May 23/24 night shadowing and interception approach CS1/BC1

[wadinga]

Hello Antonio,

Thanks for correcting my rough estimate. BTW correct charting practice is to use minutes of latitude close to the location. The rapid change of length of a degree of longitude is one of the major characteristics of the Mercator projection, especially this far north. A web source says a degree is 60.17578175409983 nautical miles at 62N. Now that's precision
http://msi.nga.mil/MSISiteContent/Stati ... egree.html

If you can derive reasonable lat/long for the two ends of the dotted correction linefrom your chart we could put the values into web calculator to derive Great Circle distance. The Germans' average between the two ships' navigation teams had accumulated approx 4.5 times as much total error as Suffolk, since they left Norway at 22:17 21/05. Suffolk had accumulated her error of about 20 miles (only one navigation team) since 11:00 23/05.

I hope you will be able to re-evaluate some of your comments of November 2013 on this thread, in the light of this. Perhaps you will re-evaluate even more, much more

As for some of the post action realisations being confused and contradictory, given the above it is hardly surprising. From Norfolk's and Suffolk's logs their correction can be applied retrospectively on a time-averaged reducing scale back to their fix time on the 23rd. The same process could be done for Prinz Eugen's track. However this procedure assumes the error builds evenly over time and does not allow for chunks of error appearing at particular times. Some enthusiasts may have done this in the past, but more likely authors will have used existing tracks or positions as stated. Maps showing imagined tracks for British vessels created by the Germans during the war like that on P74 of the PG-KTB are particularly suspect since they had erroneous intercepted radio positions to plot with no idea of each vessels' accumulated error. Geheim! (secret) possibly, but not very reliable.

All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

thanks for posting that link, it is exactly the one I have been using on the last years to make all my calculation ...

I know that everybody made errors and it is not a problem of who made the biggest one, ... since VizeAdm Hubert Schmundt officially admonished Prinz Eugen for making very bad maps and charts, ... we can assume that Prinz Eugen was probably the worst on that timeframe, ... and we have a lot of reasons why that happened too, ... as you listed already there were several factors to justify the errors made.

What we need to try to realize is a good map and more precise map, ... than the one I published above that by the way comes from the Battle Summary number 5, ... the Admiralty famous document, ... most likely done in the way you described :

From Norfolk's and Suffolk's logs their correction can be applied retrospectively on a time-averaged reducing scale back to their fix time on the 23rd. The same process could be done for Prinz Eugen's track. However this procedure assumes the error builds evenly over time and does not allow for chunks of error appearing at particular times.

I will add to the above list the PoW and mostly the Hood information, ... since as David Mearns demonstrated the Hood and Commander Warrand have been the most precise on that timeframe, ... and given Commander Warrand seniority and role, being ViceAdm Holland staff, ... one can easily imagine why that happened on that way

So my first trial will be to confirm the Hood and PoW track showed above, from the Hood sinking position backwards, to see and hopefully confirm the Admiralty re-construction job on that map.

Any opinion / suggestion ?

Bye Antonio

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

so in order to fit the Hood and PoW track correctly we need to define the grid and the correct references, and here they are :

Map_trial_Hood-PoW_01.jpg (28.61 KiB) Viewed 2223 times

Does anybody remember and knows where Commander Warrand declared the Hood position for the last time ?

You can find some information on David Mearns book about it ...

Of course we need the Longitude and Latitude of that position ...

Here an useful link :

http://jproc.ca/radiostor/hood.html

Happy researches ... and calculations ...

Bye Antonio

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

so, apparently nobody was able or interested on finding the first sure point on our map which is the Hood position at 05.43.

Knowing that GFVA is the crossing point between 63N and 32W, it is written on David Mearns book on the map I have attached on page 3 of this thread, ... and here it is again, ... referencing the YELLOW dot :

Coded_DS_area_RN.jpg (68.34 KiB) Viewed 2155 times

Now we have to go 21 sea miles on geographical bearing 13 degrees ( as explained on the Hood radio message link above ) and we can mark the Hood position on our map.

That position is equal to 63°20' North and 31° 50' West.

This was Commander Warrand radio communicated Hood position at 05.43 that morning.

Hope everything is clear now for everybody.

Comments are welcome ...

Bye Antonio

[wadinga]

Hello Antonio,

Does the summarized post action map of Suffolk's overall track in your possession show either the:

17. 0542 (B). Received Norfolk's 0541 reporting sighting enemy, followed by Prince of Wales' 0537 and Hood's 0543. The mean of these placed the enemy some 280°, 14 miles from Suffolk's plot position, and sights obtained shortly afterwards confirmed this. As, however, the Battle Cruiser Squadron was now in touch with the enemy, no amending position report was made at this point.

0851 (B). Adjusted plot to 0800 Reference Position received at 0832 from C.S. One, the transfer being 290°, 20½ miles.

