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119-537: On the night of 31 August 1940, the British 20th Destroyer Flotilla – consisting of HMS  Express , Esk , Icarus , Intrepid and Ivanhoe – sailed from Immingham to the Dutch coast northwest of Texel to lay mines . The flotilla was joined by part of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla consisting of HMS  Kelvin , Jupiter and Vortigern . While the ships were laying mines, air reconnaissance detected

238-430: A HF/DF radio direction finder mounted on a pole mainmast . Her short-range AA armament was augmented by four 20 mm (0.8 in) Oerlikon guns and the .50-calibre machine guns were replaced by a pair of Oerlikons. A split Hedgehog anti-submarine spigot mortar was installed abreast 'A' gun and stowage for 60 depth charges provided; 'Y' gun and the 12-pounder had to be removed to compensate for their weight. By

357-513: A British victory. The German strategy was therefore to try to provoke an engagement on their terms: either to induce a part of the Grand Fleet to enter battle alone, or to fight a pitched battle near the German coastline, where friendly minefields, torpedo-boats and submarines could be used to even the odds. This did not happen, however, due in large part to the necessity to keep submarines for

476-400: A German naval force moving west from Terschelling towards Britain; fearing an invasion the 20th flotilla was ordered to intercept. 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Whilst heading for this German force, the flotilla ran into a newly laid, uncharted minefield and Express was badly damaged, losing most of her bow . The explosion caused heavy casualties: ninety of

595-649: A large armored warship of 17,000 tons, armed solely with a single calibre main battery (twelve 12-inch [305 mm] guns), carrying 300-millimetre (12 in) belt armor , and capable of 24 knots (44 km/h). The Russo-Japanese War provided operational experience to validate the "all-big-gun" concept. During the Battle of the Yellow Sea on August 10, 1904, Admiral Togo of the Imperial Japanese Navy commenced deliberate 12-inch gun fire at

714-598: A large block superstructure nicknamed the "Queen Anne's castle", such as in Queen Elizabeth and Warspite , which would be used in the new conning towers of the King George V -class fast battleships . External bulges were added to improve both buoyancy to counteract weight increase and provide underwater protection against mines and torpedoes. The Japanese rebuilt all of their battleships, plus their battlecruisers, with distinctive " pagoda " structures, though

833-449: A less important role than had been expected in that conflict. The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during their heyday. There were few of the decisive fleet battles that battleship proponents expected and used to justify the vast resources spent on building battlefleets. Even in spite of their huge firepower and protection, battleships were increasingly vulnerable to much smaller and relatively inexpensive weapons: initially

952-401: A mine and she came to a stop. Five minutes later Ivanhoe struck another mine that badly damaged her bow. At about 23:20, Esk struck another mine amidships that detonated her magazines . By 01:40, Express had managed to raise steam again and steamed astern to minimise the pressure of the water on her shored-up bulkheads . The Admiralty dispatched nine motor torpedo boats (MTB) to go to

1071-591: A mine laid by a German U-boat in October 1914 and sank. The threat that German U-boats posed to British dreadnoughts was enough to cause the Royal Navy to change their strategy and tactics in the North Sea to reduce the risk of U-boat attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing concern in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships. As

1190-483: A mine laid by friendly forces, and sank with little loss of life. In May 1937, Jaime I was damaged by Nationalist air attacks and a grounding incident. The ship was forced to go back to port to be repaired. There she was again hit by several aerial bombs. It was then decided to tow the battleship to a more secure port, but during the transport she suffered an internal explosion that caused 300 deaths and her total loss. Several Italian and German capital ships participated in

1309-571: A mixed-caliber secondary battery amidships around the superstructure. An early design with superficial similarity to the pre-dreadnought is the British Devastation class of 1871. The slow-firing 12-inch (305 mm) main guns were the principal weapons for battleship-to-battleship combat. The intermediate and secondary batteries had two roles. Against major ships, it was thought a 'hail of fire' from quick-firing secondary weapons could distract enemy gun crews by inflicting damage to

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1428-546: A naval engagement. The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships. France and the United Kingdom were the only countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships although several other navies operated small numbers of screw battleships, including Russia (9), the Ottoman Empire (3), Sweden (2), Naples (1), Denmark (1) and Austria (1). The adoption of steam power

1547-537: A new naval arms race. Three major fleet actions between steel battleships took place: the long-range gunnery duel at the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904, the decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905 (both during the Russo-Japanese War ) and the inconclusive Battle of Jutland in 1916, during the First World War . Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of dreadnoughts of

1666-450: A number of 12-pound (3-inch, 76 mm) quick-firing guns for use against destroyers and torpedo-boats. Her armor was heavy enough for her to go head-to-head with any other ship in a gun battle, and conceivably win. Dreadnought was to have been followed by three Invincible -class battlecruisers, their construction delayed to allow lessons from Dreadnought to be used in their design. While Fisher may have intended Dreadnought to be

1785-569: A propeller, and her wooden hull was protected by a layer of thick iron armor. Gloire prompted further innovation from the Royal Navy , anxious to prevent France from gaining a technological lead. The superior armored frigate Warrior followed Gloire by only 14 months, and both nations embarked on a program of building new ironclads and converting existing screw ships of the line to armored frigates. Within two years, Italy, Austria, Spain and Russia had all ordered ironclad warships, and by

