The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Exactly the opposite:
"Henry and his father HAD NOT SEEN one another for more than a year and HAD HAD no time to discuss the battle with the Bismarck"
Dunmunro wrote: "...they had had no time....does not mean or imply that they had time later"
:shock:

Did Henry see his father later ? YES he did ! Apparently "had not seen" means they saw one another later. :stubborn:
Did they spoke of all the things they HAD HAD no time to discuss for more than one year ? Implicitly YES they did !

This is even reinforced by the sentence below "Beyond that there was much that Henry wanted to share with his father" :stop:


In any case the reference to the court martial for Leach and Wake-Walker is at pag.89/90, confirmed at pag.93, after Tovey was back. Sir Henry Leach apparently had nothing to object, reviewing the manuscript "page by page" with Wills. Story is closed for who wants to understand.


Alberto
Last edited by Alberto Virtuani on Tue Oct 10, 2017 1:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

you wrote :
There has been no indication that Sir Henry had any other source for the CM threat than Kennedy, ...
Who can state this ? There is simply no indication of any source on Sir Henry Leach books statements. Sir Kennedy being the source is never listed anywhere in relation to Sir Henry Leach two books Court Martial statements.
I continue to research for any further material, but all post 1974 publications are tainted with reference to Kennedy.
Similarly, who can state this ? Many book authors refer to Sir Kennedy which refers to Roskill plus his personal comments, ... but referencing above there are surely two Sir Henry books not referencing to Kennedy, and there is Tarrant book photo caption which does not have any reference to Sir Kennedy, ... for example.
... and there is no evidence other than Tovey's late-life recollection passed to Roskill and McMullen shortly before Tovey's death.
We need now to have and read the original Adm Tovey letter passed to Stephen Roskill, and the date it was written, ... plus we need to establish when Colin McMullen and Admiral Geoffrey Blake ( died on 18 July 1968 ) met Admiral Tovey ( died on 12 January 1971 ), ... before writing that it was shortly before Tovey's death. Once again there is no direct correlation of Adm Tovey not being reliable when he did those things, ... since McMullen did not mention it, ... and we only have a note on Kennedy book about Tovey exaggerating things later on his life but on other subjects in relation to Churchill and Pound, ... and not inventing things or becoming a liar regarding this Court martial story.
Surely the meeting Blake; McMullen and Tovey occurred at least 2 and a half years before Adm Tovey died, as you can easily verify.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_ ... y_officer)

Lets start from Stephen Roskill book statement and notes, who can post it here in the scan and his book first publication date containing that letter from Adm Tovey ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Roskill

Someone can pay a visit on the Churchill archives looking into Stephen Roskill original paper/documents too :

https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp ... 014%2FROSK


As a starter, .... we can read directly from Stephen Roskill something very interesting about this argument :

https://books.google.it/books?id=-haODQ ... al&f=false
" A more clear cut case is Adm Pound's proposal ...
And if it was a " more clear cut " for an historian like Stephen Roskill, ... we need to dig more on it now ...

If I read correctly what Stephen Roskill is stating, ... which is VERY interesting indeed, ... I read that he DID NOT use INTENTIONALLY the court martial story on his Vol. 1 of the War at sea 1939-1945 which was first published on 1955, ... last volume being published on 1961, ... but he knew about it already obviously.

Referencing the dates, ... Stephen Roskill was already aware about the Court martial story from Adm Tovey before that time, ... on 1955, ... so at least 16 years before Adm Tovey died. He later gave those letters exchanged with Adm Tovey to Sir L. Kennedy as we can read, ... which published PURSUIT only on 1974, ... so 20 years after Stephen Roskill could have done it.

Now the truth about those Adm Tovey declaration dates in written letters to Roskill starts surfacing better ... :think:

Bye Antonio :D
In order to honor a soldier, we have to tell the truth about what happened over there. The whole, hard, cold truth. And until we do that, we dishonor her and every soldier who died, who gave their life for their country. ( Courage Under Fire )
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by wadinga »

Hello Antonio,

I thought this matter was closed. Now you reveal additional information. :D

And even suggestions for further investigations :? Watch this space :cool:

So we have confirmation Roskill sat on this information for a number of years, until he handed it over to Kennedy. But again the only source mentioned is Tovey. And as I have pointed out, Roskill does not reference those letters which have been in his possession for a number of years when he writes his own "Churchill and the Admirals" pub 1977. He cites Kennedy. A great way to get an allegation of doubtful veracity into the public domain without taking responsibility personally. Leak it to a journalist.

