Thank you. These videos bring the reality of war, really more than any drama movie could hope to. The two ships, going down with both whole crews, kind of crystalizes the way it was. I can't quite describe my feelings about that, after almost 80 years of it happening. I do thank God they saved the whole convoy, against the odds.
Just like we overestimated Russia, we shouldn't underestimate Australia, and especially Japan. It's been a good while since the Japanese were at war, but they left an impression that's hard to forget, and historically they tend to hit WAY above their weight class. I'm glad they're on our side this time.
As a kid, I went aboard HMS Sheffield in August 1963- during Navy Days at Portsmouth. This storied ship had a very remarkable record of service and was lucky to survive the war. Sadly, she was not selected to be preserved, a great shame.
Correct, The Battle of North Cape on December 26, 1943! Scharnhorst was sunk with all but 36 of her crew. These Dark Seas series get so many things wrong!
You mean the former comrades to Hitler? Soviets and fascists worked together and had a pact. Stalin trusted Hitler over his own advisors! Stalin refused to believe Hitler would go back on his word.
Sherbrooke wasn't just injured. The shrapnel lacerated his face, and laid one of his eyes out onto his cheek. He ha to go below to have his injuries tended, but was still in command and the Onslow's fight is absolutely deserving of a place alongside the Royal Navy's finest actions. I live near his grave, which is a quiet and humble spot and, even in this area, few seem to know about him or his command, which seems a pity.
Our generations off today only knows their favourite artist and favourite videogame characters rather than research off or care about their own local war hero in their country let alone in their own community. when you tell them they just dnt care like it was nothing..
@@zadzad4353 This is true, and it really upsets me. Everything we have is built on the backs of these phenomenally brave people, and taking them for granted feels insulting.
@@Hartley_Harei feel the same here too brother.. Some Our teenagers and youth today, not just that they take it for granted, For some, they just dnt care at all... and in some cases,some even go for the extreme on vandalising historical artifacts,sites and tombs and when they were caught by police and trial by court, they not ashamed or have a slightest remorsed to admit to the court and public for what theyve done,some even proud off doing it and they even had the balls to dare or challenges others if they can do the same or worst like it was a contest!! And this is one off the problems and reasons why our younger generations off today,man and women alike, ended more in jail,in Prison or die young than our generations and generations before us.. As the famous saying: "You played stupid games.. You win stupid prizes..."
@@zadzad4353 There's a war memorial at the centre of our town. It commemorates an awful lot of people who died in the First World War and a handful who died in the Second, including one of the Dambusters. The local kids took it into their heads a few weeks ago to vandalise it for reasons I'm not party to. Ignorance is one thing, and partly forgivable if they've not been taught their history, but actively desecrating something that has importance to others is something else.
I am glad this shone an appreciative light on the British Arctic Convoys. Russia was a German ally until operation Barbarossa in Summer 1941. Within weeks of the German invasion the first UK Convoy was on its way to Murmansk / Archangel. There were 78 convoys, using 1,400 merchant ships. 85 merchant ships and 16 Royal Navy warships were lost. All sailors were allowed to wear the white beret and even today the Russian Government still honours the sacrifices made to keep their country free. Sailors were awarded Soviet medals as well as British awards. In April 1946 the new UK PM Clement Attlee made the following statement: "In the period from [Summer] 1941, to 31st March, 1946, we supplied to the Soviet Union 5,218 tanks, of which 1,388 were from Canada. We supplied 7,411 aircraft, including 3,129 aircraft sent from the United States of America. As previously explained on the 10th May, 1944, the aircraft from the United States of America were sent on United States Lend Lease to the Soviet Union as part of the British commitment to the U.S.S.R. in exchange for the supply of British aircraft to United States Forces in the European Theatre. The total value of military supplies despatched amounts to approximately £308 million (£10.5 Bn today). We have also sent about £120 million (£4.1 Bn) of raw materials, foodstuffs, machinery, industrial plant, medical supplies and hospital equipment" All while the UK was still fighting its own war across the globe and having to pay cash for whatever was shipped from the USA until mid 1942 after which it was Lend Lease which took us 50 years to repay. And all this was done completely free of charge to the Russians and all the supplies were entirely British manufactured apart from the US aircraft replaced to the USA by British aircraft. The greatest generation by a very long way.
Most of the supplies sent to the USSR were NOT sent to Murmansk... Japan had signed a nonaggression pact with the USSR in 1938... that also included the stipulation that marine traffic to the port of Vladivostok was not to be hindered by Japan... Japan did everything necessary to avoid conflict with the USSR... so they kept to the agreement.... the other major route to the USSR was a railroad built up through Persia. Only a relatively small amount of aid went the MOST DANGEROUS route to Murmansk. The allies gave up on that Arctic route once the others were in full operation. Vladivostok and Persia were the most successful routes BY FAR. Also... most of the machinery sent was indeed >>> MADE IN THE USA
@@kevingoodwin5177 And another graduate from the History Faculty of Hollywood University jons in with the usual re-write of history to appease their offended Yank ego. It would take me far too long to rebut every one of your errors in detail. There are just so many. And sorry nothing you have written is verified by even the smallest research. But to take some: 1. I never said only Murmansk was used. I was referring to British shipments via Arctic convoys so you just made that up. 2. Every UK shipment went via Arctic Convoys to Murmansk / Archangel. None went via Vladivostok or via Iran. 3. The allies never gave up on the Arctic Convoys. The final Arctic convoy, JW67, set sail on 12 May 1945, four days after the signing of the surrender of German forces. 4. I never suggested the UK sent the most of anything. I leave the bragging to you Yanks. Difference between UK and USA is we were there first and supplied everything FOC the USA did not. 5. Nowhere did I suggest that most of the manufactured product was British made. It is a fact though that everything the UK shipped WAS built in the UK with some tanks made in Canada (as I reported in my OP). 6. lend Lease was certainly not free. You peddle the usual Yank cow manure that we only paid 10 cents on the dollar. NO. We paid for everything at invoice value that we did not return. What WAS bought at 10 cents on the dollar was surplus US owned equipment that the US did not want to ship back to the USA. 7. Lend Lease said no such thing about what "was damaged, destroyed or obsolete was free of charge" Only RETURNED goods were FOC. hence the 'Lend' word Dufus. 8. The 50 year loan came about while ships were still at sea in 1945. The UK was told all lend lease charges would be consolidated into a loan. Take it or leave it. BUT one key aspect of that loan was the Pound Sterling's convertibility. (Google it I can't be arsed). 9. What was never repaid to the UK was the over $6 Bn in 'reverse lend lease' charges incurred by the USA on goods the UK supplied TO the USA. Never credited or repaid. 10. In 1946 the USA launched the biggest foreign currency raid when it attacked the Pound Sterling by leveraging its convertibility to gold. Within a year the dollar value had halved which doubled our dollar debt to the USA which is why it took 50 years. Doubling a debt makes the interest rate pointless.. How kind. 11. The arrangements between the UK and Canada are based on centuries old relationship and benefitted both partners. The UK paid cash / gold for over 3 years for all goods supplied from Canada (as it did to the USA saving companies like Packard) and in return re-geared Canada's manufacturing base. 12. The same day (31 December 2006) Britain made a final payment of about $83m to the US it also paid $23.6m to Canada to repay what Canada had supplied us post 1942. in short Sir nothing you have written can in any way be verified. Becasue its patently untrue.
@@1chish Now now, recent history should underline that Americans can't tell the truth...well not often; so you can't get on their case when they believe their own lies.
All that aid ! That lend lease was what bankrupted Britain. Aka the Marshall Plan. We had to buy our machinery to rebuild from the US as well. Repaid in 2006 I believe?
Remember a story from one of the guys on a Liberty ship, one time they got torpedoed on the way to Russia, wound up in Murmansk after the Soviets picked 'em up. Problem was that the winter was coming on and there wouldn't be an allied ship that way to pick 'em up for a long time so they were stuck. Got put up in a barracks, and there wasn't a whole lot for them to do beyond watch the Russians work (tried to help, but the language barrier and pride meant they got refused) and play games like cribbage. Got sick of eating Borscht and being cooped up after a couple weeks, and the Red Cross parcels were getting through, so being a bunch of bored swabbies they gather up all the packs of cigarettes and candy and go trade 'em on the black market for a big stack of rubles, which they then swapped for several cases of vodka. Needless to say the lot of them were still feeling no pain when a destroyer finally showed up in the spring to pick 'em up.
My dad served on HM S Alynbank in PQ18 and we eventually received his British Arctic Star having been unsuccessful in his own request, whilst alive, for the Soviet award due to missing the deadline and we still have their letter.
@@dickdastardly5534 think you are right Dick. Read about it years ago and got em muddled. The merchant marine RN Canadian navy all had a terrible campaign. Very little glory ,poor pay and conditions biting cold and the wolf packs bearing down on them. Some men.
What a way to go in those seas. I'm surprised they rescued anyone, as the time for survival in the sea was extremely short. An old mate of mine told me about his experience on "The Murmansk run" as he called it, using high pressure steam hoses to try and keep the ice to a minimum, as a ship could capsize if overloaded. He finally got his medal from the Russians when the chairbound ponces of Whitehall finally relented, and allowed the real men to have their much deserved award for 'The Murmansk run' and other soviet support given by Britsh lads.