1904-484: A result of pressure from Admiral Sir John ("Jackie") Fisher , HMS Dreadnought rendered existing battleships obsolete. Combining an "all-big-gun" armament of ten 12-inch (305 mm) guns with unprecedented speed (from steam turbine engines) and protection, she prompted navies worldwide to re-evaluate their battleship building programs. While the Japanese had laid down an all-big-gun battleship, Satsuma , in 1904 and

2023-536: A similar design in the Bellerophon and St. Vincent classes . An American design, South Carolina , authorized in 1905 and laid down in December 1906, was another of the first dreadnoughts, but she and her sister, Michigan , were not launched until 1908. Both used triple-expansion engines and had a superior layout of the main battery, dispensing with Dreadnought ' s wing turrets. They thus retained

2142-492: A symbol of naval dominance and national might, and for decades were a major intimidation factor for power projection in both diplomacy and military strategy . A global arms race in battleship construction began in Europe in the 1890s and culminated at the decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905, the outcome of which significantly influenced the design of HMS Dreadnought . The launch of Dreadnought in 1906 commenced

2261-573: A total of 36,000 shaft horsepower (27,000 kW) and gave a maximum speed of 35.5 knots (65.7 km/h; 40.9 mph). The ships carried a maximum of 470 long tons (480 t) of fuel oil that gave them a range of 6,350 nautical miles (11,760 km; 7,310 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). Their complement was 145 officers and ratings . The ships mounted four 4.7-inch (120 mm) Mark IX guns in single mounts, designated 'A', 'B', 'X' and 'Y' from front to rear. For anti-aircraft (AA) defence, they had two quadruple mounts for

2380-633: A war scare with France and the build-up of the Russian navy gave added impetus to naval construction, and the British Naval Defence Act of 1889 laid down a new fleet including eight new battleships. The principle that Britain's navy should be more powerful than the two next most powerful fleets combined was established. This policy was designed to deter France and Russia from building more battleships, but both nations nevertheless expanded their fleets with more and better pre-dreadnoughts in

2499-463: Is a large, heavily armored warship with a main battery consisting of large- caliber guns , designed to serve as capital ships with the most intense firepower . Before the rise of supercarriers , battleships were among the largest and most formidable weapon systems ever built. The term battleship came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship , now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships . In 1906,

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2618-578: The Hiei received a more modern bridge tower that would influence the new Yamato class . Bulges were fitted, including steel tube arrays to improve both underwater and vertical protection along the waterline. The U.S. experimented with cage masts and later tripod masts , though after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor some of the most severely damaged ships (such as West Virginia and California ) were rebuilt with tower masts, for an appearance similar to their Iowa -class contemporaries. Radar, which

2737-737: The King George V class . It was in the Mediterranean that navies remained most committed to battleship warfare. France intended to build six battleships of the Dunkerque and Richelieu classes , and the Italians four Littorio -class ships. Neither navy built significant aircraft carriers. The U.S. preferred to spend limited funds on aircraft carriers until the South Dakota class . Japan, also prioritising aircraft carriers, nevertheless began work on three mammoth Yamato s (although

2856-584: The 12th DF of the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean after her repairs were completed. She escorted the aircraft carrier Illustrious on 10 September as her aircraft supported the landings at Majunga that were intended to facilitate the complete occupation of Madagascar and then returned home in February 1943 to be converted into an escort destroyer. The conversion was completed on 2 June;

2975-885: The First Geneva Naval Conference (1927), the First London Naval Treaty (1930), the Second Geneva Naval Conference (1932), and finally the Second London Naval Treaty (1936), which all set limits on major warships. These treaties became effectively obsolete on September 1, 1939, at the beginning of World War II , but the ship classifications that had been agreed upon still apply. The treaty limitations meant that fewer new battleships were launched in 1919–1939 than in 1905–1914. The treaties also inhibited development by imposing upper limits on

3094-464: The Gulf War in 1991, and then struck from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in the 2000s. Many World War II-era American battleships survive today as museum ships . A ship of the line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing ship which mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore guns and carronades , which came to prominence with the adoption of line of battle tactics in the early 17th century and

3213-761: The Home Fleet upon completion, the ship was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1935–36 during the Abyssinia Crisis . During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, she spent considerable time in Spanish waters, enforcing the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides of the conflict. Express spent most of the first year of World War II laying minefields in British, Dutch and German waters. She participated in

3332-576: The Invasion of Normandy and was sent to Canada in July to begin a lengthy refit. The ship was only operational for a few months before the war ended in May 1945 and she returned to Canada shortly afterwards. Gatineau was paid off in early 1946 and was sold the following year. The ship became part of a breakwater on the coast of British Columbia in 1948. The E-class ships were slightly improved versions of

3451-615: The North Sea on 8 September, operating under the direct control of the Commander-in-chief , Home Fleet, Admiral Sir Charles Forbes . The two destroyers made their first minelaying sortie in the Heligoland Bight on the night of 9/10 September. and did it again a week later without being detected. They then reverted to ordinary duties for the next several months, before beginning to lay defensive minefields off

3570-518: The Prince of Wales . All told, the three destroyers rescued over 2,081 survivors. Afterwards, Express escorted the minelayers Teviot Bank , Kung Wo , and the Dutch Willem van der Zaan as they laid defensive minefield around Singapore. On 24 December, she laid 18 mines of her own to block Japanese access to the harbour of Penang . The ship also escorted convoys to and from Singapore and

