HMS Royal Oak (08)

[Robert9670]

HMS Royal Oak (08), a Revenge - class battleship built for the Royal Navy, was named after the oak tree (Royal Oak) in which Charles II hid following his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 and was the seventh ship to bear the name Royal Oak.  Royal Oak was built at Devonport Dockyard and laid down on January 15, 1914 as the fourth ship of the Revenge - class of battleships.  Royal Oak was launched on November 17, 1914 and formally commissioned on May 1, 1916.

 

World War I and the Battle of Jutland

 

At the time when Royal Oak was commissioned, World War I had been underway for almost two years.  Royal Oak was assigned to the Third Division of the Fourth Battle Squadron of the British Grand Fleet, and later that month Royal Oak was ordered along with the rest of the British Grand Fleet to engage the German High Seas Fleet at Jutland.  Royal Oak left Scapa Flow on May 30, along with the battleships Superb, Canada, and Iron Duke (Admiral John Jellicoe's flagship).  During the Battle of Jutland, Royal Oak fired 38 15-inch shells and 84 6-inch shells and claimed 3 hits on the German battlecruiser Derfflinger and put one of her turrets out of action, along with scoring 1 hit on the German light cruiser Wiesbaden.  Though she was straddled by German shells on several occasions during the battle, Royal Oak did not take any significant damage.

 

Following the Battle of Jutland, Royal Oak was reassigned to the First Battle Squadron.  On November 5, 1918, the final week of World War I, Royal Oak was at anchor off Burntisland in the Firth of Forth along with the aircraft carrier Campania and the battlecruiser Glorious.  Suddenly, a Force 10 squall caused Campania to drag her anchor and she collided with Royal Oak and Glorious.  Both Royal Oak and Glorious suffered only minor damage, but Campania had been holed in her initial collision with Royal Oak and sank five hours later, fortunately without loss of life.  After World War I had ended, Royal Oak then escorted several vessels of the surrendering German High Seas Fleet from the Firth of Forth to Scapa Flow for internment, and was present at a ceremony in Pentland Firth to greet other ships as they followed.

 

Inter-war period and Spanish Civil War

 

Royal Oak was assigned to the Second Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet as part of the peacetime reorganization of the Royal Navy.  She was modernized during a refit in 1922-1924, which saw the addition of new rangefinders and fire control systems for both main and secondary batteries, anti-aircraft defenses were upgraded with new QF 4-inch (100 mm) high-angle mounts, and underwater protection was improved by "bulging" the ship.  The watertight chambers attached to either side of the hull were designed to reduce the effect of torpedo blasts and improve stability, but increased the ship's beam by over 13 ft (4 m) at the same time.  Once this was completed, Royal Oak joined the Mediterranean Fleet in 1926 which was based at Grand Harbour, Malta.  In 1927, Royal Oak was again refitted, which saw the removal of the two 6-inch guns from the shelter deck and the addition of two more 4-inch high-angle guns.  In 1928, Royal Oak gained worldwide attention when her senior officers were controversially court-martialled in what became known as the "Royal Oak Mutiny".  This had the effect of damaging the reputation of the Royal Navy, and as a consequence, the Admiralty undertook a review of the means by which naval officers might bring complaints against the conduct of their superiors.

 

Royal Oak received one final refit between 1934 and 1936, which saw the deck armor increased to 5 inches (12.7 cm) over the magazines, and to 3.5 inches (8.9 cm) over the engine rooms.  The ship's systems were generally modernized, and a spotter floatplane catapult was added above "X" turret.  Anti-aircraft defenses were strengthened by doubling up each of the 4-inch AA guns and adding a pair of 8-barrelled Mk VIII pom-pom guns to sponsons abreast of the funnel.  The mainmast was reconstructed as a tripod to support the weight of a radio-direction finding office and a second high-angle control station.  This extra armor and equipment made Royal Oak one of the best-equipped ships of the Revenge - class, but the additional weight did cause her to sit lower in the water and lowered her top speed by several knots.

 

When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Royal Oak conducted "non-intervention" patrols off the Iberian Peninsula.  While on such a patrol, and steaming about 30 nautical miles (56 km, 35 mi) east of Gibraltar on February 2, 1937, Royal Oak came under attack by 3 Republican aircraft.  The aircraft dropped 3 bombs, two of which exploded, within 3 cables (555 m) of the starboard bow, but caused no damage to the ship.  The British protested the incident to the Republican government, which apologized for the attack.  Later that month, on February 23 while stationed off Valencia during an aerial bombardment by Nationalist forces, Royal Oak was struck accidentally by an anti-aircraft shell fired from a Republican position, which injured 5 men, including Royal Oak's captain.  This time however, the British elected not to protest to the Republicans, deeming the incident an "Act of God".  In May 1937, she escorted the SS Habana, a liner carrying Basque child refugees, to England along with HMS Forester.  In July, Royal Oak, along with her sister ship Resolution, rescued the steamer Gordonia off Santander and prevented her capture by Spanish Nationalist warships.  However, Royal Oak could not prevent the British freighter Molton, which had been evacuating refugees, from being seized by the Spanish Nationalist cruiser Almirante Cervera while trying to enter Santander on July 14.

