PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

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dunmunro
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by dunmunro »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2019 2:55 pm Hello everybody,
Herr Nilsson wrote: "IIRC all bearings were right in this map I posted along time ago. "
Thanks therefore to Mr.Nilsson for not supporting the "indeterminateness fan club" and the "largely accepted view" here and for being the only one who had tried to reconstruct the battle with Antonio here (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8335&start=345#p81828).
However, I have not seen the conclusion from his side about the initial set of measures/bearings on the same thread.



Wadinga wrote: "Prince of Wales' rate of fire varied enormously...There is no data at all for Bismarck ..."
...and despite that McMullen calculated the PoW gunnery performance averaging her RoF and getting the result I have proposed for comparison to Bismarck (http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 09guns.htm).


PoW_BS_PG_Output_Comparison_McMullen_rounded.jpg


This shows clearly that the two ships fired in a fairly similar way from RoF viewpoint and that PoW fired better from an effective RoF.

The last sentence ("There is no data at all for Bismarck") is simply not correct: we know how many shells Bismarck fired (93) and this is enough to get her effective RoF, worse than PoW one.


Wadinga wrote: "None of them have alleged Cowardice, Conspiracy and Cover-up "
No, all of them have accepted the (proven intentionally incorrect) British official version presented by Tovey (PoW retreat time 06:13, Y turret jamming before the decision to disengage and heavy cruisers distance) and then used by writers to tell a fairy tale to the world about this battle.



Bye, Alberto
Honorable members:

I have let this slide in the interests of trying to stop the acrimony but PoW opened fire at 0553 and ceasefire was ordered at 0611 as per her log.

Honorable members, the above table appears to be a deliberate falsification of the open and ceasefire times as recorded by the available historical record. Pow fired 21 salvos as per her GAR, but the GAR doesn't record the ceasefire time.

The above table is attempting to pass off three sets of data measurements as the same and most boards would censure or ban the perpetrator for this kind of behaviour.
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Bill Jurens »

Dunmunro wrote:

*****************************************

I have let this slide in the interests of trying to stop the acrimony but PoW opened fire at 0553 and ceasefire was ordered at 0611 as per her log.

Honorable members, the above table appears to be a deliberate falsification of the open and ceasefire times as recorded by the available historical record. Pow fired 21 salvos as per her GAR, but the GAR doesn't record the ceasefire time.

The above table is attempting to pass off three sets of data measurements as the same and most boards would censure or ban the perpetrator for this kind of behaviour."

*******************************************

Thank you for your contribution. I hope you find the following comments useful, insofar as they are intended constructively:

Your comment that "The above table is attempting to pass off three sets of data measurements as the same." does not really specify exactly which table you are talking about. Further, there seems to be a bit of ambiguity regarding the identities of the 'three sets of data', you reference, and how you think they may have been misrepresented.

I am not sure exactly what is meant by "...this kind of behaviour", i.e. does this behavior represent, in your opinion: a) an attempt at deliberate and malicious falsification, b) an artifact of ineptitude or c) merely an assertion stemming from the incorrect assimilation of existing records?

I think, perhaps in the interests of brevity, you may have sacrificed a bit too much clarity in your comment.

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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by dunmunro »

Bill Jurens wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2019 7:14 pm Dunmunro wrote:

*****************************************

I have let this slide in the interests of trying to stop the acrimony but PoW opened fire at 0553 and ceasefire was ordered at 0611 as per her log.

Honorable members, the above table appears to be a deliberate falsification of the open and ceasefire times as recorded by the available historical record. Pow fired 21 salvos as per her GAR, but the GAR doesn't record the ceasefire time.

The above table is attempting to pass off three sets of data measurements as the same and most boards would censure or ban the perpetrator for this kind of behaviour."

