PRINCE OF WALES BELL

Bell from the celebrated Second World War battleship HMS Prince of Wales on show

The bell from the celebrated Second World War battleship HMS Prince of Wales – built at Cammell Laird’s Birkenhead shipyard and sunk by Japanese aircraft in 1941 – is going on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

A total of 327 men died when Prince of Wales went down off Singapore while a further 1285 on board survived. The same action saw the loss of the battle cruiser HMS Repulse.

British divers recovered the bell of Prince of Wales in 2002 after fears that it would be stolen from the war grave by unauthorised divers. The bell has kindly been presented on a long-term loan to Merseyside Maritime Museum by the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth.

Prince of Wales had close links with Merseyside. While being built at Cammell Laird’s, she was badly damaged by a German bomb during an air raid in 1940. Many of her crew were from Merseyside and the north of England. Three weeks before her sinking, she was ‘adopted’ by the city of Liverpool, whose citizens raised her full building cost of £10 million.

Prince of Wales had a short and tragic career. She was with HMS Hood when that ship was sunk off Iceland by the German battleship Bismarck. During that action, two shells from Prince of Wales damaged Bismarck’s fuel tanks. This caused a large oil slick which led to the German warship being hunted down and sunk.

Later Prince of Wales carried British Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic for crucial talks with US President Franklin D Roosevelt.

You are invited to send a reporter and photographer to see the bell at 1030 hours this Thursday 1 May 2003 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. Both museum and naval staff will be available for interviews.

The bell will be formally presented on loan to the museum by First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Alan West on Saturday 3 May 2003 as part of the Battle of the Atlantic commemorations. Guests at this invitation-only event will include Prince of Wales survivors. Later, museum visitors will be able to see the bell from 11 am.

Merseyside Maritime Museum,Albert Dock,LiverpoolOpen Mon-Sun 10am-5pmInformation 0151 4784499Website http://www.merseysidemaritimemuseum.org.uk