3689-507: The Royal Navy was able to use her imposing battleship and battlecruiser fleet to impose a strict and successful naval blockade of Germany and kept Germany's smaller battleship fleet bottled up in the North Sea : only narrow channels led to the Atlantic Ocean and these were guarded by British forces. Both sides were aware that, because of the greater number of British dreadnoughts, a full fleet engagement would be likely to result in

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3808-662: The Vickers 0.5 in (12.7 mm) AA machinegun . The E class was fitted with two above-water quadruple torpedo tube mounts for 21-inch (533 mm) torpedoes. One depth charge rail and two throwers were fitted; 20 depth charges were originally carried, but this increased to 35 shortly after the war began. To compensate for the weight of her 60 Mark XIV mines and their rails, two of Express ' s 4.7-inch guns, their ammunition, both sets of torpedo tubes, her Two-Speed Destroyer Sweep (TSDS) minesweeping paravanes , and her large boats and their davits had to be removed. She

3927-517: The battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse ( Force Z ) to Singapore in late 1941, in an unsuccessful attempt to deter Japanese aggression against British possessions in the Far East. She escorted the capital ships in an attempt to intercept landings in British Malaya in December and rescued their survivors after they were sunk by Japanese bombers . Express

4046-469: The evacuation of Allied soldiers from Dunkirk in May–June 1940, but resumed minelaying afterwards. The ship was one of five British destroyers that inadvertently entered a German minefield off the Dutch coast a few months later, leading to the sinking of two destroyers and Express having her bow blown off, incapacitating her for over a year of repairs. Two months after returning to duty, Express escorted

4165-590: The torpedo and the naval mine , and later attack aircraft and the guided missile . The growing range of naval engagements led to the aircraft carrier replacing the battleship as the leading capital ship during World War II, with the last battleship to be launched being HMS  Vanguard in 1944. Four battleships were retained by the United States Navy until the end of the Cold War for fire support purposes and were last used in combat during

4284-499: The "unsinkable" German World War I battleship SMS  Ostfriesland and the American pre-dreadnought Alabama . Although Mitchell had required "war-time conditions", the ships sunk were obsolete, stationary, defenseless and had no damage control. The sinking of Ostfriesland was accomplished by violating an agreement that would have allowed Navy engineers to examine the effects of various munitions: Mitchell's airmen disregarded

4403-462: The 175 men on board were killed or wounded, including her captain, J.G. Bickford, who was injured by the explosion. Ivanhoe then went to transfer the wounded from Express but also hit a mine and was badly damaged, the explosion killing a further 53 men and wounding the majority of the crew. Later Esk also hit a mine and the vessel sank with 127 of the ship's company killed or died at sea. Several life rafts, carrying shipwrecked sailors, drifted into

4522-451: The 1890s. In the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, the escalation in the building of battleships became an arms race between Britain and Germany . The German naval laws of 1890 and 1898 authorized a fleet of 38 battleships, a vital threat to the balance of naval power. Britain answered with further shipbuilding, but by the end of the pre-dreadnought era, British supremacy at sea had markedly weakened. In 1883,

4641-624: The 22nd Air Flotilla based in Saigon were launched carrying bombs or torpedoes. Once the British ships reached Kuantan around 07:50, Express was sent to investigate the area, but there was nothing to find. The crew of a Mitsubishi G3M "Nell" reconnaissance bomber spotted the British at 10:15 and radioed in several reports; the first bombers arrived less than an hour later. They ignored the destroyers and sank both Prince of Wales and Repulse by 13:20. Electra and Vampire moved in to rescue survivors of Repulse , while Express rescued survivors of

4760-468: The 8-inch battery being completely unusable, and the inability to train the primary and intermediate armaments on different targets led to significant tactical limitations. Even though such innovative designs saved weight (a key reason for their inception), they proved too cumbersome in practice. In 1906, the British Royal Navy launched the revolutionary HMS  Dreadnought . Created as

4879-674: The Atlantic campaign. Submarines were the only vessels in the Imperial German Navy able to break out and raid British commerce in force, but even though they sank many merchant ships, they could not successfully counter-blockade the United Kingdom; the Royal Navy successfully adopted convoy tactics to combat Germany's submarine counter-blockade and eventually defeated it. This was in stark contrast to Britain's successful blockade of Germany. The first two years of war saw

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4998-539: The Australian Vampire . The ships were spotted during the afternoon of 9 December by the Japanese submarine  I-65 , and floatplanes from several Japanese cruisers spotted the British ships later that afternoon and shadowed them until dark. Admiral Sir Tom Phillips decided to cancel the operation as the Japanese were now alerted. Force Z turned back during the evening, after having tried to deceive

5117-554: The British and French blockade. And in the Mediterranean , the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault on Gallipoli . In September 1914, the threat posed to surface ships by German U-boats was confirmed by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three British armored cruisers by the German submarine SM  U-9 in less than an hour. The British Super-dreadnought HMS  Audacious soon followed suit as she struck

5236-586: The British fleet. Less than two months later, the Germans once again attempted to draw portions of the Grand Fleet into battle. The resulting Action of 19 August 1916 proved inconclusive. This reinforced German determination not to engage in a fleet to fleet battle. In the other naval theatres there were no decisive pitched battles. In the Black Sea , engagement between Russian and Ottoman battleships

