racedo, your objection to my suggestion that a superior's order might be challenged if it flies in the face of the known facts seems to be based on the effect it would have on the career of he who objects.
You make my point splendidly! Those who sat around the table that day were not JOs but VSOs, so even more career at stake you might say. Tough! Their responsibility was to see that the best appreciation of the situation was made and thus the best course of action taken. It wasn't, because to a man they deferred to the bizarre, unprecedented, and obstinate opinion of a sick man, and one other.
They failed their country, their Service and, most importantly of all, those in PQ17 and those desperately waiting for the relief it carried.
Poor Show!

Robert Cooper I read this book when I was a young man. The descriptive writing, of the Arctic Sea conditions, stayed with me for many years. An excellent read.

SASless,

"...Familiar with the RAF refusal to provide Coastal Command the assets it needed...."

Lets actually throw some facts at that comment shall we? The PQ-17 tragedy occurred in July 1942. In 1942 the RAF was very short of four engined long range aircraft, especially ones suited to maritime reconnaissance. The Short Stirling and Handley Page Halifax were only entering service in small numbers. The best long range assets available to Coastal Command were US built Liberators and PBY Catalinas, and UK built Sunderlands.

As to the numbers game, in Feb 1942 (the closest date I could readily find to July 1942) Coastal Command had 44 Squadrons including 5 4 engined and 4 PBY.

In March 1943 Bomber Command had 62 Sqns, only 36 of which were 4 engined, with considerable numbers of 2 engined Wellingtons and Whitleys still around. In direct comparision, in Feb 1943 Coastal Command had 48 Sqns, of which 16 were 4 engined or PBY.

I would suggest that a ratio of 62:48 does not imply that Coastal Command were starved of aircraft. Indeed 48 Sqns shows the importance that was given to airpower in the maritime environment. Yes, Bomber Command was bigger, and the bomber offensive was a high priority, but you must consider the situation at the time. With (apart from the situation in North Africa) limited ability to "take the fight to the enemy/strike back" other than from the air, the Bomber Offensive was seen as the only way seen to keep the pressure on until the infamous "second front" was opened. Striking back was an important psychological, as well as practical, strategy.

Various comments have already been made about Churchill. It should be noted that the one thing that "kept him awake at night" was his fear over losing the "Battle of the Atlantic". He certainly saw it as a main long term priority, and aircraft were well recognized as a way to neutralize and eventually destroy the U-Boat threat.

You are overlooking the groupthink prevalent in many organisations at senior level where people go down a route because not to goes down badly.

Deference to someone because of their position has time and again led to disaster because people who could challenge either haven't or done it in such a way that nobody believes them. Nobody wants to end someones career because you forever remembered for doing it.

Errors in judgement that have occurred previously but despite the errors the cock up still worked out without it being a disaster because the enemy did something unexpectedly.

Sadly everybody then forgets the errors that led to it and happy it worked out.

Commanders who disobey orders and it turns out ok get away with it, those who disobey and it ends in disaster are not so lucky.

I have no disagreement with you that PQ17 was badly served by those in London.

What would have been outcome for his career had it gone badly ?

How many people disobeyed orders and it led to disaster have then gone on to greater things ? Would suggest not many as they then removed from position.

Removed from position yes, but in many cases booted up to the next rank, so in a way rewarded for failure!

racedo, you may well suggest that the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty were only capable of group think. I couldn't possibly comment, other than to say that the group think on this occasion was opposed to scatter. The problem was that when over ruled by their superior (+1), the group think seems to have been an agreed position that no more could be done. Wrong!
Poor Show!

Beags,

The USS North Carolina carries nine 16 inch guns.....and would have been capable of going toe to toe with the Tirpitz.

We have to remember the Tirpitz was at anchor in Altenfijord.....and not at sea.

The FSL had been told that.


