[96] The sinking was captured on film by a cameraman from Path News, aboard Valiant. And now within range of the battleships of the 3rd Squadron which opened fire on the 5th Battle Squadron as they made their turn. Barham. [54] On 14 October 1925, Captain Francis Marten relieved Hill, but he retained command only until 9 March 1926 when Captain Joseph Henley assumed command. During a port visit to Corfu in July, the ship was visited by King George II of Greece. 862 men went down with her, and her end was filmed by a war correspondent on board one of the escorting destroyers. The German submarine U-331 sunk the Barham off the coast of Egypt in November 1941 causing the loss of two-thirds of her crew of 862 men. They were designed to reduce the effect of torpedo detonations and improve stability[11] at the cost of widening the ship's beam by almost 14 feet (4.3m) to 104 feet (31.7m),[12] and reduced her draught to 32feet 6inches (9.9m). Three minutes later another shell hit the aft superstructure, severing the antenna cables of the main wireless station. The impacts drove in the plates and fragments caused much flooding by damaging the surrounding structure. The Grand Fleet sailed with 29 dreadnoughts and 6 battlecruisers while the Germans mustered 18 dreadnoughts and 2 battlecruisers. 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. Your email address will not be published. More Disasters Caught on Camera: https://goo.gl/hYJzzNBRITISH PATH'S STORY Before television, people came to movie theatres to watch the news. On 21 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a demonstration off Horns Reef to distract the Germans while the Russian Navy relaid its defensive minefields in the Baltic Sea. 2023 BBC. The Royal Navy's Room 40 had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation. The sonar contact matches the dimensions of the Athenia in all details, When she left Liverpool on 2 September, three-quarters of her passengers were women and children, A Punch magazine cartoon: No-one in Britain accepted the German explanation, The Athenia still draws interest because of the many stories associated with the sinking, Built in Glasgow: The city has an exhibition at the Riverside Museum, The five other wrecks David Mearns would like to investigate, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. 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. [102], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}3234N 2624E / 32.567N 26.400E / 32.567; 26.400. She was powered by two sets of Brown-Curtis steam turbines, each driving two shafts using steam from 24 Yarrow boilers. Print This Page. On 24 May, the fleet conducted another demonstration off Horns Reef to keep German attention focused on the North Sea. U-331 thus passed through the screen and was in a position to fire her torpedoes after the leading ship, Queen Elizabeth, had passed her by and the second ship, Barham, was closing rapidly. "I remember so many faces of my friends and shipmates who weren't as fortunate as me.". The British battleships then switched targets to bombard the harbour and Richelieu. While the other four ships of the Queen Elizabeth class were given a second, more extensive refit in the mid-to-late 1930s (which for Warspite, Valiant and Queen Elizabeth amounted to a complete reconstruction with new machinery and superstructures), changes to Barham were relatively minor. The interrogation report following the sinking of U-331 in late 1942 give further detail of the sinking of HMS Barham at this link. Life on the Line Podcasts "The sinking of the SS Athenia, a civilian liner, was significant not only as the first British shipping loss of the war but as an example of a Nazi attempt to promote 'fake news'. search wreck . 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. [Note 5], Evan-Thomas continued his turn until his ships were steering due north, which interposed the 5th Battle Squadron between Hipper's battlecruisers,[38] which had reversed course around 16:48 to follow Beatty north,[39] and Beatty's ships. At 14:15, Beatty ordered a turn north by east to rendezvous with the Grand Fleet. If it happened, British Path filmed it. She was present when the High Seas Fleet surrendered for internment on 21 November. [84] Barham became the flagship of the 1st BS in December. Strange, if you think the ship was destroyed in 1941! In addition, a pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers 0.5in (12.7mm) AA machine guns were added abreast the conning tower. VideoAt the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, China and Belarus call for peace in Ukraine, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. Beatty continued south for another two minutes to confirm the sighting before ordering his force to turn north, towards the Grand Fleet in what came to be known as the "Run to the North". The British captured the submarine and took possession of its Enigma cipher machine. Contents 1 Service 1.1 First World War However, I can vividly recall the sinking as though it were yesterday. [1][2], Barham had a length overall of 643feet 9inches (196.2m), a beam of 90feet 7inches (27.6m) and a deep draught of 33 feet (10.1m). The Queen Elizabeth class warship was the only British battleship to be sunk at sea by a U-boat during the conflict. [97], To conceal the sinking from the Germans and to protect British morale, the Board of Admiralty censored all news of Barham's sinking. Barham was not hit during this time and she and Valiant, later joined by their sister Warspite, continued to fire at Hipper's 1st Scouting Group until 18:02 when Valiant lost sight of the Germans. A very detailed account by a surviving officer of her loss is at this link. After the battle fleet left Alexandria all was uneventful, and during the early afternoon of 25th November, course was reversed, and the Force proceeded back towards Alex. The battleship heels over and explodes. In addition the torpedo-control tower aft was replaced by an air-defence position during that same refit. