HMS Illustrious and Operation Excess - Fliegerkorps X marks the spot 

Fulmar = Battle = Rubbish, where were the spits, hurris, Defiants, Beaufighter, anything!

In today's modern military climate, do you ever see a revival in battleships?

Drac, could or have Naval Torpedo bombers ever been used to bomb docks/buildings directly?

I red that Germany had to hand over the Helgoland and the Nassau classes as a compensation for the scuttled ships. Could Germany have kept those old dreadnoughts if the other ships were not scuttled ?

Did the washington naval treaty prevent its members from selling or giving capital ships to smaller nations who did not sign the treaty ?

Agreed, Malta was the most heavily bombed area in the whole of WW2 and genuinely near staved into submission too. Definitively deserved the GC. Guessing you know the history of Operation Pedestal and the British crew on the SS Ohio, but to any that do not its definitely worth searching for info on it or watching the old film about it.

Its a tradgedy that the dock workers at that time, were unaware, that exposure to the smallest amount of Asbestos, imaginable, would kill them , 30/40 years later. Mesothelioma. It killed my brother.

@@alexanderlawson1649 A 1969 law case that exposed asbestos as a health risk forced a 1970 voluntary agreement in to ban the stuff. Blue Asbestos became a scapegoat but was was really just 3% of the total. Azzy was not fully stopped until the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974. It was not completely prohibited until 1999. bainbridgeelearning.co.uk/asbestos-law/

The Maltese people in general went through absolute hell while under siege

@@davidelliott5843 when I was a kid in the 60's, my dad would let me help maintain the brakes on our cars. He would let me blow the dust out of the drums and shoes. He warned me then to stay upwind because the asbestos dust is dangerous. I listened. Point is he knew, the US Army was known well before 1970

Aren't all women and children aliens, really?

@@dropdead234 Shhh! Never let them know you're onto their secret.

that's some aussie laughter - do not mess with down underians

Kinda funny I read this exact when it happened

@naruto tricked me sry old probably

@naruto tricked me sry well do the maths 80+

@@Benepene there’s no way OP is 80+

@@9bang88 Why not ? 80yo use ytube too.

@@murderouskitten2577 i find that incredibly hard to believe

Plot twist. This is a late production one that actually works.

@@spartanalex9006 Drach: ...but it's 1942 right now? _wait_

FUNNY, very FUNNY!!

My Dad was on H.M.S. Illustrious too at the time of the bombings. He did talk about it for a while when I was growing up. I later visited the naval museum in Valetta and there is a section dedicated to H.M.S. Illustrious.

Third!

Fourth!! (what the hell!)

Fifth

Illustrious repairs would be fascinating. I’d also love to see and hear more details about repairs to Seydlitz in WWI

Yorktown? Actually, Roskill says much of Warspite's Jutland damage wasn't finally repaired till her reconstruction - and even then the decks were uneven,

My grandad CPO James Smyth was a casualty of the assault on the 10th of January, he sadly died 2 days later from his injuries and was buried at sea..RIP grandad.

@@microsteadinguk ; 67 year old Yank here. Sad that his life was cut short. I can not look at photos of the crews of the RN ships that engaged in combat without wondering how many did not survive, and how I would have acted in their situation. I do firmly believe, they sacrificed their lives fighting a truly just war, and our modern world, in spite of our present political trends, is in their debt.

Indeed, I'd love to find it online.

@@jlvfr looks like it's by irootkoo jr (something like that), his colorizations are all over Reddit's /r/warshipporn. I'd start there

@@RobJaskula thanks I will

Film is a amazing material

first ive heard

Its ok. All americans have a verrrry skewed view of both world wars.

I heard that and thought well they probably just put down lb out of habit. Then I did a quick conversion in my head and realised it was 2200lb. That's a much more significant issue than my original thought....

@@Sim.Crawford took me a minute for l to process that 1 metric ton is 2204 lbs too. Even if it behaved more like an AP shell compared to a general purpose bomb, a metric ton...

@@sugarnads It kinda sucks but also learning about these things are eye-opening to say the least.

I have Jack and Coke on hand for the episodes

I’d recommend skipping sodomy and the lash unless you’re REALLY old school RN...

I do - cant be the only one...

This is Trafalgar Day so I'll be having a commemorative tot later. Perhaps I'll save this video for then.

You mean you don't? 😳

Haven't seen all of this yet but just spotted him at 21.02

I have a video addressing the kamikaze attack on HMS Illustrious on my channel, if you wish to have a look.