5355-634: The Dardanelles Campaign and the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought SMS  Szent István by Italian motor torpedo boats in June 1918. In large fleet actions, however, destroyers and torpedo boats were usually unable to get close enough to the battleships to damage them. The only battleship sunk in a fleet action by either torpedo boats or destroyers was the obsolescent German pre-dreadnought SMS  Pommern . She

5474-594: The Dutch East Indies. Express was transferred to the China Force , which controlled all convoys in the ABDACOM area, on 20 January 1942. Despite a boiler room fire on 6 February that damaged some of her electrical cabling and fuel tanks, the ship remained on escort duties until she arrived at Simonstown , South Africa , on 25 April to begin repairs that lasted until 26 June. Express was assigned to

5593-457: The Dutch coast where those on board were detained by the German authorities as prisoners of war . 1 September brought Kelvin and Jupiter from the 5th flotilla to help rescue the shipwrecked crews and later two light cruisers – HMS  Aurora and Galatea – arrived as an escort. Ivanhoe was scuttled by fire from Kelvin and the ships returned to port. Jupiter towed the hulk of Express until tugs could be sent out to take over. On

5712-706: The English coast in November. On 12 December, the Admiralty formed the 20th Destroyer Flotilla with Express as the flotilla leader ; the other ships assigned were Esk and the newly converted destroyers, HMS  Intrepid and Ivanhoe . The four destroyers laid 240 mines off the mouth of the Ems on the night of 17–18 December and the two sisters then began a refit at Portsmouth. Express and Esk began to lay more defensive minefields in February 1940, often with

5831-513: The German Navy, and prevented Germany from building or possessing any capital ships . The inter-war period saw the battleship subjected to strict international limitations to prevent a costly arms race breaking out. While the victors were not limited by the Treaty of Versailles, many of the major naval powers were crippled after the war. Faced with the prospect of a naval arms race against

5950-538: The High Seas Fleet be disarmed and interned in a neutral port; largely because no neutral port could be found, the ships remained in British custody in Scapa Flow , Scotland. The Treaty of Versailles specified that the ships should be handed over to the British. Instead, most of them were scuttled by their German crews on June 21, 1919, just before the signature of the peace treaty. The treaty also limited

6069-504: The Japanese that they were heading to Singora . At 00:50 on 10 December Admiral Philips received a signal of enemy landings at Kuantan and correspondingly altered course so that he would arrive shortly after dawn. The crew of the Japanese submarine  I-58 spotted Force Z at 02:20, reported their position, and fired five torpedoes, all of which missed. Based on this report the Japanese launched 11 reconnaissance aircraft before dawn to locate Force Z. Several hours later 86 bombers from

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6188-590: The Moray Firth. Whilst the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower at Jutland was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers successfully turning away the British battleships, the German attempt to rely on U-boat attacks on the British fleet failed. Torpedo boats did have some successes against battleships in World War I, as demonstrated by the sinking of the British pre-dreadnought HMS  Goliath by Muâvenet-i Millîye during

6307-777: The Netherlands on 10 May. This began an intensive series of minelaying sorties in Dutch waters during the rest of the month that saw three German minesweepers sunk on 26 July. The minelaying, however, was interrupted at the end of the month by the need to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk . On 29 May, Express towed the disabled destroyer Jaguar clear of a wreck in Dunkirk harbour and transferred many of her evacuees aboard before she could repair her engines later that day. The following day, Rear-Admiral Frederic Wake-Walker , commanding

6426-468: The North Sea were battles including the Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank and German raids on the English coast, all of which were attempts by the Germans to lure out portions of the Grand Fleet in an attempt to defeat the Royal Navy in detail. On May 31, 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on German terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets in the Battle of Jutland . The German fleet withdrew to port after two short encounters with

6545-550: The Republic, killed their officers, who apparently supported Franco's attempted coup, and joined the Republican Navy. Thus each side had one battleship; however, the Republican Navy generally lacked experienced officers. The Spanish battleships mainly restricted themselves to mutual blockades, convoy escort duties, and shore bombardment, rarely in direct fighting against other surface units. In April 1937, España ran into

6664-501: The Royal Navy's battleships and battlecruisers regularly "sweep" the North Sea making sure that no German ships could get in or out. Only a few German surface ships that were already at sea, such as the famous light cruiser SMS  Emden , were able to raid commerce. Even some of those that did manage to get out were hunted down by battlecruisers, as in the Battle of the Falklands , December 7, 1914. The results of sweeping actions in

6783-506: The Russian flagship Tzesarevich at 14,200 yards (13,000 meters). At the Battle of Tsushima on May 27, 1905, Russian Admiral Rozhestvensky's flagship fired the first 12-inch guns at the Japanese flagship Mikasa at 7,000 meters. It is often held that these engagements demonstrated the importance of the 12-inch (305 mm) gun over its smaller counterparts, though some historians take the view that secondary batteries were just as important as

6902-496: The U.S. Navy's nascent aircraft carrier program. The Royal Navy , United States Navy , and Imperial Japanese Navy extensively upgraded and modernized their World War I–era battleships during the 1930s. Among the new features were an increased tower height and stability for the optical rangefinder equipment (for gunnery control), more armor (especially around turrets) to protect against plunging fire and aerial bombing, and additional anti-aircraft weapons. Some British ships received

7021-759: The UK, the ship escorted the President of France , Albert François Lebrun , across the English Channel on 21 March en route to his state visit to the UK. She was earmarked for conversion to a boy's and anti-aircraft training ship in June, but shortages of crewmen put paid to the idea. Express was present at the Reserve Fleet Review on 5 August. Shortly after the outbreak of war in September, Express joined her sister Esk at Immingham on