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war on 3 September, 1939. ! Poem by Rudyard Kipling. First published on Mon 12 Sep 2016 11.41 EDT. His expertise means he has been appointed as a judge on the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, a $7m incentive to get engineering groups to develop innovative seafloor mapping technologies and strategies. [93][Note 6] Captain Geoffrey Cooke went down with his ship. In the end, the TV idea was dropped, but Mr Mearns still hopes an expedition can be mounted by someone. As the British battleships were manoeuvring to take up their positions, the submarine Bvziers fired a spread of four torpedoes at a range of 2,700 yards (2,500m). Full title reads: "HMS BARHAM 1914 - 1941". It is just over 49 years since H.M.S. [79] She was briefly assigned to Force H, before she was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in November 1940. The full truth only emerged at the Nuremberg Trials. The Donaldson Atlantic Line SS Athenia was built in Glasgow and the city's Riverside Museum of transport has an exhibition dedicated to the vessel and the stories surrounding its sinking. [78] The severe damage to Resolution caused Operation Menace to be abandoned and Barham had to tow her to Freetown for temporary repairs, before escorting a convoy to Gibraltar where she arrived on 15 October where her own damage was repaired. [54] Willis was relieved by Captain Thomas Walker on 31 January 1939. It is the first wreck in his consultancy career "which I've identified from my armchair, so to speak". [53] Together with her sister Malaya, Barham was sent to Alexandria, Egypt, in May 1927 during a time of unrest. I assumed that this had happened because the submarine Captain had fired all his bow tubes at once, and had not compensated quickly enough with seawater to keep the conning tower below the surface. Website with searchable ship database about warships, passenger liners, merchant ships, photo galleries, technical details, stories, news and much more. Other fragments from the second hit caused damage that allowed the water to spread even further. One was mounted above the conning tower, protected by an armoured hood, and the other was in the spotting top above the tripod mast. last updated: andrew gillespie Read about our approach to external linking. In 19211922, 30-foot (9.1m) rangefinders replaced the smaller ones in 'B' and 'X' turrets. [70], Force M departed Freetown for Dakar on 21 September and had arrived Dakar before dawn two days later. 271, 275, 27980, 284, 286290, Campbell 1986, pp. [88] Repairs were completed six weeks later on 30 July and the ship returned to Alexandria in August where she resumed her role as flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron. [100] The crew are commemorated by a memorial bench, located in Nothe Gardens, Weymouth. Fritz Julius Lemp commanded submarines for another two years. [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. Each turret was also fitted with a 15-foot rangefinder. "By the time we got on deck, the ship was listing at a 45 degree angle. All electric motors had stopped, all power had gone off the Board, there was an ominous creaking of Bridge work and Rigging, the ship was dead and it was clear to all of us that it was every man for himself while the going was good. "The Moon and Mars are mapped to a greater degree of accuracy than our seabed. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); The aim of this blog is to accompany the preparation of a complete history incorporating the Axis and Commonwealth perspectives of the Winterschlacht (Winter Battle) in North Africa, November 1941 to February 1942. The ships had multiple armoured decks that ranged from 1 to 3 inches (25 to 76mm) in thickness. The following year the UP mount was replaced by a pair of quadruple Vickers 0.5-inch machine gun mounts and another pair of eight-barreled "pom-pom" mounts were added abreast her conning tower. She became a private ship in January of that year and was refitted at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard in FebruaryJuly. David Mearns: "My research rules out all other shipwrecks in this area". 377, 386, Admiralty Historical Section, pp. HMS Barham floating on side at sea. Read more Once the news had come through around 1630 hours that Force K out of Malta had sunk these, the battleships turned for Alexandria. The BdU (Commander Submarines) noted in his war diary the rather jubilant: U331 1 battleship torpedoed in the Mediterranean. One fragment ricocheted off the upper deck and through the side plating on the opposite side of the ship. [25] On 21 May, the 5th Battle Squadron was attached to Beatty while his 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron was detached for gunnery training and arrived at Rosyth the following day. [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. [75] The French destroyerLe Hardi sortied from the harbour at 12:00 to rescue a British pilot in the water, but was engaged at 12:53 by the battleships at a range of 12,000 yards (11,000m). Now considered to be the finest newsreel archive in the world, British Path is a treasure trove of 85,000 films unrivalled in their historical and cultural significance.British Path also represents the Reuters historical collection, which includes more than 136,000 items from the news agencies Gaumont Graphic (1910-1932), Empire News Bulletin (1926-1930), British Paramount (1931-1957), and Gaumont British (1934-1959), as well as Visnews content from 1957 to the end of 1984. [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. "We looked at each other and said, 'right, let's get up top!'