10 December 1941 was one of the blackest days in the history of the Royal Navy.

Through a combination of strategic miscalculations and tactical errors, the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse were sunk by Japanese aircraft off Malaya.

840 officers and men lost their lives.

Many of them showed astonishing bravery during the ships' final battle.

However, perhaps because their courage was associated with a national disaster, these men did not receive the recognition they deserved.

The highest award for any of them was a Mention in Dispatches, shamefully low down the hierarchy of military honours.

Here, then, are a few stories from that terrible day.

The commanding officer of Prince of Wales was Captain Leach. His son was a Midshipman on HMS Mauritius, and the two met up for a drink at the Base.

Midshipman Leach recalled his father going for a swim, saying '...you never know when it mightn't come in handy'.

The capital ships were escorted by a number of destroyers, including HMS Express.

A few days before the battle her commanding officer, Lt Cdr Cartwright, sent his servant ashore to get him a papaya. He was irritated to discover that it wasn't ripe, and said so.

Now, as the ship swerved wildly to avoid bombs and torpedoes with every gun ablaze, Cartwright's servant appeared on the bridge, snapped off a smart salute and solemnly intoned that the papaya was ready to eat.

The Japanese attack was swift, skilful and devastating.

Soon, both Prince of Wales and Repulse were sinking. Although this was obvious to many of the crew, not a single one of them on either vessel left his station until ordered to do so.

This devotion to duty cost many lives.

Midshipman Davies of HMS Repulse was last seen continuing to engage attacking aircraft with his Oerlikon gun despite the fact that, in the words of the citation, 'he and the gun mounting were slowly submerging'.

Robert Davies was 18 years old. He did not survive.

Rev W. G. Parker was Prince of Wales's padre.

In battle, his responsibilities included looking after the wounded, and he was one of the only non-medical officers issued with morphia.

When the end came he was at the bottom of a passageway tending to men so badly wounded that they could not be moved.

Given the chance to escape, Rev Parker refused to leave them. He did not survive.

As Repulse was sinking, Gunner Page found himself standing on the upper deck next to another man who had no lifebelt.

Gunner Page unhesitatingly took off his own lifebelt and gave it to the other man.

The other man survived. Page did not.

HMS Express went alongside Prince of Wales to embark her survivors as she sank.

As she approached, one of them called out 'Does anyone want a cheap ship?'

One of the most moving features of this action is the determination of rescued survivors to find some way of staying in the fight.

Royal Marine gun crews from Repulse, fresh from the oil slicked sea, immediately volunteered to man the guns of the destroyer which picked them up (HMS Electra) so that the sailors who usually did so could help with the rescue.

Surgeon Lt Hamilton, also of Repulse, had been working throughout the battle in appalling conditions treating the wounded.

Picked out of the water, he continued to do so aboard Electra for a further nine hours.

When the survivors reached Singapore they were helped ashore by the crews of ships docked there.

One rating had lost his shoes, and was walking across the dockyard gravel when an officer offered him a piggyback.

The rating protested that the officer would ruin his white tropical uniform.

The officer responded 'F*ck the uniform! Get up on my back.'

Among those gathered at the dockside when the survivors landed was Midshipman Leach, searching for his father.

He did not find him. Captain Leach remained on his ship to the last, and went down with her.

A poignant sequel to this tragedy was recorded by Petty Officer Wren Saunders, in charge of the Casualty Office at Devonport.

Long after all the families of the dead and missing had been notified, a woman arrived at PO Saunders's office asking about her husband. She was clutching a photograph of him with her and their children.

PO Saunders couldn't understand how this family had been missed.

Then she checked her records, and discovered the awful truth.

The rating's wife had been notified weeks earlier.

He had 'married' the woman sitting in PO Saunders's office bigamously, and she had no idea whatsoever.

PO Saunders was left to break the news of what she aptly called a 'double disaster' to this poor mother, who suddenly found herself and her children abandoned in every conceivable way.

The feelings of those who survived are perhaps best summarised by these words from one of them: