Badass name? Check. Badass guns? Check. Badass superstructure? Check. Kicked off D-Day? Check. Took more hits & fired more rounds than some entire navies? Check. Ran into / got ran into possibly more than any warship in the last 120 years? Check. Absolutely refused to go to the scrapyard after 3 YEARS of trying & had to be scrapped on a random beach? Check. Literally a crime that this absolutely legendary ship was scrapped.
Warspite : where are we going Tugs : to the scap yard WARSPITE : NOPE Tugs : you don't have a choice strom appears WARSPITE : SEE YOU LATER BYE tugs: wait w-w-WHAAAAAAT
@@kingdomofvinland8827 yeah it didnt make any sense with Enty since NY was ready to take her. I can understand Warspite since England really didnt have any money after the war
@@katzkitson She's gone buddy, unless you are master in Arcane Magic & Necromancy doubt it, and even if your were pretty sure she would blow up parliament in anger,
If someone was to write a fictional story of a battleship and give it the career that HMS Warspite had, it would be panned as exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness.
An epitaph dedicated to HMS Warspite from one of the many sailors that had served on her, Lt-Cmdr R A B Mitchell. This was written after HMS Warspite ran aground at the Prussian Cove on her way to the breakers yard on St. Georges Day 1947. You say you have no subject And your brushes all have dried; But come to Marazion At the ebbing of the tide. And look you out to seaward, Where my Lady battle scarred Hugs the rock that is more welcome, Than the shameful breakers yard. Paint her there upon the sunset In her glory and despair, With the diadem of victory Still in flower upon her hair. Let her whisper as she settles Of her blooding long ago, In the mist than mingles Jutland With the might of Scapa Flow. Let her tell you, too, of Narvik With its snowy hills, and then Of Matapan, Salerno And the shoals of Walcheren; And finally of Malta, When along the purple street Came in trail the Roman Navy To surrender at her feet. Of all these honours conscious, How could she bear to be Delivered to the spoiler Or severed from the sea ? So hasten then and paint her In the last flush of her pride On the rocks of Marazion, At the ebbing of the tide.
@@shinki5361 Indeed it is. Shows how special she was to the Royal Navy and to her many sailors that called her home and their ship for so much of their lives.
She deserved to be saved with an unequaled battle star collection in the R N. Whoever signed the scrapping order should have been shoved down one of her mighty guns
Im not ashamed to admit this made me cry. She fought the Germans and was iron clad. She fought the Italians and she spit fire. She fought the Japanese and they ran from her. At the very end she fought the Royal Navy and showed her Spite for Peace.
Funny enough Bismarck's secondary armaments are in the exact same position if the Machine Spirit says no, you can bet your Earl Gray is wont change its mind
Would have been nice for her to have been saved and moored up alongside Victory and Warrior at Portsmouth, but it was unlikely to ever happen, a shame, but one that is perfectly understandable given the fiscal priorities of the time. You see, the people who say it was a crime tend to be those who forget that Britain was close to bankrupt after the war. She owed huge amounts to the US (who treated Britain shamefully in the years immediately following WWII). Many of her cities had been extensively damaged by bombing raids and required rebuilding. The money simply was not there to refurbish her as a museum ship. When Belfast was retired 20 years later, the situation was a little different, but in 1946? People forget that Rationing in Britain did not end until 1954. In Germany, Rationing ended in 1950... Think about that....
Vanguard is not as historically important as Warspite was, its like comparing chalk with cheese. Vanguards only claim to fame is she was the last battleship ever completed, in an age where Battleships had been rendered all but obsolete. Do not forget that the US Battleships serving as museum ships were *purchased*, they no longer belong to, or are operated by the USN, but by privately owned concerns, charities in some cases. THAT is why Warspite was not saved, because no one had the money to convert her into a museum ship. The Navy is not in the business of running museums, it is in the business of protecting our sea lanes and trade routes. Go take a look at all the museum ships world wide... see how many of them are run by the Navy in question. I'll wait. Hint, damned few..... the vast majority of them are run by private operations, often non-profit making... but still private companies or charities....
@@alganhar1 all have the condition to be reclaimed by the navy for use as well. Even the old Olympia. And yes. Vanguard was the last with WWI era turrets. It still would have been something from a country that made some of the best.
Oh please, do not bring up the 'they can be reclaimed for navy use' excuse.... HMS Victory could also be reclaimed for Navy use, as could HMS Warrior, you honestly think thats going to happen? I am a Brit, Welsh actually, and proud of it, both of being Welsh and British. Fact is Britain did not, and still does not have the museum companies able to restore a battleship, the UK has a population of around 65-70 million, US, is close to 400 million. Britain is NOT the world superpower it used to be, those days are long gone. If you were so interested in British Warships being kept as museum ships... why were you not clamouring for the Invincible or Hermes? You were obviously fine about THEM being scrapped.... though to be fair Hermes was sold to India and they only decommissioned her last year.... But two light carriers that made the Falklands campaign possible... why are you not demanding one of THEM be made a museum ship..... they are both more worthy of that than the fucking Vanguard.
Warspite at Jutland was like a brawler all alone in a bar fight. Standing on a table and hollering "Come get some." Bruised, bloody but with a stack of bodies laying around the bottom of the table.
Her debut was mostly getting bullied by krauts. (despite being ridiculously effective in that battle) To make up for it, she became an unstoppable fucking murder machine.
There is no ship in all the long history of naval warfare that has despised the attack of her foes so perfectly and enduringly as Warspite. Her loyalty and her fortitude were splendid, and she never tarnished them.
@@marseldagistani1989 well the bureaucrats contacted the scrapper so I was cutting out the middleman. But i still agree the Big E CV-06 was and still is one of the most famous carriers out their so much so the next Gerald Ford Carrier CVN-79 will bare her name
Warspite was a goddamn beast on D-Day Not only was she the first to fire, but she also managed t evade several enemy torpedoes during the invasion. During the first part of the landings, she fired more than 300 shells in just two days (which would be a rate of approximately 1 shell every 9.6 minutes), leaving Warspite’s magazines exhausted, so she retired across the Channel to Portsmouth to load up with more shells. And my favorite feat of hers happened when she returned on June 9th. She was ordered to support the American beaches, especially Omaha Beach where troops were hard pressed. Her assistance was badly needed as the USN’s bombardment vessels, including the battleship USS Arkansas, were running short of shells. Between 4:12 and 6:25 PM, 96 rounds of 15-inch shells were fired, without the aid of aircraft spotters or forward observers. She devastated a key enemy artillery position. Her ability to fire accurately on enemy positions without the use of targeting systems, radar or even spotters or observers was highly praised in a signal from American commanders. She then made for Gold Beach two days later, where British troops had gone ashore. She helped save the 50th Division from a formidable counter-attack by destroying German troops and tanks assembling for the assault in a wood. All this with a broken gun no less. BRUH Also, if they couldn’t preserve her, I say BUILD a life-size replica of her as a museum ship like she deserved. It’s not too late.
As an American I was well aware of the war record of the USS Enterprise. Thank you very much for fully enlightening me on the stellar career of this British bad ass. Semper fi!
There’s a book called warspite from Jutland hero to Cold War warrior. Written by IAIN BALLANTYNE. It covers warspites history from shipyard to being Brocken up in a place of her choosing, defiant till the end. It has pictures and memoirs from the crews privet collection and it was done by the warspite foundation A MUST READ
When I think of the two greatest warships of World War 2 I always think of HMS Warspite and USS Enterprise. Two ships that provided more service to their makers than anyone could have hoped for. Rest easy, ladies. I wish we still had both of you.
@@Colonel_Blimp When Warspite was in the US for repairs was December 1941. She was there on the 7th of December. When the news came of Pearl Harbour she went to full readiness, ready to fight to the death against all comers. You know full well, that if the Japanese had somehow found themselves off the coast of Washington State, then Warspite would have sailed forth and dared her foes to kill her, and she would have made the world wonder at the glory of her final stand, and she would have reaped her toll as she died.