I knew a Canadian veteran of the RCN who did the Murmansk Run in December 1943. The _Scharnhorst_ was sunk on their return journey. He also told me about them having to chip ice off their destroyer 24/7 all the way there from Scotland and back. But he was _not_ impressed with their reception from the Russians. They met them on the docks with machine guns and wouldn't let them set one solitary foot on land just to stretch their legs or get a drink! Don't ever think Uncle Joe was a friend of anyone. 🤔🤨😠
I just decided I don't want this buried in a reply. My father survived a Russian convoy - the Russians gave him a medal, which I had to organise for him because he lived miles away from the Russian Embassy. But that was relatively easy. When the Brits decided to issue medals, I went and asked him if he would like one. He was then living in a veterans' home, in NZ with a lot of memory loss from Alzheimer's and strokes. But he said he would liike the recognition. The Brits made it so difficult and complicated to get the damn thing that he died before I could organise it. I'll never forgive them for that.
I certainly had a good chuckle while reading the transcript to this one, the line regarding the "appointment of Admiral Carl Donuts as the new head of the German navy" will stay with me and I will forever refer to Dönitz as thus
It seems the trawler which rescued the survivors of HMS Achates was the Northern Gem. Her coxswain at the time, Sidney Kerslake, wrote a fascinating memoir, "Coxswain in the Northern Convoys", which can be found online.
My Grandfather served on a minesweeper (in the boiler room) in WW2 and he described a time where he and most of the crew where given rifles and handguns to shoot at German planes as they were attacked. His description was of how (in his own words) "bloody useless it was and that the officers where bloody useless". yikes. He was pulled off the Minesweeper soon after to make the raidar disruptor "window" and it's derivatives. He claimed that being pulled off that ship likely saved his life. He never mentioned what ship, or where his ship went. He was always tight lipped and somewhat angry, and he always said those where memories best left in the past with a look of sadness on his face- so much so that I never pushed him on the answer, it felt like maybe the ship he was stationed on was lost. I never found out if that was the case.
Well that particular minesweeper wasn't so useless since it was the only vessel in the convoy to have a radar. Radar was new technology at the time. It also wouldn't be useless if they encountered mines. It was probably conducting minesweeping operations ahead of the convoy to ensure the route was clear. I served on minesweepers on the Persian Gulf in the late 1980's.
@@robertkarp2070 My Grandfather made that comment in regards to the quality of the officers in charge of the ship- being given pistols and rifles to shoot at a plane didn't impress him one bit and I don't blame him!
@@stevenread1676 That's because their function was minesweeping only. They weren't armored for any kind of hostile engagement. Destroyers were more for surface and subsurface engagements, Frigates were primarily for subsurface warfare, Cruisers were for anti-air warfare, battle ships were for primarily surface and naval gunfire support. Battles ships had minimal anti-air warfare capabilities. cruisers had some anti-subsurface capabilities. When I was on minesweepers we were outfitted with 50 Cal. and 40mm machineguns. the 40mm Machinegun was just a belt fed grenade launcher. That's because we were under threat of assault from Iranian Boghammers, which were Iranian gunboats, that could come in fast, launch a torpedo into us and retreat just as quickly and hard to spot on radar because they were about the same size as all the fishing boats out there. Primary mission was what they were primarily armed to deal with. In that video, the Germans could have just left that Minesweeper alone because it wasn't any kind of a threat to them. They sunk it purely so they could claim sinking a British ship, Battleships were also used for clearing mines, they'd run over them and detonate them because that 250 lbs payload wasn't damaging them but the crew had to stand on mattresses because the shockwave would still affect them. When I was on minesweepers, we did an evolution called Mine Hunting, which is something that wasn't done in your grandfather's time. Mine Hunting wasn't pulling gear behind the boat, it was actively seeking mines with sonar, identifying the mine and recording it's location and giving that precise location to EOD to go down and neutralize it. Back in your grandfather's day, they dragged gear behind the boat comprised of cutters that would cut the mine tether and the mine would float and they'd come around and shoot the mine with 50 cals to sink it. That method was not very effective because sinking the mine didn't neutralize it and you'd have an active mine traveling on the bottom and eventually washing up on share and anyone breaking one of the horns on the mine would set it off.
@@robertkarp2070 I think you misunderstand me, my grandfather knew the ship he was on and his role on it- he stocked the boilers, he didn't care about armaments. What he *did* care about was being given ridiculous orders. He felt that being shot at by a plane while he was ordered to fire a pistol back at it was a pretty stupid order.
The saddest part is that, if you ask Russians in Russia today, I'll bet they wouldn't know or they would downplay the part the other Allies played in keeping Russia fit to fight the Nazis
Cmon now it does go two ways , the russians lost more men then all the allies combined. The sacrife of all was immense and they were never fit to fight the germans. The one ww1 rifle and 3 bullets in hand for men ordered to charge against machine guns in the front was no joke for the russians. Stalin used his people as cannon fodder.
When history is being written/rewritten to suit the lifestyle and control of one person ? 🙍 Got to hope that the facts find their way through the twists, omissions and obfuscation.
3:25 Flower class corvette…? What? Imagine someone asks you if you were in the navy and you answer: „Yes Sir, I served aboard the Flower Class Cruiser USS Dandelion“ Love it XD
The Captain was also advised by the Admiralty that an unusual level of German RADIOACTIVITY ..... that made me do a double take, then I realised it needed a gap after radio 🤣
One of my uncles was RN on Arctic convoys. He told me that if they had a "Man Overboard" they wouldn't stop as in that cold, he was dead already & there were submarines lurking.
The term ambush suggests that the Royal Navy had prior knowledge of a proposed attack on JW51B and amassed overwhelming forces to destroy the Kriegsmarine vessels. Instead, the convoy had a close escort of smallish vessels and a distant cover of two cruisers - either of which could be destroyed easily by either Hipper or Lutzow. As it was, the German force was handicapped by Hitler's paranoia about losing capital ships and the terrier ferocity of the RN destroyers. The arrival of the two British cruisers was the last straw. Not one of the convoy was damaged by German surface vessels.
Great video as usual!!! This illustrates brilliantly how Hitler had become paranoid about losing large naval vessels ( the Lutzow began life as the Deutschland but was renamed because of the symbolic name it carried) however there was little point in a surface fleet if it was kept away from engaging the enemy. The Admiral Hipper still managed to have a busy war though......
Deutschlands remaining is only partially"true"...Historians think that the renaming also took place to hide that the actual Lützow was sold to the soviet union Also..Hitler was not even that paranoid about loosing large vessels(Well until the point where he wanted them to be scrapped in a fit of rage)..Germany did not have many naval vessels that could be taken serious and those it had served an excellent purpose of a fleet in being...Compared to even some popular and high ranking officers..Hitler was at times actually quite intelligent...Rommel for example screwed up many times because he believed his own hubris..and Halsey tried his best to loose large portions of the US Navy in battles against the weather
Hitler was not paranoid about losing capital ships, he wanted them all scrapped! While Hitler intially loved the power and prestige battleships presented, he became greatly annoyed at the operating costs of large ships! After Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank 22 cargo ships in 1940, he said a couple of U-Boats could have done this for far less money!
It's worth nothing to have powerful battleships if you don't have sufficient ships to escort and support them (and the fuel). Hitler 's navy simply couldn't go against allied navies, only with the U-Boot they were dangerous, also if they achieved some success at the start of the war, at the end these capital ships became only costly targets for RAF and RN.
@@alessiodecarolis The german surface fleet was too small in ever, regard to challenge the allied fleets in a big battle. Look at WW1 and the battle of jutland for that - and the german fleet back then was in a way better position
Love these "Dark" channels on this I had only heard of the disaster of PQ-17. Thanks for covering other things on the channels. Always entertaining and informative.👍👍👍👍
@@benadam7753 in his defence this channel has called Admiral hipper a pocket battleship on a few occasions. But thankfully he didn't in this video though
He is constantly showing the sinking of the Szent Istvan when talking about the Bismarck. He does this BS in all of his vids. Showing random footage without any connection to the actual topic. Thats why i constantly have to downvote. If you dont have the footage, dont make a video
As usual an informative and well presented history. However, there were a number of errors: - ONSLOW was not a flag ship since she did not carry a flag officer (aka an admiral). She was the Senior Officer's ship and Captain Sherbrooke was a Captain(D), in command of a flotilla of destroyers. - ACHATES was not part of the destroyer flotilla, but rather was part of the close escort of the convoy. - ONSLOW and the other O class only carried 4" guns, rather than the standard 4.7" of most other RN destroyers. - BRAMBLE was not sunk during the battle, but just before it as she was returning to convoy after looking for stragglers. It was a lonely death and the RN didn't find out what happened to her until after the war. Some interesting facts about the Battle of the Barents Sea you did not mention include: - The FRIEDRICH ECKOLDT mistook the RN cruiser HMS SHEFFIELD for the ADMIRAL HIPPER and was closing up on her to take station when she was stunned to be fired upon at 4,000 yards - point blank range. Within minutes she was blown in half. - When ONSLOW was hit, Sherbrooke was indeed badly wounded - he had an eyeball out of the socket and dangling by the nerve against his cheek! - After ONSLOW was hit, her first lieutenant, who was on the quarterdeck, called up to the bridge to check on whether Sherbrooke was all right. Despite his grave injury, Capt Sherbrooke took the phone and said, "you can't have command yet, Number One!". And he continued fighting the German forces like that! - After GrossAdmiral Raeder resigned, Hitler then ordered Donitz to scrap the surface ships of the Kriegsmarine, expecting the U-boat admiral to agree. But Donitz was too intelligent to do such an unwise thing, realizing they needed the capital ships, and refused. Hitler had already lost Raeder - he backed down rather than lose Donitz as well.
ever do a video on how the Halifax explosion taught about airbursts? i live there. The reason the damage was so extensive was due in part to the depth of the harbor. Translated into how they dropped the bombs on Japan... Awesome channel, awesome work. Thanks.
