1117 HMS PRINCE OF WALES - DECEMBER 1941

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.