# Warships Lost With All Hands **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 10, 2012, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488 "2012-05-10T11:12:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/1 "2012-05-10T11:12:36Z")
Just trying to establish which was the largest (in terms of crew) warship which was lost with all hands. In WW2 it was HMAS Sydney, which was lost with all of her crew of 645. At Jutland, several British battle cruisers blew up with the loss of over 1200 men each. However, in each case there were survivors. The largest I can come up with, for a single ship is SMS Scharnhorst, the German armoured cruiser of the Great War. She went down will hands- 860 men. Any advances on this? ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/2 "2012-05-10T11:34:47Z")
Just came close with two from Jutland- HMS Defence (lost 903) and HMS Black Prince (lost 857). ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/3 "2012-05-10T11:43:20Z")
Japanese carriers at Midway? The German. Pre dreadnought lost at Jutland? ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/4 "2012-05-10T11:46:55Z")
> **[List of maritime disasters | Wartime disasters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters#Wartime_disasters)** > > Disasters with great loss of life can occur in times of armed conflict. Shown below are some of the known events with major losses. WW2 possibly Fuso, or Chiyoda. WW1 seems to be HMS Defense. Otara ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/5 "2012-05-10T12:18:05Z")
Thanks AK84 and Otara. The Pommern from WW1 would be a possibility, but still less than the Defence. Interesting your point Otara, I misread the page on HMAS Sydney. It was the largest Allied ship lost with all hands. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/6 "2012-05-10T13:12:43Z")
I know you said lost with “all hands”, but will still mention the [HMS Hood which, after being hit by German shells, exploded and sank killing 1415 of the 1418](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait#Sinking_of_Hood) individuals on board. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/7 "2012-05-10T13:22:41Z")
No worries, I had thought of the Hood but knew of the few survivors. The guy who was into doing the interviews only died a few years back. (And to hijack my own thread- what were the Admiralty thinking- sending a WW1 battle cruiser (they were known to be prone to explode when fighting as capital ships) and a battle ship that hadn’t been even given proper shake down exercises against the most powerful unit in the German Fleet). ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/8 "2012-05-10T14:25:25Z")
The [Scorpian](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29) went down with a total loss of life. It appears to have been common (for obvious reasons) for subs to go down with [all hands lost](http://home.roadrunner.com/~eternalpatrol/TheLostBoats.html). ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/9 "2012-05-10T15:45:27Z")
The board ate my last reply, so I’ll try to be brief. I agree that Fuso and Chiyoda are probably the candidates for WW2, if we only look at warships. I would not be surprised if [one of the merchant ships carrying prisoners back to Japan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_ship) ended up being sunk with all hands and a much higher death toll. [Awa Maru](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awa_Maru_(1943)) and [Junyo Maru](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juny%C5%8D_Maru) come close, I suppose. So does the [SS Thielbek](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Thielbek_(1940)), in a similar role. I wonder if the answer is one of the giant rowed ships that participated at Actium, Lepanto, or Salamis? Certainly, if one of the ginormous [“Forty’s” of Philopator](http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/GiantShips.htm) had sunk with all hands, it’d qualify, with it’s complement of over 7,000 rowers, sailors, and soldiers. I don’t believe they ever saw battle though, and I wonder if any were actually built, or if they were the antiquities version of military vaporware. While Antony’s navy at [Actium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Actium) certainly had ships [large enough](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinquereme#Deceres) to potentially qualify if fully manned, malaria outbreaks meant that he had to sail with drastically reduced complements. I had thought that some of the Spanish Armada ships would be large enough to qualify, but the [wiki of their travails in Ireland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada_in_Ireland) suggest that even the largest ships (La Trinidad Valencera, 1,000 tons, 360 men) weren’t big enough. Maybe elements of the 2nd Mongol invasion fleet, the one scattered by the [Kamikaze](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze_(typhoon)) typhoon of 1281? An MA thesis on the fleet, and archaeological examination of its remains can be found [here](http://repository.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-3100/SASAKI-THESIS.pdf). He cites the Arab explorer, Ibn Battuta, who mentioned in 1347 that large ships, “carried 1,000 men, 600 sailors and 400 marines, had four decks and twelve sails, and were followed by three small vessels.” So perhaps one of those large ships, fully loaded, and lost at sea during the storm, might have been greater than _Sydney_, but certainly not _Fuso_. Also wanted to mention the fates of [HMS _Neptune_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Neptune_(20)) and USS [_Juneau_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Juneau_(CL-52)). Neptune hit a mine in 1941 and lost 737 of her 767 men. 1 man of the 30 survivors that made it to lifeboats managed to survive 5 more days at sea until being rescued by the Italian Navy. Juneau, while limping away from the November 13, 1942 battle of Guadalcanal, took two submarine torpedoes, exploded, broke in half, and sank in 20 seconds. Other ships in the vicinity, seeing the explosion, assuming no survivors of the sinking, and being engaged with the IJN at the time, left the area. Actually more than 100 men [of the 699 man complement](http://www.rtcol.com/~weshortz/memorials/rostju52.htm), including at least 2 of the 5 famous [Sullivan Brothers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan_brothers), had survived the immediate sinking. 8 days on the open sea left only 16 survivors. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/10 "2012-05-10T19:46:40Z")
