The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse Part 1: prelude to disaster

The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse to Japanese air attack off the Malayan (Malaysian) coast, on 10 December 1941,[1] was a human tragedy, although the precise death toll has been variously given. The official figure is 840: however numbers given in various references vary, and a list compiled by the Force Z Survivors’ Association indicates 763 lives were lost, 327 from Prince of Wales[2] and 436 from Repulse.[3]

The disaster in the South China Sea marked the first time capital ships had been sunk solely by air power at sea, while fully operational and able to defend themselves. In popular memory the disaster came about because Admiral Sir Tom Phillips unwisely led his ships – ‘Force Z’ – into hostile waters without air cover. The loss has also been used as evidence of the inferiority of Britain’s King George V class battleships as a design. None of these points, as we shall see in this and the next two articles, are entirely true.

The deployment of a force originally known as ‘Force G’, and finally dubbed ‘Force Z’ on 2 December 1941,[4] has also been presented as an exercise in futility: the British sent two ships to defend Singapore and Australasia, and immediately lost them. In fact, such view is one of hindsight. At the time, their deployment was a purely diplomatic effort, for nobody knew when the crisis with Japan might turn to war – it was certainly not expected within a few days of their arrival at Singapore. At the time, they were viewed as the spearhead of a fleet that included forces already in theatre, along with others earmarked for eastern service. While Singapore was the main British base in the region – and the strategy of sending a fleet there in case of war had been the lynch-pin of Australian and New Zealand defence policy in the Pacific – there was also potential for them to be based in Perth, Sydney, Trincomalee or elsewhere. Phillips could also call on elements of the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy.[5]

The selection of a modern King George V class battleship and an elderly battlecruiser to send ahead of the rest was political: the Admiralty favoured sending older battleships. All new battleships were needed in European waters, and the Commander in Chief of the Home Fleet, Admiral Sir John Tovey, was concerned about the air conditioning of the class, which was not designed for tropical waters. However, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, needed to placate worries in Australia and New Zealand, both of which rested their Pacific defence on the ‘main fleet to Singapore’ strategy if war broke out with Japan. [6] He also wanted to show Japan – as a likely enemy – and the potential ally he was wooing, the United States, that Britain was still able to take decisive steps in the Pacific. He had been using the modern battleships as power symbols in his negotiations with the US, travelling on Prince of Wales to meet President Roosevelt, for instance. To pick such a ship to also impress Japan with British resolve was an obvious extension of the concept. And we have to remember that diplomacy was still the name of the game; war with Japan had not broken out and there was every hope it might be averted.

This stood against Admiralty strategic needs in late 1941, where such a ploy took a modern battleship out of the European theatre. All were needed. The third King George V class ship, Duke of York, had only just been completed and was not going to be combat-ready for some time. War with Germany and Italy – both of which had modern battleships in service – was placing huge demands on the Royal Navy. This did not imply poor Admiralty understanding of the intention; there was every hope that diplomacy backed by a show of military strength would prevent fighting with Japan. The debate was over precisely what that show of strength should constitute. A modern battleship made a clear statement from Churchill’s perspective.

An aircraft carrier was tipped to go with the heavy ships, but delayed by grounding damage. However, we cannot speculate as to what might have been, because the two heavy ships were seen by the Admiralty as the advance guard of a larger fleet being assembled for general operations and the specific course of events in early December was unknown when their deployments were planned. In point of fact, Phillips was also expecting to have an ‘R’ class battleship under command, but decided to push Prince of Wales and Repulse to Singapore because he felt they would be seen more as a ‘raiding force’ than a ‘line of battle’,[7] and thus not provocative.

Ironically, it was due to the European war that the crisis was brewing with Japan in the first place. Japan had been at war with China since 1937, itself a consequence of a 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The fall of France in mid-1940 created a power vacuum in the French colonies in South East Asia, opening the door for the Japanese to move in and tackle the Chinese from the south. That provoked alarm in Washington and London, and by 1941 both the US and Britain had levied sanctions against Japan in an effort to cut off its war-making capacity. Diplomatic tensions rose, and it was in this context that the British began contemplating a naval build-up in the Far East, largely to deter Japanese aggression.