I am so sorry for your family's loss. Your Grandfather and his pom-pom teammates, looked into the devil's face and didn't flinch. I had read about the attack on the Illustrious before, and this level of detail was truly eyeopening. The anti-personal attack was a new level of horror to add to the horrors of war.

as long as its consistent.... some of his videos the guests have been VERY quite..... while he is loud . i also like to fall asleep to longer videos like this.... and i hate when i leave autoplay on.... and the next video is either too quite or WAY too loud

The Maltese deserve as much respect as any British serviceman during WW2. If it was not for outside pressure , Britain would of accepted them into the union. I think the vote was overwhelming in support of joining with the UK. But the US forced the UKs hand and told us to not accept it. Its interesting to think if outside pressure did not interfere and Malta joined the union. Malta would of been added to the union as a part of the United kingdom. So it would of been the United kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland, N.Ireland and Malta

When do they that?

@@DaleBryand One of the Pacific typhoons that Halsey was stupid enough to sail his fleet through did a real number on several of the 3rd Fleet's carriers (and sunk two or three destroyers), Halsey asked the British to report their damage from the hurricane, and the reply was "What hurricane?"

@@TheSchultinator lol noice

While the American carriers are superior strike carriers I've always been impressed with the British armored carriers as defensive and ASW platforms.

@@TheSchultinator Halsey did have his moments of questionable judgement, didn't he? ("Where is force Z? The world would like to know.")

Early next month :)

Drachinifel yeay happy times for all 😃 Praise lord drachinifel!

@@Drachinifel - everything about the Guadalcanal campaign was just freaking savage and desperate. The Americans certainly weren't ready for major combat operations, and the Japanese had conquered and controlled 3,300,000 square miles of territory at that time.

@@Drachinifel you have a problem in that you've given us far too much great content so far and we all want more of different bits 😂

@@thehandoftheking3314 The most frequent reward for good work is more work

He deserves acclaim just for sticking around through all that and not ending on the wrong side of politics! Can't have been easy. Though probably not Russia degree of difficulty.

Fliegerkorps X was intended for the German aircraft carrier - their aircraft were specifically modified for shipping strikes.

That's possible, but the more likely explanation is Fliegerkorps X was missing the essential ingredient required to take out heavily-armored warships--torpedo bombers, or at least successful torpedo attacks that hypothetically could have struck Illustrious after the Strukas. Courageous, Ark Royal, Eagle, Royal Oak, Barham, Repulse and Prince of Wales all were done in by German or Japanese torpedoes...exclusively. There was a reason all carrier navies in the Second World War insisted on operating both types of attack aircraft, as the loss of Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp and Hornet had one essential ingredient--aerial, surface and submarine-launched Type 91, 93 and 95 torpedoes. Without torpedo hits, you get Illustrious, Formidable, Enterprise, Franklin and Bunker Hill...or Task Force 37/57 of the BCF. Other than HMS Hermes and USS Princeton, no Allied fast carrier was sunk by bombing alone during the war. The former apparently took enough D3A hits to destroy a small island, and the latter was scuttled due to a uncontained hanger fire that might have been survivable if she had been a keep-up Yorktown or Essex-class carrier.

Another reason they hit the stern so many times might be because they practiced on the outline of the carrier formed by buoys. The ship was steaming along at 25 kts so their bombs tended to hit farther aft than in practice.

I envision that force 10 was an elite among elite. With the AA down, it became an exersize of picking WHERE to drop your bomb. After all: they hit the forward mounts, and them the Elevator many times. Certainly some bombs missed entirely but these were Germans and they had Accuracy to prove. But the Elevator was armoured, and the deck under it was part of the steel box containing the flight deck. Because the British EXPECTED Their carriers to absorb a lot of damage, and intended them to survive. Frankly, Illustrious got unlucky, and lucky. She baited all this damage into a damage absorbant box of their hull, akin to the purpose of the Torpedo bulges, it just swallowed most of the damage and carried on. If the Germans had aimed somewhat for the superstructure, and that forward elevator, or amidships to crack her hull, things might have been different. They didn't, Illustrious continued to serve.