. The impact was right on the joints between several armour plates and drove them inwards and destroyed part of the hull behind them. 2. With this turn, Hipper was falling back on the High Seas Fleet, 60 miles (97km) behind him. The following day, 1 October, Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, commander of the 5th Battle Squadron, hoisted his flag aboard his new flagship. The Queen Elizabeth-class ships were designed to form a fast squadron for the fleet that was intended to operate against the leading ships of the opposing battleline. "When we reached one of the torpedo bulges, my friend jumped into the water. HMS Barham was a 35,000-ton battleship built for World War I but had had an extensive refit in the 1930s. copyrights: Unknown. By the afternoon the submarine and the 1st Battle Squadron were on reciprocal courses and Tiesenhausen ordered his boat to battle stations around 16:00. He replied, 'it's gone'.". U-331 was not attacked by the escorting destroyers and reached port on 3 December. 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. HMS Barham was a Queen Elizabeth -class battleship of the Royal Navy named after Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham, built at the John Brown shipyards in Clydebank, Scotland, and launched in 1914. The Germans said he had ordered a British submarine to fire on the Athenia as part of a plot to force Washington's hand. To the untrained eye, sonar imagery can be difficult to interpret, but Mr Mearns says the dimensions of the target match exactly what would be expected of a 160m-long, 13,500-tonne passenger liner. 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. [46], Following Jutland, Barham was under repair until 5 July 1916. 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. On 26 March, the Italian fleet sortied in an attempt to intercept British convoys to Greece. Our own inner-world is largely unexplored," Mr Mearns told BBC News. The remains of the first British ship to be sunk in WW2 appear to have been identified on the Atlantic seabed. The reaction to the loss had echoes in the debates we have today about the reporting of news events, he told BBC News. Shipwreck H.M.S. "It was the strangest thing. Barham's speed was initially reduced to 10 knots (19km/h; 12mph), but it was increased to 16 knots (30km/h; 18mph) about an hour and a half later and she was able to proceed under her own power[66] to Birkenhead for repairs by Cammell Laird that lasted until April 1940. VALIANT and WARSPITE in background. During the third week in November, 1941, there was evidence that two convoys were being despatched from Italy to Benghazi to reinforce the Africa Korps. I was in H.M.S. [54] Reinforced by the battleship Resolution and the aircraft carrier Ark Royal from Force H, Barham departed Gibraltar for Freetown, Sierra Leone, four days later. This meant that the 5th Battle Squadron and the light cruisers were the sole targets available for the German ships until after his turn, although the worsening visibility hampered both sides' shooting. She was sunk during the Second World War on 25 November 1941 by the German submarine U-331 . "It was a shocking event," said Riverside curator Emily Malcolm. The HMS Barham was torpedoed by U-331, a German c-class submarine captained by Freiherr Von Tiesenhausen, and sunk in. 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. Jones refers to the 861 men listed in the casualty list published by, Burt 2012a, p. 85; Raven & Roberts, pp. On her return I teamed up with P-W again when he shifted his flag back to the, Battleships. Barham played a minor role in quelling the 1929 Palestine riots and the 19361939 Arab revolt in Palestine. LOVE YOU ALL: Yours Aye-Brian CANUCK Murza, W.W.II Naval Researcher-Published Author, Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada. On the night of 25 March, Barham and the rest of the fleet sailed from Scapa Flow to support Beatty's battlecruisers and other light forces raiding the German Zeppelin base at Tondern. [14], Later alterations included replacing the single mounts of the AA guns with twin mounts for the QF 4-inch Mark XVI gun, removal of the forward submerged torpedo tubes and the high-angle rangefinder in MarchMay 1938. Wikipedia. [101], Helen Duncan, considered the last person to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act 1735, came to the attention of the authorities after claiming to have contacted the spirit of a sailor of Barham, at the time when the ship's sinking was being hidden from the general public. Required fields are marked *. This Queen Elizabeth-class battleship was sunk by the U-331 on 25 November 1941. Her complete service history can be found at this link. She was the flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron and of the Second in Command of the Mediterranean Fleet, 1941. In addition, the rear of the six-inch gun casemates was enclosed by a 1.5-inch (38mm) bulkhead. We use your sign-up to provide content in the ways you've consented to and improve our understanding of you. 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. One 250-kilogram (550lb) bomb struck 'Y' turret and started a fire inside the turret that took 20 minutes to quench. Jan Lettens 02/08/2012. These recordings can be accessed through Apple iTunes or for Android users, Stitcher. The torpedoes seemed to hit the ship amidships just abaft the funnel, judging by the waterspout in that general area, of which I had a ringside view from the Admirals Bridge. 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. The only contact came in the evening when Tyrwhitt sighted the High Seas Fleet but was unable to achieve an advantageous attack position before dark, and broke off contact. She became the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet on 9 June until relieved by Warspite on 8 February 1938. Shipwreck-hunter David Mearns says sonar data shows the transatlantic passenger liner Athenia to be lying 200m down on Rockall Bank, off Ireland.
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