The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

[Alberto Virtuani]

Cag wrote: "is it possible for you to answer the questions I asked not answer questions i did not? "

Hi Mr.Cag,
respectfully, this observation is for yourself . You ask tons of questions to me and you don't answer, (just now, at my THIRD reminder you answer one question (Ellis) only, see point 4).

Still I wait your answer and concurrence that Tovey point 19 is intentionally written to change well known facts....

Answers for you, SHORTLY (they are all covered already!) :
1) Correct, until around 8:30.
2) Correct, Leach was under W-W command.
3) Correct
4) Do you think a court-martial (in which W-W was defending himself with the excuse that his mission was shadowing) would NOT have dig into the circumstances the Rear Adm lost touch ?
5) The initial idea to court martial BOTH for not re-engaging is obviously before receiving the detail reports about the engagement. If decision was to actually prosecute BOTH, then also the dis-engagement would have been looked at. Don't you think so ? Else only W-W would have been menaced....


Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ all,

here you have Stephen Roskill note 73 on his book on complete format :

Roskill_73_note_01.jpg (105.75 KiB) Viewed 694 times

As you can read Roskill was talking about Adm Pound " addiction to enquiries " and among other real examples he is using a " more clear cut case " to define the Denmark Strait Court Martial unsuccesfull initiative between Adm Pound and Adm Tovey, ... referencing before the Sommerville action in the Mediterranean, ... and after the HMS Manchester.

Bye Antonio

[Cag]

Hi All

Hi Alberto, again did you read my post? If you do you will see my answer to your question regarding Ellis or if you missed that, it is there I assure you apologies if it was not clear.

Did you also read where Ellis decries the lack of Admiralty planning for flank marking gunnery and fleet coordination?

So in all honesty if you believe WW should have faced charges for moving his ships together, that is your prerogative, but according to what I've seen it was not in the thoughts of the Admiralty, see Antonio's post above as regards the proposed charge mentioned

So there may be progress, if we agree that Leach could not engage until 08.30, he could not after that being under the command of WW and did in fact despite this he did re-engage Bismarck twice more that is important and helpful thank you.

Do we agree that Leach would no doubt have read both the Admiralty signal and WW reply?

Do we agree that, if it was felt neccessary, both Tovey and the Admiralty could have sent a signal to PoW 'engage Bismarck' and this would have freed Leach from obeying the commanding officer on the scene?

Do we agree that just like Lindemann overruling Lütjens in the open fire anecdote, it would have been wrong for Leach to have gone against his CO's orders?

Antonio the pieces you have posted are a great help thank you, it shows that it is thought that Pound proposed to have WW and Leach court martialed for not re-engaging Bismarck after Hood had been sunk. This is also important.

So If we all more or less agree on the above 3 points, then it shows that for Leach it would have been fraught with problems to build a case for cowardice or undue hesitation in the face of the enemy.

For Wake-Walker his case would be based on his tactical deliberations and opinion regarding the tactical and material (as far as PoW is concerned) reasons given by him.for not re-engaging and push Bismarck away from the HF.

Now if we agree to a lot of the points above (those already agreed) we can see a plausible logical reason why a proposed court martial did not take place for at least Captain Leach, even if you don't agree about WW.

If this is so you can then perhaps either believe that a cover up or embellishment was or was not done, that it was or was not done to add to these already existing mitigating circumstances to make sure a CM was or was not carried out, that is up to you and is your own valid opinion.

Best wishes
Cag.

[wadinga]

Hello Antonio,

As I suspected from the slightly breathless prose this material is itself a footnote and therefore is not required to justify its sources- with a further footnote. He therefore does not quote what Tovey's letters contained or date them.

He is less sure Pound was the instigator of the Somerville Board of Enquiry in his 1977 book Churchill and the Admirals (a great read- buy it!) The footnote on p 170 says

Admiral Sir William Davis, who was in Plans Division and serving on the Joint Planning Staff at the time is quite certain that the initiative in sending out Lord Cork came from Churchill; but Alexander's papers [A V Alexander First Lord of Admiralty- politician] make it plain that he, naturally took the executive action about ordering the inquiry.

To me the use of the "clear-cut" means he thought neither Churchill nor Alexander were involved in the alleged CMDS threat, ie it was a better example of Pound's "addiction to enquiries".

