Hood's sinking: the timing of that fatal hit

[paulcadogan]

No Antonio...manipulating the photos to try to fit them to the map will not work. Plus, you have used your line placement which is somewhat out for the times you specify.

In a sense you are right that trying to line up the two is a little tricky but the change in perspective over those few minutes is slight - I say slight because we are talking about a distance of 8+ sea miles. Figuring the exact angles of view might be tricky too.

Also, in comparing the two photos you need the original, full frame - not a cropped version - otherwise the picture size can be altered to make a fit.

But what I will do is to try to draw my own map of how I think the events unfolded, and show how it puts to rest the controversies and inconsistencies making everything fit.

The fixation with precise time in this naval battle with whirlwind events and varied eyewitness observations has clouded our ability to grasp what really happened. I see the one turn or two argument has again raised its head on the "Articles" thread. That too is put to rest here.

[RNfanDan]

I may be unwelcome in posting my opinion here at this time, but I am a bit alarmed by what I see has taken place, just since my last "attentive" visit to this site. For the record, I support Paul Cadogan's recent efforts to bring some sensibility to what I feel is a --shall I say, "vigorous"-- attempt to stamp an IMPOSSIBLY ACCURATE timeline on a 73 year-old sea battle.

I further worry that this effort may come at the expense of eroding, minimizing and eventually, DISMISSING much valid and important evidentiary accounts offered by at least two men, both of whom were very well-placed: McMullen and Brooke, of HMS Prince of Wales. Perhaps this will extend to others, as well?

FWIW, I have seen NOTHING presented thus far in these convoluted, marathon threads to convince me that:

a) McMullen's gunnery indicators and instruments were NOT affected; nor
b) that Brooke DID NOT experience; the first-hand effects of their ship--HMS Prince of Wales-- having executed a sudden and, more importantly, substantial, disruptive, course-altering series of turns to avoid colliding with the wreckage of HMS Hood, which had just exploded ahead of it.

I express this point because those turns constituted a significant deviation from what was, up to that point, an uninterrupted running battle for Prince of Wales, over a known length of time and at a fairly consistent speed. These major maneuvers MUST have consumed both DISTANCE and SPEED, which of course, affects the TIMELINE.

But now, after months of time and countless words, spread among a growing variety of topical threads, those turns --which would certainly be prominent on almost any reasonably-scaled map or track chart--have all but disappeared, replaced by what I must say is a hardly credible "bump", plotted FAR too short within this "new" track chart, with respect to their above-stated effects upon that distance and time.

It would appear that the desired end result is dictating the appropriate sequence of events, plotted movements, and timelines adjusted to support that result. This is not necessarily intentional, but rather a misinterpretation of, or lack of sufficient alternatives to, the evidence being relied upon. In either case, to dismiss and/or minimize evidence reported by actual participants because it doesn't "work" with late-day derivative, inaccurate, and/or misinterpreted evidence, should NOT be allowed to just go away...

--Dan

[alecsandros]

I express this point because those turns constituted a significant deviation from what was, up to that point, an uninterrupted running battle for Prince of Wales, over a known length of time and at a fairly consistent speed. These major maneuvers MUST have consumed both DISTANCE and SPEED, which of course, affects the TIMELINE.

Dan, the timeline is in accordance with German accounts. Both Prince of Wales and Bismarck/Prinz Eugen turned HARD in divergent courses from each other at 6:02-6:03, effectively ending the battle. There were no more hits scored afterwards. Only sporadical salvos fired with no consequence.

Taking German timeline,
1) Hood destroyed at 6:00,
2) Prince of Wales hit at 6:01 in the compass platform
3) Torpedo alarm sounded at 6:02-6:03, followed by a rapid change of course from 270 to 220.
4) continous salvo fire at Prince of Wales between 6:03 - 6:09, against ship completely covered in smoke and moving away.

As you can see, with the Hood destroyed at 6:00, Prince of Wales manouvres needed to be done in 2-3 minutes (slight turn to avoid Hood, continous hard turn to exit battle).

Prince of Wales loss of speed at 45* rudder was ~ 3 or 4 kts (so 25-26kts in that morning)

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Paul Cadogan,

I am NOT manipulating anything !
I am just scaling up or down in proportion the photos to show you how they will fit compared to Rowell map which I understand since few days ago was going to be an useless exercise.

I am sure you got the point that assuming 06.03 and 25 seconds being correct and making the correct alignment with Hood smoke pillar scaling the photos in proportion, ... leaves you a very small amount of space/time backwards on Nh 69724, ... much less than the reality because of the rotation effect of the photographer, ... it basically goes against what you would like to demonstrate.

