WWII Naval History: Battles, Ships and Crews
From the Arctic convoys to Ironbottom Sound, the Second World War was the largest naval war ever fought. These are the ships, crews and decisions behind it: cruisers held together with coconut logs, a carrier sunk seventeen hours into her maiden voyage, and a destroyer packed with explosives and rammed into a drydock.
The Second World War at sea ran from September 1939 to August 1945. It started as a war of raiders and convoys in the Atlantic, grew into carrier battles across the Pacific, and ended with the battleship no longer deciding anything.
The Atlantic and the Arctic
Germany opened the war with raiders. The pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee sank nine British merchant ships without killing a single sailor, then met three British cruisers off the River Plate in December 1939. Her captain scuttled her in front of Montevideo, convinced by a fleet that was not there. Her sister was renamed Lutzow because Hitler feared the headline “Deutschland sunk”.
In June 1940 the carrier HMS Glorious was caught by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with no aircraft in the air, and 1,519 British sailors died. In May 1941 Bismarck sank HMS Hood in the Denmark Strait. Three men out of 1,418 survived Hood. Days later a Swordfish biplane jammed Bismarck’s rudder and the Home Fleet caught her. Her sister Tirpitz spent the war in Norwegian fjords and still tied down British heavy ships for three years. To keep her out of the Atlantic, the Royal Navy rammed an explosive-packed destroyer into the St Nazaire drydock in 1942.
The Arctic convoys to Murmansk carried war supplies to the Soviet Union. HMS Edinburgh sank on the homeward run with 465 gold bars in her bomb room. On New Year’s Eve 1942, six destroyers held off a pocket battleship and a heavy cruiser in the Barents Sea, and Hitler turned on his surface fleet. In the Mediterranean, Force H shelled Genoa in February 1941, and one British shell went through the cathedral roof without exploding.
The Pacific carrier war
Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 brought the United States into the war. USS Arizona lost 1,177 men, including her band. USS Nevada was the only battleship to get underway. USS New Orleans, with no power, passed shells to her guns by hand, and USS Phoenix escaped untouched, to be sunk in 1982 as Argentina’s Belgrano.
At the Java Sea in February 1942, Karel Doorman led a four-nation force with no common signal code against the invasion fleet. In June, US codebreakers used a fake water-shortage message to confirm the target was Midway, and Japan lost four carriers. USS Enterprise earned 20 battle stars and was announced sunk by Japan three times.
Guadalcanal turned into six months of night fighting. More than fifty warships went down in Ironbottom Sound. One torpedo took 150 feet off USS New Orleans, and her crew sailed her backwards with a bow of coconut logs, an improvisation in the line of the Royal Navy’s 1917 HMS Zubian, welded from two wrecked destroyers. Cruiser design had its own fights. Japan’s Mogami class was built over treaty limits. The American Cleveland class grew top-heavy under added anti-aircraft guns, and USS Wichita needed pig iron ballast to stay upright. In the Atlantic in 1943, the destroyer USS William D. Porter fired a torpedo at the battleship carrying Roosevelt.
The end of the battleship
At Leyte Gulf in October 1944, Japan used a carrier force with almost no planes as bait, and escort carriers off Samar faced Yamato alone. A month later Shinano, the largest carrier yet built, sank seventeen hours into her first voyage. In April 1945 Yamato sailed for Okinawa and was sunk by aircraft without seeing an American battleship. HMS Warspite, a veteran of Jutland, survived a German guided bomb at Salerno in 1943.
In January 1945 a Soviet submarine sank the refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff, the deadliest sinking ever recorded. In July, USS Indianapolis delivered the uranium for the first atomic bomb and was torpedoed on the way back. A year after the war, the US Navy anchored captured ships at Bikini, and Prinz Eugen survived two atomic bombs before sinking from a leak.
All World War II stories
The Ship That Delivered the Bomb and Disappeared
USS Indianapolis delivered the Hiroshima uranium, got torpedoed four days later, and 900 men went into the water. The Navy didn't notice for four days. Sharks circled for 96 hours. 316 survived. The captain was court-martialed and shot himself.
The Largest Carrier Ever Built Lasted Seventeen Hours
IJN Shinano was a converted Yamato-class hull displacing 72,000 tons. She left Yokosuka on the evening of November 28, 1944. A single American submarine sank her before breakfast. 1,435 dead.