What I am surprised about is the idea that the loss of HMS Manchester would not have not have occasioned a Court Martial. Such a proceeding for a surviving commanding officer is, I believe, mandatory, even if no mismanagement is imagined. Roskill's point here is surely that the minute of an opinion by Pound as First Sea Lord would unduly influence what is supposed a "fair trial" and which might consider more evidence than that available at the time the comment was made.

Somerville was informed, whilst still at sea, that a Board of Enquiry into his actions was being convened. Nothing similar happened at Denmark Straits. There is no documentary evidence to suggest a Board of Enquiry was set in motion. In line with the example above such an executive instruction would have come not from Pound, but from Alexander. Only once the Board of Enquiry had reported would a move to Court Martial occur. In the case of Norris, Pound's despatch vessel captain, referred to above, even though the Board of Enquiry exonerated him, Pound as C in C Med, still insisted on a Court Martial.

Interestingly, according to Roskill, C and Ads, the mission of the Somerville Board descended into farce, as Churchill, Pound and Alexander attempted to stop what they had set in motion because, firstly they considered they could replace Somerville summarily anyway with no fuss, and secondly the Italian propaganda machine was presenting their high speed fleet withdrawal to air cover safety as a naval victory, and it would look like confirmation if the British Admiral were dismissed. He writes:

Somerville wrote to Cunningham that Cork [Head of Board of Enquiry] had "asked me not to be too hard on the Admiralty, and said there were people inside and out of it (Tom [Phillips] and Winston ready to raise their voices without any knowledge of the facts......I believe he thinks the whole thing was bloody outrage!"

In the end Somerville remained in post, added further lustre to his achievements through the following year and then made the wounding strike that put Tovey in a position to render the killing blow to Bismarck.



All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Cag wrote: "did you read my post? If you do you will see my answer to your question regarding Ellis or if you missed that, it is there I assure you apologies if it was not clear. "

Hi Mr.Cag,
sorry, it's YOU who HAVE NOT read my question. For the one involving Ellis account, I already said you answered. Still I do think that based on it, W-W would have been blamed by any inquiry for negligence in shadowing, keeping his 3 ships in line on the PORT side of the enemy, etc. etc.. You course you are free to think that such a maneuver was good.....

..... you missed another question regarding the intentional alteration of facts (re. Leach in point 19 of Tovey despatches), that I will re-post.......

I asked: "Adm Tovey had already made a report on May 30 (please read it, no mention of Y turret), he received Leach reports (where, WHEN mentioned, Y turret jamming occurs after the turn away) and he INTENTIONALLY mixed the Y turret jam among all the battle damages received BEFORE the ship was disengaged: "One four-gunned turret HAD jammed" (this recurring past perfect tense....).
There is no way this can be done by mistake: it's an intentional embellishment of this otherwise apparently poor story, to give some substance to Leach decision, together with the unlikely 06:13 as retreat time.
At least re. this aspect, is it clear enough now ?"

I have explained you that if the Admiralty though to court martial BOTH Leach and W-W , having Leach NO responsibility for not re-engaging, it is clear (for me) that the Admiralty wanted to discuss ALSO the disengagement circumstances.

You may disagree, of course, but the answer to my question will give you the demonstration that Leach turn away needed (in the eyes of Tovey and of the Admiralty, that underlined the point in his answer to Tovey's despatches) an embellishment.


Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

I understand all you wrote above.

In any case it appears very evident that Stephen Roskill was believing that the story of the Court martial initial call between Adm Pound and Adm Tovey was a real occurrence, ... and he believed also that it was Adm Tovey defense that saved RearAdm Wake-Walker and Captain Leach, ... there are no possible doubts about it by reading Roskill note.

If I am not mistaking that Roskill book was dated 1976, ... so 2 years after Pursuit by Sir Kennedy first published on 1974 he refers to, ... and 22 years after the letters received by Adm Tovey on November 1954 that Roskill did not use on his 1955 first published book " The War at Sea " as he himself is stating on the note with the reasons for not having used them.

