HMS Queen Mary - From Slipway to Sinking at Jutland 

You may Always Remember him with Love and Pride for his Gallant and Noble Service .

@@jnstonbely5215 one of many great heroes, God rest there soles,🙏🇬🇧.

@@busterboy7505 R.I.P. ✝️

My Great uncle, Herbert Hillerby was also a stoker on the Queen Mary and went down with the ship.

Many thanks!

Yes, Beatty certainly was not what you would term a "team player".

Using Battlecruisers as Battleships resulted in them being exposed to fire that they had not been designed to face. Battlecruisers were designed to chase down cruisers and other smaller fast combat ships and when used correctly as they had been used at the Falklands they were very effective. Another misuse happened in WWII when the Hood was sent out against the Bismarck and destroyed.

Much appreciated!

Thank you very much, greatly appreciated.

It's always been A-jax in English, Eye-ax is the name of a Dutch football club, not a Royal Navy ship.

Thanks very much!

Surprisingly by the time of Jutland the Dreadnought was already considered second class Battleship due to the fast paced development of capital ships. Hence she was kept out of the battle she had been build.

Glad you enjoy it!

Thanks very much for such a kind comment.

Queen Mary should have had sufficient armour to deal with the German Shellfire. The only battlecruisers which were definitely under-armoured were the earlier Invincible and Indefatigable classes. The most likely cause of Queen Mary's loss, and the near loss of Tiger, is a combination of shell/ charge handling procedures, the degradation of the Cordite charges, faulty British AP shells and insufficient crew experience. The most significant of these is the charges degrading. They left a combustible dust which, if left uncleaned, would easily ignite. It was thought by many that it was safe/ inert due to misunderstandings and exaggerations made from the lab. An Officer on Tiger realised this and got it cleaned, but not all ships were so lucky. Britain wasn't alone in making errors with the propellant charges, but really suffered at Jutland because of it. The Cordite was proven safe in a lab, but was not tested in an enclosed environment such as a ship. It was also not appreciated how it'd degrade over time and coat the ship in dust. Naval staff were informed it was much safer compared to previous black powder charges, which left a much more obvious coating of combustible dust. The charge handling safety procedures were cut to improve rate of fire. Whilst not necessarily the direct cause of the ships loss, it was a major factor in it. The Green Boy AP shells the British used were known to be faulty and acted more like HE shells, not penetrating through the armour belts as intended. This meant the German ships were able to absorb much more punishment than British ships. Due to manpower shortages in the war, Queen Mary in particular had a relatively new crew, largely from reservists which would have played somewhat of a factor. You can also take into account the failures and incompetence of Admiral Beatty and Flag Officer Seymour. Both the charge and shell issues were known about before the war and there were people who wanted those issues resolved. Unfortunately due to politics and bureaucracy, these were not addressed in time, nor were these issues widely known throughout the navy. Ultimately Queen Mary is relatively similarly armoured to the Kongōs and they didn't explode under American superheavy 16" shells, so why should the British. Essentially, there were a lot of factors in the sinking of the ships, which aren't all fully understood even today. Hood would be modified to carry substantially more armour after Jutland and would carry equivalent armour protection to the Queen Elizabeths, showing that you no longer needed to give up armour for speed. Hoods loss is something I won't get into now, but it was not due to a lack of armour either.

No design flaw ,Blasphemic! It only explodet once regardless how often those unfair germans shot at it!!

@@Joshua-fi4ji Since Japan's navy was modelled after Britains, I'd assume that they copied their charge and ammunition handling procedures...which most likely led to the explosion of the Kawachi.

Thank you.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you very much.

You are welcome!

Glad you like them!

Thanks very much. I do have HMS Tiger on my list of potential future videos. You aren't the first person to suggest her.

Thanks a lot

Welcome

Many thanks!

Glad you enjoyed it

Thanks very much. I did spend quite some time on the pronunciation of Ajax and it depends on what source you refer to as to how it's pronounced. I'm glad you enjoyed the video

@@TheNorthernHistorian in the film about the battle of the river plate, the cruiser involved is pronounced aJacks. Football is a world of its own. Glasgow Celtic is pronounced with a soft c. It isn't right!

@@andrewclayton4181 In Greek, which is where the word comes from, its I-Yaks... I know there are variations in its use, but if in doubt, use the original language...

