Denmark Strait and RN Articles of War

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

lets see the whole problems with “ The Plot “ ADM 116/4352 Exhibit A made for the Hood Second board of Inquiry.


1 ) - PoW bearing and distance to Bismarck at 05.37 :

PoW position at 05.37 is drew on point A, the Bismarck exact position on that moment is point B ( 17 sea miles bearing 334 degrees ). But on this map Bismarck at 05.37 is drew on point C which is far away north of some like 7 sea miles from point B. On a correctly drew map the points B and C must be the same position for Bismarck, obviously.
Distance between point B and point C represent a battlefield enlargement north of 7 sea miles between the PoW/Hood run track and Bismarck/Prinz Eugen run track.


2 ) - Hood and PoW tracks are separated and Hood track is north of PoW :

PoW and Hood correct track I have added ( since it was completely missing on this map in original ) is from point L to point A ( course 240 ) than to point E (courses 280 than 300 ) and than point G were Hood exploded ( courses 300 than 280).
Hood track is drew above the PoW one ( ??? ) from point H to point G and it is surely wrong; that track, separated from the PoW one ( and it is an error that should have never been accepted knowing the fact even on 1941 ) was made only to bring the Hood track closer to the Norfolk track above.
In fact Hood was reported on Norfolk war diary at 05.50 on bearing 220 at 14 sea miles, which is represented here from point D to point F. Down below, the distance from point F to point E is how much this map has been enlarged toward south and how much Hood was brought incorrectly north toward Norfolk at 05.50 compared to PoW. Separating Hood and PoW on that way with 2 different sailing direction in fact ( incorrectly ) they were able to meet the 05.50 checkpoint and maintain Hood distant enough at 06.00. Also in this case we are talking about 5 sea miles distance to south.

Norfolk and Suffolk Official Plot_102.jpg (66.3 KiB) Viewed 1092 times

SUMMARIZING :

The final effect of those 2 dimension enlargement is easy to be understood, Norfolk track became more distant both from Bismarck, but keeping correct bearings toward the enemy and it resulted more distant from Hood sinking position too at 06.00, while being at the evaluated distance from Hood own track at 05.50, since it was moved 5 sea miles closer, incorrectly. The 2 tracks ( Hood + PoW ) must have been drew jointly, with Hood together and slightly south of PoW and not north of her and so distant. I found incredible that they even accepted this map at all with this evident error on it.
In fact eliminating those 2 “ enlargement factors “ the battlefield become closer and the distances are reduced significantly, recovering almost all the enlargement factors once the correct bearings and distances are re-established.

Bye Antonio

[wadinga]

Hello Antonio,

Thanks for all this explanation, which I will enjoy studying over the W/E, but can I query two points?

1/ The GREEN track depends entirely on the 18 degree bearing which has no provenance in any document you have discovered, other than annotation to Plan 4. There is no description of an optical bearing or HF/DF bearing, and you have discarded the 10 mile range as inaccurate. There is another range/bearing to Suffolk as well added crudely to plan 4. Is there any origin for this, which might indicate where the 18 degrees comes from? Also making a cross bearing for an intersection relative to two unrelated features (PoW's track and Bismarck's track) is surely bad practice. It depends on them being exactly 17 miles apart at 05:37. You don't know that. There is a strong likelyhood this is wrong.

2/You mention

In fact Hood was reported on Norfolk war diary at 05.50 on bearing 220 at 14 sea miles, which is represented here from point D to point F.

Since 220 is what Norfolk was steering at the time, this suggests Hood passed ahead at this time, a notable occurence and this is true of the VIOLET only. You have positioned VIOLET relative only to PoW, which I believe is good practice, and yet at the end the range to Bismarck at 06:00 in the region of the rangefinder measurement logged for 06:06 which makes sense.

You have asked

Why you did not take in any consideration the evident wrong input by Wake-Walker at 06.00 declaring himself at 15 sea miles from Hood at bearing 230 from him ? That is for sure wrong, it is simply impossible as it is self evident on my map above.

But for VIOLET you have accepted the bearing, and I am prepared to accept that Norfolk was more like 12 miles than 15 at 06:00 since it is very likely nobody measured it because they didn't care how far away Hood was. They still didn't care when the plot was produced for the Hood enquiry because it was a technical enquiry into Hood's loss and the distance was irrelevant. You only care because of the Triangle of Doom, but if you substitute your 12 miles for the 10 in the original diagram, what is the Norfolk range to Bismarck? Out of Range.

Looking forward to studying further.
All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

the 18 degrees PoW to Norfolk bearing is something done on 1941 by the Admiralty, it is into the official documentation. Again I remind you that on the Official PoW maps that angle is much closer than 18 degrees. Just look at the above maps I provided to everybody.
You teach me that bearings are far more accurate than distances, and I agree about it, since crossing all the available bearings among all units we can put together the scenario. Believing only the evaluated distances nothing seems to match at all, too many wrong inputs for various reasons at different times.

