I apologize for quoting Paul's months-old post, but his observation, as well as Mr. Dale's below, bears directly on my present comment. I have the original 1980 Battleship Bismarck-a Survivor's Story by the late Baron. In that book, on page 110 (I do not know if this is valid for the later, expanded reprinting, so adjust as required), the Baron writes:paulcadogan wrote: My only comment on the Baron's caption is his reference to burning "wreckage". I doubt that by that time - when PoW was firing her last two salvoes in local control - there was any significant wreckage of Hood left afloat to burn with such intensity.
Paul
"White stars, probably molten pieces of metal, shot out from the black smoke that followed the flame, and huge fragments, one of which looked like a main turret, whirled through the air like toys. Wreckage of every description littered the water around the Hood, one especially conspicuous piece remaining afire for a long time and giving off clouds of dense, black smoke."
Paul had raised the question of whether this fire is wreckage or oil, and while it may be that Mr. Briggs' report mentions oil as the source of some conflagration, it hardly seems relevant to the issue of identifying the smoke column--whether oil or wreckage, or some combination thereof--as the Baron's observation makes it quite clear that this was an event of notable length in duration, and most importantly, it begins before Hood actually sinks. He may have been thousands of yards distant, but that distance was bridged in real time through his powerful, high-quality optics, effectively placing him much closer to the site of the sinking.
Vic Dale wrote:The black smoke in the centre is PoW turning hard around to port, having just steered out around Hood's smoke shroud.
Uh....no. Not this one. Prince of Wales is clearly as described, on the right, and the white clumps are indeed her 14" shells falling far short of their target. The Baron's photo caption, as well as his passage on page 110 that I quoted above, are the final arbiters on this question of what's burning so dark and black on the left/center of the photo.
For those who seek to diminish the value of eyewitness testimony, it may be only natural to call the Baron's account into question. Sometimes, especially in confusing circumstances and with unreliable witnesses (such as the JFK assassination debacle) being used to establish actual events, the hindsight of history and more reasoned analysis can serve to correct wrongly-held beliefs, or answer previously-unanswered questions. Not this time, I'm afraid.
The Baron's proximity, high-powered, precision optical equipment and, most importantly, his professional training as a gunnery officer collectively and firmly establish the veracity of his observations in a fully logical (and more importantly, truthful) manner. For me, this is incontrovertible, and the photograph solidly supports his words.
Allow me to repeat the key portion of the above quote: "...one especially conspicuous piece remaining afire a long time and giving off clouds of dense, black smoke."
The Baron's description cannot be any clearer. The fact that he mentions the fire burning for a long time, is itself noteworthy, as it obviously registered as something particularly memorable. Just as the magazine explosion aboard Hood struck observers oddly in that it made no tremendous noise--something at least one qualified observer was actually expecting to hear--thus becoming a memorable oddity, so holds for the burning wreckage and/or oil lasting what its observer felt was an unusually long time. Simply put, there is absolutely no reason to doubt his accuracy or truthfulness.
I apologize if this post seems a bit heavy-handed, but there comes a time when challenge simply for the sake of challenge, leads to foolishness. A wheel is a wheel, no matter how much it's reinvented.
