"I remember so many faces of my friends and shipmates who weren't as fortunate as me.". As always you can unsubscribe at any time. Your email address will not be published. She started off World War II by being torpedoed off Liverpool, and after being patched up was in trouble again during a bombardment of Oran, when she was hit by Free French shore batteries. [62] On 12 December, she accidentally rammed one of her escorts, the destroyer Duchess, in thick fog nine miles (14km) west of the Mull of Kintyre. One fragment ricocheted off the upper deck and through the side plating on the opposite side of the ship. On 25 November 1941 one of the heaviest losses of life, and the only loss of a Royal Navy battleship to a submarine at sea, occurred off Bardia, when HMS Barham was torpedoed at extremely short range by U-331, and sank within four minutes. They hit Ltzow, Derfflinger and Seydlitz three times each between 17:19 and about 18:05. [55] The ship was transferred to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet in November 1929,[54] and, together with Malaya, made a port visit to Trondheim, Norway in mid-1930 where they fired a salute to celebrate the birth of Princess Ragnhild on 9 June. On 24 May, the fleet conducted another demonstration off Horns Reef to keep German attention focused on the North Sea. Lilly died in 2007, aged 86. Merlin Burrows have found and pin-pointed the exact location of the wreck of HMS Barham - a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship built for the Royal Navy in February 1913. In contrast, the hit on Ltzow flooded a 15-centimetre (5.9in) magazine and the hits on Seydlitz blew a 10-by-13-foot (3.0 by 4.0m) hole in the side of her bow. Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in December 1939, Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in November 1941. "It would be at such resolution that anyone could look for shipwrecks like the Athenia from their desk. The main conning tower was protected by 13 inches (330mm) of armour. Barham played a minor role in quelling the 1929 Palestine riots and the 19361939 Arab revolt in Palestine. [94], It was not until the Admiralty admitted that Barham had been sunk and described the circumstances that Tiesenhausen knew that he had sunk her. Three minutes later another shell hit the aft superstructure, severing the antenna cables of the main wireless station. The anti-torpedo bulge was essentially destroyed adjacent to the strike, with four men killed and two wounded. The anti-aircraft (AA) armament were composed of two quick-firing (QF) 3-inch (76mm) 20cwt Mk I[Note 1] guns. HMS Barham underway off Devonport in WW2. He went on to serve as a gun range finder aboard HMS Nelson, involved in bombarding German defences in Normandy on D-Day. The shell devastated a messdeck and dented the armoured deck by a depth of 8 centimetres (3.1in), but caused no casualties. [16] The ship, named after Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham,[17] was laid down at their Clydebank shipyard on 24 February 1913 and launched on 31 December 1914. The translated detailed report of the attack by U-331 can be found at this link. 1. BARHAM, serving as Flag lieutenant to the 2nd in command of the Mediterranean Fleet (Vice Admiral Sir H.D. The marine scientist first got involved in the search for the wreck in a commission from the BBC. [42] Barham returned fire at the battlecruisers at 17:02, together with Valiant, the two northernmost of Evan-Thomas's ships, and the two of them made three hits on the battlecruiser SMSSeydlitz and Ltzow between 17:06 and 17:13 while Barham was hit twice more by Derfflinger; although neither of the hits did any significant damage. The following morning, they were spotted by an aircraft from the carrier Formidable and the Battle of Cape Matapan began. The turbines were rated at 75,000 shaft horsepower (56,000kW) and intended to reach a maximum speed of 25 knots (46.3km/h; 28.8mph). Print This Page. Despite the majority of the wreck lying some 75m below the . She was powered by two sets of Brown-Curtis steam turbines, each driving two shafts using steam from 24 Yarrow boilers. Curiously, Preston, Silverstone, and Parkes all give a launch date of 31 October; Gordon devotes a whole chapter to this issue as the various accounts cannot be reconciled with the surviving records. A salvo of torpedoes from a German submarine struck from close range on HMS Barham on November 25, 1941 in the Mediterranean. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. When Richard came round, he was underwater. [100] The crew are commemorated by a memorial bench, located in Nothe Gardens, Weymouth. [44], Hipper turned his ships southward around 18:05 to fall back upon Scheer's advancing battleships and then reversed course five minutes later. An ASDIC operator aboard one of the leading destroyers, Jervis, detected the submarine at 16:18 at an estimated range of 9001,100 yards (8201,010m), but the contact was disregarded as it subtended an angle between 40 and 60 degrees wide, far larger than a submarine. Copyright 2023. [22], Barham joined the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow the next day and participated in a fleet training operation west of Orkney during 25 November. The detonation blew a 7-by-7-foot (2.1 by 2.1m) hole in the main deck, sent fragments through the middle and lower decks and burned out the casemate for starboard No. The attack on an unarmed passenger liner was a clear breach of international protocols. On her arrival at Alexandria shortly afterwards, my Admiral (P-W) and I joined her when she took over from ROYAL SOVEREIGN as flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron. [36] His order only applied to his own forces; the 5th Battle Squadron continued south until after it passed Beatty heading northwestwards