The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
it's a great pleasure for me to see that we are (finally) all in agreement by now about the fact that the shell splashes visible in the PG film are from PoW Y turret local controlled salvos (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8526&start=45#p84777).
Nobody has been able to raise any solid argument (captions (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8526#p82783), generic accounts (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8526&start=30#p82880) and "indeterminateness" excuses (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8526&start=15#p82814) excluded, of course...) against this quite evident fact, confirmed by all the serious available battlemaps.

In the hope that everybody is now more open to accept the truth, I would therefore re-open this other topic (sorry for the newcomers if this thread is extremely long, but it is very interesting indeed), following the info contained in the new publication "Battleship Bismarck - A Design and Operational History" from Garzke, Dulin & Jurens.



First of all, the book obviously accounts for the Court Martial threat as being an historical fact at pag.129, within the Capt. Leach short biography presented out of the main text without questioning it at all (as someone was able to do here in the past, despite having found and posted himself a letter from May 31, 1941 in which Adm.Tovey explains to Sir D.Pound why he would not call a Board of Inquiry into the conduct of Leach and Wake-Walker: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&hilit=May+31+T ... 050#p77747).
In this aspect, the book just adds to all the serious historians (e.g. Roskill, Correlli-Barnett, Tarrant, Brodhurst, Rhys-Jones, etc.) who have never doubted about this story and who has correctly interpreted it as the result of Churchill/Pound temper and attitude.



However, the description of the Court Martial requested against Leach only (I don't know whether also the CM threat against Wake-Walker is described too elsewhere) is extremely interesting in this new book:
pag. 129: "Some criticized Captain Leach decision to leave battle - most noticeably Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who demanded his Court Martial."
This clear and logical description of the accusations against Leach according to the Articles of War (Art.2.3) in vigour in 1941 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/186 ... on/enacted)
is very significant, as in almost all sources and books (see above) that account for the Court Martial threat, the position of Capt.Leach is instead always linked to Adm.Wake-Walker's one and the charge is "for not re-engaging the Bismarck after the DS battle", a responsibility that almost entirely would have weighted on Wake-Walker shoulders anyway.



There is only one other source (AFAIK...) that correctly describes the threat against Leach providing this logical charge (the disengagement of the Prince of Wales during the battle), aligned to the War Cabinet Minutes and to the ADM 205/10 papers (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&p=76657&hilit= ... ute#p76657), and this is M.B.Wills' book "In the highest traditions of the Royal Navy", the biography of Capt. Leach:

Wills_page93_CMDS.jpg
Wills_page93_CMDS.jpg (46.16 KiB) Viewed 2023 times

Up to now, we had only a strong suspect that Wills got this information directly from Sir Henry Leach (the son of the PoW commander) because he had spoken to his father in Singapore, before the death of Capt.Leach, on December 6th, 1941, probably hearing directly from him about the threat of Court Martial for his decision to disengage.
As a matter of fact, Sir Henry had reviewed "page by page" Wills' book before its publication (see Wills'acknowledgements at pag.8 of his book).


Now we have another confirmation that Sir Henry is most likely the source: the new publication "Battleship Bismarck - A Design and Operational History" does not mention Wills' book among the consulted bibliography (therefore it cannot come from Wills), but it does mention in the "Correspondences and Interview" section Sir Henry Leach (pag.589) who is also mentioned in the Leach short biography at pag. 130... It is therefore clear who gave to the authors of both books the correct description of the charges against Capt.Leach: it was his son, that most probably had got the info from his father himself when in Singapore (despite the "certitudes" of someone here:viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&p=65605&hilit=singapore#p65605).


Another piece of the Court Martial story is more clear now, thanks to this new publication: the only criticism is that an explicit reference to the source of this charge against Leach is missing at pag.129.... a pity.


