Hello from hot, dusty, drought-stricken Jamaica!
NO! I have not disappeared into oblivion…still here but have been under a lot of pressure with various matters and have truly had NO time to keep up with the discussions here. Have been playing catch-up over the past few days though… and as usual I see things have been “popping”!!
My thoughts:
In all the points and counter points I see no reason to doubt the information presented by McMullen in his report, with the precise linkage of events to salvos or ranges recorded in the TS.
The witness interviews (though fascinating to listen to!) do little or nothing to nail down timings, but they do underline the whirlwind of events that took place in those few minutes.
With regards to Leach’s signals and narrative – obviously the latter is heavily based on the former. But I see something that may be of note: there is a mixing up of the order of the sentences from one to the other.
In the original signal (the Intercepted Cypher Message posted by Antonio), statement that PoW “had 3 14-inch guns in action. Y-turret would not bear” is referring to the period shortly after fire was opened and the ships were on 300 degrees.
But then in the later signal the “3 guns, Y-turret” statement is shifted to after Hood had been fatally hit, completely changing the interpretation. How could this happen? Was it deliberate or did the person transcribing the message make a mistake? How were the signals recorded? The statement is once again correctly placed in Leach’s narrative – with the number of guns corrected to 5 - so it seems to me that the placement in the 0800 signal was indeed a simple transcription error. If it HAD been deliberate, then Leach would have retained the altered placement in his narrative.
(see page 5 for those references)
To me, the only thing Leach did in his narrative that suggests a veiled attempt to cover himself was his omission of a specific time for the ship turning away – a rather glaring omission indeed. This left it open to interpretation from the track charts, but the statement by WW, accepted by Tovey provided the incorrect 0613.
The aft HACS director situation is VERY interesting. We have a serious contradiction as to which director – port or starboard - was hit by splinters. Remember it is very easy to go “reciprocal” and say something is on the left, when it was in fact on the right. Just like Jasper, observing “port side strikes” of Bismarck’s secondary artillery when those would have been “overs” and so obscured from his view – it would be
possible, even if unlikely, for the person writing a damage report to make a similar error.
If the starboard aft HACS director was undamaged by splinters, then it suggests the McMullen was” in” on the “conspiracy” too and falsified the GAR to protect Leach (I’d find that
very hard to believe!). Unless of course, the real reason the aft starboard director could not function was its uncomfortable proximity to the gun barrels of Y-turret which was firing on a forward bearing. Just imagine what it was like to be so close to 4 14-inch guns firing two semi-salvos per minute! This IS mentioned in PoW’s damage report:
4. Damage from own gun blast was caused as follows: --
(a). Numerous fractured ventilation trunks.
(b). General damage to woodwork and electric light fittings.
(c). Damage to aircraft and hangar fittings. This has been reported on in detail in Appendix 1 to my No. 001.A of 5th June, 1941.
(d). After H.A. Director personnel suffered from effects of blast from Y turret.
The story from the port director may then have simply been “reciprocated” to have been the starboard in McMullen’s mind.
Now I DO feel that some amount of a**-covering WAS done by Leach AND Wake-Walker. I can imagine Leach thinking to himself: “Good God!....... I’m going to have some explaining to do!” when it hit him how precipitously he withdrew after Hood was destroyed – hence the introduction he wrote at the start of his narrative. And WW’s 20,000 yards plus full hull drawings shifted to 30,000 yards and hull-down - to me was something that would be seized upon by any half decent lawyer!
But I have developed the distinct impression, given the extremely poor “covering up” that is evident in the official documentation – with all the clear indicators that some of the timings of events were wrong – that the decision, IF ANY, was eventually taken much higher up – higher than even Tovey.
The Bismarck had been sunk.
"Leave it alone…. In 70 years or so they’ll probably try to figure it out and argue about it at length!”
Paul
