Bracing for World War Two. Chapter Four: As Spirits Rise a Great Ship is Sunk.

Roosevelt told his people the hard facts of their lives to come, promising victory. In the South China Sea Yamamoto's planes caught Prince of Wales in an anvil attack and sent her to the bottom.

This Episode: The Japanese attacks continued through the second and third weeks of the month, including one great British catastrophe. Roosevelt went quiet on Germany hoping that Hitler would declare war on him, and he did. Churchill brought his full military team to Washington on a great battleship to meet with their American counterparts. On the voyage, Winston wrote a comprehensive blueprint for what he saw coming and what to do about it. The two nations would use the Christmas season to raise the spirits of both countries. Tallulah and Winston plotted and created a moment on Christmas Eve that secured the hinge.

This Chapter: Japan demanded that Germany join their war with America as Hitler had promised. Neither of them knew that Roosevelt wanted that too. In a Fireside Chat Roosevelt told his people they were in one big war with two big enemies who were now going to get what they deserved. He said it would be long and hard but victory would come. Winston was cheered and told Roosevelt that Prince of Wales, on the loose in the Gulf of Siam, “could catch and kill anything,” but Yamamoto knew better when he saw it coming without air cover. The battle was sudden and decisive.

Contents of “Bracing for World War Two”

1. Bleeding

2. Now Churchill Knew the Empire Would Survive

3. “A date which will live in infamy”

4. As Spirits Rise a Great Ship is Sunk

5. Hitler Declares War on America

6. Churchill Crossing the Atlantic

7. Churchill’s Plan for War on Germany

8. Churchill’s Plan for the Pacific

9. Churchill’s Plan for Invading the Continent

10. Seeing the Pacific through America’s Eyes

11. Churchill at the White House

12. “I have no doubt. None.”

Chapter Four: As Spirits Rise a Great Ship is Sunk

Reading time: Thirteen minutes

Admiral Tom Phillips was on a mission to prove that His Majesty’s Royal Navy didn’t hide from trouble, but rather carried their bared teeth into every fight, as it always had and always would. He was a feisty man, which his critics ascribed to his height of only a couple inches above five feet, but Winston Churchill was not among his critics. The Prime Minister came to know Phillips well in his most recent time as First Lord of the Admiralty and thought Phillips’s reputation within the Admiralty as a desk sailor was an undeserved reaction to his verbal pugnacity. But the fight Tom Phillips had in mind for the Prince of Wales, the ship that Winston revered above all he had ever set foot upon, would be hard to find that day.

Phillips was a little slow to make steam and by the time he got midway up the Malay peninsula the Japanese troopships had unloaded their troops and were well on their empty way back to Indochina’s Cam Ranh Bay. Phillips maintained radio silence as he searched without success. His surface search radar picked up a target, but it turned out to be three fishing trawlers. Phillips hadn’t come all this way to sink three boats of unarmed Japanese fishermen, so he let them fish, unaware that they were provisioners for the Japanese soldiers now on the peninsula. As he steamed off, the fishermen radioed to their superiors the news of their interception by a British fleet that included a giant battleship. They would also relay their position. The Japanese began stalking Prince of Wales and the other large ship in the small fleet.

*

Hiroshi Oshima, Japan’s ambassador in Berlin, hustled to Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Foreign Minister, to insist that Germany declare war on America as both he and Hitler had assured they would. Ribbentrop reminded Oshima that the Tripartite Pact stipulated only that Germany would join with a Pact member that was attacked by a non-member and, as Japan was the aggressor in this case, he would have to await the Fuhrer’s arrival from the battlefront before answering Oshima’s demand. Oshima said Hitler’s oral assurance was given unconditionally on two previous occasions and Japan had gone so far as to submit it as an amendment to the Tripartite Pact that was now awaiting Hitler’s overdue signature.

Ribbentrop asked if Oshima’s government was prepared to enter the war against Russia. Oshima answered that they would intercept any American deliveries of supplies that passed though Japanese waters on their way to Russia’s Pacific shores, but they were not currently prepared to engage the Soviets in warfare. Ribbentrop hinted that such a position would likely bear on the Führer’s decision to declare war on America. Oshima said in that case the Führer’s decision would likely bear on Japan’s willingness to intercept American deliveries to the Soviets. Oshima asked when he would get Hitler’s answer. Ribbentrop said he was expected to arrive Tuesday morning. “Be patient. He has a war to wage.” Oshima said, “So do we.”

*

On Tuesday as the sun rose, one of the destroyers of the battlefleet of Prince of Wales sighted a Japanese plane that headed south in the direction of the great battleship. As it was seen, the plane rose above cloud cover. The destroyer reported the sighting to Phillips’s bridge. After finding no troopship targets near Kota Bharu, Phillips was heading south in sight of the Malay coast hoping his luck would change while still maintaining radio silence. At 1400 hours Phillips’s fleet was sighted by a Japanese submarine that surfaced to confirm its sighting. The trailing destroyer in the convoy saw the submarine, which submerged quickly after confirming the fleet’s presence. The sighting was reported to the flagship. At 1800 the skies above Prince of Wales cleared, revealing three Japanese reconnaissance seaplanes overhead. Phillips realized his position was vulnerable and instructed the fleet to return to Singapore at full speed.

Near midnight Tuesday, Phillips picked up a report of Japanese troops landing at Kuantan, halfway between Kota Bharu and Singapore, and still eager for action he diverted his fleet to arrive there as the sun came up.

Hitler arrived in Berlin Tuesday morning and told Goebbels and Ribbentrop to postpone his Reichstag appearance until Thursday. Hans Dieckhoff, who had been Hitler’s ambassador in Washington until 1938 when both nations recalled their chief envoys, and had been in Berlin doing nothing since then, had recently produced a memorandum for Goebbels titled “Principles for Influencing American Public Opinion” that Hitler had read on the train to Berlin. He instructed that Dieckhoff should expand his recent memorandum to provide the “full list of Roosevelt’s anti-German activities.”

Ribbentrop told the Führer of Oshima’s “rude persistence that we should join them in the war against America even though we are not so obligated.” He said that he had responded by telling Oshima that the Führer would like for Japan to join the war against Russia, but Oshima said they were not ready to do that.

Hitler said, “I have no alternative but to join the war, or the Pact itself will fall apart. However, let no one know of my intention before Thursday’s address and let us keep the Japanese under pressure to attack in southern Siberia. In my speech I will prove to the German people and to the world that Roosevelt is a war criminal and he left the Japanese no choice but to defend their Empire.”

*

Tuesday evening Roosevelt sat before a bank of microphones and spoke to America. It was the nineteenth of his Fireside Chats and it had the largest audience of any of its predecessors, 62,100,000 Americans as measured by the nascent Hooper Ratings.

Over twenty-six minutes he said, “My Fellow Americans, the sudden criminal attacks perpetrated by the Japanese in the Pacific provide the climax of a decade of international immorality. Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race. Their challenge has now been flung at the United States of America. The Japanese have treacherously violated the longstanding peace between us. Many American soldiers and sailors have been killed by enemy action. American ships have been sunk; American airplanes have been destroyed.

“The Congress and the people of the United States have accepted that challenge. Together with other free peoples, we are now fighting to maintain our right to live among our world neighbors in freedom, in common decency, without fear of assault.”

He told them the full record of his effort to keep the peace and of the Japanese lies and aggressions that made it impossible.

He continued, “I can say with utmost confidence that no Americans today or a thousand years hence, need feel anything but pride in our patience and in our efforts through all the years toward achieving a peace in the Pacific which would be fair and honorable to every nation, large or small. And no honest person, today or a thousand years hence, will be able to suppress a sense of indignation and horror at the treachery committed by the military dictators of Japan, under the very shadow of the flag of peace borne by their special envoys in our midst.

“The course that Japan has followed for the past ten years in Asia has paralleled the course of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and in Africa. Today, it has become far more than a parallel. It is actual collaboration so well calculated that all the continents of the world, and all the oceans, are now considered by the Axis strategists as one gigantic battlefield.…

“We are now in this war. We are all in it — all the way. Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories — the changing fortunes of war.

He said he would tell them all that he knew so long as it did not jeopardize America’s military plans, and for their part they should be skeptical of anything they heard other than from him and the people of their government.

“It will not only be a long war, it will be a hard war. That is the basis on which we now lay all our plans. That is the yardstick by which we measure what we shall need and demand; money, materials, doubled and quadrupled production — ever-increasing. The production must be not only for our own Army and Navy and air forces. It must reinforce the other armies and navies and air forces fighting the Nazis and the war lords of Japan throughout the Americas and throughout the world.…

“On the road ahead there lies hard work — grueling work — day and night, every hour and every minute.

“And I am sure that the people in every part of the nation are prepared in their individual living to win this war. I am sure that they will cheerfully help to pay a large part of its financial cost while it goes on. I am sure they will cheerfully give up those material things that they are asked to give up. And I am sure that they will retain all those great spiritual things without which we cannot win through.

“I repeat that the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.…

“The true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers — we are builders.”

He spoke of carrying the war to Europe. It was not official, not declared, but he knew it was on their minds.

“We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this nation, and all that this nation represents, will be safe for our children. We expect to eliminate the danger from Japan, but it would serve us ill if we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated by Hitler and Mussolini.

“So we are going to win the war and we are going to win the peace that follows.

“And in the difficult hours of this day — through dark days that may be yet to come — we will know that the vast majority of the members of the human race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with us. All of them are praying for us. But, in representing our cause, we represent theirs as well — our hope and their hope for liberty under God.”

*

Two Japanese squadrons of high-level bombers and three squadrons of low-level torpedo bombers set off before dawn Wednesday from Saigon to find the British Fleet Z of Tom Phillips, but as they were unaware that Phillips had diverted to Kuantan during the night they overflew him and arrived south of his position. As the sun came up, Phillips catapulted an amphibious scout plane to inspect Kuantan. The amphibian reported no activity and flew on to Singapore. Once more, Phillips diverted his fleet to Singapore, now at flank speed, to an unexpected encounter with the Japanese planes. A reconnaissance plane peeled off after seeing and being seen by the approaching British fleet. Phillips ordered the anti-aircraft batteries of both Repulse and Prince of Wales to take their stations.

The Japanese bombers arrived minutes later and found the two ships returning single-file, port sides exposed to the east and starboards to the distant peninsular coast. Eight high-level bombers approached, themselves in single file, at an altitude of 12,000 feet, and attacked. Repulse was struck amidships, though not fatally, and Prince of Wales was missed entirely. The British A-A guns took five of the Japanese bombers out of the fight, three of those completely out of the sky to the sea.

As the battle against the planes above was joined, a phalanx of eight undetected torpedo bombers came in low from the east heading for the two ships at mere feet above the sea.

One of the first torpedoes struck Prince of Wales in her portside propeller shaft. Turning at maximum revolutions, the shaft twisted and ruptured the glands that prevented sea water from entering the ship. The propeller was stopped but bent, and upon restarting the Gulf of Siam rushed in through the damaged shaft passage opening the way to uncontrollable flooding of the engine room and other vital compartments of the great ship. She began a roll to the port, resulting in the starboard gun turrets being unable to depress far enough to engage the low-level attackers who next came from the west as the first phalanx passed above the British ships and climbed out to clear the way. The phalanx approaching from the starboard put three torpedoes in Prince of Wales’s exposed side, destroying what was left of her electrical power. With her steering unresponsive, the ship was unmanageable. Her speed had dropped to sixteen knots.

Repulse was also caught in the anvil attack. She was hit on the port side by one torpedo, and within minutes three more from the starboard. The blows were fatal and her captain issued the order to abandon ship. She listed heavily to port and rolled over and sank six minutes after the torpedoes struck. Her captain, William Tennant, was rescued. Prince of Wales stayed afloat a half-hour longer. Hundreds were rescued by the destroyers but Tom Phillips and the ship’s captain, John Leach, chose to go down with their ship.