Talk:HMS Prince of Wales (53)

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Guys, the tables etc are important, but please don't ignore the POV text. There are far too many opinionated comments here.

If you're going to add comments, could you sign them please? Just put four tildes after your comment --Andy Wade 20:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 = Name? 2 Different Tonnage 3 Mostly correct 4 No time to train? 5 Citations 6 Protected wreck status 7 Casualty figures 8 Service in the Pacific 9 Ship Motto 10 WikiProject class rating

[edit] = Name?

Need an interpretation here: Is it Prince of Wales or Prince Of Wales?

Definitely Prince of Wales. Lower case o in of. A historical name after the title 'Prince of Wales' which refers to the first son of the King/Queen of England, who would also be first in line to the throne. Wales is know as a Principality because of this. Some of them even learned Welsh as a language. Prince Charles speaks it very well. I met him once, but I bet he doesn't remember me ;-) --Andy Wade 18:24, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Different Tonnage

There is a reported difference in tonnage:

Prince of Wales Statistics: 35,000 tons, ten 15-inch guns, crew of 110 officers and 1,502 ratings, last Captain is Captain John C. Leach.

Military Heritage did a feature on the Prince Of Wales and its sinking (Joseph M. Horodyski, Military Heritage, Volume 3, No. 3, pp.69 to 77).

The tonnage quoted in the article is the ship's deep displacement. Wiki-Ed 14:52, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mostly correct

The tonnage and captain's name are correct. The ship had 14 inch guns, not 15 inch. 147.240.236.9 21:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No time to train?

They skipped pre-operation 'work up' to get her into combat faster, leaving the crew inadequately trained - note in edit summary left by User:Hrimfaxi. Hrimfaxi is saying that is the reason the ship's AA gunners failed to shoot down the Japanese planes that sank her.

She fought the Bismarck in May. She was in Singapore in December. Just what the heck did the crew do for seven months, go on holiday? Drogo Underburrow 10:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey, the British Admiralty said that, not me. You might notice by reading the article:

• She was in for repairs after fighting Bismarck. Time, 6 weeks.
• In August, she was used to carry Churchill across the Atlantic for a secret meeting with Roosevelt.
• She was then assigned to convoy escort duty in the Mediterranean, ending 25th October when she left for Singapore.
• She arrived just in time for the Japanese to attack, and was sunk.

Notice in any of that any long periods of downtime when she could have paused to do live AA gunnery exercises? No, me neither.Hrimfaxi 11:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Guys, If you'd like, I'm pretty sure that they did several gunnery exercises in the time between Bismarck and the sinking, but I can confirm this with some of the crew I know who are still alive if you'd like. Would this be an acceptable verification though? Please let me know what you think. --Andy Wade 18:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Although it sounds like you have a fantastic resource, I suspect Wikipedia would not view it as verifiable unless it was put on paper and made accessible (i.e. published). It might be pushing it, but I wonder what would happen if you asked one of these veterans to write down his experiences and sign the paper and then scanned it in and displayed it here?

However, in this case Hrimfaxi's contention is not verifiable either so a simple indication of what they say should be enough. In fact, if I recall correctly from reading the board of enquiry report made after the sinking (it's in the National Archives, possibly ADM/1/11043), the naval architect responsible thought the torpedo that sunk the ship was a "one in a million" chance. Given the number of attackers the AA gunners on the ship could hardly be blamed, regardless of how much training they had. Wiki-Ed 20:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, even we are talking about a RN warship here, and I know they would have had plenty of gunnery practice in the time of the Malta convoys, and on the way to South Africa, and Singapore. But I can't 'verify' this. Never mind anyway... However, here's a ref: Page 206/207 of 'Battleship' (MiddleBrook & Mahoney), states that after the port outer shaft hit, the resulting vibration caused huge damage, and four of the eight dynamo compartments had been flooded. So the four aft 5.25 turrets P3, P4, S3, S4 had lost all electrical power, and the Pom Poms had faulty ammunition belts, and then shortly afterwards because of the 11.5 degree list, the forward four 5.25 turrets could not traverse, although they could elevate. So they had very little AA defence left to speak of at this time. Even if they'd had a good amount of practice, they couldn't have used their guns anyway That port outer hit was indeed a 'one in a million' chance.