7140-579: The United Kingdom and Japan, which would in turn have led to a possible Pacific war , the United States was keen to conclude the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. This treaty limited the number and size of battleships that each major nation could possess, and required Britain to accept parity with the U.S. and to abandon the British alliance with Japan. The Washington treaty was followed by a series of other naval treaties, including

7259-700: The United Kingdom had 38 battleships, twice as many as France and almost as many as the rest of the world put together. In 1897, Britain's lead was far smaller due to competition from France, Germany, and Russia, as well as the development of pre-dreadnought fleets in Italy, the United States and Japan . The Ottoman Empire, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway , the Netherlands , Chile and Brazil all had second-rate fleets led by armored cruisers , coastal defence ships or monitors . Pre-dreadnoughts continued

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7378-431: The assistance of Express and Ivanhoe once they had been notified of the incident by Intrepid and ordered that the destroyers of the 5th DF were not to enter the minefield. Captain Louis Mountbatten of the 5th DF complied until he received the report of a Royal Air Force Lockheed Hudson bomber that had spotted the two damaged destroyers about 07:00 about 25 miles (40 km) east of his position. The MTBs reached

7497-512: The attending tugboats to take over the task. Express finally arrived at Hull at 17:30 on 2 September 1940. The ship was under repair at Chatham Dockyard until 4 October 1941. Express was ordered to escort the battleship Prince of Wales to the Far East with her sister Electra where the ships would form the nucleus of a new Eastern Fleet intended to deter Japanese aggression. The trio departed Greenock on 25 October and arrived at Colombo , Ceylon , on 28 November. The following day,

7616-408: The bridge. The detonation killed 4 officers and 54 ratings; one officer and 7 crewmen were later rescued by the Germans. Esk and Ivanhoe , the closest ships to Express , closed to render assistance, while the other two destroyers turned hard to starboard and retraced their route to exit the minefield, according to standing orders. Five minutes after the first mine detonated, Esk ' s bow struck

7735-446: The commissioning of HMS  Dreadnought into the United Kingdom 's Royal Navy heralded a revolution in the field of battleship design. Subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought , were referred to as " dreadnoughts ", though the term eventually became obsolete as dreadnoughts became the only type of battleship in common use. Battleships dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and were

7854-499: The concept of an all-big-gun ship had been in circulation for several years, it had yet to be validated in combat. Dreadnought sparked a new arms race , principally between Britain and Germany but reflected worldwide, as the new class of warships became a crucial element of national power. Technical development continued rapidly through the dreadnought era, with steep changes in armament, armor and propulsion. Ten years after Dreadnought ' s commissioning, much more powerful ships,

7973-495: The defenses at the Battle of Kinburn . Nevertheless, wooden-hulled ships stood up comparatively well to shells, as shown in the 1866 Battle of Lissa , where the modern Austrian steam two-decker SMS  Kaiser ranged across a confused battlefield, rammed an Italian ironclad and took 80 hits from Italian ironclads, many of which were shells, but including at least one 300-pound shot at point-blank range. Despite losing her bowsprit and her foremast, and being set on fire, she

8092-524: The destroyers Encounter and Jupiter joined them from the Mediterranean Fleet as did the battlecruiser Repulse . The force then set course for Singapore, where they arrived on 2 December. After receiving the reports of the attack on Pearl Harbor and landings in Malaya by the Japanese, Force Z put to sea in the late afternoon of 8 December in an attempt to intercept the invasion convoys. This consisted of Prince of Wales and Repulse , escorted by four destroyers, Electra , Express , Tenedos , and

8211-428: The disaster, some badly burned, contributed to the myth that a German invasion had been repulsed by the use of burning oil floated on the sea. One theory amongst British civilians and press of the time laid the blame for the disaster with Lord Louis Mountbatten . HMS Express (H61) HMS Express was an E-class minelaying destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. Although assigned to

8330-432: The end of World War I, aircraft had successfully adopted the torpedo as a weapon. In 1921 the Italian general and air theorist Giulio Douhet completed a hugely influential treatise on strategic bombing titled The Command of the Air , which foresaw the dominance of air power over naval units. In the 1920s, General Billy Mitchell of the United States Army Air Corps , believing that air forces had rendered navies around

8449-402: The end of the sailing battleship's heyday in the 1830s. From 1794, the alternative term 'line of battle ship' was contracted (informally at first) to 'battle ship' or 'battleship'. The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant a ship of the line could wreck any wooden enemy, holing her hull , knocking down masts , wrecking her rigging , and killing her crew. However, the effective range of

8568-864: The end of the war in May. Gatineau returned to Canada in June and was refitted in Halifax 11–19 July before she was transferred to the West Coast . The ship was paid off into reserve at Esquimalt on 10 January 1946 and struck from the Navy List on 1 April 1947. Gatineau was then sold to Capital Iron & Steel Metals of Victoria, British Columbia ; her hulk was used to form a breakwater at Royston, British Columbia ( 49°39′14.26″N 124°56′53.74″W  /  49.6539611°N 124.9482611°W  / 49.6539611; -124.9482611 ) in 1948. She remained visible for many years, but little remained of her hull by 2004. Battleship A battleship