2 ships, both most decorated, both surviving world war 2 from the start, both fighting in some of the most important naval battles for their country, both scrapped together with the hopes of museum ship
An Aggressive Ship from its beginning to it's end, woe to any Ship or rock that crossed it's path! It Should have been kept as a Museum Ship because of its long and Glorious Record of Service, but it had its revenge on those who planned to scrap Her by going down undefeated at a time and place of Her own choice. Aggressive to the end! That's a Story Worth Telling! Enjoyed the History of this very Special Ship!
I truly wish that HMS Warspite and USS Enterprise had been kept as museum ships. Both of them had legendary service records that will likely never be matched given how far technology has advanced.
I've held WARSPITE in awe and affection since reading an account of Jutland with a particularly vivid description of her perils at "windy corner" as a boy, which moved me to follow her ship's history further. As many have noted, we can all wish she were preserved in honor as a museum vessel, but as an American I feel that Britain deserves less criticism for this than we do for losing ENTERPRISE and WASHINGTON to the breakers. Museum ships are huge devourers of cash. We could have found the means, while the UK was essentially prostrate after standing utterly alone against Hitler for a year from mid-40 through mid-41 and then seeing the fight through to the end with us. We had our disagreements but I am extremely sorry my parent's generation were not more generous to our closest ally after the guns fell silent - we owed Britain a bit of what the Marshall Plan sent to the continent, some debt relief, and a perhaps most of all more balanced teaching of history in our schools. Fine work, Drachinfell!
Mr. Mahon, what a brilliant proposal, it would have changed history for the better. So glad to hear this out of the Excited States (hopefully you are still alive and well after the past 12 months).
@@frankemcgillivray6695 - still alive, and trying not to do any kicking - all too much of that these days. Thank you for your kind words, sir! Best, Jim
Jim, your parents' generation was generous enough. Britain received more Marshall Aid than any other nation. While this was certainly in America's interests, with regard to countering the Soviet Union, it is something for us in Britain to be grateful for.
Yes, quite often, even often, US commentators on the warship sites seem to understand relatively little, not that British education is more realistic, of the reasons for some of the controversies, and you have done every 1930s US citizen proud to say something of the failure to coordinate that FDR fought and defeated, but the tragedies are there of Hood and of civilians, and I have commented several times to educate opinion generally, because facing the realities is the real preservation of the cause that you refer to, the true honour to those who fought. Remarkable what the two peoples achieved together, and as an historian I think it will be the longest and most significant alliance in world history. Good man!
My father joined up went to Ganges served on her 1938 to 1942. He Shipped out from a couple of ships trying to catch up with her .Eventually in Alexandria Later he was he was wounded. was at Narvik .Fought t the Italian fleet fought the German paratroopers at Crete . Says the forward A gun port side never worked right after the long shot at the Italian fleet one of the pins on the ratchet split from the recoil so could not elevate to exactly the same angle as the other.All the time he was on the ship.He is still alive at 94 .living in Canada on Feb 27 2019 .
My uncle served on the Warspite for most of the war. He sailed to Halifax them got a train to Seattle were the Warspite was being secretly refurbished before the U.S. was in the war.(Thank you U.S.) He was a medic and I remember him telling me how he treated men sometimes being baldly burnt after the verses times the Warspite bumped into things and got bombed. In the late 90s I went with him to Breast in France were the crew were invited by the mayor. Thay wanted to thank the crew for carrying out bombardment against German positions around the city. He always had a picture of the Old Lady on his wall to the day he died. A lovely man who served on a lovely ship
Ganges was a shore training base and my dad was there so perhaps they could have meet up. He was also on the port side 6" guns on the Warspite as he ranked as a torpedo/gunner rating.
My great grandfather served aboard the Warspite during WW2. He was a boiler room chief and served in all the theaters and campaigns she was assigned to. During operations in the Mediterranean when the 3rd Fritz X BB came down it exploded near the boiler room and he was thrown against a boiler and suffered burns to his back. He recuperated in time for D-day and served aboard her for the rest of the war. We have many of his souvenirs from his service aboard her and hearing the name "Warspite" warms my heart.
8:04. Probably a mercy for the Japanese. Considering the one thing more dangerous than the Atomic bombs was if Warspite and Enterprise were to join forces.
Spike Milligan, discussing the landings in the Mediterranean. "Looming large amongst all this was HMS Valiant, and HMS Warspite. Suddenly, one let fly with a devastating salvo which thundered around the bay and rocked the warship some fifteen degrees off her axis. "That's not going to do Jerry any good." said a sailor, and added " It's not doing the Warspite any good either."
Such a crime that she wasn't preserved. The value of her bare cut up steel couldn't possibly have equaled her historical and national value. Great video for a legendary ship btw., nice of you to have redone it in your own voice.
the reality of war is that ships can only be preserved if you are capable of preserving them. England was in a bad way after the war, and all of the glory and honor she accumulated didn't change the fact that she would have served the crown better as repurposed metal than as a museum.
@History Tank Britain had debts to pay off. The economy was in tatters from being - for a year - the only resistance against the Axis powers. Though I will say this; if I'm ever given the chance to travel in time, I will go back to '47 with enough funds to BUY her, kit her out as a museum ship and keep a trust to pay for her upkeep for at least thirty or forty years (at that point, the UK economy - and the world's, for that matter - recovered along with a large wave of nostalgia about the war and public interest in that part of history, so likely the RN would be able to take over the museum ship), if not indefinitely. ...that, and be at Wembley stadium in July '86 for a concert...
@@dimwitsixtytwelve HMS Belfast survived by dint of actually surviving through to the late 1960s. By this time, two things had changed: The British government had enough money to consider keeping Belfast, and public interest was gradually swaying towards preserving a few ships. Even then, she came dangerously close to being sold off as scrap. While I agree that the Warspite deserved most to be saved for posterity, in the late 1940s, it wasn't possible. Perhaps if she hadn't been scrapped in situ and lingered on for a few years, one may have seen the ship preserved. Still, the fact that Warspite wasn't saved is a true travesty.
This is why us Canadians don't have nuclear submarines. I think we saw warspites success and were like "oh yes ramming stuff is a great plan" since I'm pretty sure 2 of our submarines have suffered severe damage from ramming
Well its official, one of the new Dreadnought SSBN's will be called HMS Warspite! Along with HMS Dreadnought, HMS King George VI and HMS Valiant, proper Battleship names!
@@alexandarvoncarsteinzarovi3723 I'm not so sure about that. the Churchill class HMS Conqueror, named after the previous HMS Conqueror (of WWI fame) became the first nuclear submarine to sink a enemy ship during the Falklands War in 1982, when it (in)famously engaged the ARA General Belgrano.
Remember reading someplace that HMS Warspite was arguably the only battleship to survive every known means of destruction - collision, running aground, submarine, guns, mines, dive-bombing, guided missile.
@@davidvasquez08 At the very least, the only warship to have survived doing so. The Messina Strait is historically famous for all the wrong reasons; she has taken a fearsome toll in sailors lives down the long millenia.
Join the Royal Navy! We have: H.M.S Ramming Speed(Warspite) H.M.S Living Firecracker(Hood) H.M.S Ugly Duckling(Nelson & Rodney) H.M.S/O.R.P "I can't beat the shit out of you without getting closer"(Nerrisa/Piorun) And so much more!
I completely agree with Mr Sierra.She was the most distinguished and therefore the greatest battleship that ever sailed. Others may have been larger, or had some other claim to fame, but none could come close to her accomplishments.
Warspite tried to make a break for the North Sea as those who served on her recalled. lol She certainly lived up to her name. Such a tragedy she was not preserved. A crime, really.
I can't wait for your offering of the HMS Celendine, as. I have mentioned it was the Flower Class corvette our 31 year old grandfather died abourd in 1944. We were incredibly fortunate to have had his body returned to be buried with honours at Landican Cemetery, Wirral. RIP James Donald Cameron. ☘️⚓🙏
There is no other ship in history with a story like hers. I've been fascinated and entranced by her tale for years and to this day it still captivates my imagination. So much so that I visited the spot where she stubbornly broke her tow rope in Prussia Cove. Up on the cliffs there, a segment of her mast is erected to mark the spot where the beaching happened. Her name will live on for future generations to marvel and admire. Excellent video! Thank you for creating this.
