The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

[Herr Nilsson]

1) even if I do not understand why everybody seems not to beleive Adm Tovey own written letters and their content, ... I see that you do not trust him writing to Stephen Roskill and Roskill evaluation of Tovey statements. Am I correct ?

Surely we will never find the recorded phone call between Tovey and Pound.

I consider wadinga's doubts about Tovey's memory as a valid objection. OTOH I can't ignore Tovey's letters. That conflict leads to my answer: I don't know. The current state of source material is insufficient to answer this question.

What about the letter exchange between Tovey and Pound on May 1941 ?
Is that a reliable input in your opinion about " disciplinary actions " intended versus 2 Officers named by Tovey into the letter to Pound ?
Do you beleive that was a real intended threat for Wake-Walker and Leach ?

Of course for me it is more than enough, .. even if I personally trust Adm Tovey 100 % of course, ... every time he wrote and when he spoke to McMullen and Adm Blake.

I don't consider a BofI not as a "disciplinary action", but a search for facts. So I don't think it was necessarily a threat.

2) We have long discussed the " Cover Up " content and I see you current position, ... still.

Yes, I see no reason why there has to be a cover up at all. I mean if there's something to hide, the question is: hiding from whom?

3) Well my " tendency to overinterpretation ", ... started on 2013 simply from the Adm Tovey very evidently incorrect dispatches ... has driven all this set of evidence to surface lately, ... so I was not so far from the reality at first, ... but just the opposite as you can realize easily, ... bacause all my intuitions has been proved being correct so far.

Of course we have different thought processes and way to do thing and to accept or anticipate them based on what we have at hand, ... and I respect your ones of course while I keep on proceeding with mine.

I respect your ones as well, but as a friend I want to say some really well-intended words:

You call it intuition, but that's exactly bias in its purest form. In my perception you're always tending to over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation. In my perception you seem to use manipulative tricks like loaded questions to "win" at all costs. But your uncompromising will to "win" devaluates all your efforts and that's a pity.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nillson,

1) I see your points.
I think that May 31st, 1941 letter by Adm Tovey to Adm Pound defines pretty definitively Tovey reliability about the Board of Inquiry threat against Wake-Walker and Leach written and additionally explained also on Tovey late life letters.
Don't you think that having that letter in his hands Sir L. Kennedy would have never written what he wrote about Tovey late life reliability ?
This is just exactly what Stephen Roskill wrote to Kennedy too, telling him that Adm Tovey was fully reliable during those years.

In my personal opinion there should be no discussion anymore about this Adm Tovey reliability point.
It remains only to be defined the KGV towing message enigma, ... where W. Churchill played a big role too, ... but it is a complete different story we are managing on the dedicated thread.

For any Officer a B of I is a serious occurrence, in war time even worst and can easily drive a Court Martial with fatal consequences.
Knowing the facts they choose not to proceed with the B of I thru the " path of orthodoxy " as Rhys Jones defined it, ... and changed the reports data and facts instead, ... otherwise surely there were going to be no rewarding at all for WW and Leach even if the B of I was going to let them free with no charges for their conducts.

2) Last statement above should have explained you well enough why they changed the reports and data, the facts.
With the data and reports the way they were, ... no rewarding was possible and a due B of I was the procedure, ... with the " new " report version and Tovey dispatches, ... than it was possible to forget and avoid the due B of I, ... and finally proceed with the rewarding like for all the other Officers.
Do you ever realized that there were NO rewarding planned for Wake-Walker and Leach at first submission ? Do you know what happened and how it went during June and July 1941 for them to be rewarded like all the other Officers at the end ?
This is another very interesting research and discovery on the archives, ... I guarantee you.

3) No bias at all, ... but pure research curiosity and intention to discover the truth above all, ... that is the " victory " for me, ... especially when it proved that I was right with my initial intuition of course.

