Battleship Warspite Smashes German Destroyers- Second Battle of Narvik Animated 

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Your work is among the very best. Truly.

Early Naval battles of WWII are often not talked about. So please keep up these video's.

Great video, can you do the battle of Tsushima?

Definitively MVP of that battle

fist torpedo attack of the war, first night carrier landings in combat, first kill of a submarine by aircraft, crippling the french battleship Dunquerke and the attack on taranto, sinking italian ships and, quoting " On 22 August, the three aircraft destroyed two U-boats, one destroyer and a replenishment ship in the Gulf of Bomba, Libya, using only three torpedoes" the swordfish were really not joking around. despite considered obsolete at the start of ww2

@@thecursed01excellent snippets, thanks. I've seen photo of that Swordfish, in if's actual dive, and it looks hilarious and sedately reassuring. If I were gazing up at it from an hostile conning tower, I'd be anticipating a checkered cloth full of warm pumpkin scones rather than a 100kg bomb.

I saw one flying earlier this year and imagine it would have been a different story if there had been a slightly stronger wind; very manoeuvrable but very slow.

I can only imagine how the Swordfish's crew felt when they got a direct hit on it

That Swordfish crew earned their pay for the entire war in one sortie

also that was the first u-boat sunk by a aircraft during WW2 ;) so double gotcha

And is credited to Warspites long, loooong list of military achievements!

@@petergreen9322 Its also the only ship lauched aircraft not originating from a carrier to sink a submarine

​@@sgtplopThat's a real baseball sort of record. 😂

Much better than Invincible

'Destruction', 'Devastation', 'Conqueror' and 'Thunderer' are all up there too

Thunderchild. Dreadnought. All good. But I do like ‘Warspite’. Makes me always think of ABC.

I always thought Indefatigable was good too. British ship names are badass.

As an ex Member of the RN and even as a Child I've always wanted someone to name a new warship Thunder Child from War of the World's I'm also disappointed that one of the new carriers wasn't named Ark Royal it just doesn't seem right the RN not having an Ark Royal.

I am sure that the destroyers were thoroughly screening for the battleship.

The role of a Destroyer is to put itself in harms way.

Laffey, Johnston, Glowworm and many more

Maybe, but the problem with Warspite as a museum ship is that too much of it would have been off-limits. Can't have the little-uns falling into all those holes the Germans poked in her.... Mind you, she was always still afloat when the smoke cleared, which is more than can be said for many of her opponents.

They needed the cash. The UK was worse than broke - there's a reason that rationing continued after the war until 1948 for most things and until 1952 for a few things. Without the Marshall Plan post war the UK would have collapsed.

They did NOT scrap the Warspite! They tried and failed. :)

@@iatsd Thats really a fallacy. What impact on the economy did scrapping the Warspite have?

​@@iatsdwell at least Europe paid us the cash it cost us for choosing to liberate them.

Unfortunately 03 never had a battle honour board on, it was S103 who first received it (not sure how they fit it through the hatch), and luckily S103 never had to add to that list (she did try once), and hopefully the new Number 3 of the Royal Navy never gets an honour as well (as it would be the last ever honour in human history).

@@SennaAugustus I was talking metaphorically :)

I see it all the time on forums & facebook pages that Warspite should have been saved from the breakers yard after WW2....She WAS one of the last to be scrapped but that was solely down to her metallurgical value....She was 1/5 concrete at that time due to the concrete plugs in her hull from the 'Fritz-x' attacks.

Same with the Enterprise, there were times she was the only carrier facing the Japanese Navy. She was also the only survivor, of her class, she should have been a museum.

Yes if ever a warship had a soul it would have been Warspite. Some of the things that occurred in her history border on the supernatural.

Wasn't she totally wrecked by 1945 though? Its sad, but one can understand a country being smashed up and bankrupted by a long war, not prioritizing keeping a ship around as a museum piece.

It was a tall ask, by the end of WW2 she was absolutely ruined after being run absolutely ragged with distinction. She nearly got smashed in two by a Fritz X bomb and had to fill the hole with concrete. It likely would have cost as much as a ship in service to maintain.

