The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "no historian parroting the myth has ever mentioned Paffard's informed comment? "

I said serious historian, not a journalist passionate of history......

Wadinga wrote: "I know there was a threat of Board of Inquiry, the letter I found and provided to everyone here proves that threat of B of I was the only threat. "

Unfortunately for Mr.Wadinga, I know that there was a threat of Court Martial, the letter I provided to everyone here proves that threat of Court Martial as the one explained by phone.
We don't have Pound's May 28 letter to presume what literally Pound was asking to Tovey and what exactly he intended for the two timid officers.

Wadinga wrote: " I would have loved to find the May 28th letter from Pound in 178/322 but it is not there. When (if) I find it, it will appear here"

While I trust Mr.Wadinga fairness in publishing the letter (even in case CM is written in it, I'm sure he will be able to invent a fantasy excuse to deny the fact that the Admiralty was willing to punish these officers), I wonder why this letter in not in its appropriate place, together with the answer...... Another piece of truth "destroyed by burning" ?

Wadinga wrote: "No mention of Court Martials in this letter."

I personally find the word "business" even more shameful than the mere repetition of the word "Court Martial"....

BofI, CM or "business" are exactly the same of course.... a serious disciplinary investigation requested, covered-up instead and .... finally "celebrated" with decorations..... Simply unique in history, AFAIK, and well deserving the title of "saga"....


Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

This is from Churchill's Anchor:
DP to Cunningham 19 June 1941:

In the battle for the Bismarck we were both
unlucky and lucky, and I cannot remember any
48 hours in which I jumped so frequently from
great hopes to black despair. It was a sickening
moment when it was reported that Hood had
been sunk, and the partially effective Prince of
Wales who had barely got through her teething
problems was left to deal with Bismarck alone.
There is no doubt that Hood with her third salvo
got two or three hits on Bismarck and I think this
started leaks in her oil tanks ... These [FAA]
attacks must have been an example of
magnificent flying as there was a very heavy sea
running. (19)

(19) Cunningham Papers

So three weeks after the B of DS Pound was writing to the CiC Med that PoW was severely handicapped and only "...partially effective..." in her battle against Lutjen's force. DP certainly doesn't sound like a man determined to CM Leach and W-W and if anything he "...prejudged and prejudiced..." the very BofI that he did apparently ask for, knowing full well what it's outcome would have been.

This whole line reasoning that DP and Churchill were determined to CM Leach and W-W but were thwarted by Tovey's conspiracy is just so much nonsense. A and A haven't produced a shred of credible contemporary documented evidence to back up their claim.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Dunmunro wrote: " DP certainly doesn't sound like a man determined to CM Leach and W-W "

Three weeks after the battle, the covering-up process was already agreed and under way and everybody was already "celebrating" the victory.


Regarding the evidences and supports of the initial intention of the Admiralty to scrutinize Leach and W-W conduct, we have more than enough, just D&S refuse to accept what Tovey accounted several times (to Roskill and McMullen), what is plainly written in his 1941 and 1961 letters, what all historians have accepted and what even Sir Henry Leach has understood, being an experienced officer, ONLY because now this (universally accepted) episode has been proven to be the motive of the shameful alteration of facts in the subsequent official reports.....


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

I wonder why this letter in not in its appropriate place, together with the answer...... Another piece of truth "destroyed by burning" ?

Once again you are desperately blowing on the dying embers of your Conspiracy Theory, in the hope of giving it a little longer life.

Anyone who has looked at these files in any depth realises that there is a certain amount of haphazardness. We might consider that the 31st May letter truly belongs with all the other Bismarck papers to enable a full understanding, instead of being in date order with other unrelated correspondence in a completely different folio. Hopefully as more material is scanned and digitized, duplicates can be inserted into multiple "correct" places. Others might consider that so little of the letter is concerned with the easily dismissed, half-hearted threat of a Board of Inquiry only, that its proper filing is strictly by date.

If the fastidious Brockman were still alive, he might have ordered the thing very logically. On the other hand instead of doing the obvious thing when asked whether a report about something was going to be submitted and asking his correspondent what exactly it was he was expecting, he cast around and guessed, IMHO, wrongly. "It would appear...………..."

