Denmark Strait and RN Articles of War

[alecsandros]

So the Prince got 3 hits at ranges above 17km with her faulty guns, but could not get any more at 12km ?
Not to mention she had just brought her aft guns to bear..

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "Colin McMullen's recollection, Kennedy's footnote and other authors parroting the same "juicy" information all stem from Tovey's anecdote alone. There is no supporting evidence whatsoever, is there?"

Hi Sean, do you really think that, having Churchill decided to celebrate the victory anyhow after May 27, he would have left any written proof of a Court-Martial request ?

Dave Saxton wrote :" POW was only firing, on average, 3 gun salvos-not 5 gun salvos."

Hi Dave, PoW guns output was around 75% during the DS engagement (bad, but in line with the overall KGV class performances). Do you know what was the output of Bismarck guns during the same engagement ? It would be quite surprising to see that, having expended 93 heavy shells in 14 minutes, she was far better than at 85-90% output. No battleship is expected to fire at 100% of her theoretical output as misfires were very common in any Navy.

PoW was firing pretty well, having hit already 3 times in 7 minutes while BS had hit a couple of times Hood in 5 minutes until 6:00 with all her guns bearing. I think it would be unfair to say that the gunnery crew was not ready for the task......

Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

"The plot" is simply a plot. It's just as inconsistent as other plots. I have no problem, if you call it incorrect. You're probably right. But which plans are correct?

As far as Hood and PoW tracks are related and their reference versus Bismarck and Prinz Eugen all the 4 above PoW maps I have listed are CORRECT.

The gunnery just miss the small deviation to starboard all the other 3 have.

The most reliable and precise is the Rowell map. Plan 4 and the overall battle map are more or less the same.

All the above do demonstate " The Plot " being INCORRECT, and consequently my conclusions about RearAdm Wake-Walker summary and Adm Tovey point 17 declarations being both INCORRECT as well.

Why they did it ? For the reasons I have explained above, ... no Court Martial and ... decorations for everybody.

Bye Antonio

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

Sean, my study was to discover who did it, how they did it and why they did it.
Not to discover how come the discussion developed among Churchill, Pound and the Admiralty in order NOT to Court martial them and reward them.

The fact that they have not been Court Martialled even if there were all the reasons to do it and they got rewarded is clear to me, nobody will change that.

I was much more interested on discovering if they had left behind them evidences about how they modified the declarations to do it and who did it.

It has been always clear to me that they did it, since Adm Tovey dispatches being intentionally incorrect as always been very evident to me since years.

I have been lucky and I have found what I was looking for: the evidences are still all there.

Adm Tovey used RearAdm W.F. Wake-Walker incorrect summary to overcome Capt. Ellis, Capt. Phillips and mostly Capt Leach written reports and by doing that CHANGED completely the timing of their manoeuvres and the reasons of their decisions.

In this way he put under a totally different light the events and wrote INTENTIONALLY incorrectly the points 17 and 19 of his dispatches on July 5th, 1941.

By doing so he REMOVED the reasons of any Inquiry request on those 2 Officers and ENABLED the request of decoration for them to become possible, like for all the other officers involved on the sinking of the Bismarck.

Once I found those evidences, I just spent my time looking for more details about the tracks and maps.

I did not care about the diplomatic and political details behind that decision.

Bye Antonio

[Dave Saxton]

Why they did it ? For the reasons I have explained above, ... no Court Martial and ... decorations for everybody.

Bye Antonio

So in other words what happened was that they had to conclude that the men at the scene had indeed made the right calls given the situation, but it was still in voilation of the written fighting instructions, so by protocol it would lead to a formal hearing at least. This nobody wanted or thought was deserving at the time, or would serve no productive purpose.


Here's my views:

Suffolk-Suffolk found itself at little too close to the Germans as the mists cleared after ~0530. It was as close as 17,600 meters or 19,250 yards (which is about the range often needed to close to in order to re-acquire radar contact and probably not coincidental) and so made manouvers to open range.