What happened when they were trying to scrap it?

​@@goldenfiberwheat238She broke her tow and drifted aground, took several years to get her loose and scrapped if I remember correctly.

First one was HMS Dreadnought, right? By ramming? Can't remember properly and Google stopped giving results a long time ago, all you get is advertising. Cheers.

@@hansvonmannschaft9062 Yep Dreadnought was the only other, and yes by ramming.

@@simonrook5743 Thanks both for the reminding reply, and the book recomendation mate. History channels' community's among the best, hands down. 👍🏼👍🏼

U-124 Seemingly had a fairly successful career since it "sunk 4 in 2 approaches" during the attack on convoy ON-92

@@CommodoreRayne.IMP.C-1824 Very successful, 2 commanders got their knights cross for sinking 100,000 tonnes with the whole of their career (effectively - barring Schultz short stint on U64) aboard her.

Yes!

Never going to happen because as we all know keyboard warriors are only interested in the Bismarck, U-boats, and the american and japanese fleets in the Pacific. The massive contribution made by the British and Canadian navies barely gets a mention.

At least one of the new UK nuclear bomber subs will be called Warspite. The other three will be Valiant, Dreadnought and King George VI

"... I started Spite'n!"

@@TrollOfReason Nice!

Did Warspite's main battery rangefinders come with a "ridiculously close" setting ?

@@agwhitaker Yes. It was the next twist of the dial from the 'ridiculously long' setting (Giulio Cesare, 24km during the Battle of Calabria).

They weren't float-equipped, but the Swordfish pilots were very brave, nonetheless.

@@iansmith7929the catapult launched one from the Warspite was I think, the ones from the carrier definitely weren’t though

@@iansmith7929 Warspites was, do not know how many she carried but there are paintings, pictures of her and her Swordfish on the net :)

@@iansmith7929I had the opportunity to sneak into a hangar and sit inside the cockpit of a restored Swordfish. You are surrounded by nothing but some aluminum tubing and canvas, and stuck high up, incredibly vulnerable. Those pilots were more than brave.

@@iansmith7929 Those carried by the Battleships most certainly WERE float equipped. How else do you think they operated? The Walrus didn't replace them until 1942. And yes, they must have been ACHINGLY slow with floats on!

Our American cousins are not without their own battle honours too - USS Johnston at Samar springs to mind :salute:

​@@dallassukerkin6878and I hope I speak for others, we massively respect USS Enterprise's achievements in WW2

@@chrisk_nfl4120 Greetings from North Carolina to our awesome cousins across the pond. I only wish _HMS Warspite_ were still afloat as a war museum. She certainly earned the right to be preserved!! I've toured the USS North Carolina BB-55 in Wilmington many times and it's a great experience to walk her decks, and man her 20mm Oerlikons, and climb into the turrets of her big 16" guns. 🇺🇸🤝🇬🇧

German flotilla leader: "That's a fucking big destroyer."

Seriously, if Warspite hit a mine or was to be heavily damaged by torpedoes in those treacherously confined waters, admiral Witworth was bound to be labeled suicidal. Instead, as often happens (not always), audaces fortuna iuvat, and he came out a hero.

Ayo, what’s he on about? Tally Ho Lads! *Barrage Intensifies*

The benefit of employing such insane tactics is that your enemy will always be taken by surprise

No one expects the -Spanish inquisition- Battleship up narrow Fjord!

Spike Milligan mentions Warspite in his memoirs when she was similarly pounding Sicily before that invasion. Milligan was in the artillery and well used to the sound of large guns going off but he said Warspite's guns were a whole other level, as each shot rang the shock waves from the firing went through them all even though they weren't even on the ship itself.