*******************************************

Thank you for your contribution. I hope you find the following comments useful, insofar as they are intended constructively:

Your comment that "The above table is attempting to pass off three sets of data measurements as the same." does not really specify exactly which table you are talking about. Further, there seems to be a bit of ambiguity regarding the identities of the 'three sets of data', you reference, and how you think they may have been misrepresented.

I am not sure exactly what is meant by "...this kind of behaviour", i.e. does this behavior represent, in your opinion: a) an attempt at deliberate and malicious falsification, b) an artifact of ineptitude or c) merely an assertion stemming from the incorrect assimilation of existing records?

I think, perhaps in the interests of brevity, you may have sacrificed a bit too much clarity in your comment.

Bill Jurens
Mr Moderator, yes, I believe it is a deliberate and malicious falsification because:

A) PoW opened fire at ~0553 but did not stop firing until well after 0602, firing more than 55 rounds, yet the table presents only PoW's first 18 salvos whilst under director control and thus avoids the dramatic decline in her output after 0602, so we have PoW's peak output compared to the average output of PE from her open fire to ceasefire. A similar comparison is made against Bismarck even though the open fire and ceasefire times for Bismarck are only poorly defined in the historical record, and again are an average made from open fire to ceasefire, without reference to Bismarck's actual salvo output over any well defined time period or comparable time-frame. The only possible valid comparison would be PoW's output from open fire (0553) to ceasefire (0611) or 59 rounds over 18 minutes or about 3.2 rpm. The output for PE and Bismarck from their open fire to ~0602, when POW was firing under director control, is unknown to us.

B) We discussed these facts extensively in past threads and the author of the table continues to present data which misrepresents PoW's RoF in comparison to PE and Bismarck even though the faulty logic of the comparison has been pointed out to him repeatedly as has been the fact that PoW continued firing after ~602.
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Bill Jurens »

Comments (tactfully phrased, of course) from other readers?

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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Travelling this week end, and unable to answer completely via smartphone, posting the correct links...

I find the “malicious and obstinate” denial of proven facts in the above post both rude (not surely tactfully phrased...) and totally incorrect.

Only one statement is correct above: we have already discussed this at lengh and it is useless to repeat the whole discussion.

The table data for PoW are exactly the ones “chosen” (not maliciously) by McMullen to officially report PoW firing performances : if annoying, I can do nothing for that. Fire action duration was correctly defined by the PoW GO as 8,58 minute. Inventing that PoW ceased fire at 6:11 (!) based on a clearly incorrect log entry , denying the official GAR , speaks for itself. The last locally controlled salvos were fired at 6:03:XX, but they were correctly excluded by McMullen from any meaningful calculation.

BS and PG data contain some assumptions but these assumptions do not affect significatively the effettive RoF calculation. Other proposals for correcting the “assumptions” were repeatedly requested and never proposed...

Back on monday for further comments.


Bye, Alberto
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Herr Nilsson »

@all
Alberto Virtuani wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2019 2:55 pm
Herr Nilsson wrote: "IIRC all bearings were right in this map I posted along time ago. "
Thanks therefore to Mr.Nilsson for not supporting the "indeterminateness fan club" and the "largely accepted view" here and for being the only one who had tried to reconstruct the battle with Antonio here (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8335&start=345#p81828).
However, I have not seen the conclusion from his side about the initial set of measures/bearings on the same thread.
I would prefer not to be interpreted that way. I am indeterminate. In my opinion it is possible to create at least one fairly good match without changing any track. Modifying just one track would create an even lager number of possible tracks. Modifying more than one track would create an almost infinite number of tracks. Additionally this will open the floodgates to arbitrariness.
Antonio Bonomi wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2019 3:06 pm Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nillson,

you wrote :
IIRC all bearings were right in this map I posted along time ago
referencing your published map :

viewtopic.php?f=1&p=82350#p82349

I am glad that your are assuming the fact that all known bearings must match on an acceptable map on a 2019 work about the Denmark Strait battle, ... given what we have as evidence at hand available today.