POW-Leach made the decision to disengage when he said he did because his ship would most likely shortly be blown out of the water and would certainly have its fighting ability impaired very quickly by enemy hits.

Norfolk- I think Antonio has demonstrated that it was within gun range and may have been as close as 10nm. There's three caveats to consider. First I don't think it was within truely effective gun range for the British 8". It is not certain that W-W and Phillips were aware of the exact range and we have to consider what their gunnery department was reporting and when (that's still unclear with 14nm opening up to 16nm mentioned). Thirdly, they were aware that their own shell splashes could cause confusion for Hood and Prince of Wales' gunners.

Once the Hood blew up and POW began to be pumelled the battle was decided. It was as good as over from that point no matter when disengagment is actually defined.

[paulcadogan]

So in other words what happened was that they had to conclude that the men at the scene had indeed made the right calls given the situation, but it was still in voilation of the written fighting instructions, so by protocol it would lead to a formal hearing at least. This nobody wanted or thought was deserving at the time, or would serve no productive purpose.


Here's my views:

Suffolk-Suffolk found itself at little too close to the Germans as the mists cleared after ~0530. It was as close as 17,600 meters or 19,250 yards (which is about the range often needed to close to in order to re-acquire radar contact and probably not coincidental) and so made manouvers to open range.

POW-Leach made the decision to disengage when he said he did because his ship would most likely shortly be blown out of the water and would certainly have its fighting ability impaired very quickly by enemy hits.

Norfolk- I think Antonio has demonstrated that it was within gun range and may have been as close as 10nm. There's three caveats to consider. First I don't think it was within truely effective gun range for the British 8". It is not certain that W-W and Phillips were aware of the exact range and we have to consider what their gunnery department was reporting and when (that's still unclear with 14nm opening up to 16nm mentioned). Thirdly, they were aware that their own shell splashes could cause confusion for Hood and Prince of Wales' gunners.

Once the Hood blew up and POW began to be pumelled the battle was decided. It was as good as over from that point no matter when disengagment is actually defined.

Well said!!

There is also the factor that the two cruisers could not predict what the Germans would do, and if they closed in too fast, before that became clear and the Germans made a U-turn they could find themselves in deadly range in short order. There were strong reasons to believe that the Germans would be "turned by the Battle Cruiser Squadron" and their actions, which might look timid at first, were in keeping with fighting instructions for cruisers in a capital ship engagement.

I assume, after all the documents analysis, that the reason Adm Tovey had in mind when he wrote his dispatches on July 1941

With total respect and admiration for all your work and dedication Antonio - I must say in this instance "assume" is the operative word. There is no way of knowing precisely what was in the mind of Admiral Tovey as he wrote his dispatch. We do not know what documents he looked at, what he skimmed over, what he missed or how he interpreted what he read. He was writing a description of the entire operation - A LOT of documentation to go through to say the least.

So while the incorrect entries are a fact, the intention is an assumption and my humble advice to you is to treat it that way in your writings - asking "COULD it be" that it was done with this purpose in mind and let the reader draw their own conclusions, pro or con, as has happened here.

[Alberto Virtuani]

@ Dave: your considerations are very reasonable, however:

you wrote:"Suffolk-Suffolk found itself at little too close to the Germans as the mists cleared after ~0530. It was as close as 17,600 meters or 19,250 yards (which is about the range often needed to close to in order to re-acquire radar contact and probably not coincidental) and so made manouvers to open range."

When finding himself too close to BS to re-acquire contact, Ellis was right in opening range (he did it several times).
At 5:42 however the enemy report from PoW was already sent and in this situation it is not a good manoeuvre to put your ship definitively out of action turning away and loosing 13 minutes.

you wrote: "POW-Leach made the decision to disengage when he said he did because his ship would most likely shortly be blown out of the water and would certainly have its fighting ability impaired very quickly by enemy hits."

