lets make clear some definitions that here in the " deniers " at any cost are trying to confuse in order to avoid to admit what was going on between Adm Pound and Adm Tovey on May/June of 1941.
Enquiries -> Board of Inquiry -> Court of Enquiry -> trials for Court Martial -> Court Martial.
For any Officer in any country what those actions mean is clear.
It seems that here in there are persons that still like to play dummy in order to try to keep them separeted in order to hope to avoid to accept that there was a serious discussion about the conduct of 2 Royal Navy Officers soon after the Bismarck operation, ... namely Rear Adm W.F. Wake-Walker and Capt J.C.Leach, ... and the discussion between Adm Pound and Tovey on May 31st, 1941 was not about which type of decoration/medal they deserved due to their " Admirable " job.
So, lets see what those definitions mean for the Royal Navy Official Historian, from Stephen Roskill directly from his book : Naval Policy between the Wars pages 463 and 464.
Surely everybody has noticed the wording used by Stephen Roskill above : Courts of EnquiryPound had no intellectual interest or social graces; his whole life was bound up with the Navy, and his only recreations where fishing and shooting.
Admiral James writes that he was “ hard work and efficient at his job, but he failed to evoke wholehearted response from his subordinates ”, and that he “ loved schedules and Courts of Enquiry “ (note 1) an opinion with which this historian, who served under him for five consecutive years in the Mediterranean Fleet Flagship and the Admiralty 1937-41, fully agrees.
Lets see now which definitions he used on the footnote 1 of the above statement.
To be noticed that Stephen Roskill defined the trials for Court Martial being Pound addiction to Enquiries, ... knowing very well that the request of the enquiry or inquiry, ... was intended being the " starter " of the Court Martial process.
We have already analyzed what occurred to Sommerville and Wakle-Walker/Leach, ... but not yet what happened in the HMS Manchester case.
Lets see what Robin Brodhurst wrote about it on his book at page 253 :
Footnote 39 : Letter from Dan Duff to the author, 23 October 1998
Footnote 40 : S. Roskill, War at Sea Vol 2, page 306
Footnote 41 : Imperial War Museum, Whitworth papers
Here what has been done in the Manchester case from Wikipedia :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Manchester_(15)
Aftermath
Her commanding officer, Captain Harold Drew, was court-martialled due to the Admiralty's belief that the ship was still navigable and capable of reaching a neutral port.
Captain Drew was initially led to believe that he was taking part in an enquiry, and was only informed at the end of the trial that he was in fact being charged with negligence by a court martial.[3]
He was found guilty, and was reprimanded and dismissed. It was and remains a contentious decision; the ship had been crippled, and the Captain had feared the ship, including her radar gear, might fall into enemy hands. Many of the ship's crew were rescued by the Allied warships Pathfinder and Eskimo.
Others, including Nigel Malim, fell into the hands of the Vichy French and were interned at Laghouat,[4] to be released in November as a result of Operation Torch. Notably, the surviving crew members strongly supported both Captain Drew's assessment of the ship's situation and his decision to scuttle her, with one seaman stating: "We were down to 10-15% ammunition, listing at nearly 45 degrees, with one engine destroyed and not much hope of getting the other working. The Captain decided that his choices were to wait until dawn and get blown to buggery, or to save the men."
Now it should be easy by reading May 31st, 1941 letter from Adm Tovey to Adm Pound to realize what the Royal Navy First Sea Lord was asking Adm Tovey for WAke-Walker and Leach :
Was it a recognition or medal request for an " Admirable " job, ... or was it something very similar to what happened to Capt Drew of the HMS Manchester ?
Anybody should be able now to make up his mind about it, ... well before reading the Adm Tovey 1961 letter to Stephen Roskill that would disclose in detail what was going on between Adm Pound and himself on that situation.
NOTE : I will not comment intentionally on what Adm Cunningham wrote to the Royal Navy Second Sea Lord, ... but it provides very well the state of the affairs in the Royal Navy on that period.
Bye Antonio