3:41 - Everybody's got a plan until they are straddled by 15-inch shells

"We're going to need a bigger boat. Much bigger!"

never seen a ship do an E Turn

@@davidrentona handbrake turn 😂

Apparently you haven't heard Punjabi rap

@@outofturn331 cringe khalistanis They got btfo by Indians

Britain simply did not have the money to keep Warspite as a museum ship A shit ton goes into Belfast alone , now imagine a battleship

Sounds likely to be true though and hilarious!

Makes sense though. Narvik wasn't exactly a giant metropolis-- it had probably only about 5000 residents at the time. The Germans would have suddenly doubled, or more, the whole population of the area when they invaded, so they'd have been scrounging for whatever supplies they could find.

That is a good analysis

I'd argue that sealion was completely impossible regardless, however this battle should have made it obvious to the Germans at least

True. And also the other losses in capital ships sunk and damaged by Germany in April 1940.

@arthurfisher1857 it was impossible to succeed but I do wonder if they have tried. I mean they did plan to beat the Soviets in about 3 months so they were definitely idiotic at OKW

And I'd argue that sealion was impossible due to the lack of political will. Hitler's main goal was securing lebensraum in the east, i.e a war against Soviet Union. He believed, erroneously, that Britain and France would not react to his attack on Poland, as they didn't react many times before (Rhineland, Anschluss, Sudeten crisys, etc.); and that he would be in possition to attack Russia with no enemy in the west. He is known to say "the fall of British empire would be used by powers that are in the best possition to use it, namely Japan and United States. I don't see why German soldier should die for American interests."

now they enjoy pakistani grooming gangs from their war mongering actions against Germany

My grandad said a similar thing - he was an infantry officer in world war 2, he thought the Navy was probably a good choice - "you either have a bed, or you're swiming and if you're swiming you're probably dead."

Spike Milligan was in the artillery. It was only when they were in Italy that they advanced and saw the carnage they had wrought upon the enemy, it affected him greatly, and was a contribution to him having to end the war in a unit for those who had suffered severe mental trauma.

That sounds awesome, could you make a video of it and post it up?

Respects.

F

i think she ended up beaching herself on the polish coast as she was going to the breaker yards, Drachinifel did a great video on her

Her last victory

@@natanmysli4825 you're forgetting her shenanigans in the Med

@@ironmanhowes8200 her last victory after the war - she escaped from scrapyard

@@natanmysli4825 the saddest part of the beaching story is that it was as if the ship didn't want to be scrapped ,but they did it anyway.

Was this while Cossack was still captained by Sir Philip Vian, or afterward?

Several U-boats fell victim to "stringbags" used on anti submarine duties a bit later in the war - flying off escort carriers.

Fjords are not shallow!

They lost it eventually at the end of May 1940, but the Allies then evacuated due to events in France

For the first six months of WW2 the RN did the heavy lifting

A still debatable decision that really depressed the norwegian allies@@historigraph

Nervously? (worrying Warspite will come back)

Bad planning. They didn't think to send the army on board the ships and had no plan to follow up, so all they could do was Warspite renovating the mountains a bit and leaving.

Are you forgetting the entire Battle of Britain?

@@goldenfiberwheat238 Nothing sad about the Battle of Britain, the cream of the Luftwaffe learnt they weren't as good as they thought they were, or spent the rest of the war in POW camps or fertilising crops in South East England.

@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 a lot of civilians died tho

@@goldenfiberwheat238 The British are proud of the battle, it showed their resilience.

@@SennaAugustus ah

I'm the exact opposite, the escapades of the Royal Navy are pretty much the only part of ww2 that interest me. There's something about the antics of leaky old WWI battleships, innumerable feisty destroyers, and all the wacky obsolete FAA aircraft like something out of Stop the Pigeon, trying to hold down the Atlantic, Med and the east until the US finally gets itself out of bed, that have a certain charm and romance that nothing else in the war can match.

The free world.. tell that to the india, guess they will not agree

No, we are not. What shit hole school did you go to?

Beaching the ships and preserving your manpower was the right choice. The crews could go on to fight on land as they had always intended. There was no hope of winning against Britain on the sea but taking Norway was still possible.