Concentration of all resources towards the U-boat service was likely Germany’s best option. However, within six months of this Murmansk Convoy battle, the U-boats were rendered ineffective and were then slaughtered by allied countermeasures. Some three quarters of all U-boat personnel failed to survive the war.
If Germany had concentrated all resources on submarine production instead of wasting them on capital surface ships, it would have had 400 more subs. 1 capital ship was equivalent to 40 u-boats in terms of materials used, financial cost and crews.
Naturally, the focus is on the naval ships, but folk should spare a thought for the men on the merchant vessels. Many sailed on ships carrying highly explosive aviation spirit or ammunition, or heavy cargoes that meant the ship would sink very rapidly. In the first part of the war, a British merchant seaman had his pay stopped the minute he entered a lifeboat. The British Merchant Navy had a higher casualty/fatality rate than any allied service, higher than the army, RN and RAF. Only Bomber Command and some commando units had a higher loss rate. Maybe someone could put a video together remembering this?
Too right and well said - there should be a video of this side of Dark Seas. At least on a warship there was a chance to hit back. Those Merchant Navy sailors had a hellish time on the Murmansk convoys and have really been far too easily forgotten.
Perhaps on an undisclosed and only recently declassified special assignment to locate and identify the “Papa Bear” sea-based radio contact of one “Goldilocks” in Axis occupied territory. 🧐
The Arctic route was the most dangerous by far... but eventually it was curtailed as the allies had better routes. Japan honoured a 1938 agreement with the USSR, a nonaggression pact that meant the port of Vladivostok was not to be hindered... Japan could not risk yet another enemy... and also the allies opened a route through Persia.. a new railway was built to supply the Soviets.
Keep posting true history, some people, not of sound mind would try to re write history. Those who forget history are bound to make the same errors. The "Master" race was flawed with a psychopath for a leader. Much respect for all the Dark Channels.
It‘s eerie how WW2 seems to have been turned around in a few weeks around December 1942. Roughly at the same time Operation Regenbogen failed, General Paulus surrendered at Stalingrad and Japan lost Guadalcanal.
@@jjhpor October 23rd to November 11th 1942, 2nd Battle of El Alamein. After that, it was retreat all the way to Tunisia where they were sandwiched between Monty's 8th Army and the troops from the Torch landings
This is the first time I have heard of Admiral Reader's refusal to scrap his Navy's heavies and replacement with Admiral Donitz. Until now, I had thought it was because Raeder had been sniffed out as an Allied intelligence agent. Sometimes the truth is too mundane to be palatable.
My Father was on the deck of the Sheffield, and saw the Friedrich Eckoldt sink.. The Sheffield and FE were heading directly for each other through the smoke. Sheffield saw it coming with her radar, and my Dad described the Seffield guns moving from high trajectory, down to a direct broadside, which hit the FE as it sailed past..Sinking almost immeditely....Dad said the image stayed with him forever
Did anyone notice that three scenes between 5:12 and 6:00 contained Werner Kempler (Colonel Klinck from Hogan's Heroes) in naval uniform? Apparently, the historical stock footage is being augmented with movie footage.
I recognize the other actor but can’t place him. Gonna do a quick wiki check. OK, perhaps the episode “The Haunted U-Boat” from the anthology series “One Step Beyond”?
That goes to show to what lengths Dark Seas goes to sell us fake footage...Just how reliable can his "stories" be when he resorts to such tricks to deceive viewers ?
Riddled with errors - mismatches between video content and commentary; the capsizing ship twice described as the WW2 German battleship Bismarck was in fact the Austro Hungarian SMS Szent István sunk in WW1 by the Italians; by December 1942, the Soviets had the upper hand at Stalingrad; Scharnhorst sortied a year later and was su nk at North Cape...
Honestly, except for the U-boats, the kriegsmarine was a big oof. To make it short (and oversimplified): - mediocre/inefficient designs: - Costly to produce and upkeep for what they are worth - Not really compatible with the doctrine - Overhyped by the very Germans that lead to fierce response - Unprepared logistics (fuel and safe harbours) capital ships with comparable characteristics were way heavier than contemporary designs: Bismarck full load was 50.000t while Littorio was 45.000t with 1 more 15 inch gun, better armour [ *B* belt = 320mm *L* belt = 280 + 70mm, *B* deck = 100-120mm *L* deck 90-150mm, Bulkheads, barbettes, conning tower, turret and torpedo protection were slightly superior on Littorio class]. Bismarck had better secondary armament and better accuracy for main guns [fault of lack of quality control in sell charges for Italian 15 inch] but Littorio had way better gun range (it’s range was higher than Yamato class!) and better range finders, something like 50 between both coincidence and stereoscopic range finders. Other navies such as the British, American and French had similar designs to the Bismarck but had less displacement (some were adherent to the London naval treaties), hence they were more efficient designs. Bismarck is not the only class of ship of the Kriegsmarine to have these problems, also Admiral Hipper and Scharnhorst had similar problems compared to foreign counterparts. Germany was short on Steel, Fuel and other resources, building up those capital ships was a big gamble that sometimes ended up badly, just like Bismarck also Blucher (CA) was sunk in her first deployment. The Kriegsmarine also tried to build a light carrier in the form of the Graf Zeppelin but honestly the concept of a carrier having light cruiser armament and brawling it out with the screening fleet is just dumb (exaggerated). Also Goering would rather go on a diet than lending airforce pilots to the Navy. The doctrine of the German navy was that of interdiction, choking Great Britain of goods through the use of the navy, to achieve this you need a large force of boats whose main purpose is to sink convoys, you don’t need big guns to sink them, so U-boats and lighter ships would be ideal but you also need heavier ships to counter the screening forces of the convoys, that is unless you can hit and run. Basically U-boats were really effective but with massive losses while surface raiders were almost immediately recalled because they realised they were hopeless without heavy ships which would be sunk by the RN. Ironically the most efficient surface raiders would be Kormoran class ships, merchant ships with concealed weapons.
the concept of big guns, instead of lighter more precise cheap and numerous ones , I think was a mistake better to hit many times with small bombs than once or never with one big only
Basically all the Capital ships had problems with water shipping over the bows and entering the forward turret at speed, it's like they designed them them to look better than they functioned. Or they weren't threshed out properly before being put out to deployment..
When Stalin sent Molotov to Britain on a trade mission he told him "tell Churchill to send more Valentines" . the only Allied tank the Soviets acknowledged in their history of ww2. its not often known that UK sent a huge amount of equipment and supplies to USSR - thousands of TANKS, FIGHTER planes and clothing. also the gold braid the Red Army used when re-instituting the officer's shoulder boards last seen in the Tsar's army. the Russian convoys were extremely hazardous - in winter it was storms and ice, in summer it was near 24 hours of daylight.. the Germans in Norway were able to attack the convoys incessantly with the Luftwaffe and U-Boats. there was also the risk of the Tirpitz and other large surface vessels. like Scharnhorst.. my grandfather was KIA in 1944 when his escort destroyer Matabele was torpedoed by U-Boat. if seamen were not killed by blast, their survival could be measured in minutes in the freezing Northern ocean
@@jugbywellington1134 they appear in a few clips from soviet sources. often with infantry riding on them - British did the same, they were "infantry tanks" after all. you'll see Matildas sometimes too. later war footage tends to show Shermans more often. Allies used Valentines right up to 1945 , tank getting upgunned etc as time passed. A clip of captured German E100 super-tank hull has a Valentine doing "donuts" beside it.
@@coling3957 Yes, there is footage of T34s clanking into Berlin with a Matilda amongst them. You are also right the Soviets liked the Valentine and it was up-gunned to the 6 pounder. As a British infantry support tank, it was not fast but built to take punishment. According to Jeremy Clarkson in his documentary on the debacle that was Convoy PQ17, he said that 75% of the tanks defending Moscow were British Shame the vid looks to have been taken down
I enjoy your work. Very interesting and informative. Just a note: you might check one very brief clip in this video which features Col. Clink of Hogan's Heroes fame.
Nasty little battle that is usually overlooked. Your ship went down and you weren't surviving those waters. That's why Yamamoto should've pushed for Alaska instead of Midway when they had the advantage
Not much to gain by taking all of Alaska in the 1940s. Hawaii on the other hand was a key naval base with repair facilitie, refueling facilities and positioned well to supply millitary activities in the entire western Pacific. Alaska had none of that.
The only sensible strategy for Imperial Japan was to occupy all the European colonies in SE Asia. It would have secured all the raw materials they needed and it is most unlikely that the USA would have gone to war to recover the colonies.
10:43 Thirteen Capital Ships? That number would have to include the two remaining heavy cruisers, the two Panzershiffe, the four remaining light cruisers and the two active pre-dreadnoughts, Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein, which is kinda pushing it for '13 capital ships'. Nevertheless, it's nice coverage of the topic
More two the point even stretching the meaning of Capital Ship to include the 3 Pocket Battleships and two pre-dreadnoughts the Germans only had at most 9 Capital Ships Heavy/Armored Cruisers and their lesser fleet mates were not considered Capital ships. So the Germans actually only had three at this point in the war as Bismark was gone.
