May 23/24 night shadowing and interception approach CS1/BC1

[Alberto Virtuani]

Cag wrote:"... it would be fair to say that Norfolk did transmit positional reports ......any position report is better than none at all."

Hi Mr.Cag,
I agree with you, but I would not say this is a great shadowing "effort".....

you wrote: "Norfolk was, if you don't like the word shadowing but essentially amounts to the same thing, following Bismarck more closely than any other ship apart from Suffolk. "

sorry, I have to disagree: not between 1:50 am and 3:50 am. During this (quite long) period, BC1 was even closer than Norfolk to the enemy..... Was BC1 shadowing the enemy ? I would not say so.
Norfolk was doing something totally different than Suffolk and did not contribute to BC1 (failed or succeeded) interceptions (based only on Suffolk messages), unless covering a possible (never materialized) evasion of Germans to South-East......


Bye, Alberto

[Cag]

Hi All

No that is true Alberto BC1 was not shadowing, they were intercepting aided by the cruisers of CS1.

Norfolk on the other hand was not intercepting but shadowing, it's in her log and was what she and more importantly her crew (Note I posted her crew not Wake-Walker) considered themselves to have been doing since sighting Bismarck on the 23rd. It may be argued against but please remember you are also arguing against the whole crew of HMS Norfolk and their view of proceedings.

Norfolk was not making her way south in a wayward manner there was purpose behind it. Would it be possible to ask what that purpose was if it was not shadowing?

It seems an inordinate amount of fuel to burn for a quick sightseeing trip south. It may be argued that the individual methods were different but the purpose was the same, to shadow the enemy and allow interception.

I think we can agree that HMS Suffolk had been supplying the means of Norfolk's purpose in bad weather by use of better rdf capability and therefore without the benefit of 284 rdf Norfolk did what the tools available to her crew allowed them to do, to shadow Bismarck without constantly blundering into Bismarck in an attempt to keep the enemy in sight in low visibility conditions.

Best wishes
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Cag wrote: " please remember you are also arguing against the whole crew of HMS Norfolk and their view of proceedings......the purpose was the same.....Norfolk did what the tools available to her crew allowed them to do....., "

Hi Cag,
no, I'm not arguing against what Norfolk crew was thinking they were doing. I'm saying that the ship actually did not shadow, and this is a fact: she never saw the enemy, she never picked it up via radar, she never transmitted any info about the enemy movements that could be used in any way by BC1, except covering the South-East possible escape.

The purpose was not the same as per W-W admission in his report: he left Suffolk to shadow the enemy while Norfolk was "covering any move the enemy might make to the eastward

Even admitting the radar difference, we have to fairly recognize a very different performance of Suffolk vs Norfolk.


Bye, Alberto

[Cag]

Hi All

I realise and understand what you are saying Alberto and fully accept your view, maybe it is an interpretation of the meaning of shadowing but to me if a ship is being aided by another ships rdf and position reports to 'follow' or 'shadow' the enemies movements then that ship is still in the process of shadowing isn't it? Otherwise what is it doing?

Maybe the question is when is shadowing no longer shadowing and what constitutes shadowing? Or at what distance do we think shadowing ends? At points Suffolk was out of sight of the enemy was she still shadowing or is it just following or tracking? In any event is it not a process in which you are actively tracing the enemies movements or to put it another way shadowing them?

If I sit in a plane and control a drone in the sky to shadow you who is shadowing you, me or the drone as I am still in the process of following you, am I not also shadowing you? If the drone and I transmit our positions is it just the drones transmissions that are important? Do my transmissions not help at all?

If a ship such as Norfolk transmits her own position it must be to aid others to know where she is mustn't it? Would she do that in any other circumstances when at sea in wartime?

It is a leap to say that it was any way less of a following or tracking mission or that no positional report helped at all as we were not on the bridge of Hood.