 

During the same period, Royal Oak starred in a 1937 film, Our Fighting Navy along with fourteen other Royal Navy warships.  In the film, Royal Oak portrayed a rebel battleship named El Mirante, and while the film was poorly received by critics, it did gain some redemption by its dramatic scenes of naval action.

 

World War II

 

Royal Oak returned to the Home Fleet in 1938 and soon became the flagship of the Second Battle Squadron, which was based in Portsmouth.  On November 24, 1938 Royal Oak returned the body of Queen Maud of Norway (who had died in London), accompanied by her husband King Haakon VII, to Oslo, Norway for a state funeral.  Paying off in December 1938, Royal Oak was recommissioned in June 1939, and in late 1939 embarked on a short training cruise in the English Channel as preparation for another 30-month tour of the Mediterranean, and her crew was pre-issued tropical uniforms accordingly.  Instead, Royal Oak was sent north to Scapa Flow as hostilities loomed, and she was at anchor there when Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939.

 

While the next few weeks proved to be uneventful, in October 1939 Royal Oak joined in the hunt for the German battleship Gneisenau, which had been ordered into the North Sea as part of a diversion for the pocket battleships Deutschland and Admiral Graf Spee which were undertaking commerce raiding.  The search for Gneisenau proved fruitless, however, and it was particularly fruitless for Royal Oak, with her top speed by now at less than 20 knots (37 km/h, 23 mph), which meant that Royal Oak could not keep up with the rest of the fleet.  Royal Oak returned to Scapa Flow on October 12, in poor shape after being battered by North Atlantic storms which smashed many of her Carley floats and several of her smaller-calibre guns were rendered inoperable.  This mission had underlined the obsolescence of the 25-year-old warship, and concerned that a recent overflight by German reconnaissance aircraft heralded a imminent air attack on Scapa Flow, Admiral Charles Forbes, commander of the Home Fleet, ordered most of the ships to disperse to safer ports.  However, Royal Oak remained behind, as her anti-aircraft guns were seen to be a useful addition to the otherwise scarce air defenses at Scapa Flow.

 

The Sinking of HMS Royal Oak (08)

 

On the night of October 14, 1939 the German submarine U-47, commanded by Gunther Prien, entered Scapa Flow at 00:27, but to the surprise of the Germans, the anchorage was almost empty.  The order to disperse to safer ports had removed some of the larger targets, and as U-47 reversed course, a lookout on the bridge suddenly spotted Royal Oak, which was at anchor only about 4,400 yards (4,000 m) to the north, and correctly identified her as a Revenge - class battleship.  Another ship was mostly hidden from view of the Germans by Royal Oak, with only the bow visible.  While Prien identified this ship as a Renown - class battlecruiser, possibly Repulse, it was in fact the World War I-era seaplane tender Pegasus.

 

At 00:58, U-47 launched a salvo of 3 torpedoes (a fourth lodged in the tube) at Royal Oak, two missed, but one found its target, striking the bow of Royal Oak at 01:04, which shook the ship and woke the crew.  Little visible damage was received, although the starboard anchor chain was severed which clattered noisily down through its slips.  Initially, the crew thought that there had been an explosion in the ship's forward inflammable store, which was used to store materials such as kerosene.  Being mindful of the unexplained explosion which had sunk the battleship Vanguard in Scapa Flow in 1917, an announcement was made over Royal Oak's tannoy system to check the magazine temperatures, however many sailors decided to return to their hammocks, not realizing that their ship was under attack.

 

U-47 turned and attempted to fire at Royal Oak with her stern torpedo tube, but this torpedo missed.  After reloading the bow torpedo tubes, U-47 doubled back and fired another salvo of 3 torpedoes, which all hit Royal Oak at 01:16.  The torpedoes all hit in quick succession, blowing a hole in the armored deck and destroying the Stoker's, Boy's, and Marine's messes along with causing a loss of electrical power.  Cordite from a magazine then ignited and the ensuing fireball passed rapidly through the ship's internal spaces, and Royal Oak soon began to list at 15 degrees.  This was enough to push the open portholes on the starboard side under the water line, and the list increased to 45 degrees.  Royal Oak sank at 01:29, about 13 minutes after U-47's strike.  833 men went down with Royal Oak as she sank, including the commander of the Second Battle Squadron, Rear-Admiral Henry Blagrove.  386 survivors of Royal Oak, including her commander, Captain William Benn, were rescued by the tender Daisy 2, which had been tied up next to Royal Oak for the night, but had cut herself loose as Royal Oak began to sink.  Even though Royal Oak had been sunk, the loss did not affect the numerical superiority enjoyed by the Royal Navy and her allies.  Royal Oak was only 1 out of 3 battleships to be lost to submarine attack during World War II, with the others being HMS Barham and the Japanese battleship Kongo.  Today, the wreck of Royal Oak is a designated war grave, and unauthorized divers are not permitted to approach the wreck at any time under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