As to disobeying Orders.....Pound was the FSL and thus the most Senior Officer in the RN....thus he issued Orders and everyone obeyed them. Is that not the way a Military force operates?

Chug, I am with racedo. I stand by my position that the one in command is in absolute command. Have you never heard your boss ever say that boss say it is not a democracy.

Another VSO that again went against advice was Boy Browning. I am sure there are many other instance where operations, both successful and unsuccessful, were forced through against advice.

Staffs might by sycophantic (Kim Jong-Un's spring to mind) or give best and unequivocal advice but still ignores. Dowding, Park, and Leigh-Mallory spring to mind although in that case is was one 2* disagreeing with the other.

Where I would agree with you is that Pound was wrong and should have been over-ruled but even at that exalted level it would have been a fine line between incapacity and mutiny.

I am loathe to quote Wiki.....but there is a good summary of the situation faced by Coastal Command prior to and during the War.

It points to the Air Ministry in unflattering terms and points out the lack of preparedness and strategic thought prior to the War....and a failure to properly assess the threat of the U-Boat and properly address the needs of Coastal Command re Trade Protection as a result.

Bomber Command may have been seen as the only way to take the fight to the Enemy by some.....but starving to death while doing that would have been a sad outcome of a false priority. Recall Food Rationing did not end until 1948 in the UK.

The loss of the French Fleet and German access to French Ports is what presented the Allies with a real problem and led to unsustainable losses in Merchant Shipping owing to the ease in access to the Atlantic by the U-Boats.

Once that threat was recognized, strategic plans developed, and proper priority was given to Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare, did Coastal Command and US Forces (primarily USN Carrier forces) become effective in dealing with the U-Boat threat.

RAF Coastal Command - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Which part of racedo's diatribe are you with, PN? He has successively suggested that (UK?) Commanders were only there because of accident of birth and by the same token could not be removed, to a different position that their subordinates were not willing to risk their careers in challenging their decisions, to yet another position that decisions taken at Board level are subject to Group Think, even though all are opposed (bar 2) to what the Group Think states. I am not persuaded by any of those scenarios.


We are not looking here at a tactical command. If the Convoy Commander orders it to scatter, it scatters. What we are looking at is a supposed best course of action after careful lengthy deliberation at the Admiralty. Of course the resultant order is sent in the name of the FSL, but the assumption of those receiving it is that is an overall agreed position and not contrary to it.


You cannot have a situation where one man can imperil thousands of others and millions of tons vital supplies simply because he is unwell, and thus rejects the advice given him by everyone else (bar 1). This is exceptional and requires exceptional response, rather like when Air Marshals issue illegal orders. Your duty then is to kiss goodbye to your career and report them to their superiors. Whether you do or not is the measure of you, not of them.

When JC was talking of the Tirpitz and comparing shell weights he also mentioned the thickness of her armour. I think he made a slip in units when talking on the thickness of her armour.

Her main belt protecting the machinery spaces etc was 13 inches and that on the main turrets was 14 inches. Her weakest spot was her main deck between 3.9 and 4.7 inches.

Now it was a truism at the time that you needed an armour piercing shell of greater diameter than the thickness of the armour. It follows that only plunging shot from the 6 inch gunned cruisers would have been effective against the main deck.

The Allies had three Battleships (North Carolina, Washington, Duke of York), four Heavy Cruisers (Wichita, Tuscaloosa, HMS Norfolk, HMS Cumberland), and one Aircraft Carrier (Illustrious) along with several Light Cruisers and dozens of Destroyers with which to confront the Tirpitz Task Force.....which seems a fairly substantial force with which to confront the German unit.

The German Task force had one Battleship (Tirpitz), One Heavy Cruiser (Hipper), and two other Cruisers (Lutzow and Scheer), Ten Destroyers, and Nine U-Boats.

What was the head count of ships during the final shoot out with the Bismarck?

SASLess, it was Victorious not Illustrious as the latter was in the Indian Ocean. As you know, Victorious was then loaned to the USN in Dec 1942.

