Note to MODS, I don’t think this should be in Cafe Society, as its a factual answer I’m after.
I’ve seen a black and white shot of a warship keeling over to one side then exploding a few times in films and documentaries. Last time I saw it was in Earth Vs the Flying Saucers, blown up roughly halfway through the film by (funnily enough) a flying saucer. In the film its listed as a destroyer, but I’ve no idea what sort of ship save a warship it is.
The most famous is probably HMS Barham’s demise. She was sunk by a German submarine in the Mediterranean, and I for one seem to recall seeing a clip of her going down. The linked page has a photo series that should give a pretty good indication of the clip the photos are from.
I’d not expect a destroyer to “roll over and explode”, largely because I can’t recall a single instance of that happening – usually the tin cans blew up long before having a chance to roll, or never blew up.
Bingo, the photos called sinking 9 and 10 are from the shot seen on film.
So was the explosion her boiler going up or ammunition? And were there many crew on the hull when it went up?
The film clip in question certainly sounds like Barham; she lost some 850 crew, with about 425 survivors, IIRC. The force of the explosion would most likely be the magazines; she had been hit with 3 torpedoes from a U-boat, and there were likely fires raging in the hull.
She was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship, not a destroyer.
Apologies, I added that to Wikipedia after reading Enterprise’s post and his link 