The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

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paul.mercer
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by paul.mercer »

Hi Alberto,
Many thanks for your usual courteous reply to my questions although I’m afraid you did not really address my points on the RN on this occasion. Re your comparison to Adml Troubridge, Wake-Walker when Capt of the Cruiser Dragon also faced and lost a sort of CM in the Exchequer Court of Canada after hitting and sinking a moored merchant ship, but this obviously did not affect his career as he still went on to be an Admiral.
In Troubridge’s CM his defence was that he was given a rather an ambiguous order of ‘not to engage with superior forces. Now I realise that this sort of order was not given to Hood and PoW as the RN fully expected them to deal with Bismarck and PE, however, to put it in a simplistic way, battle having commenced PoW landed two or three shells on Bismarck one which damaged her so badly that Lutyens gave up the idea of commerce raiding. Meanwhile, Capt Leach having seen Hood destroyed now faced a battleship plus a heavy 8” cruiser with a ship that apparently had an inexperienced crew and some of her main guns that were malfunctioning. In addition, PoW was beginning to take a battering from the combined fire, so it was probably only a matter of time before she took some serious hits that slowed her down enough for Bismarck to shoot her to bits and PE to use her torpedoes with the result that the RN lose two capital ships in a couple of hours, so in your opinion would this not come under the banner of superior forces and if so, surely to disengage was not just the correct decision, but the only one in the circumstances?
Additionally, when PoW fell back on Adml Wake-Walkers cruisers Capt Leach must have communicated his reasons for disengaging to him and could not have known at the time that PE had gone, so W-W must have agreed with the decision or he surely would have ordered PoW to chase after and re-engage Bismarck, possibly with the cruisers which may well have resulted in the loss of all three.
Finally, I still think that it is quite wrong for some to question the bravery of these two men, whatever the impressions they may have of the RN and its hierarchy, one does not make the Rank of Admiral or for that matter be promoted to Captain of the RN’s newest battleship unless the RN has the fullest confidence in your abilities which they must have done in both cases.
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wadinga
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by wadinga »

Hello Alberto,


Although I hate to correct you once again and it is off subject:
whose fears to loose 4 armored cruisers caused the Ottoman Empire to join WWI,
No It was mainly the opportunity to attack and invade other people's countries. A free battlecruiser and light cruiser from the Germans who were going to lose them anyway because they could not get out past Gibraltar or the Straits of Otranto was just a "nice to have".

Of course Churchill and Battenberg had first annoyed the Turks quite a bit,
When the First World War opened in August 1914, Reşadiye was nearly complete and was seized at the orders of Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty. Fatih Sultan Mehmed had only begun construction in April and was broken up for scrap. Another ship, Sultan Osman I, originally ordered by Brazil but being fitted out for the Ottomans, was also seized. The Reşadiye became Erin and Sultan Osman I became HMS Agincourt.
You have again let a piece of Churchillian hyperbole mislead you, just like over-estimating the importance of the Chequers rant:
Winston Churchill—who had been First Lord of the Admiralty—expressed the opinion that by forcing Turkey into the war the Goeben had brought "more slaughter, more misery, and more ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship.
Surely naughty Winston was not trying to offload his responsibility for the Turks' annoyance at their ships being stolen, by blaming for Troubridge letting the Goeben get away. :cool:

But it was mainly the opportunity to attack and invade other people's countries, seized on by a mad dictator seeking to shore up his repressionist regime. Hmmm that sounds familiar.
With the outbreak of Europe's Great War in August 1914, Enver Pasha saw an opportunity to take back Islamic lands that had been absorbed by one of the belligerents – Russia. Enver dreamed of reinvigorating the Ottoman Empire. He feared that if Britain, France and Russia won against Germany and Austria-Hungary, they might deprive the empire of more of its territory. So Enver led Turkey into the war on the side of Germany.
Turkey helped the Germans bombard Russia on the Black Sea, Russia declared war on Turkey on November 2. France and Britain declared war on Turkey on Nov 5, and Britain found this an opportune time to cut the pretence that the Turks ruled in Cyprus and Egypt – lands that had been nominally a part of the Ottoman Empire but under British authority.
OR
The Ottoman entry into World War I began on 29 October 1914 when it launched the Black Sea Raid against Russian ports. Following the attack, Russia and its allies (Britain and France) declared war on the Ottomans in November 1914. The Ottoman Empire started military action came after three months of formal neutrality, but it had signed a secret alliance with the Central Powers in August 1914.

