Alberto Virtuani wrote:Hi Duncan,I posted the exact wording of Capt. Ellis. If you are annoyed by his book and desperately try to contradict it, please be precise. The words of Ellis are:Dunmunro wrote: "So you state now that Suffolk saw 4 hits... There's no mention of 3 hits anywhere."
"He (the enemy) had 2 holes below water, and we had seen , we thought, two other 14 inch or 15 inch hits in the battleship action"
Your statement above is simply incorrect.you wrote: "No mention of seeing any hits on Bismarck"
They saw hits on BS. I think (my interpretation) that he meant they saw the hit in the bow (2 holes UW) and they saw 2 other hits. In any case, seeing hits on BS means they were at 9 sm , for sure not 21 sm as per the "official documents" like "The Plot".
Exactly a perfect match with Antonio's reconstructed distances. Another element contradicting "The Plot", according to which Hood should not be visible at all at 5:52.you wrote: "There's no indication of when Hood came into view and the the exact wording was "funnel tops and gun flashes""
I can accept it, possibly visibility in the direction of Norfolk did not allow to see her. Why ? Who knows. If you have ever been at sea, you know that visibility is not the same in all directions..... Light, mist, a fog bank or any other possible reason."So now you accept that Norfolk was not visible from Suffolk "Not at all. If Norfolk was not visible, there was no way for Ellis to determine whether Norfolk was out of range, so his sentence means just that he thought that Norfolk was out of range.you wrote: " and was many thousands of yards outside of gun range from Bismarck?"
We have already discussed Norfolk position, unfortunately for Wake-Walker. Here we are considering Suffolk position and Ellis account is quite clear:; 18000 yards at open fire (5:53, according to Suffolk).
Bye, Alberto
There was no mention on pages 11-12 of any hits being observed or any mention of PoW's salvos. Ellis does state that they were prepared to flank mark but then provides no indication that he actually remembered doing so. Ellis quotes extensively from his on report later on, probably because he just didn't remember events accurately enough, and it's obvious that he doesn't remember the Hood action in any detail.
On page 19 Ellis states that they thought they saw 2 hits on Bismarck in addition to two others.
Mirage effects are common in the Arctic:
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/e ... upmrge.htm
and they can easily confuse the viewer as to the actual range. Ellis's account is just not consistent with what actually happened.