This was not always the case on the last 78 years of publications, and in fact many maps on books shows incorrect maps once you compare them with the available official maps we have available today.

In fact today's acceptable DS battle maps could have been only realized after the PoW one ( gunnery and Rowell ) and the Prinz Eugen official one became available, ... and after the merging of the Pinchin plot showing Norfolk and Suffolk tracks too with the previously listed ones, ... realizing a final overall DS map just as I did, ... and just as you did on your example here attached.

Now, I think we are in agreement about the 4 Royal Navy warship tracks and their relative connections one must establish thru the relative bearings at a given time. No need to spend more time on those.

What is debatable and should be compared are the 2 German warship tracks, ... out of which I assume you would agree that the Prinz Eugen one is a given, ... because it is well known and it is available on her own battle map.

Now I am having difficulties due to the scale on realizing where you may think there are differences between your proposed map above and my map that is in revision anyhow, ... for the 2 British heavy cruisers positions and tracks compared to my 2005 published one, ... and they will be very close to where you are showing them to be here above, ... with those assumptions ( bearings ).

But leaving aside for a moment as said the 4 Royal Navy warships, ... where the approach is correct in my opinion on your work too, ... where do you see differences between your 2 above German warship tracks and my 2005 tracks of them ?
@Antonio
There is no difference between the German warship tracks and your 2005 track, because I've took it from your map. I thought it was probable that you didn't modify the original tracks.

@all
Once again I would prefer that my opinion or assumptions aren't derived that way. That just leads to unnecessary clarifications and it makes me feel that someone tries to exploit my "opinions" or "assumptions" to support his own. Not being a native speaker it's very costly in terms of time and labour to deal with it. I hope you will respect that request. Thanks in advance!

Bearings are just one way of approach. Pinchin for instance used distances. So in my opinion Pinchin's track is rather a diagram of what they knew that morning and possibly not how it really was. His diagram is definitely valid from this point of view. But if one solely wants to use bearings there is at least one possible solution without modifying the tracks.(for convenience I've added some distances):
ok3.jpg
(127.52 KiB) Not downloaded yet
Regards

Marc

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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
May I ask a question which may seem a bit naive to you all?
Most of of us have probably seem the film 'Sink the Bismarck' and while accepting that it was just that - a film- loosely based on events at the time, (which incidentally hardly mentioned or showed Rodney's part in the battle) I wonder if the part when a shell hit PoW's bridge and killed many of the people on it was reasonably close to what actually happened. If so, can the timings of what occurred immediately after the shell hit be taken as exact? What I am trying to say is that PoW was getting clobbered by 8" and 15" shells, with more hitting the sea around her, her bridge wrecked and many officers dead or wounded is it possible to say that an event like ordering the turn away was given and entered in the log at a precise time, or for that matter, can any timings or tracks recorded during the heat of any battle be accepted as exact to the last minute?
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by wadinga »

Learned Contributors,

Despite detailed description of the shortcomings of the Excel table of PoW and Bismarck gunnery posted repeatedly by Mr Virtuani and a measured request to explain why the inappropriate averaging technique has been applied, it has been reproduced again without any explanation.

The only detailed records suitable for any kind of valid mathematical analysis for Bismarck lie at the bottom of the Atlantic. There is no unequivocal recorded time for Bismarck's first salvo, there is certainly no recorded time for her last and so no way of deriving the duration of her shooting. Since the averaging technique is based on using this duration it is rendered invalid.

As Dunmunro has pointed out, the duration used for the ( IMHO entirely meaningless) calculation of PoW's rate of fire excludes the period when she was manoeuvring so violently that shooting was impossible. Even during this restricted period her actual intervals between firing varied by up to 300% resulting in a highly skewed Standard Deviation which renders the mean value meaningless. *

We know Bismarck also commenced violent manoeuvring at the same her target did, and we know similar manoeuvres by Prinz Eugen caused her battery to be "temporarily and laterally displaced" from her target, thus reducing her actual rate of fire.

