Air Campaign 020 - Sinking Force Z 1941. The Day the IJN Killed the Battleship (2021).pdf

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C A M P A I G N
A I R
SINKING FORCE Z
1941
The day the Imperial Japanese Navy
killed the battleship
A N G U S K O N S TA M
|
I L LU S T R AT E D B Y A D A M TO O B Y
A I R C A M PA I G N
SINKING FORCE Z
1941
The day the Imperial Japanese Navy killed the battleship
ANGUS KONSTAM | ILLUSTRATED BY ADAM TOOBY
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
ATTACKER’S CAPABILITIES
DEFENDER’S CAPABILITIES
CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
THE CAMPAIGN
ANALYSIS
FURTHER READING
INDEX
4
6
8
17
28
40
89
94
95
4
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
The elderly battlecruiser
Repulse
first saw action
during World War I, and
although she had been
extensively modernised
during the 1930s, she still
lacked sufficient anti-
aircraft firepower to
adequately defend herself
against a large-scale air
attack.
On Wednesday 10 December 1941, a powerful British battlegroup was at sea in the Gulf
of Siam. It was three days since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. By late morning it was
43 nautical miles off the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula. The force had sortied from
Singapore two days before, in an attempt to disrupt Japanese amphibious landings on the
Malay Peninsula. Now, Force Z – the battleship
Prince of Wales,
the battlecruiser
Repulse
and
three destroyers – were heading east, away from the coast, as the operation had been called
off. Away to the north, lookouts spotted an aircraft, a Japanese scout plane. Although it
Prime Minister Winston
Churchill (1874–1965)
and Admiral Sir Tom
Phillips (1888–1941),
pictured outside the
Admiralty building in
Whitehall in early 1941.
Both men were
instrumental in the
decision to send Force Z
to the Far East, regardless
of the potential threat
posed by Japanese land-
based air power in South-
East Asia.
5
quickly disappeared, on board the battleship Admiral Phillips was under no illusions. Force
Z had been sighted, and that meant an air attack was imminent. At that moment, due to a
series of misunderstandings, Force Z had no air cover and as they lacked modern anti-aircraft
defences; the two capital ships were vulnerable. Sure enough, less than an hour later, the
Japanese returned in force.
They came at 1140hrs. In the first attack, the
Prince of Wales
was hit by a torpedo, causing
flooding and a drop in speed and power. She was still limping along 40 minutes later when
the next wave appeared. This time she was hit by three more torpedoes, while
Repulse
was also
hit at least five times. These were mortal blows. The
Prince of Wales
sank an hour after this
second attack, after
Repulse
had already gone to the bottom. A total of 840 of their crew went
down with them. That day, the Royal Navy’s offensive power in the Far East was obliterated.
With the Americans still reeling from Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese army advancing rapidly
towards Singapore, a horrified Churchill realised that, as he put it, ‘Japan was supreme, and
we everywhere were weak and naked.’ The repercussions were immense. Stripped of its naval
protection, the fate of Singapore was sealed. The Commonwealth garrison there surrendered
in mid-February 1942. It was a blow from which British military prestige in the Far East
would never recover.
Above all, the sinking of Force Z exposed the fallacy that sea power rested on the big gun,
rather than the aircraft. For over half a century, the battleship had dominated naval warfare
but, during the inter-war years and for those willing to heed the signs, this supremacy was
challenged by the growing efficiency of naval air power. In the opening years of the war, the
vulnerability of the Royal Navy’s surface warships to attack from the air was demonstrated
off Norway, Dunkirk and Crete. Despite this, the British Admiralty sent Force Z to bolster
Britain’s naval presence in the Far East. These two capital ships were sent to Singapore to act
as a deterrent. Instead, it was thrust into the forefront of a naval campaign for which it was
poorly equipped. With a Japanese invasion of Malaya imminent, Force Z was sent to intercept
the enemy landing force, but was ambushed by land-based aircraft, and overwhelmed.
The naval implications of this debacle were profound. It offered clear proof that the
battleship was little more than a liability in a modern naval war. In December 1941, though,
even the Japanese placed an undue emphasis on the offensive power of the battleship. At
the time the British Admiralty never questioned the value of sending Force Z to sea to
seek out the enemy. That all changed that day, in the Gulf of Siam. From that point on,
naval air power reigned supreme. The disaster signalled the end of the battleship as an
offensive weapon, except under very limited or exceptional circumstances. They were just
too vulnerable to put in harm’s way. It was a lesson the British eventually took on board,
but it was one learned at a terrible cost, in men, ships and national standing. The sinking of
Force Z was arguably Britain’s greatest naval disaster of World War II. The aim of this book
is to show just how and why this calamity happened.
The King George V-class
battleship
Prince of Wales
had seen action before, in
May 1941, when she
engaged the German
battleship
Bismarck
in the
battle of the Denmark
Strait. Now she was being
sent into harm’s way
again, and would fight
another battle she was
equally ill-prepared for.

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