HMS Implacable; The Battleship That Served for 149 Years - And Then Got Blown Up! 

Yes ! Her and the other off Jersey city are last dreadnaught , Texas Forever ,

In todays USS Navy ships that are decommissioned can see three different fates. Sold off cheap (or given) to a friendly nation. Sold off to the scrappers (I think I once saw a picture of a USN and Soviet warship doing dismembered at that place in India). Or go the way a retired warship should go. Used in a Sink Ex.

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters there are at least two frigates of the period, Unicorn in Dundee, and another one.

@@pcka12 HMS Trincomalee at Hartlepool.

@@benwilson6145 I should have remembered Trincomalee...she's only a few miles away from where I live!

Warspite too.

The Vasa was well preserved because of the sediment she sank in. They had to do a lot of work to make sure she didn't disintegrate after being raised.

This is like that riddle about the ship of Theseus, the one that was replaced with new materials.

@@mcuddy799 HMS Triggers Broom

Trigger`s broom come to mind

It's not just Texas. Olympia is in pretty bad shape too.

The USS Texas is being saved. It will be going to a drydock for major repairs in the near future.

Wasn't Brunnel's Great Western used as a hulk in Port Stanley?

@@mpetersen6 No the SS Great Britain

@@benwilson6145 I stand corrected sir.

Everyone knows how to make another human and indeed we are vastly overpopulated with the damn things, but a 74 that fought at Trafalgar and survived nearly 200 years is not a regular find

Read his book! You'll enjoy his content even more!.. ;-)

Once her timbers dried out she would have just crumbled away. If you recall the Vasa and Mary Rose, they spent years being sprayed with preservative chemicals before anything could be done with them.

I visited the Unicorn a few years ago. Wonderful piece of history. But as I recall the Unicorn was never actually fitted out and sailed in anger. It was a "reserve" completed to a degree then mothballed in case of further need.... which never occurred as armored hulls became the name of the game. But even if it was never sent to sea it's still a wonderful piece of history. The truly sad thing with HMS Implacable is that it did have history. And we sent that history of battle and training to the bottom. The shovel's too good for them I say.....

@@brucematthews6417 well there's also HMS Trincomalee up in Hartlepool

Warship .. you worship in church

It's a different kettle of fish keeping a 1st rate ship of the line afloat compared to a frigate. Anyway, she stayed afloat until 1922 which ain't bad going I say.

Victory's in no condition for it, but HMS Trincomalee could, she's the oldest British warship still afloat and seaworthy

@@1IbramGaunt that's an interesting idea, should be a good match in size and class, but HMS Trincomalee was built by Indians, at an Indian firm, in Indian shipyards, in India. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact it would probably be great museum ship for India to have for herself, being that she is such a unique example. However, The Royal Navy being the senior service to our Navy(historically), I'd prefer it to be Victory, who is herself senior to Constitution, unlike HMS Trincomalee who is younger than Constitution. I'm sure in the anglo-american sphere we could come up with the expertise and the money to see Victory back at sea. The real question would be the funding to maintain her in perpetuity. But it's a worthy cause, should someone take it up.

​@MattCellaneous tell you what, how about this, why don't you guys give us the replica ship "HMS Surprise" which I believe is still over there, the ship used for the movie "Master & Commander - The Far Side Of The World", and we'll rename her HMS Rose, after the real historical frigate she's based on, commission her as a real warship (ceremonially speaking of course), and we'll make that our equivalent of your USS Constitution haha

“The one that won the battle against napoleon” 16 of the 27 ships of the line at trafalgar were 74 gun 3rd rates identical to this one.

Lol thank you. I still do this because I enjoy it really 😁

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters I like the way you are on paths less travelled Between you and Dr Felton a lot of little known history is coming to light

I bet it had a lot if great firewood in it too.

@@bushelfoot sad little troll.

@@darwinsmonkeybutler2113 you call it troll i call it fact.

