• Question: How much time did it took to build the Prince of Wales warship. And I saw on Natgeo about a incident of sinking because of the Japanese attack. Is it true?

    Asked by anon-74398 to William on 6 May 2020.
    • Photo: William Peach

      William Peach answered on 6 May 2020:

      Hi ArshS, HMS Prince of Wales took about 6 years to build! The company I work for was involved with the building and design work up in Scotland however unluckily I was not involved with any of those projetcs. As for the ship sinking after a Japanese attack I think that cannot be correct so no need to worry, the ship is still in safe hands!

Comments

  • Photo: Callum

    Callum commented on :

    Hi Arsh,

    I have worked both on HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth (the two aircraft carriers of this class with the same design). Both carriers were built using a modular build, so sections were made all around the UK (Birkenhead, Hebburn, Portsmouth, Govan, Appledore, Scotstoun and Rosyth), and were then assembled at Rosyth. The first steel for one of the sections was cut in 2011 (first steel cut is a traditional symbollic moment in ship construction and normal a politician/notable person will do this). The blocks began being assembled in Rosyth in 2014, with the ship being floated in December 2017. After work afloat the ship left Rosyth in September 2019. So in total took nearly 8 years to build, but building at Rosyth was around 6.

    The HMS Prince of Wales that was sunk by the Japanese occured during WW2 and was a Battleship. The new HMS Prince of Wales is named after this ship. The Royal Navy has a tradition of naming ships after previous ships, this is why if you look at wikipedia HMS Prince of Wales has some very old Battle Honours:

    “St Lucia 1778
    Ile de Groix 1795
    Dardanelles 1915-16
    Bismarck 1941
    Malta convoys 1941-42”

    I imagine at some point during her career the new HMS PWLS will visit the area where the battleship sunk and I’m sure this will be a very poignant moment for her crew.

    Hope this helps and gives more info to William’s already good answer.

  • Photo: anon-74398

    anon-74398 commented on :

    Thank you William and Callum for the answer.good to know that the new ship is save.