fleet, we could operate very successfully, especially against battleships.
That is the way the Japanese operated on December 10, 1941, except that their torpedoplanes and bombers were land- based instead of being on carriers. On the other hand, they operated from a carrier in their surprise attack on American ships at Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese torpedoplanes (a) got in “close proximity to the enemy’s fleet,” and (b) operated “very successfully, especially against battleships.”
In this case the British made it easier to get “in close proximity to the enemy” by coming within striking distance of the planes, without aerial protection. That was a mistake which the Allied officials said would never happen when Admiral Hugh Rodman’s formula was discussed. They pointed out that the function of the capital ships is to destroy the enemy’s battleships, and not to get close to and bombard sea coasts. They further pointed out that capital ships were dependent for protection on auxiliaries and did not venture near the coasts without full protection. There would be adequate protection if and when a capital ship ventured near land occupied by the enemy.
The account of the intense, heroic antiaircraft defenses of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse reveal new problems in defending capital ships from air attacks.
The Eye-Witness reported that “Both ships opened up with tremendous antiaircraft barrage,” and Cecil Brown reported to the same effect as follows:
At 12:01—Another wave of torpedo bombers is approaching. They are being met with everything we have got, except our 14-inchers.
That implies that the most formidable barrage was kept up with the ship’s secondary batteries as well as the multiple naval pom-pom guns. Theoretically the multi-barrelled pom-poms are supposed to produce such a curtain of fire that a 300-mile an hour diving plane cannot pass through it quickly enough to escape damage. They fire shells of high explosive type at the rate of 120 to 200 rounds a minute.
Both ships apparently supplemented the deadly pom-poms with the secondary batteries with little effect. As Prime Minister Churchill stated to the House of Commons on December 11, 1941,
Continued waves of attack achieved their purpose and both ships capsized and sank, having destroyed seven of the attacking aircraft.
There is little doubt that the barrage would have been effectual on land or stationary platform, against one-level planes. The two-level attack, plus the zigzagging and careening of the ships, prevented the accuracy in firing which has been achieved on immobile bases.
We find, therefore, new anti-aircraft defense problems for which there is no easy solution in sight.
A factor which has been overlooked so far in the consideration of precautionary measures to lessen the effect of air attacks on capital ships is the degree of vulnerability arising from the position of the capital ships.
The accounts of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse indicate that they were in single line ahead formation and the attacking Japanese bombers and torpedo- planes followed the same formation, nine planes coming in single line ahead formation, each dropping its sticks or torpedo in succession, instead of coming line abreast and making a frontal mass attack, or in line of bearing, proceeding diagonally.
Since capital ships must stay at a distance from each other to avoid the possibility of collision when in action, attacking planes are not blocked by any kind of formation that may be adopted by the fleet, squadron, or division to be attacked. There are, however, rules that must be followed by the attacking planes to get the best results in attacking different ship formations. The Japanese demonstrated by sinking the Prince of Wales and the Repulse that their rules were well adapted for the British naval formation. Had the formation been different, the Japanese could have changed their aerial formation on short notice. That is part of the advantage aircraft have over seacraft.
Apparently the British naval formation at the time of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse created a high degree of vulnerability. The reports indicate that it was a single line ahead formation, though it may have been line of bearing formation. Had it been line abreast, reference would undoubtedly have been made to difficulties arising from the anti-aircraft fire of one ship hitting the other.
Now that the new method of warfare evolved by American genius has been appropriated by Japan and used to show the vulnerability of Britain’s mighty battleships and battle cruisers under certain conditions, the United States Navy has new problems of gigantic magnitude to solve.
The past challenges to capital ships have been few. They have always been met. This new challenge will undoubtedly be met by:
(1) Greater alertness when capital ships are near enemy land-based or ship-based aircraft;
(2) Keeping capital ships far enough away from enemy land or ship air bases so that a defense may be set up before attacks can be made;
(3) Having aircraft on board and crews always on the alert, ready to rise to give battle to attackers;
(4) Determining and adopting the least vulnerable formation for naval units from air attacks;
(5) Evolving a method for dodging bombs and torpedoes dropped by aircraft;
(6) Providing ships with better armor;
(7) Improving anti-aircraft defenses and practicing firing while zigzagging and careening, so anti-aircraft barrage will not be wasted, as happened in the case of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse.
(8) Adding to fleets auxiliary ships whose mission will be to protect capital ships from air attacks.
Of course, the ancient principle of destroying your enemy’s fleet before he can attack yours is still a good formula!