"was a strategic victory for the Allies—the German blockade failed—but at great cost: 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships were sunk in the Atlantic for the loss of 783 U-boats (the majority being Type VII submarines) and 47 German surface warships, including 4 battleships (""Scharnhorst"", ""Bismarck"", ""Gneisenau"", and ""Tirpitz""), 9 cruisers, 7 raiders, and 27 destroyers. Of the U-boats, 519 were sunk by British, Canadian, or other allied forces, while 175 were destroyed by American forces; 15 were destroyed by Soviets and 73 were scuttled by their crews before the end of the war for various causes. The Battle of"
"a visit to the United Kingdom, President Bill Clinton announced to Parliament that the new ship would be named after Sir Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She was the first destroyer and only the fourth United States Navy warship named after a British citizen, and the first since 1976 named after a non-American citizen, though Churchill was an honorary U.S. citizen and his mother was American. Other American warships named after Britons were , an armed merchantman named after King Alfred the Great; , a continental frigate, named after Sir Walter Raleigh (though three later"
"he conceded that scuttling ""may have hastened the inevitable, but only by a matter of minutes."" Ballard later concluded that ""As far as I was concerned, the British had sunk the ship regardless of who delivered the final blow."" Notes Citations Online sources German battleship Bismarck Bismarck was the first of two s built for Nazi Germany's ""Kriegsmarine"". Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched in February 1939. Work was completed in August 1940, when she was commissioned into the German fleet. ""Bismarck"""
"She was decommissioned in 1990 and is laid up at Devonport awaiting disposal. ""Conqueror""s periscopes can be viewed at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport. Churchill-class submarine The three Improved ""Valiant""-class submarines, sometimes known as the ""Churchill"" class, were nuclear-powered fleet submarines which served with the Royal Navy from the 1970s until the early 1990s. The ""Churchill"" class was based on the older , but featured many internal improvements. The lead vessel was named after the former Prime Minister and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. was the most famous of the class, sinking the Argentinian cruiser during"
"to be ordered, to drop the practice of naming submarines, so these vessels were initially labelled ""P31"" to ""P39"", ""P41"" to ""P49"", etc., instead of receiving names. At the end of 1942 Churchill personally ordered that all submarines were to receive names, but eight ships were lost whilst in service with the Royal Navy, before they could have their names officially assigned (six according to uboat.net). In addition, a number were assigned to Allied navies, both before and after the war. One assigned to the Royal Norwegian Navy, HNoMS ""Uredd"", was also lost after hitting a mine. The last surviving"
"and buried with rubble from the attack in the construction of a new quay. The number of casualties from her loss is unknown. German cruiser Admiral Scheer Admiral Scheer was a heavy cruiser (often termed a pocket battleship) which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland. She was laid down at the ""Reichsmarinewerft"" shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in June 1931 and completed by November 1934. Originally classified as an armored ship (""Panzerschiff"") by the Reichsmarine, in February 1940 the Germans reclassified the"
"sent. The Chiefs of Staff decided to recommend sending to the Far East from the Mediterranean, followed by four s that were refitting at home and in the United States, but ""Barham"" was sunk by a German U-boat in November 1941. Three weeks later the remaining two battleships at Alexandria, and were seriously damaged by Italian human torpedoes. While no more destroyers or cruisers were available, the Admiralty decided that an aircraft carrier, the small HMS ""Eagle"" could be sent. Winston Churchill, now the Prime Minister, noted that since the German battleship ""Tirpitz"" was tying up a superior British fleet,"
"Churchill-class submarine The three Improved ""Valiant""-class submarines, sometimes known as the ""Churchill"" class, were nuclear-powered fleet submarines which served with the Royal Navy from the 1970s until the early 1990s. The ""Churchill"" class was based on the older , but featured many internal improvements. The lead vessel was named after the former Prime Minister and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. was the most famous of the class, sinking the Argentinian cruiser during the 1982 Falklands War. , this is the only instance of a nuclear-powered submarine of any nation sinking an enemy ship by torpedo. The ""Churchill""s carried"