at 16:51. [18][19][Note 2] Barham cost a total of 2,470,113. . Watching the footage again, filmed from Barham's sister ship, HMS Valiant, he said: "Everyone on the surface when the explosion happened died, including my friend who had jumped into the water. A German submarine torpedoed the ship hours after Britain declared war on Hitler in 1939 - more than 100 people, including many Americans, were killed. Kapitaenleutnant Freiherr von Tiesenhausen, who did a radio broadcast on this attack in December 1941. And now within range of the battleships of the 3rd Squadron which opened fire on the 5th Battle Squadron as they made their turn. U-boat commander Fritz Julius Lemp had mistaken the liner for an armed cruiser and the German naval authorities tried to cover up the sub's actions. While covering the evacuation of Crete the following day, the ship was attacked by Junkers Ju 88 bombers from II./LG (Demonstration Wing) 1 and Heinkel He 111 bombers of II./KG (Bomber Wing) 26. The impacts drove in the plates and fragments caused much flooding by damaging the surrounding structure. Read more [26], In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the High Seas Fleet, composed of 16 dreadnoughts, 6 pre-dreadnoughts, 6 light cruisers, and 31 torpedo boats, departed the Jade early on the morning of 31 May. One 250-kilogram (550lb) bomb struck 'Y' turret and started a fire inside the turret that took 20 minutes to quench. A High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director were added to the roof of the spotting top and the mainmast was reconstructed as a tripod to support the weight of a second HACS director. "It was the strangest thing. By this time the 5th Battle Squadron was about seven point five nautical miles (13.9km; 8.6mi) northwest of Beatty. The Germans opened fire first at 15:48, followed by the British battlecruisers. She participated in the Battle of Dakar in mid-1940, where she damaged a Vichy French battleship and was slightly damaged in return. HMAS Sydney II and the HSK Kormoran Shipwreck Sites, Admiralty House, Garden and Fortifications, Royal Australian Naval Transmitting Station ACT, 81st. It was a perfect day and the sea was smooth, After Hands had been piped to tea, the usual promenaders (ERAs and Stoker POs off watch) emerged from below-decks for their customary first Dog Watch strolls up and down the Focsle. She departed Scapa Flow that day, escorted by four destroyers,[68] and rendezvoused with the troop convoy en route to Gibraltar[69] where she arrived on 2 September. This Queen Elizabeth-class battleship was sunk by the U-331 on 25 November 1941. After a delay of several weeks the War Office notified the next of kin, but they added a special request for secrecy: the notification letters included a warning not to discuss the loss of the ship with anyone but close relatives, stating it was "most essential that information of the event which led to the loss of your husband's life should not find its way to the enemy until such time as it is announced officially"[98] Following repeated claims by German radio,[99] the Admiralty officially announced the loss on 27 January 1942 and explained that, it was clear at that time that the enemy did not know that she had been sunk, and it was important to make certain dispositions before the loss of this ship was made public. This means that we may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. IWM FL1472. The ship participated in the Silver Jubilee Fleet Review for George V on 16 July at Spithead[58] and was then transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet at the end of August. Producers had wanted to stage a live, underwater broadcast from the sunken remains of a famous ship. The third shell detonated on the face of the starboard wing turret, although some fragments entered the turret and caused minor damage. Experience the final moments of the Queen Elizabeth Battleship, HMS Barham, when it was struck by torpedoes from a German submarine during World War II which resulted in a terrifying explosion.. 271, 275, 27980, 284, 286290, Campbell 1986, pp. Completed in 1915, she was often used as a flagship and participated in the Battle of Jutland during the First World War as part of the Grand Fleet. Tiesenhausen ordered all four bow torpedo tubes fired at a range of 375 metres (410yd) at 16:25. Richard Laland is one of only two survivors from the doomed battleship HMS Barham still alive today. Shortly afterwards, she was deployed to Gibraltar for several months after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in July. "I'm one of only two survivors from the ship left," he said. [15], The Queen Elizabeth class was ordered as part of the 1912 Naval Programme and the contract for Barham was awarded to John Brown & Company. Beatty then altered course to the east, as he was still too far north to cut Hipper off. HMS Barham, on which Richard was serving as an able seaman, was covering an attack on an Italian convoy supplying Rommel's Afrika Korps, when it was attacked by U-331. [80], Barham, two cruisers, and three destroyers also assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet were designated Force F as part of Operation Coat, one of a complex series of fleet movements in the Mediterranean. [3], The Queen Elizabeth class was equipped with eight breech-loading (BL) 15-inch (381mm) Mk I guns in four twin-gun turrets, in two superfiring pairs fore and aft of the superstructure, designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear. After several minutes it became apparent that the squadron was not conforming to Beatty's other ships, but Evan-Thomas refused to change course until clear instructions had been received despite entreaties from the Barham's captain. The British battleships then switched targets to bombard the harbour and Richelieu. "When