The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

what is written black and white in the documents

War Cabinet Minutes June 2nd 1941

Attention was called to a B.B.C. broadcast made by a military officer who had been on board one of His Majesty's ships in the Bismarck action, which had given an unfavourable impression of our ships' gunnery. Enquiry was being made by the Admiralty into this matter, and a copy of the broadcast should be circulated to the War Cabinet.

A full report would also be made regarding certain aspects of the action which, prima facie, seemed to require explanation.

The War Cabinet's concern is greater over the gunnery aspect because it devotes more space to it. There is nothing to indicate in black and white what certain aspects are. Guessing what they are, nearly two months later on 31st July, "It would appear" Brockman is clearly unaware that Pound is supposed to have wanted to Court Martial or at least have a Board of Inquiry against the same two officers. Antonio and I have detailed the laborious bureaucratic process of Court Martial involving the Judge Advocate of the Fleet, and yet Brockman, Pound's personal secretary, has clearly heard nothing of this because it never happened.

he has to dig into all the subsequent assignments of the two timid officers to try to say that the confidence in their willingness to fight was untouched

I love the way you try to dismiss the contradiction between what Pound is supposed to have justifiably decided about the two officers, and what he actually did about it. Your obsession with trivial propaganda matters only thought through as far as medal awards, but you never considered the heavy responsibilities they were entrusted with after CMDS was supposed to have happened. Because you simply have no answer do you?

You have exceeded the ludicrous idea of Leach only being allowed to command Britain's newest battleship with 1500 crew because he is "supervised" by the diminutive Tom Phillips (Hold Nanny's hand while the nasty bombers attack), with your latest wheeze, Churchill lending him Mr Hornblower as a textbook on courage. Where do you get these daft ideas?

You and your co-author have built a Ziggurat of Supposition on the non-existent foundations of CMDS, a silly exaggeration invented by Tovey to make the real story more interesting and which he tried to stop Roskill exposing in 1962.

I don't think anything would be gained by referring to the Wake-Walker business and would be glad if you would leave it out.

"Would be glad" is mildly attempting to influence Roskill to suppress the truth. He does not insist, he does not demand, he does not say the story was given "off the record".

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "There is nothing to indicate in black and white what certain aspects are."

Yes, there are ADM 205/10 pag.331,332 stating what they are and these were accepted by both Alexander and Churchill, annoying as it can be for Mr.Wadinga and the deniers.
As the 1st Lord and the PM were not stupid, Mr.Wadinga pitiable attempt to re-propose the "gunnery aspects" is a waste of time. If he want to believe this way, his problem: evidences and documents state differently, to his anger.


I don't need to answer the usual mocking Mr.Wadinga definition of a serious historical work, while he is building science ficton scenarios to justify what is written in the documents (secretaries misleading the bosses, backstage cospiration of S.Roskill against Pound, Tovey inventing things, etc.....


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

Wadinga wrote: "There is nothing to indicate in black and white what certain aspects are."
Yes, there are ADM 205/10 pag.331,332

but 331 and 332 are not the War Cabinet minutes are they? They are completely separate documents written by different people, guessing what was meant two months previously. Guessing wrong IMHO.

pitiable attempt to re-propose the "gunnery aspects" is a waste of time

This is specified in the War Cabinet minutes, Court martials, Boards of Inquiry and disciplinary measures are not.

Tovey inventing things

Like an imaginary ROOF signal on the 26th or his forgetting his demand to receive only bearings on D/F. Tovey was a very inventive fellow, he invented CMDS.


I love the way you try to dismiss the contradiction between what Pound is supposed to have justifiably decided about the two officers, and what he actually did about it. Your obsession with trivial propaganda matters only thought through as far as medal awards, but you never considered the heavy responsibilities they were entrusted with after CMDS was supposed to have happened. Because you simply have no answer do you?

Serious historical work

Oh you mean the Conspiracy Theory

he has to dig into all the subsequent assignments of the two timid officers to try to say that the confidence in their willingness to fight was untouched.

That is what serious historical work looks like.


All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: " Guessing wrong IMHO. "

Luckily for him, Mr.Wadinga used the disclaimer IMHO.... as Stephen Roskill (and all subsequent serious historians) guessed the same (footnote 38 pag.313 "Churchill and the Admirals"), and their opinion is just a little bit more authoritative than his one....

Wadinga wrote: "That is what serious historical work looks like"

Sure! Like inventing the Brockmann's error that misled Pound, Alexander and Churchill , or inventing the Roskill's trick to have Kennedy publishing the story first (but then just parroting him...) .....All just because what they wrote deeply annoys Mr.Wadinga, in his "sacred crusade" to defend the honor of a couple of evidently "timid" officers of the RN.....


Historical facts: Leach was never left alone on board his ship anymore, always being "supervised" by an Admiral, while Wake-Walker was later moved to a finance position, where bravery (Santarini re. W-W: "his conduct not particularly outstanding" (pag.44) & "not sharing Nelson's spirit" pag.158) and tactical competence (Rhys-Jones re. W-W: "more a technocrat than a tactician" pag.132) were just....optional.


Bye, Alberto

[HMSVF]

What I don't get is this....

What is the big cover up ?

Is it because Wake Walker allegedly fiddled the charts to explain why he didn't engage?

Is it because the RN couldn't sink Bismarck through gunfire?

Is it because the RN tried to gloss over the loss of HMS Hood?

Is it to do with the supposed court martial?


None of these are in the league of the loss of HMS Glorious or the disaster off Slapton Sands or the German forcing of the English Channel for example. Worse than Admiral Kimmels performance at Pearl Harbor?

A lot of the evidences are quite obviously subjective and open to interpretation, hence the arguments over the few primary sources.There also seem to absolutes from a time prior to GPS and proper reliable RADAR.

I can understand for example how Harper formulated his plot for the Battle of Jutland - they found HMS Invincible at a depth of 80 meters and worked back. In the middle of the Denmark Straight however? If you look at what he achieved in 1919/1921 and compare it to the sonar map reconstructed for the 100 year anniversary it pretty damed impressive - the only ship sinking that was slightly out was HMS Indefatigable's and that could be explained.

In the middle of the Denmark Straight however? Surely there must be room for errors in positions

For example we know where HMS Hood now lies on the seabed, but do we know where exactly she sank below the surface? It's interesting that a lot of discovered wrecks are not where they supposedly sank. That comes down to 2 possibilities doesn't it? 1) That those who recorded it where out of position themselves therefore their given position for a sinking is out or 2) the wreck has drifted some distance on way down to the seabed.

There seems to be controversy in regards to POW,the damage she suffered and how well she fired. I was thinking about this on the way home the other night. Surely the guys who assessed the damage when she was back in port were in a better position to comment than somebody writing 20,30,40,50,60,70 years later. That the damage after they had cleared it away from the bridge wasn't as bad as first feared isn't that surprising. Once you have cut any broken instrumentation and removed/washed out what was left of the bridge crew you can more properly assessment. It doesn't matter what we, Churchill or Pound think. Neither we or they were there. Leach knew his ship and knew his crew and knew the limitations. He was the man on the spot who had to make a decision. He was not there to be a Hors d'oeuvre for Bismarck. All his talk of valour is redolent of an earlier age of ships of the line and cutlass's . The strategic picture in 1805 was far different to 1941 as well - in 1805 we had many ships off the line. In 1941 we had 14 and 7 of them were crocks. Discretion really is the better part of valour sometimes.

The biggest issue is that those who could answer a lot of the questions have long since passed away. Pounds diaries no longer exist apparently so we are left with scraps and pieces of a jigsaw that can never be put back together in all likelihood. Making your own pieces to fit doesn't mean that you have recreated the picture or filled in the gaps - you may have the correct shape but not the part of the image to make the puzzle whole.

Of course there may well other snippets out there which can add weight to an argument. It may never solve it, but it may give more weight to a school of thought. IMHO cases can not be stated to be closed. There are too many variables. The discovery of HMS Hoods wreck didn't really tell us why she blew up - just that she did. Why ? Well the evidence went with her in the explosion and when those who witnessed it passed away. And witness testimony as I have said before should be treated with a degree of circumspect. Some of the "trusted" witness statements have turned out to be wrong some of the so called unreliable ones right. For instance a seaman who said that HMS Ark Royal's bow broke off at the surface and said she had a pretty huge hole in her side was called unreliable and a bit of a fantasist... Guess what they found on discovering HMS Ark Royals wreck... Yep,a separated bow...



Just my musings.

(Donning the battle bowler for the incoming fire! )


HMSVF

[dunmunro]

Historical facts: Leach was never left alone on board his ship anymore, always being "supervised" by an Admiral

Show us proof (such as a directive to the admiral) that the admiral was there to supervise Leach. Do you really think this kind of reasoning is going to lend any credibility to your case? I'm certain that anyone who might have taken you and Antonio as serious naval historians has now completely abandoned that idea, and now consider you both as hopeless crackpots.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi HSMVF,
don't worry, everybody can express his opinion without insulting and being treated with respect here. Some people has forgotten this rule and they are now treated as they deserve, as the poor one above, unable to read a War Diary and even to understand what an admiral on board means for any commanding officer in terms of freedom of action.

you wrote: "What is the big cover up ? "

The cover-up is treated in detail in this (long) thread (that I suggest you to read if interested) http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6799.

Summarizing, it is IMO very difficult to believe that point 19 of Admiral Tovey despatches were not intentionally written the way it was not to provide justifications to Leach, increasing PoW "resistance" against Bismarck from 2 (Tovey had already sent a report in which he stated "a couple of minutes") to 13 minutes before retreating and "astutely" inserting "Y" turret jamming as a battle damage before the decision to disengage.
Similarly it is difficult to believe that point 17 was not written to take out Wake-Walker's cruiser from the battlefield, giving a very "misleading" approximate distance at a certain hour in the night, instead of specifying where they were at 05:41, just before the battle.
In addition there is Wake-Walker estimated distance from Hood suspect change from 20.000 to 30.000 yards at the two boards, an intentionally wrong "Plot" (created by Pinchin just before the second board), intended to enlarge the battlefield (even at the cost of leaving known traced bearings "cut" in the middle of the sea). Also Ellis real-time messages and his final report are not fully in line.

Barnes acceptance of Tovey's report clearly says that Leach and Wake-Walker's conduct was judged correct in view of what was written in the despatches...

you wrote: "In the middle of the Denmark Straight however? Surely there must be room for errors in positions "

David Mears located the wreck of the Hood based on the last position transmitted by BC1, thanks to his navigating officer's almost perfect work.The battlemap reconstructed by Antonio in these years is perfectly putting together the tracks of the ships and (with the obvious tolerances) provide aclear picture of the battle, including distances, bearings and timings.
None has been able to propose an alternative, only to criticize one or another milestones in this battlemap...

you wrote: "There seems to be controversy in regards to POW,the damage she suffered and how well she fired."

Leach himself stated that the battle damage were "superficial", the compass platform was back in action few hours after the battle, her (not bad) fire has been analyzed by Adm.Santarini in his book and in this forum too, her Gunnery Officers sent a boy to the Captain with the message "Guns are ok" and as a result she damaged Bismarck quite seriously....
Leach "decision" to immediately turn away was right, but with hindsight only. Had Bismarck continued her mission, sunk merchantmen , etc. he could not have avoided a court-martial.


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello HMSVF,

You asked:

What I don't get is this....

What is the big cover up ?

Is it because Wake Walker allegedly fiddled the charts to explain why he didn't engage?

Is it because the RN couldn't sink Bismarck through gunfire?

Is it because the RN tried to gloss over the loss of HMS Hood?

Is it to do with the supposed court martial?

It is to do with the last one. A & A have fabricated a case with a lot of extrapolated "evidence" to explain away the ridiculous idea that Pound had identified real cowardice and incompetence in W-W and Leach even before they reached harbour or any reports had been seen. Determined to destroy these guilty parties he immediately demanded they be Court martialled. However after a minor difference of opinion on this with Tovey, he suddenly changed direction, gave the supposed miscreants additional challenging responsibilities, allowing them to continue in post until the end of their lives.


Originally this was apparently based solely on the promoters' intuition and on some minor and inconsequential differences between Tovey's interim report and his final report and the idea that Tovey and Wake-Walker cooked this up between them. Sometime in the last few months/years suddenly Pound became part of the Conspiracy, apparently because it would be bad PR for the RN if known cowards and incompetents were identified, even if he was personally happy to promote them. Since then pretty much everybody in the Admiralty Board has been implicated too with the object of convincing Winston (and the people) everything was fine. When it wasn't.


If you had asked "Why the allegation of a Cover-Up" that would be more illuminating If you got a straight answer it probably be to create and sustain the most successful "troll" of all time. .

Hello Alberto,

(and all subsequent serious historians) guessed the same (footnote 38 pag.313 "Churchill and the Admirals"),

since Roskill could find nothing in the 205/10 worth quoting to support Tovey's uncorroborated allegation, no later historians had referred to them directly either. He just glossed over it as a conversation.

He also didn't quote from the June 2nd Cabinet meeting because there is no evidence there either.

