The SS REX: The Ocean Liner That Changed Naval Combat Forever! 

Look here on RU-vid , to check people diving the wreck of The Rex .

Emigrated 👍

@@JohnSmith-jl3fm thanks for catching that mate 👍🏻

A very stylish ship she was

I sincerely doubt that.... no ship, of any registry, could serve alcohol to anyone while inside the 12-mile-limit. All stores were locked and bonded during the calls at New York (or any U.S. port including Honolulu). So fun... but not quite fact.

So glad you enjoyed it :)

​@@kohl57 hi kohl, in a couple of old documentaries this information is reported also told by a witness... in any case it is interesting that an American could have gotten drunk only if he had traveled on a liner (I don't know if on Cunard or other lines they could) Good night 🎆

You could drink yourself silly on the liner (non American that is) once you were outside the 12-mile limit and people did... but in New York Harbor, not a chance.

That's the understatement of the century. The Empress got burned to SHIT. It made Normandie Incident look like a campfire. There have not been too many expeditions to the wreck but surveys show that it's upside down and the hull is literally a hollow shell because the bombing burned her so bad that the rest of her entire superstructure was reduced to ash. There was literally nothing left of her when she finally sank. Shame since she was such a beautiful girl...

I noticed and appreciated this, too!

I am secretly also an airplane nerd :) Got to visit Duxford 2 weeks ago! I thought the ‘17 would be bigger, my head was brushing the wing’s underside as parked on the ground!

@OceanlinerDesigns The size perspective a lot due to the '17s low mounted wings whereas the similar size '24 had high mounted wings (which would also be their Achilles Heal).

Bathtub belly turret & teardrop waist turrets too.

The B-17s made several bombing runs during the Battle of Midway, none of them ever scoring a hit.

@@Edax_Royeaux well, the Norden bombsight helped with that, ahem, accuracy. It was also used in Nagasaki, missing the target by two miles. About the only bombs that did reliably hit target were all delivered by dive bomber.

And how many different ways did it take the Brits use trying to sink Tirpitz, at anchor, in the Norwegian fjord? And when they finally did get the right aircraft, the Lancaster, and the right bomb, the Tall Boy, how many of those bombs missed the ship?

@@danquigg8311 which was more cost effective? Those raids and all those bombs or a fleet of sunken Hoods?

@@spvillano Given that Tirpitz on sortie resulted in the destruction of Convoy PQ 17 at a loss of 24 ships, the Tirpitz probably paid for itself, especially considering how many Allied Battleships were pinned down guarding against the thing. Air power could not supplant the carrying capacity of a cargo ship, so those convoys remained critically important all throughout the war.

There was some thought to raising both are and Conte de Savoyard post war and restoring the hulls. The were deemed too damaged and relics of the Italian Facists, and thus, broken up. This opened the doors for for two new ships, Andrea Doria and Christophoro. Columbo

Thanks for the idea!

Yes, THAT Curtis LeMay.

heh, small world

The use of the 3 gyroscopes was a dangerous and wrong choice. Any gyroscope weighted 100 Tons, them used too much electrici energy, the internal structure of the ship itself was subjected to enormous forces that unscrewed it. Advertising was suspended and the system was no longer used after the first 2 years, without stating the real reason.

Keep in mind, too, that the Lexington & Saratoga, CV2 & CV3, mounted 8" guns until early in the war.

Also, Mitchell was pushing for _heavy_ bombers (i.e. the most useless at sinking ships); he thought carriers and dive/torpedo bombers were a fad, and that fighters were useless because "the bombers will always get through." Were it up to him, America would've entered the war with B-29s and biplanes.