I forgot to say... I think that the story about gunners not being worked up has been confused with the inexperienced main gun crews before the Denmark Strait battle, and not the AA gun crews at Singapore. --Andy Wade 21:31, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

I don't know how to do the tags and stuff, so hpefully, someone can do 'em for me. This article has good references, but we don't know where they're used, since there are no endnotes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.23.34.143 (talk) 02:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Protected wreck status

This ship is in the category "Protected Wrecks of the UK", which links to List of designations under the Protection of Wrecks Act. This shipwreck, however, is not on that list. I do see that it is on the list of 'Wrecks designated as military remains' under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986^[1]. It appears that List of designations under the Protection of Wrecks Act should be updated to include the Prince of Wales per that site, but I am unsure of the distinction between the two Acts, therefore I am proposing the addition here in hopes of advice. Maralia

Hi Maralia, the distinction is that the Protected Wrecks Act essentially covers wrecks of historical significance or are classed as hazardous, and the 1986 Protection of Military Remains Act (POMRA) covers what are specifically War Graves. It is a designated site under the POMRA, a status granted in 2001 when the act was first used. I am unaware of HMS Prince of Wales being on the Protected Wrecks Act (I'm a member of the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse Survivors Association, so I'm sure I would have heard of this) Maybe with time it will be considered historically important enough to be added, but I expect it will be just a huge pile of rust long before that happens --Andy Wade 18:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. If I understand correctly from your information, the proper statement to be made in this article, then, is that the wreck site has been designated protected under the POMRA - not under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. I believe this to be an important distinction as POMRA would prohibit all diving, whereas POWA 1973 would not necessarily. Additionally, I find the definition of the Category:Protected Wrecks of the UK to be somewhat misleading, in that it implies protection under POWA 1973 is the qualifier for inclusion in the category, when in fact POMRA-protected wrecks are included. I will leave a talk message for someone I know has experience with the protected wrecks legislation, and ask for input here. Thanks again. Maralia 19:33, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Glad to be able to help. :) Your understanding is correct. However, POMRA would not necessarily prohibit all diving as it has two designations, they are 'Controlled Site (UK waters - no diving)' and 'Protected Place (restricted diving)'. HMS Prince of Wales would probably be a 'Controlled Site' and diving would not be allowed, but for the fact that she lies in international waters, and outside the jurisdiction of the MOD (and POMRA) Therefore she is a 'Protected Place'. UK nationals are subject to the 'Protected Place' designation, and may visit but should not enter or disturb the wreck. (The same applies to HMS Repulse, sunk at the same time). The POMRA does not affect foreign nationals in international waters. However, pressure has already been placed upon the Singapore Government by the UK Government in recent cases where the wrecks have been disturbed by divers (the dive vessels operated out of Singapore). I do know that this occurred at very high level, but am not aware of any action which may have been taken against any foreign national divers at the time. At the end of the day it is all a matter of what the UK Government can enforce. Hope this helps.--Andy Wade 21:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

All the above clarifications are correct and I have changed the catmore on Category:Protected Wrecks of the UK to remove the confusion Viv Hamilton 07:43, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Casualty figures

The casualty figures in the articles on the Prince of Wales, Repulse and the sinking of both ships do not agree with one-another (Eg. According the article on Repulse more survivors were rescued from the ship than were in its complement, and >300 died). I have no idea what the correct figures are and since there are no in-line citations it's impossible to work out where the data has come from. Does anyone have verifiable information on the complement of each ship and the number that perished in December 41? Wiki-Ed 13:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I found some numbers at this source: http://www.forcez-survivors.org.uk/prince.html and http://www.forcez-survivors.org.uk/casualties.html

Thanks, Carl Gusler 15:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Service in the Pacific

Surely "given to the United States of America to aid in the Pacific campaign" is not an accurate description of PoW's mission in the Pacific. I will need to pull out some reference work but my understanding of her mission was a Churchill idea to send a few top-quality warships to the Pacific to intimidate the Japanese and bolster confidence in British Empire subjects. Has anyone else objected to the wording quoted above? --Tchie Tao 23:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Quite right, at the time the British had a rather substantial fleet in the Pacific themselves, see Eastern Fleet. The Prince of Wales was sent to serve as part of that under British control to protect British interests. "Given to the USA" sounds like she was transferred to the US Navy, which she certainly was not, nor was she under US control fulfilling US objectives. I've reworded this section accordingly. Benea 20:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ship Motto

I'm having a really hard time believing that this ship has a motto in the German language, as opposed to Latin or English. I can't find any Internet information to support or refute. What is the source of this information?

Thanks, Carl Gusler 15:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

See Prince of Wales's feathers. Maralia 15:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

and for that internet seal of approval ,see here, here and my favourite, here Benea 20:33, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 05:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)