I would expect that the list would carry a very high number of WW2 subs ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/11 "2012-05-10T20:19:03Z")
Found an interesting article on the fate of the IJN _Fuso_ and its crew [here](http://www.combinedfleet.com/atully06.htm). From the article: > [@](#): > > While it is true that U.S. Navy efforts and even interest in rescuing all but a handful of survivors for interrogation was minimal, in fairness it was chiefly the FUSO’s men who chose to refuse the chance for life. As USS CLAXTON had found with the YAMASHIRO’s survivors, so did USS HEYWOOD L. EDWARDS experience the same thing with FUSO’s survivors. Despite cajolings, and attempts to snare some, none of the floating survivors consented to be rescued. Ultimately, unlike YAMASHIRO, none were retrieved at all. The consequence of this abstinence was tragic. Those that did not perish in the waters of the strait swam ashore, only to be butchered wholesale by Philippine natives eager for vengeance. Survivors of YAMASHIRO, ASAGUMO, and MICHISHIO all report slaughter of many Japanese in this way, and their own narrow escape from the same when a handful was handed over to American Intelligence officers. The result was that as a result of the battleships’ explosion, her sinking, exposure, or murder by the natives, virtually all of FUSO’s crew perished that grim day. > > Even so, contrary to most reports, there were survivors from FUSO, at least one. The Chief Engineer Ishii Tokichi of the ASAGUMO explicitly reported in his interrogation that a `survivor of the FUSO with them had told him that the bomb hit of Oct 24 had destroyed the wardroom and exploded a deck below’. Mentioned as an aside, this casual detail rings true and it is electrifying to think that if the interrogators had just thought to ask Ishii if the engineer had heard the rest of the FUSO’s survivor’s story. Inexplicably, they failed to ask. It also shows that FUSO and ASAGUMO survivors were at one time grouped together. Unfortunately, this individual’s story – if he survived captivity – has not come to light. I’m not sure if it counts for the OP if survivors made it to shore or another ship (the _Asagumo_), only to eventually be killed there. It is surprising to read that people can survive even the most violent shipboard explosions: the aforementioned _Hood_, [HMS _Barham_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdrISbwy_zI), [IJN Mutsu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Mutsu). You’d think no one could possibly live through that, and yet people do. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/12 "2012-05-11T00:32:56Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > No worries, I had thought of the Hood but knew of the few survivors. The guy who was into doing the interviews only died a few years back. > > (And to hijack my own thread- what were the Admiralty thinking- sending a WW1 battle cruiser (they were known to be prone to explode when fighting as capital ships) and a battle ship that hadn’t been even given proper shake down exercises against the most powerful unit in the German Fleet). I think there were four approaches/straits the “Bismarck” and “Prinz Eugen” could use and “Hood” and “Prince of Wales” happened to get the unlucky assignment. Chruchill was afraid of what would happen if two large German capital ships got loose on the mid Atlantic and ran into a convoy. If that happened, the losses in ships, personnel and supplies would be staggering. Churchill was a real aggressive commander in chief..he was constantly pushing his admirals and generals to take more action. The British figured, or hoped, that the superior firepower of Hood and Prince of Wales could handle the two German ships, or slow them down enough for other ships to close in. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/13 "2012-05-11T00:41:17Z")
The [Indianapolis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_%28CA-35%29) wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. About 900 men. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/14 "2012-05-11T00:43:41Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > I think there were four approaches/straits the “Bismarck” and “Prinz Eugen” could use and “Hood” and “Prince of Wales” happened to get the unlucky assignment. > > Chruchill was afraid of what would happen if two large German capital ships got loose on the mid Atlantic and ran into a convoy. If that happened, the losses in ships, personnel and supplies would be staggering. Churchill was a real aggressive commander in chief..he was constantly pushing his admirals and generals to take more action. The British figured, or hoped, that the superior firepower of Hood and Prince of Wales could handle the two German ships, or slow them down enough for other ships to close in. I have to agree with **JS** The British were pretty desperate at this point in the war and really had no choice, one encounter with a convoy would have been a disaster and the US and USSR weren’t in it yet. I don’t think anyone British or German would have predicted the outcome with the Hood, In other words the Royal Navy had to stop the Bismarck at any cost IMHO ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/15 "2012-05-11T00:48:49Z")
> [@Capt\_Kirk](#): > > I have to agree with **JS** The British were pretty desperate at this point in the war and really had no choice, one encounter with a convoy would have been a disaster and the US and USSR weren’t in it yet. I don’t think anyone British or German would have predicted the outcome with the Hood, In other words the Royal Navy had to stop the Bismarck at any cost IMHO IOW: Out of the cold and foggy night came the British ship the Hood And evry British seaman, he knew and understood They had to sink the Bismark, the terror of the sea Stop those guns as big as steers and those shells as big as trees ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/16 "2012-05-11T01:05:20Z")