I just provide you some key " emotional moments " I have lived researching all this after my 2013 intuition that behind Adm Tovey incorrect dispatches there was surely something they wanted to hide and modify on purpose, ... the first was when I found the Barnes Admiralty letter in response to Adm Tovey dispatches in Kew, ... the second is when I read Capt Ellis autobiography confirming that my calculation of Suffolk distance before the U turn away was right, ... the third was when I have read Stephen Roskill book footnotes confirming me the B of I -> CM threat, ... than the ADM 205/10 letters up to WSC, ... and I can go on and on ... until recent discovery too, ... adding more and more confirmation to my work, ...


I thank you for your friendly and sincere words well taken, ... and I was hoping someone else was going to use the same approach given the years of friendship and personal knowledge, ... and I am sure that if you were to give me an answer about a geometrical evaluation or a bearing on a map, ... or about a mathematical calculation ... you were not going to avoid to respond me, ... but after having responded you were going to make your point exactly like you did above, ... and not to avoid to answer.

Bye Antonio

[wadinga]

Hello All,

I think that May 31st, 1941 letter by Adm Tovey to Adm Pound defines pretty definitively Tovey reliability about the Board of Inquiry threat against Wake-Walker and Leach

Is incorrect. The letter specifically does not mention a CM threat. Tovey specifically only mentions a CM threat.

Tovey specifically says in his later letters he did not realise at the time there was direct political interference , whereas the 31st shows he was clearly aware, presumably having been told so by Pound. How else could he know?

The great unanswered in all of this fantastical supposition is why Pound should be so keen to keep a "couple of cowards" in their respective roles, when they could have been removed/transferred without any fuss at all? He clearly did not believe there was any case to answer. In fact W-W was entrusted with a complex carrier strike (doomed to failure, whoever was commanding, and Leach was rushed back to command PoW for Winston's trip to the USA.

This is completely true.

You call it intuition, but that's exactly bias in its purest form

The question is what is the motivation that drives intuition?

you seem to use manipulative tricks like loaded questions to "win" at all costs

Example:

This is another very interesting research and discovery on the archives, ... I guarantee you.

Another spurious point is that of the Proposed Honours list. There is extensive coverage in the files and the original proposals made by a committee were judged parsimonious by Pound, who added quite a few and upgraded all. Many people along with Wake-Walker and Leach were added. I have all the pages if anyone is interested.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "The letter specifically does not mention a CM threat."

Hi Sean,
Antonio did not say that. Please read his statement above.
The 1941 letter specifically mention the request of a Board of inquiry, this is what Antonio said. You just confirmed Antonio statement.
The 1961 letter specifically mention a Court Martial request from Pound during the phone call.
No contradiction between the two, as it's well probable that, in writing, Pound did not express Churchill request in such a tough wording, while at the phone he did, just to explain Tovey how unsatisfied the PM was about the conduct of the two officers.

you wrote: "Tovey specifically says in his later letters he did not realise at the time there was direct political interference"

This is incorrect. You are mixing again the BofI/CM with the "shores of France" signal..... Pound told immediately during the phone call that the disciplinary actions were requested by W.Churchill (and he possibly mentioned also in the May 28 letter, speaking of "political interference", but we still don't have the May 28 letter and the exact wording of the threat and of its origin)...



In any case, the letter from May 31, 1941 (for which I have applauded your fairness on posting it ) closes once forever the debate about:

• 1) the severe criticism circulating in the Admiralty against Leach and Wake-Walker. This is a great step forward in this discussion because someone here was denying any criticism ever against them.
  2) the request for disciplinary actions against the two of them (both BofI and CM are such, or if you don't accept it, both are opportunities to explain aspects that need to be clarified..... but if you ask Somerville how he perceived his own Board of inquiry for Spartivento, I think he will agree with me. Someone was saying that ONLY Tovey was mentioning these serious disciplinary actions, and they are now proven to have been wrong. Pound asked for them.
  3) The third step forward is that Tovey has now to be considered very reliable, as he did not invent anything from 1941 till 1962, as Kennedy tried to insinuate, based on Paffard statement (considered incorrect already by Roskill, who possibly DID NOT have this letter).