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "What I am surprised about is the idea that the loss of HMS Manchester would not have not have occasioned a Court Martial. Such a proceeding for a surviving commanding officer is, I believe, mandatory, even if no mismanagement is imagined"

Hi Sean,
in the old Nelson's times this was actually the case. I don't think it was automatic during WWII, even if a board of inquiry was more than probable under HMS Manchester circumstances (ship scuttled by decision of his Captain). Capt.Drew was sure he would have faced just an inquiry and instead he found himself in front of a court martial.

Do you know whether, for the loss of Barham, the Admiral on board (Pridham-Wippell, who survived), was inquired ?
I don't think anybody was inquired e.g. for the loss of cruiser York at Suda.....


Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro,

you wrote :

There is no indication from Henry Leach or Wills that John and Henry Leach ever talked about a possible CM after the Bismarck action. You are making assumptions that are not supported by the works you have referenced. There is also no indication that John Leach ever discussed a possible CM with Tovey or anyone else.

You are right.
We are sure that John and Henry Leach talked the night of December 6th, 1941 in Singapore, we have the list of the arguments Henry wanted to talk with his father, but we do not have the precise list of what they really talked about.

This is exactly the reason why I wrote above :

3) Sir Henry Leach information about the Court Martial request regarding his father were never correlated neither to Kennedy nor to Roskill. He spent the evening of December 6th, 1941 in Singapore talking all night long with his father and that is the most probable source of his information about the Court Martial story he was well aware of during his life. In any case, it is very possible that he also met either Adm Tovey as well as Roskill before they died, but never used them as reference on his books.
His statements about the Court Martial request are clear.

We only HAVE the two books of Sir Henry Leach clearly stating he knew about the Court Martial initial request from Adm Pound to Adm Tovey and the defence of Adm Tovey that defeated Adm Pound initiative.

This we DO HAVE !
That is what this matter is all about.
A clear INDICATION of the fact that Sir Henry Leach knew about it, and considered it a REAL FACT !
Sir Henry Leach knew about it and referenced about it on two books plus the caption on Tarrant book.
This should have stopped the useless debate you keep on carrying on, but apparently it does not for well known reasons.

Is it clear enough for you now ?

Talking about " no indications ", someone here in is trying since years to correlate Adm Tovey last life period with a potential dementia and his declarations about this Court Martial initiative from Adm Pound.

You had " no indications " about it, ... just like Sir Kennedy had " no indications " about it, ... but you kept on trying to convince everybody about your unsupported theory, ... on and on as we can all read on this thread pages, ... until the truth about Stephen Roskill letters received from Adm Tovey on 1954 surfaced ... killing definitively this unsupported " theory " of trying to connect and correlate the Adm Tovey Court Martial declarations with his last life period and a potential dementia he was suffering on that period. A very unfair trial from your side.

@ CAG,

if you are not able to realize the difference between a proven evidence of a fact occurred declared by a reliable witness from an anecdotal evidence of something that might have happened but it is not proven by anybody, this is your problem and not mine.

Same concept apply to documents, timing, maps and messages intentional alteration occurred one week after a previously released similar documentation with a main event in between changing completely the scenario for the Officers releasing those data.

There are persons not able to understand evidence and facts, ... there are person not willing to realize it and accept it unless they are well proven, ... there are persons that will NEVER accept any evidence becoming a fact no matter what type of evidence you are going to show them, ... last there are persons willing to INVENT all sort of ridiculous theories in order to counter until the end any evidence you can show them in order to avoid to accept them being a proven fact.

I leave to you the correlation of some forum members we can read here above ...

Bye Antonio

We are sure that John and Henry Leach talked the night of December 6th, 1941 in Singapore, we have the list of the arguments Henry wanted to talk with his father, but we do not have the precise list of what they really talked about.

We have a list of past events that Henry and John Leach did not talk about because they could not, and there is no indication, in his own book or Wills', that Henry wanted to talk about them. Henry's only stated, intended, topic of discussion, according to Wills, was about family matters.

We only HAVE the two books of Sir Henry Leach clearly stating he knew about the Court Martial initial request from Adm Pound to Adm Tovey and the defence of Adm Tovey that defeated Adm Pound initiative.

Henry Leach only wrote one book and in his book, he does not reference the source of the possible CM info, but it seems that it most likely came from Kennedy.