You wrote me about Hood being at RED 20/25 viewed from Norfolk at open fire : so 05.52 and 30 seconds. That is 240/5 and not 220.

Antonio, looking through those accounts I noticed Lieutenant Hugh Royds in Norfolk saying Hood was RED 20 when she opened up and Bismarck about GREEN 40. Able Seaman Snaith said Hood was about RED 25 when she opened fire. How do these observations fit with your latest scenario?

This is even more than the angle showed by the GREEN track as RED angle of view of Hood at open fire, surely not the VIOLET track were it is zero ( in reality a couple of degrees on the GREEN-starboard side ).

Your last point is exactly my point my friend.
Why if the Hood Second board of Inquiry was called only ( mainly ) to evaluate Hood explosion reasons, ... why so much precision was given to re-establish the Norfolk exact distance from Hood at 06.00, ... when the First Board on Inquiry had done a good enough job about it, since they even declared it.
Why the need to re-evaluate Norfolk precise distance from Hood ?
Why make "The Plot" ADM 116/4352 Exhibit A which as I have demonstrated above is a document that does not stand on his feet with all the detailed maps they had already available and I have in my hands now.
Why nobody provided us were the reasons to state that the Diagram B of first board was a wrong evaluation, were the errors were done and why, and were the reality was by supporting it with the required supporting evidences.

Instead we had some wrong evaluations from Wake-Walker, ... not matching the Norfolk/Suffolk reports he attached to his submitted documents too, ... even repeated by Tovey that apparently did not notice the mismatches, ... a partial Gunnery report with a not understandable battle timing, ... missing the distances from enemy in sight at 05.41 until 06.06 ( a total different and complete gunnery report was done for may 27th, 1941 ) ... and some inputs on the war diary that do not match with PoW maps and some radio reports ( 276 vs 280 ) ... and at the end ... " The Plot " used to state a distance that was not possible with the supported data, ... in fact the battlefield was modified to make it the way somebody wanted to.

Why according to you, ... or everybody else following this thread, ... they invented/created " The Plot " ?

Do you really think that nobody on the Admiralty was able on July 1941 to find the evident errors I found on it immediately ?
I cannot believe it at all ... they had many maps showing the reality I found last week ... an average good scrutiny of that map was going to show immediately that it could not be used to correct anything done before, ... especially Norfolk positioning.

On the opposite, it was used to correct Norfolk distance from Hood and correct the previous board Wake-Walker declarations

Bye Antonio

[Steve Crandell]

At a "gut level" I find it very hard to believe that Norfolk would not have fired at Bismarck if her CO believed she could do so with a reasonable chance of hitting her target. It's counter to the complete wartime record of British warships in action, including Norfolk herself on other occasions.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Steve Crandell,

I think you should find interesting to realize at what distance RearAdm W.F. Wake-Walker was thinking that Norfolk 8 inches ( 203 mm ) guns were at effective range. As you can read yourself, he considered correct to open fire only when it was possible to spot the fall of shells, ( reason why, as written on may 24th 1941 own gunnery report, Norfolk did not open fire at Denmark strait battle ).

If, however, the attempt had shown that we could overtake her I would have had to engage with the whole force and press the action to a range at which the 8-in. cruisers' fire would be effective - and could be spotted - namely 20,000 yards = 9.87 sea miles = 18.288 meters or less.

Extract taken from point 23 on Adm Tovey dispatches, here in :

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 9tovey.htm

Than one thinks why Norfolk opened fire on another occasion from a much greater distance, like at 18.54 on same day evening when she opened from 290 ( 29,000 yards = 14,32 sea miles = 26.517 meters ) finding out she was over the 30.000 yards range.

Bye Antonio

[Steve Crandell]

Hello everybody,

@ Steve Crandell,

I think you should find interesting to realize at what distance RearAdm W.F. Wake-Walker was thinking that Norfolk 8 inches ( 203 mm ) guns were at effective range. As you can read yourself, he considered correct to open fire only when it was possible to spot the fall of shells, ( reason why, as written on may 24th 1941 own gunnery report, Norfolk did not open fire at Denmark strait battle ).

If, however, the attempt had shown that we could overtake her I would have had to engage with the whole force and press the action to a range at which the 8-in. cruisers' fire would be effective - and could be spotted - namely 20,000 yards = 9.87 sea miles = 18.288 meters or less.

Extract taken from point 23 on Adm Tovey dispatches, here in :

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 9tovey.htm

Than one thinks why Norfolk opened fire on another occasion from a much greater distance, like at 18.54 on same day evening when she opened from 290 ( 29,000 yards = 14,32 sea miles = 26.517 meters ) finding out she was over the 30.000 yards range.