8687-459: The end of the war, a Type 277 radar had replaced the Type 271, and the Type 286 had been superseded by a Type 291. Express , the eighth ship of that name to serve with the Royal Navy, was ordered 1 November 1932, from Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson at Wallsend under the 1931 Naval Programme, for use as a destroyer that could quickly be converted for use as a minelayer when required. She

8806-519: The first shots of World War II with the bombardment of the Polish garrison at Westerplatte ; and the final surrender of the Japanese Empire took place aboard a United States Navy battleship, USS  Missouri . Between those two events, it had become clear that aircraft carriers were the new principal ships of the fleet and that battleships now performed a secondary role. Battleships played

8925-676: The following day, Express was loaned to the Royal Canadian Navy and commissioned with the name Gatineau . On 15 June, the ship was given to Canada where she was assigned to Escort Group C3 and assigned to the Mid-Ocean Escort Force for convoy duties in the North Atlantic . While protecting Convoy HX 280 , she helped to sink the German submarine  U-744 on 6 March 1944. Two months later, Gatineau

9044-402: The guns was as little as a few hundred yards, so the battle tactics of sailing ships depended in part on the wind. Over time, ships of the line gradually became larger and carried more guns, but otherwise remained quite similar. The first major change to the ship of the line concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system . Steam power was gradually introduced to

9163-548: The introduction of 8-inch shell guns as part of the standard armament of French and American line-of-battle ships in 1841. In the Crimean War , six line-of-battle ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853. Later in the war, French ironclad floating batteries used similar weapons against

9282-563: The large auxiliary minelayers Princess Victoria and Teviot Bank . On the night of 2/3 March, the sisters were joined by the newly converted destroyers HMS  Icarus and HMS  Impulsive in laying mines near Horns Reef , in the Heligoland Bight, that sank the German submarine  U-44 in March, and later the submarines U-50 , U-1 , and U-25 . After resuming defensive minelaying later that month, Express

9401-481: The larger weapons when dealing with smaller fast-moving torpedo craft. Such was the case, albeit unsuccessfully, when the Russian battleship  Knyaz Suvorov at Tsushima had been sent to the bottom by destroyer -launched torpedoes. The 1903–04 design also retained traditional triple-expansion steam engines . As early as 1904, Jackie Fisher had been convinced of the need for fast, powerful ships with an all-big-gun armament. If Tsushima influenced his thinking, it

9520-412: The last Royal Navy battleship, the design was so successful he found little support for his plan to switch to a battlecruiser navy. Although there were some problems with the ship (the wing turrets had limited arcs of fire and strained the hull when firing a full broadside, and the top of the thickest armor belt lay below the waterline at full load), the Royal Navy promptly commissioned another six ships to

9639-525: The late stages of the campaign in 1942. Express returned home in early 1943 to begin conversion into an escort destroyer . Upon its completion in June, the ship was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and renamed Gatineau . She was assigned to convoy escort duties with the Mid-Ocean Escort Force and participated in sinking a German submarine in March 1944. Gatineau was transferred to Northern Ireland in preparation in May for

9758-415: The mid-1870s steel was used as a construction material alongside iron and wood. The French Navy's Redoutable , laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876, was a central battery and barbette warship which became the first battleship in the world to use steel as the principal building material. The term "battleship" was officially adopted by the Royal Navy in the re-classification of 1892. By the 1890s, there

9877-428: The navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft and later for frigates . The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850 —the first true steam battleship. Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h), regardless of the wind. This was a potentially decisive advantage in

9996-421: The next several months were defensive in nature. On the evening of 31 August 1940, Express , Esk , Icarus , Intrepid , and Ivanhoe departed Immingham to lay an offensive minefield off Texel , with cover provided by three destroyers of the 5th DF. At 23:07 it became clear that the ships of the 20th Flotilla had entered a German minefield when Express struck a mine abreast 'B' gun, losing her entire bow up to

10115-465: The non-intervention blockade. On May 29, 1937, two Republican aircraft managed to bomb the German pocket battleship Deutschland outside Ibiza , causing severe damage and loss of life. Admiral Scheer retaliated two days later by bombarding Almería , causing much destruction, and the resulting Deutschland incident meant the end of German and Italian participation in non-intervention. The Schleswig-Holstein —an obsolete pre-dreadnought —fired

10234-496: The preceding D class . They displaced 1,405 long tons (1,428 t) at standard load and 1,940 long tons (1,970 t) at deep load . The ships had an overall length of 329 feet (100.3 m), a beam of 33 feet 3 inches (10.1 m) and a draught of 12 feet 6 inches (3.8 m). They were powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines , each driving one propeller shaft , using steam provided by three Admiralty three-drum boilers . The turbines developed

10353-561: The rest of the year at home, before patrolling Spanish waters in the Mediterranean in January–March 1937, enforcing the edicts of the Non-Intervention Committee . After a brief refit, Express then conducted minelaying trials for two months and was refitted again at Portsmouth between 9 August–2 October. Shortly afterwards, the ship had a fire in her forward boiler room that badly damaged her electrical cabling; she

10472-470: The rules, and sank the ship within minutes in a coordinated attack. The stunt made headlines, and Mitchell declared, "No surface vessels can exist wherever air forces acting from land bases are able to attack them." While far from conclusive, Mitchell's test was significant because it put proponents of the battleship against naval aviation on the defensive. Rear Admiral William A. Moffett used public relations against Mitchell to make headway toward expansion of