If you and someone else may have lost the ability to grasp what really happened, ... this is not impacting me at all.
I have been in KEW - London and I have taken the rest of the Official evidences I needed to do the final work about this battle.
I already have in my hands the German side of it that by the way mainly wrote 06.01 for Hood explosion, ... so you have to keep in account this side as well.

I am looking forward to see your works and your maps, at least you are among the few providing value add by working and not only talking.

YES, one of two argument raised again on the other thread, ... that is because there is NOT intention to accept the truth as it shows, ... despite the evidences and the Official documentation provided, ... the only clear intention on both threads is to enlarge as much as possible the overall timing and keep putting doubts about everything everywhere, ... and this attitude speaks for its own about the real intentions.

I knew since the beginning of this discussion that this was going to happen sooner or later, ... surely it does not underline fairness and positive attitude about history re-construction, ... it is only a one side taken way to act.

I will be NOT surprised if within few months some persons will restart talking about 06.13 for PoW and 15 sea miles for Norfolk at 06.00 from Hood, ... that is what they want to do, ... leave everything as it has been for 72 years, … it is better than the truth.

The truth here is too hard to be accepted, it leaves a bitter taste.

@ RNfanDan,

You are right !
The official evidences declared by the Officers writing the reports unless well proven being incorrect should be taken as the base reference.
That is exactly what I did, but going to KEW-London I was able to put my hands on the original one and demonstrate that some summary reports written after have been altered in order to fit a different scenario (The Plot vs Diagram B).
But, lucky me, the original are still there and in some cases ( 06.13 vs 06.03 ) it was directly the British Admiralty that declared what was done before by Adm Tovey being incorrect.

Apparently here in there are persons NOT willing to take it in this way, … they like better the confusion all over and the knowledge about this battle to remain what was written by R. Grenfell and L. Kennedy using the incorrect Adm Tovey dispatches points 17 and 19.

I am NOT German, I am NOT British, … I have NOT a side to take or to protect, no side to attack in line of principle.
What I notice is that on one side what is surfacing hurts a lot and there is NO willingness to accept it at all.

@ Alecsandros,

You are right with your battle timetable summary, so simple it is for the ones that would like to understand it.

But see, that was NOT going to enable recognition to be delivered, and it was embarrassing to be declared on 1941.

So they started altering the timing on one direction … moving the PoW disengagement on the written summary from the real event at 06.01 and 30 seconds to 06.13 which was recorded being the battle cease fire time, since Prinz Eugen fired some A/A fire to the Sunderland even after the German main guns cease fire at 06.09.

Unfortunately for them, the PoW official battle maps, many witnesses, the enemy reports and documents, including taken film and photos, do not support this scenario and once correctly analyzed without pre-conceived intentions, do confirm what I wrote on 2005 and I going to rewrite with many more details pretty soon.

They only want to still believe that a precise account cannot be defined, … that everything is vague and confused, … that even 06.13 and 15 sea miles declaration by Adm Tovey can be correct, ... they do not want to accept what has been intentionally done making " The Plot ".

The only intention of some persons here in is to add time on any possible way, … enlarge as much as possible, … not accept evidences and keep a vague confused approach.

At the end this is what as been done for 73 years ... and it worked well …

Bye Antonio

[alecsandros]

So they started altering the timing on one direction … moving the PoW disengagement on the written summary from the real event at 06.01 and 30 seconds to 06.13 which was recorded being the battle cease fire time, since Prinz Eugen fired some A/A fire to the Sunderland even after the German main guns cease fire at 06.09.

... For what I can tell, at 6:13, range between Prince of Wales and Bismarck was at least 24.000 meters. And she was still making smoke and moving away :)

I guess the facts are to difficult to accept for to many people...

Thanks for some fantastic work, Antonio.

And good luck in your newest project, the www.Bismarck-Tirpitz.com

[Alberto Virtuani]

@Antonio :
am I correct that what you did in your picture posted yesterday means that you cannot compare the 2 photos with the Rowell map without taking into account the different bearing from the PG (the yellow ones are referred to NH69731) ?

I have tried to show you what I mean using your drawing and putting PG bearing (in orange) from PoW at 4 degrees distance than from BS at 6:00:15 (NH69724).

Hood_PoW_724_731_ratio.jpg (107.8 KiB) Viewed 1858 times

However, also in this case the distance of PoW looks still greater on Rowell map than on photo NH69724.