Bye Antonio

Were sea conditions and visibility the same on the occasion when she did open fire?

I think I've read somewhere that Norfolk's gunnery department was finding it almost impossible to use their optics during the Denmark Strait engagement. It was difficult on PoW, and her equipment was much higher off the water and firing on a different bearing. Norfolk may have had greater difficulty with the seas coming over the bow at 30 kts.

[wadinga]

Hi Steve,

Welcome aboard the debate. Do you favour the Prosecution or Defence, or are you still undecided?

Speaking as a former watch keeping officer, which do you think is more reliable, a ship's log entry giving a bearing and time, 220 and 05:50, presumably measured with a Pelorus , or the casual observation of a crewman of estimated bearing and tied only to "Hood's first salvo"? It could have been the second, or possibly, since ships cannot instantaneously appear on a new heading, did Norfolk start turning just before Hood fired, putting the battlecruiser on the port bow, and complete her turn by 05:55?

As a mariner, do you think, as I do, that starting the GREEN track from a point determined by only two bearings (ie not a cocked hat), and furthermore two bearings from points whose relationship to each other is indeterminate, is unacceptably poor practice? Especially when one of the bearings has a provenance and the other has none? Whereas the VIOLET track is neatly tied to PoW's track at both ends.

An argument about whether Norfolk could have fired at 30,000 yds in the morning is irrelevant unless the VIOLET track is the truth and accepted. At which point we will have agreed Wake-Walker was out of effective range, and he did charge towards the enemy and the allegations which have troubled the previous eighty plus pages are groundless. (BTW surely no ship has ever hit anything with a gun that was not a landmass or tied to a landmass at more than 27,000 yds).

All the best

wadinga

[Steve Crandell]

Hi Steve,

Welcome aboard the debate. Do you favour the Prosecution or Defence, or are you still undecided?

Speaking as a former watch keeping officer, which do you think is more reliable, a ship's log entry giving a bearing and time, 220 and 05:50, presumably measured with a Pelorus , or the casual observation of a crewman of estimated bearing and tied only to "Hood's first salvo"? It could have been the second, or possibly, since ships cannot instantaneously appear on a new heading, did Norfolk start turning just before Hood fired, putting the battlecruiser on the port bow, and complete her turn by 05:55?

As a mariner, do you think, as I do, that starting the GREEN track from a point determined by only two bearings (ie not a cocked hat), and furthermore two bearings from points whose relationship to each other is indeterminate, is unacceptably poor practice? Especially when one of the bearings has a provenance and the other has none? Whereas the VIOLET track is neatly tied to PoW's track at both ends.

An argument about whether Norfolk could have fired at 30,000 yds in the morning is irrelevant unless the VIOLET track is the truth and accepted. At which point we will have agreed Wake-Walker was out of effective range, and he did charge towards the enemy and the allegations which have troubled the previous eighty plus pages are groundless. (BTW surely no ship has ever hit anything with a gun that was not a landmass or tied to a landmass at more than 27,000 yds).

All the best

wadinga

I tend to take your point of view, Wadinga. However, I don't wish to exaggerate my experience; I was never a watch officer. I spent many, many hours in the control room of an SSN over nine years active duty USN, but I was a petty officer.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

the point in discussion here is not why RearAdm Wake-Walker did not order Norfolk to open fire, since we have read above why he did not and we know Norfolk did not open fire that morning.
So we know how it went ( negative ) and why ( spotting needs ), we even know what was the range ( below 20.000 yards ) that Wake-Walker considered effective to open fire with his cruiser 8 inch guns ( 203 mm ). It is all written by Wake-Walker himself.

The point in discussion here is where really Norfolk was compared to Hood at 06.00 and mostly to the enemy ( Bismarck ) from 05.41 until 06.00 and after, and why that position and course has been changed from June 1941 ( Hood First board of Inquiry - Adm Blake ) during August 1941 ( Hood Second Board of Inquiry - Adm Walker ).

Because if they needed to better evaluate Norfolk position in relation to PoW ( and consequently Hood that was below/ahead of PoW 4 cables) when viewed from Norfolk, this is the official documentation they were going to find on PoW maps, checking the 2 British heavy cruisers with her DF bearings.

I find hard to believe that a Royal Navy Officer in charge to reproduce a detailed map, ... looking at those 2 PoW map details, ... realized " The Plot " ADM 116/4352 Exhibit A you can evaluate above.

