Bismarck original KTB still existing ?

[Herr Nilsson]

Between Norfolk and Suffolk at 5:36 according to the plot.

315 plot.jpg (99.23 KiB) Viewed 966 times

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nilsson,

I see and I perfectly agree about that bearing between Norfolk and Suffolk at 05.36 being clearly made available for us on " The Plot " by Pinchin.

The RN Officer that added those PoW bearings and distances between PoW in relation to Norfolk and Suffolk, ... took them from the PoW original strategical map I have as well, ... and showed to you years ago, ... and only draw it on the old Plan 2, ... realizing the new Plan 4 I showed you.

Once again, ... the distances between PoW and Norfolk, Suffolk on that Plan 4, ... are most likely incorrect as you noticed, ... but the bearings should be correct and must be analyzed with the other ones taken before and after, ... among each singular warship given her own course and speed.

Bye Antonio

[wadinga]

Hello All,

Now with vision:

Remember this is what Wake-Walker knew at 05:41, not what has been magicked up, with hindsight. This map is Antonio's work and I reproduce it with his permission (I believe).




Kill all hindsight. Put yourself on Norfolk's bridge at 0531.

Suffolk has been reporting position, course and speed as well as enemy bearings to you (with her unknown positioning error) and Pinchin or whoever has plotted them on your plot. The D/F you have achieved has been "of great value" in at least confirming she is somewhere to starboard.
At 05:20 her quoted position

0520 (B). Enemy bore 203°, 15 miles, possibly increasing speed; and shortly afterwards altered course 30° to port and then back to starboard.

plotted on your chart says she is about 10 miles due North of you, and the enemy bears 203 degrees 15 miles from her! Either Suffolk is reporting you, or, if she is somehow invisible to you, the enemy is on your port side! This creates massive confusion.

You have been observing smoke on your port bow since 0516.

Please do not be mislead by Antonio's fortunate latest "face-saving" scoop. Wake-Walker's radio broadcast is simply inaccurate. The only thing W-W can "deduce" is that BC1 may be 60 plus miles astern, somewhere near Icarus, which is somewhere near Electra and since they can only go as fast as Norfolk, they can never catch up The Norfolk log does not say moving smoke plumes it says "smoke".

Antonio kindly plotted up this situation Wadinga_Sean_trial_02.jpg ) but neglected to put Bismarck in the place where Ellis was telling W-W she was, just a little SW of where Norfolk will be 10 minutes later. (On Norfolk's port side. Suffolk being invisible at only ten miles to the north doesn't make any sense, but where is she? Supposing she is there hidden by mist, mirage or whatever? Single inaccurate D/F bearings don't tell you. A guessed triangle (provenance unknown) put on a map sometime later, doesn't tell you at 05:35 on the 24th .

Please ignore the 14 miles on 208 that comes in later.

Notice PoW says she is 20 miles SW of you and she places the enemy about 7 miles south of where you spot them a few minutes later.

More to come

All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

you are authorized to publish all I made especially if I made it for your understanding like the map you posted above.

I have a lot of hard time trying to realize what your are trying to tell us.

Maybe after a long working day and getting older, ... I am loosing my capabilities.

Do you mind to explain a bit better and with easy words what you are trying to demonstrate ?

Did I realize correctly that you are trying to state that the smoke at 05.16 that Norfolk saw soon after 05.00 am ... according to you was the enemy for RearAdm Wake-Walker due to Suffolk wrong position communications, ... referencing the above map and positions I made years ago for you to understand a complete different situation ??? ... and because of the above map, in your opinion, the Wake-Walker recorded interview and declaration of awareness of BC1 presence on his port bow soon after 05.00 am is consequently not reliable ?

Is this what you want to demonstrate ? Please confirm, ...

Bye Antonio

[dunmunro]

@Antonio

Yes, I remember. In this plan Norfolk is just 10 miles away and even when one places her in the right bearing to Bismarck the bearing to Suffolk at 5:35 is wrong. It has to be 315°.

Hi Marc. I can't seem to open the above links.

thanks.

[Herr Nilsson]

Hi Duncan,

well, it seems photobucket wants 399.99$ per year from now on for sharing pictures on 3rd party websites. That makes it quite useless. Anyway, I apologize for the broken link. I will upload the picture tomorrow again.

[Dave Saxton]

Can you give some concrete examples of falsified reports?

I did.

"There are two examples of disinformation being deliberately written into primary documents and reports I can think of right away. One is the writing into documents and reports that the mines that sank many Allied ships in the channel in 1944 were conventional magnetic mines or acoustic mines. The Allies knew that the mines were a new type of advanced mine with a pressure trigger, which there was no effective counter to. However, they did not want the enemy to know how effective their new weapon truly was. This was kept secret for decades after the war, because they did not want the Soviets to know either..........."

