You are right however, we can now call these officers liars,.
Just how does this strengthen your thesis ????
Can I call Holland a fool because he made a hash of his action. Can I call him an idiot because he kept his ships in close formation allowing the germans to change targets quickly with little alteration to range? Was he reckless for putting Hood in the van?
Was Lütjens a coward (I hate that word) because he got lucky and then bottled it and did a runner hiding behind "orders"??? Did he hide behind the same orders when commanding Scharnhorst & Gneisenau when he met HMS Ramillies and Malaya?
Of course not.
He acted (as did Holland) in accordance with the situation at the time. Life isn't about re-runs. I can tell you that when the worst happens you do what you thinks best at the time. Life and death situations don't run like exercises. You can train for years, but to be frank....
Its just an exercise.
The adrenaline is different ,the experience is different and rarely does an exercise really replicate a real experience. I've worked with people who excelled in theory and simulation but were useless when it came to the real thing.
I've read with interest (and admiration ) in regards to geometry. But forgive my ignorance. This is 1941,they are using dead reckoning and the mark one eyeball. You have 6 ships with 6 different crews with six different navigational officers to work out were each individual ship is. There is no GPS and and all of those involved are having to deal with the stresses of action. 2 of the ships went to the bottom taking a vast percentage of their crew with them so their information is lost. The room for "errors" is great,yet we seem to be talking about absolutes. At exactly so and so this happened, at so and so this happened. My problem with this is that relies on humans to record the information, not modern technology. The same humans who are under enormous stress of battle, who whilst "in the zone" are not infallible. There are no absolutes. And i believe that Mr Jurens on another thread mentioned that the tracks were meant for such forensic analysis 75 years later, they were a rough indicator for the boards of enquiry (If I have miss quoted you Mr Jurens I apologise)
In regards to when POW "did a runner'...
Because of the close formation and the dramatic change of circumstances how can we conclusively say that Leach wasn't opening the range? So she took one hit and turned away. How can anybody conclusively say that Leach was running away after the first hit? POW got whacked another 7 or 8 times.We cannot. I'd suggest if he hadn't of turned away it would have been considerably worse. Y turret jammed, does it matter that it wasn't at 6:02 but 6:05 or 13:56? We are talking minutes not hours and all the time each found himself in a dire situation... Heck if he was opening the range and that happened that would surely make your mind up.So POW did better than expected... Well thats great, but surely you want confidence in your weapon? Not one that can fire X,Y,Z at one minute and then fail the next. I've said it before and Ill say it again - Leach would know his ship and know his men far better than we 75 years after the event.And if she was fully functional how come their were still workmen aboard?
I don't think that these questions make me a denier or hooligan. Ive listened to both sides, sometimes I thought that there was a convincing case, but then evidence was produced that gave context. Surely the point is not to shut debate down but to explore and extrapolate. The problem is that all of the witnesses are now dead and the remnants of information in no way can give a clear picture of what
exactly occurred.
The problem with the cover up theory is that too many people would have to keep quiet. Its not just the main protagonists't would be the other witnesses - the private secretaries ,the seamen, the officers, civil servants etc. People have ears and eyes, no way could you keep a vacuum of information. People would talk.
Best wishes
HMSVF