HMS Zenith - The Last Emergency Destroyer in Active Service 

Yeah it’s a shame about Zenith, given her largely original condition, but at least we still have Cavalier to represent these ships, albeit heavily modified. Whimbrel on the other hand, is of upmost importance to save, given her historical significance (just look at her large battle honours list). Efforts have been ongoing for years, but always seem to hit a brick wall, when the largely corrupt government in Egypt asks for stupid money for this ship. I can only hope the new Clyde naval heritage centre which is bringing back HMS Ambuscade of Falklands fame might spur things along.

It really really really upsets me that HMS Zenith couldn’t be saved. It was scrapped in 2017. HMS Whimberal is still in existence though I really hope it can be saved!

Zenith, the quality goes in before the name goes on! 1960’s US television manufacturer advertising motto .

MY DAD WAS ON HMS ZAMBESI. ARTIC CONVOYAND ATLANTIC. NORWAY AFTER THE WAR.

I shouldn't need to say this, but I went out of my way to watch *native British man* Drach's video on the W/Z-class. He pronounced Zenith exactly how I did. I based how I said it on how he did, in fact.

My uncle John Jennings was AA gunner on Zenith and Hotspur.

The W class had 4.7 inch, but the z class had 4.5 inch in the same mountings. The CA class were basically a repeatz Z.

Built in my hometown Dumbarton.

It’s ironic that she was sold the year before the Suez Crisis. Great timing.

Could we see a video on the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro sometime soon? A video on the British heavy cruiser Norfolk would also be nice.

Appreciating your detective work.

sir, i love how you cover some less-known ships. keep up the good fight!

Recognice your voice when i klick on a video.:) Thank you Tom for another great channel. Love all your work!

Great work!

Very interesting video. Thanks.

4:15 what may have been as Important to anti-submarine efforts is the antenna on the top of the mast of HMS Zenith huff-duff High-frequency direction finding. It allowed sub hunters in a convoy to pinpoint range direction of submarines within striking distance. Seek out and destroy or at least keep them below the surface long enough for the convoy to be out of range.

There was a royal navy ww1 destroyer that survived into the 21st century as a hulk parts of it remain preserved sadly the hull is gone i believe (But some say the hulk remains?) check out HMS Radiant (1916)

it's a shame that it wasn't sold off as a museum ship

I always find it insulting to those who served in UK warships and to the nation overall that we have hardly done anything to respect our Navy maritime history and have seen so many ships scrapped instead of thinking that more needed to be preserved! HMS Belfast, WW2 near Tower Bridge, London which was a Cruiser along with the WW1 Light Cruiser HMS Caroline, moored in Belfast remains just two examples of our heritage being preserved, yet in WW2 alone we had 15 battleships and battlecruisers, 7 aircraft carriers, 66 cruisers, 164 destroyers and 66 submarines. When you take out those sunk it still means there was plenty left at the end of the war, There is only another British ship many of you may never have heard about, the Mikasa which was a Pre Dreadnaught British Battleship built in 1890 yep it was not built for the Royal Navy, but for the Japanese Navy! Unlike the UK we made no efforts to preserve any warship from this period, yet Japan values its history more. It is the only example of any British battleship anywhere in the world. They have it as a Museum ship. Of course, we have HMS Victory which is still listed as serving in the Royal Navy to this day, but for a nation that built its history on the sea, we have been incredibly poor at realising the importance of preserving more of our maritime past.

Not as long lived, but HMS Matapan is worth considering.

Keep some of these ship . They are faster than todays modern ships .Keep her main armament and torpedo's , add a few missiles and hey presto , you have a new killing machine . Like the USS New Jersey they make a statement , don't mess with me . I think they would be cheaper to operate , keep the number crunchers away , they only follow the politicians directions . Excellent episode .

Her building time was typical more due to lack of yards and personal, compared to the US. Which had mass production yards for ships.

can you cover ijn shinano

Looks like a fire during scrapping

During one refit night vision was improved so Egyptian could Pyramid s the darkness

My late father served on HMS Zenith during WWII, coming to her from HMS Volunteer. He would have been intrigued to know that his old ship. He didn't serve in the Far East so the Malaya landing story doesn't ring true.

She was probably sunk then cut up because you would have seen her out of the water at some point , with just the hull they probably clean of hazardous materials and just sunk her in deep water.

It was Anglo Egypt

SORRY CAN'T SPELL,TOO EARLY!

The USA 🇺🇸 made the uk 🇬🇧 pay for all wartime aid and even the spam. This stuff wasn’t free. 🆓 the uk 🇬🇧 was in tremendous debt at the end of the war. Probably the uk should have charged the U.S. airforce for using uk airfields. So America I say owes the uk 🇬🇧 at least 100 billion in service fees in adjusted dollars