When he speaks of "clear-cut" I believe he speaks of signs of Churchillian intervention. It does not mean the need for a CM was clear-cut.

Hello Alberto,
I consider the list of things on p127 is what Henry and his father might discuss when they met, (speculation) since they had not seen each other for a year. and had not the chance to discuss any of those things. On the following page "......their discussion turned to naval subjects." What do they discuss? That Leach was threatened with Court Martial, but instead remained in his prestigious command, was given medals, and responsibility for personally conducting Churchill to the US, and even shaken Roosevelt's hand. Would that not be first priority? No they talk about radar.

IMHO Wills, despite his enthusiasm (which we all share), is not a clear writer. Had had is clumsy and confusing. His editor is a sailor. A professional editor would have rephrased this and noticed he calls PoW's navigation officer Powell not Rowell.

Another example is one you have exploited: his lack of reference or citation when he prematurely "blows" the stunning story of the alleged CM threat on p 90, and only gives his source by citation on p 93. Then you outrageously pretend the two portions must have different sources. :negative:

On p 97 we have another example, where Wills must provide a reconciliation of the CM threat story with Leach commanding the Placentia Bay voyage. "Delicious irony" ....... "There is no evidence that either Pound or Leach ever spoke of the former's attempt to court martial the latter less than three months previously." The other thing he presents no evidence of is that there was a CM threat in the first place or that John Leach knew anything of it if there had been. Just Kennedy.

The "Deus Ex Machina" argument that if Sir Henry saw a manuscript, and did not apparently object eg to the CM threat story, it means it must be true is wrong on several points. He is not credited as an author, except for his autobiography and should be cited as a source, if he provided original material, through conversation, letter or whatever. As I have observed, I believe, that Sir Henry thought there was a threat, but it had no significance because his father
instead remained in his prestigious command, was given medals, and responsibility for personally conducting Churchill to the US, and even shaken Roosevelt's hand.
He nowhere suggests either in his autobiography or the material cited by Wills, that his father, or Tovey, or any other source either in the Navy or without, told him (Sir Henry) the CM threat existed. Only those with a copy of Endure No Makeshifts will know if Kennedy is referenced or included in a bibliography. I am speculating the sole source for Sir Henry's knowledge is Kennedy.

Speaking of references:
and there is Tarrant book photo caption which does not have any reference to Sir Kennedy
Kennedy is listed as a source on p 282. No-one is suggesting the words of the caption or those similar ones on p 60 are anyone's but Tarrant's, although you originally asserted they were Sir Henry's! :D

All the best

wadinga

All the best

wadinga
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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

I confirm you that for me this story about the Court Martial initial request from Adm Pound to Adm Tovey was already a close confirmed case since many years, given what we already had available in our hands.

You re-opened it with the intention to denigrate the available evidence and try to remove this story from the available historical evidence you called a " saga ".

Well it seems to me that this additional series of researches you caused is falling on your head more heavily than in the past thanking the last Stephen Roskill found evidence.

This story was NOT started on 1974 by Sir Kennedy like you tried to demonstrate, but as you can read and very easily realize this story started being declared by Adm Tovey at least on 1955 ( if not before ) and it was confirmed and blessed by an historian like Stephen Roskill that only avoided INTENTIONALLY to write about it on his War at Sea book on 1955.

According to Stephen Roskill :
The former proposal ( Court martial for WW and Leach ) was defeated by AdmTovey C in C Home Fleet.
more from Stephen Roskill :
I did not mention this in The War at Sea Vol. I ( 1955 ) because it did not affect the operations, but I gave my correspondence with Lord Tovey about it, to Sir L. Kennedy who used it in his excellent account of the Bismarck operations PURSUIT ( Collins, 1974 , p . 226 )
No doubts Stephen Roskill was believing on the Court Martial occurrence and in Adm Tovey defeating Adm Pound about it.

No doubts Stephen Roskill would have written about it on 1955 if he wanted and needed to.
Roskill.jpg
Roskill.jpg (126.53 KiB) Viewed 735 times
Clear irrefutable statements, ... evidence at hand from one of the best Royal Navy historian in direct contact with Adm Tovey and all the other ones as we all know.

End of the story, ... you and all the " deniers " lost once again, ... as soon as new evidence are surfacing, ... they just adds up more evidence confirming what I have re-constructed about all this story being correct.

You are only right about one thing, about Sir Winston Churchill being behind all this and prodding Adm Pound, as somebody wrote, but once again we already knew all this, ... since long time, ... and this is just another confirmation you are underlining on top of it.