I was at a Christmas dinner in London, and the lobby of place where the bash was held, Trinity House if I recall correctly, was filled with all sorts of historical pieces from the Royal Navy. All the goodies got my attention, so I was taking a good look around the place when a good-natured, elderly gentleman who was on duty at the house noticed my interest in the artifacts and started giving me something of a tour. We got into a bit of a game where he'd show me something and I'd try to figure out what it was. I was doing pretty fair and he eventually led me over to this big, weird looking thing and let me have a go at it. I didn't have a clue what it was until he opened up some doors on the thing and there was a compass rose inside. As soon as I saw that I deduced that it was probably a centrifugal compass, although I'd never seen one before. He said that it was indeed a centrifugal compass, and then told me it was from the HMS Warspite. He even let me fondle it a bit. :) I knew a fair bit about Warspites record so we chatted about that for a bit, then the subject got onto the London blitz. He was there been there during the first big German attack on the city and really brought it to life talking about it. I recall him telling me how a warehouse filled with teak for the decks of RN ships caught fire and burned for days. God, that was a fascinating interlude.
As mentioned above... There may be one. USS Enterprise, CV-6. The Grey Ghost was declared dead more often than Lazarus. But she wasn't killed by the Japanese. It took a breaker, as you call it. Brave men on solid ships, both of them.
@@garrymartin6474 No have a look at the HMS/HMAS Shropshire the lucky ship . No crew lost in action and she was in action with both navies. 6 men lost by accidental drowning
@@sarpkaplan4449 Warspite and Nevada both notorious for refusing to sink despite heavy damage. Nevada survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, taking 6 bomb hits as well as a torpedo but was saved by her crew when they ran her aground so she wouldnt sink. Then, she survived the rest of the war after being repaired and refitted, but after the war ended, she was seen as being too old to be modernized again and was used for two nuclear bomb tests off Bikini Atoll. She was intended to be the target of an airdropped A bomb, but the bomb missed and Nevada survived the blast. The second bomb was detonated underwater and despite taking a lot of damage and being highly radioactive, Nevada still did not sink. Finally, she was towed to Hawaii and used for gunnery practice by USS Iowa, but even still she did refused to go down. She was finally sunk by an air dropped torpedo. TL;DR: USS Nevada survived 6 bomb strike, a torpedo, 2 nukes, and 16 in shells fired from another battleship and was only finally sunk by another torpedo.
You could make that story into a high seas adventure or a comedy. With lines like an admiral to the Warspite captain "When I told you to attack I did not mean their whole bloody navy simultaneously!", or alternatively "When I ordered to attack I meant just the enemies navy, and did not anticipate that order being interpreted as including ramming inconvenient pieces of geography". Absolute tragedy Warspite was going to be scrapped for what would have been back then only a few thousand pounds. IE scrap steel was less than £1 a tonne back then and bottomed out at pennies per tonne (though I cant find any two sources that agree on exactly how many).
i shed a tear at the begining, than started criying like a baby, i wish i were a eight as defiant and strong willed as this ship was back in the day , and i asume is still althoug even bellow the sea
HMS Warspite on D-Day: oh I am out of shells. I will be right back just got to get some more. Also Warspite: before you scrap me I must do one last thing.... RAM THE ROCKS AGAIN!
I love how her name and her motto speak to the horror of war and preventing or ending it swiftly in all instances yet her action log shows her to be a beast in combat experience.
Barely a mile from were I sit in my home typing this, are the graves of a few members of the Warspite's crew. Men who died while the ship was being refitted, here at the Naval Shipyard, in Bremerton, Washington, in 1941. I find it interesting how little attention is given to this significant detail in any historical documents I can find - though her stay here was well documented locally. It is sad that she wasn't saved, but her memory lives on.
I had the honor of meeting some veterans of the HMS Warspite. It was the mid 90's ('94 or '95) at an Armed Forces Day Parade in Bremerton, WA. SALUTE!!!
Thank you for this and for putting the human voice to it. Your voice and humour adds a great deal of value to the production. I have stopped trying to endure the robot voice versions and click stop immediately,
@@Drachinifel You have a great (and quite mild) accent, exactly right for this series. Surely Americans have no problem with it! By the way, descriptive titles are most desirable.
Love my Warspite in World of Warships. Was good to learn of her history! She truly was a lady that took no shit from anyone and saw to it that she joined her sisters who fell in battle rather than be torn apart by blow torches
Very proud of my Grandfather for having served in the Med in WARSPITE and then VALIANT. He would be very pleased that both names will survive with the new RN subs.
I found my self in a hotel in Falmouth whilst working in the area. On my way back from the bar one night I noticed a brass plaque on the sprung dance floor, the wood for the dance floor had been 'salvaged' from Warspite when it was aground, so I got to walk on the deck of of my favourite ship Warspite in 2006!
Wonderful story. I believe she is one of two capital ships that could justifiably be called "unsinkable". The other one was SMS Seydlitz, battered and smashed all through the First World War, yet still present at the surrender of the High Seas Fleet, to the astonishment of the Royal Navy, and later scuttled by her crew: another sad, unworthy end.
Imagine getting knocked unconscious during battle and waking up only to hear you were stuck by a loaf of bread. That’s is how you get a nickname you never live down.
So you can drift a battleship! This ship developed its own personality, a reflection of the men who crewed it, courageous, aggressive and unwilling to accept defeat, even its own Navy was unable to break it. Undefeated to the end.
Only Fiume was actually sunk by gunfire, by virtue of it being focused mostly on her stern. She sank after about 45 minutes. Zara was badly shot up (and depending on the account) also hit by at least one torpedo in the intial action. However she lasts long after this point, and she doesn't sink for over four hours, after the surviving crew detonates the magazines in order to scuttle the ship.
Phoenix jz It probably does depend on which account that you read, but in the book by S. W. C. Pack "The Battle of Matapan" Zara was found still afloat with some fires still burning, her surviving crew having abandoned ship. Capt. Mack ordered HMS Jervis to close and fire torpedoes. Three of the five torpedoes appeared to hit and totally ablaze again, she turned over and sank at 2.40 AM. Some of the crew of Pola, having drunk all the vino, abandoned ship when ordered and the ship was torpedoed and sunk, going down at 4.03 AM. There had apparently been a discussion on whether to tow the Pola back to Alexandria but, given the likelihood of heavy air raids after dawn that idea was shelved and the Pola sunk. Just as an aside, one of the senior Italian officers was picked up and a signal sent to Adm. Cunningham reporting that with the comment "he has piles". Cunningham, some of whose signals were hilarious (I recommend "Make a signal" by Jack Broome (yes, that Jack Broome of PQ17 fame)) replied "I am not surprised". At the start of the gun action, Captain Douglas Fisher, the captain of the Warspite and a distinguished gunnery officer was heard to say in a voice of wondering surprise "Good Lord! we've hit her!". Cunningham ordered that comment recorded in case he should require to pull the legs of Whale Island!
Terry Shulky I guess, although generally speaking when the version of events where Jervis finished off Zara is given, Pack is always sited. The version of events describing Zara's scuttling, however, it something I've found more common, and it's also generally speaking a lot more detailed of an account as far as I'm aware (I haven't read Pack's account so I don't know how detailed it is, but usually that version of events is not described in much detail when given). It also doesn't help that the version of events holding Jervis responsible has inconsistencies. That being said, it's quite possible that Pack only thought Jervis' torpedoes were responsible as, given the timeframe, the detonation of the magazines could've coincided with when the torpedoes were expected to hit - perhaps they even hit at the same time. Or perhaps the torpedoes even hit first? However, I find that somewhat unlikely as given the design of the ship, it's not likely a torpedo would set off the magazines, if it even was possible - thus I doubt that in any version of events, the torpedoes could've triggered the detonation of the forward magazines.
Love that ship. Twas the first model-ship i made a long long time ago. Thanks for this vid! In my mind, this brave beauty really should be a living museum today!
