Denmark Strait and RN Articles of War

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Steve Crandell,

you wrote :

Antonio, I'm not sure if you've actually said this, but is it your opinion that Norfolk and Suffolk didn't fire at Bismarck because they were afraid she would shoot back at them?

NO, I have a different personal opinion about it. I think they had a long and stressful night shadowing the Germans ( much more Suffolk than Norfolk based on the maps and enemy distances ) and it the morning they were just satisfied to see the Battle Cruiser 1 force coming for the engagement, and considered the shadowing mission finished at that point.
Maybe they were thinking there was going to be something to do at the end of the engagement for them, ... surely not at the beginning, ... absolutely not anticipating the initiatives of Hood and PoW, .. and in fact they both maneuvered accordingly after the enemy in sight by PoW at 05.37 : Norfolk did the " arc " at 05.41 keeping distance and Suffolk sailed away backwards at 05.42, ... due to a mirage effect.
Just like happened on May 27th, 1941 for Norfolk ( what a destiny ) and Dorsetshire, ... Bismarck was not going to fire at heavy cruisers having to deal with 2 enemy battleships.

@ Paul Cadogan

I am in debt versus you my friend, ... but I am glad to have resolved this enigma, ... so now everybody knows the truth about how it went on reality and who did the things.

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Dunmunro wrote: "How was Bismarck "free in the Atlantic" ?
What course should Leach have taken after Hood was sunk?
If PoW was sunk after remaining on course at 0600, would Leach have been court martialled for failing to heed Admiralty tactical instructions and for failing to safeguard his ship?
If Hood had sunk PE via a magazine hit, would Lutjens have been justified in turning away from Hood and PoW's combined firepower?
Just as an aside, it seems to me that some people feel that Lutjens should have pursued PoW and attempted to sink her, but now turn their frustrations over this failure onto Leach for failing to play his part in ensuring PoW's destruction."

Hi Duncan, I try to answer all your points (from my perspective) :
1) as far as Leach or WW could know, BS was undamaged and then "free" to continue her mission to sink convoys (their difficult shadowing failed after the battle and Tovey was too far away to reasonably be part of the "stopping" action).
2) My (2 cents) suggested course is (after avoiding Hood remains) to go on a course from 220° to 250° (if he wanted to "open range") and punch BS to have the certainty to have damaged her BEFORE retreating.
3) If you loose your ship in the RN, you are always Court Martialled (to justify the lost) but do you really think he could have been condemned for doing his duty and showing heroism ? He would have got a "well deserved" medal for the action.
4) Lutjens was justified to run away at any time as his orders were to avoid confrontation, if possible. It was just impossible on May 24, thanks to Adm Holland . Leach mission orders were a bit different that day.......
5) I'm not one that thinks Lutjens should have followed PoW because of his orders (see above). British should stop BS, BS should just sink....convoys, not battleships.

Bye, Alberto

[Steve Crandell]

When is it ok to turn away from Bismarck? When you have one gun left? None? Or should you then try to ram her?

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Steve: I have already said it was ok to retreat after having tried to soften her. For sure not when you have only 1 gun out of action, only 1 salvo received on board and your guns are straddling BS.....

Bye, Alberto

[Steve Crandell]

Hi Steve: I have already said it was ok to retreat after having softened her. For sure not when you have only 1 gun out of action, only 1 salvo received on board and your guns are straddling BS.....

Bye, Alberto

Wasn't PoW out of control for several minutes after the hit on the compass platform?

I was under the impression that when the decision was made to withdraw there were few guns left firing. That X turret was out of action, for example.

[alecsandros]

Hi Steve: I have already said it was ok to retreat after having softened her. For sure not when you have only 1 gun out of action, only 1 salvo received on board and your guns are straddling BS.....

Bye, Alberto

Wasn't PoW out of control for several minutes after the hit on the compass platform?

I was under the impression that when the decision was made to withdraw there were few guns left firing. That X turret was out of action, for example.

... That's one of the things which have been debunked here.

YES, many authors promoted this incorrect information.

IN reality, as this thread with 99 pages has proved, Prince of Wales had 9/10 functional guns at 6:01:30 (time of her disengagement and smoke laying in order to withdraw from the battle). The jam of the quad turret occured during the hard turn to disengage. In fact, Y turret fired 3 salvos in local control, while the shiup was laying smoke and getting out of harm's way. After that, a shell jamed the shell ring and the turret was blocked for about 2 and a half hours.

