HMS Repulse
By Surgeon Lieutenant B C C Tamayo, RN
BATTLE HONOURS
1596 Cadiz
1762 Martinique
1782 Saintes
1941 Norway
1941 Bismark
When the 13th HMS REPULSE decommissions on 28th August (1996) it will bring to a close, hopefully only temporarily, 400 years of Naval history involving this name.
History is full of irony and similarity and the history of the many vessels sailing under the name REPULSE is no different. The submarine REPULSE ended her commission with a Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Patrol, which is by nature secret in its planning and execution and yet the very first battle honour won by the DUE REPULSE was for a secret raid against the Spanish port of Cadiz on the 20th June 1596. This secrecy allowed the British Fleet the element of surprise resulting in some 40 Spanish ships being disabled and the town taken by landing parties.
The second REPULSE was the renamed French ship BELLONE captured in 1759. She was classed as a Fifth Rate and carried 32 guns, ironically French guns that were then turned against her old masters many times in her first year in the Royal Navy. In all she helped to seize a further French vessel, destroy three more, and as part of Admiral Sir George Rodney’s Squadron took part in the capture of the tactically important island of Martinique in 1762. The victory was not a wholly naval affair however, it was in fact an excellent example of a joint operation between the navy and the army, very similar to operations of more recent history. Sailors were landed with heavy ships’ guns which were manhandled over very rough terrain into positions above the Fort Royal. One only had to observe The Royal Navy Field Gun Tournament of today to appreciate the difficulties and physical barriers to such an exercise. Once in position these guns aided the army ground assault by bombarding the fort, which finally succumbed one month later. Although decommissioned and put in reserve until 1775, she was recommissioned in 1776 and sailed for the Americas. There she met her fate in the seas off Bermuda in December of that year.
The next REPULSE of significant size was a Third Rate built in 1780 and carried 64 guns. Again involved in famous exploits, she took part in the relief of Gibraltar in 1781. She then sailed once more under Admiral Rodney to the familiar waters of the West Indies around Dominica and Martinique to win her third battle honour in the naval engagement against the old enemy France, at the battle of The Saintes. REPULSE returned to home waters in 1797, but then deployed to the Mediterranean, and it was upon her voyage home that she was wrecked off Ushant on the 10th of March 1800.
The last REPULSE to be propelled by sail, was built in 1803. She was another Third Rate and was armed with 74 guns. Uncharacteristically of the times she saw little action, being used as a blockade ship stationed off the French coastline. She returned home in 1814 and was broken up in September 1820.
The first iron clad REPULSE was launched in 1870, and although originally laid down as a wooden hulled battleship of sail, of similar design to HMS VICTORY, she was converted before commissioning in 1866 to a steam powered iron clad with a 3,347 horsepower engine propelling a single shaft. This gave her just over 12 knots of speed, which was remarkable as her tonnage was registered at 6,190. She was armed with 12 eight inch muzzle loading guns, and in 1880 was fitted with a new kind of weapon, torpedoes. Does not the REPULSE here bear great resemblance to the REPULSE of today, being driven by steam turbines, driving a single shaft and propeller, and firing torpedoes! The REPULSE of 1870 served in Far East Fleet policing the oceans under British rule. In the end it was her technology that beat her and with progress in steam ship design she became obsolete and paid off in 1885.
The eleventh REPULSE, another steam powered battleship, joined the Fleet in 1892, and spent the majority of her sixteen years afloat serving in the Channel Squadron. She was again made obsolete by progress, notably the arrival on the scene of a big gun DREADNOUGHT type battleship. She was sold in 1911 never having seen action.
The twelfth REPULSE was built in 1916 as a battlecruiser of the Royal Sovereign Class. She was the largest of all the REPULSEs with a crew of 1,181, and a displacement of 26,584 tonnes. Heavily armed with 6 fifteen inch twin turret guns, 17 four inch guns and torpedo tubes, yet lightly armoured, with a quick turn of speed, some 32 knots, she was the epitome of a battlecruiser. Admiral Lord Fisher, the First Sea Lord at the beginning of the First World War, predicted that the ground war in the trenches would be a stalemate and that victory could be obtained quicker through naval action in the Baltic against northern Germany. For this the DREADNOUGHT battleship type was of no use, being very heavily armoured, slow and of deep draught. Hence the birth of the battlecruiser.