@@indplt1595 yup. 500-1,000 lbs of warhead under the waterline, especially under the keel, is just way more effective than the same blowing amidst the decks. Air dropped bombs were mostly to take a carrier out of commission- stop it deploying fighters and it's AAA firing. The torp was always the killshot though ;)

@@Sophocles13 Well, that and fire and Tallboys and magazine detonations. The Japanese lost Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu to uncontrollable fires leading the Kido Butai's escorts to scuttle them, and the fires started by TF 16's SBDs did the same to Mikuma in the same battle. This likely was a known weakness to U.S. intelligence, as Shattered Sword claims the USN Dauntlesses were dropping GP (general purpose) bombs on Nagumo's carriers. It is almost inconceivable Fletcher's and Spruance's pilots would have been permitted to forego using armor-piercing weaponry unless they knew how vulnerable IJN carriers and cruisers were to turning into bonfires. Rhujo's sinking two and a half months later did involve a single Mark 13 hit, but the pounding by Dauntlesses was probably enough to do her in. Only Shoho suffered a number of torpedo hits before going down in 1942, demonstrating that dive bombers (particularly the Dauntless) were far deadlier that year than the B5N and TBD (the Avenger gets a pass, partly because of the 260-knot/800 ft attack profile developed in late 1943 was so deadly, but also for taking out Hiei that November). This was even more on display two years after Midway, where the torpedoes that took out Hiyo and Taiho were nowhere near enough to take out the Japanese carriers in the the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot--the uncontrollable fires sank both without scuttling, and the same fate nearly befell Zuikaku that June. Her sister Shokaku wasn't so lucky, but Cavalla's three torpedoes might not have been enough to take out Shokaku alone. The fires ignited, however, resulted in the IJN carrier taking more men to the bottom of the Philippine Sea than Arizona's KIA. USS Arizona herself was instructive, as B5Ns dropping converted Nagato-class main battery shells took out BB-39, not Type 91 aerial torpedoes that their fellow "Kates" used against the rest of Battleship Row. Gnesinau was similarly done in by RAF bombs alone detinating the German battleship's magazines, and of course Tirpitz, Scheer and Lutzow were victims of Barnes Wallis' and 617 Squadron's earthquakes. Then there was KG 100 with Fritz X, which demonstrated that even a 1570 kg/3460 lb weapon isn't enough to take out Warspite with a 320 kg/710 lbs detonation under the hull; it takes a magazine hit like Roma to destroy a Littorio-class battleship. But barring these conditions, yes, torpedoes were key to sinking Allied capital ships. Arizona and Hood were the only Allied capital ships to be destroyed without G7 or Type 91/93/95 torpedoes striking their sides...after all Hermes, Langley and Princeton were not really capital ships and instead were practically expendable (though even if Bunker Hill or Franklin had not survived the impact on the Allied war effort would have been zero in 1945). The impact of shipboard fires should never have been discounted, as the USN learned to their chagrin in 1966, 1967 and 1969 aboard USS Oriskany, USS Forrestal, and USS Enterprise (CVN-65). Nevertheless, the effect of Illustrious-class armoured decks lived on long after the Second World War, as the armored flight decks on the supercarriers are credited with saving Forrestal and Enterprise...

At least he could have done HMS Nelson (unless he did already).

@@mayuri4184 he did i think a good while back

I'm still waiting for the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard to get back to me :(

I am very happy for a new Drach video, but I am like a kid on Christmas morning waiting for part 3 of the Admiral Nelson series lol :)

@@Drachinifel looking really forward to it but take your time to get all the necessary informations^^

And an armored one as well.

Result of kamikaze hit on flight deck: Essex class - two months in Pearl Harbor or four months on the west coast; British carrier - sweepers to the flight deck, followed by a welder and a steel plate and a painter.

@@John-ru5ud Judging from overall results, both the USN and RN “got it right” for their anticipated use of carriers. Given the enormous distances for Pacific operations, the USN would need more aircraft to cover all that ocean and that would also help them “find first, strike first.” Their next generation of carriers had armoured flight decks as the anticipated needs were changing. The RN carriers were great in the Med and Atlantic, mostly less so in the Pacific. IIRC, the armoured carriers were almost entirely equipped with USN aircraft when they were supporting operations at Okinawa as the RN aircraft (Albacore, Swordfish, Fulmar, Barracuda) had hopelessly short ranges for Pacific operations. One must wonder how the USN carriers would have fared off Kyushu facing thousands of kamikazes had the atomic bombs not ended planning for Operation Olympic. It probably would have been truly awful. As is pointed out in the book “Neptune’s Inferno” by Hornfisher, the USN suffered far more casualties around Guadalcanal than did the US Marines. Kyushu would likely have been a repeat.

@@amerigo88 - Absolutely. The probable option to avoid the losses in an invasion of Japan if the A-Bomb was not available would have be continued fire bombing and interdiction of food shipments ... killing far more Japanese civilians.

@@John-ru5ud They filled some deeper dents with concrete as well..

The USN intentionally traded armored decks in exchange for increased aircraft capacity and striking power. This worked brilliantly in the open Pacific and wasn't a negative until the Fleet came within striking distance of the Japanese home islands and land based aircraft in 1945.

