Force Z The Battle

[thekrazeone]

@thekrazeone remember reading the mistake british made was resetting to better aa fire because the repulse had doge 30 pluse torprdoes when the got prince closer the batlleship took a couple hits then repulse was then it was over

[transonicbuoy1]

US narration pulls no punches - but it takes a better narration to get the message across. Guy there speaks like a cliched Texan: only way to win is to destroy everything you see. And what goes round, comes round, as we have seen.

[Navyfieldguy]

Cool video thanks for posting!

[relarerfhjk]

The sinking of those ships marked the end of our Empire, and the end of the Royal Navy

[riseABOVEtheman]

noway, after the embarrassment of loosing them we simply sent more and more ships and men to fight, the sinking was kept very low key.

[relarerfhjk]

It was the first time Britain had lost capital ships at sea, and, amazingly, it wasnt to another ship, but to aerial attack! That meant the British knew the era of battleships was over. The sinking of the ships was the end of the Empire, because it left Malaya exposed to seaborne assault, and allowed the Japs to land at Khota Baru, then Singapore, and we all know what happend next....

[riseABOVEtheman]

It's true that the Japanese proved the value of aircraft carriers to the world and to Britain and the US. But Britain rule of the sea's was still strong in the Atlantic with the battle ships playing crucial role's in sinking and protecting convoys. Britain also started investing heavily in new aircraft carriers

[relarerfhjk]

It was the end of the Royal Navy as a battleship force, because no more large battleships were ever built after Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk. The end of an era. There is no doubt this incident also ended the British Empire, because the subsequent fall of Singapore was the death knell to Britain's Far East colonies. What's the point dominating the Atlantic? Britain lost World War 2,because at the end of it we were a bankrupt,decaying nation with no Empire.The US were the true winners.

[riseABOVEtheman]

that i can agree with, i heard that we only finished paying the US off for the ships and supplies 7 years ago. How ever much of the far east was still under British reign. Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and India where never overtaken by the Japanese. The battleship went out fighting though with ships like the Bismark and Yamato, also the US kept a battleship in-service up to the end of the Vietnam war.

[relarerfhjk]

India, Burma and the other Far East colonies were given away almost as soon as Britain recaptured them at the end of the war. The defeat at Singapore had sealed the fate of the Empire, because we were no longer feared, after the Asian countries saw how easy we were to defeat. Thus the uprisings in India, Burma etc...The Empire quickly evaporated as soon as this war was over. And Britain never built another capital ship after Repulse,which shows the age of battleships was over, after this battle.

[riseABOVEtheman]

Britain's main problem in asia was big headedness (if thats even a word) they saw a very real threat and our arogance made us turn a blind eye

[relarerfhjk]

Our main problem in Asia was actually our stupid decision to enter World War 2, by making that idiotic guarantee to defend the Czechs.This meant our Asian outposts were under-equipped, E.g in Singapore we had only a few planes, no aircraft carriers and no tanks so the Japs controlled the air, sea and land.Hitler had no interest in our Far East Empire,he would never have dared attack Britain coz of the Royal Navy. We could have stayed out of World War 2 and focused on defending our Asian colonies

[riseABOVEtheman]

it was the pole's we needed to defend, and we ended up benefiting hugely from both world wars e.g. we captured leading German scientists who allowed us to make a jet plane

[relarerfhjk]

we promised to defend the czechs, and we didnt defend either them or the Poles and we knew it. Instead of making stupid promises we should have stayed out of the war? We benefited hugely? In the First World War we lost a whole generation of men over a quarrel that had nothing to do with us, and in the the second world war, we lost our Empire, our prestige,went bankrupt, turned into a socialist state and the USA took over as the worlds major power.

[riseABOVEtheman]

officaly by the start of WW1 Britain had been overtaken as the largest producer of goods by the USA and Germany so we had lost part of our super power status before we even entered WW1. Benefits where made in WW1 such as advancement in avionics and the development of the tank. It also strengthened our relationship with the US and France.