Bye Antonio :D
In order to honor a soldier, we have to tell the truth about what happened over there. The whole, hard, cold truth. And until we do that, we dishonor her and every soldier who died, who gave their life for their country. ( Courage Under Fire )
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by wadinga »

Hello Antonio,

Here is a quote from me in this thread, from 2016 :D

Barnett points out this was in a letter from Tovey to Roskill dated 14th December 1961. Kennedy provides plenty of detail showing Tovey's disagreements with Churchill's interference and Pound's weakness in being pressured by Winston. KGV to run out of fuel if necessary etc. PQ 17 etc etc Kennedy also points out Tovey's memory was none to good late in life.
I have never suggested the threat for CM was invented by Kennedy
story was NOT started on 1974 by Sir Kennedy like you tried to demonstrate
.

I have suggested Roskill sat on it from 1961(or maybe even since 1955 you suggest) because as a professional historian he knew Tovey's information on its own was by now a dubious source, he knew of no corroboration and he would not put his name to it without some independent confirmation. Being the Royal Navy's historian he would have known if there was some. Then he leaked the allegation to Kennedy. Kennedy was in correspondence with Rear Admiral Pafford who presumably provided the instances of Tovey remembering things that never happened, but the old newshound just couldn't resist including it, even though it stank to high heaven, and put all the caveats in his footnotes.

I note the Naval Policy book Vol 2 you quote was published in 1976. Two years after Kennedy had obligingly "broken" the story/allegation/myth. Does Roskill provide a source in this book? I see no superscript footnote links.

Then in Churchill and the Admirals Roskill 1977 cites Kennedy as the source.

I note for the HMS Manchester story there actually was a Pound minute in the official records which Roskill identified, I presume there was never anything similar for Leach and Wake-Walker.

Since Churchill and the Cabinet never asked for the follow-up they obviously weren't interested.

All the best

wadinga
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Cag »

Hi All

Hi RF I'm with you on this one!

Hi Alberto, from those sentences I would say that Leach and his son had not seen each other for a period of time and therefore had not had the chance to discuss each other's momentous events.

Hi Antonio the piece of information you posted is incredibly interesting. That it was thought that WW and Leach should be court martialed for not re engaging Bismarck after Hood was sunk. This is interesting for a number of reasons, and would like your thoughts,

1) Technically PoW could not re-engage Bismarck after Hood was sunk due to Y turret, would you not agree that this would be classed in law as mitigating circumstances? (after all this is a case of law)
2) WW reported to the Admiralty why, in his opinion, it was tactically and materially incorrect to engage Bismarck with PoW alone (the cruisers tactical function was, as I'm sure youll agree was to keep contact and not allow Bismarck a chance to escape or risk damage that would stop this). The Admiralty and Tovey did not respond in any way, which, Im sure you agree, makes them in law complicit in this decision and would require them to also face charges.
3) If one is to be court martialed for not re-engaging Bismarck would it not be extremely difficult to do if you have evidence, from Pound in a cabinet meeting on the 26th May, ships logs on the 24th/25th May, Gunnery commanders report in June, Captains report in June, shells returns sheets in June, Cruisers commanders reports June, even Bismarck survivor reports, that in fact after Hood was sunk PoW engaged Bismarck two further times?

I'm no lawyer but it seems a hard case to even start never mind finish.

Best wishes
Cag.
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by dunmunro »

Alberto Virtuani wrote:Exactly the opposite:
"Henry and his father HAD NOT SEEN one another for more than a year and HAD HAD no time to discuss the battle with the Bismarck"
Dunmunro wrote: "...they had had no time....does not mean or imply that they had time later"
:shock:

Did Henry see his father later ? YES he did ! Apparently "had not seen" means they saw one another later. :stubborn:
Did they spoke of all the things they HAD HAD no time to discuss for more than one year ? Implicitly YES they did !

This is even reinforced by the sentence below "Beyond that there was much that Henry wanted to share with his father" :stop:


In any case the reference to the court martial for Leach and Wake-Walker is at pag.89/90, confirmed at pag.93, after Tovey was back. Sir Henry Leach apparently had nothing to object, reviewing the manuscript "page by page" with Wills. Story is closed for who wants to understand.


Alberto
I have broken it all down for you:

Henry and his father had not seen one another for more than a year... = They were physically separated for over a year and

and had had no time to the discuss the battle with the Bismarck...= because they were apart they could not talk to each other about recent naval history for over a year.

