Sinking
On 25 November 1941 at 4.25pm, while steaming to cover an attack on Italian convoys with the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant and an escort of eight destroyers, Barham was hit by three torpedoes from the German submarine U-331, commanded by Lieutenant Hans-Dietrich von Tiesenhausen. The torpedoes were fired from a range of only 750 yards providing no time for evasive action, and struck so closely together as to throw up a single massive water column. As she rolled over to port, her magazines exploded and the ship quickly sank with the loss of nearly 2/3 of the crew. The explosion was caught on camera by Gaumont News cameraman John Turner, who was on the deck of the nearby Valiant. Out of a crew of approximately 1,184 officers and men, 841 were killed. The survivors were rescued by the other British ships that were sailing with Barham.
Read more about this topic: HMS Barham (04)
Famous quotes containing the word sinking:
“Eternal Venice sinking by degrees
Into the very water that she lights;”
—Edgar Bowers (b. 1924)
“they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“We of the sinking middle class ... may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose but our aitches.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)