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. [67] Barham played no role in the Norwegian Campaign although some of her crew and marines participated. U.331 was under the command of Freiherr Diedrich von Tiesenhausen who was a lieutenant of 26 years of age. https://www.britishpathe.com/ [81] Barham was loaded with 600 troops, including the men of 12 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery,[82] Force F departed Gibraltar on 7 November, escorted by Force H, rendezvoused with the main body of the Mediterranean Fleet three days later and unloaded their cargo at Malta later that day. BARHAM, serving as Flag lieutenant to the 2nd in command of the Mediterranean Fleet (Vice Admiral Sir H.D. Second World War (1939-1945) Sidi Barrani. [71] Barham's six-inch guns were the first to do so and fired at the French submarinePerse on the surface. Life on the Line tracks down Australian war veterans and records their stories. Duchess capsized and sank, with the loss of 124 of her crew. The fore funnel was trunked into the aft funnel to reduce smoke in the spotting top. Barham's signallers were unable to read the signal and her officer of the watch presumed that it was the expected point zigzag to the left of the base course and signalled that course change to the rest of the squadron. [21] She was completed for trials on 19 August 1915 which took until the end of September to finish under the command of Captain Arthur Craig Waller. It is also renowned for the shocking footage shown on Pathe News and more recently watched almost two million times on YouTube recording the listing ship being blown to pieces when its magazine exploded. Read about our approach to external linking. Jan Lettens 02/08/2012. She became a private ship in January of that year and was refitted at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard in FebruaryJuly. 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. 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. The footage is at the end of this post. "The Germans were at the gates of Alexandria at that time and we were accompanying destroyers trying to stop their supplies," said Richard, who lives off Groby Road. Barham was then transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet, where she covered multiple Malta convoys. The fleet returned to Scapa Flow on 24 April and refuelled before proceeding south in response to intelligence reports that the Germans were about to launch a raid on Lowestoft. "I saw one of my shipmates in the water and asked him, 'where's the ship?' A new beautiful success. Admiral Angelo Iachino, commander of the Italian fleet, ordered the two other heavy cruisers of the 1st Division to render assistance to Pola in the darkness. Producers had wanted to stage a live, underwater broadcast from the sunken remains of a famous ship. She was present when the High Seas Fleet surrendered for internment on 21 November. search wreck . Evan-Thomas turned northeast at around 18:06 and then made a slow turn to the southeast once he spotted the Grand Fleet. On 612 May, she covered the Alexandria-Malta convoy of Operation Tiger. Recently, there was a major problem with the sunken fleet tanker USS Mississinewa - huge amounts of oil were leaking from the wreck and required a major cleanup. Shipwreck H.M.S. 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. copyrights: Unknown. Hindered by poor visibility, no significant damage was inflicted and Richelieu was not hit before the bombardment was called off after 20 minutes. One 250-kilogram (550lb) bomb struck 'Y' turret and started a fire inside the turret that took 20 minutes to quench. 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). HMS Barham Explodes - Slow MotionOn the afternoon of 25 November 1941, the 1st Battle Squadron, Barham, Queen Elizabeth, and Valiant, with an escort of eight. Within four minutes, the battleship had listed over to Port and the ships magazines had exploded, sinking the battleship and killing 863 men. Shortly before the turn, one of his escorting light cruisers, Galatea spotted smoke on the horizon and continued on her course to investigate. As a result, the operation was confined to the northern end of the sea. [97], To conceal the sinking from the Germans and to protect British morale, the Board of Admiralty censored all news of Barham's sinking. This took some time and his ships had to slow down to 1218 knots (2233km/h; 1421mph) to avoid overrunning the 6th Division and blocking its fire. 201202, Edmunds, Simeon. 2 six-inch gun. HMS Barham was at the time engaged in an operation to engage potential enemy convoys, together with the other two battleships of the Mediterranean Fleet, HMS Queen Elizabeth (flag) and HMS Valiant, escorted by nine destroyers. After Free French emissaries were either captured or driven off by the Vichy French, Cunningham ordered his ships to open fire. Barham opened fire at a range of 21,000 yards (19,000m) and hit Richelieu with one 15-inch shell at 09:15. [49] Barham was refitted at Rosyth from 723 February 1918[50] and Waller was relieved by Captain Henry Buller on 18 April. Realising their mistake, the Germans changed course for home. Craske), the Admiral and S.W.O. 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. Egypt Mar Sidi Barrani. For Archive Licensing Enquiries Visit: https://goo.gl/W4hZBv Explore Our Online Channel For FULL Documentaries, Fascinating Interviews \u0026 Classic Movies: https://goo.gl/7dVe8r #BritishPath #History #WWII #Navy #RoyalNavySubscribe to the British Path YT Channel: https://goo.gl/hV1nkf Dramatic Newsreel footage captured the sinking of the Queen Elizabeth Battleship. While sailing eastwards, the aircraft carrier Illustrious was detached from the main body to attack Taranto on the night of 11/12 November, damaging three Italian battleships. At 17:45 he turned eastwards to take his position in front of the Grand Fleet and re-engage Hipper's ships. Sinking of Royal Navy Battleship HMS Barham.A legendary battleship with a history at Jutland, during World War 2 HMS Barham was stationed with the Royal Navy's Eastern Mediterranean fleet in Egypt.. On the afternoon of the 24th November of 1941, HMS Barham, sailed to provide cover for the 7th and 15th Royal Navy Cruiser Squadrons. Throughout the next day, Jellicoe and Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the High Seas Fleet, received conflicting intelligence; after reaching the location in the North Sea where they expected to encounter the High Seas Fleet, the British turned north in the erroneous belief that they had entered a minefield. These recordings can be accessed through Apple iTunes or for Android users, Stitcher. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross that day. The shell struck just below the waterline and burst on impact with the belt armour. 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. The 92-year-old, from Leicester, miraculously escaped death when the ship was sunk by a. The battleship heels over and explodes. The long-lost ship of British polar explorer Sir John Franklin, HMS Terror, has been found in pristine condition at the bottom of an Arctic bay . [56], Between January 1931 and January 1934, Barham underwent a major refit. Shortly afterwards, she was deployed to Gibraltar for several months after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in July. [54] Captain James Somerville relieved Monroe on 1 December and he was relieved in his turn on 16 March 1929 by Captain John C. During this refit, the aft superstructure was rebuilt and the torpedo-control tower and its rangefinder were removed, together with the aft set of torpedo tubes. 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. I was trying to push myself away when I got blown away by this massive explosion as the magazine went up. 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