The Day Of Infamy on December 7, 1941 was an attack —— it was not a heroic battle fought by iron ships and iron men. Indeed, WWII battleships have been museum pieces for decades.
USS MISSOURI
USS NEW JERSEY
There will never be another great battle between surface ships . Even aircraft carrier battle groups are peacetime weapons made obsolete by intercontinental missiles, drones armed with missiles, and deadly accurate torpedoes. In fact, the next world war will be won by submarines launching nuclear missiles from deep in the sea. Those undersea boats will never see an enemy ship. With that observation in mind I want to cite a few of the last great sea battles.
I will begin in 1939:
Admiral Graf Spee shortly after her scuttling
Funeral procession of a sailor from the Graf Spee. At Captain Langsdorff’s funeral the pallbearers were officers. Captain Langsdorff, shot himself on 20 December, after scuttling his ship on 17 December.
The Hunt for the Pride of the German Navy – Admiral Graf Spee
WORLD WAR II
Feb 28, 2019
Christian Oord, Guest Author
THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY
www.history.com
THE BISMARCK
nationalinterest.org
Germany had one colorful victory. They make movies about this one:
ROYAL OAK
U-47, a 753-ton Type VIIB submarine built at Kiel, Germany was commissioned in December 1938. On 14 October 1939, in a carefully planned operation, she made a daring penetration of the British fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow and sank the battleship Royal Oak. This feat made U-47 and her commanding officer, Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien, World-famous. Over the following year and a half, the two achieved continued successes against Allied shipping. Finally, on 8 March 1941, while attacking a convoy south of Iceland, U-47 was destroyed by the British destroyer Wolverine, killing Prien and his entire crew.
en.wikipedia.org
USS MISSOURI
USS NEW JERSEY
There will never be another great battle between surface ships . Even aircraft carrier battle groups are peacetime weapons made obsolete by intercontinental missiles, drones armed with missiles, and deadly accurate torpedoes. In fact, the next world war will be won by submarines launching nuclear missiles from deep in the sea. Those undersea boats will never see an enemy ship. With that observation in mind I want to cite a few of the last great sea battles.
I will begin in 1939:
Admiral Graf Spee shortly after her scuttling
Funeral procession of a sailor from the Graf Spee. At Captain Langsdorff’s funeral the pallbearers were officers. Captain Langsdorff, shot himself on 20 December, after scuttling his ship on 17 December.
The Hunt for the Pride of the German Navy – Admiral Graf Spee
WORLD WAR II
Feb 28, 2019
Christian Oord, Guest Author
THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY
Battle of Midway - Location, Outcome & Significance
The Battle of Midway was an epic WWII clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy’s decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) dashed Japan’s hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval...
www.history.com
THE BISMARCK
Why the Nazi’s Bismarck Battleship Just Refused to Die
It was too strong for any one ship to take on.
Germany had one colorful victory. They make movies about this one:
ROYAL OAK
U-47, a 753-ton Type VIIB submarine built at Kiel, Germany was commissioned in December 1938. On 14 October 1939, in a carefully planned operation, she made a daring penetration of the British fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow and sank the battleship Royal Oak. This feat made U-47 and her commanding officer, Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien, World-famous. Over the following year and a half, the two achieved continued successes against Allied shipping. Finally, on 8 March 1941, while attacking a convoy south of Iceland, U-47 was destroyed by the British destroyer Wolverine, killing Prien and his entire crew.
German Navy Ships--U-47 (1938-1941)
This page features our only views of the German submarine U-47.
www.ibiblio.org
German submarine U-47 (1938) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