[hijack if permitted] What responses, and when, in warship design were made as a result of the _Hood_ disaster, or others with the same structural failure mode? Were armament bays reinforced and isolated then? And wouldn’t it be a likely conclusion to do so, at least to a greater extent? [/hijack if permitted] ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/17 "2012-05-11T01:10:50Z")
The [Yamato](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamato) went down with, roughly 2,500 souls, around 90% of her crew. ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/18 "2012-05-11T01:38:38Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > The board ate my last reply, so I’ll try to be brief. > > I wonder if the answer is one of the giant rowed ships that participated at Actium, Lepanto, or Salamis? Certainly, if one of the ginormous [“Forty’s” of Philopator](http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/GiantShips.htm) had sunk with all hands, it’d qualify, with it’s complement of over 7,000 rowers, sailors, and soldiers. I don’t believe they ever saw battle though, and I wonder if any were actually built, or if they were the antiquities version of military vaporware. While Antony’s navy at [Actium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Actium) certainly had ships [large enough](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinquereme#Deceres) to potentially qualify if fully manned, malaria outbreaks meant that he had to sail with drastically reduced complements. Interesting. Did some reading: > **[Tessarakonteres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessarakonteres)** > > Tessarakonteres (Greek: τεσσαρακοντήρης, "forty-rowed"), or simply "forty", was a very large catamaran galley reportedly built in the Hellenistic period by Ptolemy IV Philopator of Egypt. It was described by a number of ancient sources, including a lost work by Callixenus of Rhodes and surviving texts by Athenaeus and Plutarch. According to these descriptions, supported by modern research by Lionel Casson, the enormous size of the vessel made it impractical and it was built only as a prestige ... “But this ship was merely for show; and since she differed little from a stationary edifice on land, being meant for exhibition and not for use, she was moved only with difficulty and danger.” > **[Hellenistic-era warships | Larger polyremes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinquereme#Larger_polyremes)** > > The tendency to build ever bigger ships that appeared in the last decades of the 4th century did not stop at the "ten". Demetrius Poliorcetes built "elevens", "thirteens", "fourteens", "fifteens" and "sixteens", and his son, Antigonus II Gonatas had an "eighteen", while Ptolemy II's navy fielded 14 "elevens", 2 "twelves", 4 "thirteens", and even one "twenty" and two "thirties". Eventually, Ptolemy IV built a "forty" (tessarakontērēs) that was 130 metres (430 ft) long, required 4,000 rower The lar... “It must be noted however that there is no indication of any of these monsters actually participating in battle.” So as you say, the hugest ones seem to be more showpieces at best, if not outright fibbing. Otara ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/19 "2012-05-11T01:59:46Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > [hijack if permitted] > What responses, and when, in warship design were made as a result of the _Hood_ disaster, or others with the same structural failure mode? > > Were armament bays reinforced and isolated then? And wouldn’t it be a likely conclusion to do so, at least to a greater extent? > [/hijack if permitted] There werent any left, Hood was the last english battlecruiser. They’d already managed to get most of the others blown up in fairly similar circumstances, ie using a design that was never intended to fight directly against other battleships. Most of the lessons about Hood’s vulnerability were learned in WW1 at Jutland, they then tried to keep it relevant by modernising it with extra armour , which didnt work so well in practise. You’re also talking 1941 for Hoods destruction, Im not sure there were any new designs for heavily armoured capital ships after that date, they were already on the way to construction, or not made. Vanguard was still being built and did include some lessons according to wiki, but the fundamental flaw by then was recognising that battleships were pretty much done in general. Otara ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488/20 "2012-05-11T02:10:03Z")
> [@Otara](#): > > There werent any left, Hood was the last english battlecruiser. They’d already managed to get most of the others blown up in fairly similar circumstances, ie using a design that was never intended to fight directly against other battleships. > > Most of the lessons about Hood’s vulnerability were learned in WW1 at Jutland, they then tried to keep it relevant by modernising it with extra armour , which didnt work so well in practise. > > You’re also talking 1941 for Hoods destruction, Im not sure there were any new designs for heavily armoured capital ships after that date, they were already on the way to construction, or not made. Vanguard was still being built and did include some lessons according to wiki, but the fundamental flaw by then was recognising that battleships were pretty much done in general. > > Otara He is correct IMHO and I would like to add that the Hood was scheduled for an upper deck armor replacement and buttressing that did not happen because of the war. So to correct my earlier statement at least some British and probably some crew did know of her weaknesses. I can only assume the Germans would have thought the lessons of Jutland and WW1 were learned and corrections made [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warships-lost-with-all-hands/621488.md?page=2)