I respect your opinion but I don't agree and I'm more in line with Alecsandros analysis of the possible outcome of the duel between PoW and BS: in my opinion PoW severely damaged and disabled (not blown up as she was a very well protected ship) but also BS damaged (and therefore doomed in the end).

you wrote: "Norfolk- I think Antonio has demonstrated that it was within gun range and may have been as close as 10nm. There's three caveats to consider. First I don't think it was within truely effective gun range for the British 8". It is not certain that W-W and Phillips were aware of the exact range and we have to consider what their gunnery department was reporting and when (that's still unclear with 14nm opening up to 16nm mentioned). Thirdly, they were aware that their own shell splashes could cause confusion for Hood and Prince of Wales' gunners. "

First, effective or not (and I think a 8" is effective at 11 miles distance as it was on May 27), during a deadly battle where your comrades are dying, the duty of a flag officer should be to open fire and to try at least to help.
Second, everybody on board Norfolk was convinced they were at 11 miles at 6:00 and they declared that, so in the doubt, why not to open fire and test distance ?
Third, it look like PG splashes did not confuse BS at all. Why British 8" splashes should confuse Hood and PoW gunners while German ones should not confuse BS gunners ?


@Paul Cadogan: I see your point about the risk of the CS1 heavy cruisers in case BS decided to turn away in front of BC1 squadron, but wasn't their duty to try to delay BS turn away in order to deliver her to Holland anyway ? I think it was, simply keep distance after an enemy report is not really in line with the best traditions of the RN.....

Bye, Alberto

[tommy303]

First, effective or not (and I think a 8" is effective at 11 miles distance as it was on May 27)

I think what Dave is talking about is not so much the range at which an 8-in shell will be effective if it hits; rather the range at which straddling salvos begin to have a high probability of scoring a hit. In terms of the British 8-in, this is around 50-55% of maximum ballistic range for a ship firing at a moving battleship-sized target--in this instance about 15,000 yards for Norfolk's guns. If the actual range was 11nm, then Norfolk would have had to close the distance by another 6000 yards before her gunnery had a reasonable chance of scoring at least one hit with each straddling salvo.

[Byron Angel]

..... Contemporary RN references indicated 8in effective range as 17,000 yards.

B

[alecsandros]

..... Contemporary RN references indicated 8in effective range as 17,000 yards.

B

Despite this, Dorsetshire and Norfolk opened fire at 20.000yards on May 27th. Suffolk fired at 28000yards against Prinz Eugen.

[alecsandros]

POW-Leach made the decision to disengage when he said he did because his ship would most likely shortly be blown out of the water and would certainly have its fighting ability impaired very quickly by enemy hits.

Then perhaps the battleships should have been taken out of service alltogether. What use could they have if refusing to fight enemy battleships ?

And how did that "honor the tradition" ? How does that stack up against Glowworm or Onslow ?

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

I assume, after all the documents analysis, that the reason Adm Tovey had in mind when he wrote his dispatches on July 1941

With total respect and admiration for all your work and dedication Antonio - I must say in this instance "assume" is the operative word. There is no way of knowing precisely what was in the mind of Admiral Tovey as he wrote his dispatch. We do not know what documents he looked at, what he skimmed over, what he missed or how he interpreted what he read. He was writing a description of the entire operation - A LOT of documentation to go through to say the least.

So while the incorrect entries are a fact, the intention is an assumption and my humble advice to you is to treat it that way in your writings - asking "COULD it be" that it was done with this purpose in mind and let the reader draw their own conclusions, pro or con, as has happened here.

Well my friend,

first of all many thanks for you nice compliments

Than back to our opinion exchanges ....

Admiral J. Tovey wrote on the Enclosure to Home Fleet letter 659/ H.F. 1325 of 30th, May 1941 at point 7 :

" Prince of Wales was engaged by the main and secondary armament of Bismarck. Within two ( 2 ) minutes she had been hit on the compass platform and aft, both 5.25" directors were out of action and water was coming in aft. The commanding officer considered it expedient temporarily to break off the action. "

Having written a statement like that just 6 days after the event, with all the attention the argument was having, with the June 4th, 1941 narrative with detailed PoW maps he received from Capt. J.C.Leach, how come he wrote the point 19 on his dispatches the way he did on July 5th, 1941.

