Customer Reviews

Battleship the Sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse

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This book was first published in 1977 under a different title and, in 1979, provided me with almost all the background information I required in order to plan an advanced diving expedition to visit the remains of these two great ships off the Malaysian coast. In the event that expedition never took place but, in later years, I made the mistake of lending that book to someone with the same idea. It is a measure of how outstanding this book "is" that I still regret having made that loan - simply because it was never returned.

Three days after the infamous events of Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, HMS Prince of Wales (a 2 year old 35,000 ton Battleship) and HMS Repulse (a 25 year old Battlecruiser of 26,500 tons) with 4 Destroyer escorts sallied forth from Singapore as "Force Z" without air support. Their Aircraft Carrier HMS Indomitable had run aground outside Kingston Harbour a short time before sailing to join and had to proceed to the USA for repairs to her hull. With the events of Pearl Harbour not yet analysed and understood - i.e. airpower vs. sea power, Force Z was still thought to be more than a match for anything the Japanese might throw at them.

They were very wrong and when the attacks did commence it was all over rather quickly. Two valuable capital ships were sunk with the loss of 840 lives. What happened that day has led to many questions being asked about the conduct of those senior naval officers involved.

In an overwhelmingly authoritative account, these authors have accessed not only British records from WW2 but also Japanese records from the same period and even those from the naval dockyards of Norfolk, Virginia were the repairs to HMS Indomitable were logged as task No S.139.

I am delighted to have a copy of this book back on my bookshelf and if anyone else missed it first time around, now is the time to treat yourself to an excellent account of one of the Royal Navy's greatest wartime disasters which is written in an exciting and compelling way.

Better than any work of fiction.

NM