I think Antonio you may have answered your own question. In your post of images of Wake-Walkers report he states that at 02.55 he signalled that his earlier report of a vessel was thought to have been of Suffolk. He also states that subsequently he had found this to have been false after further consultation of the ships plots so he must not have done this at the time.

Best wishes
Cag.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ CAG,

you wrote :

I think Antonio you may have answered your own question. In your post of images of Wake-Walkers report he states that at 02.55 he signalled that his earlier report of a vessel was thought to have been of Suffolk. He also states that subsequently he had found this to have been false after further consultation of the ships plots so he must not have done this at the time.

Yes, reading now this set of statements, after having seen the removal of all the Norfolk radio messages from his own report, seems to confirm it should be read in that way.

WW_report_declaration_0229_0255.jpg (62.06 KiB) Viewed 938 times

Still on board the HMS Norfolk the Gunnery Officer Lieutenant Commander Duncan Lachlan Johnston had a different opinion :

Norfolk_Gunnery_0235_Bismarck_May_24th.jpg (15.26 KiB) Viewed 938 times

That warship at 02.29 was most likely one of the destroyers sent North by ViceAdm Holland, ... it was surely NOT the Bismarck like Johnston thought ... and it was very likely NOT a " false one " like Wake-Walker wrote after on his report.

Now the sequence of the events, ... and the erroneous evaluations made, ... inlcuding Capt Leach thinking that Norfolk got the PoW ( ref. his own report ) ... should be more clear.

For me now, ... everything is more clear while " transfering " the Norfolk track in scale from her own Strategical map into my map, ... no dependencies at 02.29 from PoW bearing 298°, ... and no 8 sea miles distance, ... at 02.29 as well as at 02.55.

The only dependency I still have is the 68° bearing between PoW and Norfolk at 02.29, ... when Norfolk was radio transmitting and PoW got her with a radio RD/F bearing.

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Mr.Cag,
I'm afraid we have to agree we totally disagree on the meaning of "shadowing" in such a situation.....and while I do understand your points, I still see no "shadowing" action in just following another ship signals, repeating them as a radio link....

you wrote: "It is a leap to say ..... that no positional report helped at all as we were not on the bridge of Hood."

Can you please give a single example of a Norfolk signal that could have helped Holland in taking his decisions ?

It is well clear that Holland tried to intercept the Germans, turning to the north around midnight, just following Suffolk 23:49 indications about German course being now 200°. He could finally succeed in intercepting them at 5:37 following Suffolk signals (this time with the DF bearing correcting her wrong position....).

I don't see any decision taken by Holland to be even slightly influenced by Norfolk useless, ambiguous and inconclusive messages. In the only potential opportunity W-W had to be a "shadower" (in my interpretation of this term), from 2:29 till 2:56, W-W was unable (or unwilling) to play this (difficult) role, while he was even unable to lead his squadron amending the position of Suffolk (in case he was really convinced that the 2:29 sighting was her, and I have doubts now, after what Antonio has found in the messages that this was the case.....)


Bye, Alberto

[paulcadogan]

Hi all,

Wow...I see we've found more fodder for the Wake-Walker prosecution! That could very well be...

But looking at it, WW did report his sighting of the unknown vessel as he should have, and gave the relevant information of his plot position. We can assume he had a basic idea of the bearing of Suffolk from her transmissions through RDF. Certainly, as I said in a previous post, the other option to be considered was that the vessel was the enemy. So what was WW to do in that case?

We have his thoughts on the capability (or lack thereof) of his radar:

R.D.F.

6. Norfolk had just been fitted with type 286M, which had given trouble; it was working during the operations, though it had to be carefully nursed as all spare valves had been used.

7. It failed to detect the enemy on 23rd May when first met by Norfolk. Range must have been less than 14,000 yards. It was useful for keeping in touch with Prince of Wales and Suffolk during the night of 24th/25th May, though these ships were never actually out of sight.