If he was right in aircrafts being the trump card in future sea battles, the way to sink ships with them had yet to be found. IE high level bombing with heavy bombers, like the B17, proved to be highly ineffective. From high level, even a stationary ship was a relatively small target, and the probability to hit it with a bomb was marginal. For example, on Apr. 10 1943, 84 B17 bombers, the biggest concentration of heavy bombers used that far in the war, each one carrying 12 500lb "battleship buster" bombs (1008 bombs in total) , hit the port of La Maddalena, in Sardinia, where the cruisers Trieste and Gorizia were at anchor. All that they scored had been three bombs on the Trieste (that sunk) and two on the Gorizia (that remained afloat), a 0.5% score probability. Similar bombings performed on the three battleships at anchor at La Spezia (Vittorio Veneto, Littorio and Roma) only slightly damaged the ships. Also aerial torpedoing proved to be much more effective in ports (see Pearl Harbour, or Taranto) than in navigation, where even large warships could quite easily evade torpedoes when they had not been launched from "suicidal" distance. Not by chance, Germans enforced a strict rule to use aerial torpedoing only against merchants, and only dive bombing against warships.

And yet, Mitchell was 100% right and the Navy saying the tests proved nothing was wrong... a few short years later battleships at sea, under steam, evading and firing back were sunk at will... many examples of this occurred, so Mitchel was right... the tests were ominously correct... poo poo them just like the Navy did... (ask the Prince of Whales crew as just one example) MITCHELL WAS RIGHT

The Milwaukee airport is named after him, with several B-25s presented on the grounds :D

Don't really like Billy Mitchell at all.

The B-25 was the only WWII-era US aircraft to be named after a person, which says something about his stature in the USAAF.

My dad flew 25 combat missions in B-24s, then became an instructor in the B-25 Mitchell. I never heard him call a B-24 a "Liberator". He did call B-25s "Mitchells".

another fun fact: The B-25G (i think) received a 75 mm gun used on M4 Shermans to be used against shipping. that thing destroyed a lot of enemy transport ships

How could they do such a thing 😢

A travesty, I tell you, an utter travesty 😢

The audacity of those pilots. 😂

boowomp

@@Walker_TR2 what cockamamie idea were they trying to do!

Thank you for mentioning this. Anyone who is interested in seeing the Rex represented in a piece of cinema history should watch Amarcord.

same i'm shocked

I'm not Australian, but I'm a fellow space and maritime geek. Hello!

The Conte di Savoia was being built by Lloyd Sabaudo, not Triestino. Lloyd Triestino would have eventually bought the Conte Rosso and Verde, however.

I agree, at that stage of the war the ship had no value as a military target. And the same goes for Conte di Savoia, which was a better looking and technically more advanced ship (except for the speed).

@@maxart3392 I totally agree,the Conte di Savoia was by far more advanced,also regarding the architectural style,leaving the palatial style of the Rex to the past and adopting an evolution in Art Deco that is still recognizable in the post war italian liners. Innovative for the external shape,a kind of Victoria on steroids,and also for the controversial but revolutionary stabilizing system based on gyroscopes. Of course this led to many problems but it was a beginning. Probably the Conte di Savoia was even faster then the Rex,but there was no interest in beating the flagship,so when the Rex set the new speed records the Conte di Savoia never tried to do better. After all any attempt of crossing the Atlantic at full speed was also an extremely expensive affair in terms preparation (dry dock and fresh paint of the hull),of fuel consumption,and of maintenance with replacement of worn parts.

Rex was not sunk in Slovenia. She was sunk in Trieste, Italy, which the allies wanted to use as a port to support their campaign but was then in German hands. Allied command feared the Germans could block the harbor by scuttling Rex in the entrance.

@@GintaPPE1000 No,I am sorry,but Rex was sunk at Semedella,near Capodistria,today Koper,in the actual Slovenia.Until 1943 Capodistria was in Italy,but after the italian surrender,in September 1943,those territories became German,with the name of Adriatisches Kustenland.At the end of the war Capodistria became part of the S.F.R.J.,Socialistika Federativna Republjka Jugoslavia,and,with the dissolution of Jugoslavia,in 1991,that little portion of coast, between Italy and Croatia,became Slovenia. The Rex was brought from Trieste to Semedella by tugs on September 5 1944,just three days before the fatal attack.If you go to Semedella,now Semedela,near Capodistria,you'll find the markings on the coastline exactly in front of the sinking place. On the seabed,at a depth of just 10 meters,there are still some steel structures of the ship,not removed by the Jugoslavian scrappers after the war. Some say that also one of the propellers is still there,not visible because completely buried from the sand.