10591-439: The same broadside, despite having two fewer guns. In 1897, before the revolution in design brought about by HMS  Dreadnought , the Royal Navy had 62 battleships in commission or building, a lead of 26 over France and 50 over Germany. From the 1906 launching of Dreadnought , an arms race with major strategic consequences was prompted. Major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts. Possession of modern battleships

10710-407: The ships first, around 08:00, and evacuated all of Express ' s crew. Mountbatten's destroyers spotted Express around 08:40, and Kelvin took her in tow, stern first, twenty minutes later. The tow cable, however, fouled one of Kelvin ' s propellers and had to be cut. Jupiter then took over the tow. The threat of aerial attack at 19:45 forced Jupiter to slip her tow and allow one of

10829-469: The ships involved in the evacuation, briefly hoisted his flag aboard her. She was lightly damaged by bomb splinters on 31 May, but continued to ferry soldiers back to England. The ship and the destroyer Shikari were the last ships to leave Dunkirk with troops on 4 June when the evacuation ended. She brought out 3,419 troops over the course of the operation. The ships of the 20th Flotilla resumed minelaying operations on 15 June, although most of these over

10948-472: The strategic position had changed. In Germany , the ambitious Plan Z for naval rearmament was abandoned in favor of a strategy of submarine warfare supplemented by the use of battlecruisers and commerce raiding (in particular by Bismarck -class battleships). In Britain, the most pressing need was for air defenses and convoy escorts to safeguard the civilian population from bombing or starvation, and re-armament construction plans consisted of five ships of

11067-659: The super-dreadnoughts, were being built. In the first years of the 20th century, several navies worldwide experimented with the idea of a new type of battleship with a uniform armament of very heavy guns. Admiral Vittorio Cuniberti , the Italian Navy's chief naval architect, articulated the concept of an all-big-gun battleship in 1903. When the Regia Marina did not pursue his ideas, Cuniberti wrote an article in Jane ' s proposing an "ideal" future British battleship,

11186-528: The superstructure, and they would be more effective against smaller ships such as cruisers . Smaller guns (12-pounders and smaller) were reserved for protecting the battleship against the threat of torpedo attack from destroyers and torpedo boats . The beginning of the pre-dreadnought era coincided with Britain reasserting her naval dominance. For many years previously, Britain had taken naval supremacy for granted. Expensive naval projects were criticized by political leaders of all inclinations. However, in 1888

11305-487: The technical innovations of the ironclad. Turrets, armor plate, and steam engines were all improved over the years, and torpedo tubes were also introduced. A small number of designs, including the American Kearsarge and Virginia classes , experimented with all or part of the 8-inch intermediate battery superimposed over the 12-inch primary. Results were poor: recoil factors and blast effects resulted in

11424-488: The third, Shinano , was later completed as a carrier) and a planned fourth was cancelled. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War , the Spanish navy included only two small dreadnought battleships, España and Jaime I . España (originally named Alfonso XIII ), by then in reserve at the northwestern naval base of El Ferrol , fell into Nationalist hands in July 1936. The crew aboard Jaime I remained loyal to

11543-406: The threat posed to dreadnought battleships proved to have been largely a false alarm. HMS Audacious turned out to be the only dreadnought sunk by a submarine in World War I. While battleships were never intended for anti-submarine warfare, there was one instance of a submarine being sunk by a dreadnought battleship. HMS Dreadnought rammed and sank the German submarine U-29 on March 18, 1915, off

11662-596: The time of the famous clash of the USS ; Monitor and the CSS ; Virginia at the Battle of Hampton Roads at least eight navies possessed ironclad ships. Navies experimented with the positioning of guns, in turrets (like the USS Monitor ), central-batteries or barbettes , or with the ram as the principal weapon. As steam technology developed, masts were gradually removed from battleship designs. By

11781-484: The war wore on however, it turned out that whilst submarines did prove to be a very dangerous threat to older pre-dreadnought battleships, as shown by examples such as the sinking of Mesûdiye , which was caught in the Dardanelles by a British submarine and HMS  Majestic and HMS  Triumph were torpedoed by U-21 as well as HMS  Formidable , HMS  Cornwallis , HMS  Britannia etc.,

11900-452: The war, and it was the last major battle in naval history fought primarily by battleships. The Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships, though technical innovation in battleship design continued. Both the Allied and Axis powers built battleships during World War II, though the increasing importance of the aircraft carrier meant that the battleship played

12019-413: The way, Galatea hit a further mine and was slightly damaged. The final toll of the disaster was approximately 300 killed, with a further 100 injured or taken prisoner; this was the greatest loss of life suffered by Nore Command since the evacuation of Dunkirk . The German "invasion force" turned out to be a small minelaying unit transferring from Cuxhaven to Rotterdam . The casualties returning from

12138-642: The weights of ships. Designs like the projected British N3-class battleship, the first American South Dakota class , and the Japanese Kii class —all of which continued the trend to larger ships with bigger guns and thicker armor—never got off the drawing board. Those designs which were commissioned during this period were referred to as treaty battleships . As early as 1914, the British Admiral Percy Scott predicted that battleships would soon be made irrelevant by aircraft . By

12257-468: The world obsolete, testified in front of Congress that "1,000 bombardment airplanes can be built and operated for about the price of one battleship" and that a squadron of these bombers could sink a battleship, making for more efficient use of government funds. This infuriated the U.S. Navy, but Mitchell was nevertheless allowed to conduct a careful series of bombing tests alongside Navy and Marine bombers. In 1921, he bombed and sank numerous ships, including