These, in addition to all the other (already discussed) evidences available regarding the "regrettable aftermath" interpreted by the historians and based on ADM 205/10 papers, War Cabinet minutes, Admiralty answer, etc. are more than enough to explain why the official reports were prepared subsequently in the way we all know.


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

Thank you for reminding me, Antonio too has accepted that there can have been no threat of Court Martial in the 28th letter. Your only recourse is to suggest Court Martial was mentioned in a phone call of which, conveniently, no record exists and no-one except Tovey recalls, and he forgot about immediately, only referring to a B of I in his 31st letter. The 31st letter is clear- there never was a threat of Court Martial against Wake-Walker and Leach in 1941, as Tovey only wrote of a B of I, and it was something Tovey exaggerated in later life, as correctly identified by his confidente Paffard.

Where in the Roskill letters is this said?

Pound told immediately during the phone call that the disciplinary actions were requested by W.Churchill

It was not until the Chequers outburst was revealed that Churchill was identified at all. Pound says Churchill was responsible for 26th ROOF when writing to Bellairs and he only imagines it was Churchill when writing to Roskill in 1961 about ROOF in the two letters you have supplied so far.

The Bellairs letter you provided says "DP said he wished Wake-Walker and Leach brought to trial.............." DP is not WSC. Please do not waver in your resolution to provide the rest of the information we need to reveal the truth to those still relying on intuition.


It is naïve to keep pretending Tovey knew in 1941 there was political interference in the apocryphal threat, but not in the "criminally stupid" 26th ROOF signal.

This remains unanswered:

The great unanswered in all of this fantastical supposition is why Pound should be so keen to keep a "couple of cowards" in their respective roles, when they could have been removed/transferred without any fuss at all?

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "Court Martial was mentioned in a phone call of which, conveniently, no record exists"

Hi Sean,
how lucky you are that, at that time, it was not usual to intercept/record a phone call !

you wrote: "The 31st letter is clear- there never was a threat of Court Martial against Wake-Walker and Leach in 1941"

Absolutely NOT ! The only clear thing from the letter is that a Board of Inquiry was requested against both.

We don't have the text of Pound letter of May 28, where a BofI could have been requested to Tovey, possibly menacing also a Court Martial, had the C. in C. HF refused to call a BofI....

However, we DO have both the letter of Tovey in 1961 and his MCMullen visit where he clearly spoke about a Court Martial, even if a Board of Inquiry (being a clear severe criticism of the two officers and a serious disciplinary action) is more than enough to explain the subsequent "saga", with the intentional alteration of the facts in the official reports and the "investigation" on the "certain aspect that required explanations"....

you wrote: "Pound says Churchill was responsible for 26th ROOF when writing to Bellairs "

Pound to Bellairs ? What are you saying ? I think you are a bit confused.....anyway the signal is NOT relvant here....

you wrote: "The Bellairs letter you provided says "DP said he wished Wake-Walker and Leach brought to trial.............." DP is not WSC. "

Bellairs ? Yes you are indeed VERY CONFUSED. Please take a rest and read again ALL the letters before posting, not trying desperately to interpret them in your favour.......



Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

I have all the pages if anyone is interested.

I'm interested.

1) I see your points.
I think that May 31st, 1941 letter by Adm Tovey to Adm Pound defines pretty definitively Tovey reliability about the Board of Inquiry threat against Wake-Walker and Leach written and additionally explained also on Tovey late life letters.
Don't you think that having that letter in his hands Sir L. Kennedy would have never written what he wrote about Tovey late life reliability ?
This is just exactly what Stephen Roskill wrote to Kennedy too, telling him that Adm Tovey was fully reliable during those years.

In my personal opinion there should be no discussion anymore about this Adm Tovey reliability point.
It remains only to be defined the KGV towing message enigma, ... where W. Churchill played a big role too, ... but it is a complete different story we are managing on the dedicated thread.