This we DO HAVE !
That is what this matter is all about.
A clear INDICATION of the fact that Sir Henry Leach knew about it, and considered it a REAL FACT !
Sir Henry Leach knew about it and referenced about it on two books plus the caption on Tarrant book.
This should have stopped the useless debate you keep on carrying on, but apparently it does not for well known reasons.

Again Henry Leach only wrote one book. Henry Leach and Tarrant both published their respective books after Kennedy's Pursuit . There is no indication from Henry Leach or Wills that Henry discussed a possible CM with his father and there is no indication that John Leach was ever informed of such a possibility.

TOVEY'S MEMORY IN 1954

You had " no indications " about it, ... just like Sir Kennedy had " no indications " about it, ... but you kept on trying to convince everybody about your unsupported theory, ... on and on as we can all read on this thread pages, ... until the truth about Stephen Roskill letters received from Adm Tovey on 1954 surfaced ... killing definitively this unsupported " theory " of trying to connect and correlate the Adm Tovey Court Martial declarations with his last life period and a potential dementia he was suffering on that period. A very unfair trial from your side.

Kennedy was the source of Tovey's failing memory (and possible dementia but this is not referred to) via a letter written by Tovey's secretary:

In fairness to Pound, it should be said that in later life Tovey's memory let him down, and he was apt to exaggerate. The occasion of his having forgotten that he had asked the Admiralty not to send their own interpretation of D/F bearings has already been related in note 2 of Chapter 7 (pp. 149 to 174). Again in 1954 he was under the impression he had received the signal about the King George V being towed home before Ark Royafs last attack and decided that 'if Ark Royal failed to damage the Bismarck ... to disobey the signal and turn back while we still had enough oil to get back to an English port'. In another letter in the same year he imagined that the signal had ordered him to continue the chase 'up to the shores of France'. (Tovey to Roskill, 11 Nov. 1954, and 20 Nov. 1954.)
His secretary of the time, now Rear-Admiral R. W. Paffard, writes of these events as follows:
'. . . I think his memory only began to play tricks after he had suddenly retired from all public life and virtually became a hermit. With no current interests and nobody to talk to other than his wife, it was understandable that he brooded more and more on the past, and particularly on the controversial aspects of his command of the Home Fleet; and Lady Tovey, in constant pain from arthritis, and always by nature inclined to put the worst construction on everything, undoubtedly nurtured his resentment and encouraged him to magnify the disagreements he had had with Churchill and Pound.' (Letter to the author, 5 May 1973.)

Pursuit, p.284

So the references to Tovey's memory problems are to 1954 when Tovey and Roskill were exchanging letters. In 1954 Tovey was 69.

[Cag]

Hi All

Hi Alberto apologies if anything was missed.

To put it bluntly....No, that question was also answered. Throughout all of this I have been repeatedly told the phrase that the reasons why Leach did not, immediately or later on after Hood sank, engage Bismarck or that in fact he did actually engage Bismarck were either answered elsewhere or are not relevant to a discussion about a court martial for not re-engaging Bismarck after Hood was sunk!

But here we are just agreeing on the very reasons why Leach did not engage Bismarck after Hood sank and suddenly we are again discussing Toveys report and now why Leach disengaged in the first place!?

These are entirely separate discussions! The arguments for and against these are to quote yourself "found elsewhere on this forum", they are long and neither of the sides won. The cover up theory discussion should be separate from the court martial for not re-engaging Bismarck after Hood was sunk.

In the posts used to try to confirm a proposed court martial here in this discussion the charge is "failing to re-engage Bismarck after Hood was sunk". Not "disengagement from battle", not "failure to participate in a battle" not "failure to spread your ships on shadowing and zig zagging". My opinion on WW handling on the night of the 24/25th is irrelevant to the charges proposed by Pound. I am really unsure why the goalposts are constantly changing. There is no pattern or logic to the discussion.

We seem to be getting somewhere and to a point where no matter what you're view is on a cover up theory no one loses face, all theories are intact and "bang" suddenly we return to the beginning and all is lost.

How is the reason why Leach disengaged in his report, in his gunnery officers report relevant to this discussion regarding not re-engaging after Hood sank, or even to what Tovey put in his report?

Did Leach lie in saying Y turret jammed after he turned away? Did McMullen lie in his report about Y turret? No. Did Leach explain fully in his report why he disengaged? Do you think their Lordships, ie the most senior men in the Admiralty and Pound and Tom Phillips were restricted in what reports they were allowed to read? That Admiralty reports were withheld from the Admiralty?