Politics entered the fray. Australian and New Zealand alarm at the growing Pacific crisis reached the point where both Dominions began holding forces back for local defence, instead of sending them to join Britain’s ground war in North Africa. The Australian government also threatened to pull its army divisions out of Egypt.  The British felt that for political reasons they had to announce that a fleet was being built up in the Far East, and the Admiralty felt the main threat to the ships was Japanese submarines. It was therefore ‘undesirable for capital ships to arrive at Singapore without a destroyer screen’.[8]

The crisis grew. By the last week of November there were signs of Japanese intent to move on Malaya; and on 1 December the Admiralty got cold feet and suggested the heavy ships should not be at Singapore, following it up with a message on 3 December to the same effect.[9] Phillips responded with a plan to send Repulse and two destroyers to Darwin on the 5th, while Prince of Wales was docked for work on her distillers.[10] However, events derailed that scheme. Despite ongoing diplomacy, the Japanese had committed themselves to war on a timetable not anticipated in the west, and were already executing their plans. A task force was at sea, approaching Pearl Harbor to attack the US Pacific Fleet.[11] Another had been assembled to invade Malaya and secure its raw material for the Japanese Empire.[12] The latter was discovered by the British on 6 December, making clear that war – at least in the Far East – was imminent. Phillips had flown to Manila to meet with US officials, and now signalled Repulse to return to Singapore. In fact she was already on her way back, recalled by Phillips’ deputy, Rear-Admiral Arthur Palliser.[13]

Japan attacked both the United States and the British Empire almost simultaneously. On 8 December – 7 December in Hawaii, on the other side of the International Date Line – Japanese bombers hit Singapore, including Sembawang dockyard, where they were engaged by Prince of Wales and Repulse’s anti-aircraft batteries.[14]  The more crucial threat was the pending invasion of Malaya. and the Admiralty asked Phillips whether the invasion fleet could be attacked.[15] Phillips now planned a raid to dislodge the transports and cut off any forces that had landed. However, British forces in theatre were still dispersed. The old ‘D’ class cruisers were obsolescent and, in any case, earmarked for escort duties. The heavy cruiser Exeter was on the way from the Bay of Bengal,[16] and the New Zealand cruiser Achilles had been ordered away from escort duties near Suva and begun a high-speed dash for Singapore.[17] However, neither these nor any other of the warships in the area, including four US Navy destroyers, could arrive in time. Phillips had to to make do with the two heavy ships and supporting destroyers he had to hand.

The fact that war broke out essentially as the two capital ships arrived in Singapore was in part coincidental. Although the crisis had been growing for much of 1941, nobody anticipated that Japan would attack when it did. Phillips, certainly, seems to have assumed there was time to hand. The practical issue Phillips faced on 8 December was that war had broken out, and as the official Royal Navy historian pointed out, he ‘could not possibly ignore such a threat to the base on which our whole position in this theatre depended.’[18] In fact, the diminutive Admiral[19] did not make the decision lightly, calling a meeting of his senior officers aboard the Prince of Wales at 12.30 on 8 December and outlining the options.[20] They could, he said, stay where they were and get bombed; withdraw out of reach of the Japanese; or attack the invasion force. His officers were clear. The invasion force had to be tackled.[21]

Such a decision was also in the tradition of the Royal Navy. Was Force Z alone sufficient? Phillips’ information was that the invasion fleet was covered by a squadron that included a Kongo class battleship, rebuilt and reclassified, but still largely with its original 1911 era battlecruiser armour, general design, and fire-power.[22] By contrast, Prince of Wales was built to the latest standards with a main armament able to tackle any Kongo class, and was well armoured against the fire of the Japanese battleship. Repulse had marginal armour protection, but a main armament similarly able to best a Kongo-class armour system. Other than that, Phillips expected to face four heavy and two light cruisers with ‘a number of destroyers’.[23] In short, Force Z had good superiority over the sole Japanese capital ship and, with surprise, a chance of being able to stop lighter forces before they could mount torpedo attacks.