"German cruiser Admiral Scheer Admiral Scheer was a heavy cruiser (often termed a pocket battleship) which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland. She was laid down at the ""Reichsmarinewerft"" shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in June 1931 and completed by November 1934. Originally classified as an armored ship (""Panzerschiff"") by the Reichsmarine, in February 1940 the Germans reclassified the remaining two ships of this class as heavy cruisers. The ship was nominally under the limitation on warship size imposed by the Treaty"
"issued by Winston Churchill to captains of merchant ships. These orders included treating the crews of U-boats as felons and not as prisoners of war, in consideration of the German Empire's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. White flags were to be ignored. Churchill's order also stated that survivors from U-boats might be shot if this was more convenient than taking them prisoner. If a captain were to surrender his ship he would be prosecuted by the British. The Germans became aware of these orders when they found a copy of them upon capturing the in October 1915. For this second"
"intact. SS General von Steuben SS ""General von Steuben was a German passenger liner and later an armed transport ship of the German Navy that was sunk during World War II. She was launched as München (sometimes spelled Muenchen), renamed in 1930 as General von Steuben (after the famous German officer of the American Revolutionary War), and renamed again in 1938 as Steuben"". During World War II, she served as a troop accommodation ship, and from 1944 as an armed transport. On 10 February 1945 the ship was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine ""S-13"" during Operation Hannibal and sunk. It"
"rushed into production to build up British defences against a possible German invasion. The first vehicles had flaws that had to be overcome before the Churchill was accepted for wide use. After several marks had been built, a better armoured version, the Mark VII, entered service. The Churchill was used by British and Commonwealth forces in the North Africa campaign, in Italy, and in northwest Europe. In addition, a few hundred were supplied to the USSR and used on the Eastern Front. The Churchill tank was named after Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had promoted the development of the tank"
"of the conflict. After the attack Zahn became widely known as the ""Man who almost killed Churchill"" amongst the U-boat submariner corps. After the attack, Zahn ordered the U-boat to descend to a deeper level to avoid depth charges since the destroyers had by now detected its presence. In the evening Zahn ordered ""U-56"" to surface and subsequently sent a radio report to Berlin listing the targets in the group including HMS ""Rodney"". The delay in the transmission of the information was caused by Zahn's depression caused by missing his target. Had this delay in Zahn's report not happened, the"
"of the German surrender. Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered the sinkings, denying the majority of the ships to the British. Von Reuter was made a prisoner-of-war in Britain but his defiant final act of war was celebrated in Germany. Though most of the fleet was subsequently salvaged by engineer Ernest Cox, a number of warships (including three battleships) remain, making the area very popular amongst undersea diving enthusiasts. Under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, the great naval powers were required to limit the size of their battlefleets, resulting in the disposal of some older or"
"time, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose to commemorate the Australian warship's loss by renaming the under-construction ""Pittsburgh"" as . The duplication of ship names with the United States Navy was against RAN policy, and it was initially felt that Australia had a greater claim to the name. Protests in favour of retaining ""Shropshire""s original name were received from the British elements of the ship's company, who felt that renaming a ship after one that had recently been sunk was inviting bad luck, and from citizens of the ship's namesake, which had adopted the cruiser in a Warship Week"
"be a ship that had hove to or surrendered. During wartime, the surrendering or sinking ship would be searched for any valuable information such as plans and ciphers. One prominent example would be during World War II, when British vessels crippled the in 1941, and sent a crew aboard after the U-boat commander, Kapitänleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp, gave the order to abandon ship. The British would be rewarded with a fully operational Enigma cipher machine, left behind by the German sailors. On June 4, 1944 a United States Navy task force led by Captain Daniel V. Gallery boarded and captured ."
