The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

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wadinga
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by wadinga »

Hello All,


it is unfortunate that a thread supposed to be dealing solely with the Court martial threat has restarted other debates.

The only relevant fact is that both Leach and Wake-Walker stayed in their positions of trust and enormous responsibility, were not censured in any way by Pound and so therefore the threat whatever it was, if it existed, was not followed through. Reasons to justify this fact have been postulated by those asserting conspiracy.

The trouble is we are not dealing with opinions pretending to be facts, but intuitions doing so. Opinions can be swayed by evidence. Intuitions cannot.


Here is an "intuition" dressed up as a fact
1) It is a fact that on May 28th, 1941 Adm Pound asked a Board of Inquiry -> Court Martial to Adm Tovey and it is a fact that after the war Adm Tovey explained the whole situation to Stephen Roskill in writing.
Since no-one has Pound's 28th May letter we do not know Pound asked for even a Board of Inquiry. It is also not a fact that a B of I automatically leads to a Court Martial. We infer from Tovey's letter of 30th May there was a request for Tovey to conduct a Board of inquiry, motive unknown. Tovey supplied information to Roskill between 10 and 20 years after the events. None of the information mentioned a Board of Enquiry, or referred to the actual letters that existed. They referred to a phone call about which no corroborating evidence exists.

Another example of an "intuition" dressed up as a fact:
ADM 205/10 is stating that the PoW retreat was an aspect that had to be investigated.
Pound's green ink reply says he will take Tovey's report with him, one presumes when he sails with Churchill and Leach in a few days' time. Nowhere are Court Martials, Board of Inquiry or disciplinary measures mentioned. Nowhere is an investigation mentioned. This is two months after the action. A month and a half later, Pound suggests to Alexander that they tell the War Cabinet a thorough investigation has been made. There is no sign any such investigation was made, or even contemplated. Thus it never "had to be investigated". Tovey confirms he, as C-in-C, heard no more about it after he alleges a threat was made on the 30th May.

Alexander's memo to the PM offers to make a report, "if necessary" therefore it did not qualify as "had to be investigated". His closing sentence makes it clear only Churchill's opinion, and not any underlying real concerns, would motivate such a report.


It is disappointing is that those misrepresenting their intuitions as facts, claim to be in possession of further actual factual evidence, but they refuse to show it in the spirit for which this forum exists. The reason for withholding it is clear.


All the best

wadinga
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Herr Nilsson
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Herr Nilsson »

@wadinga
Not having the new sources you, Alberto and Antonio have digged out lately I have to rely on my memory. When I wrote:
Herr Nilsson wrote: Wed Jul 11, 2018 7:33 am 1)It is a fact that on May 28th, 1941 Adm Pound asked a Board of Inquiry to Adm Tovey.
I had the letter of the 30th in mind.

I stand corrected. It must be read:
1)It is a fact that on May 30th, 1941 Adm Tovey mentions a request for a Board of Inquiry.

However, it's a good example that memory doesn't serves right.
Regards

Marc

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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

too many persons are playing dummy here among facts and interpretations, ... with the obvious useless intent to try to refuse and reject this shameful event.

Lets see how many will disagree about those being facts now :

Fact number 1) On May 31st 1941 Adm Tovey responded to Adm Pound that he was not going to call a Board of Inquiry on the conduct of Wake-Walker and Leach ( those names being clearly written on the letter.)

Fact number 2 ) On July 1941 Adm Tovey issued his dispatches. ( reading points 17 and 19, 22 and 23 are of particular interest being those directly correlated to the conduct of the 2 above listed Officers )

Fact number 3 ) On September 1941 Sir Barnes ( Admiralty Secretary ) issued a letter of the Admiralty acceptance in relation to the conduct of Wake-Walker and Leach, clearly referencing ONLY Adm Tovey dispatches version of the facts.

Fact number 4 ) On October 1941 the same 2 Officers listed on the fact number 1 above, ... namely Wake-Walker and Leach, ... have been rewarded by the King.

Lets see who will try to refuse those being facts.

@ Herr Nillson,

May 30th was Adm Tovey first and correct report submission, ... his response to Adm Pound May 28th letter, was dated May 31st, 1941.

You are right, ... sometimes memory does not work right, ... that is why the writing letters dated and with full explanation of the real events are conserved by the careful historians like Stephen Roskill.

