Comments by "Ben Wilson" (@benwilson6145) on "Drachinifel" channel.

  1. The Navy missed an opportunity there, should have pointed at the House of Commons, we need to discuss this years funding.
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  2. Let us not forget the British Merchant Navy men and women, for 6 years they were at war , they were exposed to enemy attack 24 hours a day for all the time except for a few days a month in a foreign port. Every night they could be torpedoed without warning. When the ship is sunk they are off wages, dead or alive. The casualty rate was over 27%, a higher loss than the Army, Royal Navy or Royal Air force.
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  3. Spirited away?
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  4. Having worked with many of the 2W Dive Team and met several of the divers involved I feel confident at least some of the missing bars were recovered.
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  5. From the Official ONI Report. Demoralization of the Bismarck's crew was now apparent. One officer is said to have drawn his revolver and shot several seamen who refused to obey him. Officers were reported to have committed suicide, and scores of the crew jumped overboard before the action ceased. Almost all of the 400 anti-aircraft gunners, for whom no special protection had been provided during surface action, became casualties. The upper deck was being pounded into a mass of twisted steel. Hatches and doors were jammed in all parts of the ship. Crews in two magazines were drowned when it became necessary to flood the chambers because of fire. A direct hit crashed into a forward compartment where 200 men were trapped under jammed hatches. Fires on the gun deck cut off the forward half of the ship. The air was dense with smoke, fumes and the gases generated by the bursting shells. Paint was burning off the bulkheads and many men without gas masks were suffocated. By 1000 all the Bismarck's 15-inch guns were out of action, and fire from the secondary battery was spasmodic. The Rodney, King George V, and the Norfolk, which had joined the action after spotting from the flanks, fired their last salvos front a range of only 8,300 yards. At 1010, out of the Bismarck's entire armament, only one anti-aircraft gun remained workable, The ship was a wreck, on fire fore and aft, and wallowing heavily. The British commander in chief broke off the gun action at 1022. The cruiser Dorsetshire then fired three torpedoes into the Bismarck, and she sank at 1037.
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  6.  @hazchemel  Karl Doenitz reported it. "On the other hand, the destroyers' survivors formed a welcome reinforcement to the land forces, and, according to Colonel-General Dietl, the holding of the Narvik area for so long a time thereafter would have been impossible without them."
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  7. Strange in the subject of Italian Intelligence there was no mention the Italians stole the US Black Code from the US Embassy in Rome in September 1941. They then gave Major Fellers reports to the Germans. This was a major coup for the Italians.
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  8. German's persisting with sliding breech blocks on warships was a Krupp practice, not a corrupt practice.
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  9. Never seen a man so appropriately named. Admiral Sturdy (Sturdee) looks like he would stand facing a Force 12 without moving an inch. A proper seadog, not a womanising toff like Beatty.
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  10. Slow fragile biplanes are not dangerous, now write this 100 times Bismark.
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  11. German eyewitness accounts of the Normandy Beach bombardments are very graphic, the next strong point to them "disappearing" was a hit on morale. Accounts of dazed and confused troops are many, it was not just the big guns that were the target. The guns were also used to attack behind the beach on artillery and tanks.
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  12. A Royal Canadian Navy Captain said" The Clemson Class were the most dubious present since the Wooden Horse of Troy.
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  13.  @SgtSteel1  The last aircraft they made was the Vickers Vanguard
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  14. Good for the 21 gun salute, two salutes in two minutes!
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  15. I recommend googling "The front fell off" its hilarious.
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  16. Captain Frederick Marryat' who served as a midshipman with Admiral Lord Cochrane. He created a publication "A Code of Signals for the Merchant Service" published in 1817. The first International general system of Signalling. The British Board of Trade first issued the "International Code of Signals" in 1857. One of the beauty of the signal is that the Flag or later Morse could allow signalling between people who did not require to understand the others language and still get the meaning.