BTW I have scored no "own goal", since my own goal is getting at the truth, and if you and Antonio consider yourselves "loosers" when that truth confirms the still-birth of your fantasy Conspiracy Theory, so much the better. Re the contents of the 31st May letter:
The only person who says there was a phone call at all is Tovey, who also misremembered ROOF and the bearings incident. He didn't remember the 28th and 31st letters, which actually happened. What he doesn't mention in his 31st letter, is the phone call, which if it actually existed, with it's theatrical three-act threat to resign as C-in-C Home Fleet, was supposedly made on arrival at Scapa. It is clear he invented the phone call for which there is no evidence it happened at all. CMDS is a myth.

All the best

wadinga
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Paul Mercer wrote: "one does not make the Rank of Admiral or for that matter be promoted to Captain of the RN’s newest battleship unless the RN has the fullest confidence in your abilities.....surely to disengage was not just the correct decision, but the only one in the circumstances"
Hi Paul,
I see all your points, but again, also Troubridge (whose behavior against the Goeben was clearly timid, allowing the delivery of a formidable asset to the Central Powers in order not to risk his own ships) was promoted full Admiral AFTER his Court Martial (while the confidence of the Admiralty in his capabilities was never fully restored).

In case of Leach, he broke off the engagement at a stage when he had NO clue that Bismarck had been seriously damaged, thus leaving a potentially dangerous enemy continuing his mission. His decision at 6:01 on May 24, 1941 was militarily wrong, being his duty to continue the fight until he was sure Bismarck had been crippled or at least until PoW was unable to stand Bismarck fire, in order to ensure the loss of the German battleship when the H.F. could reach her.
With hindsight however, his decision (as well as Wake-Walker's decision not to re-engage) was just perfect and this is why no further action was taken to punish him.




Hello everybody,
Wadinga wrote: "my own goal is getting at the truth"
Correct ! Mr.Wadinga own-goal fully confirms what Tovey later explained in detail to Roskill: the anger of Churchill and the request of Pound for a serious investigation into the conduct of the two blatantly timid officers. If this does not suffice to Mr.Wadinga as a valid "motive" for the "sugar-coating" of the subsequent reports, it is his own personal problem only, because such a menace is obviously more than enough to induce intentionally false declarations to be made.
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
HMSVF
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by HMSVF »

Morning all.



request of Pound for a serious investigation into the conduct of the two blatantly timid officers

2 observations in regard to this statement.


1) The first one is that many pages back we were told that a BoI meant automatic court martial. Turns out it didn't. Given this, did Churchill when in a rage asked for a "serious investigation" (before he actually knew what had occurred ) he was asking for a BoI as opposed to the go "straight to jail card" of court martial?

2) "Blatantly timid" is your opinion.




Best wishes HMSVF
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

1) "we were told that a BoI meant automatic court martial":
Where ? By whom ? :negative: Please, now post this statement !
A BofI into the conduct of an officer is a very serious (and in some way already infamous, or at least offensive, as perceived by any officer, e.g. by Somerville) investigation into his attitude while in action. In case the BofI confirms the dereliction of duty, of course a Court Martial becomes almost unavoidable.
Kings_Regs_703.jpg
Kings_Regs_703.jpg (20.43 KiB) Viewed 2738 times


2) Agree,
but my "opinion" is based on the "Articles of War" in force (n.2 and 3 from NDA 1866), it was shared by Churchill ("the worst thing since Troubridge...") and (apparently) by Pound and Phillips (for Wake-Walker), with the request of a BofI into their conduct.
In addition we have now many more elements that confirm what really happened (Antonio's battle reconstruction, Ellis autobiography, German side documents and accounts, etc.) and IMO many of them do not seem to confirm two shining examples of military heroism, as per Kennedy's fairy tale... :think:



In any case, a BofI written request (as per Tovey's 1941 letter) and a Court Martial phone menace (as per his 1961 letter) is a more than valid "motive" for the "sugar-coating" of the subsequent official version of facts, because such threats are both obviously enough to induce intentionally false declarations to be made, as it happened.



Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
HMSVF
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by HMSVF »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Sun Aug 19, 2018 4:12 pm Hello everybody,

1) "we were told that a BoI meant automatic court martial":
Where ? By whom ? :negative: Please, now post this statement !
A BofI into the conduct of an officer is a very serious (and in some way already infamous, or at least offensive, as perceived by any officer, e.g. by Somerville) investigation into his attitude while in action. In case the BofI confirms the dereliction of duty, of course a Court Martial becomes almost unavoidable.

Kings_Regs_703.jpg



2) Agree,
but my "opinion" is based on the "Articles of War" in force (n.2 and 3 from NDA 1866), it was shared by Churchill ("the worst thing since Troubridge...") and (apparently) by Pound and Phillips (for Wake-Walker), with the request of a BofI into their conduct.
In addition we have now many more elements that confirm what really happened (Antonio's battle reconstruction, Ellis autobiography, German side documents and accounts, etc.) and IMO many of them do not seem to confirm two shining examples of military heroism, as per Kennedy's fairy tale... :think:



In any case, a BofI written request (as per Tovey's 1941 letter) and a Court Martial phone menace (as per his 1961 letter) is a more than valid "motive" for the "sugar-coating" of the subsequent official version of facts, because such threats are both obviously enough to induce intentionally false declarations to be made, as it happened.



Bye, Alberto

Page 75 of this thread
Everybody should realize that starting from a,b,c,d, ... and officially inizializing the point e ( the Board of Inquiry ) ... the final goal was obviously to bring them to point f ( so in front of a Court Martial ).
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
thanks to HMSVF for implicitly (it looks difficult for these people to explicitly admit their errors...) admitting he was just wrong: NOBODY spoke of any automatism between a generic BofI and a CM, as clear in Antonio's post from page 75 mentioned above (http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopi ... 110#p77814)

Clearly, based on the two Tovey's letters (1941+1961), this specific BofI into the conduct of these officers was requested to "form the subject" of a Court Martial" and it was a good enough "motive" for the intentional alteration of facts in the subsequent reports.



Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
northcape
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by northcape »

HMSVF wrote: Thu Aug 16, 2018 1:13 pm
4) No alternative battlemap has been presented here to counter Antonio's reconstruction, that nails all the timid officers to their responsibilities during the battle.

But what would be the point? We have had a world renowned expert (and cartologist to boot) say that for various reasons an accurate map cannot be produced.It would like asking us to produce our own perpetual motion machine. You may have made one, but it doesnt/cannot work. So asking the rest of us to make our own is a bit pointless.


Best wishes


HMSVF
It is useless. It has been explained so many times to A&A, but they are simply too ignorant or, unfortunately it has to be said, too stupid to understand that.
northcape
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by northcape »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Sun Aug 19, 2018 4:12 pm
In addition we have now many more elements that confirm what really happened (Antonio's battle reconstruction, Ellis autobiography, German side documents and accounts, etc.) and IMO many of them do not seem to confirm two shining examples of military heroism, as per Kennedy's fairy tale... :think:


Bye, Alberto
No, you have some elements, some of them existing only in your fantasy, and many others which are completely irrelevant do the story, to push your theory.

This is different from "we have now many more elements to confirm what really happened".
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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

to read that making a map of an event is useless is the most stupid statement one can write.

Military reports, books and documents of any time and any kind, ... are full of battle maps.

If one is unable to make a map or even, ... like in many cases here in I have verified, ... even to read what a map shows, ... is only his own problem, ... it is called ignorance and incompetence.

It is more than obvious that in this forum, ... having produced a map of this event that nails down the position of those warships with very limited tolerances, ... the one that do not like it to be showed, ... try to counter it in any possible way, ... even stating that it is .... useless ... :shock:

Obviously the only useless thing here in, ... is their opinion ... :wink:

Readers of this forum can simply ask themselves, ... why for so many years on any battle map of the Denmark Strait battle, ... the 2 British heavy cruisers ( Norfolk and Suffolk ) have been left out of the battle map ?

Once you put them on a detailed enough battle map, ... you will immediately realize why ... guaranteed ... :wink:

Similarly you will understand much more about all this operation, ... when you do it for the entire period, ... much more.

Few years and it will be published in full details.

