HMS Repulse by Terry Dukes

HMS Repulse was a Renown - class battle cruiser, the second to last battle cruiser built by John Brown and Company, Clydebank, Scotland, for the Royal Navy. She was originally intended to be a unit of the R class battleships, but was ordered to a modified design. She was launched in 1916, too late to take part in the Battle of Jutland, but also too early to incorporate the lessons of that battle. Still in time to take part in the First World War, in September 1916, she joined the Grand Fleet as flagship of the 1st Battle cruiser Squadron.

During the period between the First and Second World War's she underwent several refits where she was fitted out with thicker armoured plating around the water line and on the decks plus numerous anti-aircraft guns as the threat to shipping now was from the sky in the form of high level and torpedo bombers.

 

At the end of 1941, as the threat of war with Japan loomed ever larger, Repulse was detached to the Far East as a deterrent to Japanese aggression. This force, long envisioned in Admiralty strategic planning as a large battle fleet designed to act as a Fleet-in-being and as a counter to Japanese intentions, eventually was dispatched to Singapore as an under-strength squadron. Its inability to act as a deterrent would soon be exposed.

Initially designated as Force G, this squadron was sent without the planned  aircraft carrier to Singapore. Shortly after the outbreak of war in the Pacific on 8 December 1941, Repulse left Singapore in company with the other major element of the Eastern Fleet, the fast battleship HMS Prince of Wales, and four destroyers, to try and intercept Japanese invasion convoys heading towards Malaya.

The commander of the fleet (known as Force Z), Admiral Sir Tom Philips, flying his flag in Prince of Wales, knew that British forces could not guarantee to provide air cover for his fleet, but elected to proceed anyway because he thought that Japanese forces could not operate so far from land, and he also thought that his ships were relatively immune from fatal damage via air attack, since up to that point, no capital ship at sea had ever been sunk by air attack. The largest unit which had been sunk solely by aircraft up to this time was a heavy cruiser.

On 10 December 1941, after failing to find any Japanese invasion forces, and turning south, the Force spotted Japanese aircraft. The fleet was attacked by 86 Japanese aircraft from the 22nd Air Flotilla based in Saigon, which attacked both Prince of Wales and Repulse. In the ensuing attacks, Repulse was ably handled by her Captain, Bill Tennant, who managed to comb several torpedo attacks. However, Repulse's luck was not to hold out and she was caught by a skilfully synchronised Japanese pincer attack and hit by four or even five torpedoes in rapid succession.

Repulse was fatally hit and soon developed a severe list to port over a period of about six minutes. It was clear that she was sinking, and sinking fast, resulting in Tennant ordering abandon ship. Repulse finally rolled over and sank at 12:23.

Although an older ship than Prince of Wales, Repulse survived a bomb hit and managed to dodge 19 torpedoes before being sunk in 20 minutes after receiving 5 torpedo hits. However unlike Prince of Wales, when Repulse's end came it was far quicker and resulted in a greater loss of life.

HMS Repulse General Characteristics

Displacement: 31,592 tons
Length: 794 ft 2.5 in (242.07 m) overall
Beam: 89 ft 11.5 in (27.42 m)
Draught: 29 ft 8 in (9.0 m)
Propulsion: Direct-drive turbines, 4 shafts, 112,000 hp (83.5 MW)
Speed: 31.7 knots (59 km/h)
Range: 3,650 miles
Complement: 1,181 officers and ratings
Armament: 6 × 15 inch Mk I guns (3×2)
9 × 4 inch low angle guns (3×3)
8 × 4 inch AA guns (2×2, 4×1)
24 × 2-pdr (40 mm) pom-pom (3×8)
8 × 20 mm Oerlikon AA cannon (8×1)
8 × 21 inch (533 mm) Mk II torpedo tubes

The wreck today

The HMS Repulse now lays on her port side, rolling over a few degrees, making the keel point upwards and her starboard rail inclined towards the sea bed. All of its 15” guns are in place and the forward mast creates a large debris field on the sandy bottom. The sea bed bottoms out at 54m and the top of the hull rises to 36m. Roughly midships is a large torpedo hole which has become the home for many years to a large turtle and also, the main “tie in” place for liveaboard operators to leave their permanent mooring lines each season and where a large White Ensign of the Royal Navy is often raised to flutter in the currents to commemorate those who perished on her.