For any Officer a B of I is a serious occurrence, in war time even worst and can easily drive a Court Martial with fatal consequences.
Knowing the facts they choose not to proceed with the B of I thru the " path of orthodoxy " as Rhys Jones defined it, ... and changed the reports data and facts instead, ... otherwise surely there were going to be no rewarding at all for WW and Leach even if the B of I was going to let them free with no charges for their conducts.

The letter doesn't contradict Kennedy.
There is no evidence that the data in the reports were changed intentionally. Quite the contrary: there are wrong data to the disadvantage of Wake-Walker in his own report. That's not very smart during a cover up, isn't it?

2) Last statement above should have explained you well enough why they changed the reports and data, the facts.
With the data and reports the way they were, ... no rewarding was possible and a due B of I was the procedure, ... with the " new " report version and Tovey dispatches, ... than it was possible to forget and avoid the due B of I, ... and finally proceed with the rewarding like for all the other Officers.
Do you ever realized that there were NO rewarding planned for Wake-Walker and Leach at first submission ? Do you know what happened and how it went during June and July 1941 for them to be rewarded like all the other Officers at the end ?
This is another very interesting research and discovery on the archives, ... I guarantee you.

There is no evidence of changing data and reports intentionally. A BofI for the loss of Hood was held within a few days. There was no need to wait for reports in case of WW and Leach to hold another one for them. The question still is: if there's something to hide, hiding from whom?
Tovey's letter for recommendations for decorations is from July 8th. I would be surprised, if WW and Leach were on any list before.

3) No bias at all, ... but pure research curiosity and intention to discover the truth above all, ... that is the " victory " for me, ... especially when it proved that I was right with my initial intuition of course.

I just provide you some key " emotional moments " I have lived researching all this after my 2013 intuition that behind Adm Tovey incorrect dispatches there was surely something they wanted to hide and modify on purpose, ... the first was when I found the Barnes Admiralty letter in response to Adm Tovey dispatches in Kew, ... the second is when I read Capt Ellis autobiography confirming that my calculation of Suffolk distance before the U turn away was right, ... the third was when I have read Stephen Roskill book footnotes confirming me the B of I -> CM threat, ... than the ADM 205/10 letters up to WSC, ... and I can go on and on ... until recent discovery too, ... adding more and more confirmation to my work, ...


I thank you for your friendly and sincere words well taken, ... and I was hoping someone else was going to use the same approach given the years of friendship and personal knowledge, ... and I am sure that if you were to give me an answer about a geometrical evaluation or a bearing on a map, ... or about a mathematical calculation ... you were not going to avoid to respond me, ... but after having responded you were going to make your point exactly like you did above, ... and not to avoid to answer.

That's what I meant when I wrote over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation.


In any case I'm reliefed that don't take my words the wrong way.

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

Good point on the Bellairs letter but you are evasive:

Pound told immediately during the phone call that the disciplinary actions were requested by W.Churchill

Where is this said by Tovey? Which letter to either Roskill or Bellairs did he say that? Are even you muddling these claims?

Tovey told Bellairs he thought Pound originated the 26th ROOF but had recently changed his mind having read the Churchill book. He apparently thought from 1941 to 1950 that Pound had originated a signal, an appalling and criminally stupid, strategically unsound and asking for disaster signal, not suspecting for a moment that it came from the mind of WSC. Who entirely co-incidentally was demanding an investigation of certain officers, at exactly the same time, which Tovey did know about, and about which he can only have been informed about by Pound. Although he writes, albeit twenty years later:

DP said he wished Wake-Walker and Leach brought to trial............

Tovey wrote on the 31st:

I have no intention of ordering a B of I into the conduct of W-W and Leach under any circumstances

As several posters have pointed out: A Board of Inquiry is not a Court Martial. Since the only actual evidence we have is this 31st letter and Tovey's unsubstantiated phone call which may not even exist, since he doesn't mention it or any conversation included in it in a letter written the following day, there is no mention of a Court Martial for W-W and Leach. Why would Tovey mention only a B of I if a Court Martial was actually threatened?

