UNSINKABLE
... that’s what they called the last HMS Prince of Wales, just before it was sunk, costing 327 lives. Now one survivor recalls the tragedy as the name is passed on to a new ship
WHEN the Royal Navy’s vast new £3billion aircraft carrier is officially named HMS Prince of Wales this week in Scotland, it will be a very emotional moment for at least one man at the ceremony.
For 93-year-old Christopher Peacey was a boy sailor aboard the last vessel to bear that name when it was sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers off Singapore in 1941.
It was an awful end for a stateof-the-art battleship that had been dubbed ‘unsinkable’. The ship went down with 327 men on board, and left hundreds more clinging to wreckage. Some were attacked and maimed by sharks during an agonising wait to be rescued.
Mr Peacey – one of just seven remaining survivors of the sinking on December 10, 1941 – said: ‘We proved sitting ducks for their bombers that morning. I felt bombs striking the ship, then a torpedo struck the propeller shaft and we took on a lot of water.
‘The ship started listing and was obviously going down. Me and my mates were among the last to get out alive. Terrified of a shark attack, I swam across the oily sea to a liferaft. From there I watched in horror as our ship went down, taking with her all those poor souls. I’ve lived with that memory all my life.’
Mr Peacey, from Gosport, Hampshire, had also been aboard the Prince of Wales in August 1941 when it played another key role in the Second World War.
It was on the battleship, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, that Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt met, to sign the Atlantic Charter, the crucial first step towards US support for Britain.
Mr Peacey said: ‘For days beforehand the boy sailors scrubbed decks and polished all the brass aboard the ship for our illustrious visitors and, when they came aboard, I got myself a prime spot to see them greet each other.
‘I remember the great sense of excitement shared by the crew. It is hard to think that only a few months later, the magnificent ship and so many sailors would be lost.
‘It will be a very emotional day for me when the new Prince of Wales gets her name. I am proud to have been invited to the event. It will bring back so many memories. I was just one of the lucky ones – so many of my friends perished.’
The new vessel, a Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carrier, will be officially named by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall at Rosyth, Fife, on Friday.
At 920ft long and displacing 70,000 tons, the new Prince of Wales dwarfs her predecessor.
A sister ship to HMS Queen Elizabeth, she will carry as many as 40 jets after she launches in 2019 – although the expense has proved controversial at a time of defence cuts elsewhere.
Mr Peacey’s battleship measured 745ft, displaced 43,000 tons and was built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead.
Launched in 1939, she engaged the German battleship Bismarck in the Battle of the Denmark Strait in May 1941 before being sent to the South China Sea.
Mr Peacey, now a grandfather-of-two, recalled that when it docked in South Africa en route, ‘the local newspaper headlines said “The Unsinkable Ship Arrives”. It was nice to read but I knew, and I think most of the crew knew, that any ship was capable of being sunk – even the Prince of Wales.
‘It was a new class of battleship, the King George V Class. It had a top speed of 28 knots [33mph], which was rapid in those days, and had the firepower of ten 14in guns.’
She was sunk alongside HMS Repulse, a First World War battlecruiser. Churchill called the incident his most ‘direct shock’ of the war, as they were the first major ships to be sunk by aircraft alone.
Last night, Royal Navy Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Ben Kay said: ‘We are delighted that veterans from the old HMS Prince of Wales battleship are able to be involved with the naming ceremony.
‘This is a fitting occasion when we are able to recognise the service and sacrifice of our forebears and pass on their ethos to a new generation of sailors.’
‘I was lucky – so many of my friends perished’