Hello Alberto,
There are privileges when one is promoted for one's service to the rank of Third Sea Lord. The privilege did not affect the failure of his appeal through the legal system.
We indeed do not know what Bingley may have said. We know neither Kennedy nor Roskill reports he confirms Tovey's story despite being nominated as a person who was supposedly told. Obviously it either never happened or Bingley didn't think it was outrageous enough to remember and mention. To prove an assertion you need confirmation. Neither Paffard nor Bingley provide it. As you point out Tovey nominated Bingley to speak for him to Roskill. I wonder whether Roskill actually asked Bingley?
and Paffard was rubbished by Roskill
Rubbished? Having decided to con Kennedy into getting the story into the public arena, Roskill tried to keep the myth he only heard of in 1954ish alive by suggesting he
knew better than one of the people supposedly told the story
by Tovey in 1941!
and by all subsequent serious historians
Now who is making things up, no historian parroting the myth has ever mentioned Paffard's informed comment? Only the widely-respected and award-winning Ludovic Kennedy reports his comments and Paffard who as a Paymaster and Tovey's secretary was selected for attention to detail and record keeping, makes no mention at all of being told the story in 1941.
Of Brockman:
being Pound secretary and he spoke to Brodhurst who then was the very first stating
stating absolutely nothing new about the story with no ascribed contribution from Brockman and even contradicting Tovey's memory about how the threat was transmitted. No quotes, no references, no citation. Valueless in a book about Pound.
I know there was a threat of Board of Inquiry, the letter I found and provided to everyone here proves that threat of B of I was the only threat.
Thank you for supplying the 1962 letter, I look forward to analysing it. At first glance it is full of "cracking" at Pound and quite a few hits on others. I would have loved to find the May 28th letter from Pound in 178/322 but it is not there. When (if) I find it, it will appear here.
For your interest, the rivalries and strongly held opinions influence all the RN players of the time. Tovey may have praised Charles Forbes but, as you will find out when you read, when Pound offered Forbes Tovey's services to become his 2nd in command Home Fleet, C-in-C Forbes wrote:
28th March 1940
"I do not want Tovey, to be honest I do not think he has sufficient brains."
Not mutual appreciation then.
As you attempt to besmirch Wake-Walker's reputation on the anniversary of the chase to the south, with unsustained and insubstantial charges of cowardice, I wonder how Tovey's shade looks down on you. His motive in wanting to keep the "Wake-Walker" business under wraps was clearly his concern for an
innocent man unfairly victimized. No mention of Court Martials in this letter.
All the best
wadinga