We know from the case of Somerville that the Admiralty could order a B of I or a Court Martial directly, Tovey's co-operation was not required. But in this case he squashes the apparent desire of the PM and Lords of Admiralty because this is just a sham proposal to placate Churchill.

When we see the text of the other letters we will know if Tovey only remembered the Court Martial threat as late as 1961. And whether he mentioned it at all in the 1962 letter.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "Where is this said by Tovey? "

Hi Sean,
Tovey never said that, he just wrote some letters, according to which: the political interference was known as a fact for the BofI immediately (as per May 31, 1941 letter); the political interference for other matters were discovered by Tovey in 1950 (according to his letter to Bellairs, 1950). It is written..... My speculation is that Pound told plainly him about W.C. interference during the phone call (or, less probably, in the May 28 letter), else how could he write what he wrote on May 31 ?

you wrote; " Board of Inquiry is not a Court Martial."

Come on, time to give up these sophistry. A Board of Inquiry can be the antechamber of a Court Martial and it is anyway MORE than enough to explain the adjustment of the facts intentionally done in the official reports. The case is absolutely proven with a BofI as well as with a CM request.

The BofI request is a clear proof of the severe criticism circulating at the highest levels against the 2 officers and of the requested serious disciplinary action to make clear some blatantly debatable facts.

In any case, the Court Martial is accounted by Tovey in 2 occasions and Tovey is proven more and more reliable (thanks to the letters that you and I are publishing here.... )..... what do you want more ? The live registration of the phone call ?

you wrote: "We know from the case of Somerville that the Admiralty could order a B of I or a Court Martial directly"

Exactly the same that was menaced by Pound during the phone call (please read the letter from 1961)......

you wrote: "we will know if Tovey only remembered the Court Martial threat as late as 1961"

...and during his visit to McMullen and Adm.Blake......

Anyway, you may decide to trust Paffard/Kennedy about Tovey "exaggerations", we trust Roskill/Sir Henry Leach.



Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nilsson,

1) I think you would agree that the May 31st, 1941 letter defines once forever that the Board of Inquiry request for WW and Leach from Adm Pound to Adm Tovey was a real story and not an Adm Tovey late life invention.
That is all I like to read about it, and I can easily state that nobody can refute this fact anymore with that letter now surfaced.
Do you agree with me ?

2) The data have been changed from one initial report version to the second one.
Like 06:03 becoming 06:13 on Tovey reports for PoW retreat, ... and 20.000 yards becoming 30.000 yards for WW at 06:00 from Hood, ... no one can refute to admit it really happened since we have both the first and the second version of those documents. Tovey moved the PoW Y turret yamming compared to Leach report, it is there to be read.
Tovey declared the around 15 sea miles, despite the real situation for Suffolk and Norfolk easy to be checked on a map or comparing the " Plot " with other available maps they had too, just as I did using their original material.
Modifications were done for the dispatches in order to have the Admiralty board formal acceptance, just as it was done by Sir Barnes.
This enabled the recognitions otherwise not possible for WW and Leach.
We have long discussed about all the above.

3) I am glad we understand each others about this point, ... it is just passion for the historical research, ...

Bye Antonio

[dunmunro]

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nilsson,

1) I think you would agree that the May 31st, 1941 letter defines once forever that the Board of Inquiry request for WW and Leach from Adm Pound to Adm Tovey was a real story and not an Adm Tovey late life invention.
That is all I like to read about it, and I can easily state that nobody can refute this fact anymore with that letter now surfaced.
Do you agree with me ?

