BRITISH BATTLESHIP PRINCE OF WALES - BATTLE OF MALAYA

HMS Prince of Wales was a British battleship laid down in 1937, launched in May 1939, and commissioned in the Royal Navy in March 1941. The total length of the ship was 227 m, width 31.5 m, and full displacement - 42,100 tons. The maximum speed of the battleship Prince of Wales was around 28 knots. The main armament at the time of the launch was 10 356 mm guns in two turrets with four guns and one twin turret. The secondary armament consists of 16 133 mm guns, 49 40 mm AA cannons and 7 20 mm cannons. HMS Prince of Wales was the second of five King George V-class battleships. Battleships of this type were the first, after 1918, in which British designers no longer had to pay attention to disarmament routes, especially the London route of 1930. They were also built for planned clashes with Italian battleships in the Mediterranean Sea, German battleships in the North Sea and - especially - Japanese battleships in the Far East. As a result, ships with strong artillery armament, especially medium artillery, and above all with powerful armor, were created. HMS Prince of Wales battleship was built at the Cammell-Laird shipyard in Birkenhead. Almost immediately after its commissioning, it was sent to fight the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941 - during the battle with this ship in the Danish Strait, it suffered serious damage. After renovation, it returned to the Home Fleet depot with a base in Scapa Flow. In August 1941, he played a role in diplomacy by ferrying Prime Minister Winston Churchill to North America to meet US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was on board HMS Prince of Wales that the Atlantic Charter was signed on August 14, 1941. After returning to Great Britain, she was briefly dispatched to the Mediterranean Sea and later to the Far East with the battleship HMS Repulse. On December 10, 1941, both ships were sunk by the Japanese air force in the South China Sea.The sea battle of Kuantanam was fought on December 10, 1941 in the South China Sea, in the south-eastern part of the Peninsula. Malay. The antagonists in this battle were the British Royal Navy and the Japanese naval aviation operating - interestingly - primarily from land bases. It was the first British-Japanese clash of such a scale in World War II. The genesis of the Battle of Kuantanam dates back to the decision of the British Prime Minister in October 1941 to strengthen the Royal Navy in the Far East by moving a strong fleet team to this area. The team originally was to consist of the airport HMS Indomitable and the battleships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse. However, in the end, only battleships (the so-called Team Z) were sent to the Malaya region, which later also received a destroyer escort. A cardinal error, as it turned out later, was the insufficient anti-aircraft defense of the team. Immediately after the information about the attack on Pearl Harbor and the information about the approach of the Japanese convoy to Malaya, the commander of the team (adm. Philips) decided to meet him, with the intention of waging a sea battle. However, as soon as he realized the loss of the element of surprise, he decided to return to the British base in Singapore on the night of December 9-10, 1941. However, it was detected by the Japanese submarine I-58, which passed the information to the Japanese command, and this decided to attack the British battleships with its aviation. The Battle of Kuantanam began around 10.00 am on December 10, 1941. It was a thoroughly unequal battle in which about 100 Japanese planes fought a total of six British ships (two battleships and four destroyers). The battle lasted only about 2 clock hours and led to the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse! The Japanese side, with the loss of about 30 aircraft, achieved a gigantic success, gaining complete freedom of operation in Malaya, as well as once again proving the power of sea aviation.