When challenged on the irrelevance of the mean value Mr Virtuani has responded:
BS and PG data contain some assumptions but these assumptions do not affect significatively the effettive RoF calculation. Other proposals for correcting the “assumptions” were repeatedly requested and never proposed...
Since any alternative assumptions would be no more valid, only different to those made this would be pointless

The Moderator has suggested Dunmunro pick from three discrete options, but I am unable to, since I have insufficient factual information on the table supplier's motives, only assumptions.
a) an attempt at deliberate and malicious falsification,
b) an artifact of ineptitude
c) merely an assertion stemming from the incorrect assimilation of existing records
*Therefore my mean value would be c) but with a very highly skewed distribution.

All the best

wadinga
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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nillson,

first of all, ... you asked :
@all

Once again I would prefer that my opinion or assumptions aren't derived that way.

That just leads to unnecessary clarifications and it makes me feel that someone tries to exploit my "opinions" or "assumptions" to support his own.

Not being a native speaker it's very costly in terms of time and labor to deal with it. I hope you will respect that request. Thanks in advance!
As far as myself, ... I can guarantee you that your above request will be fully respected from my side.

Moving to the DS map reconstruction common efforts.

As I wrote above I agree with your approach that is exactly like my one, ... use what we have as official evidence and prioritize the bearings to put the many official map tracks ( 5 out of 6 already available ) together, ... only after work on the 6th and last track ( the Bismarck ) and on the distances as we were doing on the other thread time ago.

In this regard I find curious that a map that does have 5 out of 6 tracks perfectly available from the official available documents, ... with only the Bismarck track missing, ... and the battlefield perfectly defined, ... can be defined : indeterminate.
Probably it only depends on what type of determination someone pretends to have in order to move from and indeterminate position to a determinate one.
In my personal way to define all this, ... being Italian, ... it is only a matter of tolerances and precision one can define aside on the map itself.

you wrote :
Bearings are just one way of approach. Pinchin for instance used distances. So in my opinion Pinchin's track is rather a diagram of what they knew that morning and possibly not how it really was. His diagram is definitely valid from this point of view. But if one solely wants to use bearings there is at least one possible solution without modifying the tracks.(for convenience I've added some distances):
If I remember well you has been the one to underline us the statement Pinchin wrote on that map clearly stating that he used the bearings he knew ( only partially as we can see ), ... while the distances he used were coming from the bridge.
That is exactly the problem related to that Pinchin map ( The Plot ), he had to respect the distances given to him from the bridge in some cases, disregarding the bearings. We have long discussed about it, so there is no need to do it again here now.
Once you add the many other information we have about this battle, all warship tracks go easily on their proper position.

Summarizing as I stated I agree with the methodology you have used and I see that you came out with a DS map result, ... easily, ... as obvious.

My current DS battle map goes a bit deeper and starting from what you did and showed us as a first correct base approach, ... added all the many other information we can find on radio messages and official reports and defined more precisely ( this is my personal evaluation of course ) the whole scenario for all the 6 warships.

Some inputs I have used are available in this forum since years on the many threads we wrote about the many parts of this battle.

The whole result of my current new work ( the 2005 map enhancement ), as you probably already know, will be first published on 2021 on the Bismarck second book I am going to write with Robert Gehringer ( 1st book about Bismarck on 2020, second on 2021 and third on 2022).

http://bismarck-tirpitz.com/?lang=en

This year 2019 is the last one dedicated to the Tirpitz, with the 5th and last book on release on November 2019 for the 75th anniversary of her sinking.

@ Paul Mercer,

we have deeply analyzed that event on a dedicated thread 6 years ago, ... you can read all in here :

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6276&hilit=hit+comp ... orm#p56258

For any additional help about it, ... just feel free to ask, ... it is only history, ... nothing else.

