HMS Prince of Wales remembers those lost over the wreck of namesake battleship

Wreaths were placed over the wrecks of battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the cruiser HMS Repulse, which both perished in the South China Sea on December 10 1941.

It was the first time the Fleet Flagship – which is spearheading the Royal Navy’s key deployment of 2025, Highmast – has honoured those who went before.

Committal wreaths were placed in the sea by UK Commander Carrier Strike Group, Commodore James Blackmore, Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier, Captain Will Blackett, and Sub Lieutenant Takumi Kitamura from the accompanying Japanese destroyer Akebono.

In the autumn of 1941, then brand-new battleship HMS Prince of Wales and WW1-era battle-cruiser Repulse formed Force Z, were sent to the Far East by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to deter Japanese aggression.

When Japanese forces invaded the Malay peninsula, the capital ships were dispatched from Singapore to stop them.

On December 10 1941 – just three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor – Force Z was intercepted by the Japanese in the South China Sea.

Lacking air cover, the two ships were first sighted then subjected to a ferocious and sustained attack by Japanese bombers. In a valiant, but unequal fight, the duo evaded more than 40 torpedoes but were still hit by four apiece – enough to send them to the seabed.

HMS Repulse succumbed first, taking 512 souls with her, then Prince of Wales, losing 330 men, including the task force commander Admiral Tom Phillips and her captain John Leach, the father of future First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Henry Leach.

Royal Navy divers recovered the bells from both wrecks 20 years ago amid growing fears of plunder by unscrupulous souvenir hunters and scrap metal merchants and returned them to the museum in Portsmouth for safekeeping.