Mercifully, in the film we can hardly see the men still on the deck. Why is no particular effort being made to rescue the men on the Barham? There are at least two ships standing by - the one the film is taken from, and another briefly in shot, but no sign of them sending small boats over. Was it simply that they were afraid of boats being swamped as the battleship turned over, and not expecting the explosion were hoping to pick up many survivors from the water (fairly warm in the Med) after she went under? Surely of the 800 or so who died, the majority would have died in the magazine explosion not the initial torpedo strike? Adrian
To answer my question in the above post - its been pointed out that the Barham only took 2 1/2 minutes to sink; I didn't realise the film starts so soon after the torpedo strike. In that case, its amazing that over 300 men survived.
Good lord, I've seen pics of the explosion but that sense of foreboding watching the movie is quite shocking.
I always remember that horrendous frame of HMS Barham's dramatic end. On the Lincoln War Memorial there are two names which stick out for me.The father killed on the Western Front and his son killed on the Barham.