[relarerfhjk]

we lost our superpowerstatus, coz of defence cuts, and coz of our equally stupid decision to enter the Boer War YET ANOTHER conflict we should have stayed out of, which had nothing to do with us, and cost over a million british lives.World war 1 had no benefits for us, we did not need the French they never helped us and capitulated easily in WW2.The US? They were never our friends they were our rivals and wanted to destroy our empire hence they kept us in debt after ww2

[riseABOVEtheman]

the British defence budget was going up at the time of WW1 not down. It was a time of a huge naval arms race between Britain and Germany, which led to the creation of HMS Dreadnought. Its highly probable that Britain would have gone to war on her own accord. Also if we did what you suggest and sat on our arses we would have lost millions with our EU trading partners. I KEEP SAYING THAT WE DID BENEFIT FROM WW1!! Women earned the right to vote and the lives of civilians where improved

[relarerfhjk]

The defence budget was going up because it had ben drastically cut,and we had lost much of our military infrastructure during the Boer war, which came so close to defeat that we set up a welfare state as a result of how poorly our soldiers performed. The naval arms race was a deterrent there was no need to declare war on Germany first.The "benefits" you describe were either not real benefits "ie relations with the US" (or would have come about anyway, such as women earning the right to vote.

[riseABOVEtheman]

women only earned the right to vote because of the work they did in the factories during WW1

[relarerfhjk]

Nonsense, women earned the right to vote in all Western democracies over many years regardless of whether they participated in World Wars or not. The suffrage movement was advanced in all countries. Its a poor excuse for a pointless war that cost millions of lives that at least it helped women vote.

[pramboy09]

@riseABOVEtheman woman were voting in new zealand well before ww 1

[relarerfhjk]

And also we wouldnt have lost any trade with Europe, because, back then, they needed our exports more than we needed theirs, particularly as we controlled a lucrative Empire rich in natural resources which gave us massive trading power. Womens suffrage would have happened anyway, as it did all across the West, and life for civilians got worse after WW1 because we were impoversihed from war,and a whole generation was lost

[riseABOVEtheman]

We needed them, what good is it having goods if the people you sell them to have been overtaken by the Germans? At the end of WW1 Germany had to pay out millions (equivalent to billions in today's money) to the allies. The end of WW1 also meant that Germany was reduced to a second rate military only being allowed 100,000 men in the army. Unfortunately Hitler reinstated their military status in 1933 and we didn't stop him whilst we could.

[relarerfhjk]

Yes but the point is they needed our goods! When you control the trading posts of Bombay, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Asian markets, as the British did, then Europe has no choice but to trade with you! The end of World War 1 made Germany MORE powerful as it paved the way for World War 2, particularly the anger at the unfair Versailles Treaty.WW2 would never have happened without WW1 and Versailles. We couldnt stop Hitler in the 30's we should have let him and Stalin fight and stayed out.

[riseABOVEtheman]

also we didn't loose our empire for another 25 years

[relarerfhjk]

we lost our empire,to all intents and purposes, the day Singapore fell. Every historian agrees that was the turning point, After that it was just a matter of how quickly we scuttled from the other colonies. We quit India/Palestine/Iraq just a few years later. if we hadnt entered world war 2, we would have had enough planes and tanks/aircraft carriers to defend singapore and we would have kept the empire instead of humiliating defeat

[relarerfhjk]

One more thing. We should never have fought World War 2, just as we should never have entered World War 1 or the Boer War.

[riseABOVEtheman]

i don't really know much about the boer war but we where forced in to WW1 by the trialliance between us the french and the russians, similar story with WW2 because Britain needed to keep it's credibility with the rest of the world.

[relarerfhjk]

We had the option to stay out of World War 1. Our national interests were not threatened,we should never have involved ourselves in a foreign quarrel, and there would have been no Versailles Treaty and thus no World War 2. Britain could have avoided entering World War 2, the mistake we made was promising to defend the Czechs from invasion. We should never have made a promise we could not keep, we should have let Hitler and Stalin destroy each other, and concentrated on building up our defences

[riseABOVEtheman]

our national interests where indeed threatened, if Germany carried on with it's empire building then it would have been inevitable for us to have thought them anyway.

[relarerfhjk]

wrong. We could have deterred Germany just by staying at home,building up our defences and expanding the Royal Navy which was already far too powerful for their navy, as we demonstrated at the Battle of Jutland.