Why Did HMS Glorious Sink Without Firing a Single Shot

A fleet aircraft carrier. Two destroyers. Twenty-six minutes. 1,519 dead. On 8 June 1940, HMS Glorious disappeared beneath the freezing waters of the North Atlantic after a brief and devastating encounter with the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The carrier never launched a single aircraft in her own defence. She never fired a shot. And one of the Royal Navy's worst wartime disasters unfolded in less than half an hour. But the sinking of HMS Glorious is not simply a story of naval warfare. It is a story of decisions. Decisions made before the first German shell was fired. Decisions involving personal conflict, questionable command choices, an independent sailing order that remains controversial to this day, and an Admiralty response that has never fully satisfied historians. This documentary examines the extraordinary final voyage of HMS Glorious, the heroic last stand of HMS Ardent and HMS Acasta, the sacrifice of 1,519 sailors, and the questions that survived long after the wreck disappeared beneath the waves. Why was one of Britain's most valuable aircraft carriers allowed to sail with minimal escort through dangerous waters? Why were no aircraft airborne when the enemy appeared? Why was the rescue response so slow? And why were the findings of the subsequent inquiry never made public? The answers reveal one of the most controversial naval disasters of the Second World War.