The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

[wadinga]

Hello Antonio,

You wrote:

No doubts about it, .. as somebody at the proper level wrote at the time :

" ... I do not think there is any doubt that had Bismarck not being sunk the question of wheter the shadowing was adequately performed the night they gave us the slip would have come accutely to the fore ... "

Bye Antonio

You have been unco-operative in giving any more of it.

Guess how I know the wheter misspelling is your work and the accutely is not.

As a British taxpayer I own the National Archives. It is not your property and you cannot withhold it from me, or the wider world or edit, distort or misrepresent their content to serve your purposes.

Now we need the 1962 Tovey-Roskill letter.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "As a British taxpayer I own the National Archives...."

Luckily the "taxpayers" do NOT own the DS battle historical truth, that has been revealed by the relentless researches of Antonio Bonomi....

This arrogant taxpayer, despite "owning" the archives, is unable/unwilling to understand their content, even pretty easy written (and signed at the highest levels) documents, like the ADM 205/10 papers..... Some other taxpayers (e.g. Roskill, Correlli-Barnett, Rhys-Jones and Brodhurst) were.
He is good at correcting English spelling, but he is unable/unwilling to see the SEVERE implicit criticism behind a crystal clear sentence like " ... I do not think there is any doubt that had Bismarck not being sunk the question of wheter the shadowing was adequately performed the night they gave us the slip would have come accutely to the fore ... " and its implications against Wake-Walker and Ellis, had Bismarck survived.

He seems even unable to find information in the archives, because he is petulantly requesting easy to find documents, while we are able to locate them ourselves (despite we don't pay taxes in UK.... ) when he is uncooperative, like for Tovey May 31 letter....


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello All,

I'll post the material Antonio is withholding, on the "Criticism" thread. Like the maps I reproduced earlier it will be the undoctored version, showing more than the variety where Antonio removes that material which contradicts his assertions. The unattributed excerpt we have been allowed to see comes from a friendly and lengthy letter from Pound to "My Dear Tovey".

and leave this area clear for "relentless re-imaginings"

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,
I would post it in the "Loss of Contact (May 24/25)" to show how much " admirable" the shadowing had been judged by Pound....


Bye, Alberto

[Byron Angel]

Just curious about the large amount of surviving correspondence and archival documentation that relates to this court martial matter. If an elaborate political cover-up of a threatened court martial was in play, would such material not have been destroyed or suppressed? The UK (IIRC) still has a 100 year rule covering sequestration of "sensitive" archival documents. The fact that this material has since found its way into the hands of so many historians and authors puzzles me.

Thoughts?

Byron

[Alberto Virtuani]

Byron Angel wrote: " If an elaborate political cover-up of a threatened court martial was in play, would such material not have been destroyed or suppressed?"

Hi Byron,
possibly some was, but we will never be sure that this was done in relation to the "cover-up" , that was agreed instead upon Tovey's incorrect final report (despatches), in a quite "open" way.

From Churchill Archives related to Pound documentation:

Pound_Correspondence.jpg (7.37 KiB) Viewed 1487 times

Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Byron,

Just a small matter, but there is no contemporary correspondence or archival documentation that refers to this Court Martial business at all. The contemporary material we have, refers only to the threat of a Board of Enquiry, and was not prosecuted beyond a tentative suggestion to Tovey, instantly quashed, permanently, by him.

All the correspondence which refers to this Court Martial business, dates from 1961 and later.

We cannot know the nature of the material burnt by Cunningham and Blake. It is unlikely to be government records which were protected by the bureaucracy and were not Pound's property to be disposed of by his friends. According to Brodhurst, Pound had a lady friend in London who he used to visit after a stressful day, maybe they concerned her.

The "Loss of Contact" thread is too tainted with hindsight and the biased intuitions on technical matters of people with no relevant experience, to have genuine contemporary material added to it.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "there is no contemporary correspondence or archival documentation that refers to this Court Martial business at all."

FALSE !
The May 31 letter REFERS explicitly to a Court Martial for the actions of Tovey himself.

We cannot know what was destroyed in Pound papers and we don't know the exact wording of Pound threat in his May 28 letter.
Mr.Wadinga insinuations about the "lady" are just his own additional speculations, as usual.
The only certain FACT is that Pound's May 28 letter to Tovey is NOT available (yet) to us....

Luckily, we have Tovey 1961 letter to Roskill, confirmed by McMullen interview, to "get at the truth" (as Tovey wrote) and to shed an historical light over the threat menaced by Pound in his phone call, for Mr.Wadinga impotent anger.


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

This thread refers solely to Court Martial threats to Wake-Walker and/or Leach. Why not start a separate threat for Tovey's rhetorical offer to be Court Martialled himself?

Unluckily, we have no confirmation of the 1961 letter from the 1962 letter which you continue to withhold. Is there something in it or Roskill's annotations which undermine the whole concept? We will find out soon enough.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "we have no confirmation of the 1961 letter"

FALSE !
We have McMullen interview confirming it. This guy likes to write incorrect statements just to muddle waters.