They Packed a Destroyer With Five Tons of Explosives and Rammed It Into a German Drydock
HMS Campbeltown was an old American lend-lease destroyer. The British disguised her as a German torpedo boat, filled her bow with depth charges, and drove her into the Normandie Dock at St Nazaire. The explosives went off ten hours later while German officers were inspecting the wreck.
Six Destroyers Held Off a Pocket Battleship on New Year's Eve. Hitler Scrapped His Navy.
A one-eyed destroyer captain, a convoy to Murmansk, and the New Year's Eve battle that made Hitler try to scrap every warship Germany had.
A Cruiser Sank With 465 Gold Bars. Five of Them Are Still Down There.
The light cruiser HMS Edinburgh was torpedoed three times in the Arctic while carrying 465 gold bars from the Soviet Union. The cruiser fought back, crippled a German destroyer, and went down with the gold. Thirty-nine years later, divers cut into the wreck and pulled out 431 bars.
The Strait Where Fifty Ships Went to Die
Between August 1942 and February 1943, the narrow strait between Guadalcanal and Savo Island swallowed more than fifty warships from both sides. The sailors called it Ironbottom Sound.
The Admiral Who Attacked with Nothing Left
Rear Admiral Karel Doorman commanded a fleet that spoke four languages, had no air cover, and had never trained together. He attacked anyway. 2,300 dead.
The Cruiser That Sailed Backwards Across the Pacific With a Bow Made of Coconut Logs
A torpedo blew off a third of USS New Orleans in 1942. The crew built a temporary bow from coconut trees and sailed her backwards 1,800 miles to Australia. Her original bow was found on the seafloor 83 years later.
Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition
USS New Orleans was dead in the water at Pearl Harbor when the attack started. No power, no hoists, no ammunition at the guns. Her chaplain's shout became one of the war's most famous phrases. Frank Loesser turned it into a No. 1 hit.
The Destroyer That Fired a Torpedo at the President
USS William D. Porter accidentally launched a live torpedo at FDR's ship during a drill. Then tried to warn him with the wrong signal. Legend says every ship greeted her with 'Don't shoot, we're Republicans.'
The Cruiser That Made British Intelligence Say 'They Must Be Building Ships Out of Cardboard'
Japan cheated on every treaty, built a cruiser that cracked its own hull, rammed its sister ship at Midway, got rebuilt as a half-carrier, and still came back for more.
The Navy Built 27 of These Cruisers, Then Couldn't Stop Them From Tipping Over
The Cleveland class was the largest cruiser class ever built. They were also dangerously top-heavy. The Navy pulled off catapults, restricted ammo, and added ballast. Nine more hulls became aircraft carriers instead.
The US Navy Dumped 200 Tons of Pig Iron Into This Cruiser Just to Stop Her From Tipping Over
USS Wichita was a one-of-a-kind prototype, too top-heavy to sail without 200 tons of pig iron in her belly. She fought in two oceans, earned 13 battle stars, and her hull became the basis for the Baltimore class.
A Battleship Accidentally Shelled a Cathedral. The Shell Never Exploded.
A gunnery error sent a 381mm armor-piercing shell from HMS Malaya through the roof of a 12th-century cathedral. It punched through the nave, hit the floor, and just sat there.
Hitler Renamed This Ship Because He Was Afraid of the Headline 'Germany Sunk'
The pocket battleship Deutschland captured an American freighter, got renamed to avoid embarrassing headlines, then failed so badly in battle that Hitler tried to scrap his entire surface fleet.
The German Warship That Survived Two Nuclear Bombs and Sank From a Leak
Prinz Eugen fought alongside Bismarck, survived two atomic tests at Bikini Atoll, and sank because nobody could fix a small leak.
The Ship That Survived Pearl Harbor and Was Sunk Forty Years Later by a Torpedo Older Than Itself
USS Phoenix escaped Pearl Harbor untouched, fought the entire Pacific war, was sold to Argentina, renamed twice, and sunk in 1982 by a British submarine using torpedoes designed thirteen years before the ship was launched. 323 dead. The captain said the British were right.
