HMS Porcupine - Blown (Nearly) In Half, Still Useful

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Or, at least, still useful as a hulk. Or two.
HMS Porcupine is an interesting case. A ship so heavily damaged that even the Royal Navy, which put Javelin back in service after losing her bow and stern, considered her broken. Not worth the effort to repair.
Yet, in spite of that, the ship remained afloat.
So, instead of simply scrapping her, the British got some use out of the almost-new destroyer's hulk. Giving rise to HMS Pork and HMS Pine, probably the most interesting use of a wrecked destroyer that I can think of.
Further Reading:
www.amazon.com/British-Destro...
www.amazon.com/British-Destro...
www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chr...
uboat.net/allies/warships/shi...

Опубликовано:

1 апр 2024

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Комментарии : 45

@mikeynth7919 2 месяца назад

USS Shaw's bow was blown up in the floating drydock at Pearl Harbor. Remarkably, the rest remained afloat when the drydock sank. She also received a new bow and carried on.

@allangibson8494 Месяц назад

USS Shaw got an entirely new hull with the drive train equipment from the first ship installed (the Original USS Shaw hull was too bent to be repaired).

@kennethhanks6712 2 месяца назад

The US Navy got into this act with the 4 Piper USS BLakeley, DD 150, with her bow forward of the bridge blown off by U-boat near Martinique in May '42. The bow of retired and stripped USS Taylor, DD 94, was grafted on Blakeley and she finished the war primarily in the Caribbean.

@Ro6entX 2 месяца назад

I thought it was the same but then I realized the stern wasn’t blown off but I do remember another ship having its bow blown off nearly completely but the ship itself managed to make it back to port after having to cut off the barely attached bow. I think it’s the USS Minneapolis. The bow is relatively still intact and located in iron bottom sound, accessible to divers.

@thomaslinton5765 2 месяца назад

Thank you for the accurate history and avoidance of clickbait titles. ✌

@Timcot24 Месяц назад

Picture at 3:46 is at Marrowbone Slip, Sutton Harbour, Plymouth, UK. It was Demellweek & Reading's scrapyard and that's HMS Amethyst being cut up in 1957. I had a mooring roughly where the bow of that ship is now.

@metaknight115 2 месяца назад

Could we see a video on the differences between the Kagero and Yugumo class destroyers of the Japanese navy? At least from the basic Wiki descriptions, it really seems there weren’t enough differences to justify their labels as two separate ship classes rather than sub classes or half sisterships of the same design.

@NCMA29 2 месяца назад

Great video and interesting history of the life and fate of PORCUPINE. The image you were unsure of was in fact not of PORCUPINE, but rather of her sister ship OPPORTUNE. Other images of OPPORTUNE also show her in the same Emergency Fleet Scheme For Destroyers and although blurry, her pennant No., G 80 is still readable, especially the highlighted bottoms of the numerals.

@williamashbless7904 2 месяца назад

Nice job! I knew about Zubian, but was unaware of Pork and Pine.

@robertsolomielke5134 Месяц назад

TY- I remember this pork-pine tale from a paragraph somewhere, so thanks for giving us more to go on. Of course dry humor, and practical engineering both co exist in the RN. ;)

@user-ti7lm7lh7p 2 месяца назад

The half hull shown is not in Portsmouth but is in Sutton Pool in Plymouth

@BHuang92 2 месяца назад

How about HMS Gurkha? Two ships that share the same name and both sunk in the same war.

@greycatturtle7132 2 месяца назад

Lmao

@disillusionedidealist3446 2 месяца назад

great stuff...very interesting

@doktorjohann4883 2 месяца назад

A good account of the salvage of HMS Porcupine is provided in RADM Edward Ellsberg's "No Banners, No Bugles," where he gives some fascinating insights into the efforts made to keep her afloat. Reportedly the torpedo she took in the engine room literally caused one of her engine sets to fall out of the ship and head to the bottom of the Mediterranean, with the resulting loss of weight then flopping her over to starboard. Then some ballsy British rating decided it was a good idea to open up the lazarette to retrieve a rum ration for the crew, though fortunately the lazarette wasn't flooded and open to the sea, or the ship might have gone down right then and there.

@SootHead 2 месяца назад

That same book details the sinking of SS Strathallan, a troopship that Ellsberg attempted to save. Ellsberg's account of Strathallan's sinking differs greatly from the "official" one. If half of what Ellsberg said about Strathallan is true, the ship could have been saved had not HMS Laforey withdrawn the 40 seaman Ellsberg requested before they ever had a chance to deliver any meaningful help. Ellsberg's salvage ship had less than 20 men to fight the fire. They very nearly succeeded according to Ellsberg but they reached the limit of human endurance and had to abandon the effort. The fiasco of help being sent and then withdrawn out of fear or incompetance is not detailed in any historical references I can see and Ellsberg is not mentioned at all. As is common, the incompetant were given medals and the fiasco swept under the rug.