Never was a more fitting name to a man of war than to this great ship of the Royal Navy. To spite not only the enemy but also all ships, cliffs, rocks, shawls and attempts of scrapping crossing her bow and hull.
Prussia Cove was not her last resting place. Once sufficiently lightened she was towed across to St. Michaels Mount, afloat again! It took years to finish her off. Actually I lived in St. Ives at the time and fishing boats took us on tours around the ship. This battleship didn't loose its lofty grandeur and aura. A sorry sight but also an impressive sight.
Just imagine if she got preserved. Parked in Portsmouth Naval Dockyards, alongside Victory and Warrior, a perfect lineup of Royal Navy warship evolution.
Splendid video on a magnificent ship. Amazing how some warships are obsolete in a few years (or less) and others serve for over 30 years in front line service. Thank you!
Thank you for another great video. The Marazion Museum has a splendid model of the Warspite & it's easy to imagine her on the beach. "... But come to Marazion/At the ebbing of the tide/ And look you out to seaward/Where my Lady battle-scarred/Hugs the rock that is more welcome/Than the shameful breaker's yard."
So if I understand well they thought preserve her as a museum ship was too expensive but the scrapping process for her was even more costful in the end GGWPUK/10
@@sander6438 yep, easily overlooked fact by the Americans. The UK had taken a serious toll from the Luftwaffe, huge amount of money and effort needed to go into physically rebuilding the country.
A Dreadnaught-class Warspite is all powerful, I get it. But HMS Warspite, a battleship, now that is awe inspiring and sexy. I agree she defied her enemies, up to and including politicians and breakers. I think the treaty and pretreaty battleships are the best. They had their limitations and exceeded expectations. Beautiful ships. HMS Warspite, I salute you and the men that walked your decks, at peace and at war. No ship bus complete without here crew, and no crew is complete without their ship. They are one.
Warspite is my favourite ship of any Navy in any time period. I hope the name is never retired. Great video. My favourite one. I can cite parts by heart now. Thank you. Well done.
Thank you very much for this video, Drachinifel. The bench I sit on in Morrab Gardens in Penzance was salvaged from HMS Warspite: I always contemplate and appreciate the irony between the violence of her illustriousness of her career and peacefulness of the park in which part of rests.
Interestingly the submarine warspite ..... rammed and nearly sunk a Russian sub. The attitude lived on, if the navy will use the name for another sub then they can expect more of the same.
I've had an affinity with the Warspite since childhood (and the 1:600 AirFix kit) .. she surely had one of the most storied careers of any battleship. Very sad that she wasn't saved, to remember those who had served on her and the ordeals they endured.
My father served on her from repair in Bremerton until being bombed by radio guided bombs off Salerno, probably the proudest and most exciting times of his life. It's a crime that there hasn't been a documentary about this ship as she seems to have been forgotten by the nation and they need reminding.
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Badass name? Check.
Badass guns? Check.
Badass superstructure? Check.
Kicked off D-Day? Check.
Took more hits & fired more rounds than some entire navies? Check.
Ran into / got ran into possibly more than any warship in the last 120 years? Check.
Absolutely refused to go to the scrapyard after 3 YEARS of trying & had to be scrapped on a random beach? Check.
Literally a crime that this absolutely legendary ship was scrapped.
i could not agree more
Dont forget knocking out crew with high speed loafs
And making a fool of the Admiral of the high sea fleet by refusing to sink.
Warspite : where are we going
Tugs : to the scap yard
WARSPITE : NOPE
Tugs : you don't have a choice
strom appears
WARSPITE : SEE YOU LATER BYE
tugs: wait w-w-WHAAAAAAT
I described her last night as "If USS Enterprise was a British battleship"
I am convinced that that warship was somehow sentient.
petlahk she certainly had a personality
so were most of the sailors who sailed on her, a lot of them insist that she tried to make a break for the north sea when she slipped both her tugs.
r/KanColle
Can just picture her on the rocks giving both fingers to the tugs trying to take her of to the breakers😂
If she was her battle cry would have been a maniacal laugh.
"One of the greatest injustices to a warship I can think of"
And here I thought what happened to Enterprise was a travesty.
what happened to both of them should be considered war crimes in my opinion
@@kingdomofvinland8827 yeah it didnt make any sense with Enty since NY was ready to take her. I can understand Warspite since England really didnt have any money after the war
@@Axzealot it’s a shame after both world wars Britan didn’t have enough money to make museums out of hms DREDNOUGHT or hms warspite
Can Warspite be raised?
@@katzkitson She's gone buddy, unless you are master in Arcane Magic & Necromancy doubt it, and even if your were pretty sure she would blow up parliament in anger,
HMS Warspite: *refuses to be scrapped and sinks herself instead*
All succeeding HMS Warspite ships: *are submarines*
Coincidence, or British humor?
Not just a submarine, a ramming submarine.
Might need to improve the protection around the nuclear reactor then ._.
Or both
it is true that one of the new nuclear submarine's will be called Warspite , god help anyone who comes across her friend or foe
Bit of a waste reincarnating her as a sub. She deserved to be a missile destroyer at least
If someone was to write a fictional story of a battleship and give it the career that HMS Warspite had, it would be panned as exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness.
Fiction has to make sense, reality rarely does :)
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Same deal with USS Enterprise.
Yukikaze
1Korlash
Enterprise has an even greater claim as not only did she survive, she has a gigantic kill count.
An epitaph dedicated to HMS Warspite from one of the many sailors that had served on her, Lt-Cmdr R A B Mitchell. This was written after HMS Warspite ran aground at the Prussian Cove on her way to the breakers yard on St. Georges Day 1947.
You say you have no subject
And your brushes all have dried;
But come to Marazion
At the ebbing of the tide.
And look you out to seaward,
Where my Lady battle scarred
Hugs the rock that is more welcome,
Than the shameful breakers yard.
Paint her there upon the sunset
In her glory and despair,
With the diadem of victory
Still in flower upon her hair.
Let her whisper as she settles
Of her blooding long ago,
In the mist than mingles Jutland
With the might of Scapa Flow.
Let her tell you, too, of Narvik
With its snowy hills, and then
Of Matapan, Salerno
And the shoals of Walcheren;
And finally of Malta,
When along the purple street
Came in trail the Roman Navy
To surrender at her feet.
Of all these honours conscious,
How could she bear to be
Delivered to the spoiler
Or severed from the sea ?
So hasten then and paint her
In the last flush of her pride
On the rocks of Marazion,
At the ebbing of the tide.
This is so god damn beautiful
@@shinki5361 Indeed it is. Shows how special she was to the Royal Navy and to her many sailors that called her home and their ship for so much of their lives.
Wonderful words for a great ship and all those who sailed in her.
She deserved to be saved with an unequaled battle star collection in the R N. Whoever signed the scrapping order should have been shoved down one of her mighty guns
Im not ashamed to admit this made me cry. She fought the Germans and was iron clad. She fought the Italians and she spit fire. She fought the Japanese and they ran from her. At the very end she fought the Royal Navy and showed her Spite for Peace.
Funny enough Bismarck's secondary armaments are in the exact same position if the Machine Spirit says no, you can bet your Earl Gray is wont change its mind
Criminal act by the British scrapping this ship
Would have been nice for her to have been saved and moored up alongside Victory and Warrior at Portsmouth, but it was unlikely to ever happen, a shame, but one that is perfectly understandable given the fiscal priorities of the time.
You see, the people who say it was a crime tend to be those who forget that Britain was close to bankrupt after the war. She owed huge amounts to the US (who treated Britain shamefully in the years immediately following WWII). Many of her cities had been extensively damaged by bombing raids and required rebuilding. The money simply was not there to refurbish her as a museum ship. When Belfast was retired 20 years later, the situation was a little different, but in 1946? People forget that Rationing in Britain did not end until 1954. In Germany, Rationing ended in 1950... Think about that....
@@alganhar1 ok then. Why scrap the Vanguard?
Vanguard is not as historically important as Warspite was, its like comparing chalk with cheese. Vanguards only claim to fame is she was the last battleship ever completed, in an age where Battleships had been rendered all but obsolete.
