HMS Barham - "Did More Than Just Explode, You Know." 

Although it was a horrible loss I believe that the worst loss of the war was the sinking of the Hood with only 3 survived.

@@paoloviti6156 As bad as Hood's loss was, I believe Yamato's was far worse for two reasons. One, over 3,000 crewmen perished. Second, her final sorte was completely unnecessary and was considered a suicide mission before it ever began.

@@DK-gy7ll in truth I was referring to the UK capitol ships but I forgot to mention it, my apologies. Yes, the sinking of the Yamato with 3.000 sailors was terrible...

My dad was a survivor of Barham sinking signal man Douglas Palmer RN

My mums friends father was on the Barham and didn’t survive. She could never watch the film.

Now that's some unheard of history....

My Dads elder brother Albert was posted on HMS Barham. Upon leaving the family home on leave to return to the ship, my Grandmother said to Albert's 3 sisters after he headed off with his kit bag, "We won't be seeing our Albert again!". My aunts told me this story and also that she knew when the ship had been lost before it was reported. Albert was the last of 5 children she lost out of 10. I do remember my Grandmother but she passed away when I was only 3.

That lady Helen Duncan you are talking about is my step sisters great niece her name is fiona she's the double of her yeah great story alright...very accurate

She should have been dunked into the Thames or something Cotton Mathersish! Sounds like she was no Glenda Good Witch of the East nowhatimsayin? ;o)

That's wild 😮

The stories about warships being sank sometimes overlook the human side of the tragedy. So sorry for your family's loss.

Claiming something is unkillable is usually a sure fire way to get it killed.

Those are deadly things you describe which would not be considered until it happens I can imagine ropes in water also being deadly due to entanglements when trying to swim.

Yes, although even when first launched Barham operated fuel fired boilers for propulsion which were far less reactive to the sudden onrush of cold sea water as opposed to coal fired furnace powered Scotch boiler types.

@@RobbyHouseIV I was a BT on the DD-876 , cold sea water going into the stack hitting the very hot tubes will explode a boiler . Very bad for the stokers.

In order to maintain the veil of secrecy regarding Barham's disappearance my Granddad and crewmates were sent to South Africa to recuperate thus taking them out of any immediate communication range with the folks back home. It was a cunning combination of incarceration serving as rehabilitation..

@@waynesimpson2074 to say that your granddad and his shipmates survived a vision of hell would be an understatement. God bless them all.

And i bet not one of them had counselling.

@@sixtyshippee "How're you feeling, lad- little bit shaky after that, eh?" "I'm all right.." "Good, that's the spirit, lad! Soon have you back on your feet" "Thanks, doc."

That is a really good piece of information, thank you for sharing that. Did you know if any Xmas postcards were sent to the crew from the RN or sent home to loved ones from the crew? I ask because there is great confusion as to what level of deception was used to censure the sinking of the ship at that time? I was told but cannot confirm this ( due to their very covert nature) that the Naval Intelligence Department typed out standard RN Xmas greetings cards from actual deceased members of the crew, to their family at home, to maintain the ruse that Barham was still afloat and on duty in the Med? We had broken the U-Boats enigma code and we knew Von Tiesenhausen was unaware that he'd actually sunk the Barham at that time. The immoral subterfuge of war time knows no boundaries.

Amen!

Indeed. If you slow down footage, the aforementioned superheated steam can be seen to condense above the explosion. It’s quite possible the starboard after magazine did detonate, but this would’ve been a secondary effect of the expansion pressure. I don’t buy the explanation of a fire spreading from the four inch magazine to the starboard after, as annunciated in the commentary. The bomb room is contained behind an armour plated fire proof door that would’ve stopped a fire in the timescale involved here. There’s no burning fuel in the water at the point of capsize, which would have been the case if burning fuel was responsible. A nasty business all the same.

Most believe it is the mixture of very cold sea water going through the funnels and making contact with the very hot and high pressured boilers.

I see what you did there - can't disagree . . .

I can remember that: a period when I was drawing pictures of the Battle of the River Platte fought by men wearing conical helmets, carrying swords and shields. Curiously……..

HSM Hood: Actually It's second time...damm Bismark. Aboukir, Houge, Cressy: 4th time for subs! Don't forget about us!

