HMS Prince of Wales - Lost and now Found

[Vic Dale]

Hi Comsat.

Thanks for your input. The consistent thread in the captions placed on NH69731 state that it is PoW and Hood. If the object I believe I have identified is PoW then it is right where you would expect her to be, the centre of the photo.

In the whole photo, there is no other symmetrical shape which denotes a ship's structure so clearly. I have studied this photo for many years, yet only recently did I think to blow it up and have a closer look. I was quite startled to see what can only be a ship's structure in the smoke and suddenly it explained that strange break in the smoke.

I would be grateful if people would say what they think it is. My first impression was that it was the result of pixelation in the digital image, and my own mind making a form of sense of the image from there, but the closer I looked into it the more the logic of the photo revealed itself to me. It is possible to see it in every presentation, from books to digital.

There are a great many charlatans about who superimpose images of Jesus on photos to lure gullible tourists into parting with money, but I assure everyone that this is not the case here, although someone did hint at it in an earlier post. The photo is generally available and anyone can get their own copy from the archives and have a look for themselves. Blow it up, reduce it, play about with it and at the very least it is a very strange phenomenon, if it is not part of a ship's structure. I have considered all of the possible ships involved, but none other than PoW seems to fit the bill. What I don't understand is why everyone is so eager to prove that it is not PoW.

If it is not PoW I would be grateful to learn what others make of it.

As for timing the photo. It has been necessary to establish the times at which PoW fired her remaining salvoes after Hood blew up. PoW did not enter Hood's smoke shroud at any time, so Captain Leach had to have put the wheel hard over to starboard to avoid the wreck and the resulting smoke. He then had to bring his ship back across his original track in order to continue the fight. All of this takes time, since the vessel could only turn at about 2 degrees per second, under hard helm. So hard a-starboard to clear the wreck, then hard a-port to bring the ship back to continue the engagement, during these turns the ship continued to fire, though the shooting became ragged. Salvoe spread was lost, though line never was, according to gunnery reports.

The still from the film showing PoW firing the salvoe, clearly has the ship steaming right to left and away from Hood's smoke. The two flashes, one superimposed upon the other can only have come from the forward guns, and as they are to the left of the ship, she is steaming right to left away from Hood. This is the logical course of action for a ship astern of one which has been rendered NUC (Not Under Control) This also makes sense of the Gunnery and Torpedo target tracking reports from Prinz Eugen.

In the stills from the Schmalenbach film showing PoW firing, she is still to the left of Hood's smoke and leaving a heavy smoke trail astern, so she has yet to come across the smoke pall from left to right before finally turning away from the German Squadron. At the time she fired her last shells that morning at about 0620, she was well to the right of Hood's smoke, having retreated under smoke at 0605 and later turning to starboard to re-engage.

Comparing the stills from the film to the photos NH69731 and NH60725, we can see similarities in the smoke pattern left behind by the ship as she turned out around Hood. There is a point where the smoke rises high and that is consistent and shows how the three images can be linked. I believe this smoke was driven high at this point by blast from the guns of X turret.

With PoW still well to the left of Hood's smoke in all of the images, the time must be shortly after Hood Blew up and given other events such as the hit on the compass platform, it is possible to build a picture. The shell splashes to the right of the shot have gone a long way over, and given that the strikes on PoW were very high up in her structure, their relatively flat trajectory would put those which missed a long way over.

The shell splash to the left of the shot is very dark and as with other photos it is possible that this is a spurious mark on the negative. If it is a shell splash, it is most likely HE, as that would explain why it is so dark. Bismarck was not firing HE from her main battery, though she was firing HE from her secondary battery, according to reports from PG.

According to Wake-Walker, if I remember correctly, Hood's smoke had collapsed to windward after about 7 minutes, so with the smoke still so high, it denotes an earlier time than 0620. Norfolk could not engage before 0619 so I think the dark shell splash did not come from her.

[northcape]

my humble opinion: anybody who sees more than a patch of diffuse white and grey smoke in the posted picture should either pay visit to an eye doctor or rely on some other medical support. the word "trolling" comes to my mind.

[Vic Dale]

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Anyone who cannot see this geometric shape in the centre of the picture is clearly one who does not wish to see it.

Only those with reasonable vision need apply - but what is it? This is the only geometric shape in the whole photo.

To my own eye it definitely looks like part of a ship's structure and given that only one ship can possibly be visible at this time, it suggests PoW.

[northcape]

and why is PoW white as snow - like Moby Dick? and why is PoW approximately 10 times larger than one would expect at this distance? and why is the black smoke coming not from the miraculously exaggerated Moby Dick, but far from its left side?

no offense, but i seriously think you simply want to make fun of us.

