HMS Prince of Wales

The  HMS Prince of Wales was a British King George v class battleship. The Prince of Wales had a brief but active career, helping to stop the Bismarck and carrying Churchill to the Newfoundland Conference; however, her sinking by Japanese land-based bombers in the Far East in 1941 is one of the events that led to the end of the battleship being considered the predominant class in naval warfare.

Prince of Wales in Days of Infamy
On 25 October 1941, Prince of Wales was dispatched to Singapore as part of Force Z, along with the battlecruiser HMS Repulse and the destroyers HMS Electra and Express. She thus became the flagship of the Eastern Fleet under Admiral Sir Tom Phillips. She reached Singapore in early December The new aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable had been scheduled to join Force Z, but she ran aground in Jamaica during trials and was under repair.

These ships were sent to Singapore to "overawe" the Japanese and deter them from attacking Malaya and the East Indies. However, the Japanese were not deterred and commenced their invasions on 8 December, the same day that they attacked Pearl Harbor on the other side of the International Date Line. Admiral Phillips decided to try to intercept the landing fleets, and Prince of Wales and Repulse set off, along with four destroyers, HMS Electra, Express, Tenedos, and HMAS Vampire, to search for the Japanese. However, they were not successful and the Japanese submarine I-65 spotted them as they returned to Singapore. Japanese aircraft and submarines shadowed the fleet, and on 10 December 1941, without any air cover, both the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were attacked and sunk by 86 Japanese bombers and torpedo bombers from the 22nd Air Flotilla based at Saigon.