Bye Antonio :D
In order to honor a soldier, we have to tell the truth about what happened over there. The whole, hard, cold truth. And until we do that, we dishonor her and every soldier who died, who gave their life for their country. ( Courage Under Fire )
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by northcape »

Antonio Bonomi wrote: Sun Aug 19, 2018 6:33 pm Hello everybody,

to read that making a map of an event is useless is the most stupid statement one can write.

Again, a (possibly) willful misinterpretation of statements, but exactly the same has happened before on this detail as on many others.

It is only talked about the DS battle map, not about any other map.

It is stated that to make a consistent map of the DS battle, including the hours befoer and after, with the data available, and giving accuracies less then several sea miles and less than minutes, is not possible. The accuracies refers to relative positions between ships. It is talked about accuracies of positions, and not the positions themselves. The derived positions themselves are completely useless without an idea of their accuracies, if you have sparse data.
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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

if one is ignorant and incompetent and unable to make it, ... it does not have to state that it is not possible.

One can, ... maybe, ... talk about tolerances, ... nothing else.

Those " hooligan/deniers " are really left with no other options, ... as it is very evident now.

Bye Antonio
In order to honor a soldier, we have to tell the truth about what happened over there. The whole, hard, cold truth. And until we do that, we dishonor her and every soldier who died, who gave their life for their country. ( Courage Under Fire )
Francis Marliere
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Francis Marliere »

Gents,

I do not want to get stuck in this never ending discussion, and I don't neither want to offense anyone, but I'm a bit surprised by the following sentence:
Alberto Virtuani wrote: Sun Aug 19, 2018 8:00 am his decision (as well as Wake-Walker's decision not to re-engage) was just perfect and this is why no further action was taken to punish him.
If Leach and Walkle-Walker made "just perfect" decisions, why should they be court-martialled ?

Best regards,

Francis Marliere
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by pgollin »

Antonio Bonomi wrote: Sun Aug 19, 2018 9:29 pm Hello everybody,

if one is ignorant and incompetent and unable to make it, ... it does not have to state that it is not possible.

One can, ... maybe, ... talk about tolerances, ... nothing else.

Those " hooligan/deniers " are really left with no other options, ... as it is very evident now.

Bye Antonio


.

Another nail in the coffin of your competence.

You understand nothing about ships, their movements, radio and visual bearings (and their accuracies), nor the accuracy of timings.

These things have been explained to you and Alberto time and time again, and yet neither of you can be bothered to understand and absorb the implications.

In addition, the selective nature of which sources you use merely highlights your biased agenda, chasing a fictional conspiracy theory instead of the truth.

-----------------

Seemingly everyone here, except you two, are in disagreement with you. That is telling.

.
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wadinga
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by wadinga »

Hello Francis,
If Leach and Walkle-Walker made "just perfect" decisions, why should they be court-martialled

A & A opinion is that the Admiralty reaction is heavily laced with hindsight. If the Bismarck gets sunk, their imagined "cowardice" can somehow be ignored in the cause of a good propaganda story, whereas if she escapes their cowardice becomes a factor in that, and the accused must swing. A & A have invented evidence (like maps) to confirm their intuition of timidity, which itself is entirely based on Churchill's ill-informed outburst and his initial opinion which is never mentioned again after the 25th May 1941.

This is clearly ridiculous for a number of reasons, not least that PR factors are of little interest when news was restricted by the Official Secrets Act. If cowardice had actually been imagined, these officers would have been sidelined without the need for fleet knowledge through an enquiry, or wider knowledge if such an enquiry showed there was a case for a Court Martial and such proceedings followed.

If they were actually considered to be guilty, it would be extremely dangerous to give W-W control of the Home Fleet for several carrier strikes and to re-appoint Leach to his ship after convalescence, merely to generate a happy propaganda story for the newspapers, which would be fish and chip wrapping paper within days. No propaganda consideration could possibly have induced Pound to keep them in place.

Once they expanded their Conspiracy Theory upward beyond Tovey it's whole Raison d'etre fell to pieces, and exposed it for what it was, an imaginary construct created for personal self promotion, with potential financial upside. Their insults and bullying behaviour, whilst achieving its purpose in compelling several valuable posters to abandon the forum, has provoked some opponents into outright derision, whilst hardening the determination of all to ensure that this fantasy does not achieve any recognition at all.


All the best

wadinga
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