I am very pleased with my postulation of Brockman's Error. "It would appear". With two frenetic months of activity since the War Cabinet had asked for a report about "something", nobody knew what they were on about. Brockman's innocent guess restarted a concern in Pound's mind that Churchill was harbouring a grudge, which would be tricky when he stepped aboard PoW in less than a weeks' time. In fact Winston had forgotten about it months ago, but despite everything being fine and dandy between PM and Captain, indefatigable bureaucrats goaded Pound in September into killing the paper trail once and for all, which he did via Alexander.

Wake-Walker was later moved to a finance position

No he was not an accountant, he was Third Sea Lord just as Bruce Fraser was, before he went back to sea and efficiently sank another German battleship for minimum British casualties. Wake-Walker spent four months as the effective commander of the Home Fleet striking at German forces in Norway and giving succour to Britain's new allies against the Nazis.

Leach was honoured to have his vessel selected for flagship service. I am astonished at your unqualified claim that a Captain is reduced to passenger status when a Flag Officer is aboard.

All the best

wadinga

[northcape]

HMSVF,

You are getting in the same trap, which is reacting on a factual basis to clown-like conspiracy theorists. Like I mentioned before, you cannot argue with conspiracy theorists (this is still a polite description). They drag you on their lower level and beat you with expertise in sillyness and in twisting of the truth.

It has been shown on countless occassions how Alberto omits certain facts and mixes unrelated events to propose his theory. Much more, he follows a classical stragety in the fake-news businness, which is (1) presenting an opinion, (2) indicating there is a fact which is supporting this opinion, and (3) showing some unrelated "original document" as the fact which in reality has has nothing to do with the presented opinion.

The most recent example is referenced below:

"Mr.Wadinga post is, as usual, his long verbose fantastic interpretation of facts, without any evidence, therefore I post again what Roskill wrote to Kennedy (without his personal insults to North) to show how Kennedy was a very poor historian, biased against Pound while Roskill, despite his personal feelings, could see the historical truth that annoys Mr.Wadinga, trying to convince Kennedy to be more impartial:" (Followed by the letter from Roskill to Kennedy)

The opinion (1) is that Kennedy is a very poor historian. The indicated fact (2) is that Roskill expressed this opinion in the letter as well. The unrelated fact (3) is the letter.
Whoever reads this letter, cannot find the sligthest evidence that Roskill thought that Kennedy is a "very poor historian". Zero. This is just a conversation between the two men where Roskill expresses his views on the matters of Pound etc.

As said, classical fake-news strategy.

I find it also slightly appalling that Kennedy who by all accounts was the personification of an excellent journalist (=do your research, check the facts, present the relevant and accountable information) has to be called names by armchair-wannabe-historians. Why I use the latter strong word? Well, for example as outlined by several other people (e.g. see the latest post by Bill Jurens) and also myself, if I'm so immodest, it is absolutely naive and futile to reconstruct battle maps of this period with an accuracy of seconds or even minutes. Anybody with common sense or at least some minimal understanding of technical processes in this historical context would be aware of this.

[HMSVF]

You have exceeded the ludicrous idea of Leach only being allowed to command Britain's newest battleship with 1500 crew because he is "supervised" by the diminutive Tom Phillips (Hold Nanny's hand while the nasty bombers attack)

It was highly unlikely that Phillips would have chosen HMS Repulse as flagship for Force Z short of some catastrophic failure in HMS Prince of Wales isn't it?
As one of the two newest warships in the RN she was always going to be taken up by an admiral for flagship duties surely?

If Leach was that bad (which I don't think he was in any way) wouldn't he have been moved to another vessel? I suppose this goes with the argument that things were swept under the carpet. Thing is,I can't see either Pound (or Churchill for that matter) allowing him to captain the RN's premiere battleship in such a high risk strategy as sending Force Z to Singapore - especially with an admiral that had yet to see any sea time yet in Phillips.

Surely any hand holding would be the other way round as Leach not only had been in action against the Bismarck but also saw recent action in Operation Halberd. His experience would have been invaluable - he had seen not only surface action but repeated air attack (in Halberd).
His performance off Kuantan was as much about initial bad luck than anything else. The first hit could not have been any worse.The shaft damage pretty much opened POW up like a tin opener down her shaft alley. Add in the fact that the KGV's had been already noted as being under ventilated ,the ammunition separation issue on the the pom pom's and an Admiral who made a bad call in to asking for help a lot earlier than he actually did.

He certainly recognised the huge odds he faced with Force Z- his son testified to that.