In other words does the track jump at 08:00 in the manner Prinz Eugen's jumps by 90 odd miles? It would appear that Ellis and his crew realised how far out their position was at this point. The actual adjustment of the plot took place at 08:00 and worked with the assumption that Norfolk's position was correct (Senior Officer is correct) although this may not be true in absolute terms. Even this depends on assumptions about where Norfolk was relatively speaking since she was not actually in sight until later that day.

This is the point in time when the battlefield was "shamefully" expanded, not the 12th of August. Because you have used radioed positions for Suffolk you have artificially placed Suffolk too close to Norfolk all along, and despite having your error clearly shown to you earlier this year, in the plot thread, you still cling to your obsolete hypothesis, and hope to bury this inconvenient truth by starting afresh in this new thread.

All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

I will not follow your above reasoning for the very simple reason that I have already told you what those messages mean on " The Plot " thread, ... and now it is too early to realize what type of error the Suffolk made all along that night, ... and which type of consequences those errors meant for the BC1 squadron and ViceAdm Holland approach to the enemy.

All this is premature now.

If you do not mind I like to drive the persons interested, ... if any, ... on fixing some real parameters on their mind and start being able to read by themselves the radio message positions and the event sequence of that night on the proper way.

If nobody will show any interest on this, ... I will simply quit the explanation and keep the work I made for myself until the Bismarck book future publication, ... when the truth will be revealed with associate evidence and the supporting documents.

After we place the Hood and PoW on the map, ... we will start placing the Norfolk and the Suffolk, ... of course with the Bismarck/Prinz Eugen tracks too ... and at the end of this process we will see how close Norfolk and Suffolk will end up being.

All this as nothing to do with " The Plot " that was a document created after to save RearAdm Wake-Walker from his own Hood First Board signed declarations, ... and in fact was made by his own Staff Operation Officer ( Pinchin ) ... using incorrect data, ... as well demonstrated.

So lets proceed with the creation of a correct map, ... more correct of the very poorly precise map the Admiralty attached to the Battle Summary Number 5 supporting those events explanation.

Here it is and now we can make some evaluations :

Map_trial_Hood-PoW_03.jpg (119.1 KiB) Viewed 2088 times

We can see that the Hood and PoW track is way too north compared to the place it should be, ... and mostly we can see a very incorrectly traced track, ... the one of HMS Norfolk, ... that someone traced south of the BC1 track ... ... after having crossed them during the night.

We can forget for the moment the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen and the HMS Suffolk tracks ... and focus on the Hood/PoW ( BC1 ) and the Norfolk.

Surely on the above map those 2 tracks are incorrectly traced, ... since they do not even match with " The Plot ".

Somebody made an evident error tracing it ... ... opinions welcome ...

Question : Is anybody able, given 05.43 Hood position plotted above, ... to trace backwards her track until 22.00 of the night of May 23rd ? It should be fairly easy knowing her course and speed.

Some good reference here in :

http://hmshood.com/history/denmarkstrait/woodward.htm

http://hmshood.com/history/denmarkstrait/holland.htm

Sean, you are directly called into this ... given your article here above.

Please trace yourself on the map the correct Hood track backward, until 22.00. Thanks

Bye Antonio

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

OK, ... I see nobody wanted to try his skill by doing it, ... so here it is.

Map_trial_Hood-PoW_103.jpg (138.83 KiB) Viewed 1997 times

Now finally Hood+PoW are on the correct position compared to the Norfolk track, ... NOT on the north of her , ... but on the south of Norfolk.

Bye Antonio

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

almost one year passed ... everybody " sleeping " here ?

... it is now time to restart talking about all this ...

Bye Antonio

[alecsandros]

Dear Antonio,
One of the many things which puzzled me about the pre-battle movements was this:

what was the course (or courses) for the 6 destroyers that Holland dettached in order to search the area to the north of Hood ?

Could there be that those destroyers sent signals, met with Suffolk/Norfolk (or none , or both ?), thus confirming or infirming some positions, bearing and courses, or at least adding another layer of "unknownable" to this already hard-to-solve puzzle ?

And, of course, my favorite: what was the minimum distance attained between the 6 DDs (or between 1 of them) and Bismarck , during the night... ? As my feeling is that , at some point, they should have been pretty close....... And if so..... everything that we know today could have been decided in a completely different manner during that murky, dark night......

Best regards,

[wadinga]

Hello Alecsandros,

Glad somebody is interested in the destroyers. OK let's talk about destroyers and not disappear off into a regurgitation of the Conspiracy Theory.

Since the four of them who were left, only got to where Hood had sunk, one hour and 40 minutes after she sank, (Vaughn's report) I estimate they were always about 45 miles NE of the BCF, and probably ceased their fruitless search to the North sometime around 02:47 when they got Suffolk's enemy contact signal. Holland rigorously maintained radio silence so he could not recall them when he turned south west on a hunch. Travelling at about 30 knots for 1hour 30-40 minutes from where they were when Hood sank, to Hood's wreck site is why I estimate 45 miles. Thus they were always a long way behind the BCF and the Germans throughout the night.

On page 1 of this thread Antonio kindly reproduced that part of Wake-Walker's Report where he says "at 04:45, a report was intercepted from the Icarus, one of the destroyers with the Hood, giving her position and that of the Achates, some distance astern of the Norfolk."