8. Should the enemy turn on his pursuers when being shadowed from the quarter by a ship using this set, the shadower must act at once, but in turning away he loses R.D.F. touch astern and is very liable to get caught or retire too far.

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 09norf.htm

So he would not risk turning towards the contact at that range to try to use his quirky radar in shifting visibility. He had to hope his report might help Suffolk in her quest to regain contact. But then Suffolk reports a "surface craft" i.e. a single vessel radar contact at 10 miles at 180 degrees bearing almost 20 minutes later.

Hmmmmm! WW could conceivably have thought Suffolk was picking up Norfolk at that point - hence his quick, though erroneous assumption that the vessel he had seen might have been Suffolk. Of course, Suffolk's signal of detecting 2 ships at 192 degrees indicated that she had indeed found the enemy. So then he has to re-evaluate, considers he may be too close and may blunder into the enemy at close range given the uncertainty of the DR positions, and since Suffolk once again has a radar lock on the enemy, he moves Norfolk away before resuming his "tailing" course ( semantics fit you better Alberto??).

We now know that the vessel seen by Norfolk was not Suffolk, could not have been the enemy, and could not have been PoW (though Leach thought it could have been) and the likely option was one of the destroyers.

I do agree that things are becoming much clearer, and regardless of the conclusions that might be drawn by each of us individually, the clarity is a very good thing!

Paul

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Paul Cadogan,

you wrote :

I do agree that things are becoming much clearer, and regardless of the conclusions that might be drawn by each of us individually, the clarity is a very good thing!

Please allow me to add my applause to yours, ... for your help ... I am really thanking you all ...

No one ever, ... until now, ... has evaluated so deeply this night events.

@ All,

In order to add more clarification, here a table I have prepared based on my current knowledge of the radio messages sent between 19.22 of May 23rd, and 06.00 of May 24th, 1941 by Suffolk and Norfolk, so we can evaluate better their efforts.
I have the Suffolk full radio log, ... not the Norfolk one, so I have based it on the Admiralty record and some other sources I have like the CS1 Extract radio log - Appendix I.

Total_Suffolk_Norfolk_messages_03.jpg (31.22 KiB) Viewed 929 times

The RED dots are the messages sent including direct enemy information so for Suffolk are 27 out of 31 messages sent, ... for the Norfolk are 2 out of 13 messages sent.

Now you have a better idea of the real effort, ... of the 2 heavy cruisers.

No doubts the Norfolk crew was comitted to do their duty exactly like the Suffolk one, ... but look at what the Suffolk did all night long, ... and compare it with the Norfolk only 2 enemy contacts at 20.32/23 and 10 hours later at 05.41/24.

One way or the other this difference should have been highlighted and the Suffolk crew deserve their applause too ...


Bye Antonio

[dunmunro]

Now, in this situation, what RearAdm Wake-Walker did at 02.29 having spotted a " large vessel " at 8 sea miles bearing 298° from his warship and having realized after 1 minute ( at 02.30 ) that it was NOT the Suffolk ( at 23 sea miles from him and on bearing 328°) ?

He did simply, ... nothing !

But he wrote he was patrolling/shadowing to eastward in order to prevent the enemy to escape on that direction, ... isnt it ?

So why he did NOT go for the verification of who that ship was ?

No actions, until 02.55 when 8 minutes after having received the 02.47 Suffolk message telling him where the enemy was and where Suffolk was, ... he sent out at 02.55 message telling everybody that he assumed that the previous spotting was " possibly the Suffolk " according to him, ...

At 0229 there was 6 (more if we include the destroyers) heavily armed warships speeding through the ice strewn Denmark Straits at 28-30 knots. In each of these ships, there was a gunnery officer with his finger on the trigger. W-W did something quite courageous at 0229...he opted to do nothing. W-W summed up the situation, evaluated the 0229 report (he was probably deliberating upon it until the signal at 0255) and decided that whatever it was, it could not have been Bismarck.