Do not forget that the US Battleships serving as museum ships were *purchased*, they no longer belong to, or are operated by the USN, but by privately owned concerns, charities in some cases. THAT is why Warspite was not saved, because no one had the money to convert her into a museum ship.
The Navy is not in the business of running museums, it is in the business of protecting our sea lanes and trade routes. Go take a look at all the museum ships world wide... see how many of them are run by the Navy in question. I'll wait.
Hint, damned few..... the vast majority of them are run by private operations, often non-profit making... but still private companies or charities....
@@alganhar1 all have the condition to be reclaimed by the navy for use as well. Even the old Olympia.
And yes. Vanguard was the last with WWI era turrets. It still would have been something from a country that made some of the best.
Oh please, do not bring up the 'they can be reclaimed for navy use' excuse.... HMS Victory could also be reclaimed for Navy use, as could HMS Warrior, you honestly think thats going to happen?
I am a Brit, Welsh actually, and proud of it, both of being Welsh and British. Fact is Britain did not, and still does not have the museum companies able to restore a battleship, the UK has a population of around 65-70 million, US, is close to 400 million. Britain is NOT the world superpower it used to be, those days are long gone.
If you were so interested in British Warships being kept as museum ships... why were you not clamouring for the Invincible or Hermes? You were obviously fine about THEM being scrapped.... though to be fair Hermes was sold to India and they only decommissioned her last year....
But two light carriers that made the Falklands campaign possible... why are you not demanding one of THEM be made a museum ship..... they are both more worthy of that than the fucking Vanguard.
Warspite at Jutland was like a brawler all alone in a bar fight. Standing on a table and hollering "Come get some."
Bruised, bloody but with a stack of bodies laying around the bottom of the table.
Aint that the truth.
I despise the hardship of "tiny cars"
Her debut was mostly getting bullied by krauts. (despite being ridiculously effective in that battle)
To make up for it, she became an unstoppable fucking murder machine.
Warspite says "You may be larger and younger, but you cant grow muscles on your chin !!!"
There is no ship in all the long history of naval warfare that has despised the attack of her foes so perfectly and enduringly as Warspite.
Her loyalty and her fortitude were splendid, and she never tarnished them.
That part where she refuses to be scrapped is the stuff of legends. I'll be damned if she did not have a soul.
My dad who served on her from 1941-43 said he laughed when he read in the paper that the old lady run aground on the way to the breakers.
Spiteful to the last! Never ever has a ship so thoroughly lived up to it´s name! Absolutely lovely!
I laughed till I cried the first time I heard that 😂
She must have been like, “Yeah, who yah gonna scrap now huh, WHO YAH GONNA SCRAP NOW?!”
@@Kris-qy7hh I'd say she was like the Scottish Guy you don't want to piss off
I wonder if your father knew my grandfather who served on HMS Warspite in the med and Malta?
My God, if ever a ship had the soul of a warier that refused to die......THIS WAS IT !!!
What about Enterprise CV-6?
@@marseldagistani1989 CV-06 was a fighter in her service however didn't resist as mighty when the scrapper came calling
@@volrosku.6075 you mean the Buearocrats
@@marseldagistani1989 well the bureaucrats contacted the scrapper so I was cutting out the middleman. But i still agree the Big E CV-06 was and still is one of the most famous carriers out their so much so the next Gerald Ford Carrier CVN-79 will bare her name
@@marseldagistani1989 Both Enterprise & Iowa herself have looooot of ghost stories about them
Warspite was a goddamn beast on D-Day
Not only was she the first to fire, but she also managed t evade several enemy torpedoes during the invasion. During the first part of the landings, she fired more than 300 shells in just two days (which would be a rate of approximately 1 shell every 9.6 minutes), leaving Warspite’s magazines exhausted, so she retired across the Channel to Portsmouth to load up with more shells.
And my favorite feat of hers happened when she returned on June 9th. She was ordered to support the American beaches, especially Omaha Beach where troops were hard pressed. Her assistance was badly needed as the USN’s bombardment vessels, including the battleship USS Arkansas, were running short of shells.
Between 4:12 and 6:25 PM, 96 rounds of 15-inch shells were fired, without the aid of aircraft spotters or forward observers. She devastated a key enemy artillery position. Her ability to fire accurately on enemy positions without the use of targeting systems, radar or even spotters or observers was highly praised in a signal from American commanders.
She then made for Gold Beach two days later, where British troops had gone ashore. She helped save the 50th Division from a formidable counter-attack by destroying German troops and tanks assembling for the assault in a wood.
All this with a broken gun no less. BRUH
Also, if they couldn’t preserve her, I say BUILD a life-size replica of her as a museum ship like she deserved. It’s not too late.
🙏🖖
Don't make me cry man :(
A battleships job was to fight, and if you took hits, keep on fighting.
I would gladly donate to build a replica of her
Fantastic post, well done.
As an American I was well aware of the war record of the USS Enterprise. Thank you very much for fully enlightening me on the stellar career of this British bad ass. Semper fi!
There’s a book called warspite from Jutland hero to Cold War warrior. Written by IAIN BALLANTYNE. It covers warspites history from shipyard to being Brocken up in a place of her choosing, defiant till the end. It has pictures and memoirs from the crews privet collection and it was done by the warspite foundation A MUST READ
When I think of the two greatest warships of World War 2 I always think of HMS Warspite and USS Enterprise. Two ships that provided more service to their makers than anyone could have hoped for.
Rest easy, ladies. I wish we still had both of you.
ut000bs wow imagine a task group made up of those two big girls.
@@Colonel_Blimp When Warspite was in the US for repairs was December 1941.
She was there on the 7th of December. When the news came of Pearl Harbour she went to full readiness, ready to fight to the death against all comers.
You know full well, that if the Japanese had somehow found themselves off the coast of Washington State, then Warspite would have sailed forth and dared her foes to kill her, and she would have made the world wonder at the glory of her final stand, and she would have reaped her toll as she died.
bairdrew The grey ghost and the old lady. That would have been a sight.
2 ships, both most decorated, both surviving world war 2 from the start, both fighting in some of the most important naval battles for their country, both scrapped together with the hopes of museum ship
Why gender them, at least use the masculine manly male?
An Aggressive Ship from its beginning to it's end, woe to any Ship or rock that crossed it's path! It Should have been kept as a Museum Ship because of its long and Glorious Record of Service, but it had its revenge on those who planned to scrap Her by going down undefeated at a time and place of Her own choice. Aggressive to the end! That's a Story Worth Telling! Enjoyed the History of this very Special Ship!
She was a Grand Old Lady.
I truly wish that HMS Warspite and USS Enterprise had been kept as museum ships. Both of them had legendary service records that will likely never be matched given how far technology has advanced.
Pretty sure her running around for the last time was the machine spirit's massive middle finger to anyone and everyone
Can you imagine how many new and impressive objects and vessels she could have rammed whilst being tugged around as a museum ship?
She may have been attempting to go inland on her final journey; specifically to ram the building of the guy who gave the scrapping order !!
I've held WARSPITE in awe and affection since reading an account of Jutland with a particularly vivid description of her perils at "windy corner" as a boy, which moved me to follow her ship's history further. As many have noted, we can all wish she were preserved in honor as a museum vessel, but as an American I feel that Britain deserves less criticism for this than we do for losing ENTERPRISE and WASHINGTON to the breakers. Museum ships are huge devourers of cash. We could have found the means, while the UK was essentially prostrate after standing utterly alone against Hitler for a year from mid-40 through mid-41 and then seeing the fight through to the end with us. We had our disagreements but I am extremely sorry my parent's generation were not more generous to our closest ally after the guns fell silent - we owed Britain a bit of what the Marshall Plan sent to the continent, some debt relief, and a perhaps most of all more balanced teaching of history in our schools. Fine work, Drachinfell!
Mr. Mahon, what a brilliant proposal, it would have changed history for the better. So glad to hear this out of the Excited States (hopefully you are still alive and well after the past 12 months).
@@frankemcgillivray6695 - still alive, and trying not to do any kicking - all too much of that these days. Thank you for your kind words, sir! Best, Jim
you can still visit the USS Intrepid a NYC, it help sunk the battleship Musashi, If only I knew when I visited it!