@doktorjohann4883 2 месяца назад

@@SootHead I agree that the Strathallan could have been saved, though I cannot fault the Laforey's captain for looking to the wellbeing of his men since Force H was chronically short of men, ships, and just about everything else. There is also the issue that Strathallan was suffering a severe and unchecked fire at the time, which in the case of the MV Georgic put her out of action for over 3 1/2 years and required an extensive rebuild, and the ship was never quite the same after that. So, perhaps the fires could have been contained and the ship saved, but I can't fault the Laforey's captain for writing her off entirely. Some fault needs to lie with the Brits for not properly converting her to a troopship hosever, which let the fires spread. I could go on at length about this particular incident, but maybe I'll save that for a collab video with Skynea. :)

@notshapedforsportivetricks2912 2 месяца назад

Well done that man! Good to see that you have your priorities right.

@sailordude2094 2 месяца назад

Anyone else think of Larry from the Three Stooges? You Porcupine!

@user-dn4iv2ne6r 2 месяца назад

I recall reading about this ship many, many years ago in one of the books by Commander Edward Elsberg USN who was involved in salvaging it. As I recall it, the turbine dropped right out the bottom of the ship. It was only the fortuitous provision of an emergency diesel generator that provided electricity for the quarter ton salvage pumps that allowed for the successful salvage.

@DaveSCameron 2 месяца назад

Nice one, I wasn’t aware of this one.

@dennisvandermarkt8263 2 месяца назад

Love me sum British humor

@JGCR59 2 месяца назад

Re the 4 inch vs 4.7 inch, the former was a lot more useful as an anti-aircraft gun even in its original mounts while the theoretically dual purpose 4.7 inch was in reality a surface warfare gun only. So it made sense to install them on general purpose destroyers even if the calibre was weaker.

@JGCR59 2 месяца назад

Since she was also involved in the rescue of the survivors of SS Nieuw Zeeland, HMS Albrighton would be a funny topic. A very active Hunt Class destroyer of the Royal Navy that came to serve West Germany Postwar as the training Ship Raule

@mattwilliams3456 2 месяца назад

Waste not, want not…

@trimmerman1 Месяц назад

I don't mind equipment being repurposed. It has a job.

@user-ry6hd4kx1j 2 месяца назад

Look up what happened to the FIRST USS Larson, whose Frame was buckled due to a freak accident while she was on the Ways. She surrendered her Steel and Equipment to two of Her stricken Sisters.

@Paladin1873 2 месяца назад

The bow camo pattern at 3:52 does not match that at 7:24, so perhaps these are different ships.

@juliancate7089 2 месяца назад

Many examples of US ships being grafted together to restore lost sections. USS Menges and USS Holder come to mind. Stern of Menges was wrecked and the forward section of Holder was wrecked, so they cut the stern off Holder, because she was deemed to be unrepairable, and grafted it onto Menges after her damaged stern was cut off. USS Menges returned to service. The remainder of Holder was scrapped. The photos of USS Menges' stern after the torpedo strike are dramatic and disturbing. Bodies of sailors killed by the concussion were flung forward, landing on the forward section. Heavy debris launched forward crushed several sailors. Very sad.

@Bazerkly 2 месяца назад

Kool !

@MooseWolfBear 6 дней назад

Look for and if you find it,read it .The book "The pride and the anguish".Very good book about the "Porcupine" ship. I can recommend it.

@Backwardlooking 2 месяца назад

Still possess my dry wit. 👍🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

@gregbolitho9775 2 месяца назад

Nice, sorta waste not want not. somethin really good in this chuck it away society we got now Eh! Nice job again bloke!

@anemone104 2 месяца назад

HMS Petard? Seriously? HMS Fart?! Fart jokes aside, Porcupine was an old name. Of her predecessors, HMS Porcupine from the 1860s is worthy of note. In 1869 HMS Porcupine was chartered by the Royal Society to investigate the deep sea bed to the west of Ireland with the intention of looking for living organisms below 600 m depth. The azoic theory of Edward Forbes hypothesised that life could not exist below this depth due to the great pressure. She found life in abundance. There is a Porcupine Marine Natural History Society named after her and her achievements that remains busy and active to this day and welcoming of anyone interested in marine life regardless of whether they are professional marine biologists, window cleaners, retirees or students.

@SennaAugustus Месяц назад

Hey, Petard is a legendary ship that helped shorten the war by months if not years. February to October 1942 saw the longest blackout in Enigma decryption, and it was Petard who ended it.

@greycatturtle7132 2 месяца назад

Wow

@shathriel 2 месяца назад

The O class survived the war with no losses, the P's on the other hand got pummeled and I think only three were still in service come the end of the war.