"New" HMS Prince of Wales sinking analyzes

[Sparky]

After interestingly reading the conversations in other posts on this forum re the sinking of Titanic, I found that Mr Garzke has also authored a reanaylzes of the sinking of HMS Prince of Walse that is available as a downloadable PDF from the website of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects. http://www.rina.org.uk/article810.html

Does anyone have any more infomation on the new evidence put forth or any insights on the analyzes and when it was done?

Sparky

[RNfanDan]

Just a brief line to thank you for posting this link, which neatly appends G&D's excellent masterwork reference volume.

Much gratitude is owed as well, to the efforts of Mr. Denlay and his team--whose dives last year, Kevin was kind enough to "preview" for the benefit of certain website members and readers, myself included--and to Garzke, Dulin, Roberts, and everyone else associated with this important and historic work. The untold story behind the scenes is the stuff that seldom gets due appreciation, and I would very much like to see more on that aspect, alone.

Perhaps a documentary film, book, or other accounting, beyond this technical paper itself, is either extant or planned?

DJB

[Byron Angel]

Thanks for the RINA link. The report made for interesting reading.


Byron

[dunmunro]

Yes, it is an excellent report. It confirms my hypothesis that failure to keep B prop shaft shut down, was a major contributing cause of the sinking, and it confirms that the SPS worked correctly, and was not a factor in the sinking.

[Pr.Eugen]

Very interesting 3D wreck graphics of "PoW"

[Bgile]

Yes, it is an excellent report. It confirms my hypothesis that failure to keep B prop shaft shut down, was a major contributing cause of the sinking, and it confirms that the SPS worked correctly, and was not a factor in the sinking.

Why couldn't the damage have been done before the shaft was stopped?

[dunmunro]

The new paper creates a much more accurate timeline for the sequence of events and the flooding subsequent to the hit on B prop shaft. If the all damage had been done before the shaft was shut down the the flooding. up to and including B Engine room, would have been more or less instantaneous, IE, within a few seconds. The flooding of B ER didn't begin until nearly 10 minutes after the hit, and if you look at page 49, you can see the timeline. The torpedo hit at 1144 but at 1149-1150 Y Action Machinery Room is still unflooded, but the flailing shaft begins to tear the room apart, and eventually floods it, and then the compartments forward of it, including B ER.

It is a good analysis, but it has a few flaws, such as their conclusion that the depression found in the hull along the SPS was caused by shock waves from near misses. This is extremely unlikely, and this kind of damage tends to leave a circular shaped depression on the hull, as the image of PoW's damage from a near miss in 1940 shows.

Another big flaw in the analysis is their mention of the torpedo hit on North Carolina, they state onpage 44 that the American system had a void over the TDS which is complete nonsense, and the NC class had their living spaces completely revised because the torpedo did vent upwards into a berthing space that would have been full of men had the ship not been at action stations, and additionally the hit did allow flooding and blast into the ships magazines. PoW's SPS inner and outer void spaces had been flooded when she had been hit abreast B turret, and consequently the explosion had nowhere to vent to but upwards. On the KGV class these spaces above the SPS were reserved for washing and not berthing.

[Legend]

Wow. I learned allot reading that. A report like that really puts into perspective how vunerable ships really can be. I have to wonder though, if they had not flooded the forward starboard TDS in an effort to level the ship, would PoW have had a chance to float out of there? Nevermind... the Japanese would have kept happily torpedoing her until she eventually did go down...

[Sparky]

Mr Dunmunro,

How would you explain those indentations on either side of the ship if they were not made by the near miss bombs or the reported non contact but close abeam torpedo explosions?

Legend, from reading the analyzes it seems the flooding of the foward sections of the Starboard TDS played little part in her sinking. It would seem that it was the two torpedo hits on either side of the stern that was the critical factors.

Almost forgot that I too like the 3D images as they give a complete picture of what the overall wreck looks like on the botom.

Sparky

[dunmunro]

Wow. I learned allot reading that. A report like that really puts into perspective how vunerable ships really can be. I have to wonder though, if they had not flooded the forward starboard TDS in an effort to level the ship, would PoW have had a chance to float out of there? Nevermind... the Japanese would have kept happily torpedoing her until she eventually did go down...

The IJN was almost out of aerial torpedoes. Had PoW not flooded through B prop shaft, she probably would have survived.

[Sparky]

I want to clarify the question from my first post. I asked “when was the analyzes done” but meant to ask when was it released? I assume it must be recent as I have not seen it discussed on any other forums or published anywhere but the RINA website. Or has it already been discussed online and published elsewhere?

Sparky

[dunmunro]

Mr Dunmunro,

How would you explain those indentations on either side of the ship if they were not made by the near miss bombs or the reported non contact but close abeam torpedo explosions?


Sparky

Those long indentations are almost certainly caused by water pressure, post sinking. Even if the inner and outer voids were flooded, the hull inboard would still have trapped air pockets leading to hull collapse, especially over time with 200 ft of water against the hull. The report states that these areas were counterflooded, but that is almost certainly not true!!! These areas are aft of the longitudinal centre of the ship and would not have been counterflooded because they would not have helped reduce the trim aft and the drawing on page 15 shows this very clearly. Compare page 15 with pages 32 and 34, and you can see that the counterflooded area doesn't overlap with the indented areas. This is a really, really, boneheaded mistake by Garzke and Co. or else they stated it to spare someone's feelings, but either way it is just plain wrong.