Jim, your parents' generation was generous enough. Britain received more Marshall Aid than any other nation. While this was certainly in America's interests, with regard to countering the Soviet Union, it is something for us in Britain to be grateful for.
Yes, quite often, even often, US commentators on the warship sites seem to understand relatively little, not that British education is more realistic, of the reasons for some of the controversies, and you have done every 1930s US citizen proud to say something of the failure to coordinate that FDR fought and defeated, but the tragedies are there of Hood and of civilians, and I have commented several times to educate opinion generally, because facing the realities is the real preservation of the cause that you refer to, the true honour to those who fought. Remarkable what the two peoples achieved together, and as an historian I think it will be the longest and most significant alliance in world history. Good man!
My father joined up went to Ganges served on her 1938 to 1942. He Shipped out from a couple of ships trying to catch up with her .Eventually in Alexandria Later he was he was wounded. was at Narvik .Fought t the Italian fleet fought the German paratroopers at Crete . Says the forward A gun port side never worked right after the long shot at the Italian fleet one of the pins on the ratchet split from the recoil so could not elevate to exactly the same angle as the other.All the time he was on the ship.He is still alive at 94 .living in Canada on Feb 27 2019 .
My dad served on her from 41-43 also on the port side secondary 6" i think so they might have known each other and he also was wounded at Crete.
My uncle served on the Warspite for most of the war. He sailed to Halifax them got a train to Seattle were the Warspite was being secretly refurbished before the U.S. was in the war.(Thank you U.S.)
He was a medic and I remember him telling me how he treated men sometimes being baldly burnt after the verses times the Warspite bumped into things and got bombed.
In the late 90s I went with him to Breast in France were the crew were invited by the mayor. Thay wanted to thank the crew for carrying out bombardment against German positions around the city.
He always had a picture of the Old Lady on his wall to the day he died.
A lovely man who served on a lovely ship
@@nemosis9449 probably did. Is he still alive. Would let my father know..would send you info to call you or call me
I served on the warspite too and right now i am just 15
Ganges was a shore training base and my dad was there so perhaps they could have meet up. He was also on the port side 6" guns on the Warspite as he ranked as a torpedo/gunner rating.
My great grandfather served aboard the Warspite during WW2. He was a boiler room chief and served in all the theaters and campaigns she was assigned to. During operations in the Mediterranean when the 3rd Fritz X BB came down it exploded near the boiler room and he was thrown against a boiler and suffered burns to his back. He recuperated in time for D-day and served aboard her for the rest of the war. We have many of his souvenirs from his service aboard her and hearing the name "Warspite" warms my heart.
Warspite: "IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?!! i WILL NEVER BACK DOWN!! NOT TO YOU OR THE NAZIS, NOT EVEN TO THOSE BASTARDS I SERVED!!"
8:04. Probably a mercy for the Japanese. Considering the one thing more dangerous than the Atomic bombs was if Warspite and Enterprise were to join forces.
I think Japan would have just gave up at such a sight of two legends side by side!
An aircraft carrier and a battleship is already a deadly combination, how much more is a combination of these menaces?
If you added USS Johnson and Samuel B. Robert you'd have a even more terrifying combo.
@@samlambert257 don't forget USS Laffey. Both versions ofc.
@@sls12III Indeed
HMS Warspite and USS Enterprise are the two warships that deserved to be museums.
Spike Milligan, discussing the landings in the Mediterranean.
"Looming large amongst all this was HMS Valiant, and HMS Warspite. Suddenly, one let fly with a devastating salvo which thundered around the bay and rocked the warship some fifteen degrees off her axis.
"That's not going to do Jerry any good." said a sailor, and added " It's not doing the Warspite any good either."
"Defiant to the Last" this should become a motto.
Breaking news: Battleship literally too angry to die
Such a crime that she wasn't preserved. The value of her bare cut up steel couldn't possibly have equaled her historical and national value.
Great video for a legendary ship btw., nice of you to have redone it in your own voice.
the reality of war is that ships can only be preserved if you are capable of preserving them. England was in a bad way after the war, and all of the glory and honor she accumulated didn't change the fact that she would have served the crown better as repurposed metal than as a museum.
they kept hms Belfast but war spite was the one to keep
@History Tank Britain had debts to pay off. The economy was in tatters from being - for a year - the only resistance against the Axis powers.
Though I will say this; if I'm ever given the chance to travel in time, I will go back to '47 with enough funds to BUY her, kit her out as a museum ship and keep a trust to pay for her upkeep for at least thirty or forty years (at that point, the UK economy - and the world's, for that matter - recovered along with a large wave of nostalgia about the war and public interest in that part of history, so likely the RN would be able to take over the museum ship), if not indefinitely.
...that, and be at Wembley stadium in July '86 for a concert...
@@dimwitsixtytwelve HMS Belfast survived by dint of actually surviving through to the late 1960s. By this time, two things had changed: The British government had enough money to consider keeping Belfast, and public interest was gradually swaying towards preserving a few ships. Even then, she came dangerously close to being sold off as scrap. While I agree that the Warspite deserved most to be saved for posterity, in the late 1940s, it wasn't possible. Perhaps if she hadn't been scrapped in situ and lingered on for a few years, one may have seen the ship preserved.
Still, the fact that Warspite wasn't saved is a true travesty.
@@anantr99 I agree. warspite was more than worthy of preservation. I have been on hms Belfast however and she is an impressive ship also.
Please don’t let the new sub carry forward the ramming tradition.
That could be really bad lol
This is why us Canadians don't have nuclear submarines. I think we saw warspites success and were like "oh yes ramming stuff is a great plan" since I'm pretty sure 2 of our submarines have suffered severe damage from ramming
With that name? NO WAY
The most aptly named warship ever.
What a legend.
Well its official, one of the new Dreadnought SSBN's will be called HMS Warspite! Along with HMS Dreadnought, HMS King George VI and HMS Valiant, proper Battleship names!
@mandellorian *proceeds to ram the sea bed and one sub*
@mandellorian or you know, the fact that if it were to be used it would be the end of the world
@mandellorian rams a sub that’s disguised as the rockbed.
Its bad omen to name a submarine after a battleship,
@@alexandarvoncarsteinzarovi3723 I'm not so sure about that. the Churchill class HMS Conqueror, named after the previous HMS Conqueror (of WWI fame) became the first nuclear submarine to sink a enemy ship during the Falklands War in 1982, when it (in)famously engaged the ARA General Belgrano.
Remember reading someplace that HMS Warspite was arguably the only battleship to survive every known means of destruction - collision, running aground, submarine, guns, mines, dive-bombing, guided missile.
She also escaped being scraped... by sinking...
Well there was the Kamikaze
I've watched this clip three times. What an amazing story this ship has. I also think your tone and humor in these episodes is spot on.
"and passed through the strait of Messina in a sideways drift"
*raging eurobeat playing in the background*
Probably the first and only battleship to do so in history
@@davidvasquez08 At the very least, the only warship to have survived doing so.
The Messina Strait is historically famous for all the wrong reasons; she has taken a fearsome toll in sailors lives down the long millenia.
HMS Warspite, also known as RAMMING SPEED!
Join the Royal Navy! We have:
H.M.S Ramming Speed(Warspite)
H.M.S Living Firecracker(Hood)
H.M.S Ugly Duckling(Nelson & Rodney)
H.M.S/O.R.P "I can't beat the shit out of you without getting closer"(Nerrisa/Piorun)
And so much more!
@@whateverthisis389 most successful recruitment campaign since press gangs
@@The_Alt_Vault oh,and H.M.S 'MURICA(Agincourt)
@@whateverthisis389
Also, H.M.S Tokyo Drift (Repulse)
@@Joe-ss9is also H.M.S Identity Crisis(Eagle)
I completely agree with Mr Sierra.She was the most distinguished and therefore the greatest battleship that ever sailed. Others may have been larger, or had some other claim to fame, but none could come close to her accomplishments.
Warspite tried to make a break for the North Sea as those who served on her recalled. lol She certainly lived up to her name. Such a tragedy she was not preserved. A crime, really.