@@bushelfoot disrespectful and unempathic. The fact is you’re a sad little troll. Go back under your bridge, inadequate troll.

@@darwinsmonkeybutler2113 I see what he means though. Museums are a thing I love but I also have more feelings about them. The sailor, the writer, the artist, they are all long gone and the home has no life in it, it is simply a shrine. Maybe the best way to honour the past is to live, love, and fight now. I think they should not have scuttled her but I DO get the point.

I know about that ship They would have liked to have saved her but her wood was rotted, she was not salvageable.

@@jamesricker3997 Thanks for your information, James. I suppose that it was really too much to ask that a ship, a century and a half old, was fit enough to save.

The oldest ship still serving a function purpose (or parts of her) is the Mayflower iirc. Parts of her were supposedly purchased from a ship breakers yard and used in the construction of a barn in Buckinghamshire

Yes, there was another choice, make her a damn museum on dry land, HMS Victory ring a bell?!

@@1IbramGaunt Maybe you missed this part before, I'll quote myself for you. "Without someone paying to maintain her...." That applies even more so to the comparatively massive undertaking of permanently landlocking a ship and keeping it forever as a building.

@@johnladuke6475 the funds became available later, sure we were skint in the 40's and 50's but we did get plenty of money for this stuff later on, they could've just put her in an old RAF hangar or something, anything big enough to house her and shelter her from the elements, and perhaps also coated her with some sort of wood-preservative, and then just left her there until the money and resources were available for a more thorough restoration

There is or was an old steel hulled wind jammer tied up in Honolulu harbor. There was discussion on what to do with her.

You forget the historical context, or maybe you don't know it. The UK was utterly, utterly skint at the end of the War. Which should the (Labour) government of the day spend our money on (particularly given its manifesto promises)? Establishment and commissioning of the Wefare State and the NHS, plus rebuilding after war damage, or preserving old vessels of war?

Yep, really stupid for a nation exhausted and rendered utterly, utterly skint by a six-year all-out war fought on a global scale to instead focus what resources it did have on rebuilding and establishing such cornerstones of modern life as the NHS and Welfare State, themselves all manifesto promises of the government of the day. Not to mention that the Royal Navy of the day was stretched beyond imagination in trying to maintain a global fighting force at a scale of effort way beyond what was affordable. Yep, really stupid that.

Reproductions directly copied from the original perhaps?

NATO had no part in the series of nuclear test on or around Bikini Atoll. Unless you are saying because the USA was part of NATO then NATO was responsible for the Bikini Atoll tests? Because by the same logic that makes NATO responsible for the Vietnam war ... or anything that a NATO member does as a sovereign nation.

.... I'm going for a swim. .... I may be sometime.

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters hahaha while you're at it, look for my keys will you

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters do you think it'd be possible to raise whatever's left of her, alá the 'Mary Rose'?

@@1IbramGaunt I doubt it. Blowing her hull out would have done a lot of damage.

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters well yeah, didn't think she'd exactly be seaworthy still haha, but that hole underneath aside she WAS still remarkably intact when she went down- they really built those old wooden ships to last

Where does the evidence that she was rotten come from? I would like to know as it is used repeatedly to justify the end

I remember seeing the news reel footage years ago and she was refered to as Old Implaccable.

FFS, near 250 years, allies in two world wars and innumerable conflicts since the last one, and all you can refer to is ' ... a redcoat vessel'. When are you going to turn the page?

depends what you call a "British" battleship doesn't it, yeah she was built here but she was paid for, used, fought & died in and honoured for it all by the Japanese

I have a better question, why not scrap YOU and donate your organs to the Chinese

HMS Warspite wasn't at Dogger Bank (either of them) - she wasn't completed or in service at the time of the battle in 1915 (the better known) and there weren't any capital ships present on either side for the less well known action in 1916. She saw a lot of action during WW2, but took a beating - at the end of 1944 when she saw her final action, Warspite had some boiler rooms not working, X turret permanently disabled and a concrete patch on her hull. Then when they tried to tow her to the breakers post war she broke her tow lines and ran herself aground in a storm - multiple salvage attempts just resulted in the salvage ships and tugs being damaged whilst the Grand Old Lady basically sat there daring them to try moving her again! She was not going to a breakers yard! In the end they had to scrap her where she was. And she really did deserve so much better - she should have been preserved. As it stands the only British built battleship left is the pre-Dreadnought IJN Mikasa, built for the Imperial Japanese Navy by a British commercial yard and now encased in concrete.

