O
O.C.
Guest
The British Navy once the greatest navy in the World but in todays changing climate that is true no more, I will not quote any battles or engagements from WW2 as the subject is to vast and a lot of material is available on the World Wide Web as well as the countless books wrote on the subject, but it’s a starting point for folk to put their memories and stories of their families or relatives Here
The Navy has always been Britain's shield, but how different the fleet of WW2 from the ships of other days. Once upon a time the chief requirement for a sailor was that he should be a stout fighter, but in WW2 that was not enough. In that Navy every man has to be an expert, for only experts can handle the complicated piece of machinery which was a British warship, and inflict damage upon an enemy which may be fifteen miles or more away. Fifteen miles! How is it done? It was done by an instrument called the range finder or telemeter, which determines the distance of the target from the ship. and in order to make shore training as much like conditions afloat as possible some of these practise telemeters can be made to pitch and roll just as they might pitch and roll on board a ship in a rough sea. But though all sailors were specialists, they still have to be handy men and be good at all sorts of jobs beside their own. Eventually they become gunners, stokers, signallers or torpedo men, but they must all do their boat drill and a dozen other things as well.
Torpedo men handle torpedoes. Each of these wonderful, cigar-shaped engines of destruction is a complete little underwater vessel in itself. In the head is the explosive charge, which explodes on contact with the target. Immediately behind this is a chamber filled with compressed air, and then comes a compartment containing the ingenious mechanism, which controls the depth at which the torpedo travels beneath the water. The engine-room follows complete with engines driven by air from the compressed air chamber, and abaft this is the buoyancy chamber, in which a mechanical steersman is housed, while last of all, at the tail of the torpedo, are the propellers which drive it through the water. A wonderful piece of mechanism, indeed, but a costly one. and the next time you read about an enemy ship being torpedoed remember that that little job cost the British Treasury three thousand pounds. Which was a lot of money in those days
Submarines use torpedoes more than any other kind of ship, and submarine service is the most dangerous of all branches of service in the Royal Navy.
And to any one visiting a submarine for the first time she appears to be one great mass of wonderful and complicated machinery. About one-seventh of a submarine's total displacement was occupied by the huge electric storage accumulators, which drove her under-water motors. Then room has to be found for the Diesel engines and their oil fuel which propel her on the surface, for the torpedoes which form her main armament, for the great ballast tanks, and other things too numerous and too complicated to mention. Every man on board a submarine is an expert. When a submarine submerges water is admitted to her tanks, while at the same time four horizontal rudders come into action. There are two rudders in the bows of the ship and two in the stern, and in order to submerge, the bow rudders are turned downwards and those at the stern upwards. The electric motors are then started, and the nose of the ship is forced downwards, and she glides easily beneath the surface until she is completely submerged.
Now her crew are dependent upon the periscope for knowledge of what is happening upon the surface of the sea. The main torpedo tubes of a submarine are in her bows, and when making an attack it is the submarine which is aimed at the enemy and not the individual tubes. So the submarine approaches the doomed vessel until the captain thinks she is near enough and gives the order to fire, and the deadly missiles are launched on their mission of destruction.
Thereupon pandemonium breaks out upon the surface of the sea. Perhaps the enemy ship was escorted by destroyers, and these immediately race towards the spot where the submarine was, eager to attack the daring assailant. Now begins a desperate game of hide-and-seek between the submarine and the destroyers.
Very likely the captain of the submarine decides to sink to the bottom of the sea, and lie with engines still upon the sandy bed until the danger is past. This is an anxious time. Every few seconds depth charges explode with terrific force in the surrounding sea, shaking the submarine from stem to stern, and sometimes starting leaks which have to be promptly mended., and woe to the unfortunate submarine which gets too near a depth charge.
We must not forget the Men of the Motor Torpedo boats those fast little boats travelled at 40 knots and were armed with Lewis guns
But when all is said and done it is the guns of Britain's battleships which are her main defence at sea. Some of these monsters fire a projectile weighing 1920 Ib. What an awful proof of man's ingenuity that he is able to throw such a huge shell fifteen miles or more, yet perhaps the greater wonder is that, having invented the gun and the shell, he can build a ship capable of surviving the repeated blows of such monsters of destruction.
