1939 HMS Courageous sunk

September 21, 1939. British Movietone News. HMS Courageous was a warship of the Royal Navy. She was built at the Armstrong Whitworth shipyard as a "large light cruiser". Courageous, her sister HMS Glorious, and half-sister HMS Furious, were the brainchildren of Admiral Jackie Fisher, and were designed to be "light cruiser destroyers". They were originally intended to be heavy support for shallow water operations in the Baltic, which ultimately never came to pass.

The design was for a light battlecruiser; while having 15-inch guns, she was actually classed by the British Navy as a light cruiser because of her light armour protection. Her keel was laid down on 28 March 1915, the ship was launched 5 February 1916, completed on 28 October 1916, and Courageous was commissioned on 4 November 1916. Courageous saw action in World War I, and then was converted into an aircraft carrier.

Courageous served with the Home Fleet in the Channel Force at the start of World War II. On 17
September 1939, under the command of Captain W. T. Mackaig-Jones, she was on an anti-submarine patrol off the coast of Ireland. Two of her four escorting destroyers had been sent to help a merchant ship under attack. During this time, Courageous was stalked for over two hours by the U-29, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto Schuhart. Then Courageous turned into the wind to launch her aircraft. This manoeuvre put the ship right across the bow of the U-29, which then fired three torpedoes. Two of the torpedoes struck the ship on her port side, and she capsized and sank in 15 minutes with the loss of 518 of her crew, including her captain. She was the first British warship to be lost in the war; the civilian passenger liner Athenia having been sunk two weeks earlier.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• HMS
• Courageous
• Royal
• Navy
• British
• Aircraft
• Carrier
• North
• Sea
• 1939
• Sinking
• U-29
• Otto
• Schuhart

[mrstupid]

My Uncle Reg Luxton survived the sinking.He was about 17.After the war,he lived in Canada for the rest of his life.Born in Devon,England

[mrx438]

My great granddad was on that.

[TheYamR6Sp]

The U-boat returned home safe and the captain recieved the knights cross!

[studentjohn36]

I don't know how old some of this footage is, so which is the 3-funneled destroyer: HMS Skate? A few others of the R class survived to 1937 (foolish of them to scrap them at that time, in hindsight)...

[MercFriendlyChat]

great to see video of this ship. couldn't see my father though. do you have more video of Courageous?