We either discuss the relevant points or we dont, that applies to everyone. Do we know the how Pound proposed a court martial, did he bang his fist on a table or did he propose that it may be neccessary? We don't know.

Best wishes
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Cag wrote: "that question was also answered"

Hi Mr. Cag,
can you repeat your answer, please ? To make it short, a simple yes or no will suffice.
For your convenience.... I will repeat my question regarding the intentional alteration of facts (re. Leach in point 19 of Tovey despatches) for the third time.....

I asked: "Adm Tovey had already made a report on May 30 (please read it, no mention of Y turret), he received Leach reports (where, WHEN mentioned, Y turret jamming occurs after the turn away) and he INTENTIONALLY mixed the Y turret jam among all the battle damages received BEFORE the ship was disengaged: "One four-gunned turret HAD jammed" (this recurring past perfect tense....).
There is no way this can be done by mistake: it's an intentional embellishment of this otherwise apparently poor story, to give some substance to Leach decision, together with the unlikely 06:13 as retreat time.
At least re. this aspect, is it clear enough now ?"

Translating the question and making it short, do you agree point 19 is an INTENTIONAL alteration of the facts known by Tovey himself ?



I'm sure the answer will help you to understand the intentions of the Admiralty re. Leach and to clarify the perimeter of the envisaged court martial, NOT "limiting their Lordships" (that finally accepted point.19) to a court martial for the "failure to re-engage only".


Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro,

to make a long story short :

1) Sir Henry Leach official position.

Do you have a written evidence of Sir Henry Leach NOT recognizing and supporting the Court Martial story involving his father being a real occurrence ? If you have it, please show it to me and everybody here in.

Please do not even try to use his " saga " definition of this overall incredible and very shameful series of events his father was involved into, ... because that is simply what I am demonstrating since years here in and with my last article with Alberto Virtuani, ... it is so incredible and shameful that one can hardly believe on it, so no surprises about his definition of it.

Until that moment, his books either written personally or fully supported with his supervision ( Wills ) , and photo captions ( Tarrant ) are the current reference in relation to his version of the facts.

When there is " No indication " please do not correlate any event with the other, ... in any way, ... just like I wrote above.
We have " no indication " of the argument list of their conversation on December 6th, 1941 ... just like we have " No indication " of the source of Sir Henry Leach information about the Court Martial story involving his father.

2) Adm Tovey reliability.

You wrote :

Kennedy was the source of Tovey's failing memory (and possible dementia but this is not referred to) via a letter written by Tovey's secretary :

You used two terms : " failing memory " and " possible dementia ".

Tovey secretary wrote : " in later life Tovey's memory let him down, and he was apt to exaggerate " and " his resentment and encouraged him to magnify the disagreements he had had with Churchill and Pound ".

I only read about a person with some memory failures mainly due to exaggeration of well known arguments because of that, ... especially regarding his disagreements with Pound and Churchill, which is more than normal and even possible on a very healthy person 30 years old.

Again, there is " No indication " of any dementia, and there is " No indication " of Adm Tovey completely inventing the main arguments, but only a tendency to exaggerate the disagreements.

It was Kennedy to correlate all those things with his note 2 on the Epilogue on Pursuit, referencing Adm Tovey reaction to Adm Pound defeating him, ... to his tendency to exaggerate his reactions to Adm Pound he had on Adm Tovey secretary letter dated 1973, ... regarding events written by Adm Tovey on 1954 ... so around 20 years before, ...

Kennedy wrote about the Court Martial request on the epilogue, ... and only correlated Adm Tovey reactions to Adm Pound to that secretary letter, ... not the whole Court Martial, ... but just the reaction to his possible exaggerations versus Adm Pound.

In fact, as a confirmation, Stephen Roskill two years after Kennedy ( 1976 vs 1974 ) still confirmed in writing the Court Martial story occurrence between Adm Pound and Adm Tovey on his 1976 book and did NOT care about the note written by Sir Kennedy on his book about Adm Tovey reliability.

There are " No indication " of dementia anywhere as far as I can read so please unless you can prove it, ... and demonstrate being a reality on 1954 on Adm Tovey, ... just avoid to use those terms and correlations.