The individual file 178/322 is marked closed until 2042, as there was originally a 100 year rule on all the correspondence, no matter how trivial, but later governments have relaxed the rules. I don't know when this happened. I still believe we are the first to see this this important letter and understand its importance. Each year successive new material becomes available. A large part of folio 178, vaguely referred to by Brodhurst, are career records of RN personnel stretching way back into history.

As I have previously noted, the Navy historical office, despite the pressures of war was still chasing evidence from officers in other ships a year after the event to "fill in" information. This is hardly consistent with an imaginary, and invisible cover-up.

Someone like Brockman preserved Tovey's trenchant handwritten response on the 31st May in the official files, and unless Tovey wrote out a duplicate, no version remained in KG V . Whether Pound's letter of the 28th was ever "official" enough to make a duplicate in the Admiralty is unknown.

There is no corroboration of a Court Martial threat, in either verbal or written form to support Tovey's memory.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "There is no corroboration of a Court Martial threat, in either verbal or written form to support Tovey's memory."

As the phone call happened between Tovey and Pound only, Tovey recollections in 1961 and to McMullen (confirmed by 31 May 1941 letter) are more than enough, inconvenient as it can be for the deniers by now (of course it was not before Antonio demonstrated the intentional alteration off the reports.....).

In any case, Board of Inquiry, Court Martial or "W-W business" all clearly confirm that the Admiralty wanted to scrutinize the two timid officers conduct, while ADM 205/10 demonstrate that this was not done for opportunity reasons in wartime, based on the incorrect Tovey's despatches that were "lightly" accepted. End of the story, despite the verbose attempts to explain in a different way what happened.


Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

did anybody noticed that :

ADM 178 - Admiralty: Naval Courts Martial Cases, Boards of Inquiry Reports, and Other Papers (Supplementary Series)

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... /r/C517469

Personal letters to First Sea Lord Admiral of the Fleet Sir A Dudley P R Pound GCB-GCVD

Now the real question is :

- Why the May 28th, 1941 letter FROM Adm Pound to Adm Tovey is NOT into the ADM 205/7 as it should be ?

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... ls/r/C1914


Bye, Antonio

[wadinga]

Hello Antonio,

When somebody filing a handwritten letter from Tovey saw "Board of Inquiry" they put in 178, simple. Just like when they saw "investigation" in Alexander's memo they called it "investigation" in the index even though there wasn't one. As you will see below very little of the letter is concerned with the half-hearted suggestion for a B of I. Tovey dismisses it in just over a page and then, since it is dead as a doornail, moves on.

Maybe Pound's 28th letter was handwritten and the only copy ended up in KG V from where it would have to make its way back to the Admiralty to be filed. Maybe it was typed like the 19th July letter and a copy remains to be found.


As promised to commemorate this year's anniversary of the loss of the Hood and her fine crew, here is the 31st May 1941 letter, which I located and which I do not believe has been referenced, described, quoted from, cited or even seen by Roskill, Kennedy, Rhys-Jones, Tarrant, Brodhurst, Wills, Sir Henry Leach or anybody else who has written on the subject. It is Crown Copyright.

Notice Pound's characteristic green ink underlining on the portion where Tovey insists the havoc wrought on Bismarck by gunfire should be emphasised. This was because the only actual concern of WSC and the War Cabinet was the effectiveness of British gunnery, not imaginary concerns about any officers' actions.

If you are still withholding information, eg silver bullets or any corroboration whatsoever of Tovey's myth from any other source other than Tovey, what about showing it?












All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

thanks to Mr.Wadinga for posting the manuscript of the May 31 letter.

Wadinga wrote: "I do not believe has been referenced, described, quoted from, cited or even seen by Roskill, Kennedy, Rhys-Jones, Tarrant, Brodhurst, Wills, Sir Henry Leach or anybody else who has written on the subject."

Possibly (but it's a speculation anyway) none except Brodhurst who listed the 178 (albeit generically) in his bibliography and clearly stated:

Brodhurst_pag180.jpg (87.17 KiB) Viewed 1313 times

Brodhurst might have seen Pound May 28 letter and/or Tovey May 31 answer, he might have found references to them or he might have spoken with someone who told him about the letters....
Of course, someone find easier to say that Brodhurst invented a written threat making a gross error....
In any case his statement is now proven to be correct, as there was not only a phone call (accounted by Tovey to Roskill and McMullen) but also a written threat of the Admiralty for an investigation into the conduct of the two timid officers.