Geometry_02.jpg (78.75 KiB) Viewed 1031 times

PoW_4June1941_0535_Noon_02.jpg (73.93 KiB) Viewed 1031 times

Do you really believe that on August 1941 nobody in the British Admiralty was able to realize that Bismarck when viewed from PoW or Norfolk/Suffolk must have been on a single map plotted position, ... and that Hood and PoW were sailing together with Hood below/ahead of PoW ( 4 cables ) and not 5 sea miles above PoW ???

Are you willing to accept a document telling us this ???

@ Wadinga,

Sean, on the map above handmade on PoW bridge you have the 18 degrees reference they probably used for Plan 4. On the one below redone from another original on the RN Admiralty in June ( you can notice the difference in graphic between the 2 maps ) you can see that the angle between PoW and Norfolk was considered even closer, from 18 degrees down to 9 degrees only, moving Norfolk closer to Bismarck/enemy. I have never found any reference to a 25 degrees angle between PoW and Norfolk as reproduced on "The Plot", only 18 degrees or less than that.

@ Steve Crandell,

I forgot to welcome you onboard, sorry ... No, the conditions were not the same ( 6 am and 7 pm ) but I think they were in favor of the morning situation as far as visibility and sea state. On Pow the same rangefinder used by Norfolk was trained 35 degrees on the starboard side ( course 300 and enemy at 335 ), while on Norfolk it was trained 56 degrees on her starboard side ( course 220 and enemy at 276 ). Norfolk was sailing 220 south west like Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, so looking at the PG-Rheinubung film you can see the sea effect as far as spray, very minimal. Different for PoW, sailing 300 north west, with a more evident sea spray effect.

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "......starting the GREEN track from a point determined by only two bearings (ie not a cocked hat), and furthermore two bearings from points whose relationship to each other is indeterminate, is unacceptably poor practice? Especially when one of the bearings has a provenance and the other has none? Whereas the VIOLET track is neatly tied to PoW's track at both ends."

Hi Sean, perhaps I missed something in your statements, however IMHO the GREEN track is based on PoW Plan 4, on PoW bearings and on PoW maps as posted by Antonio above. It is in line with ranges estimated on board of Norfolk by the officers, in line with ranges observed by German side at same time and in line with the conclusions of first Board of Inquiry (diagram B).
On the other end, the VIOLET track was built as a theoretical exercise by Antonio to demonstrate how they passed from the GREEN to the "PLOT" that is now certified to be absolutely unrealistic and used just to sustain a certain version of facts.
The VIOLET track is only based on data from a single unit that was the flagship of.......Rear Adm. Wake-Walker himself...... ..... who put together these data and presented his report after the facts.

Bye, Alberto

[Steve Crandell]

I just reviewed the statement from Baron Mullenheim-Rechberg in his book "Bismarck - A Survivor's story". He was tasked with keeping the British cruisers under observation as Bismarck opened fire on Hood. He states on Pg 108 of my book:

"The cruisers, still twelve to fifteen nautical miles astern, followed on our course, a little to one side of our wake. The Suffolk fired a few salvoes, but they fell hopelessly short."

[Alberto Virtuani]

@Steve: welcome on board from me as well !

I was referring to Fritz Otto Busch book : " The Story of the Prinz Eugen ", where distance from Norfolk at around 5:45 was estimated at 200 hectometers (around 11 sea miles).

Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

That is a complete misrepresentation of what it says in the book. There is no precise identification of which ship of three different targets is at 200 hectometers.

Additionally despite the paucity of evidence to support the GREEN track, Antonio still will not even repeat his secret source "definitive official" range measurement to Norfolk last referred to many,many pages ago.

Hello Antonio,

Thanks for tying the range and bearing pairs added to Plan 4 to the other PoW map. But have you not identified the problem with the PoW map? If they were observations only they would be bearings only. The very fact that they are rendered as positions with ranges proves they are derivations from a plotting exercise and therefore untrustworthy. As I have mentioned before, no device on earth in 1941 could measure a 26 mile range to Suffolk. Alecsandros does not believe they could even see Suffolk, but of course we know Suffolk witnesses saw Hood open fire and later blow up. We also know that this map places Suffolk only 11 miles from Bismarck, which is at odds with Suffolk's own reports.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "Additionally despite the paucity of evidence to support the GREEN track, Antonio still will not even repeat his secret source "definitive official" range measurement to Norfolk last referred to many,many pages ago"

Hi Sean, if the GREEN track has a paucity of evidence (JUST 1st board, bearings and maps from PoW, witnesses plus German rangefinder distance that Antonio wisely keeps in his hands ), the VIOLET is a theorical exercise from Antonio to demonstrate how they built the "Plot" moving from the GREEN one.

Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

@Steve: welcome on board from me as well !

I was referring to Fritz Otto Busch book : " The Story of the Prinz Eugen ", where distance from Norfolk at around 5:45 was estimated at 200 hectometers (around 11 sea miles).

Bye, Alberto

176 hm

@wadinga

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