Hello everybody,
@ Wadinga,
Sean, you have not responded to my questions above to you about what was RearAdm Wake-Walker doing with Norfolk between 21.00 and 21.30 on May 23rd, 1941 ... and what was he doing once again between 03.00 and 03.20 on May 24th, 1941.
Let me help you here, ... it is an indisputable fact that he was just " enlarging " his distance from the enemy.
Right or wrong, ... everybody can keep his own opinion, ... what is out of discussion is the fact that he did it.
No one in this world can disagree, ... neither you now ...
Similarly, ... no one can disagree about the fact that from 20.30 of May 23rd, until 05.41 of May 24th, the Norfolk was never close anymore to the enemy, ... neither on visual or radar distance.
More, ... at 21.05 of May 32rd she had enlarged her distance from the enemy to more than 20 sea miles, ... and she remained at more than 20 sea miles away from the enemy ( reaching more than 40 sea miles distance at 03.20 ) thru all the night, ... going back under the 20 sea miles distance from the enemy ... only when Adm Lutjens turned toward South East at 05.21 on May 24th, ... starting his " Z move ", ... and moving toward the Norfolk consequently.
On that night of patrolling efforts, ... he run into the BC1 warships twice, ... assuming it was the Suffolk, ... and after having realized it was NOT the Suffolk, ... obviously he could only think it was the ENEMY ! ... and consequently did what he did the night before when was targeted by the Bismarck, ... he put a good numbers of sea miles between himself and the enemy, ... while doing nothing about what he realized from that occurrence, ... no communications or alert to anybody, ... just 2 hours of radio silence.
Even in graphic you can see the huge difference between the Suffolk efforts when compared to the Norfolk ones.
- Shadowing_Norfolk_vs_Suffolk.jpg (68.57 KiB) Viewed 2053 times
I can accept all the justifications about this conduct, ... respecting your opinion while having my own from a military stand point, ... but no one can avoid to accept the reality as it shows even on this Admiralty small definition map.
What I want to underline here is a concept that I take from Alberto Virtuani correct evaluation, since he wrote above :
I don't discuss here whether this was inevitable (due to her radar), simply wise, too timid or totally wrong, but in any case, it's an irrefutable fact that, as a result, Norfolk did not shadow the enemy that night, differently from what is written everywhere (including Adm.Tovey point 17 in his dispatch....).
This irrefutable fact never shows up on any report or book I have read, ... never being highlighted or even mentioned, ...while in the opposite everybody likes to associate the 2 heavy cruisers performances that night, ... of course incorrectly as we can easily realize and see.
Last point about what Adm Tovey did while writing on his dispatches the point 17 has been already discussed and it belongs to the evident " Cover Up " made after this operation, ... and we all know about the real intent of it very well 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 )