I've heard that Germany in both WW I and WW II stopped engaging the British navy. I never understood this logic. "Losing" a capital ship is the same thing as not using it at all. If you decide to not use an asset, it is as good as lost -- gone.
Hitler hated publicly admitting to losing ships which is why Tirpitz was more or less parked in a Norwegian fjord after losing Bismarck. Appearances really mattered to him.
Clearly the presence of Wilhelm Klink (beginning at 5:04) foiled the best efforts of the German forces leading to this disaster! Perhaps this is what got him kicked out of the navy and reassigned as Kommandant of Stalag 13...? What harm could he possibly do there, am I right? 🤣 This is a great video, btw... just couldn't help but poke once I saw Werner Klemperer in it!. 😁
The decision forced on the Germans by this episode, ie switching to a U-Boat based naval war, actually worked to their advantage in terms of Axis resources used/ losses inflicted on the Allies. Neither policy could have ultimately been successful for the Germans largely due to the industrial output differences between the two sides.
The greater use of ship sonar and more skilled US sub hunting off North American coast, meant the lethal wolfpack strategy was cut short to fast for the Germans to inflict enough damage to the UK and Russian resupply. That and the US ability to ship massive convoys of military hardware meant a massive delivery for every convoy that got through to the UK and those onward to the Russians. The fact that most of the hardware that landed in Murmansk was US made but often UK delivered seems to be forgotten by Moscow and most Russian history books. The UK know it was US support that saved them from a siege success. Even now the Russians seem to have forgotten that without good backup supplies no great army can win.
@@hawkthebird Sub building was alot cheaper than larger ships, needed less crew and was less impacted by bad sea weather. Before Sonar they were also damaged less often (by attack or weather). Also the black smoke of most naval ships meant they were easy to spot from the air and sea unlike a sub. Also look at Adolfs insane messing with military hardware and his cray ambitions that slowed sufficient output as fast as needed. Big military hardware tend to have too many cooks with their own "genius" ideas of what should be included.
@@crazyeddie1981 I seen somewhere just the cost of the torpedoes were expensive and people were debating online about the cost of the torpedoes compared to the tanks of the time
I read a story that told of one of these merchant ships making it all the way and finally pulling into port. As they were coming alongside one of the merchant men, a Scotsman, set up a single solitary cheer to those on shore. But not one man answered him, and so he loudly cursed them for their ingratitude. But what the Scotsman didn't know is they were conscripts. They were slaves.
Not entirely, only seven ships were sunk, only three were a total loss. Only 26 ships received signigicant damage. Besides Pearl harbor was a major ship repair facility so a lot of the damaged ships were back in business very quickly.
It reminded me on how a German merchant ship arm to teeth defeated the mighty Australian Battle Cruiser Sydney... what a cunningness displayed by Grieg marine
This video has shoddy information, sure, but how do you even put the FULL story in a 11minute video? Heck, even a 11hour video would not have covered the full story. I doubt even a 11year video would do that.
The Hipper was in the fourth division when it came to German Battleships, indeed she was a cruiser, not a battleship, not even a pocket battleship like the Graf Spee, (in division three). Whilst it is true that this battle signalled the end of the skirmishes of the German Fleet, they still remained a threat, the Tirpitz in particular, tied up a big percentage of the British Fleet in Scapa Flow, ships that were needed elsewhere in the world. So in summary, the German Capital Ships remained, and were not 'knocked out', the British were not aware that the German battleships would never be used again. A more correct analogy would be nuclear weapons, they are not used, (hopefully, they never will be), however, the threat remains.
The U-354 attacked and torpedoed my Dad's ship HMS Nabob and HMS Bickerton, 22 August 1944, but they were hunted down and sunk with all hands a few days later, RIP 🤲🇬🇧🇨🇦
The Nazis really botched the naval war. They almost had a carrier task force, but abandoned it. They didn't quite have enough U-boats to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Hindsight is 20-20 but they should have picked a lane and gone with it.
Hitler started the war at least a year too early for the Kriegsmarine. They weren't ready, then lost 10 Destroyers (nearly half their total) at Narvik in April 1940. A battle that my father participated in on HMS Havock (H43).
I'm still amazed at how poorly the Nazis used their navy. They built these huge state of the art ships and never seemed to get the never to commit them to combat properly. Compare their actions to the US Navy in the Pacific. Sort of debunks the reputation of Nazi Germany as the home of fearless warriors.
Thank you. These videos bring the reality of war, really more than any drama movie could hope to. The two ships, going down with both whole crews, kind of crystalizes the way it was. I can't quite describe my feelings about that, after almost 80 years of it happening. I do thank God they saved the whole convoy, against the odds.
One fact that always impresses me was the near suicidal bravery of Destroyer crews in any theater of WWII
Not to mention the crews of the slow and defenseless merchant ships!
Just like we overestimated Russia, we shouldn't underestimate Australia, and especially Japan. It's been a good while since the Japanese were at war, but they left an impression that's hard to forget, and historically they tend to hit WAY above their weight class. I'm glad they're on our side this time.
Spare a thought for the Merchant Navy crews.
"Massive Battleships? Sweet. Let's charge it." - Literally every destroyer with the opportunity. What did they put in that Torpedo Juice?
The destroyer that beached itself to provide support for the D-Day invasion comes to mind
As a kid, I went aboard HMS Sheffield in August 1963- during Navy Days at Portsmouth. This storied ship had a very remarkable record of service and was lucky to survive the war. Sadly, she was not selected to be preserved, a great shame.
her half-sister Belfast was selected
instead due to her better condition
Actually, Germans did commit another capital ship to attack on convoy later, only to have it sunk in action. It was Scharnhorst.
Correct, The Battle of North Cape on December 26, 1943! Scharnhorst was sunk with all but 36 of her crew. These Dark Seas series get so many things wrong!
@@benadam7753 where is yalls history yt channels?
@@benadam7753 0 videos ...hmm
@@TruckerIceBox what is them having 0 videos have to do with anything?
@@benadam7753 I guess you could say they were in the DARK about that fact. Seas what I did there?
All those men dying in the Russian convoys, forgotten and never properly recognized.......an absolute disgrace.
The British government did eventually institute the Arctic Star, a campaign medal for those who served on the Arctic Convoys.
In 2012.
My dads Uncle was sunk three times, once in the artic, serving in the merchant marine during WW2 His nickname was lucky Geordie.
@@havennewbowtow8835 wow! He earned the name!
You mean the former comrades to Hitler? Soviets and fascists worked together and had a pact. Stalin trusted Hitler over his own advisors!
Stalin refused to believe Hitler would go back on his word.
The ingrate Reds DGAF.
Sherbrooke wasn't just injured. The shrapnel lacerated his face, and laid one of his eyes out onto his cheek. He ha to go below to have his injuries tended, but was still in command and the Onslow's fight is absolutely deserving of a place alongside the Royal Navy's finest actions. I live near his grave, which is a quiet and humble spot and, even in this area, few seem to know about him or his command, which seems a pity.
Thank you for giving your thoughtful words to this most excellent man.
Our generations off today only knows their favourite artist and favourite videogame characters rather than research off or care about their own local war hero in their country let alone in their own community. when you tell them they just dnt care like it was nothing..
@@zadzad4353 This is true, and it really upsets me. Everything we have is built on the backs of these phenomenally brave people, and taking them for granted feels insulting.
@@Hartley_Harei feel the same here too brother..
Some Our teenagers and youth today,
not just that they take it for granted,
For some, they just dnt care at all...
and in some cases,some even go for the extreme on vandalising historical artifacts,sites and tombs and when they were caught by police and trial by court, they not ashamed or have a slightest remorsed to admit to the court and public for what theyve done,some even proud off doing it and they even had the balls to dare or challenges others if they can do the same or worst like it was a contest!!
And this is one off the problems and reasons why our younger generations off today,man and women alike, ended more in jail,in Prison or die young than our generations and generations before us..
As the famous saying:
"You played stupid games..
You win stupid prizes..."
@@zadzad4353 There's a war memorial at the centre of our town. It commemorates an awful lot of people who died in the First World War and a handful who died in the Second, including one of the Dambusters. The local kids took it into their heads a few weeks ago to vandalise it for reasons I'm not party to. Ignorance is one thing, and partly forgivable if they've not been taught their history, but actively desecrating something that has importance to others is something else.
I am glad this shone an appreciative light on the British Arctic Convoys. Russia was a German ally until operation Barbarossa in Summer 1941. Within weeks of the German invasion the first UK Convoy was on its way to Murmansk / Archangel. There were 78 convoys, using 1,400 merchant ships. 85 merchant ships and 16 Royal Navy warships were lost. All sailors were allowed to wear the white beret and even today the Russian Government still honours the sacrifices made to keep their country free. Sailors were awarded Soviet medals as well as British awards.