I think it is fair to assume Adm Tovey knew what he was doing and writing, when he choose to believe RearAdm W.F. Wake-Walker incorrect summary stating 06.13 for PoW disengagement, disregarded Capt. Leach written reasons with provided correct timing on maps and wrote an incorrect statement.

He surely avoided this :

The death penalty would be retained for Flag Officers and Commanding Officers guilty of misconduct in action (Naval Discipline Act, section II), or for failure to pursue the enemy (Section III), and also for all ranks or ratings guilty of presuming to delay or discourage an action or service commanded in war (section IV), or treachery (sections V and VI), or of mutiny (section X to XIII).

While creating by using the same statements the minimum conditions required to be able soon after to attach those Officer names into the request for recognition and awards.

Here a small gift for you my friend ...

Tovey_HF_1325_30_May_1941.jpg (51.17 KiB) Viewed 684 times

Bye Antonio

[Byron Angel]

..... Contemporary RN references indicated 8in effective range as 17,000 yards.

B

Despite this, Dorsetshire and Norfolk opened fire at 20.000yards on May 27th. Suffolk fired at 28000yards against Prinz Eugen.

..... I just reported what the RN source states - that EFFECTIVE 8in range = 17,000 yards. Why they might OPEN fire at longer ranges is a function of the tactical situation at hand.

The problem with this entire "discussion" is the white-knuckled death grip clutching the pre-supposition that Wake-Walke's failure to take Bismarck under fire and Leach's decision to disengage after the loss of Hood are proof of a sudden attack of mass cowardice among the senior ranks of the RN. No other possibility is allowed. Any evidence that can remotely be construed to support the pre-ordained belief is enshrined, while any evidence to the contrary is dismissed as lies or error. Such a close minded approach is defective.

If the following has already been addressed in the previous 111 pages, perhaps I missed it; if so, please forgive me. Wake-Walker was originally sent out with orders to locate and shadow Bismarck. When were those orders changed?

B

[alecsandros]

The problem with this entire "discussion" is the white-knuckled death grip clutching the pre-supposition that Wake-Walke's failure to take Bismarck under fire and Leach's decision to disengage after the loss of Hood are proof of a sudden attack of mass cowardice among the senior ranks of the RN.

I wouldn't put it that way.
My opinion is that poor coordonation between Holland and Wake Walker allowed the Germans ships to concentrate on Hood and then Prince of Wales without having to deal with 16 x 8" guns at all.

Also, I tink Cpt Leach did not "honor the tradition" of the RN.

"Cowardice" is a very harsh word...

===
When did the Norfolk received the order to engage the Bismarck on May 27th ?

[Alberto Virtuani]

Byron Angel wrote: "The problem with this entire "discussion" is the white-knuckled death grip clutching the pre-supposition that Wake-Walke's failure to take Bismarck under fire and Leach's decision to disengage after the loss of Hood are proof of a sudden attack of mass cowardice among the senior ranks of the RN. No other possibility is allowed. Any evidence that can remotely be construed to support the pre-ordained belief is enshrined, while any evidence to the contrary is dismissed as lies or error. Such a close minded approach is defective."

Hi Byron,
it looks to me exactly the same close minded approach (as you say) when I see somebody refusing the evidences provided by Antonio Bonomi on what happened and what was done after May 24 to provide a different version of facts..... but it's a matter of viewpoints, I imagine.....

Re. the British heavy cruisers behaviour, it's not only the expected 8 in. "effective range" to be evaluated, but also the "evasive" (or at least "not aggressive") manoeuvres put in place by both of them at 5:41 and 5:42 after the enemy report from PoW.

We can have different judgements about these facts, I fully understand. From a military standpoint however, never judging the personal reasons behind, I have already expressed my clear judgement that they should have been asked to justify such actions in front of a formal Inquiry .

Bye, Alberto