73 North by Dudley Pope

[marcelo_malara]

Hi guys. i am in the process of reading the above mentioned book. I am astonished at reading in page 112, about Hipper:

"Geared turbines (she had diesel engines for cruising) driving four propellers...and with more than five inches of steel armour covering her vitals..."

There are three mistakes in the same sentence (diesels, four shafts and the armour thickness, 127 mm against 80 mm cited in Whitley´s Cruisers of WWII). Was at the time of writing (1957) the info available or is it a plain mistake of the author? What do you think, in general, about him? Does the Battle of the River Plate contains similar errors?

Regards

[Kyler]

I have not read the book you mention, though 3 mistakes clearly show a lack of research. I could probably give the author the armor mistake since that information still may have not been readily available. Though the diesel & propellor shaft mistakes could have easily been corrected with proper research. That information had to have been around since the US got Prinz Eugen as a prize from WW2. Sound to me the author didn't really do his research or used poor sources of information.

[RF]

Marcelo, please bear in mind that in the 1950'S the amount of information in Britain on Kriegsmarine warships was nothing like what it is today.

Mistakes due to lack of info and assumptions to fill the gaps were commonplace, just look at the movie ''Sink the Bismarck'' in its portrayal of all the German characters and not just Lutjens.

[marcelo_malara]

Yes, I know Robert, that was what I was thinking. What about The Battle of the River Plate? Someone has read it?

[RF]

The Battle of the River Plate is better known, because it was something of a standalone event early in WW2 when there was little else going on; this was in the period of the Phoney War and was in fact the only substantive clash between British and German forces in 1939, apart from the loss of the Rawalpindi.

Because of that it is far better remembered - in Britain.

[RF]

Another aspect to this Marcelo is a subject we previously discussed - the War of the Triple Alliance and the fact it is largely forgotten in Argentina today. In Britain, all our past conflicts are very well documented. But conflicts more peripheral to our lives and involvement are not so well recorded, and then only from how they affected us.

So how could any naval writer outside Germany immediately after WW2 know whether Hipper actually had diesel engines - unless they had had some involvement with their engineering? Not even the British seamen held as prisoner on Hipper could know the answer to that, particulary as they would hardly be likely to be given a conducted tour of the engine rooms!!!

[marcelo_malara]

I looked in Jane's Warships of WWII, a reprint of contemporary anuaries. The info about Hipper is the same written by the author (ie 5" armour, diesel + turbines, 4 shafts). so at least I know where his words may come from. The question is, so many years took it for the correct info to come to light?

[RF]

It often takes many years. Indeed it is largely with the emergence of the internet and the transfer of information electronically instead of the printed book, magazine or paper that the much wider information finally comes to light. We have learned far more about not just the subject of this website, the Bismarck, but the whole of WW2 in general in the last twenty years than in the forty four post WW2 years preceeding it.