Although Admiral Fisher’s plan was never put into action REPULSE and her sister ship, as today, RENOWN joined Admiral Beatty’s Grand Fleet in 1917. Together with HMS COURAGEOUS she saw action later that year in November launching a surprise attack on a German minesweeping fleet chasing them through mine laden water back to their escort of two German battleships, KAISERIN and KAISER. In a valiant effort REPULSE and COURAGEOUS attempted to lure the German battleships out of the safety of their mines towards more British ships, but to no avail. She next saw the German Fleet at their surrender in 1918.
After the First World War REPULSE carried out a world tour with the then largest warship in the world, HMS HOOD, returning back to Britain for an extensive refit, one so extensive it earned her and RENOWN the unfortunate names “Refit” and “Repair”. Rejoining the Fleet initially as an Atlantic convoy escort in late 1939, she then saw action off Norway earning a fourth battle honour. Her most famous exploit, gaining the last battle honour, was hunting the German battleship BISMARK.
Her final fate lay later in the war as part of Force Z in 1941 initially to be made up of REPULSE, the battleship PRINCE OF WALES, the aircraft carrier INDOMITABLE and four destroyers. INDOMITABLE ran aground in the West Indies and never sailed as part of Force Z. After a rendezvous with PRINCE OF WALES in Ceylon on the 28th of November she sailed for Singapore and arrived on the 2nd of December. On the 8th of December she sailed to intercept a Japanese troop convoy destined for Singora in southern Burma. The key to the operation was surprise, however it became clear that this had been lost and Force Z reversed its course to return to Singapore. The Japanese had become aware from air reconnaissance of these powerful British ships and ordered a search and destroy operation on them, as troop movements were vital to their tactics. Force Z was finally detected by Japanese torpedo bombers just after 1100 hours on the 10th of December and attacked. Through the skill of her Commanding Officer, Captain Tennant, REPULSE avoided 19 torpedoes, however at 1220 hours she took a torpedo amidships. Twelve minutes later at 1232, after four more torpedo hits, she sank, with 794 officers and men losing their lives. PRINCE OF WALES also succumbed 47 minutes later. The effectiveness of air power had never been better demonstrated.
The affiliation to The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders began after REPULSE was sunk when her Royal Marine detachments, together with detachments from the PRINCE OF WALES, were landed in Singapore. On the 29th of January 1942 the Royal Marines were moved to Tryersall Camp where they were amalgamated with the Second Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders under the command of Lieutenant Colonel I MacA Stewart OBE DSO MC. The Battalion was organised into companies where A and D were Argylls, B Company was made up of mainly ex-REPULSE Marines, and C Company ex-PRINCE OF WALES Marines. This then became part of the 12th Indian Infantry Brigade.
The Battalion saw action fiercely defending Singapore against a massive Japanese invasion which started on the 8th of February. Argylls and Marines fought side by side with bravery and tenacity, but they were ultimately driven back by the size of the logistically well supported Japanese force. Wholly within character they took up a defensive position and held it, allowing others to withdraw, until ceasefire was ordered at 2000 hours on the 15th of February. These men spent the rest of the war as prisoners, but even then their morale never wavered. Friendships made in times of conflict are the strongest, and so this affiliation between REPULSE and The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders continues to this day.
The current REPULSE and thirteenth to bear that name was launched on 4th of November 1967 in Barrow-in-Furness, and is indeed the most powerful. An SSBN (Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear) able to carry sixteen Polaris Missiles, each in turn able to wreak destruction many times greater than the total destructive might of all the bombs dropped by both sides in the Second World War. She is the third of the RESOLUTION Class submarines and together represented the United Kingdom’s Independent Strategic Nuclear Deterrent. As well as the first of Class HMS RESOLUTION, her sister ships have familiar names as well, HMS RENOWN and HMS REVENGE. All names of great naval ships of yesteryear. With one submarine on station at sea every hour, of every day, of every year since 1968, these four submarines have truly done all that was asked, and have secured our generation’s global security and peace. With the VANGUARD Class submarines HMS VANGUARD and HMS VICTORIOUS now fully operational our security will be maintained long into the future.
In naval history great names repeat themselves to carry on traditions of bravery, loyalty and service to the crown, REPULSE, RESOLUTION, RENOWN, DREADNOUGHT and COURAGOUS are but a few. So we wait for the day when another great vessel of the Royal Navy will bear the name REPULSE and carry on this tradition.
