Naval History Forums

Now that Gary mentions it:
How in the world could the Glorious fall into Schanhorst hands in such an inglorious way?

Hi Karl.

For want of a better phrase.........Because the Captain was a f**king clown

Glorious was running to and fro from Narvik picking up RAF aircraft and bringing them home.
On the first run, The Captain d'Oyly-Hughes, had a discussion with his 2 most senior Air commanders.
Basically, a flag officer had raised the issue of striking at an inland target in Narvik.
D' Oyly-hughes was dead keen but his air commanders were not.
They said that the risks were to great to the swordfish.
Hughes (I cant be arsed to type his full name anymore) saw this as almost a mutiny and he had Commander J.B Heat put ashore pending court martial.
Glorious made out for her second run to Norway.
after collecting the aircraft, Hughes requested permission to return to Scapa to conduct the court martial taking only 2 DD's as back up.

On the Voyage home, they were no air recon patrols, no-one posted as look-out in Glorious's crows nest.
Ironically, when the man put ashore pending court martial was aboard, there were always aircraft performing recon patrols .
There is more to come..........some of Glorious's boilers had been shut down meaning that it would take longer to reach full speed in an emergency (about 30 minutes to flash up the boilers).
And lets face it, it was hard enough to run from Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as it was nevermind having some boilers shutdown.
I believe that when Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sighted the British carrier it was nearly another 15 minutes before the Carrier spotted them .

There is a brillant article about this on John Asmussens sites

http://www.scharnhorst-class.dk/scharnh ... njuno.html

By the way, Credit for sinking Glorious actually goes to Gneisenau, partly because Marschall at one point ordered Hoffman (Scharnhorst) to cease fire to conserve ammo as Gneisenau was closer to the target and had a better shot.
It should however be noted that the worlds greatest ship (Scharnhorst) put a shell through Glorious's deck at 26,465 yards thus meaning that the carrier was unable to launch aircraft.
I believe that Captain Hughes of Glorious died when Gneisenau planted an 11" shell into the bridge.

Hmm...Let's exmine those retarded moves:

1) No air patrol??? Who does that?
2) Missing boilers. Ok, so I'm going to see, in hostile waters. I know!!! I'll take down a boiler or two, that should help things.

15 minutes makes sense, if you aren't paying attention.

Hughes should have been court martialed himself, for conduct unbecoming a Naval Officer.

The gunners of Gneisenau should have gotten medals for that shot. :)

hey
in one point i totally agree with you...
the Scharnhorst was the best ship!!!!!

adios
miro

It has been suggested that D'Oyly Hughes, had no look out in his crows nest because he assumed his DD's would do the spotting for him

That is no credible excuse in my book.
He should have had a lookout (or two) on station in the crows nest.

Exactly, Gary. You leave port, during a war. Rule number 1 should be put up an air patrol and set out your lookouts.

I don't think he was looking out for his ship at all.

Hence, my reasoning that he should have been brought up on charges.

My father was in the US Navy, and he was held responsible for anything that happened on the ship. I can only imagine what would happen if an attack was made on one of his ships, with no watch set. Which is, essentially, what the state of things was on Glorious.

Hence, my reasoning that he should have been brought up on charges.

Had he not been killed in the action, I dare say he would have been.

photos of Glorious


Having some of the boilers shut down was just damn stupid too as I mentioned.

Although Glorious had no speed advantage over S&G even with all boilers up and running, had it been a panzerschiff (Pocket battleship) then Glorious could have made a getaway.
The Captain really had his head up his own butt that day

Gary wrote:The Captain really had his head up his own butt that day

Exactly.

Incredible that something like that happened! And it´s unbelievable that a captain of the Royal Navy, a man with the qualifications to be chosen to lead a combat vessel like an aircraft carrier, in the middle of the war (and in those days when the outcome of the war was less than certain) did all those mistakes. The destroyers that were escorting Glorious were destroyed too. Only two destroyers? I always believed that an aircraft carrier battle group needed more escorts, including some cruisers in case something like... facing some heavy surface units, happened.
Was there some inquiry about this sad episode?

I can understand having just two destoyers, but not the actions of the captain of Glorious. Compare that action to the action off Samar with the Japanese battle group against the US light carriers. They fought back, bigtime.

It's possible (probable?) that the captain was literally insane. He had a long history of strange behavior, which had been passed off as daring. It hadn't gotten better over time.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound actually wrote in his official Admiralty papers "Glorious seems to have forgotten that she was a Man o' War"

Tiornu:

It's possible (probable?) that the captain was literally insane. He had a long history of strange behavior, which had been passed off as daring. It hadn't gotten better over time.

Again: the Royal Navy would have noticed about this strange behavior and must have done something about it! The way Tiornu puts it seems that his fellow officers and superiors knew beforehand he was unstable. Then, how can you put someone like him in the bridge of an aircraft carrier? It´s like that old movie with Humphrey Bogart about a mutiny in a destroyer (good movie too).
As I see it the Glorious and her escorts weren´t destined to be sunk. The finding of Schanhorst and Gniesenau was due to the captain´s strange behavior. And at war! Jesus!
Best regards!

Hi Karl.

Tiornu is spot on with his comment.

D'Oyly Hughes was a borderline nutcase.


Commander J.B Heath was the man put ashore pending court martial.
The other guy who dared to disagree with the mad captain was Lieutenant commander Slessor.

Here is a small article I found.

After a major dispute he (D'Oyly Hughes) put ashore his Commander, Flying, J.B. Heath, and was preparing to court martial both Heath and Lieutenant Commander Slessor. Lieutenant Commander Slessor had written a despairing letter to his wife saying,


"J.B. and I are in great trouble. I can't tell you the story but you'll guess the cause of it. It was bound to come sooner or later I suppose."


The fact that this guy had obviously told his wife about the Captain's behaviour speaks words.

He may have been borderline insane but unfortunately, there was (and no doubt still is) one rule for junior ranks and another for senior ranks.