P43 has a picture of what a near miss looks like. The damage is localized and the hull has a circular, "dish" shaped depression which was caused by over pressure from the blast. Blast shock waves follow the inverse square law and the pressure falls off rapidly with distance, leading to the circular shaped indentations, and there's no way that a near miss from a torpedo or bomb will cause a regular shaped indention along several hundred feet of hull and for someone like Garzke and Dulin to state this is rather incredible.

[dunmunro]

I want to clarify the question from my first post. I asked “when was the analyzes done” but meant to ask when was it released? I assume it must be recent as I have not seen it discussed on any other forums or published anywhere but the RINA website. Or has it already been discussed online and published elsewhere?

Sparky

There was some discussion of this by Kevin Denlay on the now destroyed BC Forum, well before this report was released. In fact, AFAIK, I was the one who brought the likelihood of the shaft being restarted as being the probable cause for most of the damage to their attention, and I did this before the diver confirmed that the shaft broke in Y AMR. This report must have been released within the last month or so.

[Bill Jurens]

Dunmunro wrote:

"Another big flaw in the analysis is their mention of the torpedo hit on North Carolina, they state onpage 44 that the American system had a void over the TDS which is complete nonsense, and the NC class had their living spaces completely revised because the torpedo did vent upwards into a berthing space that would have been full of men had the ship not been at action stations, and additionally the hit did allow flooding and blast into the ships magazines. "

Could you elaborate upon your source for this, please? I have a copy of the full North Carolina War Damage Report here -- it's about 100 pages, one of the biggest and most complete the USN ever did -- and the drawings there, when compared with my other Booklets of General Plans of the ship (dated 1944 and 1946) do not show any significant number of berthing spaces above the side protection system, nor do they seem to indicate any significant revision of compartment useage after the torpedoing. I have re-read the report just now, and can find no mention of any concerns regarding anything "...venting up into a berthing space." Nor, in fact, was the ship at General Quarters or action stations when the torpedo hit.

While there are berthing spaces, etc. outboard on the 2nd deck, the 3rd Deck -- i.e. the one immediately above the protection system -- is indeed made up mostly of storerooms. (While there are a lot of berthing spaces inboard on the 3rd deck, there are only a few spaces outboard on the 3rd deck that would normally be occupied. In this case, there happened to be a crew's wash-room right above the blast, and one man was indeed killed in there. Three others were killed near the blast because they happened to be air-testing a compartment near the explosion when the torpedo hit. One other man was washed overboard.

The report does not seem overly concerned about flash into the magazines feeling that in practical terms the chances of such an event setting off a massive propellant burn were remote.

If spaces were re-allocated in the North Carolinas, exactly how was this done?

Bill Jurens

[dunmunro]

Could you elaborate upon your source for this, please? I have a copy of the full North Carolina War Damage Report here -- it's about 100 pages, one of the biggest and most complete the USN ever did -- and the drawings there, when compared with my other Booklets of General Plans of the ship (dated 1944 and 1946) do not show any significant number of berthing spaces above the side protection system, nor do they seem to indicate any significant revision of compartment useage after the torpedoing. I have re-read the report just now, and can find no mention of any concerns regarding anything "...venting up into a berthing space." Nor, in fact, was the ship at General Quarters or action stations when the torpedo hit.

While there are berthing spaces, etc. outboard on the 2nd deck, the 3rd Deck -- i.e. the one immediately above the protection system -- is indeed made up mostly of storerooms. (While there are a lot of berthing spaces inboard on the 3rd deck, there are only a few spaces outboard on the 3rd deck that would normally be occupied. In this case, there happened to be a crew's wash-room right above the blast, and one man was indeed killed in there. Three others were killed near the blast because they happened to be air-testing a compartment near the explosion when the torpedo hit. One other man was washed overboard.

The report does not seem overly concerned about flash into the magazines feeling that in practical terms the chances of such an event setting off a massive propellant burn were remote.

If spaces were re-allocated in the North Carolinas, exactly how was this done?

Unfortunately, I've not been able to read that report. I actually had intended to visit the North Carolina in Wilmington last month, after having spent 3 days in the USN Historical Centre Library, and had hoped to find a copy in the NC archives. I've had to rely on first hand accounts, such as the ones in Boys of the Battleship North Carolina by Ramsey, where on pages 140-145 it describes the hit and includes accounts of it causing fires in the 16" magazines. That account does describe the hit and the damage to the wash space and the death of the crew that were testing her void spaces but other accounts have stated that that space was often much more crowded than when it was hit. Another account, which I can't locate right now states that berthing arrangements were revised after the hit, which led to increased crowding because of the loss of berthing spaces above the TDS. I may have gotten these accounts confused in terms of there being berthing spaces above the actual hit, but I'm certain that I read that her living arrangements were revised after the hit.

In any event, G&D were certainly wrong when they stated that there were void spaces above the NC's TDS and that the NC was able to contain the blast within the TDS. Their book on USN BBs has cross sectional drawing which also show this to be the case and their book also states that flash passed into the magazines, so it is kind of puzzling as to why they would have made that statement.