Could it be because Rowell map is not 100% precise in the distance between PoW course line and Hood wake ?

Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

@Antonio

You have to blame yourself. Elaborating new battle map once again in combination with draging people in the mud who can't defend themself, calling them liars, cowards and undutiful wasn't a wise approach.

There are too much reasonable doubts. You may ignore them and maybe some people will follow you blindly, but I can't. Discussing a battle map is one thing, to damage the reputation of some officers is another.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Alecsandros wrote: "I guess the facts are to difficult to accept for to many people...
Thanks for some fantastic work, Antonio."

And thanks from me as well....... I can imagine the effort you are doing to explain even the smallest incongruences in all available evidence, with everybody (including me in my last post) asking you to explain things and not producing much value added.....

I would really like to see a credible battle map from some of the people that like to critic your work to see if they are able to produce something new. Most of them prefer to say that the "fog of war" is preventing any historical truth to come up...... I think they just prefer a smoke screen.

@Paul Cadogan: thanks for producing an interesting new theory in this thread ! It will be good to see whether it can be accepted or not. For the time being I'm still a bit skeptical.....

Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nilsson,

you wrote :

@Antonio

You have to blame yourself. Elaborating new battle map once again in combination with draging people in the mud who can't defend themself, calling them liars, cowards and undutiful wasn't a wise approach.

There are too much reasonable doubts. You may ignore them and maybe some people will follow you blindly, but I can't. Discussing a battle map is one thing, to damage the reputation of some officers is another.

Marc, .. maybe you are right, ... I have only to blame myself, ... but I knew since the beginning of all this that many persons especially from British origin were NOT going to like it.

I had 2 possibilities :

1) Remain silent and vague and allow what was incorrectly done to still be considered a valid option.

2) Proceed with the researches and enable people to see the events under the more correct light given the still available evidences.

I choose the second option and I will always do that way, no matter what the consequences are.

The reputation of those Officers was NOT damaged by my words, ... it comes as consequence from their actions once correctly demonstrated as I did.

To correctly re-construct a battle map you have to show real distances and associated correct events.

It was NOT my fault if those Officers altered the reality and wrote incorrect summary to sustain something different than the real events.

The truth should NOT offend anybody, ... especially 73 years after ... but apparently it does a lot.

@ Alecsandros and Alberto,

many thanks for the nice words and support, ... after 11 years of challenges on all this battle re-construction, ... from the early Winklareth days on 2003-5 and the " Bismarck Reversed photo " theory, ... thru Vic Dale on 2008-9 with the " Crazy Ivan " Sean will remember very well ( PoW still fighting sailing against Bismarck for several minutes after Hood explosion ) ... and lately about the Norfolk-Suffolk and PoW retreat with the Articles of War discussion ... I am getting unfortunately used to all sort of criticism and challenges.

No problems !

You may have noticed that nothing has stopped me from putting all sort of possible efforts in order to get ALL the available evidences out of the archives.

NO more " Bismarck Reversed photo " theory ... NO more " Crazy Ivan " for PoW ... hope in the future NO more 06.13 for PoW retreat and around 15 sea miles distance for Norfolk and Suffolk.

What I want to do is to be able to rewrite my original article with many more Official evidence taken from the archives and including the night before the battle too, ... because it was a decisive factor to be considered.

Now I have another reason to do it, ... and it is under the White Ensign flag with the best Royal Navy traditions, ... I want to provide a more correct evaluation about Vice-Adm Lancelot Holland actions.

Probably this will have much less challenges and a more positive acceptance ... but to me I guarantee it makes no difference : it is just history re-construction.

Nothing personal against one or in favor of another ... they did what they did ... the duty of an history researcher is only to bring out the best evidences and show them in a correct way.

Bye Antonio

[paulcadogan]

Hi all,

First up, let me make absolutely clear that my objective in putting forward my theory has NOTHING whatsoever to do with covering up anything or showing anyone in particular in a positive (or negative) light. I too am interested in the determination of the truth of what happened.

@ Dan: I REALLY appreciate your words of support!! I knew at the very outset of this thread that I was likely to be dismissed outright for "DS Blasphemy" So I'm happy to know that I'm not on my own!

@ Alberto: Thanks much my friend, and I understand your skepticism. Food for thought is always good....

@ Everyone: I have seen, appreciated and learned so much from Antonio's efforts now and in years past and I'm certain in the future as well. And our "argument" here in NO way diminishes that.

