Скачать или смотреть The 'Defenseless' British Liner That Charged A Battleship And Saved 32 Ships.

HMS Jervis Bay: Converted passenger liner with no armor, 7 old 6-inch guns, 15 knots. Charged a pocket battleship with 6× 11-inch guns, 80mm armor, 28 knots. Lasted 22 minutes. 187 men died. 32 of 37 merchant ships escaped. Over 1,000 merchant seamen saved.

November 5, 1940. Mid-Atlantic. Convoy HX-84: 37 merchant ships carrying fuel, food, munitions to Britain. No Royal Navy warship escort. Just HMS Jervis Bay—a converted passenger liner.
Then on the horizon: A pocket battleship. 6× 11-inch guns. 80mm armor. 28 knots. Hunting convoys.

HMS Jervis Bay specifications:
🔹 Original: 1922 passenger liner (emigrants Britain → Australia)
🔹 Converted: August 1939 (Admiralty requisition)
🔹 Displacement: 14,164 tons
🔹 Speed: 15 knots (battleship made 28 knots!)
🔹 Armament: 7× 6-inch guns (late 1800s vintage)
🔹 Fire control: None (each gun aimed independently)
🔹 Armor: NONE (zero armor plating)
🔹 Crew: 254 men

Pocket battleship specifications:
🔹 Displacement: 15,420 tons
🔹 Speed: 28 knots (almost TWICE Jervis Bay's speed)
🔹 Main guns: 6× 11-inch (two triple turrets)
🔹 Shell weight: 660 pounds (vs Jervis Bay's 112 pounds)
🔹 Belt armor: 80mm
🔹 Turret armor: 150mm
🔹 Radar: Yes (Jervis Bay had none)

The mismatch was absolute. Jervis Bay's guns couldn't even REACH the battleship at the range the battleship's guns were effective. Captain Edward Fogarty Fegen looked at the odds and made his decision in seconds.
He ordered the convoy to scatter. He turned Jervis Bay directly toward the battleship. He knew he was going to die. He needed to buy his convoy time.

The battle lasted 22 minutes:
🔹 Early minutes: Enemy 11-inch shells destroyed bridge. Captain Fegen killed (one arm blown off, stayed at his post)
🔹 Throughout: Jervis Bay burning bow to stern, outgunned, outranged, kept firing
🔹 Gun crews: Fired blind, knew shells falling short, knew it didn't matter—only TIME mattered
🔹 Crew climbed damaged mast: Nailed replacement White Ensign after first flag shot away
🔹 +22 minutes: Ablaze, guns silent, engine room flooding, order to abandon ship
🔹 Result: Rolled over, sank, 187 men died

But those 22 minutes changed everything. By the time Jervis Bay sank, darkness was falling. The convoy had scattered across hundreds of square miles. The battleship caught 5 merchant ships. 32 ships escaped into the night. Over 1,000 merchant seamen survived because Captain Fegen bought them time.

Captain Fegen was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously. The citation: "Fought his ship against overwhelming odds to protect his convoy." It was one of the most extraordinary awards of the war. A passenger liner captain who charged a battleship with guns that couldn't reach it, knowing he would die, to buy minutes for merchant ships to run.

The strategic arithmetic:
✅ WITHOUT Jervis Bay: Battleship reaches convoy in daylight, hours to spare, catastrophic losses
✅ WITH Jervis Bay's 22 minutes: Convoy scattered before darkness, 32 of 37 ships escaped

Armed Merchant Cruisers—the desperate measure:
🔹 Britain's situation (Autumn 1940): France fallen, U-boats sinking 66 ships/month, too few Royal Navy escorts
🔹 Solution: Requisitioned 56 passenger liners, bolted old guns, sent to sea
🔹 Nickname: "Admiralty Made Coffins"
🔹 Reality: No armor, no fire control, old guns, huge targets
🔹 Cost: 15 of 56 sunk during war, hundreds of men per loss
🔹 Justification: Alternative was leave convoys COMPLETELY undefended

By 1942, corvettes and frigates arrived. Armed merchant cruisers withdrawn. But in November 1940, there was nothing else.
The lesson: British naval courage didn't require armor plate or heavy guns. It required the willingness to stand between the enemy and the people you were sent to protect, and to hold that line until you could hold it no longer.
HMS Jervis Bay held for 22 minutes. It was enough.

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