@@K1W1fly in Greek it's pronounced Aias or in Greek Αϊάς

in the English language you have a pronounced vowel shift not existing in Greek, thus if Ajax is spoken in English, the original Greek spelling of the name always gets butchered. I therefore doubt that using Greek pronunciation should be appropriate for this ship. Just speak the name any way you feel like and it will end up close enough to the original English pronunciation.

HMS Tiger was launched before WW1 but wasn't commissioned into service until October of 1914 when the war was already underway. HMS Queen Mary was commissioned in 1913.

I've never seen any detailed hull plans (although I have searched and searched). I would imagine just as the hull tapers into the bow so as to get a clean launch.

Thanks for the comment but I'm confused. I don't mention Tiger, Renown, Repulse or Hood in the video.

@@TheNorthernHistorian I don't think he realised you said "before world war one"

Hood fallowed typical escaltion just like the earlier battlecruisers. For a new battlecruiser to be as heavily armed and armored than a few year old battleship was a norm. Only reason people see Hood as a fast battleship is the cancelation of G3 and N3 and the long treaty mandated holiday period. This makes people compare Hood to Queen elizabeth etc. instead of looking at the context it was built in.

@@TheNorthernHistorian You are not the only one confused. Me, too. I didn't hear any word of the latter three ships either.

Courageous, Glorious and Furious came later also. It doesn’t matter that they were ridiculously labelled as 15 and 18 inch gun armed _light cruisers._

I actually spent ages trying to find the 'correct' pronunciation, watching a number of videos from all kinds of sources and it really is 50-50. After watching the video on RU-vid by Drachinefel where he also mentioned the dilemma, I went for his pronunciation. I suppose it's a case of tom'ah'to or tom'ay'to. Plus, it sounds like the dutch football team :-)

@@TheNorthernHistorian - The name is that of the ancient Greek hero, Ajax, and the Greeks used the hard J it would seem and not the Y pronunciation of many Europeans today.

No no no, it is clearly A-Jax not A-yax as is the Dutch football club

That thought has crossed my mind. I may consider that for the future.

In the UK the comma (,) is used to seperate thousands: 5,610nm = five thousand, six hundred and ten nautical miles and 10,390km = ten thousand, three hundred and ninety kilometres. Ten point three nine zero would be written 10.390. In other countries (particularly Europe) the comma is treated as a decimal point - crazy, I know ;-)

Cheers Don, I was just about to explain that but you explained it spot on :-)

@@TheNorthernHistorian oohh damn i was totaly of in my mind. Sorry absolutly my mistake.

Hi David, thanks for the comment. HMS Tiger was still under construction when WW1 started and wasn't commissioned into service until 3rd October 1914. She was an impressive ship though and may feature in a future video. Cheers.

@@TheNorthernHistorian Ok, I'll give you that Tiger didn't complete until October 1914, (just shows we can all make errors,lol!). I enjoyed the video and appreciate the time and effort you and others, ie; Drac, put into them to entertain us. The real fun comes in debating the subject in the comments section afterwards. I don't comment to criticise, I look forward to your next offering.

Using a CPI Inflation calculator, $1 in 1913 is worth £118 today. So £2M in 1913 is worth £245M today.

Well, if it was Latin 'Ayax' would be correct. But it's Greek so, I guess its the same. Also Italian team pronounced "Yuventes"

@@hazchemel I looked it up - the original two Ajaxes were from Greek mythology, and were originally "Aias". In English it would be "Ajax" (A-Jacks) though. Makes we wonder, though - in German "Jutland" is "Yoot-land", and it's interesting that pretty much all English commentators (Drach on down) still pronounce it "Jut-land", while everyone takes great care to pronounce "Junkers", "Heinkel" and "Messerschmitt" in the German way... 😁

@@iskandartaib yes indeed. commonplace in English that multiple threads proceed together. The original continues, the same word from a different language, e.g French, continues, .... lol.... which is why there is a gigantic vocabulary about 500,000 words and growing, huge choice. Where are you from? Australia here.

Malaysia here.

Renown was saved by the British Navy _eventually_ learning not to mix battlecruisers with big gun ships. It had exchanged fire with the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the invasion of Norway campaign.

@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Yes indeed. Until they ran off ‘cos of orders not to engage RN big ships. Daft, as they could have mashed up poor old Renown as they had range and speed and there was two of them. The RN had a tradition of “Engage the Enemy More Closely” and the Kriegsmarine had a tradition of “Er…… No!” (Thankfully!:)