[Herr Nilsson]

ADM 234/509

[Enclosure(III)]
REPORT ON EVENTS WHICH OCCURRED IN 14in TURRETS

23rd TO 25th MAY


Turret A
No. 1 salvo 2 - end
Turret Y
No. 3 15 - 20
No. 2 14 - end

with salvo 15 at about 06:30.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Correct, but gun 2 and 3 (Y turret) were just temporarily out of order due to a misfire (normal malfunction in any battleship whose output is never 100%). As you say, gun 3 was even back in action during the battle (missing just a couple semi-salvo, please note that salvo numbers refer to semi-salvo) and gun 2 was ok just after cease fire.
Only gun 1 in A turret can be considered out of action as it was so until back to harbour with the shell jammed and not removable.

What is time 6:30 that you mention ? Salvo 15 was around 6:00.

Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

Sorry, typo. I meant 06:00:30.

[wadinga]

All,

Ignored or not, I'm not risking a fiver

Antonio has said

The range at which Hood was destroyed is available on the dedicated and detailed map by Rowell ( PoW navigating Officer ) attached to ADM 116/4352 with Exhibit B, and it was 16.300 yards. It is further confirmed by PoW gunnery map by a close salvo to Bismarck at 16.450 yards ( 13th that did it BS ) and was stated during the Hood first board of Inquiry too being 16.500 yards on page 37 of ADM 116/4351.

At least you are not making the assumption that Alberto is, that this was a hit on Bismarck measuring the range! PoW's account says "appeared to straddle". AFAIK there are no recorded times for PoW's hits on Bismarck, so this range is an indicator but no more. There is no certainty PoW hit Bismarck with the 13th salvo. However in the Baron's book, Bismarck's navigator, who did not lose his original plot soaked in blood, wasn't facially injured/shocked in a shell impact, and didn't produce maps the following day based on what could be pieced together after the destruction of his working area, (like Rowell) says it was 18,000m! I'm sure that was a strong argument for Bill Jurens.

and listen again to Colin McMullen BBC interview available on IWM

I do not believe that gentleman mentioned any times or salvo numbers to deliniate when PoW turned, he merely recorded his annoyance that his shooting was interrupted. He also recorded that Leach was right to withdraw.

Additionally

If the Second board of Inquiry was only called to analyze Hood explosion, why they changed a previous very reliable declaration of Norfolk distance from Hood realized with available official documents on June 1941 during the First Board using an incorrect map ( The Plot ) to do it on the Second Board.

I don't understand what is "reliable" about ten miles? What available official documents? A redrawn map from PoW that says Suffolk was 26 miles away, a distance which no device on Earth could measure? It was only 10 miles because that was what they had guessed on Norfolk's bridge. Since they had a tiny margin of speed over Hood it would be hours before they could "join" Holland's force, so the exact distance didn't matter . It was so evidently unreliable because somebody used it to create the Triangle of Doom indicating Norfolk was ridiculously close to Bismarck. So it needed correcting. The distances which were important was how far under the belt had Bismarck's shells had gone.

This whole business of how many guns are in action at any instant is ridiculous. The only way you know a gun will fire is by loading and firing it. PoW's output was very low because men were having to jump inbetween heavy moving machinery with crowbars and hammers just to get 2 or 3 guns per salvo to fire. No-one knows gun 2 will be OK "after cease-fire" because no-one can forecast this. Meanwhile the Germans are laying down a hail of fire. Which guns are operational? The only way to know is to try and load and fire them. Time to get out, have a breather and then re-engage. Except in the meantime, Y turret disables itself. Time for a rethink, time for 06:13!

All the best

wadinga

[Steve Crandell]

Well said, Wadinga. Reconstructing the engagement is fine and I commend Antonio for that, but I just can't go along with this cowardice idea. None of us were standing there on PoW's bridge when all this was going on.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "At least you are not making the assumption that Alberto is, that this was a hit on Bismarck measuring the range! "

Well Sean, I suppose the British gunners knew the shell range for a certain elevation of their guns and the PoW gunnery report shows that salvo 13 straddled, hit and..... the gun range was 16450 yards......

For sure an error of 3 km is not credible, else are you saying that PoW hit BS only by pure chance ?

PoW_Gunnery.jpg

(133.33 KiB) Not downloaded yet

Wadinga wrote: "Which guns are operational? The only way to know is to try and load and fire them."

It is what McMullen's crew was doing and in McMullen (Gunnery Officer !) opinion "everything was ok" with the guns...... the not exciting output (75% output is bad but not so bad to prevent a ship to effectively fight....) of PoW on May 24 was the same of KGV on 27 and DoY in 1943 against Scharnhorst !