In April 1946 the new UK PM Clement Attlee made the following statement:
"In the period from [Summer] 1941, to 31st March, 1946, we supplied to the Soviet Union 5,218 tanks, of which 1,388 were from Canada. We supplied 7,411 aircraft, including 3,129 aircraft sent from the United States of America. As previously explained on the 10th May, 1944, the aircraft from the United States of America were sent on United States Lend Lease to the Soviet Union as part of the British commitment to the U.S.S.R. in exchange for the supply of British aircraft to United States Forces in the European Theatre. The total value of military supplies despatched amounts to approximately £308 million (£10.5 Bn today). We have also sent about £120 million (£4.1 Bn) of raw materials, foodstuffs, machinery, industrial plant, medical supplies and hospital equipment"
All while the UK was still fighting its own war across the globe and having to pay cash for whatever was shipped from the USA until mid 1942 after which it was Lend Lease which took us 50 years to repay.
And all this was done completely free of charge to the Russians and all the supplies were entirely British manufactured apart from the US aircraft replaced to the USA by British aircraft.
The greatest generation by a very long way.
My late father in law was on these convoys. Never spoke much about it. Its humbling to understand what he went through.
Most of the supplies sent to the USSR were NOT sent to Murmansk... Japan had signed a nonaggression pact with the USSR in 1938... that also included the stipulation that marine traffic to the port of Vladivostok was not to be hindered by Japan... Japan did everything necessary to avoid conflict with the USSR... so they kept to the agreement.... the other major route to the USSR was a railroad built up through Persia. Only a relatively small amount of aid went the MOST DANGEROUS route to Murmansk. The allies gave up on that Arctic route once the others were in full operation. Vladivostok and Persia were the most successful routes BY FAR.
Also... most of the machinery sent was indeed >>> MADE IN THE USA
@@kevingoodwin5177 And another graduate from the History Faculty of Hollywood University jons in with the usual re-write of history to appease their offended Yank ego.
It would take me far too long to rebut every one of your errors in detail. There are just so many. And sorry nothing you have written is verified by even the smallest research. But to take some:
1. I never said only Murmansk was used. I was referring to British shipments via Arctic convoys so you just made that up.
2. Every UK shipment went via Arctic Convoys to Murmansk / Archangel. None went via Vladivostok or via Iran.
3. The allies never gave up on the Arctic Convoys. The final Arctic convoy, JW67, set sail on 12 May 1945, four days after the signing of the surrender of German forces.
4. I never suggested the UK sent the most of anything. I leave the bragging to you Yanks. Difference between UK and USA is we were there first and supplied everything FOC the USA did not.
5. Nowhere did I suggest that most of the manufactured product was British made. It is a fact though that everything the UK shipped WAS built in the UK with some tanks made in Canada (as I reported in my OP).
6. lend Lease was certainly not free. You peddle the usual Yank cow manure that we only paid 10 cents on the dollar. NO. We paid for everything at invoice value that we did not return. What WAS bought at 10 cents on the dollar was surplus US owned equipment that the US did not want to ship back to the USA.
7. Lend Lease said no such thing about what "was damaged, destroyed or obsolete was free of charge" Only RETURNED goods were FOC. hence the 'Lend' word Dufus.
8. The 50 year loan came about while ships were still at sea in 1945. The UK was told all lend lease charges would be consolidated into a loan. Take it or leave it. BUT one key aspect of that loan was the Pound Sterling's convertibility. (Google it I can't be arsed).
9. What was never repaid to the UK was the over $6 Bn in 'reverse lend lease' charges incurred by the USA on goods the UK supplied TO the USA. Never credited or repaid.
10. In 1946 the USA launched the biggest foreign currency raid when it attacked the Pound Sterling by leveraging its convertibility to gold. Within a year the dollar value had halved which doubled our dollar debt to the USA which is why it took 50 years. Doubling a debt makes the interest rate pointless..
How kind.
11. The arrangements between the UK and Canada are based on centuries old relationship and benefitted both partners. The UK paid cash / gold for over 3 years for all goods supplied from Canada (as it did to the USA saving companies like Packard) and in return re-geared Canada's manufacturing base.
12. The same day (31 December 2006) Britain made a final payment of about $83m to the US it also paid $23.6m to Canada to repay what Canada had supplied us post 1942.
in short Sir nothing you have written can in any way be verified. Becasue its patently untrue.
@@1chish Now now, recent history should underline that Americans can't tell the truth...well not often; so you can't get on their case when they believe their own lies.
All that aid ! That lend lease was what bankrupted Britain. Aka the Marshall Plan. We had to buy our machinery to rebuild from the US as well. Repaid in 2006 I believe?
Remember a story from one of the guys on a Liberty ship, one time they got torpedoed on the way to Russia, wound up in Murmansk after the Soviets picked 'em up. Problem was that the winter was coming on and there wouldn't be an allied ship that way to pick 'em up for a long time so they were stuck.
Got put up in a barracks, and there wasn't a whole lot for them to do beyond watch the Russians work (tried to help, but the language barrier and pride meant they got refused) and play games like cribbage.
Got sick of eating Borscht and being cooped up after a couple weeks, and the Red Cross parcels were getting through, so being a bunch of bored swabbies they gather up all the packs of cigarettes and candy and go trade 'em on the black market for a big stack of rubles, which they then swapped for several cases of vodka.
Needless to say the lot of them were still feeling no pain when a destroyer finally showed up in the spring to pick 'em up.
My dad served on HM S Alynbank in PQ18 and we eventually received his British Arctic Star having been unsuccessful in his own request, whilst alive, for the Soviet award due to missing the deadline and we still have their letter.
PQ 18 was known as the convoy to hell. Poor man it was horrific. Respect to those sailors.
Oops it was Pq17. Doesn’t diminish your fathers bravery.
@@nialldoyle8206 I thought it was PQ45 that took the biggest losses.
@@dickdastardly5534.
It's not very important, all those seamen civilian or soldiers were heroes. R.I.P, the sea is their grave.
@@dickdastardly5534 think you are right Dick. Read about it years ago and got em muddled. The merchant marine RN Canadian navy all had a terrible campaign. Very little glory ,poor pay and conditions biting cold and the wolf packs bearing down on them. Some men.
What a way to go in those seas. I'm surprised they rescued anyone, as the time for survival in the sea was extremely short. An old mate of mine told me about his experience on "The Murmansk run" as he called it, using high pressure steam hoses to try and keep the ice to a minimum, as a ship could capsize if overloaded. He finally got his medal from the Russians when the chairbound ponces of Whitehall finally relented, and allowed the real men to have their much deserved award for 'The Murmansk run' and other soviet support given by Britsh lads.
I knew a Canadian veteran of the RCN who did the Murmansk Run in December 1943. The _Scharnhorst_ was sunk on their return journey. He also told me about them having to chip ice off their destroyer 24/7 all the way there from Scotland and back. But he was _not_ impressed with their reception from the Russians. They met them on the docks with machine guns and wouldn't let them set one solitary foot on land just to stretch their legs or get a drink! Don't ever think Uncle Joe was a friend of anyone. 🤔🤨😠
It was wrong how our brave troops where treat on the Great northern run to help Russia .
@@simonnoble7589 b j
@@thomasbailey3485 carnt you write English ✍!
I just decided I don't want this buried in a reply. My father survived a Russian convoy - the Russians gave him a medal, which I had to organise for him because he lived miles away from the Russian Embassy. But that was relatively easy. When the Brits decided to issue medals, I went and asked him if he would like one. He was then living in a veterans' home, in NZ with a lot of memory loss from Alzheimer's and strokes. But he said he would liike the recognition. The Brits made it so difficult and complicated to get the damn thing that he died before I could organise it. I'll never forgive them for that.
Nice to see "Col. Klink" of "Hogan's Heroes" doing time in the Kreigsmarine. Nothing like real wartime video to flesh out history.
I certainly had a good chuckle while reading the transcript to this one, the line regarding the "appointment of Admiral Carl Donuts as the new head of the German navy" will stay with me and I will forever refer to Dönitz as thus
I've also seen closed caption say Admiral Donuts! 🍩
If you squeezed Dönitz hard enough would Bavarian cream come out his orifices?
Dunkin' Donitz.... lol.
Auto spell strikes again😢
@@drizler Do you mean there isn't really an Admiral Donuts, what a disappointment!
It seems the trawler which rescued the survivors of HMS Achates was the Northern Gem. Her coxswain at the time, Sidney Kerslake, wrote a fascinating memoir, "Coxswain in the Northern Convoys", which can be found online.
My Grandfather served on a minesweeper (in the boiler room) in WW2 and he described a time where he and most of the crew where given rifles and handguns to shoot at German planes as they were attacked. His description was of how (in his own words) "bloody useless it was and that the officers where bloody useless". yikes. He was pulled off the Minesweeper soon after to make the raidar disruptor "window" and it's derivatives.
He claimed that being pulled off that ship likely saved his life. He never mentioned what ship, or where his ship went. He was always tight lipped and somewhat angry, and he always said those where memories best left in the past with a look of sadness on his face- so much so that I never pushed him on the answer, it felt like maybe the ship he was stationed on was lost. I never found out if that was the case.
Well that particular minesweeper wasn't so useless since it was the only vessel in the convoy to have a radar. Radar was new technology at the time. It also wouldn't be useless if they encountered mines. It was probably conducting minesweeping operations ahead of the convoy to ensure the route was clear. I served on minesweepers on the Persian Gulf in the late 1980's.
@@robertkarp2070 My Grandfather made that comment in regards to the quality of the officers in charge of the ship- being given pistols and rifles to shoot at a plane didn't impress him one bit and I don't blame him!