[Vic Dale]

The shape I am indicating is not white, but mid-grey, right in the middle of the picture. It has verticals and horizontals. The image stands out clearer in the other presentation without the yellow outlines which I put there using windows paint, which seems to blur the image. If you get hold of the original shot and bring up the image yourself you will see it far more clearly.

The range at this time is about 8 nautical miles, so PoW would be visible to the naked eye

Hope this helps.

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Here is a still from the Schmalenbach film. I am sure you can make out PoW in this shot and compare to the size of the guardrails in the foreground, to show that it has not been blown up. You can make your own comparison between this still and the size of PoW in the original photo NH69731 which I presented at the beginning of this topic.

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[Wordy]

If I had to make a shape out of that I'd say the white area at the bottom left of the yellow box is the bow and to the left you have the fore and main masts, but that's obviously not her and the shape you have focused on looks nothing like a part of any warship I've ever seen.

[Vic Dale]

Hi wordy.

There are no masts visible. Are you using the original photo because those that I have blown up are not as sharp. Something gets lost as soon as you alter the digital format. Even putting those lines on it lost something.

It has occurred to me that those who are not using windows, as I am, may lose a lot of the image if they are not using the original photo. You could try downloading your own copy of the photo from here; http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/even ... smk-c3.htm

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[northcape]

there is no way that a digital picture can alter when you download it from somewhere, or when you change the operating system. only when you manipulate it (e.g. drawing lines) and then safe it in a different format. so don't blame the blurriness of the picture to the computer - it is simply what it is, a very crude and blocky collection of greyish and white pixels.

[Vic Dale]

Well here is a little,news for you. The image was altered when I put the little yellow lines on and every time I did anything to the image using paint for that matter. It occurred to me that there might be a further variation if an image I had handled on windows was being used on a mac or with another operating system. I suggested you get a fresh copy so you could see without anything getting in the way.

Why so much acrimony when I have tried to help you? If you don't like it go and do something else.

[Bill Jurens]

This photograph, as some have noted, has been discussed at great length many times before. There is really not enough detail there to support the type of analysis Mr. Dale is attmpting. A quick look at the mottled appearance of the clouds gives some immediate idea of the number of artificial artifacts introduced by the photographic and scanning systems used to reproduce it. The pixel count of the image is given in the Naval Historical Center calalog listing, and superimposing a grid of the specified pixels over the images would suggest that the area in question, even if considered 'square' only contains about 36 pixels to begin with. I have, over the years, studied a lot of long range -- primarily aerial -- photography, usually at the behest of those who felt that one could always extract more information by simply making the image larger, but after a certain point is reached, one is really not seeing detail on the target but simply the random arrangement of silver grains in the film as superimposed on the texture of the photographic paper. There is a natural tendency to still see some patterns there, in the same way that we can pick out constellations in the stars, but one must remember that these are, in almost all cases, simply an artifact of our brain attempting to insert a meaningful pattern where one simply doesn't exist. A good test of this is to look at the mottled clouds for a while. After a while, one starts to imagine strange patterns in there, which everyone would agree must be entirely imaginary. This problem of imaginary super-position does not cease at the horizon...

There is a secondary problem with the NHC image insofar as it is in .jpeg format, which is somewhat 'lossy' when reproduced or modified. Essentially the .jpeg process artificially 'edits out' information so as to compress the amount of visual information via a process of algorithmic simplification. If the photograph is manipulated in any way, when saved again it recomputes all of the image data to again attempt to minimize the file size. This phenomenon explains the changes Mr. Dale is observing when he attempts to insert arrows, etc. The bottom line is that the .jpeg image doesn't necessarily show 'what's there' on the image, as much as it manipulates the image so that it is pleasing to the eye and saves with a minimum of memory. In most cases the loss, though certainly noticeable, is essentially harmless as one is only looking at the photo to jog one's memory of a trip to the beach, etc. Except regarding fairly broad details, Jpegs are certainly not suitable for forensic analysis. Other programs work the other way, by inserting false detail into the raw image to give one the impression of more detail than actually exists in the raw digital file. It might see, for example, a broad patch of green material near the bottom of the image, assume that in most 'snapshot' situations, the target is grass, and insert a false mottleing in order to make the grass appear sharper, essentially by 'faking in' individual blades, even if they are not to scale. So working with digital images can be tricky. It would be much better if the images we were working with were scanned and saved in .tiff format, for example, as this format does not permit any automatic algorithmic manipulation. But, they are not, and what we have to work with are very overworked and over-interpreted .jpegs.

At best, however, its important to keep in mind that after a certain point one just cannot meaningfully go any farther. There is, for example, little point in enlarging the image so that one can extract more 'detail' from the mottled clouds...

