Hello Byron,
Your peace-keeping efforts are appreciated, but serious allegations have been made on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence. Their stain cannot be left but must be eradicated. It was either Edmund Burke or Charles Frederic Aked said:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”
And I do consider the attempt to suggest these allegations of cowardice, lying under oath, and falsification of records is evil. At their base is the up to now uncontested allegation by Tovey in 1961. Accepted by many because of its actual
irrelevance. No charges were made, no-one's record was affected and the parties were actually given awards.
Roskill was quite brave enough and his reputation high enough hto have released the story himself despite Tovey's request not to do so. I believe he did not do so because he knew how flimsy the evidence was, there was no corroboration from people like Paffard and Bingley, Tovey's confidants, or anyone from the Admiralty, like Brockman, Pound's assistant who lived until 1999. Roskill was in a position to quiz all these men, but the allegation was hidden from 1961 until Kennedy's book in 1974. Roskill offloaded the story so if there was outrage, it would be Kennedy who took the flak. Kennedy did quiz Paffard himself and the answer was unequivocal, Tovey exaggerated. Kennedy put this caveat to the story in his book , but nobody who came afterward wanted to spoil the party by repeating the whole truth.
Every time A & A insists on posting I am bound to reply. I try to bring new, original evidence, not keep reposting old discredited secondary sources.
I believe you have missed out the fourth and most likely possibility. Churchill's uninformed rant at Chequers concerned Pound because Cunningham and the Mediterranean were under a cloud as well. There really were issues there of exhausted, panic-stricken officers and crews wilting under Luftwaffe bombardment, discipline breaking down and a concern that the Navy might let the Army down. WSC's great mate Roger Keyes was making waves as well, undermining Pound's authority.
Pound had earlier let Alexander's Board of Inquiry go ahead on Somerville to embarrass WSC and it worked. The Board exonerated Somerville, and Winston was left with egg all over his face. Pound had got the message through- "stop interfering with the Navy".
What works once can work again. With Bismarck safely despatched why not overreact to Churchill's forgotten rant and rub his nose in it again? I suspect the 28th letter Pound to Tovey requested the latter's
help in the subterfuge. However, Tovey wanted no part of the machinations, he says in the 31st letter he understands Pound's difficulties. He does not say in the letter, but I believe he meant he would not let his subordinates be set-up like this, even if everyone was confident they will be exonerated. The tone of the letter is not the outrage one might expect, passes swiftly on to cheerier matters, because Tovey knew it was not a real threat, and certainly not anything as serious as a real Court Martial.
Pound apologised to Tovey about another completely different thing, the Run Out Of Fuel signal, another WSC motivated intervention.
Pound had never got his blood up, was never angrily passionate about anything in the Bismarck pursuit and when Tovey said he would not play ball on the subterfuge it was dead and buried. Right then, not after analysis, but on the 30th at the famous phone call, and Tovey's resolute written "not under any circumstances" hammered it home the following day.
Pound shrugged his shoulders, and anyway WSC was busy annoying other people, and getting rid of senior personnel like Longmore RAF Middle East and Wavell Western Desert general.
Unfortunately, WSC's next sally into Naval Strategy and Tactics was the deployment to Singapore with disastrous results.
I still have hopes of discovering the 28th May letter to Tovey.
Don't be downhearted there are plenty of threads where the olive branches are waving gaily but round here, as President Merkin Muffley memorably said
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
All the best
wadinga