The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

Marc, ... they are not in Abbey Road, ...

I think that being on the main deck of the HMS Prince of Wales that "music" was played by Winston, Dudley, Jack and John.

It is very interesting and particular to see the 4 of them all together on board the PoW on early August 1941.

Here you have the page 333 of Adm 205/10 letter sent by the First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Albert Victor Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough, to the Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.

333

Prime Minister,

the minute of the War Cabinet meeting on the 2nd June ( W.M. (41) 56th Conclusions, Item 1 ) state : that a full report would be made regarding certain aspects of the BISMARCK action which, PRIMA FACIE, seemed to require explanation.

We have now received, and had time to study the Commander in Chief’s full account of the action, and are therefore in a position to comply with the Cabinet minute if necessary.

In view, however, of the time which has gone by, and of your own very full discussions with the Commander in Chief and Captain Leach about the conduct of the action, you may consider that it would not now be worth while for us to put in a report to the Cabinet.

A. V. A. ( Albert Victor Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough )

25 September 1941

333_04.png (95.66 KiB) Viewed 756 times

British_Political_Personalities_1936-1945_HU59482.jpeg (58.4 KiB) Viewed 756 times

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._V._Ale ... llsborough


Now do you think there is any correlation between the previous photo on board PoW and Sir Alexander page 333 statement of September 25, 1941 ?

I mean this one :

In view, however, ...... of your own very full discussions with the Commander in Chief and Captain Leach about the conduct of the action, .....

I really have to think a lot about it, ... maybe you are right, ... maybe they must have been discussing about music, ... ... while they were having that " very full discussion " among them, ... since surely being together as the photo clearly demonstrate, ... they had a good chance to do it.

Well, ... at least nobody can try to state now that they had never been together ...

Bye Antonio

[dunmunro]

Dunmunro wrote: "We have no corroborating evidence of a CMDS threat from Admiralty sources or from any source other than Tovey."

Hi Duncan,
who else could have heard the Court-Martial threat, in your opinion ?

Of course you don't consider Churchill comment "the worst thing since Troubridge turned away from the Goeben in 1914" that is a clear menace (even a promise) of a Court Martial.

However, to make the long story short, Roskill, being an historian, knowing the RN "orthodoxy" and having spoken to Tovey, believed the story, Dunmunro does not.


Bye, Alberto

So your contention is that Pound decided to CM Leach and W-W and never mentioned it to another soul except Tovey?

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

lets recap the logic flow written into those letters, with the real events sequence.

July 5th, 1941 -> Adm Tovey incorrect dispatches were released.

July 31st, 1941 -> The Admiralty is asking for the report and Adm Am Pound response is : We will use Adm Tovey dispatches for it.

Early August 1941 -> On board PoW there is a meeting among Churchill, Pound, Tovey and Leach.

September 19th, 1941 -> Adm Pound suggested to Sir Alexander to use for the W.M. 56 point closure Barnes Admiralty acceptance response statement.

September 25th, 1941 -> Sir Alexander, wrote to Churchill and asked him is it was still necessary to put the report into the war cabinet minute, after he had a personal "very full discussion" with Tovey and Leach. He thinks it is not " worth while " than for them to put that into the report.

Bye. Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

@Antonio:
great document, that I re-post here to everybody convenience !

Alexander_Churchill_25-9-41.jpg (76.06 KiB) Viewed 725 times

This demonstrates once forever that Churchill could have been strategically very worried about Crete situation and the Conscription in Northern Ireland between May end and beginning of June, but that apparently he NEVER forgot "the worst thing since Troubridge turned away from the Goeben in 1914". Not even "Barbarossa" could have him forgetting the Bismarck episode, despite someone had tried to minimize for years......right Sean ?

We also know for sure now thanks to this official document that W.Churchill even interrogated before September 25 both Tovey and Leach (during some "VERY FULL DISCUSSIONS") about the disengagement of a British battleship, as obvious, being the Prime Minister very fond of the RN "orthodoxy". I'm happy I was not at Leach's place during these "interrogations".....

I can confirm that Tovey was on board PoW (I was a bit curious about the photo above, because I couldn't understand the caption speaking of the "Atlantic Charter Meeting" to which Tovey did not participate) , at least one day before the departure of the ship for Placentia Bay and since one day before the arrival of W.Churchill (see Wills book on Leach life). Who knows what Tovey had to tell to Leach to prepare him to these incumbent "very full discussions", possibly he phased him about what he had "written" in the despatches (my speculation only)......

Again, Antonio, a great discover!


Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

Hello everybody,

lets recap the logic flow written into those letters, with the real events sequence.

July 5th, 1941 -> Adm Tovey incorrect dispatches were released.

July 31st, 1941 -> The Admiralty is asking for the report and Adm Am Pound response is : We will use Adm Tovey dispatches for it.

Early August 1941 -> On board PoW there is a meeting among Churchill, Pound, Tovey and Leach.

September 19th, 1941 -> Adm Pound suggested to Sir Alexander to use for the W.M. 56 point closure Barnes Admiralty acceptance response statement.

September 25th, 1941 -> Sir Alexander, wrote to Churchill and asked him is it was still necessary to put the report into the war cabinet minute, after he had a personal "very full discussion" with Tovey and Leach. He thinks it is not " worth while " than for them to put that into the report.

Bye. Antonio

If I remember correctly the secretary of the war cabinet was asking whether any further report will be made , and Pound wrote "CinC's full report of this action". The full despatch was released on July 15th and forwarded to the secretary of the admiralty including the reports of CS1 (including Captain Philips report from May 28th), PoW and Suffolk.

[Cag]

Hi All

Hi Alberto and Antonio thank you for those excerpts of the letter. It shows that we are correct in thinking that the full dispatch was seen by the board members, as we know Alexander was on that board. It also shows the full dispatch was used in the decision making process.

This added to the discussions Churchill had with Leach about the action at Riviera the explanations were good enough and Churchills note of Leave it answers Alexanders question of a further report being neccessary.

Best wishes
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Cag wrote: "It also shows the full dispatch was used in the decision making process"

Hi Mr.Cag,
a too quick conclusion from your side......

We know that the Board of Admiralty received the Tovey July 5th despatches, and later answered with the Barnes minute (see pag.332). From a military viewpoint you are correct: Barnes answer to Tovey despatches closes the matter.

However now we are looking at the political decision taken regarding this regrettable aftermath (the request of the June 2nd War Cabinet was still open).


Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

Marc you are right, ... my fault , ... it was the secretary of the War Cabinet asking the report that was issued on July 5th, 1941 with all the attachments to the Admiralty.

Alberto you share a good 50% of that credit, ... ...since you are the one correctly finding Sir Alexander signature on that letter.

We need to undeline for everybody convenience that :

Home Fleet Office = Tovey

Admiralty Sea Lord Office = Pound

First Lord of the Admiralty = Admiralty board ( Pound on it too ) where Barnes was secretary = Sir Alexander

Prime Minister War Cabinet where Pound, Alexander and Churchill were present = Churchill

As someone correctly underlined we are now moving from the pure Royal Navy military aspects ( Tovey - Pound ) into the political aspects ( Alexander - Churchill ) where Stephen Roskill correctly directed us toward to.

Bye Antonio

[Cag]

Hi All

I'm afraid Alberto we are possibly coming to a few premature conclusions?

Best wishes
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Mr.Cag,
yes we are, as we haven't fully seen yet whether, following pag.333 Alexander minute, Sir W.Churchill will decide to "comply" to the request of the"War Cabinet minutes on the June 2nd" either

1) showing to the Cabinet the received "CinC account of the action" (most probably, just showing Barnes answer to them, after the "study"....) or

2) he "may consider that it would not now be worth while for us to put in a report to the Cabinet" after his "own very full discussions with the Commander in Chief and Captain Leach about the conduct of the action", thus leaving the point open forever......


Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

Marc you are right, ... my fault , ... it was the secretary of the War Cabinet asking the report that was issued on July 5th, 1941 with all the attachments to the Admiralty.

July 15th wasn't a typo.

[Cag]

Hi All,

May I ask Antonio am I correct in thinking you believe that Pound suppressed the preliminary report from Tovey?

This enabling the other reports to be gathered and prompted by Tovey and allowing the intentional alteration of the despatch.

Best wishes
Cag.

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

We also know for sure now thanks to this official document that W.Churchill even interrogated before September 25 both Tovey and Leach (during some "VERY FULL DISCUSSIONS")

They were sailing across the Atlantic on the Prince of Wales to Placentia Bay in August. After WSC made them watch "That Hamilton Woman" movie each day what would they discuss? This where the shell came in than knocked me unconscious, this is the piece of shell that we picked on the deck etc etc.

Churchill reported later that during the voyage he experienced “a strange sense of leisure which I had not known since the war began.” He was able to read a copy of C.S. Forester’s novel, Captain Hornblower R.N., which Oliver Lyttelton, minister of state in Cairo, had given him. The former First Lord of the Admiralty found the book “vastly entertaining.”

Whilst his "yacht" is being commanded by the man he apparently wanted court martialled

but that apparently he NEVER forgot "the worst thing since Troubridge turned away from the Goeben in 1914". Not even "Barbarossa" could have him forgetting the Bismarck episode, despite someone had tried to minimize for years......right Sean ?

I believe he forgot it months previously. Not long after the histrionics and about the time he was developing his excuses for the loss of Crete to present to Parliament and targeting some victims for real censure, eg Longmore.

The signature on document 333 is not:

A. V. A. ( Albert Victor Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough )

Although not very legible, and starting with an A, the last two letters are clearly CT. Probably some minor pencil pusher. It would be surprising if the First Lord of the Admiralty had nothing better to do than follow up minor bureaucratic matters which had such low priority that they had been largely forgotten/ignored for four months.

I'm always happy to see rejoicing but this is somewhat premature.

ALLELUIA !
You now admit the Court Martial threat after having all of us loosing time and patience reading your denials, mostly full of sarcastic teasing

The First Sea Lord's decision making abilities would be very poorly suited for his far ranging responsibilities if without even reading Tovey's report, he made a serious threat. I have no doubt that whilst under a barrage of righteous outrage from Tovey over the "stupidest signal ever made" and suffering the embarrassment of apologizing to his junior for Winston's ludicrous idea, and his own ineffectiveness in letting it be sent, his famous temper emerged and he said something stupid and instantly regretted about CMDS. I can easily imagine a Winstonian blast on the telephone over the 24/25th weekend which Pound was still concerned about when he offered Leach as a "tethered goat" in his pusillanimous and poorly-informed interim report. He managed Winston by then forgetting about the matter for two months until reminded by an assistant, whereupon he forgot about for a further two months.

The First Sea Lord had far more important matters on his mind than indulging Winston's flash of temper from the 24th May. If the CMDS threat had been later it might have been real, based on some secret evaluation of which apparently no trace exists. But it wasn't because it happened on the 30th May.

All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

I was writing the date correction while suddenly I realized that you were referring to the date of the Adm Tovey dispatches being received and not issued.

So, Herr Nillson, clearly you have the evidence that July 15th was the date the Admiralty received documents.

Do you mind to attach here for everybody benefit that evidence, so just as I am doing with the other documents, everybody can refer to them here in and have a complete scenario of this regrettable aftermath, using Stephen Roskill definition of it.


CAG, I am just thinking that Adm Pound rated the May 30th, 1941 received by Adm Tovey not acceptable and not usable for the W.M 56 ( 41) Item 1 minute, because in my opinion using that document it meant a sure " automatic court martial for Leach " just using Graham Rhys-Jones definition, and I agree with him. Similarly given the Hood First Board minute of Norfolk being declared at 20.000 yards from Hood and consequently at 11 sea miles from the enemy at 06:00 without having opened fire into a running battle, it meant for Wake-Walker that had signed for it, not only to go under a court martial for not having re-engaged after the battle, but also for not having engaged during the battle being in an evident condition to do it.

Obviously as I wrote many times before, by using Adm Tovey dispatches the way they have been written with the intentional and smart, misleading incorrect statements everything was resolved and nobody ( Leach, Wake-Walker and Ellis ) were not going to run the court martial risks they were surely going to run if they had declared the truth about how the events really went.

In my personal opinion Adm Tovey writing his new report ( called dispatches ) released on July 5th, 1941 checked the content of it with Adm Pound that knew the truth already anyway, ... frequently, ... in order to close the matter with no more risks.

At that point they became "partners in crime".

Thanks and bye, Antonio

[Herr Nilsson]

I never wrote received.
Tovey's own and first despatch is dated 5th July. His second dispatch contains further appendices to his first dispatch and as enclosures Reports from CS1, CS2, CS18, PoW, Rodney, Victorious, Manchester, King George and Suffolk. This despatch is dated 15th July. One can find all about it in the preface of ADM 234-509.