Still - my theory really and truly has very little or NO impact on all the determinations that have been made on PoW's turnaway time, her disengagement course, Norfolk and Suffolk's distances and actions. All it does is explain and clear up the glaring inconsistencies that otherwise remain UNEXPLAINED with regards to HOOD in her brief period in action.

But with special regard to PoW, it does not diminish the fact that she turned away very rapidly after Hood's demise. BUT it DOES allow for the inescapable need for TIME for the actions that WERE carried out by those involved to be carried out without anyone having to say "Hey, how could he possibly have done that in 45 seconds!' .....because he actually had 2 minutes...

So Antonio...you may just find in the long run that this actually HELPS your case!

Let's see how it goes!

[Steve Crandell]

Prince of Wales loss of speed at 45* rudder was ~ 3 or 4 kts (so 25-26kts in that morning)

That seems odd to me. I was on a nuclear submarine that lost about 30% of her maximum speed under full rudder. That's just an estimate from looking at the indicator when it happened, but it dropped very fast. Noises of things falling around the ship, too!

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Paul Cadogan,

many thanks for your fairness

Let me know if I can help you on any possible way on your efforts about your theory, ... what I have is available for your study on this.

Bye Antonio

[alecsandros]

Prince of Wales loss of speed at 45* rudder was ~ 3 or 4 kts (so 25-26kts in that morning)

That seems odd to me. I was on a nuclear submarine that lost about 30% of her maximum speed under full rudder. That's just an estimate from looking at the indicator when it happened, but it dropped very fast. Noises of things falling around the ship, too!

... Prince of Wales "full ruder" was not 45*.....

[RNfanDan]

I had 2 possibilities :

1) Remain silent and vague and allow what was incorrectly done to still be considered a valid option.

2) Proceed with the researches and enable people to see the events under the more correct light given the still available evidences.

Antonio;

That is a key flaw of "historical revisionism". No amount of effort, judgment, belief, likelihood, possibilities, or "odds" of events occurring, can change or influence what has already happened. Nothing you or I, nor anyone else can do, will CHANGE history (we can create NEW history, but never change the past)--whether or not we ALL agree, in whole or in part about some historical event.

I would like also emphasize that history doesn't compensate researchers--no one can "earn" their claim to historical reality by attempting to revise it, or even correct it. It has only ONE state of existence, at least outside the realm of Quantum Physics or in alternate universe(s). THIS IS THE CONUNDRUM OF HISTORICAL REVISIONISM--my point being that I think you, Antonio, should not be offended by, or dismissive of, anyone who disagrees with your conclusions and postulations---except, of course, those who would stoop to berating your person.

The objections written in my previous post were meant to call your attention to my concerns that only a hard-set, unalterable conclusion has been "allowed" to exist, as a result of your efforts. Why, otherwise, would you have written "more correct" (as quoted, above)?

To correctly re-construct a battle map you have to show real distances and associated correct events.

That is not the only, nor necessarily the best, methodology to use. I wonder if you are eschewing other, valid means?

I'm not suggesting any of us are wasting our time discussing the past--I have been involved in serious, ongoing research with a special historical project myself, for several years running. Like you, I want to offer my best opinion to anyone interested in the subject of my study, and am eager to discuss my conclusions reached. But I am concerned that you may be working your way into the "trap" of revisionism, the same as a number of other authors and website members who have boxed themselves in because of their "narrow field of view", and zeal in putting their work out there for the benefit of others.

It was NOT my fault if those Officers altered the reality and wrote incorrect summary to sustain something different than the real events.

Antonio, do you count McMullen and Brooke among these officers?

Best wishes,

Dan

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ RNfanDan,

many thanks for your words and suggestions, they are all well taken in a very positive and constructive way.

I try as much as I can to stay away from the " temptation " of historical revisionism I personally do not like, because I am not looking for " scoop " in order neither to grow my personal ego nor to sell books making money.

I know and agree that history does not compensate researchers, ... usually you only got troubles and persons that will not like the new evidences.

But it is my passion, ... being able to elaborate from what I have, ... research as deep as possible ... feel the pleasure after all the efforts to be able to find the confirmation you were right on your analysis ( it does not always happen and sometimes you fail ... and find a different answer than you thought ... and that is OK for me ).

I can guarantee you that I have no intention to fall into a " revisionism " temptation at all, ... as well as I would like the forum members which I still rate among the best experts around those websites not to box themselves in because of their " narrow field of view ".

No, neither C. McMullen nor G. Brooke participate to the data alteration, their reports are all genuine, like W. Rowell and A. Hunter-Terry, Esmond Knight and A. Luce.

It was done at a much higher level.

Bye Antonio