Thanks for watching everyone! I hope you found this look at the loss of Queen Mary interesting. I created it to make it more in line with the other ones.
The story of Petty Officer Ernest Francis is harrowing but that man's coolness under fire was nothing sort of incredible. And the way he is shown calmly drinking soup after being rescued is just the stuff of legend. Truly one of the men who made the Royal Navy great.
My grandfather served on the Dreadnought so never went to Jutland, but a friend who he had trained with at Portsmouth was sent to join the Queen Mary, and did not survive her sinking. I remember my grandmother saying all the lower deck thought Beatty was reckless. The saying was that battlecruisers were "eggshells armed with sledghammers" !
My great grandfather Joseph Harrison was likely a Queen Mary or Indefatigable survivor himself. Highly likely he was good friends with your grandfather's friend who died.
I did indeed find this macabre video interesting! Though familiar with the texts you quote, your arranging them in a narrative has made me much more aware of the (agonising) process of Queen Mary’s demise: not just an explosion or series of explosions, but a gradual tearing of the ship apart, with the crew struggling to respond to the unfolding events. Thank you for this very useful and excellently constructed presentation!
Very happy to have found your content page. There are many references for the Jutland battle, and they are for the most part retreads of an original account, adding no real new insight. Your material on the other hand provides fresh new perspectives not only of the overall battle, ( order of battle, targeting of individual ships etc.), but the human contribution as well I am a big fan of your material and how you present it. Very good work!!!
Thank you! There are a lot of people who focus on the battle, tactics, and all that. But, that doesn’t interest me as much as the human element and what it was like to be there.
Just Beatty? The biggest, mightiest, most powerful sea fleet in the world... thru two world wars... And the Admirals of this might fleet sacrifice ships and crew pairing them against greater foes... HMS Queen Mary, to HMS Hood, to HMS Prince of Wales... all paired above their own level for ineptitude and pragmatic nonsense. And all of these leaders praised as genius and heroes and patriots? No way. The ships and their crews were martyrs. I hate the IJN, but even Yamato’s sacrifice had a reason more valid than half of what the British felt admirals did
@@RebeccaCampbell1969 history is full of leaders in battle that sacrifice their men in battle. Yes the British placed their BattleCruisers in the Battle line but so did the Germans! So who is right and who was wrong? Battle cruisers had a purpose but the Uniformed Navy Brass frequently miss managed their ships and employed faulty tactics. The British faulted because of their history and traditions. The US Navy faulted in the early days of the Pacific War because of the lack of experience and available ships being badly prepared for War when it came. However the US Navy learned from the failure of the British and the successes of the Japanese tactics. The British never learned and went broke from War.
@@RebeccaCampbell1969 I wouldn’t say that the British Fleet was superior in WWII. I would say they under performed at best. If it were not for the USA, they would have floundered to a lesser opponent in Germany. The only real successes the British Navy had were against the Italians. The Japanese fleet was 2/3rds the British fleet and was very superior to the British efforts at sea.
Great film VMT. Just a query. The famous Beatty comment about "something wrong with our ships...". I went to an RN lecture some 20 years ago, and the chap doing the event said that the whole quotation was ".......something wrong with our ships, and with our system". IS that correct please? Keep up the good work,
Well, I can’t tell for certain as I wasn’t there. But, Nigel Steel and Peter Heart in their book “Death in Grey Waters, Jutland 1916” have the full quote and they don’t use that last phrase you mentioned. Which is something I’ve not read or heard of. I’d love to know where that lecturer heard or read that!
I know England declared Jutland a win… but to many… they had there arrogant asses handed to them. Bad practices and the loss of so many ships… there was more than “there must be something wrong with our bloody ships today”
It was the largest naval battle in world history and it was also the last naval battle and to this day no one knows exactly who won it. That is why it is said to have been the most senseless naval battle in history. A total of 9,000 dead on both sides and billions in material losses - for what? Actually for nothing, because it had no influence on the course of the war, which was decided on land.
Only Germans are rational enough to measure range in hectometres. Totally obscure measurement, 100 metres, but perfectly suited for correction of salvoes.