 

HMS Royal Oak (08)

 

Career (UK)

 

Name:  HMS Royal Oak

 

Builder:  Devonport Dockyard

 

Laid down:  January 15, 1914

 

Launched:  November 17, 1914

 

Commissioned:  May 1, 1916

 

Pennant number:  08

 

Nickname:  The Mighty Oak

 

Fate:  Sunk by German submarine U-47 at Scapa Flow on October 14, 1939

 

General characteristics

 

Class and type:  Revenge - class battleship

 

Displacement:

29,150 tons (standard)

33,500 tons (full load)

 

Length:  620.5 ft (189 m)

 

Beam:

88.5 ft (27 m) - as built

102 ft (31.1 m) - after bulging

 

Draught:  28.5 ft (8.7 m)

 

Propulsion:

   4 x shaft Parsons geared turbines

   18 x Yarrow boilers

   40,000 shp (30 kW)

 

Speed:  20 knots (37 km/h, 23 mph)

 

Range:  4,000 nautical miles (7,400 km, 4,600 mi)

 

Complement:  1,009 - 1,244 officers and men

 

Armament:  

   8 x BL 15-inch Mk I guns (4 x 2)

   12 x single 6-inch (150 mm) Mark XII guns

  4 x 2 4-inch (100 mm) guns

  2 x 8 QF 2-pdr (40 mm) anti-aircraft guns

  4 x 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes

 

Armor:  

Belt:  13 inches

Upper belt:  6 inches

Barbettes:  10 inches

Turret faces:  13 inches

Turret crowns:  4 & 1/4 inches

 

Sources used:  http://www.hmsroyaloak.co.uk/, Wikipedia

[Robert9670]

[Robert9670]

HMS Revenge (foreground) and Royal Oak (background)

 

Royal Oak leading the fleet

[Robert9670]

Royal Oak at Jutland, by William L. Wylie, R.A.

[Robert9670]

A tribute video to Royal Oak

[Robert9670]

Royal Oak and other ships of the 1st Battle Squadron seen in the early 1920s

 

Another shot of Royal Oak and other ships of the 1st Battle Squadron in the early 1920s

[Robert9670]

Royal Oak in line astern

 

A memorial in St. Magnus' Cathedral, with Royal Oak's bell on display

[Snakehead1234]

At least there weren't any more serious warships in Scapa Flow. That would have been a serious blow if two battlewagons were sunk. But over all the sinking of a slow outdated battleship did nothing for the Germans but boost moral.

[PrototypeRewired]

It would seam the mighty oak has fallen....Men, bring me the seeds, for we must undo what was done by the axe.

[Robert9670]

You know, I'm looking forward to trying out some of the British ships, once they add the British into the game.  The Revenge - class battleship is one of those ships I'd like to try out.  Hey, it might be old and slow, but it can still pack a punch with its 15-inch guns.

[Robert9670]

The infiltration of Scapa Flow by U-47

[Snakehead1234]

I think if Prien wasn't so cautious he could have made a more determined attack on the sea plane tender Pegasus.

[Robert9670]

Royal Oak returning the body of Queen Maud to Norway

[Sampsonite]

Such wonderful looking ships!!

[Robert9670]

A 3-view profile drawing of HMS Revenge (06), Royal Oak's sister-ship, as she appeared in 1916

[Robert9670]

Royal Oak, date and location unknown

 

Royal Oak, date and location unknown

[Tricericon]

Robert9670, on 03 April 2013 - 06:07 PM, said:

destroyer Vanguard

?

[Robert9670]

Tricericon, on 05 April 2013 - 03:56 PM, said:

?

I fixed it.  I meant to put the battleship HMS Vanguard (1909) in there.

[Robert9670]

Royal Oak, date and location unknown

 

Royal Oak, date and location unknown

[Robert9670]

Royal Oak seen conveying the body of Queen Maud from Portsmouth, England to Oslo, Norway in November 1938

 

Royal Oak, date and location unknown

[Irishwind]

Are there any depictions on how HMS ROYAL OAK looks since she sank?

[Robert9670]

Irishwind, on 20 April 2013 - 10:34 PM, said:

Are there any depictions on how HMS ROYAL OAK looks since she sank?

Here's some pictures of how Royal Oak looks now since she sank




A video with a 3-D visualization of the wreck of HMS Royal Oak

[Irishwind]

+1 for you.  I am always interested in seeing how these proud ladies end up.