HMS Barham (pennant number

Pennant number

In the modern Royal Navy, and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth, ships are identified by pennant numbers...

 04) was a Queen Elizabeth-class

Queen Elizabeth class battleship

The Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were a class of five super-dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy. The lead ship was named after Elizabeth I of England...

 battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 named after Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham

Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham

Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham PC was a British naval officer and politician.He was born at Leith, Midlothian to Robert Middleton, a customs collector of Bo'ness, Linlithgowshire, and Helen, daughter of Charles Dundas.-Naval career:Middleton entered the Royal Navy in 1741 as captain's...

, built at the John Brown shipyards

John Brown & Company

John Brown and Company of Clydebank was a pre-eminent Scottish marine engineering and shipbuilding firm, responsible for building many notable and world-famous ships, such as the , the , the , the , the , and the...

 in Clydebank

Clydebank

Clydebank is a town in West Dunbartonshire, in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, Clydebank borders Dumbarton, the town with which it was combined to form West Dunbartonshire, as well as the town of Milngavie in East Dunbartonshire, and the Yoker and...

, Scotland, and launched in 1914. She was sunk during the Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 on 25 November 1941 by the German submarine U-331.

Service

In the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, she collided with her sister-ship in 1915. In 1916, she was Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas

Hugh Evan-Thomas

Vice Admiral Sir Hugh Evan-Thomas GCB, KCMG, MVO was a British Royal Navy officer.During World War I he commanded the 5th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet, flying his flag in HMS Barham, and fought at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916.-Background:Evan-Thomas' family came from...

's flagship

Flagship

A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...

 of the 5th Battle Squadron

British 5th Battle Squadron

The British 5th Battle Squadron was a squadron consisting of battleships. The 5th Battle Squadron was initially part of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet. During the First World War, the Home Fleet was renamed the Grand Fleet.-August 1914:...

 temporarily attached to Admiral David Beatty

David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty

Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...

's Battlecruiser Fleet at the Battle of Jutland

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

, where she received five hits and fired 337 shells.

During the 1926 general strike she and were sent to the River Mersey

River Mersey

The River Mersey is a river in North West England. It is around long, stretching from Stockport, Greater Manchester, and ending at Liverpool Bay, Merseyside. For centuries, it formed part of the ancient county divide between Lancashire and Cheshire....

 to land food supplies. She was less extensively modified between the wars than her sister ships. Among her captains was Percy Noble.

In the Second World War she operated in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. She was damaged by a German submarine torpedo

Torpedo

The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

 in December 1939, while at sea north of the British Isles.
In September 1940, she took part in Operation Menace, a British naval attack on Dakar

Dakar

Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...

, Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

 prior to a landing by the Free French. Barham engaged the French battleship . On 25 September, the Richelieu was reported as having hit Barham with a 380 mm shell. The French submarine Bévéziers hit the battleship with a torpedo the same day. Operation Menace was abandoned. Barham then joined Force H

Force H

Force H was a British naval formation during the Second World War. It was formed in 1940 to replace French naval power in the western Mediterranean that had been removed by the French armistice with Nazi Germany....

 at Gibraltar

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...

, taking part in several Malta Convoys

Malta Convoys

The Malta Convoys were a series of Allied supply convoys that sustained the besieged island of Malta during the Mediterranean Theatre of the Second World War...

.

At the end of 1940, Barham joined the Mediterranean Fleet

Mediterranean Fleet

Several countries have or have had a Mediterranean Fleet in their navy. See:* Mediterranean Fleet * French Mediterranean Fleet* Mediterranean Squadron * United States Sixth Fleet...

, taking part in the Battle of Cape Matapan

Battle of Cape Matapan

The Battle of Cape Matapan was a Second World War naval battle fought from 27–29 March 1941. The cape is on the southwest coast of Greece's Peloponnesian peninsula...

 in March 1941 and receiving bomb damage off Crete in May.

On 21 April 1941, under the command of Admiral Andrew Cunningham

Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope

Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Browne Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope KT, GCB, OM, DSO and two Bars , was a British admiral of the Second World War. Cunningham was widely known by his nickname, "ABC"....

, Barham along with battleships Warspite and Valiant

HMS Valiant (1914)

HMS Valiant was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship of the British Royal Navy. She was laid down at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan on 31 January 1913 and launched on 4 November 1914...

 as well as the cruiser Gloucester and various destroyers, attacked Tripoli

Tripoli

Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...

 harbour.

Sinking

On 25 November 1941 at 4.25pm, while steaming to cover an attack on Italian convoys with the battleships and HMS Valiant and an escort of eight destroyers, Barham was hit by three torpedoes from the German submarine U-331, commanded by Lieutenant Hans-Dietrich von Tiesenhausen

Hans-Dietrich von Tiesenhausen

Commander Hans-Diedrich Freiherr von Tiesenhausen was a German Kapitänleutnant with the Kriegsmarine during World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross...