we reached one of the torpedo bulges, my friend jumped into the water. [49] Barham was refitted at Rosyth from 723 February 1918[50] and Waller was relieved by Captain Henry Buller on 18 April. [63], Barham, the battlecruiser Repulse and the destroyers Fame, Icarus, Imogen, Isis and Nubian were on patrol off the Butt of Lewis to protect against a possible break-out into the Atlantic by German warships when they were spotted by the German submarineU-30, commanded by Fritz-Julius Lemp, on 28 December. Ltzow was only slightly damaged by these hits, which essentially only knocked out the primary and back-up wireless rooms while the shells that hit Derfflinger hit the side of the ship's bow, knocking off several armour plates, while fragments opened holes that ultimately allowed roughly 2,000 tonnes (1,968 long tons) of water to enter the bow. [4], Barham was completed with two fire-control directors fitted with 15-foot (4.6m) rangefinders. [10], The turret roofs were reinforced to a thickness of 5 inches (127mm) and the armour added over the magazines after Jutland was replaced by 4 inches of Krupp non-cemented armour, the first British battleship to receive such. "Fearing the impact of the affair on American opinion, the Germans promoted an absurd conspiracy theory, claiming that Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, had been responsible. During her early-1930s refit, the platforms were removed from the turrets and a retractable catapult was installed on the roof of 'X' turret, along with a crane to recover a floatplane. During the 1920s and 1930s, the ship was assigned to the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Home Fleets. At 18:17 he realised that Marlborough was actually at the rear of the formation and he ordered a turn to the north to bring his squadron into line behind the Grand Fleet. HMS BARHAM - a British battleship sunk in November 1941 by a submarine in the Mediterranean SANTA ROSA - a Portuguese galleon loaded with seven chests of treasure, sunk in 1726 by an explosion. In addition, she was joined by the battleships HMS Queen . 137144, 2-pounder (40mm (1.6in)) Mk VIII "pom-pom", https://www.navy.gov.au/media-room/publications/hm-ships-enemy-action-wwii, HMS Barham Explodes & Sinks: World War II (1941), List of dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HMS_Barham_(04)&oldid=1131403965, World War I battleships of the United Kingdom, World War II battleships of the United Kingdom, Ships sunk by German submarines in World War II, World War II shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 5,000nmi (9,260km; 5,750mi) at 12 knots (22km/h; 14mph), This page was last edited on 4 January 2023, at 00:34. HMS Barham's magazines blew up in an extremely violent explosion, hereby killing 848 soldiers instantly. The resulting shockwave pushed the bulge inwards for a length of 7 feet (2.1m) and it started to slowly flood. [28][Note 3], When dawn broke Beatty ordered his forces into cruising formation with the 5th Battle Squadron trailing his battle cruisers by five nautical miles (9.3km; 5.8mi). All footage can be viewed on the British Path website. Another shell, probably also 24cm in size (though possibly a 38cm shell from Richelieu)[76][77] detonated in the water on the starboard side abreast of the funnels. petrol. How surprising were the M3 Grant tanks to the Germans? [46], Following Jutland, Barham was under repair until 5 July 1916. He eventually lost his life in a confrontation in 1941 when his U-110 boat was forced to the surface after being damaged by depth charges. I was in H.M.S. HMS Barham floating on side at sea. None of the men were ever found alive, and the expedition is considered one of the worst disasters in the history of polar exploration. Huge palls of smoke rising from the stricken ship. In preparation for Operation Menace, a British naval attack on Dakar, Senegal, prior to a planned landing by the Free French, the ship was detached from the Home Fleet on 28 August and was assigned to Force M, the Royal Navy component of the operation. She became a private ship in January of that year and was refitted at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard in FebruaryJuly. "If I hadn't dived headfirst and knocked myself out, I would be dead, too.". The enemy struck at 4.25pm as Richard was on a tea break and talking with a friend. The latter was succeeded by Captain Richard Horne on 1 October. [54] At that time, Captain Norman Wodehouse relieved Scott. The battleships were providing distant cover to the light cruisers of Force B[1], engaged in searching for the German merchantsMaritzaandProcida (see also this link and this link). He replied, 'it's gone'.". flag changed on a number of occasions. HMS Barham was a 35,000-ton battleship built for World War I but had had an extensive refit in the 1930s. Video, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, Harry and Meghan told to 'vacate' Frogmore Cottage, Fungus case forces Jack Daniels to halt construction, Rare Jurassic-era bug found at Arkansas Walmart, Dozens of girls treated after new Iran poisonings, Man survives 31 days in jungle by eating worms, How fake copyright complaints are muzzling journalists. Second World War (1939-1945) Sidi Barrani. Website with searchable ship database about warships, passenger liners, merchant ships, photo galleries, technical details, stories, news and much more. BARHAM was torpedoed by U.331 and lost off the Western Desert of Egypt - off Sollum and Sidi Barrani. It was steaming at about twenty knots at the time, and immediately began to list to port at an alarming rate. 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Scientist first got involved in bombarding German defences in Normandy on D-Day July 1916 hms barham wreck found.
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