Wadinga wrote: "the only actual concern of WSC and the War Cabinet was the effectiveness of British gunnery,"

As Mr.Wadinga has tried to sustain regarding the 1961 letter of Tovey (here viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&p=76122&hilit= ... nes#p76122 ), the first argument in a letter is the most important.....therefore not the gunnery but the critic to Wake_Walker and Leach conduct. Here both the order of the argument AND the number of lines point to what was the most important argument for Tovey, the Wake_Walker "business"...

Pound just (correctly) underlined what was good for internal and external propaganda.....


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

the first argument in a letter is the most important

No doubt about that:

"I have no intention of ordering a B of I"

I guess you have counted the number of lines not about the threat (most of the letter) and compared them with the few devoted to it.

Possibly (but it's a speculation anyway)

The only speculation would be about seen

The 31st May Tovey letter has not been described, quoted, referenced or cited by any of these authors. If it had I'm sure you would tell me about it.

Thank you for reproducing the section again showing Brodhurst does not give any justification or verification for the parroting of the Court Martial story. It is just a thing he states. As I pointed out previously he misquotes and truncates Winston's "worst thing" statement, and when we look at the footnotes to Chapter 11 we find out why. Although he names three books by J Colville (WSC's secretary) in his bibliography, including Footprints in Time where the statement is actually made, he cites (footnote 13) B Mitchell Simpson's Book "Stark" as the source of the mangled version of the quote by which you set so much store.

Does he still rate as a "serious historian" when he forgets to include sources for contentious observations (CMDS and infuriated) and uses mangled and misquoting tertiary sources even when he claims access to the original? I think he should be demoted to enthusiastic amateur.


Is this

BofI, CM or "business" are exactly the same of course

an acceptance at last, there never was a threat of a Court Martial? Your co-author claims to have a "Silver Bullet", he claims such a threat was common knowledge in the Navy shortly after the War, long before Kennedy's book was published. Where is the evidence?

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "The 31st May Tovey letter has not been described, quoted, referenced or cited by any of these authors"

However Brodhurst, who has not parroted anybody as Mr.Wadinga insist to insinuate (without being able to say who was the author that said so) was the very first stating that Pound WROTE to Tovey to Court-Martial Leach and W-W .....
Therefore, either he had seen Tovey and/or Pound letter or he was told by someone about the story. Reading his book, it's easy to guess who could have told him about the written threat.
Of course, Mr.Wadinga will prefer to imagine that Brodhurst was just making a mistake, despite May 31 letter demonstrated he was simply right.....

Wadinga wrote: "I think he should be demoted to enthusiastic amateur"

a comment to be addressed to Mr.Brodhurst, by the great historian and renowned critic Mr.Wadinga.....

Wadinga dreamt: "an acceptance at last, there never was a threat of a Court Martial"

1) At least a BofI has been requested in writing as per Tovey's May 31 1941 letter (but we don't have Pound letter to understand what was Pound final intention and Tovey mentions a Court martial for himself....not very difficult to understand that a Court Martial was also mentioned by Pound in his May 28 letter....)
2) a Court Martial has been requested during the phone call as per Tovey's 1961 letter, where he explained the "background" of the aftermath to Roskill for the latter to "get to the truth", freely and with no constraints.
3) the Wake-Walker "business" was something Tovey wished not to become public, as per Tovey's 1962 letter....


BTW, despite the deniers attempt to say that the two procedures, BofI and CM were totally different, papers referring to both of them are stored in the same Admiralty file 178/322 : "Admiralty: Naval Courts Martial Cases, Boards of Inquiry Reports, and Other Businesses (ooops, I should have said "Papers") (Supplementary Series)" as they are both something else than "recognition" procedures


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

However Brodhurst, who has not parroted anybody

Since Brodhurst provides no source at all to justify his assertion of a CMDS threat, unlike authoritative authors like Kennedy I just assumed he read it in Kennedy or Roskill or on Wikipedia or on a cornflake packet or somewhere and couldn't be bothered to investigate whether the subject of his biography actually did it or not. Just as Wills couldn't be bothered to verify the story before including it his biography of Leach.

He was so sloppy with the Churchill quote, anything is possible. I think he just guessed it was written.


You wish to speculate otherwise...……………. since I mentioned Brockman But then how sloppy to forget to credit him.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: " I just assumed he read it in Kennedy or Roskill or on Wikipedia or on a cornflake packet or somewhere "

Where? Source please, not blah-blah.