What we still have and nothing is changed are Sir Henry Leach, C. McMullen and S. Roskill confirmation of the Court Martial request story between Adm Pound and Adm Tovey being a real occurrence according to them, into their respective writings and interview.

What is needed now is to find those 1954 letters, ... so we can all read what Adm Tovey wrote to Stephen Roskill on them ,... and what Stephen Roskill replied to him.

What was S. Roskill opinion about this all story we have it in written form clearly explained into his 1976 book as said, ... and we are talking about the Official historian of the Royal Navy regarding World War 2, ... not an average author of singular books, ... but an authority about those arguments, ... and you can read it here in :

Roskill_73_note_02.jpg (115.65 KiB) Viewed 631 times

Bye Antonio

[Cag]

Hi All

Hi Alberto, this was at first slightly confusing, but maybe I'm just getting wiser to the tactics of your debate?

Your question was not one about whether Toveys report is an intentional alteration or not, please just read what you have just quoted yourself. It did not require a yes or no answer, it was suggested this piece of information you posted would make "something clear" in an answer to the points I raised.

You do know what my answer was, to repeat the answer, this has no relevance to the points raised in relation to a proposed court martial of Leach for not re-engaging Bismarck after Hood sank.

Any opinion of mine of it being a cover up piece or not is not relevant, to make it so I'm afraid looks like an attempt at a distraction from the valid points previously made. You have posted that you agreed that PoW could not re engage Bismarck after Hood was sunk for three valid reasons. This is important and relevant to the discussion.

Just because of your agreement with the 3 points, it has not created problems for your cover up theory. But again it's back to whether or not I think certain things are intentionally altered and your point suddenly becomes a yes or no answer,, to use one of your favourite icons

Alberto believe me I understand and respect your point of view as regards the cover up, but saying that you agree that Leach had three mitigating circumstances for not re-engaging Bismarck after Hood was sunk and yet despite that he actually did and received censure from WW will not destroy your cover up case.

If this is a discussion about the court martial case against Leach, whether it was real or proposed or non existent and whether or not the exact charge was clear and the considerations surrounding it's possible outcome separate from any theories the answers may be

Some believe it never happened, it's a rumour or opinion.
Some believe it was proposed but never taken any further..
Some believe it was a reality and actually was in proceedings.

The charge would appear to have been/proposed/was never failure to re-engage Bismarck with Pow after Hood was sunk.

And if we agree/disagree on the 3 points raised,

Some believe it was still winnable.
Some believe it was not.

Let's leave it at that shall we?

Best wishes
Cag

[dunmunro]

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro,

to make a long story short :

1) Sir Henry Leach official position.

Do you have a written evidence of Sir Henry Leach NOT recognizing and supporting the Court Martial story involving his father being a real occurrence ? If you have it, please show it to me and everybody here in.

Please do not even try to use his " saga " definition of this overall incredible and very shameful series of events his father was involved into, ... because that is simply what I am demonstrating since years here in and with my last article with Alberto Virtuani, ... it is so incredible and shameful that one can hardly believe on it, so no surprises about his definition of it.

Until that moment, his books either written personally or fully supported with his supervision ( Wills ) , and photo captions ( Tarrant ) are the current reference in relation to his version of the facts.

When there is " No indication " please do not correlate any event with the other, ... in any way, ... just like I wrote above.
We have " no indication " of the argument list of their conversation on December 6th, 1941 ... just like we have " No indication " of the source of Sir Henry Leach information about the Court Martial story involving his father.

2) Adm Tovey reliability.

You wrote :

Kennedy was the source of Tovey's failing memory (and possible dementia but this is not referred to) via a letter written by Tovey's secretary :

You used two terms : " failing memory " and " possible dementia ".

Tovey secretary wrote : " in later life Tovey's memory let him down, and he was apt to exaggerate " and " his resentment and encouraged him to magnify the disagreements he had had with Churchill and Pound ".

I only read about a person with some memory failures mainly due to exaggeration of well known arguments because of that, ... especially regarding his disagreements with Pound and Churchill, which is more than normal and even possible on a very healthy person 30 years old.