Indeed. If she were to bend over to get a dropped napkin, she'd lose balance and fall.

I dunno buuuuut... Was that an offence?

Was wondering if someone had already said this.

you are correct on both accounts. Been playing the game for two years plus

@@Cbabilon675 What's your exercise fleet look like?

It is a glaring and regretted omission; 83 killed 60 seriously wounded 40 light wounds, mostly among the hangar and damage control parties.

My grandfather CPO James Smyth was injured on that fateful day, he died 2 days later of his injuries and was buried at sea. There is a list on the Illustrious roll of honour.

As tiring as hearing Private Baldrik's poem: "Boom, boom, boom, boom ..."

If one of the runners is delayed with damage control, they could. E overtaken by a different runner with the same damage report.

@@bificommander Probably not such a big deal, all things considered, as long as both reports make it eventually.

@@gazeboist4535 True, it just gets confusing who's reporting on which hit.

@@bificommander good point.. lol

You miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight get two different search results.....

A soft landing.

You'd get an armored carrier and a carrier that was too late to participate in the Falklands War

All that means is that Lusty would not die when she was killed. We laud the fame of ships that endure mighty blows and survive - like HMS Warspite or SMS Derfflinger , for instance. But what Triumph, what praise is sufficient for a ship that is killed, and that even after terrible damage endures the front line of war and sees her enemies conquered? Truly does she deserve the monikor "Hero Ship".

@me hee Thats kinda the point I was making too; I'm just....fond, shall we say, of poetic language ;)

iirc she had continuous problems with the centre shaft, so they took the screw off. Sealing off the shaft tunnel lead to the fitting of the "World's largest condom"

Yes, it wasn't as clear cut as I made it sound. It did happen. But not in the way the movies tell it.

True but the fighter cap was lacking good communication so they relied on the pilots returning asap. In all the excitement they didn't.

Nicely put together comments easy and interesting to read. Midway class; very impressive ships by any measure but especially the Midway herself and the massive rebuild she got. Though not perfect in every respect she had an exceptionally long service life and was still a potent force at the end.

The USN adopted the angled decks and enclosed bows from RN carriers. The Coral Sea class super carriers were built with armored flight decks, which is a reason they were about 45,000 tons, or twice the displacement of the Essex-class carriers while, like the Essexes, carrying enough aircraft to fight carrier-carrier battles in the Pacific. Pre-war USN carrier design, though, ran its own path. Biggest factor, maybe, is that the USN kept control of its aircraft from bomber fanatics like Billy Mitchell. About 1920, the RAF got control of aircraft that would be used aboard the RN's carriers. The USN had experimented with and debated the size of carriers, concluding that the Yorktowns were optimal. The USN controlled aircraft procurement, which is why a US carrier air group in 1941 -- other than Ranger -- would have had a squadron of TBD, torpedo planes, a squadron of scout bombers and dive bombers, SBD Douglass Dauntless, and a fighter squadron flying the F4F-3 Grumman Wildcats. (Although, I think Lexington carried the Brewster Buffalo until around December 7). All those aircraft were tested and proven tough enough to land on carriers, and performed well. They followed several generations of carrier aircraft, each tried and refined. The RAF cared nothing for the RN, which entered the war using the Skua dive-bomber and the Roc as fighter planes. That's why Illustrious was flying the overweight, "slow to altitude", Fulmar. For more details, see www.armouredcarriers.com/grumman-f4f-martlet-development and www.armouredcarriers.com/fairey-fulmar-development

The USN definitely had different design priorities than the RN. The USN carrier designs were built around being able to deliver an overwhelming airstrike on the enemy fleet. RN doctrine slotted the carrier in as an adjunct to the battlewagons to serve a screening, recon, and attrition role. The early war carriers were smaller than what the USN wanted because of treaty tonnage limits or were wartime emergency light cruiser conversions. Released from tonnage restrictions, the pressing needs of an active war, and the resource competition from battleship construction they built mammoth carriers with armored decks.

@@Fulcrum205 That's pretty much it. During the 1930s, the USN expected to fight the Japanese across the Pacific, which meant carrying as many attack aircraft as possible, plus spare planes and spare parts, a full-scale machine shop, a large store of ammunition, plus large stores of aviation fuel and ship's oil. The USN had to work in a huge ocean with few bases. The RN expected to fight Italy and Germany in the Mediterranean and the North Sea. Neither had aircraft carriers, but both would have air bases near enough to hit RN squadrons. The IJN, like the USN, needed to steam its "airbases" with the fleet. Both expected carrier-to-carrier battles, and both, as you say, believed that to win they needed to fly the biggest first strike against a sighted target. USN had considered armored flight decks, but designed for hitting power instead. "Illustrious" was repaired at Norfolk, where USN engineers carefully considered the "armoured" deck that had saved her. The Essex-class was already designed and were being built, so it was too late to armor them. That had to wait for the Midway/Coral Sea/FDR. As it was, the Yorktowns and Essexes were pretty tough!