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 )
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wadinga
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by wadinga »

Herr Nilsson,

I quoted Antonio's post of 07:17 yesterday
1) It is a fact that on May 28th, 1941 Adm Pound asked a Board of Inquiry -> Court Martial to Adm Tovey and it is a fact that after the war Adm Tovey explained the whole situation to Stephen Roskill in writing.

2) It is a fact that the whole " Cover Up " with the documents intentional alteration was done on purpose to obtain the Admiralty formal acceptance of the explanations ( Admiralty letter of September 1941 ) in order to enable the Officer recognition with a medal on October 1941, ... which it was obviously not possible given the real facts occurred during the battle that initially were driving the Board of Inquiry request from the Admiralty.
The second intuition masquerading as a fact is so confusing and self contradictory (is the "Admiralty" requesting a Board of Inquiry or creating a conspiracy to ensure it doesn't want one?) I decided to ignore it.


Please don't apologise for being slightly mislead by Antonio, sadly he's had a lot of practice. His special skill is only presenting only part of the evidence, like those thumbnails from maps, fragments from documents, redacting the rest and leaving his reader to draw an inaccurate inference. He actually justified this practice somewhere, but I can't find it again, perhaps he will remind us. However on 1) above he merely fabricated evidence and tried to bluff it through. Nobody knows what is in the 28th May Pound letter.

Fact number 3 ) On September 1941 Sir Barnes ( Admiralty Secretary ) issued a letter of the Admiralty acceptance in relation to the conduct of Wake-Walker and Leach, clearly referencing ONLY Adm Tovey dispatches version of the facts.

Barnes' letter dated 10th September (I will post the original IN FULL Antonio) is addressed to Tovey with regard to receiving his despatch dated 5th July and consists of 14 paragraphs relating to the entire operation. Nowhere does it state it uses only Tovey's despatch as a source of knowledge. Since resources not under Tovey's command, eg Somerville and Coastal Command are involved it is extremely unlikely. Only in one of the 14 paragraphs are Leach and Wake-Walker specifically mentioned. This is the one later quoted by Pound in his suggestions to responding to the tedious, irrelevant, ill-defined bureaucratic matter of the War Cabinet minutes question (whatever it might have been). In another Barnes mentions vessels "not being fully worked up".
Fact number 1) On May 31st 1941 Adm Tovey responded to Adm Pound that he was not call a Board of Inquiry on the conduct of Wake-Walker and Leach ( those names being clearly written on the letter.)
Fact number 1.1 should include that "both Leach and Wake-Walker stayed in their positions of trust and enormous responsibility, were not censured in any way by Pound, and so therefore the threat whatever it was, if it existed, was not followed through."


All the best

wadinga
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by northcape »

wadinga wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 1:12 pm Herr Nilsson,

I quoted Antonio's post of 07:17 yesterday
2) It is a fact that the whole " Cover Up " with the documents intentional alteration was done on purpose to obtain the Admiralty formal acceptance of the explanations ( Admiralty letter of September 1941 ) in order to enable the Officer recognition with a medal on October 1941, ... which it was obviously not possible given the real facts occurred during the battle that initially were driving the Board of Inquiry request from the Admiralty.
The second intuition masquerading as a fact is so confusing and self contradictory (is the "Admiralty" requesting a Board of Inquiry or creating a conspiracy to ensure it doesn't want one?) I decided to ignore it.
Yes, amazing, isn't it? I had the same thought. So it is either a fact that there is a cover-up, or it is a fact that the cover-up was done specifically to allow to give out medals to the offficers. Actually, the second option requires the first one. So where is the proof for the fact (e.g. a written note of one of the persons involved saying "We did a cover-up")? This should be the silver bullet, where is it?

As said on several occasions, people who are not able to distinguish between facts and opinions (in particular if it is even obvious to the blindest of the blind) are for sure anytrhing but "historians". Again, troll is still the most kind description one might want to sue.
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

I see that the usual " hooligan / deniers " unable to do either easy mathematics calculation or geometry evaluations now try to challenge some logical facts connection.

Are you sure to have your brain engaged ?

Well, if so are you able to realize that it is NOT common practice in any army or navy in this world to have 2 Officers subject to a Board of Inquiry request for their action conduct by their superiors ( Admiralty ), few months after being rewarded with a medal by the King, ... after the same Admiralty approval :shock:

Are you able to realize that something must have changed the initial Admiralty request ?