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

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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by pgollin »

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DON'T FEED THE TROLL

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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Please, don't listen at (since long time offensive viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5830&p=54913&hilit=idiot#p54913) deniers! :lol:

Stick to FACTS.
"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)
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Bill Jurens has just written (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8254&start=15#p84796) : "speaking only as 'a guy', i.e. not the moderator..."
The "guy" is always present to applaud his "bodyguards" (the ones ready to loose their own credibility to protect him even in the most "embarrassing" and "untenable" situations viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8258&start=45#p84740, viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8258&start=45#p84706), who evidently have no intention at all to speak about the Court Martial into Leach conduct (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&p=84799#p84789), for very evident reasons by now, having lost once again the debate....

but where is the "moderator" :think: when they explicitely insult (see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&start=2250#p84790) ? Poor forum!


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)
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Bill Jurens »

My apologies. The moderator was not aware of recent postings in this thread, and is just reading them now. I thought it was dead.

I find Mr. Virtuani's commentary a bit difficult to understand, which means that either it's not particularly well written, my brain is not really working very well today, or (most probably) some combination of both. The text in the book is intended to be fairly general in nature, and is not intended to be subjected to word-by-word tenth-century style scholastic desputation. It's a general text, representing the consensus of the co-authors supplemented by some editorial work done by the publishers, in general reflecting the consensus of a great deal of previously published information, i.e. it represents what we believe to be a reasonable, probably somewhat conservative and necessarily approximate, reconstruction of what actually may have happened. Extremely detailed and historically rigorous discussion of such events can only be addressed in the academic literature. The accounts regarding the alleged courts-marshal, etc. are so inconsistent and fragmentary in nature as to render any definitive resolution impossible. The lack of extensive discussions in the academic literature reflects the overall triviality of the issue as a whole. After a lot of apparent screaming and shouting, it really didn't seem to matter very much, and hardly affected the overall outcome of the Bismarck operation.

I think it is appropriate in this case to caution participants regarding offensive commentary and insinuations made against others submitting commentary. There is, nor should there be, any need to be personally offensive.

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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Bill Jurens wrote: "It's a general text, representing the consensus of the co-authors supplemented by some editorial work done by the publishers, in general reflecting the consensus of a great deal of previously published information, i.e. it represents what we believe to be a reasonable, probably somewhat conservative and necessarily approximate, reconstruction of what actually may have happened."

Thanks for the explanation. Therefore we have to understand that the authors have agreed about the historical fact that W.Churchill demanded a Court Martial against Leach for having left his battle, as just logical in view of the PM's reaction at Chequers.
pag. 129: "Some criticized Captain Leach decision to leave battle - most noticeably Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who demanded his Court Martial."

The question for the authors is very simple: where have they got the above charge against Capt.Leach when ALL the other publications/documents refer to the Court Martial charge as "for not re-engaging the Bismarck" ?
The correct charge against Leach (AFAIK) is NOT in a "great deal of previous publications" but ONLY in one: Will's biography of Capt.Leach ("In the highest tradition of the Royal Navy") download/file.php?id=3590 and this book (that is not in their bibliography) was written with the supervision and the approval of Sir Henry Leach.

Therefore the source of the authors can be only Sir Henry Leach himself (that they interviewed/corresponded with as per pag.589 of their book) and who met his father in Singapore. Antonio and me had already understood that Sir Henry was the source for Wills, despite all the denials at that time.


Is the question more clear now ? Can we have the confirmation of the source of the authors for the correct CM charge against Capt.Leach ?

Thanks in advance for providing a clear answer: it may convince the most obstinate forum members who have tried to deny these facts since 2013...


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)
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors,
Therefore we have to understand that the authors have agreed about the historical fact that W.Churchill demanded a Court Martial against Leach for having left his battle.
Not having a copy, yet, of the new book in question, I am personally extremely disappointed to hear that in 2019 such a prestigious work continues to perpetrate the canard about CMDS. Ten years of impassioned diatribe here by two individuals attempting to promote it as a historical fact have failed to provide a single piece of evidence that it occurred. No document or eye witness account shows WSC demanded a Court Martial about anything to do with Denmark Straits, or that any of his subordinates did. Since no evidence exists such a threat was made, it is a trivial matter to argue the exact wording of a charge so insubstantial. Only a late-life recollection by Admiral Tovey, contradicted by his own correspondence to Pound at the time, without confirmation from any other source not referring to Tovey's recollection, makes any reference to it. Like Kunht's undamaged rudders it is almost certainly a product of misremembering long after the event in question.