Best wishes


HMSVF

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi HMSVF,
thanks for your answer.
I agree with you: Phillips choice of PoW as flagship was logical (not automatic, however, I think there are precedents where the flagship was not the strongest or the newest ship) but Leach had other admirals on board (he was never alone anymore) and this is a fact (possibly insignificant, but still a fact). It is not sufficient to demonstrate that his consideration in the Admiralty had fallen, but surely does not support the opposite.....

I'm very happy to see that there is no other comment (except this minor one) from your side about my post to you (http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopi ... 725#p78837 )as I feel I have listed facts only (the intentional sugar-coating of the reports/documents, the exact location of the Hood wreck according to her last transmitted position and the PoW firing and damages, much more important topics, that (as usual) provoked the hysterical reaction of some "hooligans".

Wadinga wrote "I am very pleased with my postulation of Brockman's Error". "

Mr.Wadinga is happy to have invented his own way of reading these pages that is not what Brockmann, Pound, Alexander and Churchill all understood, and that Roskill confirmed (as any other historian or sane person would have).....
I would really like to see how many deniers are in agreement with this personal fantastic interpretation of some crystal clear pages, in order to rubbish them one by one, by (nick)name ( ), in the preface of our next publication: I do think the "deniers at any cost" do deserve a paragraph in it to show how the resistance to the truth is alive after 75+ years.

an insulting poor person wrote: "As said, classical fake-news strategy."

....no contribution, no evidence, as usual, from this guy, only insults based on his wrong interpretation of what I wrote....



Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

I agree with you: Phillips choice of PoW as flagship was logical (not automatic, however, I think there are precedents where the flagship was not the strongest or the newest ship) but Leach had other admirals on board (he was never alone anymore) and this is a fact (possibly insignificant, but still a fact). It is not sufficient to demonstrate that his consideration in the Admiralty had fallen, but surely does not support the opposite.....


Bye, Alberto

The above is just pure trolling by a well established and practised troll. It is not a suggestion that anyone serious about naval history could even contemplate for a moment. It is a ludicrous, absurd, statement.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

NO it is a fact, annoying this guy: Mr.Dunmunro MUST NOW show in which war operation Leach was left alone, without an admiral onboard, after the Bismarck operation.

If only he was ever serving in the Navy, that he apparently never did, he would know very well how a Captain feels regarding his autonomy when an Admiral is present on board his ship.....


Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

Hello everybody,

NO it is a fact, annoying this guy: Mr.Dunmunro MUST NOW show in which war operation Leach was left alone, without an admiral onboard, after the Bismarck operation.

If only he was ever serving in the Navy, that he apparently never did, he would know very well how a Captain feels regarding his autonomy when an Admiral is present on board his ship.....


Bye, Alberto

No, you have to show that the RN had unresolved concerns about Leach but left him in command of their most modern battleship anyways and you'll have to show that Curteis and Phillips were given orders to "supervise" Leach or words to that effect. Anyone serious about naval history would never even contemplate such an ignoramus idea, much less put it forward for serious discussion.

[HMSVF]

I'm very happy to see that there is no other comment (except this minor one) from your side about my post to you (http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopi ... 725#p78837 )as I feel I have listed facts only (the intentional sugar-coating of the reports/documents, the exact location of the Hood wreck according to her last transmitted position and the PoW firing and damages

From reading the info on the Hood Association it still took Mearn's 6 years of research and 39 hrs of searching the seabed to find her. Obviously they had a ball park idea of where she was, but as the team who found Hood have (rightly) kept the exact coordinates a secret we don't know exactly where she lays , in relation to where the RN recorded she sank (allowing for all the variables mentioned in previous posts - current in the Denmark Straits, amount of drift,depth fallen). Thats why I was interested in regards to Mr Jurens comments about the conning tower going straight down - as perhaps that would given the nearest position to where Hood left the surface.

I still don't see the RN allowing a captain - who they think to be "lacking" to continue running the RN's newest battleship in wartime. It just doesn't make sense. POW was going to see action ,she wasn't going to be plodding along like one of the 'R' class battleships on far off trade routes. She would have been put in harms way. If it hadn't have been Force Z she would have been escorting Artic Convoys or perhaps as Force H. Given the fact that she was such a high value unit why would stick with a captain you have no faith in? They would have sidelined him, he would have been "offered" either a desk job or command of a non important vessel in a non important area.

Also forgive me if I am wrong but it's the captains duty to run the ship and the admirals duty to run the squadron and handle tactical issues isn't it? Im not surprised that Leach had several admirals on board. At the time POW and KGV were the newest battleships Britain had. It would be more surprising if she hadn't had several admirals aboard her during her service..


Best wishes

HMSVF