Human voice much preferred. Thank you.
Unfortunate she was not preserved.
I can't wait for your offering of the HMS Celendine, as. I have mentioned it was the Flower Class corvette our 31 year old grandfather died abourd in 1944. We were incredibly fortunate to have had his body returned to be buried with honours at Landican Cemetery, Wirral.
RIP James Donald Cameron. ☘️⚓🙏
There is no other ship in history with a story like hers. I've been fascinated and entranced by her tale for years and to this day it still captivates my imagination. So much so that I visited the spot where she stubbornly broke her tow rope in Prussia Cove. Up on the cliffs there, a segment of her mast is erected to mark the spot where the beaching happened. Her name will live on for future generations to marvel and admire. Excellent video! Thank you for creating this.
I was at a Christmas dinner in London, and the lobby of place where the bash was held, Trinity House if I recall correctly, was filled with all sorts of historical pieces from the Royal Navy.
All the goodies got my attention, so I was taking a good look around the place when a good-natured, elderly gentleman who was on duty at the house noticed my interest in the artifacts and started giving me something of a tour.
We got into a bit of a game where he'd show me something and I'd try to figure out what it was. I was doing pretty fair and he eventually led me over to this big, weird looking thing and let me have a go at it. I didn't have a clue what it was until he opened up some doors on the thing and there was a compass rose inside. As soon as I saw that I deduced that it was probably a centrifugal compass, although I'd never seen one before.
He said that it was indeed a centrifugal compass, and then told me it was from the HMS Warspite. He even let me fondle it a bit. :)
I knew a fair bit about Warspites record so we chatted about that for a bit, then the subject got onto the London blitz. He was there been there during the first big German attack on the city and really brought it to life talking about it. I recall him telling me how a warehouse filled with teak for the decks of RN ships caught fire and burned for days.
God, that was a fascinating interlude.
As mentioned above... There may be one. USS Enterprise, CV-6. The Grey Ghost was declared dead more often than Lazarus.
But she wasn't killed by the Japanese. It took a breaker, as you call it. Brave men on solid ships, both of them.
Agreed but the Shiny Sheff runs her a close second ! (The original HMS Sheffield)
@@garrymartin6474 No have a look at the HMS/HMAS Shropshire the lucky ship . No crew lost in action and she was in action with both navies. 6 men lost by accidental drowning
@Matthew Chenault Your navy and Battle Honours is nothing like the Royal Navy and theirs
Your Warspite and our Nevada must've been cousins...or at least very close buddies.
You utterly missed his joke... @Alexander Challis
Alexander Challis woooosh
@@w8stral explanation would be welcome as i have no idea too lol
Watch this vid and the Nevada vid.... Do your own damn homework. @@sarpkaplan4449
@@sarpkaplan4449 Warspite and Nevada both notorious for refusing to sink despite heavy damage. Nevada survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, taking 6 bomb hits as well as a torpedo but was saved by her crew when they ran her aground so she wouldnt sink. Then, she survived the rest of the war after being repaired and refitted, but after the war ended, she was seen as being too old to be modernized again and was used for two nuclear bomb tests off Bikini Atoll. She was intended to be the target of an airdropped A bomb, but the bomb missed and Nevada survived the blast. The second bomb was detonated underwater and despite taking a lot of damage and being highly radioactive, Nevada still did not sink. Finally, she was towed to Hawaii and used for gunnery practice by USS Iowa, but even still she did refused to go down. She was finally sunk by an air dropped torpedo.
TL;DR: USS Nevada survived 6 bomb strike, a torpedo, 2 nukes, and 16 in shells fired from another battleship and was only finally sunk by another torpedo.
You could make that story into a high seas adventure or a comedy. With lines like an admiral to the Warspite captain "When I told you to attack I did not mean their whole bloody navy simultaneously!", or alternatively "When I ordered to attack I meant just the enemies navy, and did not anticipate that order being interpreted as including ramming inconvenient pieces of geography". Absolute tragedy Warspite was going to be scrapped for what would have been back then only a few thousand pounds. IE scrap steel was less than £1 a tonne back then and bottomed out at pennies per tonne (though I cant find any two sources that agree on exactly how many).
All of the other heroic and comical damage aside, any battleship that wears out its main guns is an instant legend in my book.
Warspite "did not go easy into the night" but fought to the very end.
All hail the new Warspite, and steer clear, she has a legacy of hitting things to maintain.
"C'mon,c'mon,I just have to get base for more shells,I have to keep the Germans in suspen- ARRGH,WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME?!?!"
i shed a tear at the begining, than started criying like a baby, i wish i were a eight as defiant and strong willed as this ship was back in the day , and i asume is still althoug even bellow the sea
Great job. Imagine awakening from being knocked out by enemy fire and finding yourself surrounded by loaves of bread.
Lol, get some ham
HMS Warspite on D-Day: oh I am out of shells. I will be right back just got to get some more.
Also Warspite: before you scrap me I must do one last thing.... RAM THE ROCKS AGAIN!
She definitely had the last laugh. A Grand Old Lady right to the end. R.I.P. HMS Warspite. You'll never be forgotten.
"I just have to get back to ba- ARGH,I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT!"
I love how her name and her motto speak to the horror of war and preventing or ending it swiftly in all instances yet her action log shows her to be a beast in combat experience.
H.M.S Warspite. The greatest battleship, that ever lived.
That’s probably the greatest warship story I’ve ever heard!
The Story with the bread is gold. I love this kind of warship stories, they are always so entertaining :D
Barely a mile from were I sit in my home typing this, are the graves of a few members of the Warspite's crew. Men who died while the ship was being refitted, here at the Naval Shipyard, in Bremerton, Washington, in 1941. I find it interesting how little attention is given to this significant detail in any historical documents I can find - though her stay here was well documented locally. It is sad that she wasn't saved, but her memory lives on.
What a terrific name for one of the finest and most valiant ships (and crews) of Her Majesty's Navy! Her's was a career to make one proud.
I had the honor of meeting some veterans of the HMS Warspite. It was the mid 90's ('94 or '95) at an Armed Forces Day Parade in Bremerton, WA. SALUTE!!!
I love the Warspite my favorite British battleship
wow that ship had its own soul.
Ah, the star-crossed romance between HMS Warspite and stationary objects. So happy they could finally be together in the end.
My Father was a Marine gunner on Warspite from 1936 to 1942 he helped to sink eight German destroyers at the action on Narvik
Thank you for this and for putting the human voice to it. Your voice and humour adds a great deal of value to the production. I have stopped trying to endure the robot voice versions and click stop immediately,
As a guide, human voices are from the USS Stewart video onwards.
@@Drachinifel You have a great (and quite mild) accent, exactly right for this series. Surely Americans have no problem with it! By the way, descriptive titles are most desirable.
You need a sense of humour describing the career of Warspite. God knows, the ship herself certainly had one!!
Warspite after Fritz X: “I didn’t hear no bell.”
Love my Warspite in World of Warships. Was good to learn of her history! She truly was a lady that took no shit from anyone and saw to it that she joined her sisters who fell in battle rather than be torn apart by blow torches
Very proud of my Grandfather for having served in the Med in WARSPITE and then VALIANT. He would be very pleased that both names will survive with the new RN subs.
What a carrer!
2 World Wars and awesome in both!
Not just dishing out the punishment but also taking it AND surviving it.
What a ship!
Hey man you should make TH-cam videos
@@asiftalpur3758 atm don't feel like it
@@Napalmratte just get your decal in game so I can quit wt on a high note :(
Thanks for using a human voice, I don't even watch them when the robot voice starts
I found my self in a hotel in Falmouth whilst working in the area. On my way back from the bar one night I noticed a brass plaque on the sprung dance floor, the wood for the dance floor had been 'salvaged' from Warspite when it was aground, so I got to walk on the deck of of my favourite ship Warspite in 2006!
Wonderful story. I believe she is one of two capital ships that could justifiably be called "unsinkable". The other one was SMS Seydlitz, battered and smashed all through the First World War, yet still present at the surrender of the High Seas Fleet, to the astonishment of the Royal Navy, and later scuttled by her crew: another sad, unworthy end.