There is no indication that any of them made any contact with anybody apart from W-W's reference to Icarus.

So Alecsandros, do agree with this logic about the destroyer's location?

All the best

wadinga

[alecsandros]

Hello Sean,
I didn't ask the question with any hidden motive,
simply... imagination and curiosity (and the hypothetical of a foggy night battle with torpedoes versus big guns from short range ).

I do not know what the destroyers did, where they were, etc. So I thank you for the Icarus report, I did not knew about it (or had forgotten it alltogether in any case).

Certainly at 4:00 - 5:00 - 6:00, the destroyers were far away from the main forces,

but, at the moment of separation between Hood and the destroyers (approx 2:27), my imagination is that Hood was a little bit to the south-east of Bismarck (but of course not knowing that), and the destroyers were ordered to search to the north-east... so... If that is true, the destroyers may have passed relatively close from the Germans (which SHOULD have picked them up on the forward Fumo27 radar of Prinz Eugen, and, if the DDs were doing good propeller revolutions, on Prinz Eugen's GHG... But I do not recall any such reports on Prinz Eugen's log, which may hint at the possibility that I am wrong... )

It's anyway, an interesting thought, at least for me...

[alecsandros]

This is what HMS Icarus Wiki page says:

"On the evening of 23 May, the weather deteriorated. At 20:55 hrs., Admiral Lancelot Holland aboard Hood signalled the destroyers: if you are unable to maintain this speed I will have to go on without you. You should follow at your best speed.
At 02:15 on the morning of 24 May, the destroyers were ordered to spread out at 15 miles (24 km) intervals to search to the north. "

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Alecsandros,

sorry for being late on responding you but I am out on a Business Trip on Spain and Portugal, so it will take me the week end to be back to you about the destroyers initial positioning on the overall map.

After I will do it we will be able to realize a bit better their distance from the BC1 warships, the CS1 heavy cruisers, and the German warships too.

@Wadinga,

The " Cover Up " re-construction is closed and now finally everybody can make up his own opinion about it, after 75 years.

You wrote :

There is no indication that any of them made any contact with anybody apart from W-W's reference to Icarus.

No Sean, there are other indications, ... I researched and found on the archives, ... and it will be correlated to the airplanes ( Sunderland/Vaughn + Hudson/Pinhorn ), ...

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6332

... which were not communicating only to the heavy cruisers like you erroneously assumed on the other threads, ... but also with the destroyers.

By memory I recall one was surely the HMS Achates : D12 = H12 = HMS Achates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Achates_%28H12%29

More soon ..

Bye Antonio

[wadinga]

Hello Antonio,

Nice of you to become interested in the location of the destroyers which Wake-Walker's report records he assumed were with the Hood at 04:45. I was referring of course to the destroyers having no communications with other warships. After Norfolk instructed the aircraft by Aldis that destroyers would pick up survivors, the aircraft did provide some liaison, homing in the destroyers by flying back and forth, and one was present when Electra arrived and rescued Briggs and the others.

David Mearns' book referenced how inaccurate the two aircraft were in their navigation (inevitable in 1941), and how useful one of W-W's survivor location reports was in finding Hood's wreck. He accepted the idea Norfolk had to cover about 15 miles and took half an hour to pass the location of Hood's wreck, He regretted that destroyer logs were hard to get hold of but did get useful data from HMS Malcolm which attended later on the 24th.

BTW I had a nice discussion with him and Eric Groves aboard the former HMS Wellington in London at a Hood lecture last Wednesday. I didn't mention anything of your Conspiracy Theory or your forthcoming publication to them at all as I thought it would spoil the Surprise for them when they do get to read it!

All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

I am really looking forward one day to meet Dr. Erich Grove, it should be very interesting indeed, since I assume he does have a lot of possibilities to read and have other important documents about this whole story.

Not a problem about spoiling what I am going to publish about Bismarck and this Operation Rheinubung. I think hundred of readers are realizing it thru the last 3 years discussion in this forum on several threads all related one to the other, including this one.

We are few discussing about it at high level, but I am sure you have realized that we are followed by a huge number of readers.

My declared goal is to bring out as much as I can and present it in a clear understandable way, as an historical researcher should do just for the pleasure of the research and the time and passion spent while doing it.

This approach does apply also on this night events and related map, that on many books has been described very shortly and not so accurately, missing in my opinion a lot of key important events.

Referencing the above maps I have provided now it is very important for everybody that likes to participate and help, to become familiar with the geographical map references and terms we are going to use, and after we will all agree about placing the Hood and PoW tracks I have showed you above, we can start filling it with all the other warships tracks and realize the whole scenario of that night more precisely.

Just like David Mearns did, we are going to use all the available references and realize who was right and who was incorrect and why, and in this regard the airplane reports ( Vaughn and Pinhorn ) do play a key role.

Welcome to the latest voyage of discovery ... hope we will have as usual a lot of fun ...

Bye Antonio