Today In Naval History: 23rd November - "Good-bye", Mine Collection, Inching Closer To War and Send Her Victorious,

Today: 23nd November 1939 (Thursday): "We’ll fight them both, they’ll sink us, and that will be that. Good-bye."

The British armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi, on patrol in the waters off Iceland, north of the Faeroe Islands sights smoke on the horison and moved to investigate at 1500 hrs. The Rawalpindi was an Armed Merchant Cruiser (unaffectionately known to their crews as Admiralty Made Coffins) , a converted civilian ship equipped with basic military armament. Upon closer inspection Captain Edward Coverley Kennedy believes he has sighted the heavy cruiser Deutschland (which was believed to be in the area).

He is very very wrong.

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Writers Note: Not that this would have made much of a difference. Even had it been the Deutschland, the Rawalpindi would still have genuinely been well and truly buggered. This... on the other hand... is much much worse.

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The Rawalpindi has sighted the first of the 'Ugly Sisters', the Scharnhorst, and puttering away at a maximum speed of around 15 knots, it has no chance in hell of escaping a battlecruiser more than able to double it's speed.

Regardless, the Rawalpindi immediately initiates a course change and sends a radio message was sent to Home Fleet HQ, informing them he has sighted the 'Deutschland'.

The Scharnhorst closes rapidly, signalling to the Rawalpindi to 'Heave To', and prepare for boarding. When the Rawalpindi does not respond, the signal is repeated and a warning shot is fired. The Rawalpindi does not respond and continues to desperately broadcast to Home Fleet that it has encountered the 'Deutschland'.

There is a brief flash of hope among the crew of the Rawalpindi when another warship is sighted heading inbound and the crew allow themselves a moment to believe that Royal Navy reinforcements have arrived.

It is not to pass. The approaching ship is the other 'Ugly Sister', the Gneisenau.

Trapped between both battlecruisers, Captain Kennedy realises the Rawalpindi is doomed. The Scharnhorst again signals her to abandon ship. Captain Kennedy makes a hard decision to buy the Royal Navy interception fleet he believes is en-route to his position more time. Reports indicate his final words to the crew were "We’ll fight them both, they’ll sink us, and that will be that. Good-bye".

The Rawalpindi throws itself at the Scharnhorst, which together with the Gneisenau open fire at 1545 hrs. Though the little merchant cruiser supposedly scores a single hit with one of it's 6-inch guns causing splintering damage to the Scharnhorst, the fight is predictably one sided. At 1600 hrs, the Rawalpindi breaks in half and explodes, just as the HMS Newcastle arrives on site. Although an attempt is made to shadow the German battlecruisers, they successfully shake the British pursuit, as well as evading the HMS Warspite, HMS Hood, HMS Repulse and FS Dunkerque which had set off to intercept them and returned to Wilhelmshaven on the 27th of November (abandoning their plan to break through into the Atlantic).

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Writers Note: To the credit of Captain Kurt Cäsar Hoffmann of the Scharnhorst, the German warship remained on site for as long as she could manage and attempted to rescue as many of the crew of the Rawalpindi as she could. There were unfortunately, tragically few. Out of her crew of 286, 238 were killed during the engagement.

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Today: 23nd November 1939 (Thursday): What's Mine is Mine.

On the night of the 22nd of November, a German aircraft was observed dropping packages into the Thames. Investigation on the 23rd reveals a package half-buried in the mud off Shoeburyness, later discovered to be a German mine. Royal Navy officers retrieve the mine and turned it over to British scientists, who successfully reverse engineer it. The magnetic principles behind the mine's trigger mechanism were discovered, and the technique of degaussing (demagnetizing the hull of the ship with electric coils) was developed and implemented to reduce the vulnerability of Royal Navy warships to German magnetic mines.

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Writers Note: I've not personally had a chance to personally visit the ship, but Belfast apparently still has her original degaussing equipment built into her deck.

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Today: 23nd November 1941 (Sunday): The Pieces Gather

A Task Force of Japanese carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku), rendezvous at Hitokappu Bay off the Kurile Islands, in preparation for the Pearl Harbor attack. It is the largest assembled carrier fleet in history at the time of it's assembly. (Though later surpassed by the veritable avalanche of American carriers heading westwards towards the end of the Second World War.)

Writers Note: Edited for mistaken claims and clarity. Infallible, I am not.

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Today: 23nd November 1942 (Saturday): Send Her Victorious

The aircraft carrier HMS Victorious pulls into the Scottish port of Greenoch, ostensibly for an extended refit. During this period, Victorious would temporarily "disappear" from Royal Navy service. In truth, the Victorious is hastily refueled and rearmed for a secret mission. She is now the "USS Robin", in a clumsy attempt at legerdemain, and is bound for the Pacific to shore up the embattled American fleet there, beginning Victorious' service seconded to the United States Navy.

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Writers Note: The British crew would gleefully take to this codename with all the crudity a passing knowledge of ornithology would allow.

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With the sinking of the Wasp and Hornet and the Enterprise woefully in need of a proper refit (instead of the one too many patch jobs that were keeping her in the field after her repeated run-ins with Zuikaku), the US Pacific fleet was down to a single carrier - the Saratoga, whose repairs had been rushed just to put her back in action at the end of 1942.

Against the four Japanese carriers assumed active in the theatre, the Saratoga was believed to be entirely overmatched, and Roosevelt had made a personal plea to Churchill for British carrier support, leading to the Admiralty to second Victorious to American service, with further plans to return the Ranger from Atlantic service, should the Japanese carrier force get frisky.

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Writers Note: Such was the pressing state of need that even the famously anglophobic Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest King, was only able to condemn the Victorious as "so far of no use" rather than ordering her sent back.

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Victorious would operate alongside the Saratoga on operations in the Pacific until the first batch of Essex-class carriers were completed, after which she would return to the Royal Navy. The exchange would be a beneficial one for both parties with the Royal Navy gaining valuable deep water carrier experience, while the USN would be thoroughly impressed by the Fleet Air Arm's fighter direction techniques.

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Ships Launched In Azur Lane :

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