Beyond = in addition to (and/or above).
that = refers to: their inability to communicate about recent events due their separation
there was much that Henry wanted to share with his father = Henry wished to discuss personal matters with his father.

Putting all this together:

They were physically separated for over a year and because they were apart they could not talk to each other about recent naval history for over a year. In addition to (and/or above) their inability to communicate about recent events due to their separation Henry wished to discuss personal matters with his father (The author may be implying that personal matters were more important).

As has been stated this was a clumsily worded sentence. It seems that the author is trying to give the reader an explanation as to why father and son did not discuss the notable events that his father had participated in. This meaning is implied because there is no subsequent discussion and exposition about recent naval history. Certainly I was anticipating a 2nd hand account, relayed from father to son, of the DS battle but no such account appears. Instead John and Henry discussed family matters and, apparently, naval trivia such as the type of radar carried on HMS Mauritius.

We have to remember that Henry Leach was only an 18 year old (having turned 18 only two weeks previous) midshipman and despite being his father John Leach could not disclose in detail any sensitive information to his son. This explains why Henry Leach had to obtain a number of archival files regarding his father for his own information and presumably his own book; files which he subsequently turned over to Wills.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Wadinga wrote: "Had had is clumsy and confusing"
Hi Sean,
absolutely not. It is just inconvenient for the "deniers".... The correct conjugation of the verb "to have", at the past perfect tense, should NOT be so confusing...... :think:

Do you see anything clumsy in "they had not seen for one year" ? I guess not, and they ACTUALLY saw each other.
Would you see anything confusing in a possible :"they had had no opportunity to eat together" ? No, I hope, and ACTUALLY they ate together that night.
Why do you consider clumsy and confusing the simple: "they had had no time to discuss..." ? Possibly because (implicitly) THEY HAD time to discuss the battle with Bismarck, Churchill and Mediterranean at dinner.

you wrote: "....A great way to get an allegation of doubtful veracity into the public domain without taking responsibility personally. Leak it to a journalist. " and "...he knew Tovey's information on its own was by now a dubious source,"
Sean, you should read carefully which was the reason why Roskill DID NOT insert in his 1955 book the episode that he considered a "more clear-cut case" (https://books.google.it/books?id=-haODQ ... al&f=false): ONLY because it "did not affect operations", not at all because he was uncertain about its authenticity (your speculation only). :negative:

Don't tell me Tovey was already inventing things in 1955 (or 1954, I would say, judging from the other letters from Tovey to Roskill), just 8 years after he retired from the RN..... This is NOT something happened during his "late years" (he died in 1971.... :shock: ).

Let's see if now you will accuse also Roskill to suffer of any mental disease or personality disorders (in addition to be a poor historian, as Wills was a poor writer) because he leaks information to a third party, then forgets he did and finally quotes his third party.... :negative:

you wrote: "for the HMS Manchester story there actually was a Pound minute in the official records which Roskill identified, I presume there was never anything similar for Leach and Wake-Walker. "
Sean, of course for HMS Manchester there was a minute and much more than that: Captain Drew WAS ACTUALLY court martialled. He was judged guilty (possibly wrongly), reprimanded and dismissed from the Royal Navy. In this case I think the equivalent of Pound minute (before the defense) would have been Churchill sentence: "the worst thing since Troubridge turned away from the Goeben in 1914". :wink:



Dunmunro wrote: "I have broken it all down for you..."
sorry, you are just presenting here your third interpretation after your first ( "had had" is used in place of "to have :shock: ) and your second ("This the meaning above, clarified: 1) Henry had not seen his father for a more than a year and consequently :shock: could not discuss the battle with the Bismarck, the voyage with Churchill or the action in the Mediterranean. 2)Both men wanted to discuss other events :shock:.")

I will not loose my time to answer fully to your third interpretation, just to get back a 4th (insulting) version, that I do suggest you TO AVOID: you have mis-used your maximum number of attempts and I can read such a simple statement in English. :stop:

Just one example (from your third failed attempt) of your intentional way to change the meaning of sentences: you interpret "because they were apart they could not talk.....". This is WRONG: it should have been " because they were apart, they HAD NOT BEEN ABLE to talk.... " CORRECTLY using the past perfect tense as M.Wills does.) :negative:


The sentence, despite your and Sean opinion, is crystal clear, if you don't want to understand, I can't care less.
There are more interesting things still to be to discovered.
The only fact that is SURE is that Sir Henry had never any of YOUR doubts about the court martial request and this is more than enough from Wills book.