I doubt you are able to find the 2 Official documents I am referring to above and make that easy logical connection.

But maybe you are able to surprise me ... :wink:

NOTE : still mathematics and geometry are waiting for you ... :wink:

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 )
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by northcape »

Antonio Bonomi wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:02 pm
I see that the usual " hooligan / deniers " unable to do either easy mathematics calculation or geometry evaluations now try to challenge some logical facts connection.
"Logical facts connection" - I had to laugh out loud. What on earth should that be? I know what facts are, and know what opinions are. But I don't know what a "logical facts connection" could be. So is the discussed statement now a fact or not? And by the way, to hear the word "logical" out of the mouth from a troll is not without irony either.

Finally, if some maths for trolls are required, here it is: 1 + 1 = 2, and not 3. But I know this is applies only in the real world, and not in fantasy land.
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody, ,

I renew my invitation to you " hooligan / deniers " of logical facts connected one to the others.

On May 31st, 1941 the Commander in Chief Home Fleet John Tovey responded in writing to the Admiralty First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound that he was NOT going to proceed with the requested Board of Inquiry he asked for the conduct in action of RearAdm W.F. Wake-Walker and Capt. J. C. Leach.

This is a fact, ...the first, ... and it is irrefutable even by an intentional denier.

On October 1941, as we can read on a London Gazette publication, the King rewarded the same 2 Officers listed above for the same action.

This is another irrefutable fact, ... the second.

I made it very easy for you, ... so you should be in condition to realize the problem we are facing above.

Now, do you mind to try to explain to this forum readers what happened in between those 2 facts ?

What was done by the Commander in Chief Home Fleet and by the Royal Navy Admiralty to enable the final King recognition ?

I cannot make it easier than this, ... and the above 2 facts cannot be refuted even by an " hoooligan/denier "

Now we wait for your logic explanation of the events occurred in between the 2 facts listed above.

In addition, since you seems to be good in mathematics, an easy evaluation for you : if you sum up 10 minutes to 05:53 what time are you going to have on your clock ?

I am helping you with 2 possible responses : either 06:03 or ... 06:13. ( I hope you will do better than Wake-Walker and Tovey :wink: )

I guarantee you that if you pass this elementary mathematics examination, ... I will raise you to the level of the geometry one that somebody else unfortunately is still unable to respond, ... :shock:

Have fun ...

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 )
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by HMSVF »

Phillips was absent for few days and NEVER Leach was left alone in action anymore

As I mentioned before, any hand holding was the reverse.Tom Phillips had not been to sea since 1938-39 when he was Commodore Commanding the Home Fleet Destroyer Flotillas. Prior to that he was in command of HMS Hawkins (in 1935) and HMS Campbell in 1929.1938 to 1939 he was Naval ADC to the King
from,1st Jun 1939 to Dec 1941: Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty and Deputy (later: Vice) Chief of Naval Staff.

So he never commanded anything bigger than a cruiser, hadn't been to see in more than 3 years and spent a lot of time doing desk jobs....

Leach would have been the one with the experience, not only in running a battleship but also in modern war. Any baby sitting would come from the captain, not the admiral.


Best wishes


HMSVF
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hi HMSVF,

I see your point, but in case of Leach and Phillips, the "baby-sitting" (I prefer "supervision") would not have been related to "running a battleship" or knowledge of "modern war" technical aspects, IMO more on other aspects related to command duties..... :wink:


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 »

Hello Antonio,
Now, do you mind to try to explain to this forum readers what happened in between those 2 facts ?
You know very well what happened between these two events:

Fact number 1.1 should include that "both Leach and Wake-Walker stayed in their positions of trust and enormous responsibility, were not censured in any way by Pound, and so therefore the threat whatever it was, if it existed, was not followed through."

Wake-Walker:

"This operation EF involved an unsuccessful carrier raid commanded by W-W on Petsamo and motivated entirely for political reasons to support the newly-attacked USSR and lasting from 22nd July -4th August. 24 hour daylight and inadequate strike aircraft made failure a forgone conclusion but W-W did his best, receiving a stony silence when he went to commiserate with surviving aircrew in Victorious on return. However, orders are orders. Groping their way into Seidisfjord in fog meant risk had to be taken and Achates' dead were the price. I have yet to read the National Archive file on this, but their Lordships' opinion looks superficially like appalling hindsight and back-seat driving.