As has been detailed above, nowhere in Sir Henry Leach's autobiography Endure No Makeshifts, does he say his father told him of such a threat, and the detailed description of their conversations in Singapore makes no mention of it. Wills only references Tovey's recollection with regard to CMDS, despite having close discussions with Sir Henry and access to John Leach's confidential personnel report "only released to next of kin". Neither of these sources are quoted to independently confirm the CMDS story, and there is no evidence Sir Henry was even aware of the allegation prior to the publishing of Ludovic Kennedy's book, which itself gave a major caveat about its reliability. That Sir Henry approved a rough draft of Wills' book does not mean he was the source of any information about the CMDS story. The most revealing quote from Wills' book is on page 97 when describing the arrival of the supposed accusers aboard PoW:
There is no evidence that either Pound or Leach ever spoke of the former's attempt to court martial the latter less than three months previously.
How could there be? There is no evidence it ever happened and the most powerful evidence it did not happen was Leach's continuing command of the ship transporting his supposed accusers and their evident trust and regard for him?


No-one who has endured the endless tirade attempting to promote CMDS as a historical fact on this forum has been convinced of their arguments, and one after another posters have made this clear, whereupon they have been derided as loosers(sic), deniers and believers in fairy tales. One of the individuals has voluntarily chosen to cease posting because his arguments have been consistently exposed as bogus and rejected by all other posters. Unfortunately the other still posts and has embarked on completely unwarranted personal attacks on the moderator, who I am sure we all agree is doing a magnificent job. I am not sure there is any requirement for a moderator to remain neutral in matters of fact, they should be allowed to reinforce truth where they identify it.

I strongly disagree that the CMDS story is trivial especially if it used as the basis of imaginary allegations of cowardice, conspiracy and cover-up.

All the best

wadinga
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by HMSVF »

wadinga wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 10:08 am Fellow Contributors,
Therefore we have to understand that the authors have agreed about the historical fact that W.Churchill demanded a Court Martial against Leach for having left his battle.
Not having a copy, yet, of the new book in question, I am personally extremely disappointed to hear that in 2019 such a prestigious work continues to perpetrate the canard about CMDS. Ten years of impassioned diatribe here by two individuals attempting to promote it as a historical fact have failed to provide a single piece of evidence that it occurred. No document or eye witness account shows WSC demanded a Court Martial about anything to do with Denmark Straits, or that any of his subordinates did. Since no evidence exists such a threat was made, it is a trivial matter to argue the exact wording of a charge so insubstantial. Only a late-life recollection by Admiral Tovey, contradicted by his own correspondence to Pound at the time, without confirmation from any other source not referring to Tovey's recollection, makes any reference to it. Like Kunht's undamaged rudders it is almost certainly a product of misremembering long after the event in question.

As has been detailed above, nowhere in Sir Henry Leach's autobiography Endure No Makeshifts, does he say his father told him of such a threat, and the detailed description of their conversations in Singapore makes no mention of it. Wills only references Tovey's recollection with regard to CMDS, despite having close discussions with Sir Henry and access to John Leach's confidential personnel report "only released to next of kin". Neither of these sources are quoted to independently confirm the CMDS story, and there is no evidence Sir Henry was even aware of the allegation prior to the publishing of Ludovic Kennedy's book, which itself gave a major caveat about its reliability. That Sir Henry approved a rough draft of Wills' book does not mean he was the source of any information about the CMDS story. The most revealing quote from Wills' book is on page 97 when describing the arrival of the supposed accusers aboard PoW:
There is no evidence that either Pound or Leach ever spoke of the former's attempt to court martial the latter less than three months previously.
How could there be? There is no evidence it ever happened and the most powerful evidence it did not happen was Leach's continuing command of the ship transporting his supposed accusers and their evident trust and regard for him?