Thank you kind sir for redoing this video. Now we need a full hour long documentary
Imagine getting knocked unconscious during battle and waking up only to hear you were stuck by a loaf of bread. That’s is how you get a nickname you never live down.
So you can drift a battleship! This ship developed its own personality, a reflection of the men who crewed it, courageous, aggressive and unwilling to accept defeat, even its own Navy was unable to break it. Undefeated to the end.
Warspite, the literal and physical embodiment of the phrase " they dont make them like they used to"
Thank god it survived the ferocious High seas bread salvo!
Nice video. A small point: Pola was sunk by RN destroyers. The other two cruisers were blown out of the water by Warspite and the two consorts.
Only Fiume was actually sunk by gunfire, by virtue of it being focused mostly on her stern. She sank after about 45 minutes.
Zara was badly shot up (and depending on the account) also hit by at least one torpedo in the intial action. However she lasts long after this point, and she doesn't sink for over four hours, after the surviving crew detonates the magazines in order to scuttle the ship.
Phoenix jz It probably does depend on which account that you read, but in the book by S. W. C. Pack "The Battle of Matapan" Zara was found still afloat with some fires still burning, her surviving crew having abandoned ship. Capt. Mack ordered HMS Jervis to close and fire torpedoes. Three of the five torpedoes appeared to hit and totally ablaze again, she turned over and sank at 2.40 AM.
Some of the crew of Pola, having drunk all the vino, abandoned ship when ordered and the ship was torpedoed and sunk, going down at 4.03 AM. There had apparently been a discussion on whether to tow the Pola back to Alexandria but, given the likelihood of heavy air raids after dawn that idea was shelved and the Pola sunk.
Just as an aside, one of the senior Italian officers was picked up and a signal sent to Adm. Cunningham reporting that with the comment "he has piles". Cunningham, some of whose signals were hilarious (I recommend "Make a signal" by Jack Broome (yes, that Jack Broome of PQ17 fame)) replied "I am not surprised".
At the start of the gun action, Captain Douglas Fisher, the captain of the Warspite and a distinguished gunnery officer was heard to say in a voice of wondering surprise "Good Lord! we've hit her!". Cunningham ordered that comment recorded in case he should require to pull the legs of Whale Island!
Terry Shulky
I guess, although generally speaking when the version of events where Jervis finished off Zara is given, Pack is always sited. The version of events describing Zara's scuttling, however, it something I've found more common, and it's also generally speaking a lot more detailed of an account as far as I'm aware (I haven't read Pack's account so I don't know how detailed it is, but usually that version of events is not described in much detail when given). It also doesn't help that the version of events holding Jervis responsible has inconsistencies.
That being said, it's quite possible that Pack only thought Jervis' torpedoes were responsible as, given the timeframe, the detonation of the magazines could've coincided with when the torpedoes were expected to hit - perhaps they even hit at the same time. Or perhaps the torpedoes even hit first? However, I find that somewhat unlikely as given the design of the ship, it's not likely a torpedo would set off the magazines, if it even was possible - thus I doubt that in any version of events, the torpedoes could've triggered the detonation of the forward magazines.
Love that ship. Twas the first model-ship i made a long long time ago. Thanks for this vid!
In my mind, this brave beauty really should be a living museum today!
Never was a more fitting name to a man of war than to this great ship of the Royal Navy.
To spite not only the enemy but also all ships, cliffs, rocks, shawls and attempts of scrapping crossing her bow and hull.
And torpedoes, and mines, and airborne super bombs.......and UFOs for all we know !!
Prussia Cove was not her last resting place. Once sufficiently lightened she was towed across to St. Michaels Mount, afloat again! It took years to finish her off. Actually I lived in St. Ives at the time and fishing boats took us on tours around the ship. This battleship didn't loose its lofty grandeur and aura. A sorry sight but also an impressive sight.
Just imagine if she got preserved.
Parked in Portsmouth Naval Dockyards, alongside Victory and Warrior, a perfect lineup of Royal Navy warship evolution.
Glad I've found your channel! Well informed, no bs, humor and great narrative skills. Thank you and bravo 👍👍
She was a born fighter up to the very end, good for her!
Gave me goose bumps! Great job
Her attempted 'scraping' was only equaled in crime by the sad end of USS Enterprise CV6😢
Splendid video on a magnificent ship. Amazing how some warships are obsolete in a few years (or less) and others serve for over 30 years in front line service. Thank you!
Thank you for another great video. The Marazion Museum has a splendid model of the Warspite & it's easy to imagine her on the beach. "... But come to Marazion/At the ebbing of the tide/ And look you out to seaward/Where my Lady battle-scarred/Hugs the rock that is more welcome/Than the shameful breaker's yard."
Thanks for redoing this in human voice.
So
if I understand well they thought preserve her as a museum ship was too expensive but the scrapping process for her was even more costful in the end
GGWPUK/10
They had also cities to rebuild
@@sander6438 yep, easily overlooked fact by the Americans. The UK had taken a serious toll from the Luftwaffe, huge amount of money and effort needed to go into physically rebuilding the country.
A Dreadnaught-class Warspite is all powerful, I get it. But HMS Warspite, a battleship, now that is awe inspiring and sexy. I agree she defied her enemies, up to and including politicians and breakers. I think the treaty and pretreaty battleships are the best. They had their limitations and exceeded expectations. Beautiful ships. HMS Warspite, I salute you and the men that walked your decks, at peace and at war. No ship bus complete without here crew, and no crew is complete without their ship. They are one.
She was probably has one of the best life storys of any battleship ever
So was Warspite the first Battleship/Minesweeper hybrid?
Every warship can be a mine sweeper at least once.
She must have had a fetish for high explosive objects of ALL kinds !!
@@Avalanche041 every warship can be a minesweeper if their determined enough!
I remember having an Airfix model of the Warspite. With her battle history, she should have been preserved, the scrapping was a tragedy.
Well since it didn't end up happening due to her basically escaping lol actually no it wasn't haha
@@1IbramGaunt they sold her after their failure to recover her and she was broken up where she sat
@@konac6610 where'd you hear that?
@@1IbramGaunt www.warspite.dk/ship.html
a website dedicated to the ship
My very first Airfix model was the Warspite. About two years ago I met a man whose brother had served on her.
Warspite is my favourite ship of any Navy in any time period. I hope the name is never retired. Great video. My favourite one. I can cite parts by heart now. Thank you. Well done.
Thank you very much for this video, Drachinifel. The bench I sit on in Morrab Gardens in Penzance was salvaged from HMS Warspite: I always contemplate and appreciate the irony between the violence of her illustriousness of her career and peacefulness of the park in which part of rests.
Interestingly the submarine warspite ..... rammed and nearly sunk a Russian sub. The attitude lived on, if the navy will use the name for another sub then they can expect more of the same.
Thanks for having a human voiceover. I like the motto.
Thanks for a great history of my favourite Royal Navy Battleship
This has got to be one of your best videos! Nearly choked on my tea laughing about the bombarded by bread story... X-D
Scrapping her was an insult to every sailor who ever went to sea on a ship of the realm carrying the name warspite
I've had an affinity with the Warspite since childhood (and the 1:600 AirFix kit) .. she surely had one of the most storied careers of any battleship. Very sad that she wasn't saved, to remember those who had served on her and the ordeals they endured.
If any ship should have been preserved it was this one. What an incredible life she had. WW1 vintage and yet still terrified the Germans in WW2.
This ship really was a fighter! I agree it's a shame she was scrapped. It would be great to see her as a museum ship today! Greetings from Germany!
0:27 divine marksman+
The father of one of the guys used to play WoWS with served on her. When he saw the model of Warspite in the game, he broke down in tears.
pathetic
She is very near the top of my personal list of ships that deserved salvation as museum-ships.
My father served on her from repair in Bremerton until being bombed by radio guided bombs off Salerno, probably the proudest and most exciting times of his life. It's a crime that there hasn't been a documentary about this ship as she seems to have been forgotten by the nation and they need reminding.
Kids today aren't taught about their history.