@@Barwasser Yes, that’s true. But I’m thinking more a long the lines of Cunningham’s quote “It takes two years to build a ship. It takes two hundred to build a tradition!.” The RN were able to impose a moral superiority on their adversaries. They did this by being very aggressive, looking for fights, and, if outnumbered and outgunned fighting anyway and creating the occasional pyrrhic victory for the opponents and always sending a signal that it won’t ever be easy when you fight us! It worked against the French and Spanish. It worked against the IGN who ended up demoralised and mutinous after being boxed in. The most heroic painting of the German First World War navy was a sailor on a sinking bit of battle cruiser waving a flag. And at the end of it all the IGNs only aggressive act was the passive aggressive one of sinking their own ships. Again, in WW2, the RM in the Mediterranean wouldn’t engage the ‘Andrew’ unless they had massive advantage and Royal Navy aggression had them nervous and timid at least in the senior ranks. It must really affect you if you’re told we can’t take theses guys on in a fair fight. The Kreigsmarine I think were the same. They made a bigger noise but the KM surface fleet where just as worried. Standing orders where always ‘stay away from a fight with the RN” Yes, the RN could absorb loses more but that’s not the real reason. Commerce raiding doesn’t give you a great sense of moral superiority. That’s why Langsdorf got into a fight. He was sick of sinking defenceless merchant ships. He was embarrassed. Ashamed even. The KM surface fleet where just depressed as the Second World War progressed culminating in the Barents Sea. I think the KM had a deep feeling of inadequacy re the RN and frequently scuttled their ships in a passive aggressive rage quit. It’s like the Bismarck. Saying that they scuttled her and that the RN didn’t sink her. Right. That’s all you have left when facing off against the RN? Sinking your own ships! (I’m not some jingoistic Brit btw. I just really like naval history).

@@geordiedog1749 you make great points! Thanks for the explanation.

@@geordiedog1749 By the same point, it takes 2 years to build a ship, so you dont want to give those 2 years to the enemy! A rammed ship in fjords could easily be raised and put back into service as an allied ship. Look at the American Civil War - the Union side burnt to the waterline then sank one of their own ships to stop it falling into enemy hands, but even that wasnt enough, the Confederates raised it and made it into perhaps their most famous warship the Virginia (of Monitor vs Virgiana/ex Merrimack fame). The majority of the ships 'sank' at the Pearl Harbor attack were 'unsank' and went back into service. 'Unsinking' ships that sank in shallow waters was pretty easy even back in the 1940s. If you are in deep ocean though its a different matter. Ships in these waters can and did ram when fatally wounded.

@@Debbiebabe69 You’re quite right. That’s all very ‘sensible’. But knowing that you’re fighting madmen who won’t give in makes an enemy think about engagements. Neither the KM or the RM allowed their fleets to engage the Andrew on equal terms. There has to be. Reason for that. And that reason was a they were basically a death cult whose reputation struck fear onto its enemies!

IIRC, there were 8 German destroyers and 2 U-Boats in the fjord at the time, and together they masses ~28,000 tons. Warspite alone massed 32,000 tons. Very big boot.

@@toddkes5890 Not really, as being in the bay would limit Warspites movement , all it would of took was 1 of the destroyers getting close enough to Warspite and firing its torps and well bye bye Warspite It was not a ant meet boot situation it was a very very ballsy move

Lol!

Thats because, apart from the few well publicised operations, Swordfish were known as death traps and 'flying coffins'. Very few Swordfish fliers survived the war. The things were hated by widows associations for making so many women into, well, widows. Most of the Bismarck operation survivors for example ended the war in a watery grave in the Med or Atlantic in various other operations, when I was brought up I was always told, despite my interest in WW2 history, to 'never mention the S word' at my grandparents and uncles houses. They would happily talk about knowing someone or other who was lost on the Hood or other major warships, but Swordfish were different, it was a kind of 'every single friend or family member assigned to them things never came back'

Supposedly had the greatest tonnage of enemy shipping sunk by any other Allied aircraft type in WWII. The Mediterranean campaign was a tough fight.