Again, there is " No indication " of any dementia, and there is " No indication " of Adm Tovey completely inventing the main arguments, but only a tendency to exaggerate the disagreements.

It was Kennedy to correlate all those things with his note 2 on the Epilogue on Pursuit, referencing Adm Tovey reaction to Adm Pound defeating him, ... to his tendency to exaggerate his reactions to Adm Pound he had on Adm Tovey secretary letter dated 1973, ... regarding events written by Adm Tovey on 1954 ... so around 20 years before, ...

Kennedy wrote about the Court Martial request on the epilogue, ... and only correlated Adm Tovey reactions to Adm Pound to that secretary letter, ... not the whole Court Martial, ... but just the reaction to his possible exaggerations versus Adm Pound.

In fact, as a confirmation, Stephen Roskill two years after Kennedy ( 1976 vs 1974 ) still confirmed in writing the Court Martial story occurrence between Adm Pound and Adm Tovey on his 1976 book and did NOT care about the note written by Sir Kennedy on his book about Adm Tovey reliability.

There are " No indication " of dementia anywhere as far as I can read so please unless you can prove it, ... and demonstrate being a reality on 1954 on Adm Tovey, ... just avoid to use those terms and correlations.

What we still have and nothing is changed are Sir Henry Leach, C. McMullen and S. Roskill confirmation of the Court Martial request story between Adm Pound and Adm Tovey being a real occurrence according to them, into their respective writings and interview.

What is needed now is to find those 1954 letters, ... so we can all read what Adm Tovey wrote to Stephen Roskill on them ,... and what Stephen Roskill replied to him.

What was S. Roskill opinion about this all story we have it in written form clearly explained into his 1976 book as said, ... and we are talking about the Official historian of the Royal Navy regarding World War 2, ... not an average author of singular books, ... but an authority about those arguments.

Bye Antonio

Do you have a written evidence of Sir Henry Leach NOT recognizing and supporting the Court Martial story involving his father being a real occurrence ? If you have it, please show it to me and everybody here in.

1) That is not how history is written. You must have positive confirmation of an event otherwise you must inform the reader of that your thesis is not directly supported by the evidence. There is no direct confirmation that Henry and John Leach ever discussed a possible CM and Henry Leach is not used a a source for this info by Wills. I have pointed out to you that there is no evidence that John Leach was informed of a possible CM and I've pointed out the differences in rank between father and son, and the unlikelihood of the father sharing such sensitive information, if known by the father, with his 18 year old son (Henry Leach admits to being so naive and low on the security clearance list that he was unaware of radar, which was almost universal in RN ships by December 1941). Henry Leach's and Wills' books seem to go out of their way to not state that Henry Leach was directly informed of a possible CM, or indeed, of any discussion of recent naval history beyond trivial topics.

Tovey secretary wrote : " in later life Tovey's memory let him down, and he was apt to exaggerate " and " his resentment and encouraged him to magnify the disagreements he had had with Churchill and Pound ".

Tovey's secretary was discussing Tovey's memory in 1954 when he wrote to Roskill. Did Roskill know that Tovey's memory was failing when they were exchanging letters?

What we still have and nothing is changed are Sir Henry Leach, C. McMullen and S. Roskill confirmation of the Court Martial request story between Adm Pound and Adm Tovey being a real occurrence according to them, into their respective writings and interview.

Henry Leach doesn't confirm the CM tale. Mcmulllen does but only from Tovey and the same for Roskill, but Tovey is not a reliable source for this information and Roskill fails to provide any confirmation from Admiralty sources. Hence Kennedy's inclusion of information regarding Tovey's memory failures in 1954, at the time that he was writing to Roskill.

I only read about a person with some memory failures mainly due to exaggeration of well known arguments because of that, ... especially regarding his disagreements with Pound and Churchill, which is more than normal and even possible on a very healthy person 30 years old

I am happy to see that you now admit that memoirs written well after the fact are not reliable and cannot be used to overturn official reports written from information recorded as the events transpired. I do have to wonder, though, as to how you feel you know Tovey's memory reliability better than his own private secretarty?

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro,

1) Sir Henry Leach opinion and position about the potential Court Martial involving his father being a real occurrence does not change. It is debatable only the source of his information, just as I wrote before, and it can be both ways, probably we will never know it.

