The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

[Alberto Virtuani]

RF wrote: "The letter cannot be located - that may be because it was destroyed, it may have been lost, it may still be held under the Official Secrets Act, it may have never existed in the first place!"

Hi RF,
you are right, the SEVERAL letters from Tovey (as per Roskill) cannot be located YET.... The Churchill Archives do hold the letters exchanged between Roskill and Tovey, but they are unfortunately (or luckily for someone....) kept "secret" until 2058.....
However, you cannot say they don't exist if you don't want to accuse a serious historian like S.Roskill of inventing things.


I don't see how anyone can still doubt about this story (the intention of Pound and Churchill to Court-Martial Leach and Wake-Walker): we have Churchill sentence on May 25/26 "the worst thing since Troubridge turned away from the Goeben in 1914", referred by Colville; Pound Cabinet comments on May 26 "...whether or not she (PoW) had been right in doing so could not be judged on the information so far available"; Adm. Tovey letters to Roskill that were considered credible by Roskill himself; plus Tovey account to McMullen, referred by McMullen in the IWM interview.
We have also the very evident "contradictions", "modifications", "justifications" and "embellishments" entered in the official reports after the Court-Martial had been menaced and discussed at length in this forum.
Every historian after (I don't count Kennedy between them as he wrote a very well written fantasy novel with happy ending, but he had a very limited naval competence and no historical skill), like Tarrant and Roskill (as per his comments posted here) clearly believed it. Even Sir H.Leach was convinced it was true when reviewing "page by page" Wills book (and being an officier in the RN he could not be of any other opinion, looking at the facts happened on May 24 and at the traditions and high standards of the RN....).

What do we need more ?


Bye, Alberto

[Cag]

Hi All

Hi Alberto just three points.

One could you please tell me from where you got the information that the Roskill papers at the Churchill Archive are unavailable until 2058?

Two if you research enough you find out that the signal sent to Troughtbridge not to engage heavier forces that caused the problems for him was believed by ranking officers and published authors to have been sent by a certain 1st Lord of the Admiralty, Winston S Churchill.

Strange how again we use this phrase here despite agreement it was unfair, and ironic that it was Churchill who used it, as seemingly Troughtbridge did not engage Goeben thanks to a WSC message. Where as we know Leach did engage, three times. Very hard to convict someone for not re engaging when in fact they did whilst under orders of an accompanying senior officer.

Three tying a threatened court martial to an opinion on embellished reports etc Im afraid does not prove either. If Tovey threatened to resign (again trying not to use a personal opinion on whether I believe he did or not) and there was no zeal from officers or politicians to begin a trial why fraudulently change reports?

Best wishes
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Mr.Cag,
your three points are not too many compared to the several ones I have mentioned to support the CM story......

1) at Churchill Archives. Apparently all Roskill correspondence is unfortunately closed until 2058 (75 years from Roskill death) with few exceptions (see https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp ... 1%2F17%2F2). Am I wrong? I must say that I find their index too much complex to look at......
2) Churchill meant not to engage Austro-Hungarian superior forces, Troubridge intended the order to be also valid for Germans...... but anyway do you think that saying "it was the worst thing since Troubridge turned away from the Goeben in 1914", Churchill was not meaning that a Court-Martial was more than deserved for Leach and Wake-Walker ? I have to respect your personal view on Leach behavior. My view is VERY different and I don't "agree" WSC sentence was "unfair"; for me it was well deserved as in both cases a dangerous enemy was left continuing his mission instead of being stopped.
3) the embellishment is not an "opinion" as you say, it's a fact. If you refuse to see it, your choice. The "fraudulent changes" (your words) were anyway needed, even after the menace of a CM was vanishing, to allow the rewarding for these officers.


Bye, Alberto

[Cag]

Hi All,

Hi Alberto,

Point 1, not too sure on that but I'll get back to you as this is one place I'm going to visit very soon.

Point 2 Im dissapointed Alberto, I thought that just like the mitigating circumstances idea we had agreed on something.

I'm not sure Troughbridge intended anything but interpreted it? I'm sure we have discussed at length the relative merits of how or how not PoW could have stopped Bismarck alone? I'm not sure I believe that PoW could have put Bismarck any further out of action than she already had? And then at what cost to PoW? What would be gained from a decisively damaged PoW as we know she was being hit more than hitting? But again I'm happy to accept your opinion.

Also as discussed before, the question is did Leach re engage Bismarck? The answer is yes, if ordered by the Admiralty to force an action, over ruling Wake-Walker and Tovey would Leach have complied? (The same man who despite his and Captain Tennants misgivings sailed on December 8th 1941 under the control of a certain ex VCNS Tom Phillips)

Point 3 well for me at least it is still an opinion, not a fact. I'm happy to remain open minded on the cover up idea but then I have no vested interest.

Best wishes
Cag.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

I am not sure yet if I have to consider you just incompetent, or unfair as it seems evident now.

You had those pages and notes from Stephen Roskill since years and you never showed them to us.
You are only continuously come here in just to challenge all the hardly researched evidence of the truth about all this by the others.

What is your game plan ?
Just deny all evidence no matter what, hiding important evidences like you did, and never help on finding the truth ?
This is exactly what you did, and now I do not trust you anymore.

As you can see, it as been an useless effort since the truth surfaced anyhow.
I just need to find the last details now, just to satisfy my curiosity.
You can write all you want from now on, this case is CLOSED, as far as I am concerned.

@ RF,

It does NOT take much to respond to you.

Stephen Roskill was the Official historian for the Royal Navy WW2, a giant compared to the poorly knowledgeable Sir L. Kennedy.
His book statements and notes are easily readable even for very incompetent or unfair persons.

As you should be able to realize now, there is no need for me to be biased at all given the available evidence.

Anybody with an average intelligence can easily understand the meaning of what Stephen Roskill wrote, and that is CLOSING once for good this now useless debate.

@ all,

in my first post on this thread I have asked :

We have several reference about it also on known books, ... but what we would like to find here is if there are more evidence to sum up to the above 2 that in any case are enough to believe that something occurred about it at the end of May 1941.

The answer is obviously YES now, and we cannot have asked for anything better of what we have currently found.

We have the Official confirmation of the Royal Navy historian for WW2, namely Stephen Roskill, which confirms that Pound, Alexander and Churchill were well aware and directly involved on this shameful event that was this court martial story.

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Cag wrote: "I'm not sure I believe that PoW could have put Bismarck any further out of action than she already had? And then at what cost to PoW?..........the question is did Leach re engage Bismarck? The answer is yes,"

Hi Mr.Cag,
of course we have radically different opinions (and actually these are only opinions from both of us) on how PoW could damage Bismarck in a prolonged action (e.g. Acasta was being hit more than she hit Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, but at the end she badly damaged Scharnhorst). Nobody can say that PoW could not have damaged further Bismarck, even seriously, possibly at the cost of her survival, because this is just an hypothetical scenario.

Regarding your statement above, I don't consider decisive "engagement" a couple of long range shot exchanges, mainly to support other ships and not aimed to stop Bismarck (they were considered to be engagements neither by the Baron nor by Kennedy in their books, the only one true battle being over at 6:09), but again it's a matter of opinions. Apparently Churchill and Pound were of my same opinion regarding the re-engagement.


One last comment, I find really unfair to mention (as scapegoat for the Far East mission) "a certain" (your words) Tom Phillips: he was sent there without air cover and he could NOT have refused his support to the army during the Japanese landings, in the traditions of the RN. He may have done mistakes, but as well as Holland, IMHO he did his utmost and his duty.


Bye, Alberto

[RF]

RF wrote: "The letter cannot be located - that may be because it was destroyed, it may have been lost, it may still be held under the Official Secrets Act, it may have never existed in the first place!"

Hi RF,
you are right, the SEVERAL letters from Tovey (as per Roskill) cannot be located YET.... The Churchill Archives do hold the letters exchanged between Roskill and Tovey, but they are unfortunately (or luckily for someone....) kept "secret" until 2058.....
However, you cannot say they don't exist if you don't want to accuse a serious historian like S.Roskill of inventing things.

For the record I am not accusing Stephen Roskill of inventing things, as something was clearly going on to inspire this dialogue. To be technically correct in terms of English comprehension note that I used the word ''may'' which I have highlighted in bold and I didn't claim that they definitely did not exist.

[Cag]

Hi All

Hi Alberto, I really think you should read my posts more carefully, eg where did I write decisive engagement? I think I wrote about a 'decisively damaged PoW' ie one hit so hard that it could not take any further part (one that had lost all and had gained nothing).

It is a little bit hard to understand the logic, you say Leach should have done more, and because he did not risked allowing Bismarck free. But then if a decisively damaged PoW was left slow more damaged and more water logged than she already was what would have been gained? Would that not have really left the Bismarck free? PoW was I think the only heavy ship (7 million pounds worth of heavy ship) in the vicinity at the time.

By the way PoW first action consisted of 18 salvos her second 12 salvos third 2 salvos, but then it did stop Bismarck attacking the cruisers and gave Lütjens another problem to think about?

Also please don't take my posts and twist meanings, as you know I'm sure I did not blame Tom Phillips for the loss of Force Z in my post, please re read it and you'll see the point I was making was despite misgivings Leach did his duty as he was ordered by a senior officer, Tom Phillips, as no doubt he would if the VCNS at the time of the Bismarck operation, Tom Phillips, had over ruled Wake-Walker.

To use your own words, 'very unfair' tactics Alberto.

Best wishes
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Mr.Cag,
I think we should stay to the topic of the CM threatens (that are now well established facts, proved and supported by all the evidences I have listed at the beginning of this page). I have no intention at all to come back to the good or bad reasons of Leach for the disengagement after having done (or not) his utmost to stop Bismarck. We can continue having opposite opinions here.

you wrote: "To use your own words, 'very unfair' tactics Alberto."

If you write "a certain" referring to Tom Phillips, then for me it sounds VERY unfair of you..... but I may be misled by my poor English, as it apparently often happens recently, when people seem more interested to linguistic nuances (and to diversions) then to discuss the CM threatens, after Roskill sentences have been posted here.....


Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ all,

Alberto is absolutely right, now all is clear thanking Stephen Roskill, a great historian.

Not only he provided the correct way to read this " regrattable aftermath ", but he provided us with his notes the very important supporting references of what he was stating.

Now we can search for more details, but the frame and the persons involved on all this shameful occurrence are cleraly defined.

More, thanking Stephen Roskill now we know also why and in which way some documents never reached us.

Bye Antonio

[Cag]

Hi All

Hi Alberto I agree, but then it was not I who diverted the discussion.

Tom Phillips was VCNS in the operations room in May 41 and he was also on the compass platform of PoW on the 10th December. The phrase 'a certain' could also be phrased the 'self same' for example.

It implies nothing especially blame. If Leach followed Phillips orders, his S.O. on Dec 10th, and those of Holland and Wake-Walker, his S.O.'s on the 24th, it certainly shows he did his duty and followed orders.

The facts remain,
He could not immediately re-engage Bismarck with Y turret inoperable (unknown to the Admiralty at that time).
He could not later if, as we know his immediate S.O. on the scene backed up by his C in C, regarded a re engagement as tactically unwise with a lone battleship with the distinct possibility of pushing Bismarck away from Tovey and the HF (known to the Admiralty from signals sent)
Despite this he did re engage and fired 14 further salvos at Bismarck (known to the Admiralty during the course of the pursuit).

As I say I will visit and let you know what I find.

Best wishes
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

"Cag wrote: "The facts remain......"

Hi Mr.Cag,
yes the facts remain: Capt. Leach, "in Time of Action, improperly withdrew from the Fight" (Naval Discipline Act) when already effectively engaged after sustaining "superficial damages" (his words) and, consequently, he should have been inquired (as Pound''s words at the Cabinet clearly indicated) and possibly Court-Martialed, but, again, this is not the thread topic at all.

Antonio Bonomi wrote: "Now we can search for more details, but the frame and the persons involved on all this shameful occurrence are clearly defined.More, thanking Stephen Roskill now we know also why and in which way some documents never reached us."

Hi Antonio,
I totally agree: thanks to the final confirmation by Roskill, the CM threatens are now clearly established as facts, as well as the common process of "weeding" the official records.....


Bye, Alberto

[Cag]

Hi All

Hi Alberto, you really confuse me, if you want Leach charged for withdrawal ok fine.

But the fact remains the Admiralty did not!

Best wishes
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Mr.Cag,
you are right, they did not but the fact remains they threatened to do so !

There is nothing confusing, except for the ones that have tried to sustain until now, against any logic and any evidence, that the CM "saga" was just an anecdotal story.


Bye, Alberto

[Cag]

Hi All

Hi Alberto no. If you 're read the whole of this discussion including Antonios posts you must see that the charge that was threatened was,

Failing to re engage Bismarck with PoW after Hood was sunk,

not as you suggest withdrawal from the action. If you look back I'm sure you'll see your error.

Best wishes
Cag.