Bye Antonio
In order to honor a soldier, we have to tell the truth about what happened over there. The whole, hard, cold truth. And until we do that, we dishonor her and every soldier who died, who gave their life for their country. ( Courage Under Fire )
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Byron Angel »

Santarini's book is, on a certain level, interesting. But it is a good thing that his work is described by him as "hypotheses" rather than "analyses"; the author relies upon a series of interlocking assumptions about the action that are not necessarily corroborated and is in one case contradicted by the historical record/testimony.

The differing engagement time spans set for PoW and Bismarck, as pointed out by dunmunro, are also curious. if Bismarck was in action for 14 minutes and PoW for only 9 minutes, one wonders exactly what transpired during the differential 5 minute period that would be disregarded in the case of PoW but included for Bismarck.

One final observation, FWIW - In an actual combat situation, the question of number of hits versus number of shells expended is little more than a matter of accountancy curiosity. The true measure of effectiveness is the number of hits versus time of engagement.

B
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Bill Jurens »

I was, by coincidence, reading over Prince of Wales' War Damage Report today (book project...), and found some quotes which might be of interest.

The report states, in part...

"She received 7 hits, 3 with 15" shell and 3 with 8". The 7th cannot definitely be identified, but as probably 8"."

This would suggest that POW received about as many 15" hits as Bismarck did, which in turn suggests, at least in fairly broad terms, that the shooting of the British was, in practical terms about equal to that of the Germans. As it would seem to be impossible, or nearly so, to attribute hits on Bismarck to either Hood or Prince of Wales, and equally difficult to assess with any certainty how many times Hood was hit with 15" shell, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions. What is interesting, however, is that it appears that the British may have scored their 3 hits rather early on in the action while the Germans may have scored their 4 hits later, perhaps after all British hits were received.

"HOOD is reported as having hit BISMARCK with her 3rd salvo".

This is an interesting observation, though its source is unspecified. If true, it would subtract at least one hit from Prince of Wales' score.

"The true range on opening fire was 25000 yds. and the true range on ceasing fire was 14,500 yds."

It is encouraging that these are explicitly stated as being true, i.e. navigational, ranges rather than gun ranges which might be somewhat different.

"BISMARCK's 5th salvo straddled and hit HOOD.... The range at the time of the 5th salvo was 16,500 yards, and the bearing of the enemy about Green 50."

This represents a specific value for the range at the time of Hood's explosion. I do not know, at first glance, how closely this might correspond to Mr. Bonomi's reconstruction. Analysis of the subsequent tracks of POW and Bismarck suggests that the ranges during the subsequent hitting phase on Prince of Wales may have been slightly less.

On other items, I am absolutely delighted at the constructive tone and restrained expression exhibited by all during recent correspondence. Although we may not even be close, as yet, to approaching consensus, recent discussions on both sides have been restrained enough to allow assessment without emotion. Which is what we need. Welcome back to some members who have withdrawn over the past few months and who now seem to feel that the new and more subdued tone of discussion makes re-engagement worthwhile.

Bill Jurens
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by wadinga »

Learned Contributors,

It has been observed that some contemporary reports are at odds with the Consensus:

"HOOD is reported as having hit BISMARCK with her 3rd salvo".

PoW's fire control team who were observing Bismarck intently, reported seeing no other splashes near their target, having been warned of their own fall of shot by a warning gong. Despite a touching emotional desire to feel that Hood might have struck a blow before her own demise, which colours some accounts, there is surely no evidence she fired at any ship apart from Prinz Eugen. I have seen an airmail letter in the PRO from Tovey sent after the war when he was reading drafts of the Official Account where he emphasises his confidence that all hits on Bismarck were from PoW. We need to remind ourselves that PoW did not claim seeing any hits on her enemy, and German reports do not time when those hits were made.

