85 Planes vs 2 Warships
In December 1941 Winston Churchill received a phone call telling him that the HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Repulse had both been sunk by the Japanese by aircraft.
He said “In all the war I never received a more direct shock. The reader of these pages will realise how many efforts, hopes, and plans foundered with these two ships. As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American capital ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbour, who were hastening back to California. Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked.”
The HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales were British Royal Navy warships that were sunk on December 10, 1941. The two ships were part of a naval force known as Force Z, which was dispatched to the South China Sea to deter the Japanese from Malaya and Singapore.
The ships were attacked by Japanese planes off the coast of Kuantan, in British Malaya.
The two capital ships, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales were sunk after being hit by multiple torpedoes and bombs, dealing terrible blow to British naval power in the region.
Captain Leach and Admiral Phillips went down with the HMS Prince of Wales. Sadly, the wrecks have recently been in the news for being plundered for their scrap metal by Chinese dredgers.
Credit to : Dark Seas