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by dunmunro »

Alberto Virtuani wrote:
Wadinga wrote: "Had had is clumsy and confusing"
Hi Sean,
absolutely not. It is just inconvenient for the "deniers".... The correct conjugation of the verb "to have", at the past perfect tense, should NOT be so confusing...... :think:




The sentence, despite your and Sean opinion, is crystal clear, if you don't want to understand, I can't care less.


Bye, Alberto
I have not changed my explanation. I have expounded upon it in more detail to try and clarify it for you. If we had had more time in the past I could have explained it better.

If we had more time in the past I could have explained it better. = I would like to travel back in time and explain it.

If we had had more time in the past I could have explained it better. = Because we didn't have sufficient time in the past I didn't explain it as well as I could have.


No where in the above is the suggestion or implication that we have the time now.
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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ all,

I think we can end this thread I have started with a final result of : 3 to 0 given the evidence we have so far.

1) Stephen Roskill letters from Adm Tovey were written on 1954 ( probably November ) in order to give the Royal Navy WW2 historian the correct material to refer to. Roskill decided NOT to use them and later he gave them to Kennedy which used them on 1974 on the way we know.
His statements about the Court Martial request are clear.

2) Colin McMullen interview on 1989 recall a visit Adm Tovey made to his uncle Adm Blake most likely in the early 1960's years, few years after Adm Tovey letters to Roskill and around than 10 years before Adm Tovey died.
His statements about the Court Martial request are clear.

3) Sir Henry Leach information about the Court Martial request regarding his father were never correlated neither to Kennedy nor to Roskill. He spent the evening of December 6th, 1941 in Singapore talking all night long with his father and that is the most probable source of his information about the Court Martial story he was well aware of during his life. In any case, it is very possible that he also met either Adm Tovey as well as Roskill before they died, but never used them as reference on his books.
His statements about the Court Martial request are clear.

I intentionally avoid to use Sir Kennedy as source simply because he never met Adm Tovey, Capt Leach or RearAdm Wake-Walker about this story. His note about Adm Tovey exaggerating some events late on his life before he died simply DOES NOT apply to this Court Martial declaration he started releasing in writing on 1954 to Roskill, a very long time before he died.
Consequently his note 2 on the Epilogue is misleading and only created doubts and confusion about this Court martial story, just like many other arguments on his book PURSUIT, ... but this is another story, ... for the future, ... :wink:

Bye Antonio :D
In order to honor a soldier, we have to tell the truth about what happened over there. The whole, hard, cold truth. And until we do that, we dishonor her and every soldier who died, who gave their life for their country. ( Courage Under Fire )
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Cag »

Hi All

Either I'm very stupid or my logic has left me. Are we really saying that because there was anecdotal evidence for a courts martial, that this can prove beyond reasonable doubt a theory of a cover up?

Despite the three, and I'm afraid there are quite a few more, points of law shown above we still connect the two separate ideas and call them fact?
Who do we court martial?
Leach for not re engaging Bismarck,
When?
When his guns in Y turret were out of action?
When his CO ordered him not to?
When he actually did re engage and got signals from the same CO telling him to hold his fire so as not to push Bismarck away from the HF?
Why not court martial Ellis?
Why Wake-Walker?
For deciding that his primary missions were to get Bismarck to the guns of BC1 and then to the HF?
Did his command help BC1 to home in on Bismarck and Victorious to attack by air?
Why not Tovey and the Admiralty for acquiescence to WW signal?

If I had a theory and people pointed out certain different explanations, reasons points etc etc etc that were just as valid just as plausible, I would not ignore them. I would not keep repeating sentences or quotes that, here in this thread, have already been agreed were unfairly atributed and poorly chosen. I would consider each valid point and find proof or an explanation beyond reasonable doubt to give the theory logic, as it is my reputation is on the line.

Repeating the same thing over and over does not make it a fact. We know that certain books give anecdotal evidence that a court martial was considered. We have no proof that it actually did. But then simply on reading the unaltered evidences we have, using logic to consider the facts, the case would have been a waste of time.

But we ignore this bit of logic and many others and say that it's all down to a cover up with either Tovey, Churchill, the Admiralty and their Lordships, oh and the King no less, complicit in it.. If they are all complicit who was the cover up for? We cannot jump between it being for Churchill, then to their Lordships at the Admiralty, or both, or in fact they were all in on it as it makes no logical sense does it?

