Tom Phillips (Royal Navy Officer) - Force Z

Force Z

See also: Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse

Phillips was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the China Station in late 1941, an action which raised some controversy in the higher echelons of the Royal Navy, where he was considered a "desk admiral". He was appointed Acting Admiral, and he took to sea on 25 October 1941 en route to his headquarters in Singapore. He traveled with a naval detachment then designated as Force G, consisting of his flagship, the new battleship HMS Prince of Wales, together with the veteran World War I era battlecruiser HMS Repulse, and the four destroyers HMS Electra, HMS Express, HMS Encounter, and HMS Jupiter.

The deployment of the ships was a decision made by Winston Churchill. He was intensely warned against it by the First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound, and later by his friend, Field Marshal Jan Smuts, PM of South Africa, who prophesied the fate of the capital ships, when he addressed the crew of HMS Repulse just before she left Durban for Singapore.

It was intended that the new aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable would also travel out to Singapore, but she ran aground on her maiden voyage in the West Indies, and was not ready to sail from England with the other ships. Phillips and the vessels arrived in Singapore on 2 December 1941, where they were re-designated Force Z. Without a formal declaration of war, the Japanese landed in Malaya on 8 December 1941, on the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor (on the other side of the International Date Line). The Japanese, by striking at three points almost simultaneously, hoped to attract all available land-based fighters of the Royal Air Force and leave Phillips without air cover when they were ready for him; and he steamed right into this trap.

The earlier grounding of the carrier HMS Indomitable left the capital ships without naval air cover. Phillips had long held the opinion that aircraft were no threat to surface ships, and so he took Force Z, consisting of HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Repulse, and four destroyers (HMS Electra, HMS Express, HMAS Vampire and HMS Tenedos) to intercept the Japanese without air cover. That decision has been discussed ever since. The Japanese Air Force was overwhelming; in fact neither the Royal Air Force nor Royal Navy had one single modern fighter aircraft east of Suez which could match the Japanese. Task Force Z sailed from Singapore at 17:35 on 8 December. Admiral Phillips left his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Arthur Palliser, at the command post ashore. Phillips used HMS Prince of Wales as his flagship.

Phillips hoped to intercept any further Japanese convoys to prevent the landing of more troops. He signaled his fleet upon departure, "We are out looking for trouble, and no doubt we shall find it. We hope to surprise the enemy transports tomorrow and we expect to meet the Japanese battleship Kongo."

Shortly after midnight, Phillips' chief of staff radioed that the Royal Air Force was so pressed by giving ground support to land operations that the Admiral could expect no air cover off Singora. Japanese heavy bombers were already in southern Indochina, and General Douglas MacArthur had been asked to send General Lewis H. Brereton's B-17 Flying Fortresses to attack their bases. By this time, the Japanese invasion force was already well established in the peninsular section of Thailand, which had already surrendered. At Kota Bharu within British Malaya, there was bitter fighting in a series of rear guard actions fought desperately by British and native troops. But by the time the British warships arrived, their opportunity had passed; the vulnerable transports were already returning to base. Admiral Phillips did not realize this.

Task Force Z steamed north, leaving the Anambas Islands to port. At 06:29 on 9 December, Phllips received word that destroyer Vampire had sighted an enemy plane. He was entering the Japanese air radius without air cover, but he still hoped to surprise a Japanese convoy at Singora. The task force sailed on to a position 150 miles south of Indochina and 250 miles east of the Malay Peninsula.

At 14:15, the Japanese submarine I-65 under command of Lieutenant Commander Harada Hakue reported sighting "two enemy battleships, course 240, speed 14 knots." I-65 surfaced and started a tail chase, but a sudden squall cloaked the British ships. While Harada continued the chase, a Kawanishi E7K "Alf" from the Japanese cruiser Kinu buzzed the I-65, mistaking it for an enemy submarine. Harada ordered a crash-dive. When the I-65 surfaced 30 minutes later, the contact with Phillips' force had been lost.

At 18:30, when the weather cleared and three Japanese naval reconnaissance planes were sighted from the flagship, Phillips realized that his position was precarious and untenable. Reluctantly, he reversed course to return to Singapore at high speed. As Phillips steamed south, dispatches from Singapore portrayed impending doom on the shores of Malaya. The British Army was falling back fast. Shortly before midnight on 9 December, word came through of an enemy landing at Kuantan, halfway between Kota Bharu and Singapore. Phillips, in view of the imminent danger to Singapore, decided to strike at Kuantan.

At dawn on 10 December, an unidentified plane was sighted about 60 miles off Kuantan. Phillips continued on his course while launching a reconnaissance plane from Prince of Wales. The reconnaissance plane found no evidence of the enemy. The destroyer Express steamed ahead to reconnoiter the harbor of Kuantan, found it deserted, and closed with the flagship again at 08:35. Phillips had not yet realized that his intelligence from Singapore was faulty, and he continued to search for a nonexistent surface enemy, first to the northward and then to the eastward.

Phillips decided not to ask the Royal Air Force for an air screen because he considered it more important to maintain radio silence. At about 1020 December 10 an enemy plane was sighted shadowing Prince of Wales. The crews immediately assumed anti-aircraft stations.

At 11:00, by which time the sea was brilliantly sunlit, nine Japanese planes were sighted at an altitude 10,000 feet. They flew in single file along the length of the 32,000-ton battle cruiser Repulse. A bomb hit the catapult deck and exploded in the hangar, setting a fire below decks.

At 11:15, Admiral Phillips radioed the RAF for help. At 11:40, the Prince of Wales was attacked by torpedo bombers. She was hit astern, knocking out her propellers and rudder. Several waves of torpedo bombers swooped in on the Repulse. The Prince of Wales signaled, asking whether she had been hit. The Repulse replied, "We have avoided 19 torpedoes till now, thanks to Providence."

British air protection was still not on hand at 12:20 p.m. CBS reporter Cecil Brown, who was on board the Repulse, described the battle:

"Stand by for barrage," comes over the ship's communication system. One plane is circling around. It's now at 300 or 400 yards, approaching us from the port side. It's coming closer headon, and I see a torpedo drop. A watcher shouts, "Stand by for torpedo", and the tin fish is streaking directly for us.

Some one says: "This one's got us."

The torpedo struck the side on which I was standing, about twenty yards astern of my position. It felt like the ship had crashed into a well-rooted dock. It threw me four feet across the deck, but I did not fall, and I did not feel any explosion—just this very great jar.

Almost immediately, it seemed, we began to list, and less than a minute later there was another jar of the same kind and same force, except that it was almost precisely the same spot on the starboard.

After the first torpedo, the communications system coolly announced: 'Blow up your lifebelts.' I was in this process when the second torpedo struck, and the settling ship and crazy angle were so apparent that I didn't continue blowing the belt.

The communications system announced: "Prepare to abandon ship. May God be with you."

Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by Japanese air attack on 10 December 1941 by 86 Japanese bombers and torpedo bombers from the 22nd Air Flotilla based at Saigon. The destroyers saved 2,081 of the 2,921 crew on the stricken capital ships, but 326 sailors were lost. Prince of Wales Captain John Leach and Philips went down with their ship. As the two battleships sank, the RAF planes finally appeared.