Phillips wanted air support over the beach-heads. However, he did not expect that Japanese air forces could carry bombs able to seriously damage his ships, and – reasonably – felt the main risk from the air would develop only after he was located.[24] His battle plan therefore involved striking by surprise and closing at 25 knots to below 20,000 yards ‘until fire is effective’, with ‘freedom of manoeuvre’, meaning Repulse could break away from the battle-line as needed to pursue an advantage. He intended to then ‘retire at [the] maximum speed [that] endurance will allow.’[25]

Aside from the assumption that the main air attack would be by bombing, Phillips’ assessment of risk from the air was likely also informed by the fact that Prince of Wales had a good anti-aircraft armament by 1941 standards. Her original fit had been modified mid-year, and by late 1941 she carried sixteen 5.25-inch DP guns backed by six eight-barrelled 2-pounder ‘pom pom’ machine guns,[26] a four-barrel pom-pom and a 40-mm Bofors cannon. Seven 20-mm Oerlikons were added. Fire-control was the latest available: a Mk IVGB High Angle Control System (HACS) with radar input capability.[27] The fact that the ‘pom-poms’ had jamming problems was known, but issues with the HACS in tropical conditions, along with target-handling capacity, were not yet obvious.

The decision to proceed, in short, was risky but reasonable given what the British knew at the time, wholly in line with the long-established traditions of the service and, as Roskill noted, tactically necessary given the fact that the Japanese action threatened the main British base in the region. The two capital ships left Singapore on 8 December, with their escorting destroyers, just as Phillips learned there would be no air cover over the landing beaches.

We pick up the story of what followed in part 2. Meanwhile, for more on Britain’s last generation of battleships, check out my book Britain’s Last Battleships. Click to buy.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2018

Notes

[1]               See, e.g. S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea 1939-1945, Vol. 1, The Defensive, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London 1954, p. 567; W. S. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. III: The Grand Alliance, Cassell & Col, London 1950, p. 550-551.

[2]               http://www.forcez-survivors.org.uk/

[3]               Varying figures have been quoted; these numbers vary from the official tally and are from http://www.forcez-survivors.org.uk/ For other figures see, e.g. Martin Stephen Scapegoat: the death of Prince of Wales and Repulse, Pen & Sword, Barnsley 2014, p. 25, giving 841.

[4]               http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-Prince%20of%20Wales.htm

[5]               Matthew Wright, Blue Water Kiwis, Reed, Auckland 2001, pp. 108-109.

[6]               For summary see, e.g. Roskill, pp. 555-559.

[7]               Senior Officer Force ‘G’ to Admiralty, 8 November 1941, in ibid, p. 25. The force was renamed ‘Z’ on 2 December, see http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-Prince%20of%20Wales.htm

[8]               Admiralty to Senior Officer Force ‘G’, Senior Officer Force ‘G’, in ibid, p. 25

[9]               BR 1736 (8), 1955, Naval Staff History, Second World War: Battle Summary No. 14, p. 5.

[10]             Ibid,

[11]             Noted in Churchill, p. 545.

[12]             At the time known as ‘Malaya’, not ‘Malaysia’.

[13]             http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-Prince%20of%20Wales.htm

[14]             Noted in Alan Matthews ‘The Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse’, Part 2, http://www.forcez-survivors.org.uk/

[15]             http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-Prince%20of%20Wales.htm

[16]             BR 1736 (8), 1955, Naval Staff History, Second World War: Battle Summary No. 14, p. 8.

[17]             Wright, Blue Water Kiwis, p. 114. Achilles was not under direct British command but had been ordered to proceed by the New Zealand Naval Board.

[18]             Roskill, p. 567.

[19]             He was 5’4”, nicknamed ‘Tom Thumb’ in the Admiralty.

[20]             Noted in Churchill, p.548.

[21]             http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-Prince%20of%20Wales.htm

[22]             See, e.g. Sturton (ed), pp. 112-116.

[23]             C in C Eastern Fleet to Force Z, 9 December 1941, in BR 1736 (8), 1955, Naval Staff History, Second World War: Battle Summary No. 14, Appendix D, p. 32.

[24]             BR 1736 (8), 1955, Naval Staff History, Second World War: Battle Summary No. 14, p.9.

[25]             C in C Eastern Fleet to Force Z, 9 December 1941, in BR 1736 (8), 1955, Naval Staff History, Second World War: Battle Summary No. 14, Appendix D, p. 32..

[26]             William H. Garzke and Robert O. Dulin, British, Soviet, French and Dutch battleships of World War II, Jane’s Publishing Company, London, pp. 228-229.

[27]             For details see http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-066.php