. The torpedoes were fired from a range of only 750 yards providing no time for evasive action, and struck so closely together as to throw up a single massive water column. As she rolled over to port, her magazines exploded and the ship quickly sank with the loss of 862 crewmen. The explosion was caught on camera by Gaumont News

Gaumont Film Company

Gaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....

 cameraman John Turner, who was on the deck of the nearby HMS Valiant.

Aftermath

The British Admiralty was immediately notified of the sinking on 25 November 1941. Within a few hours they also learned that the German High Command did not know the Barham had been sunk. Tiesenhausen had not reported the sinking, as he had been forced to dive to evade the escorting ships before Barham exploded, and only heard the detonation of the torpedo. He could not be sure whether he had sunk Barham, or if she had merely been damaged and left the scene before he resurfaced. It was not until the Admiralty's admission on 27 January 1942 that Barham had been sunk and described the circumstances, that Tiesenhausen was able to confirm that he had sunk his target. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was a grade of the 1939 version of the 1813 created Iron Cross . The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was the highest award of Germany to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership during World War II...

 that day.

In an effort to conceal the sinking from the Germans, and to protect British morale, the Admiralty censored all news of Barham’s destruction and the loss of 862 British seamen.

After a delay of several weeks, the War Office decided to notify the next of kin of Barham’s dead, but they added a special request for secrecy. The notification letters included a warning not to discuss the loss of the ship with anyone but close relatives, stating it was "most essential that information of the event which led to the loss of your husband's life should not find its way to the enemy until such time as it is announced officially..."

By late January 1942, the German High Command had realized Barham had been lost. The British Admiralty informed the press on 27 January 1942 and explained the rationale for withholding the news.

A Royal Navy Court of Enquiry into the sinking ascribed the ship's final magazine explosion to the detonation en masse of 4-inch anti-aircraft ammunition stored in wing passages adjacent to the main magazines, which would have detonated the contents of the main magazines. Experience of prolonged air attacks in earlier operations had shown that the stowage capacity of the AA magazines was inadequate, hence extra ammunition was shipped in any convenient void spaces.

Film of the sinking

The sinking of Barham was captured on film. In consideration of public morale and in order to protect the families who had lost loved ones, the Admiralty decided to keep the film secret until the end of hostilities in 1945.

The film of the sinking has been reused many times as stock footage

Stock footage

Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures and file footage are film or video footage that may or may not be custom shot for use in a specific film or television program. Stock footage is of beneficial use to filmmakers as it is sometimes less expensive than shooting new...

 in documentaries and in the films Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is an American black and white science fiction film, directed by Fred F. Sears and released by Columbia Pictures. The film is also known as Invasion of the Flying Saucers. It was ostensibly suggested by the non-fiction work Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Donald...

 (where it was shown as an American destroyer

Destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

), Task Force

Task Force (film)

Task Force is a war film filmed in black and white with some Technicolor sequences about the development of U.S. aircraft carriers from the USS Langley to the USS Franklin . The film stars Gary Cooper, Jane Wyatt, Walter Brennan, Wayne Morris, Julie London, and Jack Holt.-Plot:Depicted as a 1917...

 (as a Japanese carrier), The Guns of Navarone

The Guns of Navarone (film)

The Guns of Navarone is a 1961 British-American Action/Adventure war film based on the 1957 novel of the same name about the Dodecanese Campaign of World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean. It stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, along with Anthony Quayle and Stanley...

 and The Battle of Okinawa (where it stands in for the Yamato

Japanese battleship Yamato

, named after the ancient Japanese Yamato Province, was the lead ship of the Yamato class of battleships that served with the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. She and her sister ship, Musashi, were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed, displacing...

), it has also feature in the music video for the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover - Higher Ground.

See also

• List by death toll of ships sunk by submarines
• Helen Duncan
  Helen Duncan
  Helen Duncan was a Scottish medium best known as the last person to be imprisoned under the British Witchcraft Act of 1735.-Early life:...
  
  - last person in England tried for witchcraft because she held a séance in Portsmouth and indicated knowledge that HMS Barham had been sunk.

External links

• www.hmsbarham.com - The official site of HMS Barham Association
• Film footage of the sinking of HMS Barham
• Article in World War II magazine about the sinking of HMS Barham and its connection to the witchcraft trial of Helen Duncan
• A site dedicated to images of HMS Barham and her sinking
• Maritimequest HMS Barham Photo Gallery
• Captain Terry Herrick - Daily Telegraph obituary
• HMS Barham (Clydebuilt Ships Database)