2) I am glad that at least you stopped talking about a completely invented and unsupported diagnosis of dementia about Adm Tovey.

I disagree with you and your way to try to build up Adm Tovey potential unrelaiability based on a very vague description done 20 years after by his secretary in order to justify to Sir Kennedy some errors Adm Tovey could have done about some details on an event occurred many years before.

One thing is to remember exactly all the details or make confusion, ... another is to remember, forget or invent an event, ... a complete different story is becoming unreliable because your brain does not work anymore correctly.

This approach about Adm Tovey is just unfair without a clear diagnosis from a Doctor we do not have and you seem to follow Sir Kennedy on trying to raise this doubt in order to denigrate a person and consequently try to demolish his statements.

If we listen to Colin McMullen there is no evidence at all he suspected to have talked to a person that he rated unreliable, ... just the opposite based on what he said, ... and in fact Colin McMullen is reporting with no additional comments what Adm Tovey told them in that occasion.

Stephen Roskill does not even put in discussion what Adm Tovey wrote to him despite Sir Kennedy note on the details you mentioned above.

Sir Henry Leach did not believe Adm Tovey being an unreliable person offending his father memory with an unsupported invention and in fact he wrote about it and commented the occurrences. He never declared Adm Tovey being unreliable and consequently the CM story being probably an unsupported invention, just the opposite.

As I wrote you above, still 3 out of 3 different sources were still there confirming the Cour Martial initiative occurrence, with no change at all despite Sir Kennedy book note on 1974, and 2 of them are very high profile sources like Roskill and Sir Henry Leach, while McMullen his a very solid source since he met Adm Tovey in person directly while talking about all this story.

Changing subject ...

I never discussed the differences between an official report details and a declaration containing small differences made many years after by an Officer.
I am discussing a difference between Official declarations and reports made one a week or a month after the other and completely changing the declaration released before, ... while having a good reason to do it, ... and not changing few details many years after without changing the whole meaning of that declaration.

To make you understand this difference why you do not check on Kennedy book when Wake-Walker released that BBC interview declaring his awareness of BC1, ... Kennedy reported the date of those interviews at the end of May 1941 with the list of the persons interviewed and WW is in there of course as we all know now, ... and than you check Wake-Walker official written report done few days after at the beginning of June 1941, ... so just few days after, ... neither a week after.
In the interview he declared he was AWARE soon after 5 am, ... on his report he declared himself UNAWARE until 05:50 ...

Now please tell me in which way you are going to read this clear potential " failure of memory " on this Officer and how are you going to diagnose him ? We do not need in this case his secretary suggestions, ... we have both his direct inputs available.

Same goes for Capt Leach radio message versus his report, same timing of few days, ... and the same for Adm Tovey between his May 30th document and his early July dispatches, just a month after ... and I can continue the list.

What do we have to assume now about those " failure of memory ", do I have to use Sir Kennedy way to try to demolish their reliability ?

Bye Antonio

[Herr Nilsson]

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nillson,

first of all thanks for sharing it.

For me it is always much better to work and evaluate real inputs, rather than personal opinions ...

It is clear to me now, ... thanking both Wadinga and you, ... that Sir Henry Leach considered a " saga " what I have described above using my simple words, ... I mean the whole story starting from the real events, ... thru the Court Martial request, ... the defeated of the CM request by Adm Tovey, ... to end up with his father recognition.

That is exactly what has been written on Tarrant book photo caption in a summary easy words way too, ... as you can read above.

It is obvious in my opinion that for a son, ... an Officer in The Royal Navy, ... it is incredible and almost unacceptable to live those events in this way, ... one should never be in condition to find himself in 15 days from a potential Court Martial risk ( for good or bad reasons this is not important for this evaluation ) to a recognition from the King for what he has done.

Call it a " saga ", ... an incredible series of events, ... a nightmare, ... whatever, ... it seems impossible.

Problem is that it was for real, ...and his father was in the middle of it, ... and that is what he had to realize and from what we can read he believed on for the rest of his life, ... until he worked on publishing his father biography with Wills help as the book author, ... with the clear intent to let everybody knowing the truth, ... looking at the book title too.

Bye Antonio

My reading is different from yours. How can a saga "emerge later", if it's an just incredible series of events that simply happened? Why emerge? Why later?