Q.E.D. Mr.Wadinga is unable to say who Brodhurst "parroted" as per his insinuation.


The FACT is that Brodhurst was the very first speaking about a written threat, having both ADM 178 and ROSK in his bibliography and he is now proven (by May 31 letter) to have been right ! Too easy for Mr.Wadinga to say that he was "guessing" right.....


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

You're perfectly correct.

Q.E.D. Mr.Wadinga is unable to say who Brodhurst "parroted" as per his insinuation.

Since Brodhurst provided no specific source or reference for his allegation, I have no idea where he got the idea. In fact on reflection, given the limited detail on a very significant act on the part of his subject, we can only be sure Tovey, Kennedy or Roskill were not his source. There is no mention of a phone call, and most significantly no mention of the bulldog tenacity Tovey describes (in himself) in thrice denying the First Sea Lord's demands in the theatrical three-act verbal tussle .


Now we have the 1962 letter, with no reaffirmation of the Court Martial threat, we might reasonably speculate that Tovey is backtracking on his previous exaggeration. He would prefer no public mention of the "Wake-Walker business just in case Paffard, Bingley or Brockman or anyone else who knows the truth, as expressed in Tovey's May 31st letter, challenges the CMDS story he has exaggerated. Roskill is already "cracking" Pound many times and Tovey has enthusiastically endorsed this. He also endorses the criticism of Winston's interferences. As he always believed Wake-Walker and Leach innocent as he explained in his letter, their reputations would remain unstained despite exposure of Pound's unwarranted threat, which would only add a little to the "cracking" roskill was already delivering. Only to hide his own exaggeration, should the Wake-Walker business be suppressed, which he entreats Roskill to do.


As it happens, the evidence for the story is so weak anyway, Roskill sits on it for decades until he finds a "patsy" to release it and yet and keep him out of the flak if the truth should emerge instead from those who know. Now it is the likes of Paffard who are protecting the memory of the dead, when he stops short of remembering what he was actually told back in 1941, and fobs Kennedy off with the tale of Tovey embroidering things for dramatic effect in later life.


If I come across a pre-Brodhurst reference to a written threat I'll be in touch!

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: " I just assumed he read it in Kennedy or Roskill or on Wikipedia or on a cornflake packet or somewhere"
and the same person has just written: "we can only be sure Tovey, Kennedy or Roskill were not his source."

Mr Wadinga, a champion of consistency !
He is just in clear difficulties, countering overwhelming evidences, but he still refuses to admit that Brodhurst was the first one to "write" of a "written" threat, and that he was simply right, having had in his hands both ADM 178 and ROSK 4/17.

Wadinga wrote: "If I come across a pre-Brodhurst reference to a written threat I'll be in touch!"

Good luck to Wadinga ! I'm sure he might come across another definitive proof of the threat, as it was Tovey's May 31 letter.



Not really worth to comment on the last fantasy speculation about Tovey "backtracking" his declarations in his 1962 letter, Paffard, Roskill, Kennedy etc....... ridiculous as all his previous ones, just to deny the facts....
1962 letter shows a Tovey who is very lucid in his memories, after Mr.Wadinga was insinuating that this letter could hide the proof of what he tried to sustain....


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

Like anybody else I can reconsider. Which is what I said.

In fact on reflection, given the limited detail on a very significant act on the part of his subject,

He lists both Pursuit and Churchill and the Admirals in the bibliography but then contradicts them, and leaves out all the exciting details in Tovey's 1961 letter. But then he leaves out the source for any of his description all together. Why he wrote "wrote" instead of "Pound informed" or "Pound told" or "Pound infuriated, said" or any other turn of phrase I can't say.

After writing on p179

".....and Colville says in his diary" before misquoting and truncating him and then citing an American's book about a completely different person as the source, instead of one of the books is his own bibliography, written by Colville where the words appeared first.

Therefore, don't think precision was always Mr Brodhurst's forte and I can't believe this word "wrote" is evidence of a secret source of information, whose existence he doesn't even describe and he forgets to acknowledge. But, I for one appreciate his enthusiasm and dedication as described in the foreword, in bringing out a biography of Pound at all. Even with some flaws.

Where in Roskill 4/17 does it say written threat?



All the best


wadinga