On Axis side is a far stretch. Not only the Rex had never been used for military purposes, but had been moved from Genoa to Trieste (and was further moving to Pola when it was sunk) expressly to avoid the Germans to use it to block the arbors. Ironically, had it used to block the arbors (so scuttled in shallow water) it could have been likely refloated post-war (like the Conte di Savoia had been).

The Rex was in Trieste and it was not used as a military vessel. It was meant as a form of retribution to Italy which had already surrendered a year before. It was not the first or last example of Allied treachery towards Italy which had caused it to join the Axis in the first place.

Not only the Rex had never been used for military purposes, but had been moved from Genoa to Trieste (and was further moving to Pola when it was sunk) expressly to avoid the Germans to use it to block the arbors. Ironically, had it used to block the arbors (so scuttled in shallow water) it could have been likely refloated post-war (like the Conte di Savoia had been). However, its powerplant of 4 sets of geared steam turbines producing 120,000 hp would have been considered highly inefficient by then.

But, back then, wasn't the primary purpose of that naval arm for fleet protection and limited support for marine amphibious operations?

Hi Mike

never knew LeMay was a B-17 navigator! thx for sharing!

Thanks so much!

The designs of Italian and French liners were more attractive than our own Queen Mary and Elizabeth.

The Mary and Elizabeth have an elegance and charm of their own. I am lucky that we live only 25 minutes away from the RMS Queen Mary and have taken the tour many times over the year. Your right, the French and Italian designers did have their way with style and grace --- thanks to excellent use of the "French Curve."@@jimmcintosh9045

The Rex and the Conte di Savoia had been built at the same time (but in different shipyards, the Rex at Genoa, the Conte di Savoia at Trieste) for two competing companies, the Italia Flotte Riunite (Rex) and Lloyd Triestino (Conte di Savoia). While the Italia flotte Riunite wanted a classic style for the Rex, similar to a bigger version of the previous Roma and Augustus, Lloyd triestino wanted the Conte di Savoia to be very modern, outside and inside, and infact it's interiors, designed by the architect Melchiorre Bega, were very modern in their disposition, and pure art decò in style, with one exception, the "Colonna" saloon, that was furnished in baroque style, fearing an excessive modernism could displease some passenger.

Interesting story, would make for a good video. Thanks for the suggestion!

Yep he pronunced Savoia like Savoir in french

That was the reason that was given, though as an Italian I refuse to believe it was anything but their version of retributive justice or injustice as was the case.

@@allanrinaldipaone9850I agree with you. Italy had signed an armistice with the Allies on 8 September 1943. And the Rex was under tow and listing when she was attacked exactly a year later--so a crippled noncombatant ship was sunk. What the hell?

Only the movie character Admiral Yamamoto said the "awakened a slumbering giant" line, in Tora! Tora! Tora! and the Michael Bay film Pearl Harbor. The historical figure never said this. Also the sinking of so many carriers is counter productive to proving that "airpower was now king", all it goes to show is that carriers are too fragile to be relied upon. The Japanese flagship got knocked out by a single hit at Midway, that's pathetic.

The end of the war showed that, not the war itself. There were as many battleships sunk by other battleship's guns as there were sunk by aircraft, and often in conditions in which aircraft could not attack. The majority of battleships that were sunk by aircraft were at anchor and unable to defend themselves. By 1945, airborne radars had been introduced that were small enough to fit in carrier aircraft and withstand the shock of carrier landings. Once this allowed the greater range of planes to be used at night or in bad weather, the time of the battleship was over.