As I stated I think this type of thing was rather rare, but it is something to be aware of. In the above example we only know about it because one of the surviving officers from one the ships sunk by the mines, Milton Bienvenu, stated what happened concerning the misinformation entered into the record, and the reasons why, in a 1999 interview.

[dunmunro]

Hi Duncan,

well, it seems photobucket wants 399.99$ per year from now on for sharing pictures on 3rd party websites. That makes it quite useless. Anyway, I apologize for the broken link. I will upload the picture tomorrow again.

I've had good luck with Google Photos and Flicker (Yahoo).

[dunmunro]

Can you give some concrete examples of falsified reports?

I did.

"There are two examples of disinformation being deliberately written into primary documents and reports I can think of right away. One is the writing into documents and reports that the mines that sank many Allied ships in the channel in 1944 were conventional magnetic mines or acoustic mines. The Allies knew that the mines were a new type of advanced mine with a pressure trigger, which there was no effective counter to. However, they did not want the enemy to know how effective their new weapon truly was. This was kept secret for decades after the war, because they did not want the Soviets to know either..........."

As I stated I think this type of thing was rather rare, but it is something to be aware of. In the above example we only know about it because one of the surviving officers from one the ships sunk by the mines, Milton Bienvenu, stated what happened concerning the misinformation entered into the record, and the reasons why, in a 1999 interview.

The Allies kept a lot of WW2 secrets but these are not examples of actual Action Reports being falsified.

[Dave Saxton]

They wrote in the action reports that the mines were magnetic or acoustic when they knew they were not. Call it what you like.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

we are now waiting for your explanation of the above reasoning ...

@ Herr Nillson,

we were talking about trying to correlate the Norfolk track and bearing with the BC1 warships precise track and bearings we have from PoW maps, ... and the enemy tracks and bearings we have too.

Correlating Norfolk to Suffolk tracks and bearings on the same time is adding another variable, ... and I did the two exercises initially separated, ... to merge everything at the end.

Anyhow, I am sure you have noticed the elapsed time between the 2 bearings on Pinchin map, ... at 05:36 and 05:41, ... between them exactly 5 minutes.
Just for your thoughts, ... what about Suffolk sending radio messages at 05:33 and 05:38 ... with exactly 5 minutes between the 2 radio messages, ... allowing the Norfolk operator to R.D/F the Suffolk radio emissions consequently one 5 minutes after the previous one, at 05:36 and 05:41.

If my intuition is correct, ... as I suppose, ... we have the 05:33 Suffolk radio message generating the 05:36 Norfolk bearing taken, ... and exactly 5 minutes after, ... the 05:38 radio message from Suffolk generating the 05:41 D/F Norfolk bearing taken too.

Somebody time ago already noticed this similarity on this forum if I recall correctly, ... and I think he was right.

But again, ... those 2 bearings should be used to correctly correlate Norfolk and Suffolk tracks once they are already correlated with BC1 and the enemy.

@ Wadinga,

Sean, ... trying to help you not to fall and hurt yourself too much with your above reasoning, ... think about what I wrote above to Marc, ... and add to that reasoning also this fact from Suffolk Official report about her sent radio messages :

Reports : - Made reports at 0447, 0456, 0522, 0533 and 0538 during the above phase.

Do you think that like we have showed you above the Norfolk was R.D/F the Suffolk also during her previously released radio messages as well ? I mean before the 05:38 and 05:33 ones ? Surely they did it too.
Consequently, RearAdm Wake-Walker due to his ship radio operator on board the Norfolk and his staff, ... was perfectly knowing in which direction Suffolk was also at 04:47, at 04:56, at 05:22, ... and as we saw on Pinchin map also at 05:33 and 05:38 being plotted at 05:36 and 05:41.

Are you able to follow my reasoning now ? ... so, WW knew Suffolk was to North West of him on his starboard side somewhere, ... and most likely they were correctly plotting the Suffolk and the enemy too on their chart table tactical plot ( never made available to anybody ), ... and they knew where the enemy was as well, ... to North West of Norfolk on her starboard side ahead.

No possibilities of the enemy being on his port side, ... neither with your above not supported reasoning anyhow.

In fact listening to his personal interview we now have ... he knew soon after 5 am who those warships could be on his port bow, ...

Back to my working day ...

Bye Antonio

[Herr Nilsson]

@ Antonio

If I understand T.O.D. (Time Of Delivery) correctly, Suffolks signals were sent at 0535 and 0540.

Edit:

@Duncan

5.jpg

(74.68 KiB) Not downloaded yet

[dunmunro]

They wrote in the action reports that the mines were magnetic or acoustic when they knew they were not. Call it what you like.

This is extracted from page 1 and 10 of the War Diary of Commander, U.S. Ports and Bases, France.

9 AUG 1944

SECRET

From:; Commander, U.S. Ports and Bases, France.

To : Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet.
- Subject: War Diary for this command - forwarding of

Reference: - (a) CominCH and CNO Serial 3899 of 19 October 1942.
b) Alnav 176.

c) Art 712 and 874(6) U.S. Navy Regulations 1920.
d) CominCH and CNO Serial 01529 of 17 May 1943.

e) CominCH Restricted ltr FF1/Al2-1/Al6-3,
Serial 7152 of 29 October 1943.

Enclosure: (A) War Diary of this command covering the period
16 June 1944 to 31 July 1944, inclusive.

1, Enclosure (A) is forwarded in accordance with

references above.

JOHN WILKES

[page 10]

THE MINESWEEPING ACTIVITY IN THE PORT OF CHERBOURG

I.

" With the surrender of all Cherbourg forts on 29 June 1944,
"the greatest minesweeping operation in history," as Prime
Minister Churchill has called it, began the clearance of Cherbourg
Harbor, Without the intensive sweeping which commenced before the
actual invasion began, the entire operation would have been doomed
to failure. It is significant that the first craft lost was a minesweeper.

In general there are four types of mines which it is necessary
for our forces to eliminate.

The first of these is the ordinary contact mine, moored to the
bottom, plus a similar type of mine, also fixed in position, which
rises to the surface, becoming a menace to navigation anywhere from
one to eighty days after having been laid by the enemy. The former
mines are cleaned out by sweeping with Oropesa gear; the latter are
seined for by net trawlers.

The second general type is the magnetic mine which lies on the
bottom exploding when a magnetic field passes over it. In practice
this has found to be the first to fifteenth ship in a convoy.

These mines are swept by degaussed ships which pass, at a safe
distance, a magnetic field, (via cables) over the mines.

Pressure mines (also known as oyster mines) are armed by the
changes in water pressure caused by ships passing over these
mines, and are fired by either magnetic or acoustic unit. No
reliable method of sweeping these mines has yet been devised.

The last of this general group of enemy mines ig the "Katy"
mine which is 7 feet high and moored on the bottom. It has a single
prong which at times may be connected to a float. When a ship's
screws are fouled on this, the mine is detonated. Destruction of
this type of enemy equipment is achieved by sweeping with Orope sa
gear fitted to smell ships with little draft.

Clearance of mines from the Cherbourg area was under way on
01 July 44. The original sweeping was accomplished by Y and by
BYMS squadrons, which swept primarily for 0 type (moored) mines.
The MMS 1019 and YMS 350 were lost during this first sweep.

My bolding. This is a wartime report and there's no attempt to disguise or fail to mention the existence of Nazi Pressure Mines.

I can provide numerous examples of references within USN war diarys and ship's action reports to pressure mines.

[Cag]

Hi All

I'm just going through the reports etc to get an idea of the sequence of events and checking my badly drawn maps, finding out what was known and what was not. I need to ask a question that I think I asked before but did not get an answer as I think it was lost in the melee of another thread.

The destroyers seem to have been shown in the maps produced as forming a fan arrangement when dispersed, would this not be incorrect? I have formed them differently can anyone help confirm my thoughts?

If you read Leach's reports it seems quite clear, the destroyers were to be spread 7nm or if visibity less at a distance where they were visible to at least one other ship ( for signalling and mutual support I guess) to act as a reconnaissance screen. This use of the word screen is useful to us as a screen suggests parallel direction of 070° not a fan.

This would mean that the wording at visibility distance and on a course of 070° are meaningless? Leach reports the visibility distance at 02.22 as 5nm. I would therefore suggest that the destroyers were spread 5nm apart and formed a screen all travelling on a course of 070°?

Any help would be gratefully received

Best wishes
Cag.

[wadinga]

Hello Antonio,

Please explain to me again how a single line of bearing, say a D/F, gives a position?

most likely they were correctly plotting the Suffolk and the enemy too on their chart table tactical plot

All they had in Norfolk were Suffolk's positions transmitted by her, and increasingly obviously wrong, and some bearings (accuracy unknown). All you can plot from the latter are a series of lines.

You cannot correctly plot the position of Suffolk based on a line or even a series of lines.

You cannot correctly plot the position of Bismarck based on a range and bearing from a a line.

So "most likely" they had the vaguest idea where Suffolk was, and suspected that BC1 was with his destroyers- 60 miles astern and not catching up.

W-W didn't know where Bismarck was until he saw her. It's recorded in the Ship's Log. They didn't know where BC1 was until they saw him, it's recorded in the Ship's Log.

This thread is supposed to be about original documentation.

Hello Cag- What the destroyers did on deployment is pure speculation. Their Logs are gone. We have T Cain's book account saying Electra was 60 miles NW of the sinking point, and Icarus turned up later. Since I expect they didn't dawdle Icarus was even further away.Therefore wherever Icarus was when the lost message was sent, it was almost certainly more than 60 miles astern of Norfolk.



All the best

wadinga