2) The data have been changed from one initial report version to the second one.
Like 06:03 becoming 06:13 on Tovey reports for PoW retreat, ... and 20.000 yards becoming 30.000 yards for WW at 06:00 from Hood, ... no one can refute to admit it really happened since we have both the first and the second version of those documents. Tovey moved the PoW Y turret yamming compared to Leach report, it is there to be read.
Tovey declared the around 15 sea miles, despite the real situation for Suffolk and Norfolk easy to be checked on a map or comparing the " Plot " with other available maps they had too, just as I did using their original material.
Modifications were done for the dispatches in order to have the Admiralty board formal acceptance, just as it was done by Sir Barnes.
This enabled the recognitions otherwise not possible for WW and Leach.
We have long discussed about all the above.

3) I am glad we understand each others about this point, ... it is just passion for the historical research, ...

Bye Antonio

Do any of Tovey's letters refer to a BofI?

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Duncan,
I guess you have missed some posts recently..... Please read back here viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&p=77747&hilit=letter#p77747


Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

Hi Duncan,
I guess you have missed some posts recently..... Please read back here viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&p=77747&hilit=letter#p77747


Bye, Alberto

I meant, of course, any of Tovey's letters from 1950 onward?

The letter referred to above has Tovey stating that the Admiralty requested that Tovey order a BofI into W-W and Leach. Yet, AFAIK, he never repeats this statement in the 1950 or later letters, and always states or implies that the Admiralty wanted to conduct a CM.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Duncan,
you are right. No (explicit) mention of a Board of Inquiry in Tovey's letters from 1950 onward.

Also no (explicit) mention of a Court Martial apart the two known occasions: 1961 letter and during his visit to McMullen and Adm Blake.

One (implicit) mention to the "regrettable aftermath" involving W-W also in the 1962 letter.


No surprise IMHO that he was VERY careful and reluctant to mention these frightening words.
As he is now proven to be very reliable in remembering correctly the heavy criticism of Pound (prodded by Churchill) and the disciplinary action proposed against both Leach and Wake-Walker, I don't see any reason why his written letters should not be entirely trusted regarding this "saga", as being all well in the "path of orthodoxy" for the Royal Navy and in line with the D.P.+ W.C. characters involved (as certified by the official historian of the RN, S.Roskill in his books)......

Having been warned of the disciplinary action requests, it's only evident (to me....) that the subsequent reports were carefully prepared in a way to justify the 2 officers in any way, changing their previous declarations and building a more nice story of the operation.



Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

1) I think you would agree that the May 31st, 1941 letter defines once forever that the Board of Inquiry request for WW and Leach from Adm Pound to Adm Tovey was a real story and not an Adm Tovey late life invention.
That is all I like to read about it, and I can easily state that nobody can refute this fact anymore with that letter now surfaced.
Do you agree with me ?

The letters points to a BofI request.
I'm not really happy with your "...not an Adm Tovey late life invention.", Tovey never refered to a BofI in his later life. Based on the facts we know so far this clause is a fallacy and I hope that was unintentionally.

2) The data have been changed from one initial report version to the second one.
Like 06:03 becoming 06:13 on Tovey reports for PoW retreat, ... and 20.000 yards becoming 30.000 yards for WW at 06:00 from Hood, ... no one can refute to admit it really happened since we have both the first and the second version of those documents. Tovey moved the PoW Y turret yamming compared to Leach report, it is there to be read.
Tovey declared the around 15 sea miles, despite the real situation for Suffolk and Norfolk easy to be checked on a map or comparing the " Plot " with other available maps they had too, just as I did using their original material.
Modifications were done for the dispatches in order to have the Admiralty board formal acceptance, just as it was done by Sir Barnes.
This enabled the recognitions otherwise not possible for WW and Leach.
We have long discussed about all the above.

Again we have this over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation. Yes, we discussed it and there are a lot of valid and good counter-arguments on each topic as well. That's why I've suggested and still suggest that you and all others reread all the threads we had the last years. I accept your version, but I think it's not the most reasonable and most likely one.

3) I am glad we understand each others about this point, ... it is just passion for the historical research, ...