@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 yes they sank a lot... but that dosnt change the fact that the vast majority of people who flew in them never survived the war, and the resulting hate piled on them by widows associations. and parents/brothers of those lost flying them. This is why it is only recently people have been venerating the plane, as its only now most of the family members of those who served in them have passed away, along with their memories.

@@Debbiebabe69 I think we may have to agree to disagree.

@@Debbiebabe69 Since I can't find any other source AT ALL to corroborate this, I'm going to chalk this up as complete and utter bullshit.

German torpedo-design coming in as a close 2nd :D

Capital.

Following the Cunningham school of engagement range, I suppose

Similar to when Halsey sent Lee in off Guatlecanal with Washington and South Dakota

It takes his majesty's government 3 years to build a new ship. It will take 300 years to build a new tradition.

@CSSVirginia Lee was all he had left

It was firing throughout really - it was tricky to show it on screen much because it was further away (10k yards or so) from hostile ships, but obviously still firing with its massive guns

the destroyer kulner at the beginning was out of the fight but warspite finished it off from afar. the only problem was the SAP ricocheted up the mountain kulners crew were evacuating on killing a lot of them

Not at all. Hitlers empire was going to be in the east, you don't need ships for that just a very large army.

@@mikemines2931 If that's the case then why did he authorise the "Z-plan" navy that he hoped to have in place in the mid to late 1940s?

The world war part of the war started a few years earlier than expected.

It is difficult to attain 'enormous range' within the confines of a fjord.

Also the first ever U-boat kill of the Fleet Air Arm.

Slow is accurate, perhaps?

With a West Country accent so nobody understood anything.

Tirbals were big but german detroyers were mostly bigger and heavier with higher caliber guns

@@jamesfletcher9032 Nah. Destroyers are small, lively ships, moving at great speed and often making violent turns, which are nightmarish conditions for gun crews trying to load and lay heavy guns. The British had worked this out during WW1 when churning out light cruisers which saw action in the North Sea; the Kriegsmarine was still experimenting in the 30s and their destroyer crews paid a heavy price as a result.

@@largebluecat The Zerstorers were definitely massive ships (2270t vs 1854t of Tribals). However, the Tribals were designed to be destroyer killers, basically what a light cruiser is.

On paper Bismarck would have made mincemeat of her. In reality, not so much. Warspite had the uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time, she was able to take fearsome amounts of punishment but could still fight and was also able to hit any type of enemy at any range with unnerving accuracy. Bismarck was newer and better armed and armoured so should have destroyed the WW1 relic but you just know that Warspite would have pulled off a Death Star manoeuvre and somehow put a 15" shell through the window of the Captain's personal bidet, the resulting hit somehow sending a shard of shrapnel 50 yards through Bismarck to explode an otherwise impervious ammunition store. Warspite may have had a wayward rudder but they left reverse gear out completely.

@@laszlokaestner5766Not really, Warspites disadvantage was its low speed but it had good armour. And a super human ability to hit stuff at long range, the Italians thought they was under bomb attack by aircraft.

I think just about all of the ships that survived the Battle of Crete must have had fearsome damage control. The ones that didn't, sank.

@@DarklordZagarna Warspites reputation goes back to the battle of Jutland WW1 probably THE most Honorary, wayward, fighting ship in the history of The Royal Navy. Never ever quit getting into trouble and away from the scrappers even at the end she made them come to Prussian cove . Really should have been dry docked next to HMS Victory and Warrior. Mind you Belfast had a few close calls in her brief service life. 🇬🇧

Thing is by the end of ww2 she was absolutely used up- she was pretty old at the outbreak then was worked incredibly hard all the way through, by 44 she was basically unfit for normal service and was relegated to bombardment, with one turret and one boiler unusable, and damage literalyl patched with concrete. So preservation would have been an incredibly difficult job at the best of times. There's a reason so many of the preserved ships had relatively uninteresting careers while the really storied ones mostly didn't survive or ended up being almost completely rebuilt.