@@stevenread1676 That's because their function was minesweeping only. They weren't armored for any kind of hostile engagement. Destroyers were more for surface and subsurface engagements, Frigates were primarily for subsurface warfare, Cruisers were for anti-air warfare, battle ships were for primarily surface and naval gunfire support. Battles ships had minimal anti-air warfare capabilities. cruisers had some anti-subsurface capabilities. When I was on minesweepers we were outfitted with 50 Cal. and 40mm machineguns. the 40mm Machinegun was just a belt fed grenade launcher. That's because we were under threat of assault from Iranian Boghammers, which were Iranian gunboats, that could come in fast, launch a torpedo into us and retreat just as quickly and hard to spot on radar because they were about the same size as all the fishing boats out there. Primary mission was what they were primarily armed to deal with. In that video, the Germans could have just left that Minesweeper alone because it wasn't any kind of a threat to them. They sunk it purely so they could claim sinking a British ship, Battleships were also used for clearing mines, they'd run over them and detonate them because that 250 lbs payload wasn't damaging them but the crew had to stand on mattresses because the shockwave would still affect them.
When I was on minesweepers, we did an evolution called Mine Hunting, which is something that wasn't done in your grandfather's time. Mine Hunting wasn't pulling gear behind the boat, it was actively seeking mines with sonar, identifying the mine and recording it's location and giving that precise location to EOD to go down and neutralize it. Back in your grandfather's day, they dragged gear behind the boat comprised of cutters that would cut the mine tether and the mine would float and they'd come around and shoot the mine with 50 cals to sink it. That method was not very effective because sinking the mine didn't neutralize it and you'd have an active mine traveling on the bottom and eventually washing up on share and anyone breaking one of the horns on the mine would set it off.
@@robertkarp2070 I think you misunderstand me, my grandfather knew the ship he was on and his role on it- he stocked the boilers, he didn't care about armaments. What he *did* care about was being given ridiculous orders. He felt that being shot at by a plane while he was ordered to fire a pistol back at it was a pretty stupid order.
History deserves to be remembered
Yes, unfortunately nowdays a lot want to re write it!
The saddest part is that, if you ask Russians in Russia today, I'll bet they wouldn't know or they would downplay the part the other Allies played in keeping Russia fit to fight the Nazis
Cmon now it does go two ways , the russians lost more men then all the allies combined. The sacrife of all was immense and they were never fit to fight the germans. The one ww1 rifle and 3 bullets in hand for men ordered to charge against machine guns in the front was no joke for the russians. Stalin used his people as cannon fodder.
All my Russian friends know about the arctic convoys. They are all graduates of Novosibirsk State University however.
@@EddyBunter tbf, "russian state" and "intelligence" rarely share the same space. In all honesty, this seems fairly universal at this point.
Russian Blood, British Brains, & American Brawn will win the war! - Joseph Stalin 1943
When history is being written/rewritten to suit the lifestyle and control of one person ? 🙍 Got to hope that the facts find their way through the twists, omissions and obfuscation.
Thanks for refreshing us on an important naval engagement that is often overlooked.
Very shotty information in this!
3:25 Flower class corvette…? What? Imagine someone asks you if you were in the navy and you answer: „Yes Sir, I served aboard the Flower Class Cruiser USS Dandelion“ Love it XD
When you refer to a ship it is not (Name of Ship) (Type of Ship). It is (Type of Ship) (Name of Ship).
Battleship Bismarck, not Bismarck Battleship.
Astonishing amount of detail in these presentations!
The Captain was also advised by the Admiralty that an unusual level of German RADIOACTIVITY ..... that made me do a double take, then I realised it needed a gap after radio 🤣
One of my uncles was RN on Arctic convoys.
He told me that if they had a "Man Overboard" they wouldn't stop as in that cold, he was dead already & there were submarines lurking.
That's quality reporting: Talking about the loss of Bismarck and showing the capsizing of HMS Barnham just before blowing up.... 😂😂😂
The term ambush suggests that the Royal Navy had prior knowledge of a proposed attack on JW51B and amassed overwhelming forces to destroy the Kriegsmarine vessels. Instead, the convoy had a close escort of smallish vessels and a distant cover of two cruisers - either of which could be destroyed easily by either Hipper or Lutzow. As it was, the German force was handicapped by Hitler's paranoia about losing capital ships and the terrier ferocity of the RN destroyers. The arrival of the two British cruisers was the last straw. Not one of the convoy was damaged by German surface vessels.
Great video as usual!!! This illustrates brilliantly how Hitler had become paranoid about losing large naval vessels ( the Lutzow began life as the Deutschland but was renamed because of the symbolic name it carried) however there was little point in a surface fleet if it was kept away from engaging the enemy. The Admiral Hipper still managed to have a busy war though......
Deutschlands remaining is only partially"true"...Historians think that the renaming also took place to hide that the actual Lützow was sold to the soviet union
Also..Hitler was not even that paranoid about loosing large vessels(Well until the point where he wanted them to be scrapped in a fit of rage)..Germany did not have many naval vessels that could be taken serious and those it had served an excellent purpose of a fleet in being...Compared to even some popular and high ranking officers..Hitler was at times actually quite intelligent...Rommel for example screwed up many times because he believed his own hubris..and Halsey tried his best to loose large portions of the US Navy in battles against the weather
Hitler was not paranoid about losing capital ships, he wanted them all scrapped! While Hitler intially loved the power and prestige battleships presented, he became greatly annoyed at the operating costs of large ships! After Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank 22 cargo ships in 1940, he said a couple of U-Boats could have done this for far less money!
Who'd have thought Germany would adopt Italian naval tactics...keep your fleet as far away from the enemy as possible!
It's worth nothing to have powerful battleships if you don't have sufficient ships to escort and support them (and the fuel). Hitler 's navy simply couldn't go against allied navies, only with the U-Boot they were dangerous, also if they achieved some success at the start of the war, at the end these capital ships became only costly targets for RAF and RN.
@@alessiodecarolis The german surface fleet was too small in ever, regard to challenge the allied fleets in a big battle. Look at WW1 and the battle of jutland for that - and the german fleet back then was in a way better position
Exceptional as always. Thanks.
Tenacious destroyer tactics had an effect on the enemy. Not knowing what they were screening made captains nervous and cautious.
Love these "Dark" channels on this I had only heard of the disaster of PQ-17. Thanks for covering other things on the channels. Always entertaining and informative.👍👍👍👍
Great story and film. Thank you
I enjoy your Dark Seas & Dark Skies videos. They are well done, informative and entertaining.
We need to make it clear that hipper is not a pocket battleship, but a heavy cruiser.
Correct! Four 8" double turrets is not a pocket battleship, it's most definitely a cruiser.
@@captcav767 No such designation as Pocket Battleship! The correct term was Panzerschiffe (Armoured Cruiser). Admiral Hipper was a Heavy Cruiser!
@@benadam7753 in his defence this channel has called Admiral hipper a pocket battleship on a few occasions. But thankfully he didn't in this video though
@@crazyeddie1981 @9:35 he did refer to the Admiral Hipper as a Pocket Battleship! He than said @9:55 the Lutzow group arrived to join the fight!
He is constantly showing the sinking of the Szent Istvan when talking about the Bismarck. He does this BS in all of his vids. Showing random footage without any connection to the actual topic. Thats why i constantly have to downvote. If you dont have the footage, dont make a video
As usual an informative and well presented history. However, there were a number of errors:
- ONSLOW was not a flag ship since she did not carry a flag officer (aka an admiral). She was the Senior Officer's ship and Captain Sherbrooke was a Captain(D), in command of a flotilla of destroyers.
- ACHATES was not part of the destroyer flotilla, but rather was part of the close escort of the convoy.
- ONSLOW and the other O class only carried 4" guns, rather than the standard 4.7" of most other RN destroyers.
- BRAMBLE was not sunk during the battle, but just before it as she was returning to convoy after looking for stragglers. It was a lonely death and the RN didn't find out what happened to her until after the war.
Some interesting facts about the Battle of the Barents Sea you did not mention include:
- The FRIEDRICH ECKOLDT mistook the RN cruiser HMS SHEFFIELD for the ADMIRAL HIPPER and was closing up on her to take station when she was stunned to be fired upon at 4,000 yards - point blank range. Within minutes she was blown in half.
- When ONSLOW was hit, Sherbrooke was indeed badly wounded - he had an eyeball out of the socket and dangling by the nerve against his cheek!
- After ONSLOW was hit, her first lieutenant, who was on the quarterdeck, called up to the bridge to check on whether Sherbrooke was all right. Despite his grave injury, Capt Sherbrooke took the phone and said, "you can't have command yet, Number One!". And he continued fighting the German forces like that!
- After GrossAdmiral Raeder resigned, Hitler then ordered Donitz to scrap the surface ships of the Kriegsmarine, expecting the U-boat admiral to agree. But Donitz was too intelligent to do such an unwise thing, realizing they needed the capital ships, and refused. Hitler had already lost Raeder - he backed down rather than lose Donitz as well.
ever do a video on how the Halifax explosion taught about airbursts? i live there. The reason the damage was so extensive was due in part to the depth of the harbor. Translated into how they dropped the bombs on Japan... Awesome channel, awesome work. Thanks.
I believe The History Guy did a segment about the Halifax explosion.
Concentration of all resources towards the U-boat service was likely Germany’s best option.
However, within six months of this Murmansk Convoy battle, the U-boats were rendered ineffective and were then slaughtered by allied countermeasures.
Some three quarters of all U-boat personnel failed to survive the war.