12376-512: Was laid down 24 March 1932, and launched on 29 May 1934. The ship was commissioned on 2 November 1934, at a total cost of £ 247,279, excluding government-furnished equipment like the armament. Express and her sister ships were assigned to the 5th Destroyer Flotilla (DF) of the Home Fleet. She remained at home for the next nine months while her armament was adjusted at Sheerness Dockyard from 13 December to 5 January 1935. The ship

12495-462: Was an increasing similarity between battleship designs, and the type that later became known as the 'pre-dreadnought battleship' emerged. These were heavily armored ships, mounting a mixed battery of guns in turrets, and without sails. The typical first-class battleship of the pre-dreadnought era displaced 15,000 to 17,000  tons , had a speed of 16 knots (30 km/h), and an armament of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns in two turrets fore and aft with

12614-626: Was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet, together with most of the rest of her flotilla, beginning in September 1935, during the Abyssinian Crisis, and returned home in March 1936. Upon her arrival, Express was refitted at Portsmouth Dockyard 23 March–4 May. The ship was then temporarily assigned to Gibraltar for the next two months as tensions rose before the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. She then spent

12733-456: Was damaged in a collision with the fishing trawler Manx Admiral off Kinnaird Head on 23 March and was under repair until 24 April. On the night of 9/10 May, Express , Esk and Intrepid laid another minefield in the Heligoland Bight and were diverted on their return voyage to escort Princess Victoria as she mined Dutch waters off Egmond the following night after the Germans invaded

12852-411: Was effective beyond visual range and effective in complete darkness or adverse weather, was introduced to supplement optical fire control. Even when war threatened again in the late 1930s, battleship construction did not regain the level of importance it had held in the years before World War I. The "building holiday" imposed by the naval treaties meant the capacity of dockyards worldwide had shrunk, and

12971-462: Was given small sponsons at the stern to ensure smooth delivery of her mines. Express had her rear torpedo tubes replaced by a 12-pounder (76 mm) AA gun in July 1940. In February–June 1943, she was converted into an escort destroyer. A Type 286 short-range surface search radar was fitted and a Type 271 target indication radar was installed above the bridge , replacing the director-control tower and rangefinder . The ship also received

13090-425: Was not only seen as vital to naval power, but also, as with nuclear weapons after World War II , represented a nation's standing in the world. Germany , France , Japan , Italy , Austria , and the United States all began dreadnought programmes; while the Ottoman Empire , Argentina , Russia , Brazil , and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American yards. By virtue of geography,

13209-399: Was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad : powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells . Guns that fired explosive or incendiary shells were a major threat to wooden ships, and these weapons quickly became widespread after

13328-400: Was ready for action again the very next day. The development of high-explosive shells made the use of iron armor plate on warships necessary. In 1859 France launched Gloire , the first ocean-going ironclad warship. She had the profile of a ship of the line, cut to one deck due to weight considerations. Although made of wood and reliant on sail for most journeys, Gloire was fitted with

13447-435: Was repaired at Gibraltar from 24 October to 3 December. Express spent most of 1938 at home other than one period in Spanish waters, where she was based out of Gibraltar. During her time at Portsmouth, the ship operated as a minelayer from 15 August to 4 October, before beginning a refit there on 21 November that lasted to 16 January 1939. Upon its completion, Express returned to Gibraltar for several months. After returning to

13566-517: Was restricted to skirmishes. In the Baltic Sea , action was largely limited to the raiding of convoys, and the laying of defensive minefields; the only significant clash of battleship squadrons there was the Battle of Moon Sound at which one Russian pre-dreadnought was lost. The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by

13685-425: Was sunk by destroyers during the night phase of the Battle of Jutland. The German High Seas Fleet, for their part, were determined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines; and since the submarines were needed more for raiding commercial traffic, the fleet stayed in port for much of the war. For many years, Germany simply had no battleships. The Armistice with Germany required that most of

13804-648: Was then assigned convoy escort duties in and around Singapore and the Dutch East Indies under the control of American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) as the Japanese advanced . She escaped from the East Indies and rejoined the main body of the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean . The ship played a minor role in Battle of Madagascar as she screened an aircraft carrier during

13923-441: Was to persuade him of the need to standardise on 12-inch (305 mm) guns. Fisher's concerns were submarines and destroyers equipped with torpedoes, then threatening to outrange battleship guns, making speed imperative for capital ships . Fisher's preferred option was his brainchild, the battlecruiser : lightly armored but heavily armed with eight 12-inch guns and propelled to 25 knots (46 km/h) by steam turbines . It

14042-502: Was to prove this revolutionary technology that Dreadnought was designed in January 1905, laid down in October 1905 and sped to completion by 1906. She carried ten 12-inch guns, had an 11-inch armor belt, and was the first large ship powered by turbines. She mounted her guns in five turrets; three on the centerline (one forward, two aft) and two on the wings , giving her at her launch twice the broadside of any other warship. She retained

14161-491: Was transferred to the 11th Escort Group , based at Derry , to prepare for the invasion of France (Operation Overlord) by patrolling British waters. She sailed to Halifax in July to begin a lengthy refit that lasted from 3 August to 16 February 1945. The ship spent March working up at the Anti-Submarine Training School at Tobermory before beginning anti-submarine patrols in British waters until

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