The fact is that PoW had only 1 gun permanently out of action at 6:01:30 when the disengagement decision was taken, no way to attribute to Leach a re-engagement intention that he NEVER mentioned.

Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

This thread is so long that it's almost impossible to sort through it and reply coherently to previous posts.

What difference does it make to Norfolk's range if Hood was sunk at 18000 or 16000 yds from Bismarck? The closing rate was extremely high and the range for PoW went from ~25000 yds to ~16000 yds in 6-7 minutes.

The very idea that Norfolk would refuse to engage if in range is preposterous, and not one shred of solid evidence for this assertion has ever been presented, even though it involves a conspiracy that supposedly involved Norfolk's entire chain of command.

Again, the idea that Leach would simply withdraw with no attempt to re-engage, if his main armament permitted it, is also ludicrous and PoW's track chart shows very plainly what Leach's intentions were. The fact that Leach chose not to explicitly state this is not relevant; if PoW did a 180 degree turn away at 0601-0602 and remained on that course, with completely intact main armament, and then Leach stated that he intended to re-engage (but never did and steered the course to be expected for disengagement) would we take that as a satisfactory explanation? I don't think so! Yet when PoW steers the exact course that would be expected if she turned away intending to re-engage, but aborts this plan due the loss of Y turret, suddenly Leach's failure to explicitly mention his intentions to re-engage is taken as prove positive that he never had any despite the clear evidence from the track chart and the timing of Y turret's jam, that he did intend to re-engage.

[Alberto Virtuani]

@Dunmunro: the problem is that Leach himself said that he decided to disengage after the compass platform hit.

Let's at least recognize he was fairly and honestly admitting and assuming his decision. No re-emgagement intention. Never.

Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

Dunmunro wrote: "How was Bismarck "free in the Atlantic" ?
What course should Leach have taken after Hood was sunk?
If PoW was sunk after remaining on course at 0600, would Leach have been court martialled for failing to heed Admiralty tactical instructions and for failing to safeguard his ship?
If Hood had sunk PE via a magazine hit, would Lutjens have been justified in turning away from Hood and PoW's combined firepower?
Just as an aside, it seems to me that some people feel that Lutjens should have pursued PoW and attempted to sink her, but now turn their frustrations over this failure onto Leach for failing to play his part in ensuring PoW's destruction."

Hi Duncan, I try to answer all your points (from my perspective) :
1) as far as Leach or WW could know, BS was undamaged and then "free" to continue her mission to sink convoys (their difficult shadowing failed after the battle and Tovey was too far away to reasonably be part of the "stopping" action).
2) My (2 cents) suggested course is (after avoiding Hood remains) to go on a course from 220° to 250° (if he wanted to "open range") and punch BS to have the certainty to have damaged her BEFORE retreating.
3) If you loose your ship in the RN, you are always Court Martialled (to justify the lost) but do you really think he could have been condemned for doing his duty and showing heroism ? He would have got a "well deserved" medal for the action.
4) Lutjens was justified to run away at any time as his orders were to avoid confrontation, if possible. It was just impossible on May 24, thanks to Adm Holland . Leach mission orders were a bit different that day.......
5) I'm not one that thinks Lutjens should have followed PoW because of his orders (see above). British should stop BS, BS should just sink....convoys, not battleships.

Bye, Alberto

1) prior to the battle Lutjens was being shadowed by two cruisers and afterwards by two cruisers and a battleship so quite clearly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Lutjens was much less free after the battle than before, ignoring the fact that PE was also rapidly running out of fuel (and Leach probably had an inkling of that as well by simply calculating the KM average speed since leaving Norway).

2) again PoW must rapidly open the range to avoid the concentration of fire of a battleship and a heavy cruiser, the torpedo threat from PE, and regain his immune zone from KM 38cm guns.

3) If he let his ship get damaged and then sunk, through foolhardy action, and also drew Wake-walker into a hopeless battle (IF PoW was crippled Wake-Walker would have been put into a terrible dilemna), then he would have deserved to be censured for his actions as it could have handed the KM a stunning victory and tilted the balance of power in the Atlantic and Med in favour of the Axis as Germany and Italy would then have had 6-8 fast battleships to the RN's 3

4) Leach's orders were to follow Holland, and then to act as he saw fit and as you state in #5 below, his actions thwarted Bismarck's mission objectives.

5) Bismarck could never sink convoys as long as she was shadowed by PoW - so you have just provided a solid justification for Leach's course of action after Hood's loss.