No QE class BB ever made more than 25 knots, witch Malaya reached during trail. After the 30s modernisations non did over 24 knots. Great ships for there age regardless.

@@niclasjohansson4333 QE made 26.5 knots on trials after modernisation. Valiant and Warspite both made at least 25, though were slowed by the end of the war due to damage. Hope this helps :)

@@thetorturepenguin Someone is giving you wrong info, these ships never reached there designed speed of 25 kn, and after refit QE herself only managed 23,5 kn thanks to being bulged !

@@niclasjohansson4333 Indeed not my friend. The QE as modernised- due to the more powerful engines (four more boilers) actually exceeded 25 knots. It was because of this that they were sued as fast carrier escorts.

@@thetorturepenguin You are free to belive whatever you want, after all the Japanese turned Yamato into a spaceship postwar!

Very true and in the long runwas never worth it.

Well, torpedoes were not 'new' weapons when the Queen Elizabeths were built, and no Queen Elizabeth, or indeed any other British battleship, succumbed to aerial bombs.

Hmm, Mr Cameron? I believe that the last know position at her detonation is noted but I hadn't heard of any wreck location?

@@waynesimpson2074 I just recall having read it. As a practical matter, though, I doubt the wreck location would be much different.

It's about time this clip is restricted to only for use in relation to this particular tragedy. I've seen it relating non-military sinking...wrong and distespectful

But none the less the Royal Navy have had many successes!

It would have helped if you mentioned that Vasa sank in 1628, a poorly designed wooden sailing ship, not a steel battlecruiser like HMS Barham.

​@@rikk319 I did mention King Gustavus Adolphus. That sets the time period quite well. I was speaking to those who actually knew some bare facts about history. The completely ignorant don't matter to me.

Sigh… I’ve said this plenty of times, but Yamato isn’t even remotely unique in entering service after battleships had become obsolete; that’s a problem WITH THE ENTIRE WWII GENERATION OF BATTLESHIPS FOR EVERY MAJOR NAVY SAVE THE SOVIETS. She just gets a disproportionate amount of criticism for it compared to all the other battleships that were just as pointless. And the Japanese realized battleships were obsolete much sooner than most people think (certainly before the WAllies did)-they suspended all battleship construction immediately after Force Z (Shinano was ordered to be completed only to the point where she could be towed away to be disposed of, even though Midway hadn’t yet happened and thus the idea to convert her was months away). The only reason Yamato and Musashi ended up entering service anyways was because both had been launched and Yamato was actually fully operational by the time Force Z went down, meaning that the Japanese were stuck with a pair of ships they already knew were useless (which is part of why they didn’t bother using them that much). The US and UK continued further and equally pointless battleship construction far beyond this point, even postwar.

Actually, though BB vs. BB combat had become a relic of history, BBS were not total wastes of steel and fuel oil even then. Remember that two Iowa class BBs were very useful in later conflicts, and modernized well.

@@bkjeong4302 "The US and UK continued further and equally pointless battleship construction far beyond this point, even postwar." Nonsense. The UK completed the remaining KGV class battleships in the first half of the war, which were required to fight the German capital ships, and as anti-air carrier escorts and shore bombardment platforms in the later Royal Navy Pacific Fleet against Japan. The only other British battleship built during the war, HMS Vanguard, was laid down in 1941, launhed in 1944, but only commissioned in 1946, with construction repeatedly stopped to divert resources to carriers and convoy escorts.

@@originalkk882 Vanguard by herself was still far more work and effort than the Japanese put into battleship construction after Force Z, and Anson and Howe were not operational at that point either. And given just how terrible the German surface fleet was and that there were better alternatives for carrier escort/shore bombardment roles, I’d argue they were unnecessary.

@@richardeikenburg7347 The Iowas weren’t all that useful for how much was expended on them, actually. And building a capital ship only is strategically viable if you can use it as such: yes, battleships could still be used for “lesser” roles like shore bombardment or AA, but these roles did not justify building an entire new battleship to do, especially when cost-effective alternatives were around.

Three or possibly even four torpedo hits.

Not sure what I should be noticing mate, I'm not a naval expert, is it showing how an old ship is as fast as a modern ship?