A Submariner Took Command of an Aircraft Carrier and Sailed Her Home Without a Single Plane in the Air
HMS Glorious was caught by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the Norwegian Sea with no aircraft aloft and only two destroyers as escort. Her captain, a former submariner, had left the main force early, and the officers who knew him believed he was hurrying back to Scapa Flow to court-martial his own air commander. 1,519 British sailors died. The wreck has never been found.
A Biplane Jammed Bismarck's Rudder, and Sixty Years Later Nobody Could Agree Who Sank Her
In May 1941 Bismarck sank HMS Hood, leaving 3 survivors from her crew. Two days after that, a Swordfish biplane jammed her rudder, and the Royal Navy caught her. Whether British shells or her own crew sent her down was still being argued when James Cameron took submersibles to the wreck in 2002.
Yamato Carried the Biggest Guns Ever Mounted at Sea. The US Navy Spent the War Guessing Their Size.
Japan hid Yamato's 18.1-inch guns so well that US intelligence rated them as 16-inch for years. On 7 April 1945 she sailed for Okinawa and was sunk by aircraft without ever seeing an American battleship. 3,055 of 3,332 men died.
AF Is Short of Water: The Fake Plumbing Problem That Won Midway
In May 1942 US codebreakers knew Japan was coming for a place called AF. To prove AF was Midway, they had the island complain about its water supply over the radio. Japan repeated the complaint.
USS Arizona's Band Never Got to Play the Final
All 21 men of USS Arizona's band died at Pearl Harbor. The popular story says they were sleeping off a contest win. In fact their battle station was the powder hoists of Turret No. 2. Since 1982, 45 survivors have rejoined their shipmates inside the wreck.
Graf Spee at the River Plate: The Battleship Sunk by a Rumour
In December 1939 three British cruisers fought the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee off the River Plate. Four days later her captain scuttled her in front of Montevideo, convinced by a fleet that was not there.
Tirpitz Fired Her Big Guns at an Enemy Once, and Still Tied Down the Home Fleet for Three Years
Bismarck's sister Tirpitz spent the war hiding in Norwegian fjords, yet she scattered a convoy, survived midget submarines and carrier strikes, and only went down when RAF Lancasters dropped 12,000 lb Tallboy bombs on her at Tromsø in November 1944.
HMS Hood Lost 1,415 Men in Three Minutes. These Are the Three Who Got Out
When Bismarck sank HMS Hood on 24 May 1941, 1,415 of her 1,418 men died. A signalman, a gunner and a midshipman survived, and their accounts do not fully agree. In 2015 the ship's bell came up from 2,800 metres.
USS Enterprise: Sunk Three Times by Radio, Finished by a Scrap Contract
Japan announced USS Enterprise sunk three times. The one pilot who actually stopped her was misnamed by the US for almost 50 years, and the most decorated American warship of WWII was sold for scrap in 1958 anyway.
Leyte Gulf: Halsey Chased the Bait, and Taffy 3 Fought Yamato Alone
In October 1944 Japan sent a nearly empty carrier force to lure Halsey's Third Fleet away from Leyte. It worked. Off Samar, six escort carriers and seven small escorts faced four battleships, and a padded radio message asked the world's most famous question.
Wilhelm Gustloff: The Deadliest Sinking in History and the Captain Nobody Wanted to Honor
On 30 January 1945 the Soviet submarine S-13 sank the refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic. Estimates of the dead run from 6,000 to 9,600, and the captain who fired the torpedoes was demoted, discharged and jailed before the USSR made him a hero in 1990.
HMS Warspite Circled Under Fire at Jutland, Survived a Guided Bomb, and Lost Her Last Fight to a Cornish Cove
HMS Warspite jammed her rudder at Jutland and circled twice in front of the German fleet, hit an Italian battleship from about 24,000 metres at Calabria and survived a German guided bomb at Salerno. In April 1947 her tow to the breakers parted and she went onto the rocks at Prussia Cove in Cornwall.
USS Nevada: The Battleship That Ran for the Sea at Pearl Harbor and Lived Through Two Atomic Bombs
USS Nevada was the only battleship to get underway during the Pearl Harbor attack. Her crew beached her to keep the channel open. In 1946 she was the target ship for an atomic bomb, and missed.