Bill Jurens

[northcape]

Vic,

I apologise for my very harshly formulated criticism, in this and in other threads. I realise that I sometimes got into a cynical and hostile mode towards you, which is never a good thing to do,in particular on internet forums. I seriously mean that.
But apart from that, I'm still not convinced that you are not making fun of us. How can you seriously assume that this collection of random greyish and white pixels can be interpreted for anything at all? Everybody is telling you this, everybody has arguments, and you are just repeating your point of view over and over - like in the Bismarck survivor's thread. In case you are serious about your ideas: I think everybody here respects your opinions - but there is a time to let things rest when nothing new can be added.

[Vic Dale]

To Northcape.

I assure you this is no hoax.

I have never at any time tried to take the mickey out of anyone, unless they get above themselves, or get personal with me. I have never tried to put anyone down either. I am not here to make personal comments, but to make a serious study of the facts and revisit some "truths" to see if they stand the test of time. I will also tackle distasteful aspects of the war at sea and where I think I have found that which is untrue, suspect, or highly coloured I will try my best to get at the reality. There is no joking about any of this.

I take the point which Mr Jurens is making, but that geometric image is consistent at all but the higher levels of magnification. The greatest magnifications do blur the image, and I only presented them in order to illustrate what I think I have seen, to make clear what portion of the photo I am looking at. From the start I have asked people to get their own copy of the photo and put my observation to the test. To make their own observations.

The best way to check this observation is to first see which area to focus on using my blow-ups and then start with the raw picture and raise the magnification by increments such as the viewer will permit. Once the item in question is clearly identified, the photo makes more sense at lower magnifications and then at no magnification at all. At the time I believe this photo was taken, there was only about 8 nautical miles separating PoW from PG and at 8nm the ship would be clearly visible to the naked eye and would also be visible on a photo taken with a standard lens.

As the photo is enlarged many things change and pixelation distorts the image. However the detail I have picked out does remain constant, the verticals and horizontals are clear and there are a good many things about that image which match what you would expect to find. In previous posts I have drawn attention to the possibility that my own mind is making sense of what my eye sees and it is for this reason that I have asked everyone to check it out and make their own judgements.

Below I present a photo taken from Carisbrooke Castle looking toward Southampton. The tall chimney of Fawley Power Station standing at 650 feet above sea level can be seen in the distance at 8 nautical miles. I have placed a vertical black line alongside the chimney and another the same length horizontally so as to make a comparison. I have reduced a photo of PoW to about the same scale and superimposed it on the photo. From this very rough comparison it can be seen that PoW would be clearly visible to the naked eye and would also show on a photo taken with a standard lens. My digital camera is a cheap one, so it has none of the advantages that cameras of the KM Propaganda department would have. I tend to think that NH69731 has been cropped in the darkroom, so any comparison will not bear a direct relation to what I have attempted to illustrate. However I think it is clear that PoW would be visible to the naked eye at the distance shown in that photo.

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In NH69731,the break in the smoke matches the position we should expect to find the ship if she had steered a wide arc to starboard, out and away from Hood right to left, turned and steered back left to right, to resume her original course.

This observation came as a complete shock to me about 6 weeks ago, as I had thought PoW would appear much smaller than the detail in the smoke. I believe I am not the only one who thinks this is part of a ship, because one individual thought I had photo-shopped the image. Once it is clear what needs to be focused on, the image does not need to be magnified at all to see it. At four steps of magnification on the windows viewer, it is at it's clearest.

The still from the Schmalenbach film clearly shows PoW steaming hard and to the left of Hood's smoke. She is clearly identifiable yet the image is not nearly as clearly defined as the detail I have highlighted in NH69731.

I believe we are seeing a funnel, though whether it is the forward or after funnel I cannot be sure and there is only a funnel visible.

[Vic Dale]

I am going to attempt to illustrate the scale of this photo so that others can gain some idea of what could and could not be seen with the naked eye. Some here have insisted that the distance of visible objects would make it impossible to see a ship for example.

We have a very clear way of gauging the scale by the images available to us. Among the shell splashes to the right is one very clearly defined a example - to the far right - which I intend to use to show scale. The normal ratio of height to base of a heavy shells splash is 3:1. At 200 foot splash would appear near to 70 feet wide.

The top of PoW's funnel was 80 feet above the sea, and if we use the width of the shell plash to the far right it is almost a prefect match for scale, to the height of the vertical and symmetrical object at the break in the smoke.

I believe this photo was heavily cropped in the darkroom and also over developed so as to bring up as much detail as possible. As it is cropped this way, I have wonder why the object in the smoke is in perfect centre if it is not PoW.

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