I am surprised to read:
This would suggest that POW received about as many 15" hits as Bismarck did, which in turn suggests, at least in fairly broad terms, that the shooting of the British was, in practical terms about equal to that of the Germans.
Whilst this is a splendidly conciliatory observation in view of the arguments raging here, it ignores the fact that whilst PoW was firing at Bismarck throughout, the German vessel scored hits on both British vessels, switching from one to the other after Hood's destruction. I would be interested to hear the observations of an acknowledged expert on World War II naval gunnery about the glib observation, often repeated, that the closeness of Holland's formation made this target switch easy. PoW was not at the same range as Hood, was not on the same azimuth as Hood, and changed course violently moments after Hood's destruction to avoid her wreck, as reported widely by both British and German observers. Since the Compass Platform hit is consistent only with a hit whilst the ship was on a course of about 280T degrees, it either occurred before the violent turn to starboard or some time after passing Hood's wreck, when the ship turned through 280T, when the headlong charge towards the Germans was being abandoned in accordance with Holland's last instruction.

All the best

wadinga
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by paul.mercer »

Hi Antonio,
@ Paul Mercer,
'we have deeply analyzed that event on a dedicated thread 6 years ago, ... you can read all in here :
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6276&hilit=hit+comp ... orm#p56258
For any additional help about it, ... just feel free to ask, ... it is only history, ... nothing else.'

Many thanks as ever for your reply,
I have had a look at that topic and while it is very interesting and informative, it does not really address the question that I put in my last post which was, it is really possible to tie down precise timings to the very minute (like when firing stopped, orders given to turn away and exact courses ordered, when the bridge is in chaos with people lying dead or wounded (and no doubt shell shocked) and to add to the confusion more shells either hitting or landing in the sea all around. Without wishing to seem frivolous, I find it difficult to grasp that at that time someone was looking at the clock or their watch and noting down the exact time an order was given. Also, (and I am putting my head on the block with this!) do timings to the very minute actually matter that much when it comes to the overall view of the battle,presumably the timings of when all the ships opened fire and the moment Hood blew up are accurate as are the events until PoW got hit on the Compass platform - but after that?
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Paul Mercer,

I am sure you found all the detailed descriptions and the many way to read what has been written about those crucial minutes on the thread I have attached.
As far as the precise timing of those events goes, ... there are some time reference I like you to evaluate.

Hood exploding time : a bit after 06:00 battle time, ... I have evaluated 10 seconds more or less ( we can see the PoW salvoes 13 and 14 on the air being already fired on the photo Nh69724 )

Hit on the PoW compass platform received : 06:00 and 48 seconds as the first Bismarck salvo was landing on PoW, ... and 2 seconds after we can see on the PG film sequence, ... the PoW 16th salvo departing from the PoW ( 06.00 and 50 seconds ).

Another timing that can be evaluated with a good enough approximation is the fist PoW salvo on local control departing from the PoW having already turned away disengaging and firing her Y turret, ... and this was at 06.03 minutes and 45 seconds more or less. This timing is a perfect match also with the PoW gunnery plot time as well as the PG battle map timing, ... because the Prinz Eugen had not yet started her turn to starboard as we can see on photo NH69731 due to her railing positioning compared to the horizon.

The firing of the last 2 shells from Y turret in local control occurred on the battle minute 06:04 and at 06:05 the PoW was only sailing away to the south east on retreat.

For the timing and the event sequence occurred on PoW after this time while Capt Leach recovered and went back on the PoW Compass Platform, ... while PoW was still sailing away to south east, ... and at 06:24 turned back north and north west to join the Norfolk resuming the shadowing of the Bismarck after taking a south west course, ... I can only recommend you to read his biography :

https://www.amazon.com/Highest-Traditio ... 0752459929

his son, ... Adm Sir Henry Leach, ... did a good job with the book author.

Bye Antonio
In order to honor a soldier, we have to tell the truth about what happened over there. The whole, hard, cold truth. And until we do that, we dishonor her and every soldier who died, who gave their life for their country. ( Courage Under Fire )
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by paul.mercer »

Thanks again Antonio,
I'll try and get hold of that book
Paul
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