That was one quarter more than deserved to survive the war.
@@scockery and that was because they were all fervent Nazis ????
Yep and that refueling u boats have I think smaller ammunition sotrage,food etc that's why they surfaced for refueling and get caught by recon planes
If Germany had concentrated all resources on submarine production instead of wasting them on capital surface ships, it would have had 400 more subs. 1 capital ship was equivalent to 40 u-boats in terms of materials used, financial cost and crews.
About the same as RAF bomber command rate of loss sad to say.
Dark Seas - only found your channel recently. Great historical documentaries. I will certainly be watching more.
Naturally, the focus is on the naval ships, but folk should spare a thought for the men on the merchant vessels. Many sailed on ships carrying highly explosive aviation spirit or ammunition, or heavy cargoes that meant the ship would sink very rapidly. In the first part of the war, a British merchant seaman had his pay stopped the minute he entered a lifeboat.
The British Merchant Navy had a higher casualty/fatality rate than any allied service, higher than the army, RN and RAF. Only Bomber Command and some commando units had a higher loss rate.
Maybe someone could put a video together remembering this?
Too right and well said - there should be a video of this side of Dark Seas. At least on a warship there was a chance to hit back. Those Merchant Navy sailors had a hellish time on the Murmansk convoys and have really been far too easily forgotten.
You tell a great story!
Lest we forget, the awsome fighting men of that generation , we owe so much to our freedom .
It was my uncle's 21st birthday when he went down with his ship HMS Achates
WOW!! Your work never fails to entertain and inform me.
Bob
England
Their work makes me laugh! So many things wrong in this!
Many inaccuracies in the video.
@@kevingoodwin5177 - quite possible however entertaining anyway :) Do want to fill in the gaps for me?
Dark seas is the best WW|| historian documentary out there 5 stars excellent
It has a lot of misinformation unfortunately.
Interesting to see Werner Klemperer, best known as Colonel Wilhelm Klink plotting the convoys destruction.
5:08
made me smile
Perhaps on an undisclosed and only recently declassified special assignment to locate and identify the “Papa Bear” sea-based radio contact of one “Goldilocks” in Axis occupied territory. 🧐
I see nussing!
Pretty much explains the results!
My father served on an aircraft carrier protecting Russian conveys in WW2. I believe it was more dangerous than the Atlantic conveys.
The Arctic route was the most dangerous by far... but eventually it was curtailed as the allies had better routes. Japan honoured a 1938 agreement with the USSR, a nonaggression pact that meant the port of Vladivostok was not to be hindered... Japan could not risk yet another enemy... and also the allies opened a route through Persia.. a new railway was built to supply the Soviets.
Keep posting true history, some people, not of sound mind would try to re write history. Those who forget history are bound to make the same errors. The "Master" race was flawed with a psychopath for a leader. Much respect for all the Dark Channels.
Very well done, Sir.
It‘s eerie how WW2 seems to have been turned around in a few weeks around December 1942. Roughly at the same time Operation Regenbogen failed, General Paulus surrendered at Stalingrad and Japan lost Guadalcanal.
German efforts in North Africa were defeated at about the same time, early 1943
@@jjhpor October 23rd to November 11th 1942, 2nd Battle of El Alamein.
After that, it was retreat all the way to Tunisia where they were sandwiched between Monty's 8th Army and the troops from the Torch landings
According to the closed captions, 10:52 "...led to the appointment of Admiral Carl Donuts..." SWEET!
It would be helpful if a battle map can show the positions of each side.
This is the first time I have heard of Admiral Reader's refusal to scrap his Navy's heavies and replacement with Admiral Donitz. Until now, I had thought it was because Raeder had been sniffed out as an Allied intelligence agent. Sometimes the truth is too mundane to be palatable.
"... an unusual amount of German radio activity," at 4:32 sounds like radioactivity. That would've been a very different battle... 🤔
My Father was on the deck of the Sheffield, and saw the Friedrich Eckoldt sink.. The Sheffield and FE were heading directly for each other through the smoke. Sheffield saw it coming with her radar, and my Dad described the Seffield guns moving from high trajectory, down to a direct broadside, which hit the FE as it sailed past..Sinking almost immeditely....Dad said the image stayed with him forever
The Worst Ambush that Kno-ACK ACK ACK **loses entire battle ships to Italian frogman**
really wish TH-cam would stop recommending these smooth brained channels.
Did anyone notice that three scenes between 5:12 and 6:00 contained Werner Kempler (Colonel Klinck from Hogan's Heroes) in naval uniform? Apparently, the historical stock footage is being augmented with movie footage.
I see nussing!
I recognize the other actor but can’t place him. Gonna do a quick wiki check.
OK, perhaps the episode “The Haunted U-Boat” from the anthology series “One Step Beyond”?
Yeah, I noticed it right away and was going to comment, but decided to see if someone else had first.
And the chart on the wall is of Scapa Flow!
That goes to show to what lengths Dark Seas goes to sell us fake footage...Just how reliable can his "stories" be when he resorts to such tricks to deceive viewers ?
"Stay frosty,"- Corporal Hicks
Riddled with errors - mismatches between video content and commentary; the capsizing ship twice described as the WW2 German battleship Bismarck was in fact the Austro Hungarian SMS Szent István sunk in WW1 by the Italians; by December 1942, the Soviets had the upper hand at Stalingrad; Scharnhorst sortied a year later and was su nk at North Cape...
Good work
Honestly, except for the U-boats, the kriegsmarine was a big oof.
To make it short (and oversimplified):
- mediocre/inefficient designs:
- Costly to produce and upkeep for what they are worth
- Not really compatible with the doctrine
- Overhyped by the very Germans that lead to fierce response
- Unprepared logistics (fuel and safe harbours)
capital ships with comparable characteristics were way heavier than contemporary designs:
Bismarck full load was 50.000t while Littorio was 45.000t with 1 more 15 inch gun, better armour [ *B* belt = 320mm *L* belt = 280 + 70mm, *B* deck = 100-120mm *L* deck 90-150mm, Bulkheads, barbettes, conning tower, turret and torpedo protection were slightly superior on Littorio class]. Bismarck had better secondary armament and better accuracy for main guns [fault of lack of quality control in sell charges for Italian 15 inch] but Littorio had way better gun range (it’s range was higher than Yamato class!) and better range finders, something like 50 between both coincidence and stereoscopic range finders.
Other navies such as the British, American and French had similar designs to the Bismarck but had less displacement (some were adherent to the London naval treaties), hence they were more efficient designs.
Bismarck is not the only class of ship of the Kriegsmarine to have these problems, also Admiral Hipper and Scharnhorst had similar problems compared to foreign counterparts.
Germany was short on Steel, Fuel and other resources, building up those capital ships was a big gamble that sometimes ended up badly, just like Bismarck also Blucher (CA) was sunk in her first deployment. The Kriegsmarine also tried to build a light carrier in the form of the Graf Zeppelin but honestly the concept of a carrier having light cruiser armament and brawling it out with the screening fleet is just dumb (exaggerated). Also Goering would rather go on a diet than lending airforce pilots to the Navy.
The doctrine of the German navy was that of interdiction, choking Great Britain of goods through the use of the navy, to achieve this you need a large force of boats whose main purpose is to sink convoys, you don’t need big guns to sink them, so U-boats and lighter ships would be ideal but you also need heavier ships to counter the screening forces of the convoys, that is unless you can hit and run. Basically U-boats were really effective but with massive losses while surface raiders were almost immediately recalled because they realised they were hopeless without heavy ships which would be sunk by the RN. Ironically the most efficient surface raiders would be Kormoran class ships, merchant ships with concealed weapons.
the concept of big guns, instead of lighter more precise cheap and numerous ones , I think was a mistake
better to hit many times with small bombs than once or never with one big only
Basically all the Capital ships had problems with water shipping over the bows and entering the forward turret at speed, it's like they designed them them to look better than they functioned. Or they weren't threshed out properly before being put out to deployment..
Hitler had the BIGGGER the better mindset! Look at the plans for the "Mouse" tank. Basically naval guns based on 60? ton behemoth.
Their E-boats were significantly better than the RN equivalent and caused much havoc in the Narrow Seas.
@@teslaelectro9657 Except for the advent of the A bomb. Lol.
When Stalin sent Molotov to Britain on a trade mission he told him "tell Churchill to send more Valentines" . the only Allied tank the Soviets acknowledged in their history of ww2. its not often known that UK sent a huge amount of equipment and supplies to USSR - thousands of TANKS, FIGHTER planes and clothing. also the gold braid the Red Army used when re-instituting the officer's shoulder boards last seen in the Tsar's army. the Russian convoys were extremely hazardous - in winter it was storms and ice, in summer it was near 24 hours of daylight.. the Germans in Norway were able to attack the convoys incessantly with the Luftwaffe and U-Boats. there was also the risk of the Tirpitz and other large surface vessels. like Scharnhorst.. my grandfather was KIA in 1944 when his escort destroyer Matabele was torpedoed by U-Boat. if seamen were not killed by blast, their survival could be measured in minutes in the freezing Northern ocean
I've heard that there's some footage of a Valentine in Soviet service fighting in Berlin in 1945, but I've never seen it.
sending equipment and stores to the USSR while being in a battle of life and death with the Nazis says something about the British
@@jugbywellington1134 they appear in a few clips from soviet sources. often with infantry riding on them - British did the same, they were "infantry tanks" after all. you'll see Matildas sometimes too. later war footage tends to show Shermans more often. Allies used Valentines right up to 1945 , tank getting upgunned etc as time passed. A clip of captured German E100 super-tank hull has a Valentine doing "donuts" beside it.