W-W could have opted to go blindly searching for a fleeting contact, and most likely have gotten hopelessly lost, or stumbled upon Suffolk or Holland or a destroyer and gotten involved in a "red on red" firefight, with possibly disastrous consequences, or he could have stumbled onto Bismarck and been blown out of the water... Had W-W done "something" the Bismarck episode could have turned into a complete disaster for the RN, instead W-W kept his nerve, trusted his navigational skills and continued to cover Lutjens' potential escape routes eastward.

Keeping one's nerve, and sticking to the plan takes courage.

[dunmunro]

Hello everybody,

@ Paul Cadogan,

you wrote :

I do agree that things are becoming much clearer, and regardless of the conclusions that might be drawn by each of us individually, the clarity is a very good thing!

Please allow me to add my applause to yours, ... for your help ... I am really thanking you all ...

No one ever, ... until now, ... has evaluated so deeply this night events.

@ All,

In order to add more clarification, here a table I have prepared based on my current knowledge of the radio messages sent between 19.22 of May 23rd, and 06.00 of May 24th, 1941 by Suffolk and Norfolk, so we can evaluate better their efforts.
I have the Suffolk full radio log, ... not the Norfolk one, so I have based it on the Admiralty record and some other sources I have like the CS1 Extract radio log - Appendix I.

Total_Suffolk_Norfolk_messages_03.jpg

The RED dots are the messages sent including direct enemy information so for Suffolk are 27 out of 31 messages sent, ... for the Norfolk are 2 out of 13 messages sent.

Now you have a better idea of the real effort, ... of the 2 heavy cruisers.

No doubts the Norfolk crew was comitted to do their duty exactly like the Suffolk one, ... but look at what the Suffolk did all night long, ... and compare it with the Norfolk only 2 enemy contacts at 20.32/23 and 10 hours later at 05.41/24.

One way or the other this difference should have been highlighted and the Suffolk crew deserve their applause too ...


Bye Antonio

A very good illustration of how superior technology (type 284 radar) can dramatically alter events.

[wadinga]

Hello All,

At last, after a storm of groundless, mean-minded character assassination , a comment I can agree with:

The only dependency I still have is the 68° bearing between PoW and Norfolk at 02.29, ... when Norfolk was radio transmitting and PoW got her with a radio RD/F bearing.

Now after establishing the only valuable positioning element at this time for Norfolk relative to PoW, is a bearing with no range of 068T at 02:29 we can move on.

To establish Norfolk's track we need to rely not on objective-targetted guesswork around 05:41, since apparently the action plot itself does not show a PoW M/F D/F for this time, and we have no indication of any visual bearing from PoW. We do have a logged visual bearing from Norfolk of 220T at 05:50 but with a range of 14 miles 28,000 yds which must be a very vague estimate.

What we do have WRT Suffolk is

0851 (B). Adjusted plot to 0800 Reference Position received at 0832 from C.S. One, the transfer being 290°, 20½ miles

but this is to move Suffolk not to a real sun sight position but adopting Norfolk's unknown error. It is unclear to me how the relative transfer was determined.

There is seemingly no radio instruction logged from Norfolk telling Suffolk to move her position. Norfolk's log says she got a sun sight at 14:50 and Suffolk narrative records

Adjusted plot to 1531 Reference Position from C.S. One ; transfer 226°, 11½ miles, at 1531 (Norfolk bearing 082°, 11 miles), pending receipt of amended signal ; and a further 271°, 4½ miles at 1711

The "Norfolk bearing 082T 11 miles" element surely ties their tracks together

Were these navigational instructions to Suffolk not recorded in the Norfolk radio log? Suffolk's Ships Log has all three daily positions recorded as "plot" source. Which to my mind means whatever any sights she got were not used in her navigation. Maybe the fault with Suffolk's gyro was suspected at this time. The Suffolk Strategical Map has weird mistakes on timing annotation later in the day but shows these transfers being applied to her track. Neither Norfolk's plan 8 or her log quantifies the navigational transfer necessary after her sun sight at 14:50. What was it?