Dive team

Sam Collett, Bredan D'Souza, and John Robson.
Jascha Ortmans and Jacob Mellor.
Fergal Peoples and Glen Carberry.
Terry Dukes and Magnus Lindvall.

All divers had a minimum training level of IANTD Normoxic Trimix plus IANTD Advanced Wreck Diver. Others being qualified to IANTD Trimix, DPV (Diver Propulsion Vehicle), IANTD Trimix instructor and various GUE courses ranging from Fundamentals to Tech Level 2.

Dive plan

Bottom Mix: 20/35 Tx , 50% Oxygen carried in Deco Tanks plus 100% Oxygen surface fed at 6m.
First dive: 25 minute bottom time .
Surface interval: 3 to 5 hours.
Second dive: 25 minute bottom time.
Decompression schedules were carried out with 1 minute stops every 3m from 33m with a 4 minute stop at 21m once the gas switch to 50% oxygen was carried out in order to take advantage of the  “oxygen window” created by the elevated partial pressure of oxygen, and to give it time to circulate throughout the body. From there, another 1 minute stop at 18m then from 15m upwards stops increased until reaching the “deco bar' at 6m where another gas switch was performed, this time onto 100% Oxygen supplied via long hoses from the surface. Stop time at 6m on dive one was 15 minutes and on dive two 22 minutes carried out in the most relaxed way possible to ensure safe “off gassing”, either just floating around or using “Jon” lines supplied  by Jascha, to which we attached to ourselves and onto the “deco bar'” when the current was running.

As there was nine of us diving and only five hoses on the deco bar, plus the fact we often went into parts of the wreck others had just explored, we generally had a 20-30 minute gap between dive teams entering the water to give everyone room to move around on the deco bar and for divers to safely exit the wreck without the fear of others coming in the opposite direction and potentially blocking passageways.

Travel aboard M.V. Empress

My friend Magnus Lindvall, who I met and dived with on a previous liveaboard trip, diving the Japanese WWII wrecks in Coron Bay in the Philippines, flew into Kota Kinabalu from Sweden, on the 6th May and stayed with me for a couple of days to get over his jet lag. We then flew on together to Singapore, where we caught a taxi to Punggol Marina and boarded the MV Empress, owned and captained by the very knowledgeable Vidar Skoglie. The Empress is set up for technical diving and the more difficult to reach destinations since it is kitted out with twin tanks, deco tanks, blending panel, Haskel pump, deco station, recompression chamber, long range fuel tanks fitted in the bilge keels and a good sturdy lift on the transom to bring divers in bulky gear, often with scooters, up to the dive deck where they can be quickly de-kitted by the helpful staff, making life very easy. This lift can also be used to put divers in the water if they don't fancy the fairly high giant stride entry from the side of the ship.

Once all our group of 9 divers were aboard and equipment was set up, bunk beds fought for and bags stowed, we left port as the sun was setting for an overnight passage of 12 hours to reach our first destination, the Pulau Aur wreck, off Malaysia. After 2 dives on this still unidentified tanker, we set sail for another overnight passage, to reach our goal, the HMS Repulse where we were to stay for 5 days of diving.

The dives

On arrival at the wreck site, Vidar entered the water first to check the mooring line is secure, then once back on board, deployed the deco station which comprises of two stainless steel pipes joined by chains and hanging off lines attached to the Empress at 6 and 9 metres and is weighed down by some very heavy looking pieces of brass ingots which are necessary to stop the whole arrangement being swept upwards in strong currents when divers are hanging off the bars during their deco stops. Once this is all done, he gave a quick briefing of whereabouts we were tied in on the wreck, currents and visibility, then retired for a well earned snooze and left the divers to do their own thing, with entries and exits assisted by his two able crew.

