Effects of The Sinking
The next morning after the battle, Prime Minister Winston Churchill received a phone call at his bedside from Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord.
| “ | Pound: Prime Minister, I have to report to you that the Prince of Wales and the Repulse have both been sunk by the Japanese – we think by aircraft. Tom Phillips is drowned. Churchill: Are you sure it's true? Pound: There is no doubt at all. Churchill hangs up In all the war, I never received a more direct shock... As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbor, who were hastening back to California. Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked. |
” |
Churchill delivered news of the sinking to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom before noon on 11 December, which was followed by a full review of the situation in Malaya the next day. Singapore had essentially been reduced to a land base after both capital ships were lost. The Eastern Fleet would spend the remainder of the invasion withdrawing their vessels to Ceylon and the Dutch East Indies. They were not reinforced by battleships until March 1942, with the arrival of HMS Warspite and four Revenge class battleships. Although all five battleships survived the Indian Ocean raid, their service in the Pacific was uneventful and they were later withdrawn to East Africa and the Mediterranean.
The Prince of Wales and Repulse were the first capital ships actively defending themselves to be sunk solely by air power while steaming in the open sea. Both of them were relatively fast ships, compared to the slower U.S. battleships that would have been expected to be easily sunk by aircraft even had they gone to sea instead of being caught at anchor. Furthermore Prince of Wales was a new battleship with passive and active anti-aircraft defences against contemporary aircraft, being equipped with the advanced High Angle Control System although it was largely inoperable during the battle.
Combined with the earlier raid on Pearl Harbor, this left the Allies with only four operational capital ships in the Pacific Theatre: three aircraft carriers, USS Enterprise, USS Lexington, and USS Saratoga, and one operational battleship, USS Colorado. However, these events did prompt the Allies and the U.S. Navy in particular to realise the potency of aircraft, and their carriers would be instrumental in the counterattack. The Genzan Air Groups would attempt a torpedo attack on USS Lexington on 20 February 1942, losing seventeen aircraft to the carrier's combat air patrol and anti-aircraft guns.
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