Unfortunately, he cannot accept that a Court Martial threat was actually done at least during the phone call (if not also in writing, as stated by Brodhurst, biographer of Pound.... ), but he lacks any proof of his denial: Tovey's 1961 letter and McMullen's interview are more than enough to prove the CM threat, as accepted by all serious historians and by any open minded person, except by Mr.Wadinga himself....


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

We have McMullen interview confirming it

McMullen merely confirms Tovey told the same story to him, as he told to Roskill, about the same time. That is not confirmation, merely consistency.

Tovey does not confirm his 1941 letter in his 1961 letter, therefore he is inconsistent when remembering things from 20 years before. We have no idea whether he was consistent in his 1962 letter, since you withhold it. I can only assume that you continue to withhold it because it does not align with your "intuitions", that in a candid moment, you have revealed are your motive for this whole tiresome charade.

The deniers will always feel the need to restore the wrong "official version" of facts and they will not allow anyone to have a single doubt about their "winners" version of facts.

Brodhurst may state, but provides no citation, therefore no actual evidence. He does have evidence of Pound's association with Lady Poynton, see page 123, so it is not my insinuation, I only said maybe some of his papers referred to her.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "this whole tiresome charade"

Mr.Wadinga was offered twice (by Paul Mercer) the chance to retire without further disgrace, but he preferred to continue this VERY tiresome charade, animated by his ridiculous crusader agenda.... His decision.


Tovey 1941 letter answers a written request from Pound, Tovey 1961 letter explain to an historian how things really went. Both must be considered fully reliable as they were by Roskill and Brodhurst (among all the others). Mr.Wadinga should find a proof that Tovey was misremembering the phone call or...better....he should shut up.

Wadinga wrote: "Brodhurst may state, but provides no citation"

Mr Wadinga should tell this to Brodhurst, if he thinks he is a better historian than him.... Brodhurst had all evidences in his hands, including Tovey 1941 and 1961 letters.


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

The tiresome element is provided by you and your co-author constantly reposting secondary sources. I attempt to enliven things by posting new original material. There is only one agenda at work here, and it is not a crusade, it is more of a jihad.

Here the only fairy tale (that has been "imposed" by the "winners" for 75+ years) is Kennedy's novel, full of heroes, honorable decisions and consensus from British side.

Why nobody, among the deniers, reacted when, in the movie "Sink the Bismarck", Lutjens was depicted as a Nazi fanatic, without any supporting evidence ?

Every time you post you make your hidden programme more obvious. There has never been a search for truth, only an attempt to get a miasma of baseless assertions into discussion, as if it had some substance and deserved to be treated seriously. Even on a site dedicated to the Bismarck's history you have not accumulated any support, because the percipient people who visit here have also identified your hidden programme and rewriting history from your biased position is not acceptable to them either.

Speaking of sources, Brodhurst does not quote or cite either of Tovey's letters. I see no reason to believe that any author has seen the 31st May letter which I posted here.

BTW I have no intention of "shutting up".

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "The tiresome element is provided by you and your co-author constantly reposting secondary sources"

FALSE !
He has just provided a single (relevant) letter from 1941 while I have provided the 1961 one (plus others, not relevant) and Antonio Bonomi has provided the ADM 205/10 pages that definitely proved the "aftermath".
Mr.Wadinga is even unable to see that all these are primary sources !
Everybody who has written about this operation has been able to understand the reality, Mr.Wadinga is not.... he should really think about this.

Wadinga wrote: "There has never been a search for truth"

For sure not from his side, happy with a 75 years old fairy tale (invented by the winners to celebrate even the ones who did not deserve to be celebrated), being a very biased RN hooligan, for his own admission "devoted" (his words) to defend a couple of timid officers instead of being exigent against people that did not honored their uniform....

Wadinga wrote: "Brodhurst does not quote or cite either of Tovey's letters.I see no reason to believe that any author has seen the 31st May letter which I posted here."

The files containing BOTH letters are mentioned in his bibliography, had Mr.Wadinga taken the time to check: what a pity for him, he was arrogantly thinking to have been the first one to see this letter !


After having been ridiculed in the past for his denial of the DS battle reconstruction, unable to counter geometry and bearings, and after having been cornered by the blatant alteration of the reports done after the operation, this guy now denies the "disciplinary action", quibbling over terminology and (what is worse) he attempts to offend and attack personally, insinuating a hidden agenda in people that ONLY use official documents or published books to demonstrate their thesis (while he had independently invented incredible stories about secretaries misleading their bosses, typo errors, memory failures, etc etc).

Very tiresome and petulant indeed !


Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

.... Brodhurst had all evidences in his hands, including Tovey 1941 and 1961 letters.

So why did all historians never find any evidence of a "cover up"? I mean to say you cite them and praise them, but all of them are criticising Pound and Phillips and not Wake Walker and Leach and Tovey. IMHO that's just one of several "plot holes".