We were tied into the mid-ships torpedo hole which was perfect for exploration to either the stern or the bow on each dive since it is virtually impossible to do a complete tour of the entire wreck in a single dive, due to its enormity, unless using a scooter (DPV – Diver Propulsion Vehicle), which several of our group did actually have. The other advantage of this tie off point was that it enabled us to easily navigate our way back as it was on the highest part of the wreck, meaning we were not adding any extra time at maximum depth while looking for the mooring line and then making a safe ascent up it to the deco station. On all dives we were carrying 80 cu/ft deco tanks with 50% oxygen, which we switched to at 21 metres. They always had enough gas in them in case we should miss the mooring line and deco station, meaning we could safely complete a drifting deco obligation on 50% instead of 100% should the need arise which would make our 6 metre stop much longer and rather tedious. With this in mind, Magnus and I spent 2 dives on the first day just orientating ourselves so that we knew how to navigate the wreck back to the mooring line.

We spent 5 days on the wreck doing 2 dives a day with 25 minute bottom times each, which gave us a lot of opportunity to explore large areas of this massive wreck, and a few penetration dives on which we laid line into some rather confined spaces. These kind of dives must be planned correctly and discussed on the surface between buddies and other team members as you do not want everyone going to the same place at once, but it makes it possible for one team to explore further than the last if the previous teams had left their line tied off from their last dive. On these kind of dives, special training and equipment is mandatory, in the event of potential life threatening situations such as, silt out, light failure, or entanglement. Each diver carries two or three finger spools / reels, a powerful HID primary light and 2 smaller back up lights and as many cutting devices as they so choose (Fergal in particular carries 3, a knife on his harness at his waist, and a pair of shears in each of his wetsuit pockets on his legs – other divers have small but very sharp knives attached to their inflators or on the handles of their primary lights, allowing then to be accessible should any body part become entangled ).

When entering the wreck, we made a primary tie off outside with no overhead obstruction and removed our deco tanks and placed them next to the tie off. From there, we slowly proceeded into the wreck making tie off's every few metres while trying to stir up as little silt as possible, all the time shining our lights around so we didn't bang into anything – especially overhead which could be dislodged and trap us. Sometimes we would enter a small passage way, only to find a dead, causing us to turn around (a feat in itself with so much gear on) and go back the way we came. Other times we would travel far into the bowels of the ship where no natural light penetrated. If our primary light had failed we would have been in complete darkness, but by switching on one of our backup lights, we could have found our way out. Even if they had failed, we should still have been able to place our hands on the line and follow it by feel out to safety. When done properly these dives are very safe, especially if you think of all the “what if's”. These can include, primary light failure, backup light failure, second backup light failure, buddies lights all fail and loss of line for feeling your way out. If you had all these failures against you on one dive, that would be extremely rare and very unfair!
On particular dives we would lay line into what would look like a very dark passageway, only to find ourselves coming back out into the light zone and an easy exit point. Even then it is still good practice to lay line because you can never be certain where you are going to end up.

There was so much to see inside and outside the wreck and never enough time before dive time is called and the slow ascent back to the surface resumes. One of my personal favourite dives was the debris field created by the forward mast. This construction was huge and reached out into the sand a very long way. The mast had to be so high because this ship was built before the advent of radar and spotter planes, but was fitted with guns that could fire a shell over the horizon at an enemy which could not be seen from deck level. Therefore a high mast had to be fitted with a lookout station on top so that spotters could be stationed there to relay directions to the bridge, which could then be passed on to the batteries for accurate bombardment.
It should be stated that the British government regard this wreck as a war grave and therefore should be respected as such.

Training

Terry Dukes is the IANTD Instructor for Borneo Dream. He runs our IANTD technical diving courses from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo Malaysia. If you are interested in becoming a technical diver, or would like high quality, safe training in the use of twin tanks & deco tanks, then please contact the Borneo Dream team.

We offer a range of IANTD courses which cover training in technical diving skills such as gas switching, using a high percentage of oxygen for decompression, using helium to reduce the effect of narcosis at depth and wreck penetration techniques. Mastering these skills is essential for getting the most from your deeper wreck diving trips.