Contrary to any imaginary official unhappiness with his general performance after this, and now three whole months after Pound was supposed to have wanted him court-martialled W-W set off again with a twin carrier task force on operations Dervish and Strength again supplying support for the Russians around Murmansk. His covering force had the complex task of covering the Dervish convoy, the very first Russian convoy, and also the transfer of a flight of 24 RAF Hurricanes to North Russia, flown off the Argus. He fitted in some air strikes against German shipping in the Tromso area as well. These operations lasted from 19th August through to 10th September."

"A further accolade for Wake-Walker was that he was on the Parliamentary Committee, as expert advice, set up to investigate the loss of PoW and Repulse "Battleship" Middlebrook."

John Leach:

"Leach was in command of HMS Prince of Wales from commissioning until the day she sank apart from his hernia operation and convalescence, that is complete approval of his performance. If there had been any other opinion, another Captain would have been appointed."

"Except that Winston was full of praise and bonhomie when sailing with Leach to Placentia Bay five days after Brockman made his mistaken guess. Pound's green ink says I will take the C-in-C's report with me- where? Why on board PoW to America with Winston and Leach of course."

As a remembrance of his pleasant trip under Leach's protection, Winston sent him a signed photograph. It did not say "to the man who did the worst thing since Troubridge turned away from the Goeben in 1914"

The idea that this totally imaginary Conspiracy was created so the Bismarck's destruction could be presented as a "good news" PR stunt (not that wasn't wonderful news already) and solely so everybody could be dished out with medals has been laughable since the start. Whatever bits of ribbon these men got, they were fulfilling their positions of trust and responsibility from 24th May 1941 to the day of their deaths.

These are facts between the other two facts. These facts make it clear that Sir Dudley Pound had complete faith in the abilities of these men. If the 28th May letter from Pound did request a Board of Inquiry IMHO it was purely to mollify the ill-informed, hasty and unfair outburst of WSC, and not because, as has been claimed "ADM 205/10 is stating that the PoW retreat was an aspect that had to be investigated" Only this explanation fits with Pound immediately abandoning the idea, and keeping these excellent officers in their posts of considerable responsibility.

All the best

wadinga
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

we all know very well that no Board of Inquiry was called by anybody, ... no Court Martial was consequently decided, ... no disciplinary actions have been taken against Wake-Walker or Leach, ... this has never been in discussion by anybody in this forum.

So we cannot care less as far as this thread is related to their records. We know it.

I have asked :
Now, do you mind to try to explain to this forum readers what happened in between those 2 facts ?

What was done by the Commander in Chief Home Fleet and by the Royal Navy Admiralty to enable the final King recognition ?
This is what we are interested on here in, ... so we want to see and evaluate what was written and Officially communicated by the above 2 entities, ... the Commander in Chief Home Fleet and/or by the First Sea Lord or Admiralty in relation to their actions during the Bismarck chase and the Denmark Strait battle, ... until the King recognition.

What was the path followed to move an initial inquiry request on 2 Officers conduct in action, ... that finally enabled the King recognition ?

That is the shame of this " regrettable aftermath " of this " Denmark Strait Saga ", ... to go from the negligence and/or cowardice to the rewarding medals for the same conduct while in action for those 2 Officers, ... and we want to realize : how was that ever possible ?

Somebody must have changed the reality ! Who did it ?

Somebody must have avoided to challenge the intentional lies ! Who did it ?

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 )
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by northcape »

Antonio Bonomi wrote: Fri Jul 13, 2018 5:34 pm Hello everybody,

we all know very well that no Board of Inquiry was called by anybody, ... no Court Martial was consequently decided, ... no disciplinary actions have been taken against Wake-Walker or Leach, ... this has never been in discussion by anybody in this forum.
Well, the statement "this has never been in discussion by anybody in this forum" is not quite right. There is another (different?) Antonio who one or two days ago wrote
1) It is a fact that on May 28th, 1941 Adm Pound asked a Board of Inquiry -> Court Martial to Adm Tovey and it is a fact that after the war Adm Tovey explained the whole situation to Stephen Roskill in writing.
I guess I know the answer already: "Asking" is of course something different than "calling", this will be the excuse of the trolls (still neglecting that the statement "It is a fact that on May 28th, 1941 Adm Pound asked a Board of Inquiry -> Court Martial" is pure speculation (or a "logical facts connection"), and of course not a fact).
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by wadinga »

Hello Antonio,
Somebody must have changed the reality


No someone is trying to change reality.