No-one who has endured the endless tirade attempting to promote CMDS as a historical fact on this forum has been convinced of their arguments, and one after another posters have made this clear, whereupon they have been derided as loosers(sic), deniers and believers in fairy tales. One of the individuals has voluntarily chosen to cease posting because his arguments have been consistently exposed as bogus and rejected by all other posters. Unfortunately the other still posts and has embarked on completely unwarranted personal attacks on the moderator, who I am sure we all agree is doing a magnificent job. I am not sure there is any requirement for a moderator to remain neutral in matters of fact, they should be allowed to reinforce truth where they identify it.

I strongly disagree that the CMDS story is trivial especially if it used as the basis of imaginary allegations of cowardice, conspiracy and cover-up.

All the best

wadinga
How could there be? There is no evidence it ever happened and the most powerful evidence it did not happen was Leach's continuing command of the ship transporting his supposed accusers and their evident trust and regard for him?

Quite.

At a time when Churchill was knocking down officers careers like bowling pins,Leach gets to keep command of the most powerful vessel in the Royal Navy?

If there was any substantive evidence it would have been recorded somewhere or discussed with somebody. Its very difficult to silence a service indefinitely. Things come out eventually, even if protected under, say legislation such as the 100 year rule. Something would be written somewhere.Anything else is wardroom whispering.

And to be honest this is a tiny footnote in history. We know about far more controversial decisions, orders and cock ups that were suppressed initially that had far more weight than what happened over the period of 3 days in May 1941. As much as we like to think that the Bismarck episode was a critical event, IMHO the real crisis was off Crete. The RN was not far off from being brushed out of the Mediterranean leaving thousands of desperately needed troops behind and many ships lying at the bottom.


All the best HMSVF
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
HMSVF wrote: "As much as we like to think that the Bismarck episode was a critical event, IMHO the real crisis was off Crete."
if not interested in this discussion about the Court Martial, go and speak about Crete somewhere else with "fellow contributors" also interested in Crete operation, opening a new thread OUT of the "Bismarck General Discussion" forum.

This forum is for Bismarck related discussions.


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

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Wadinga wrote: "I am personally extremely disappointed to hear that in 2019 such a prestigious work continues to perpetrate the canard about CMDS"
Sorry for you, it does, as well as all the other serious historical works from Roskill, Correlli-Barnett, Tarrant, Brodhurst, Rhys-Jones, Wills, etc. , in 2019 (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&p=84821#p84789) and...forever and ever, after we will publish our book with all the related original documents.
The only one who doesn't believe this story is Mr.Wadinga, plus the doubts of a journalist (Kennedy).... :lol:

Wadinga wrote:"That Sir Henry approved a rough draft of Wills' book does not mean he was the source of any information about the CMDS story"
Please, let the author answer the question (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&p=84821#p84811) about who provided him the correct charges against Capt.Leach: we don't need your fantasy, just a simple answer from the author...


Wadinga wrote: "they have been derided as loosers(sic)...."
Because they:

1) have just lost regarding the battle reconstruction, when their moderator "adopted" in toto Antonio's 2005 reconstuction (errors included), rubbishing forever their fantasies about Bismarck turning on course 270° before 06:00 (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8329&hilit=hard+nut ... =15#p80815) or never (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8329&hilit=hard+nut ... 150#p80999)

2) have just lost regarding the shell splashes we see in the PG film, attributing them to the Hood :shock: (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8526&start=45#p84777), that is simply impossible due to the battle reconstruction (pag.211 map) of their own moderator. They are now proven by the map to be the PoW local salvos splashes.

3) have just lost here about the Court Martial threat, that is considered an historical fact in all serious books and is now confirmed by their "moderator". Actually the self-goal of the posted letter from Tovey to Pound was the decisive defeat factor here more than the moderator new book obvious confirmation (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&hilit=May+31+T ... 050#p77747)....

As a side note, "loosers" can be irritating for self opinionated people, but it is much less insulting than "troll", I guess....

Wadinga wrote: "..Unfortunately the other still posts and has embarked on completely unwarranted personal attacks on the moderator,..."
...very unfortunately the "fellow contributor" still posts after all the above defeats...


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)
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Bill Jurens »

OK. Enough is enough. While it would be interesting and perhaps even useful to discuss some of these issues in more detail -- I would like to respond to some comments myself -- the tone has deteriorated to the point where further discussion is pointless.

Thread locked.

Bill Jurens
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