"body was cremated, and its ashes were scattered at sea. Otto Kretschmer Otto Kretschmer (1 May 1912 – 5 August 1998) was the most successful German U-boat commander in the Second World War and later an admiral in the Bundesmarine. From September 1939 until his surrender in March 1941, he sank 47 ships, a total of 274,333 tons. For this he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, among other awards. He earned the nickname ""Silent Otto"" both for his successful use of the ""silent running"" capability of U-boats as well as for his"
"Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed that the film was an ""affront"" to British sailors. The film was also criticized for portraying German U-boat crews in a negative light by showing them gunning down Allied survivors instead of giving them assistance or taking them aboard as prisoners. During the Battle of the Atlantic, after sinking a merchant ship from an Allied convoy, German U-boat ""U-571"" has her engines badly damaged by depth charges from a British destroyer. ""U-571's"" skipper ""Kapitänleutnant"" Gunther Wassner makes a distress call that is intercepted by American intelligence. The US Navy has its submarine ""S-33"" modified to"
"name, stating that ""it was derogatory to one of His Majesty's ships"", but the Prime Minister had his way. The only other Royal Navy vessel to be named by Churchill was . She was part of the second batch of the third group to be ordered, in 1941. She was one of a number of boats which had an all-welded hull which increased diving depth to , an increase of . The torpedo armament was the same as the earlier group two, although by the time group three was coming into service it was realised that external torpedo tubes had"
"to intercept the British squadron and struck a mine at . The S22 split in half and 17 crew members were rescued. Galster went down with his ship. The World War II German destroyer ""Z20"" was named ""Karl Galster"" in his honour. Karl Galster Kapitänleutnant Karl Galster (29 March 1886, Berlin25 March 1916) was a German naval officer killed in World War I. Galster was the son of Admiral Karl Galster (snr) and joined the German Navy as a cadet in 1904. He was promoted to Kapitänleutnant in 1914 and commanded a torpedo boat. He was commander of Torpedo Boat"
"Sea coast, ending the ""Kriegsmarine""s war at sea. Operation Regenbogen (U-boat) Regenbogen (""Rainbow"") was the code name for the planned mass scuttling of the German U-boat fleet, to avoid surrender, at the end of World War II. At the beginning of May 1945 Nazi Germany was collapsing under the Allied onslaught. The Soviets had captured Berlin, and on 30 April Hitler had committed suicide. He had appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. US Forces from the west and Soviet forces from the east had already met at Torgau, cutting the"
"hours to sink, allowing all wounded and ship's crew to board lifeboats except for the four engine men who died in the initial explosion. The sinking of the ship caused outrage in Britain. The German high command denied sinking the ship, instead blaming the explosion on a loose British mine. However, German naval command had declared 'unrestricted submarine warfare' in a desperate effort to win the war. The naval command secretly ordered U-boat captains to sink any Allied ship, including hospital ships, even though it violated Hague Convention X. However, the captain of ""U-55"" Wilhelm Werner — perhaps fearing the"
"for them, but in reality it contributed to their defeat by causing the US to enter the war on the side of the Allies. Despite the experience of World War I, Britain initially expected that German submarines would fight under the cruiser rules in World War II. However, in September 1939 German submarine ""U-30"" sunk the British passenger liner SS ""Athenia"" apparently mistaking it for a military ship. Admiral Dönitz pressed for unrestricted submarine warfare. However, Dönitz was starved of resources until after the Battle of Britain in 1940 when it became clear that Britain could not be successfully invaded."
