Hidden History
@HiddenHistoryYT • 37,316 subscribers
Warships & Submarines
Shorts
Videos
85 years ago today, in the freezing grey water between Iceland and Greenland, the most famous warship in the world died in under three minutes. HMS Hood. 48,000 tons. The pride of the Royal Navy for twenty years. The ship British schoolchildren drew in their notebooks. "The Mighty Hood." She was hunting the Bismarck. At 05:52 on 24 May 1941, Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland gave the order to open fire at 26,500 yards. He was closing the range hard on purpose, because Hood's weak deck armor could not survive shells falling from above at long range. He needed flat trajectories, and he needed them fast. He was three minutes too slow. Bismarck's fifth salvo straddled Hood as she turned to bring her rear guns to bear. A single 15-inch shell punched through her thin armored deck and detonated her aft magazines. Witnesses on Prince of Wales described a column of flame that rose higher than the mainmast, eerily silent at first, the sound arriving a moment later. Hood broke in two. Her stern rose vertically out of the sea, guns still pointed at the sky, and slid under. Her bow followed. Of 1,418 men aboard, three survived. Signalman Ted Briggs, Able Seaman Bob Tilburn, Midshipman Bill Dundas. They floated on a raft of debris in near-freezing water, watching their ship's oil burn around them, until the destroyer Electra found them two hours later. Briggs was 18 years old. He lived until 2008, the last man who had stood on the Mighty Hood. The Bismarck won the battle. But Prince of Wales, only just commissioned with shipyard workers still aboard fixing her main guns, had landed three hits before retreating. One ruptured a forward fuel tank. Bismarck began trailing oil across the Atlantic like a wounded animal. Churchill's order to the fleet was simple. Sink the Bismarck. Every available British warship turned to the chase. Three days later, at the edge of the Bay of Biscay, a Swordfish biplane from HMS Ark Royal, flying through a gale at near sea level, dropped a torpedo that jammed Bismarck's rudder hard to port. She could only steam in a slow circle, straight back into the Royal Navy. King George V and Rodney closed at dawn on 27 May. They fired on her for ninety minutes. Bismarck absorbed over 400 shells and at least a dozen torpedoes before she rolled over and went down with roughly 2,200 of her crew. The Royal Navy answered for Hood in 72 hours.
Hidden History1,766,927 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад
1970: Black Tot Day (End of the Royal Navy Rum Ration)
Hidden History596,452 просмотров • 5 месяцев назад
Submarine diving from the outside using a couple of GoPro cameras
Hidden History512,914 просмотров • 5 месяцев назад
On June 8, 1982, Argentine pilots dove so low over Bluff Cove that several of their bombs physically couldn’t detonate. The fuses needed distance to arm. They hadn’t given them enough. It didn’t matter. The ones that did go off were enough. Sir Galahad caught fire with over 150 Welsh Guards still in her hold. Men jumped into burning water. Others carried wounded comrades across decks that were cooking beneath their boots. The ship burned for three days straight. You can still find the footage. Sir Tristram was hit too. Between the two ships, 56 men were killed and more than 150 wounded in a single afternoon. It remains the British military’s deadliest day of combat since the Second World War. The attack lasted eight minutes. What makes it cut deeper: the British had air cover arranged for that morning. It was stood down due to a miscommunication between commanders. The ships sat stationary and unprotected in broad daylight while Welsh Guards waited below deck for orders that were too slow in coming. The Falklands were retaken 14 days later. Argentina surrendered on June 14. The men who died at Bluff Cove never saw it. 56 names. Remember them.
Hidden History232,138 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад
During John F. Kennedy's inaugural parade on January 20, 1961, a flatbed truck hauled a full-scale replica down Pennsylvania Avenue featuring a patrol torpedo boat dressed to look like the famous PT-109 that JFK commanded during World War II. PT-109's WWII crew rode aboard the float during the procession. As the float passed the presidential reviewing stand, a smiling President Kennedy turned to look back and wave at his former shipmates.
Hidden History93,112 просмотров • 1 месяц назад
Ships of the surrendered Italian Fleet ~1943. What ships can you spot?
Hidden History114,027 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад
Japanese subs being sunk in Operation Road's End off Japan in 1946
Hidden History47,984 просмотров • 1 месяц назад
Carnage aboard USS Franklin as she fights for her life
Hidden History67,410 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад
Divers place USS Arizona crew member Lauren Bruner's urn onto famed battleship
Hidden History89,099 просмотров • 5 месяцев назад
Bismarck vs Hood in color footage on this day 85 years ago
Hidden History52,975 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад
