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June 28, 2015

Sinking Of The HMS Barham



Dramatic Newsreel footage captured the sinking of the Queen Elizabeth Battleship. A salvo of torpedoes from a German submarine struck from close range on HMS Barham on November 25, 1941 in the Mediterranean. Within four minutes, the battleship had listed over to Port and the ships magazines had exploded, sinking the battleship and killing 863 men. The terrifying explosion was caught on film by Pathe cameraman John Turner who was on an adjacent ship.

3 comments:

Christopher - Conservative Perspective said...

More and more film reels/video's and history on the Crowns losses during WWII emerge and yet no films exist (or so it would seem) of American vessels be they commercial or military serving the same cause?

I may have missed something on these pages knowing your avid support, but paying attention to news, history and such in general I seem to see, or rather not see, a pattern of dismissal of American losses - again in the same cause.

I should not be surprised in the larger scheme (not your doing,just saying) to suppress true American history, but believe all should be aware.

sig94 said...

Chris - just stumbled cross this. There are more at this location:
http://www.britishpathe.com
Haven't had time to browse these but I doubt I'll find anything like the horrific sinking of the USS Indianapolis CA-45 on July 30, 1945.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/indianapolis.htm

At a few minutes past midnight on July 30 two Japanese torpedoes tore into her side, igniting an explosion that broke the ship in two. It took only twelve minutes for the ship to dip her bow, roll to starboard and slip beneath the sea. Of her crew of 1,196, an estimated 900 survived the explosion - but the worst was yet to come.

Only 317 made it out of the water.

Rear Admiral McVay was the CO; he was court marshaled for the sinking in December 1945. He committed suicide in 1968.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_B._McVay_III

I'll post this on the anniversary.

sig94 said...

And furthermore:

"McVay was wounded but survived and was among those rescued. He repeatedly asked the Navy why it took five days to rescue his men, and he never received an answer. The Navy long claimed that SOS messages were never received because the ship was operating under a policy of radio silence; declassified records show that three SOS messages were received separately, but none were acted upon because it was thought by one commander to be a Japanese ruse, another had given orders not to be disturbed, and a third was drunk."

Good Lord...