One side says intentional alteration of evidence, one side says intentional alteration of evidence due to fresh information etc etc, for a undecided person both sides have plausible explanations, but neither are Im afraid fact.

Best wishes
Cag.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Dunmunro wrote: " If we had had more time in the past I could have explained it better. "
Hi Duncan,
I'm happy you gave up with your 1st, 2nd and 3rd unbelievable interpretation. :clap:

Now we are back to the correct use of the past perfect tense. In your 4th explanation, again, you are implicitly saying that: "If we had had more time in the past I could have explained it better. and therefore you (only you in this case....) consider that you HAVE JUST EXPLAINED IT BETTER RIGHT NOW.

The same applies to Wills sentence. Most probably it means they did discuss at dinner the battle with Bismarck and this implicit statement is reinforced by the following "beyond that....they discussed also other topics". :stop:


Cag wrote: "Are we really saying that because there was anecdotal evidence for a courts martial, that this can prove beyond reasonable doubt a theory of a cover up? ..... Repeating the same thing over and over does not make it a fact. "
Hi Mr.Cag,
I would respectfully say that keep on denying all the time the evidences does not cancel them. Antonio has listed you why the court martial cannot be considered an "anecdotal" story anymore (as you repeat again here....) after the clear statement of an historian like Roskill who is mentioning his source. If you deny these evidences, please explain why but I think there is nothing we can do to convince you and we have to respect your personal opinion, surprising as it can be.....

Regarding the cover-up, embellishment, or sugar-coating (choose your own preferred word), there are tons of threads that demonstrate the intentional modifications of the various reports/facts, ending up with Adm.Tovey (despatches point 17 and 19) and with Pinchin's Plot...... Difficult to say that nothing has been done in this sense, but here we are discussing the court martial request. :negative:

Re.imputations at a possible court martial, just to add another accusation, have you had time to read Ellis account (pag. 15-19 of chapter 19 in his autobiography) of Wake-Walker negligence (to use a nice word) while "shadowing" Bismarck on 24-25 May night ? :wink: But again here we are totally off topic.


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by dunmunro »

Alberto Virtuani wrote:
Dunmunro wrote: " If we had had more time in the past I could have explained it better. "
Hi Duncan,
I'm happy you gave up with your 1st, 2nd and 3rd unbelievable interpretation. :clap:

Now we are back to the correct use of the past perfect tense. In your 4th explanation, again, you are implicitly saying that: "If we had had more time in the past I could have explained it better. and therefore you (only you in this case....) consider that you HAVE JUST EXPLAINED IT BETTER RIGHT NOW.

The same applies to Wills sentence. Most probably it means they did discuss at dinner the battle with Bismarck and this implicit statement is reinforced by the following "beyond that....they discussed other topics". :stop:
Bye, Alberto
Alberto, there is nothing stated or implied about the future; had had always refers to the past.

Supposing Wills had written this:

Henry and his father HAD NOT SEEN one another for more than a year and HAD HAD no time to discuss the battle with the Bismarck, the voyage with Churchill or the action in the Mediterranean. Beyond that there was much that Henry wanted to share with his father about his life in the Royal Navy. Unfortunately Henry's ship put to sea before father and son could meet and Henry never saw his father again.

The first sentence is still grammatically correct because it only refers to the past and it does not state or imply anything about the future.
dunmunro
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by dunmunro »

Antonio Bonomi wrote:Hello everybody,



3) Sir Henry Leach information about the Court Martial request regarding his father were never correlated neither to Kennedy nor to Roskill. He spent the evening of December 6th, 1941 in Singapore talking all night long with his father and that is the most probable source of his information about the Court Martial story he was well aware of during his life. In any case, it is very possible that he also met either Adm Tovey as well as Roskill before they died, but never used them as reference on his books.
His statements about the Court Martial request are clear.


Bye Antonio :D
There is no indication from Henry Leach or Wills that John and Henry Leach ever talked about a possible CM after the Bismarck action. You are making assumptions that are not supported by the works you have referenced. There is also no indication that John Leach ever discussed a possible CM with Tovey or anyone else.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Duncan, of course, IF written as you propose above, the sense would be that they never spoke about Bismarck battle.

Unfortunately for you, there is a third sentence that changes completely the sense: "Henry 's first opportunity to visit his father was on Saturday evening, 6 December on board Prince of Wales." and not your "Unfortunately Henry's ship put to sea before father and son could meet and Henry never saw his father again."

In this case, it implicitly means they spoke about the battle with Bismarck on December 6.


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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