"commanding from the Armoured cruiser HMS ""Warrior"". HMS ""Warrior"" was part of the ill-fated ""First Cruiser Squadron"", which was deployed as a vanguard several miles ahead of the main British fleet. When contact was first made with the German High Seas Fleet, Rear-Admiral Arbuthnot boldly but unwisely ordered the First Cruiser Squadron to engage, and the small squadron thus found itself facing the combined firepower of the German Dreadnoughts. Hopelessly outgunned, the other ships in Arbuthnot's squadron were swiftly blown to pieces and sank - taking their entire crews down with them. (Admiral Arbuthnot himself died when his ship was"
"the post Cold War defense spending downturn, then Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl approved an assistance package to German industry including the construction of two ""Dolphin""-class submarines. The names ""Dolphin"" and ""Leviathan"" hail from the retired Israeli WWII-era submarines of the British T class; the third boat ""Tekuma"" (translation: Revival) refers in memory of ""Dakar"", the third Israeli boat of the T class which was lost in 1968 with all Israeli crew in the Mediterranean Sea during delivery. The names of the newer boats ""Tanin"" and ""Rahav"" are taken from retired ""Gal""-class submarines, which were themselves named after even older"
"double scroll of red that has a white reverse side.""The ship's motto, ""In war: Resolution. In peace: Good Will,"" is taken from the epigraph of Churchill's The Second World War. ""The coat of arms in full color as in the blazon, upon a white background enclosed within a dark blue oval border edged on the outside with a gold rope and bearing the inscription ""USS Winston S. Churchill"" at the top and ""DDG 81"" in the base all gold."" USS Winston S. Churchill USS ""Winston S. Churchill"" (DDG-81) is an destroyer of the United States Navy. She is named after"
"Royal"" by on 14 September, followed by the sinking of ""Courageous"" three days later, prompted the Royal Navy to withdraw its carriers from anti-submarine patrols. ""Courageous"" was the first British warship to be sunk by German forces. (The submarine had been sunk a week earlier by ""Friendly fire"" from the British submarine .) The commander of the German submarine force, Commodore Karl Dönitz, regarded the sinking of ""Courageous"" as ""a wonderful success"" and it led to widespread jubilation in the ""Kriegsmarine"" (German navy). Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, commander of the ""Kriegsmarine"", directed that Schuhart be awarded the Iron Cross First"
"Operation Regenbogen (U-boat) Regenbogen (""Rainbow"") was the code name for the planned mass scuttling of the German U-boat fleet, to avoid surrender, at the end of World War II. At the beginning of May 1945 Nazi Germany was collapsing under the Allied onslaught. The Soviets had captured Berlin, and on 30 April Hitler had committed suicide. He had appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. US Forces from the west and Soviet forces from the east had already met at Torgau, cutting the Reich in two, while in the north 21st"
"The launch and christening of the ship two years earlier was co-sponsored by Churchill's daughter, Lady Soames. In addition, the Danish DFDS line named a car ferry ""Winston Churchill"" and The Corporation of Trinity House named one of their lighthouse tenders similarly. A sail training ship was named ""Sir Winston Churchill"". In September 1947, the Southern Railway named a Battle of Britain class steam locomotive No. 21C151 after him. Churchill was offered the opportunity to perform the naming ceremony, but he declined. The locomotive was later used to pull his funeral train, and is now preserved in the National Railway"
"German battleship Bismarck Bismarck was the first of two s built for Nazi Germany's ""Kriegsmarine"". Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched in February 1939. Work was completed in August 1940, when she was commissioned into the German fleet. ""Bismarck"" and her sister ship were the largest battleships ever built by Germany, and two of the largest built by any European power. In the course of the warship's eight-month career under its sole commanding officer, Captain Ernst Lindemann, ""Bismarck"" conducted only one offensive"
"SS General von Steuben SS ""General von Steuben was a German passenger liner and later an armed transport ship of the German Navy that was sunk during World War II. She was launched as München (sometimes spelled Muenchen), renamed in 1930 as General von Steuben (after the famous German officer of the American Revolutionary War), and renamed again in 1938 as Steuben"". During World War II, she served as a troop accommodation ship, and from 1944 as an armed transport. On 10 February 1945 the ship was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine ""S-13"" during Operation Hannibal and sunk. It has"
"Otto Schuhart Otto Schuhart (4 September 1909 – 10 March 1990) commanded the U-boat in Nazi Germany's ""Kriegsmarine"" during World War II. He received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (), a decoration awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or outstanding military leadership. ""Korvettenkapitän"" (corvette captain) Schuhart is credited with the sinking of the aircraft carrier on 17 September 1939, the first British warship to be lost in the war. In total Schuhart claimed thirteen ships sunk on seven war patrols, for a total of of Allied merchant shipping and one warship of . Born in Hamburg, Schuhart joined"
"a result, losses were heavy, with 12 of the 16 Royal Navy Tribals sunk, as well as one Canadian ship. ""Gurkha"" has the rare and unfortunate distinction of being the name of two ships that were sunk in World War II: the L-class destroyer was renamed to honour the lost Tribal-class ship, and was herself lost in 1942. ""Cossack"" earned fame early on in the war, when on 6 February 1940, commanded by Captain Philip Vian, she pursued and then boarded the German tanker in neutral Norwegian waters in a daring attack to rescue around 300 British prisoners of war"