@@redskindan78 A question about the RN that always bothered me was their aircraft development. If they were planning to have to fly sorties in range of Land based fighters why were they developing such poor performing aircraft?. Even in the context of the mid 1930s the Fulmar, Albacore, Swordfish, etc were not good enough to fight the other likely adversary aircraft. Even the crappy old Wildcat would fly circles around the Fulmar. Observers in the Spanish Civil War and China had to have some idea of what the FAA was likely to be fighting against yet they still dragged their feet on putting something capable on the RN carriers. Why did they not try to navalize the Hurricane, Spitfire, etc, right away? The Fulmar could have been reworked into the strike role. The range of the fighters would have been lacking but at least they could catch a Ju88 or SM79.

It is worth noting that many of those carriers sunk by torpedo had been disabled by bombs, exposing them to successful attack. Swings and roundabouts, as the saying goes.

@@ArmouredCarriers The point being, torpedo damage generally made getting out of the area more difficult and put pressure on the power systems. If your attack doesn't get torpedoes into the target, they are likely to get away (you may not see them for a while, but the ship likely survives). Ergo Corp X seems a bit unbalanced (not enough torp bombers) and more inclined to use them for distractions. As opposed to say the Japanese group that hit Force Z (much more torpedo biased).

Either your not in Europe or you get a great lie in

@@icarus_falling I'm just glad I live in the UK, so that I can say I'm going to enjoy my Wednesday rum ration without seeming like I have a problem.

Late night for me, perfect for sitting in bed with a cuppa.

Indeed I am not in Europe, rather the US. So that most of Drach’s videos hit around 4 to 6am. Being as I work night shift, that usually means that I therefore get to unwind from my day with said videos.

Do you think it was a fruidian "torpedo boat" rather than a mental / excuse "torpedo boat".

“Surface action, Binoculars!”

@@davidbrennan660 Steady on, Admiral. We only have one box left!

Kamchatka

It's fair to say the books aren't all that much different in the UK, Australia etc. Though things are starting to improve.

Keep in mind that not having an armored flight deck does not translate into not having any armor protection against bombs. US designers made the hanger deck the strength deck, so the Yorktown class (for example) had 1.5" of STS steel as part of the hanger deck over vital spaces. So a similar bomb hitting a Yorktown might either go all the way through without detonating (or not hitting anything "vital"), or detonate in the compartments under the hanger deck without getting significantly deeper into vital spaces. The Essex class would increase that to 2.5" at the hanger deck level with a back up 1.5" deck a couple levels down (4th deck).

@@kemarisite The vital spaces are under the hangar deck in the Yorktown's. Even if the bomb does not detonate in the vital spaces, it will be detonating directly above them, sending shrapnel into the engine and boiler rooms.

What happened to USS Franklin, CV-13 would’ve happened to HMS Illustrious...

@@TraditionalAnglican Franklin was hit by a pair of 550lb bombs. Illustrious was hit by one 2200lb bomb, 2-3 1100lb bombs, 1-2 550lb bombs and a small GP bomb.

If you replace illustrious with a American carrier the fight cover would have be 3 to 4 time larger. If it illustrious was replaced with a late war American carrier then there would be 2 carriers.

Was it Corn Flakes? :D

@@Drachinifel Frosted Flakes was the one I got.

@@Drachinifel Apple Jack's and Corn Pops - All part of a wonderfully well balanced diet

It depended on the aircraft and on the wind-speed over the deck. In general, the same aircraft, say the Wildcat (USN) / Martlet (RN name), need to land at the same speed, whether landing on Illustrious or Enterprise. A key number would be the stalling speed of the aircraft. The Swordfish stalled at around 50 mph, although I can't find where I might have read that. Whatever it was exactly, the Swordfish did not need much airspeed to land. Mr. Armoured Carriers will do an episode, he says, on the shambles off Salerno, when Adm. Philip Vians, a gung ho "Penguin" according to Hank Adlam, decided to protect the landings using Seafires from escort carriers in a flat calm. Most of the Seafires bashed themselves trying to land on carriers that could not get above 15 knots. (Adlam's Penguin = "Has wings but does not fly").