One of the dangers of quoting Wiki......

I see little point in engaging where you feel personal abuse becomes your point.

SASLess, yes, there are traps in wiki. I amended one error in the PQ17 article.

Another case in point arose on a different thread. The same location was mentioned on wiki in 3 separate areas and led to different conclusions.

Largely true, the officer class was alive and well.

Once at that position they could only be removed by Churchill and it could not be done in the course of that one day.

Quite

Equally true, no one argued that that should not be the case but clearly it was.

What we are arguing is that Pound had the power and no one was prepared to challenge it. I would also argue that the powers of command at that time were near absolute.

To come nearer to home and more recent times, we were on a 'mandatory' launch order. In the event that we were required to launch the order would be given by the CinC. Our captain at the time said he would refuse that order. Who would have been right had we been ordered to launch - this was peacetime.

If I may chip in to the argument about disobeying orders. I haven't had a chance to watch the program yet so apologies if this has already been covered.

One of the PQ17 escorting destroyers was Keppel commanded by Jack Broome.

I need to dig out his book but IIRC he did question the order to withdraw initially (ack flag at the dip) but had confirmation and when alongside the Admirals cruiser in a high speed chase to the south, which he assumed was to engage the Tirpitz, asked why they had withdrawn when discovering it wasn't to engage the enemy. But by then it was too late to go back and had to abandon the convoy

It is possible that he may have ignored the order to withdraw if he was in full possession of the facts?

He went on to say he felt thoroughly ashamed and felt the navy had let down the merchant marine badly.

SASless,

Reference Coastal Command - what exactly is your point? Have you actually read the link you posted to?

Yes, Coastal Command was the Cinderella of the RAF prior to the outbreak of war. However, what sort of maritime war were the British expecting to fight against the Germans? One largely confined to the North Sea. The fall of France and Norway, giving German access to Atlantic and Arctic coastlines was not envisaged. Coastal Commands thinking was inevitably a reflection of that of the Royal Navy. As for Royal Navy thinking at the time, your linked article quotes:

1937 "the Royal Navy no longer considered U-Boats were a threat to Britain's sea lanes

" in December 1937, the Naval and Air Staffs met again, and changed the priority to North Sea reconnaissance. The Naval Staff insisted that commerce raiders presented the greatest danger, and aircraft could prove decisive only in locating enemy Warships.]"

Yes, the RAF failed to adequately assess a future U-Boat threat, but so did the RN. As for not properly developing ASW by aircraft before the war, you're correct, it didn't happen. But neither did the RAF properly develop the art of night fighting. The RAF bomber fleet was inadequate at the start of the war, the fighter force not much better - in 1937 it was still mainly biplanes - air transport was minimal, etc, etc. Pre war errors and false assumptions occurred on all sides, for example, the Germans failed to develop a long range bomber. As for armed services having Cinderella services or aircraft, it still occurs today, where many air forces seem Fast Jet centric as lead by their hierarchy.


My point is that by the time of the PQ-17 convoy, July 1942, the penny had dropped about the importance of long range maritime aviation, and the RAF was doing it's best to catch up on pre war neglect. When you're fighting a global war, with forces stretched literally across the planet, Africa, the Far East, etc, based on pre war assumptions and assets planned for a North Sea conflict, it's not surprising that there are never enough assets to go around.

Oh - by the way, food rationing didn't end in the UK until 1954- not 1948!

BBC ON THIS DAY | 4 | 1954: Housewives celebrate end of rationing

Or, since you seem to prefer wiki:

Rationing in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Considering the effectiveness of the U-Boats during WWI....it begs the imagination to think they would be considered any less capable during the Second World War.

I believe you will find it was a competition for assets and resources that drove the decision making by the Admiralty and Air Ministry and not any really deep strategical thinking.....matter of fact all evidence would show the "strategic thinking" was flawed in the years leading up to the start of the War.