Right here, right now.

The reality is there never was a CMDS threat, Tovey exaggerated, and people have gleefully jumped on the bandwagon because it shows Pound and Winston in a bad light, (Boo nasty...……... Establishment) but there was no harm done, because nothing ever happened (Hooray...……. innocents vindicated). There was only ever a request for a B of I, which was instantly forgotten about, because there was no actual cause for suspicion. The suspects were kept in their highly responsible roles, which would never have happened if half the things you have alleged had even been suspected. As a former military man you know this is true, but you refuse to admit it, because your case would evaporate. Instead you blather on about irrelevancies like
that finally enabled the King recognition
Wake-Walker and Leach had responsibility, from Pound and the Admiralty, for thousands of lives from May 24th until the day of their deaths.
Somebody must have avoided to challenge the intentional lies
You have invented "intentional lies" out of a few minor irrelevant discrepancies, including two different guesses at a distance and the recording of what arbitrary instant manoeuvring becomes "retreating". You admitted you started out with "intuitions" and hence you have created worms and crammed them into cans ever since. You have generated meaningless maps and ignored evidence showing them to be meaningless. You prefer to believe the fuzzy unedited uncorroborated memories of unpublished memoirs which tell a "truth" contradictory to official reports written at the time, by the same people. You have generated an inflexible dogmatic timeline out of your interpretation, or guesswork, as anybody else would call it, to specifically serve your allegations.

You pointlessly keep on with questions like those above, when you claim to have the unanswerable answer in your hands, and have done so for months,- the so-called Silver Bullet. You refuse to disclose this in what is supposed to be an open forum, presumably because it will affect the saleability of the potentially defamatory and contentious text you say you intend to write about this matter.

All the best

wadinga
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Re: The Court Martial for the Denmark Strait

Post by HMSVF »

to go from the negligence and/or cowardice to the rewarding medals for the same conduct while in action for those 2 Officers, ... and we want to realize : how was that ever possible ?

WSC being a hot-headed, amateur admiral who didn't wait for any information before going off on a rant, demanding his First Sea Lord keel haul 2 officers. The information comes back WSC looks a complete idiot, realises his mistake and goes silent. When asked if he still wanted to push for official action, the old goat, rather than admit he was wrong ,says "leave it".

When the circumstances of the events come to light both they get coffee and medals.

In the grand scheme of things's, much as we who love naval history like to say this was a huge event..In reality, its but a part of the Battle of The Atlantic.Strategically was as it important as the U-Boat war? No. The actions off Crete ? No . Force Z and the Singapore strategy ? Definitely not.

Its remembered because of the loss of HMS Hood in minutes ,the loss of contact for several days, what was probably the last major redeployment of RN forces on a large scale to find her ,the lucky hit on Bismarcks stern and the eventual destruction of a ship that was on her first operation.

It's the drama of the episode that endures. why do I mention this?

I just wonder if there is over egging of the significance of the incident/battle. There were far bigger stories that needed cover ups. If there was a big cover up and it was that serious then why did Tovey discuss the 20 years after the event? Wouldn't he have been under the official secrets act and unable to talk? Wouldn't the files been locked away till 2041?


There have been various documents cited and "facts" obtained from them. What has become increasingly clear is that when a document has been produced the interpretation has been vastly different. I think this all comes back to the basic premise what you start off with. If you think there has been a big cover up, you will find "evidence" in official documentation, no matter how vague. Same if you don't think there is (a cover up).


Personally I don't think that there is enough substantive evidence. Ive bored you all to death about Tovey being the origin of many of the citations. Its effectively makes him a single source. Various writers have quoted him of course, but it still IMHO it does come back to the same man. Where are the memoirs of his flag officers or adjutants, what did Tovey's captain remember? there must have been more people who would remember the events. Cover ups are difficult to, err cover up. There are always loose threads.

So we cannot care less as far as this thread is related to their records. We know it

On this I strongly disagree. If words like "cowardice" and "dereliction of duty" are being used I think that is only right to point out their records both post and prior. Certainly if their records are being used by the case for the prosecution.



Best Wishes



HMSVF
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