@@davebignell773 Being put into a drydock and encased in concrete is something I think is going to be in the Texas's future. Also Olympia. The Oregon was used as an ammunition barge during WWII and scrapped in Japan in the 50s. If any warships from WWII deserved to be saved if possible it would be the Samuel B Robert's and the Johnston. At least the forward half of the Johnston has been located at over 21K/6400 meters down with her forward five inch mounts still trained to starboard.

@@mpetersen6 Not so sure about putting ships in concrete. That was done to IJN Mikasa, but she was neglected and deteriorated badly over time. If you go to Portsmouth in England, the Ironclad HMS Warrior is still afloat, HMS Victory and HMS M33 are in dry docks on supporting cradles. Mary Rose is also in a dry dock, but there is only half of her left anyway. I have to disagree on the USS Johnston and USS Samuel B Roberts. 1 - Both ships were sunk during WW2 and came to rest at a depth where they are unrecoverable, even today. So it was/is utterly impossible to salvage and preserve either ship. 2 - Both wrecks are War Graves and should be left undisturbed as the final resting place of many of their crew. At most, raising the ships bells as a memorial IF the US Navy agrees - nothing more. 3 - Neither ship had any history to her. The Johnston was commissioned in October 1943 and was sunk in October 1944. The Roberts was under a year old. 4 - Ever heard of USS Hoel? She fought just as bravely alongside the Johnston and the Roberts at Leyte, and was also lost whilst buying time for the Escort Carriers to withdraw. USS Heerman? The only full size Destroyer assigned to Taffy 3 which survived the engagement - and she didn't hold back in the battle. USS John C Butler, USS Raymond, USS Dennis? Destroyer Escorts which stuck with the Escort Carriers during the battle, screening them and firing at any Japanese vessels which came within range, and all 3 survived the battle as well. 5 - There are 3 Fletcher class Destroyers preserved as museum ships in the US, plus 1 more in Greece. There aren't any John C Butler class Destroyer Escorts preserved, but there are 2 DE's of similar classes preserved in the US. So there are representative examples of the classes of both ships (or very similar) still in existence as museum ships. Despite the unquestionable bravery of their crews and the drama of their final engagement, you can't compare a pair of short lived Destroyers to a Battleship which fought in 2 World Wars earning 15 battle honours and which was still afloat at the end of WW2. It was at least possible to save Warspite as a museum ship, albeit it would have been at great expense.

@@davebignell773 saving HMS Belfast didn't seem to be a problem, nor did saving any of those other preserved museum-ships you mention, and frankly most surviving ships as old as Warspite would be today have far less incredible gloriousness to their names than Warspite did yet they survive and she doesn't. Was saving just one more ship too much to ask for the penny-pinchers? Despite the fact they'd already scrapped dozens of other WW2 warships? you would've thought just one being kept aside, put out of the way somewhere for later restoration, would make no difference whatsoever, doubt her steel could've been worth much

I wonder if it's possible to raise and then restore any of the sunken still mostly-intact battleships on the bottom, alá the movie "Raise The Titanic" haha, or indeed the real-life raising of 'Mary Rose' or 'Wasa'? I don't mean the ones that're war graves, they should be left to lie in peace for all time of course; I'm talking about the possibility of raising one of the battleships that went down with no-one aboard, like with the German fleet that scuttled itself at Scapa Flow