PS Re Shadowing, After all the hysterical "he signed, he swore, for ten miles etc etc" Norfolk's log for 24 th is headed with "To southward shadowing Bismarck and Prinz Eugen" signed and official. Argument concluded.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "Norfolk's log for 24 th is headed with "To southward shadowing Bismarck and Prinz Eugen" signed and official. Argument concluded. "

Hi Sean,
the fact that something is written in Norfolk log doesn't mean necessarily that this same thing is correct, if not supported by other evidences (the 10 sm were confirmed by all other officers and by the conclusions of the board of inquiry) and counter-checked (through the Polygon that you don't like) .....

From Prinz Eugen KTB:

PG_KTB.jpg (27.32 KiB) Viewed 910 times

Torpedoes were actually launched ? Argument concluded ? Not at all


Bye, Alberto

[Alberto Virtuani]

Dunmunro wrote: "W-W did something quite courageous at 0229...he opted to do nothing."

Hi Duncan,
I guess this is the same "kind" of courage demonstrated by Capt.Leach when he disengaged his still efficient battleship from the fight few seconds after Hood explosion......

Also in this case, I would have preferred a "Suffolk like" courage: Ellis kept his ship within effective BS fire range, closing sharply from 10 to 9 sm from 2:47 till 2:55 in order to ensure a clear and sound identification of the targets (and he did it several times that night).


Bye, Alberto

[Alberto Virtuani]

Dunmunro wrote: "A very good illustration of how superior technology (type 284 radar) can dramatically alter events."

Hi Duncan,
I'm afraid type 284 is NOT the only explanation.
Many of these "red" messages were sent after a visual contact with the enemy too, e.g. 20:26, 20:46, 21:26, 23:41, 23:59, etc, etc....(source: Suffolk Strategical Plot where visual (black) and radar (green) contacts are differentiated using the colors).

I would re-phrase your sentence: a very good illustration of how superior shadowing skill and sense of duty (Ellis) can dramatically alter events.


Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro & Wadinga,

to say the least he was lazy, ... surely he was inept , ... what he did ( in reality he did not ) at 02.29 and after until 02.55 tells the whole story about his attitude and behavior.

When working on this tracks I knew I was going to find out the difference between Suffolk and Norfolk performances.

Surely I was not expecting to find out another very clear evidence of the very poor performances in command of this Royal Navy Flag Officer.

The evidence are as such that do not need further explanations, ... and I intentionally avoid to use different terms to describe what is so clear under everybody eyes now.

The Suffolk did the shadowing job, he forced the Norfolk to sail a track that kept his cruiser out of any involvment on the shadowing duty, and the messages shows it clearly.

In the only occasion he was ( not intentionally of course ) called to do something he avoided to take a due initiative and ... just did nothing, ... as appears to be usual for him, ... sailing away after ... and remaining silent for more than 2 hours ... asking after the Suffolk if she was still in contact with the enemy.
He realized the whole things some time after the " subsequent examinations of the plot " ... it is just incredible ...

All this adds up to the very shameful performance at the Hood First board and Second board, ... when he was forced to use an intentionally made false document ( The Plot ) to save himself from a due scrutiny of his actions ( negligence ), ... with an overall " Cover Up " made by Adm Tovey.

And we are not done yet with him, ... because soon I will have to analyze the lost of contact with the enemy after the DS battle ...

Sean, ... if you want to discuss about distances and tracks at a given time, ... just make a map and show us what you like to support being your solution, ... instead of keep on writing and repeating some incorrect statements like above.

I remind you that both on " The Plot " as well as on your supporting the Schmalenbach tracks map, ... we know very well who was right and who was wrong at the end.

Bye Antonio