@@coling3957 Yes, there is footage of T34s clanking into Berlin with a Matilda amongst them.
You are also right the Soviets liked the Valentine and it was up-gunned to the 6 pounder.
As a British infantry support tank, it was not fast but built to take punishment.
According to Jeremy Clarkson in his documentary on the debacle that was Convoy PQ17, he said that 75% of the tanks defending Moscow were British
Shame the vid looks to have been taken down
My oldest friend’s dad served on a cruiser on the Arctic convoys. When they reached Murmansk, the Russians wouldn’t even let them ashore.
I enjoy your work. Very interesting and informative. Just a note: you might check one very brief clip in this video which features Col. Clink of Hogan's Heroes fame.
Nasty little battle that is usually overlooked.
Your ship went down and you weren't surviving those waters. That's why Yamamoto should've pushed for Alaska instead of Midway when they had the advantage
Not much to gain by taking all of Alaska in the 1940s. Hawaii on the other hand was a key naval base with repair facilitie, refueling facilities and positioned well to supply millitary activities in the entire western Pacific. Alaska had none of that.
The only sensible strategy for Imperial Japan was to occupy all the European colonies in SE Asia. It would have secured all the raw materials they needed and it is most unlikely that the USA would have gone to war to recover the colonies.
Thank you for covering the battle of Barents Sea.
I expect Doenitz was quite pleased with the discontinuation of surface raids.
Nice video but I don't think the outcome of the battle of Stalingrad depended on the successful arrival of this convoy.
Not remotely affected, I'd bet.
If there were Studebaker trucks on one of those ships it might have helped a little.
10:43 Thirteen Capital Ships? That number would have to include the two remaining heavy cruisers, the two Panzershiffe, the four remaining light cruisers and the two active pre-dreadnoughts, Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein, which is kinda pushing it for '13 capital ships'. Nevertheless, it's nice coverage of the topic
More two the point even stretching the meaning of Capital Ship to include the 3 Pocket Battleships and two pre-dreadnoughts the Germans only had at most 9 Capital Ships Heavy/Armored Cruisers and their lesser fleet mates were not considered Capital ships.
So the Germans actually only had three at this point in the war as Bismark was gone.
The only capital ship listed in the video was a pocket battleship which was really a cruiser so even that was really stretching the point.
@@GhostRider-sc9vu Tirpitz, Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, with four heavy cruisers in support
Love the thumbnail. Swedish right?
Dear Dark Seas: just a heads up, destroyers don't have three gun turrets...7:47.
I've heard that Germany in both WW I and WW II stopped engaging the British navy. I never understood this logic. "Losing" a capital ship is the same thing as not using it at all. If you decide to not use an asset, it is as good as lost -- gone.
This was because they simply couldn't replace them, contrary to the UK, that could rely on better resources and fuel, contrary to Germany.
Hitler hated publicly admitting to losing ships which is why Tirpitz was more or less parked in a Norwegian fjord after losing Bismarck. Appearances really mattered to him.
Tirpitz wasn’t scrapped ,she was on holidays in Norway
Great video. I learned something new.
This is a great channel 👍
Amazing video
Clearly the presence of Wilhelm Klink (beginning at 5:04) foiled the best efforts of the German forces leading to this disaster! Perhaps this is what got him kicked out of the navy and reassigned as Kommandant of Stalag 13...? What harm could he possibly do there, am I right? 🤣
This is a great video, btw... just couldn't help but poke once I saw Werner Klemperer in it!. 😁
The decision forced on the Germans by this episode, ie switching to a U-Boat based naval war, actually worked to their advantage in terms of Axis resources used/ losses inflicted on the Allies. Neither policy could have ultimately been successful for the Germans largely due to the industrial output differences between the two sides.
The greater use of ship sonar and more skilled US sub hunting off North American coast, meant the lethal wolfpack strategy was cut short to fast for the Germans to inflict enough damage to the UK and Russian resupply. That and the US ability to ship massive convoys of military hardware meant a massive delivery for every convoy that got through to the UK and those onward to the Russians. The fact that most of the hardware that landed in Murmansk was US made but often UK delivered seems to be forgotten by Moscow and most Russian history books. The UK know it was US support that saved them from a siege success. Even now the Russians seem to have forgotten that without good backup supplies no great army can win.
I heard the cost of the U-boat fleat was detrimental to their war efforts.
@@hawkthebird Sub building was alot cheaper than larger ships, needed less crew and was less impacted by bad sea weather. Before Sonar they were also damaged less often (by attack or weather). Also the black smoke of most naval ships meant they were easy to spot from the air and sea unlike a sub. Also look at Adolfs insane messing with military hardware and his cray ambitions that slowed sufficient output as fast as needed. Big military hardware tend to have too many cooks with their own "genius" ideas of what should be included.
@@hawkthebird not till later on the war. Had Hitler put more effort into the u boat fleet earlier in the war things may have turned out differently
@@crazyeddie1981 I seen somewhere just the cost of the torpedoes were expensive and people were debating online about the cost of the torpedoes compared to the tanks of the time
I saw Colonel Klink (Werner Klemperer) from Hogan's Heroes @5:07 🙂
Always outstanding and interesting content. Thank you.
Colonel Klink with hair, and in the Navy no Less. Who would of though?
Werner Klemperer popping up in the video should be a drinking came. Dialog always interesting.
No doubt on his way to the Russian Front. General Burkholder finally followed through on his threats.
Hogan!!!
"You will be shot, then Court Martialed, THEN sent to the Russian Front!" 🪦⚰️
🌌🔭
I SEE NOTHING!😂😂😂
Ngl, the thumbnail looks cool
Is there, or has there ever been, anything more evil, underhand and stealthy than a submarine hunting its prey in the depths of the ocean?
doctors hunting for body parts with 'vaccines'
I read a story that told of one of these merchant ships making it all the way and finally pulling into port. As they were coming alongside one of the merchant men, a Scotsman, set up a single solitary cheer to those on shore. But not one man answered him, and so he loudly cursed them for their ingratitude. But what the Scotsman didn't know is they were conscripts. They were slaves.
Hey! It’s Colonel Klink at the helm.
The ambush at Pearl Harbor wiped out our entire Pacific Fleet (except the carriers). Along with all the aircraft.
Not entirely, only seven ships were sunk, only three were a total loss. Only 26 ships received signigicant damage. Besides Pearl harbor was a major ship repair facility so a lot of the damaged ships were back in business very quickly.
What movie was that scene with Werner Klemperer from Hogans Heroes?
It reminded me on how a German merchant ship arm to teeth defeated the mighty Australian Battle Cruiser Sydney... what a cunningness displayed by Grieg marine
Royal Navy: "You tried it." 🧐☕
Stalingrad or Leningrad? Wasn't Leningrad, St. Petersburg now, what the convoys were supporting?
What about the Scharnhorst at the Battle of North Cape on December 26, 1943?
THIS IS NOT THE FULL STORY BUT THATS HISTORY .
This video has shoddy information, sure, but how do you even put the FULL story in a 11minute video? Heck, even a 11hour video would not have covered the full story. I doubt even a 11year video would do that.
The Hipper was in the fourth division when it came to German Battleships, indeed she was a cruiser, not a battleship, not even a pocket battleship like the Graf Spee, (in division three).
Whilst it is true that this battle signalled the end of the skirmishes of the German Fleet, they still remained a threat, the Tirpitz in particular, tied up a big percentage of the British Fleet in Scapa Flow, ships that were needed elsewhere in the world.
So in summary, the German Capital Ships remained, and were not 'knocked out', the British were not aware that the German battleships would never be used again.
A more correct analogy would be nuclear weapons, they are not used, (hopefully, they never will be), however, the threat remains.
And look how grateful they were from keeping them from being stamped Flat😡😡
wonderful view of history
I was about to comment and say you seem to have forgotten Pearl Harbour, then caught myself as I realised you said ambush on ships, not attack.
4:33. “Radio activity”. Maybe radio chatter would have been better phrasing?
W4-UVT correct
The U-354 attacked and torpedoed my Dad's ship HMS Nabob and HMS Bickerton, 22 August 1944, but they were hunted down and sunk with all hands a few days later, RIP 🤲🇬🇧🇨🇦
That was swift .
The Nazis really botched the naval war. They almost had a carrier task force, but abandoned it. They didn't quite have enough U-boats to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Hindsight is 20-20 but they should have picked a lane and gone with it.
That was fruit cake Fuhrer...he got bored quickly and moved on...never finished anything
Hitler started the war at least a year too early for the Kriegsmarine. They weren't ready, then lost 10 Destroyers (nearly half their total) at Narvik in April 1940. A battle that my father participated in on HMS Havock (H43).
Hitler had his "say" on all the armarments production as well as how the campaigns would be fought. So that "hindered" the armarments industry.
Good thing HMS Sheffield and Jamaica showed up.
I'm still amazed at how poorly the Nazis used their navy. They built these huge state of the art ships and never seemed to get the never to commit them to combat properly. Compare their actions to the US Navy in the Pacific. Sort of debunks the reputation of Nazi Germany as the home of fearless warriors.
Hey, what was Col Klink doing there? 5:05