HMS Repulse 1941
Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | HMS Repulse | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1941 | English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed) |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | battlecruiser | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | War action | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | United Kingdom | Wikidata P137 operator → P17 country |
| Operator | Royal Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War I, Battle of the Atlantic | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Nearest coast | Scotland | Natural Earth (public domain) |
| Position | 55.8978, -4.4044 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
HMS Repulse was one of two Renown-class battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Originally laid down as an improved version of the Revenge-class battleship, her construction was suspended on the outbreak of war because she would not be ready in time. Admiral Lord Fisher, upon becoming First Sea Lord, gained approval for her to resume construction as a battlecruiser that could be built and enter service quickly. The Director of Naval Construction (DNC), Eustace Tennyson-d'Eyncourt, quickly produced an entirely new design to meet Admiral Lord Fisher's requirements and the builders agreed to deliver the ship in 15 months. They did not quite meet that ambitious goal, but the ship was delivered a few months after the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Repulse and her sister ship Renown were the world's fastest capital ships upon completion.
Repulse participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917, the only combat she saw during the war. She was reconstructed twice between the wars; a reconstruction in the 1920s increased her armour protection and made lesser improvements, while another in the 1930s was much more thorough.
Diving & visiting
HMS Repulse came to rest at 183 feet (56 m), almost upside down with her starboard side elevated and her port side buried in the seabed at 3°37′N 104°20′E.
The wreck site was designated as a 'Protected Place' in 2002 under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, 60 years after her sinking.
Location
- Recorded position: 55.8978, -4.4044 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Nearest coast: Scotland
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article HMS Repulse (1916) (revision 1380202745), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Wreck”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- MV Captayannis 1974 · 23 km
- French destroyer Maillé Brézé 1940 · 23 km
- PS Iona 1862 · 25 km
- HMS Cumberland 26 km
- HMS K13 1917 · 29 km
- Akka 1956 · 32 km
Other wrecks of the World War I
- Japanese cruiser Nisshin 1936
- HMS Calypso 1940
- HMS Curlew 1940
- HMS Wakeful 1940
- HMS Warrior 1940
- HMAS Waterhen 1941
- HMS Barham 1941
- HMS Calcutta 1941
- HMS Terror 1941
- HMT Force 1941
All 163 wrecks of the World War I →
Browse more: UK & Ireland wrecks · wrecks off Scotland · Second World War