@@andrewcunningham9256 It was simply a lack of foresight (can't be helped). HMS Sheffield was almost available, they just neglected her too much.

@@SennaAugustus Sheffield also a cruiser though- and she wasn't really neglected, she was just worked to death.

Except the destroyers and the German crews did most of the sinking.

These kriegsmarine ships would have played a central role in any attempt by German forces to cross the channel so their destruction in Norway reinforced the fact that Germany's surface fleet simply couldn't go toe to toe with the Royal navy and any invasion of Great Britain would almost certainly fail.

​@@a2falconescuttling ships is a face saving measure. They would have been destroyed anyway

@@a2falcone The only reason the ships were left to scuttle is to save lives. They were no longer technically functional ships but hulks at that point.

@@a2falcone Ah, so the Kriegsmarine bravely sank it's own ships to save the Royal Navy its ammunition expenditure. Let me guess, the Royal Navy didn't sink the Bismark, rather it valiantly sank it self to, once again, save the Royal Navy expending expensive ammunition. Face it, the Kriegsmarine lost the second battle of Narvik, big style.

All's fair in love and war, as they say.

Warspite defined the term "battleship" and "dreadnought" more than any other ship including Dreadnought herself. When you envision what you want an ideal battleship to do, you'll find that Warspite fits the description. As for your second question, they're mostly there except for parts that are deemed dangerous to passing ships. You can easily find the beached wreck of Z2, it's even pinned on Google Maps.

They just think it denies the British a kill.

Bollocks. Even on its maddest day the Royal Navy never sent a 32,000 ton battle ship in against ships less that a 10th of her displacement, with an escort of 10 destroyers, in the expectation of losing her. HMS Warspite was there to provide the heavy gun support, as and when required. Which she did.

@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 My comment references these direct quotes from someone who actually served on Warspite, Bernard Hallas, former chairman of the York Royal Marines Association who served on Warspite as a chief gunner: In deciding to send in a much heavier force, My Lords of Admiralty had chosen HMS Warspite, described by the media as an old Battleship and a veteran of Jutland in 1918, implying by their tone that if we were destroyed, it would not be such a great loss. ... The news of our success had just hit the headlines and as we steamed up the Clyde, all ships flew the signal “Well Done”. The press had a complete change of heart and the “Old Battleship” now became one of Britain’s recently modernised ships.

@@SennaAugustus But Warspite had been fully modernised, and rejoined the Fleet in 1937. As the most modern capital ship in the fleet, she would certainly nave been missed. The decision to commit her was made not by the Admiralty, but by Vice Admiral Whitworth, who flew his flag aboard her during the action. Oh, and Jutland was in 1916. Even the media knew that.

@@SennaAugustus As has already been pointed out, if you can't even get the correct year for the Battle of Jutland I think we can safely ignore any comments you make. A quick Google search confirms that "Bernard Hallas" was a gun captain on HMS Warspite during the Battle of Narvik, meaning he commanded one of the four main battery turrets, but there has never been a position of "chief gunner" in the Royal Navy. It was fairly standard practice for one of the turrets to be crewed and officered by Royal Marines. Warspite would have had a designated "Gunnery Officer" in command of the main battery during her service. As @dovetonsturdee7033 has already pointed out, Warspite had undergone a major refit completing in in 1937, she was to all intents and purposes new.

@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 I did not alter the quote, the "1918" and the rest of the quote was copied directly from the written account posted on the BBC WW2 People's War website. That she was recently modernised was also noted in that article, but didn't change the part about the view of Warspite being chosen, a ship who despite being recently modernised still had a broken rudder and yet still sent into a shallow twisting fjord, where smaller ships like Penelope already had trouble entering.

As you've already begun to cover with the armed Merchant Cruiser Jervis Bay's story, in fact!

Pretty sure one of the Japanese cruisers/carriers were bigger than Sydney and where lost with all hands

Oh so true! The Chiyoda (seaplane tender converted to a light carrier) apparently was also lost with all hands, and had more crew. I did not know that, thanks! @@UthurRytan