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  17. Ernest Cox salvaging the scuttled German High seas Fleet in the 1930's is in a very interesting book, "The man who bought a Navy"
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  18. The need to correct the Magnetic Compass predates Iron or Steel Ships. Captain Flinders wrote a treatise on the subject and a bar of mild steel was place ahead of the Compass Binnacle known as the Flinders Bar. this was to compensate for any iron fittings including cannons fitted in the ship. With the introduction of Iron and then Steel ships more compensation was need to mainly compensate for the magnetism built into the ship during construction. The great inventor Lord Kelvin used two soft iron spheres at each side of the compass, generally known as Lord Kelvins Ball's with additional hard magnets within the Compass Binnacle. The ship when new at at regular intervals requires to be swung and the magnetic's adjusted.
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  19. There are many ship collisions every year, and almost all will involve one ships bow hitting another ship. Merchant ships are designed to survive this as they are fitted with a collision bulkhead. Waves can damage a bow its a lot rarer, for a bit of interest google "the front fell off".
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  20. Crew join a blockade runner to sail to France. All killed when ship gets sunk by U 43
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  21. Tiddles on HMS Argus must be photographed close to the bow. The Collision Regulations require that the Ships bell be placed in the fore part of the vessel. It is part of the regulations that on arrival in port a Derat certificate must be produced and a question answered if there is any evidence of rodent activity. The most famous of ships cats in the Royal Navy was surely "Trim" Mathew Flinders cat, sadly lost on Mauritius.
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  22. 200 years old and all original, not one that has had every plank replaced. You can see where the original fitting was done with original timbers. Maybe Drach has got over his original plan to modernise her, Trincomalee has all that done 20 years ago.
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  23. The German Merchant Raiders also had to beware of U Boats as they tried to return home, two Kriegsmarine vessels the Doggerbank, and the Spreewald were sunk by U Boats.
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  24. HMS Edinburgh is further north
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  25. From the ONI Report. One torpedo struck amidships on the port side, one on the starboard quarter, and possibly a third on the port quarter; The torpedo which hit the starboard quarter wrecked the steering gear, jamming the rudders and causing the Bismarck to turn slowly in circles to the starboard. Frantic efforts were made to repair the damage: It was announced that the man who succeeded in freeing the rudders would be given the Knight Insignia of the Iron Cross. Divers succeeded in centering one rudder, but the other could not be freed, Efforts were made to steer the ship by her engines, but after a short period, instead of proceeding on her intended southeasterly course, the Bismarck was actually northwest of her position when the attack was made. There appears to have been further controversy among the officers. The captain, when asked by an officer whether he should try to blow off the jammed rudder, is reported to have replied, "Do what you like; I am through with it." The ship's best speed was now reduced to 10 to 12 knots.
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  26. The Nuclear test in Australia was Operation Hurricane, carried out near to the Monte Bello Islands in Western Australia
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  27. Probably not wise to put torpedos on the Flower Class. Lack of potential Targets. The sea would destroy them in the Winter gales. I suspect the Italian vessels would nor fare well in a winter storm in the North Atlantic.
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  28. HMS Trincomalee is a surviving British frigates of 1817, Trincomalee was built in Bombay, India, in teak, due to oak shortages in Britain, can be visited in Hartlepool.
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  29. MV Koolama was built by Harland and Wolf in Glasgow. It was ordered by State Ships of Western Australia. It carried all types of cargo and passengers to/from Fremantle all along the coast of Western Australia as far as Wyndam to the north. She was attacked off the the North Coast of Western Australia by Japanese aircraft. The Master beached the the vessel. The vessel was pumped dry and repaired by the crew and sailed to Wyndam and discharged the cargo. The Koolama was attacked by Japanese aircraft but not damaged, however the crew left the ship. The pumps were now clogged and the vessel and sank at the berth as a result of the initial damage. The Koolama was dragged from the berth but the wreck remain visible under the water to this day. There is a fascinating documentary from 2003 titled Malice or Mutiny. The Koolama Incident.