The first Photo Shows a Depth Charge being launched against a submarine
The Second photo shows a mine layer dropping mines overboard
The Navy has always been Britain's shield, but how different the fleet of WW2 from the ships of other days. Once upon a time the chief requirement for a sailor was that he should be a stout fighter, but in WW2 that was not enough. In that Navy every man has to be an expert, for only experts can handle the complicated piece of machinery which was a British warship, and inflict damage upon an enemy which may be fifteen miles or more away. Fifteen miles! How is it done? It was done by an instrument called the range finder or telemeter, which determines the distance of the target from the ship. and in order to make shore training as much like conditions afloat as possible some of these practise telemeters can be made to pitch and roll just as they might pitch and roll on board a ship in a rough sea. But though all sailors were specialists, they still have to be handy men and be good at all sorts of jobs beside their own. Eventually they become gunners, stokers, signallers or torpedo men, but they must all do their boat drill and a dozen other things as well.
Torpedo men handle torpedoes. Each of these wonderful, cigar-shaped engines of destruction is a complete little underwater vessel in itself. In the head is the explosive charge, which explodes on contact with the target. Immediately behind this is a chamber filled with compressed air, and then comes a compartment containing the ingenious mechanism, which controls the depth at which the torpedo travels beneath the water. The engine-room follows complete with engines driven by air from the compressed air chamber, and abaft this is the buoyancy chamber, in which a mechanical steersman is housed, while last of all, at the tail of the torpedo, are the propellers which drive it through the water. A wonderful piece of mechanism, indeed, but a costly one. and the next time you read about an enemy ship being torpedoed remember that that little job cost the British Treasury three thousand pounds. Which was a lot of money in those days
Submarines use torpedoes more than any other kind of ship, and submarine service is the most dangerous of all branches of service in the Royal Navy.
And to any one visiting a submarine for the first time she appears to be one great mass of wonderful and complicated machinery. About one-seventh of a submarine's total displacement was occupied by the huge electric storage accumulators, which drove her under-water motors. Then room has to be found for the Diesel engines and their oil fuel which propel her on the surface, for the torpedoes which form her main armament, for the great ballast tanks, and other things too numerous and too complicated to mention. Every man on board a submarine is an expert. When a submarine submerges water is admitted to her tanks, while at the same time four horizontal rudders come into action. There are two rudders in the bows of the ship and two in the stern, and in order to submerge, the bow rudders are turned downwards and those at the stern upwards. The electric motors are then started, and the nose of the ship is forced downwards, and she glides easily beneath the surface until she is completely submerged.
Now her crew are dependent upon the periscope for knowledge of what is happening upon the surface of the sea. The main torpedo tubes of a submarine are in her bows, and when making an attack it is the submarine which is aimed at the enemy and not the individual tubes. So the submarine approaches the doomed vessel until the captain thinks she is near enough and gives the order to fire, and the deadly missiles are launched on their mission of destruction.
Thereupon pandemonium breaks out upon the surface of the sea. Perhaps the enemy ship was escorted by destroyers, and these immediately race towards the spot where the submarine was, eager to attack the daring assailant. Now begins a desperate game of hide-and-seek between the submarine and the destroyers.
Very likely the captain of the submarine decides to sink to the bottom of the sea, and lie with engines still upon the sandy bed until the danger is past. This is an anxious time. Every few seconds depth charges explode with terrific force in the surrounding sea, shaking the submarine from stem to stern, and sometimes starting leaks which have to be promptly mended., and woe to the unfortunate submarine which gets too near a depth charge.
We must not forget the Men of the Motor Torpedo boats those fast little boats travelled at 40 knots and were armed with Lewis guns
But when all is said and done it is the guns of Britain's battleships which are her main defence at sea. Some of these monsters fire a projectile weighing 1920 Ib. What an awful proof of man's ingenuity that he is able to throw such a huge shell fifteen miles or more, yet perhaps the greater wonder is that, having invented the gun and the shell, he can build a ship capable of surviving the repeated blows of such monsters of destruction.
The first Photo Shows a Depth Charge being launched against a submarine
The Second photo shows a mine layer dropping mines overboard