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  30. Cats, think you have the wrong end of the problem. Cats contract various disease's, if you have ever moved from one country to another, you need to quarantine your cats. Imagine the shock /horror if a cat on a Royal Navy ship bring a virulent cat disease to say Portsmouth from Africa/Asia/Wherever, or the other way around. A large number of very angry cat owners is not an enemy you want to have, plus a PR disaster.
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  31. A mention should be on Lieutenant Mills men damaging the ARA Guerrico using an anti tank missile in South Georgia.
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  32. Named after Admiral Lord Cochrane
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  33. There was a Chinese Steward who survived for 133 days in a raft in WW2
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  34. Its not a simple answer, if it was it wouldn't have been built. The reduced water plane are reduces the vessel Stability. The reduction in the amount of steel reduces the weight of steel at deck level and just below deck level increasing stability. The reduction in weight makes the vessel freeboard higher increasing stability
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  35. Ernest Cox, the man who bought a Navy, great engineer
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  36. HMCS Stormont was converted into a yacht by Onassis renamed Christina O,still around, the bar stools are made from the foreskins of whales.
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  37.  @gunner678  The Germans violated Norwegian neutrality by taking the Altmark into Norwegian waters with Allied Prisoners of War onboard. The The Norwegians failed to uphold there Neutrality by searching the Altmark. The final act of the British boarding the Altmark was a result of the failures of the Germans and Norwegians. I would say that the effect of this in causing the Germans to Invade the Neutral countries of Holland, Denmark and Norway without a declaration of war is zero. The plans were already made.
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  38. The ships sailing on the Great Lakes "Lakers" are built to lesser scantlines than "Ocean Going " vessels. This due to the fact that the waves in the Great Lakes are lesser than what an oceangoing vessel will meet.
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  39. bit like the Vickers Aircraft Company
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  40. I have a short history of the Kriegsmarine written by an ex Kriegsmarine Officer just after the war. There is a three remarkable photographs, one of the Glowworm firing torpedoes after the loss of her bow. The The second is the Glowworm upside down with crew on the hull, this taken through the gunsight on the Hipper. The third is the crew of the Glowworm climbing up a ladder on to the Hipper, the thick oil on the surface can be seen making it look like a swamp.
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  41. I find it highly unlikely that anyone would throw coins at the returning Grand Fleet from the Forth Bridge because the only bridge at the time was the Rail Bridge with no pedestrian access, the road bridge with pedestrian access was not opened until the mid 60's. There was for a long time a belief that is was lucky to throw a coin into the Forth as you passed over it in a train for the first time. This lead to people on ships passing under the rail bridge staying inside as you passed underneath the bridge.
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  42. you need to go to the History Channel
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  43. HMS Unicorn 1825 had been renamed HMS Cressy to free up the name for an aircraft carrier. It was as HMS Cressy she received the surrender of U 2326.
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  44. From a quick look at the specs of wartime British and Norwegian Tankers the speeds are mostly in the 10 to 12 knot rang with a rare 15 knot speed/ The Altmark and her sisters as Kriegsmarine built supply vessels are quoted at 21 knots
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  45. On cargo packing. Pallets did not appear until the 1960s. On stealing cargo the culprits were the dockers/longshore men, a regular Ali Baba and the forty thieves all over the world. Ships crew had no access to the cargo holds at sea, the hatches were closed and trunk ways battened down. Crew did not access the holds except for exceptional circumstance, e.g. lashing cargo after a storm. If they crew stole cargo they would be sacked!
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  46. The crew of the Graph Spee were taken back to Germany in 1946 by the British ship Highland Monarch, they were escorted by HMNZS Achilles.
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  47. HIJMS Ibuki escorted the ANZAC Troop convoy from Albany across the Indian Ocean in November 1914.
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  48. The bow of the Hawke struck the stern of the Olympic that means the stern of the Hawke and therefore the rudders were about 350 ft clear of the Olympic and not subject to interference between the two vessels.
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  49. Been behind trucks equipped like that
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  50.  @franksposato6072  HMAS Canberra was sunk by the USS Bagley
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