The American Military was no better equipped or prepared than the British for the onset of hostilities on a world wide scale. We at least had begun to ramp up production and grow our forces prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. Remember we had begun to escort Convoys prior to declaring war on Germany and had lost several combat vessels in that effort.

Look at the gross failure of the US Navy to heed the advice given by the RN re Convoys and inability to darken the lights along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts......killing how many hundreds of mariners. Our CNO was no great lover of things British as you may recall.

Montgomery and his "Bridge Too Far" adventure was yet another example of a Commander refusing to heed the input of his Intelligence Officers. We see how that turned out.

There were ample warnings of the Ardenne Offensive (Battle of the Bulge) that were ignored as well.

Some how I do not believe that an Officer upon receiving an Order takes the time to consider the factors that led to the issuance of that Order.....and way too many times Orders given from a great distance away from the battlefield seem to fly in the face of the tactical reality. Yet.....local Commanders obey the orders given from up the Chain of Command.....that is how the military operates.

Exactly, a point that Chug seems blind to.

I thought the story of the little armed trawler with his three ships in tow would have made a damned good film... It shows though in his award that he deserved higher, but for the disobeying of orders.

As for the Costal Command cover, that would appear to have been a suicide mission at that range and how would you maintain it? It's alright sticking 500 bombers over a distant target at a given time, but maintaining an air presence over hostile territory so far north for a sustained period would be impossible.

Bismarck and Tirpitz were essentially 50,000 tonne battleships rather than the 35,000 tonne allied battleships. The Germans had contravened the Washington naval treaty (which was intended to minimise an arms race) and this gave their ships a significant advantage. When it comes to battleship vs battleship combat they can be very brief and very singular, with insufficient time for team efforts by a 'squadron' to bear fruit. One should not use hindsight - the admiralty was rightly very worried about the Tirpitz.

( poor Pound was basically overworked to death despite his illness)

Following the loss of the Bismarck and the Graf Spee.....would the Germans have risked the Tirpitz if the Heavy force had closed up on the Convoy to be located by German Aircraft and perhaps a U-Boat?

I would suggest not.....as it was their last big Ship....and Hitler would not countenance another propaganda disaster.

Perhaps that is why it did not deploy against the Convoy.

PN, I'm not suggesting that Pound's order would not be easily countermanded. Almost certainly if it had been the order would have been executed making it very difficult to reform the convoy and escorts. The point I am making is that someone should have tipped off Pound's superiors that he was ignoring the advice of others and in doing so needlessly leaving PQ17 exposed to the very real menace of the U boats and the Luftwaffe. Who those superiors might be, I don't know. What they could do in the face of a fait accompli, I don't know. Would they do anything? Again I don't know. What I do know is that as many as possible that had been overridden that day should have alerted someone higher up the CoC. Conspiracy to Mutiny? So be it. One life, one career, against so many? The decision was so bizarre as to warrant challenging and reporting, and should have been.
Your V bomber example is inappropriate. Your Captain knew that order could come, and if he wasn't going to obey it the answer wasn't to disobey it but to offer to resign instead. Tough choices all.
I do not share the characterisation of the UK Officer Corps then by you and racedo as by accident of birth. The wartime realities meant that ability not birth counted for more. Pound was FSL because of his record and proven ability not because of his birth, but he was human and subject to its frailty. The RNMS should have been on to that. It failed him and the country.

racedo, I don't think 'diatribe' given the list of generalisations that you came out with amounted to personal abuse but rather fair comment. The discussion was about one VSO, one order, and the consequences of that order. It was you that expanded it out to condemnation of most holding (UK?) command. I thought that 'diatribe' summed it up well. I'm sorry that you disagree.

BEags -they weren't all fighting Bismarck at once. Also PoW was not fully ready when sent out with Hood , not only that but Hood was hopelessly under armoured. It was hardly surprising that the first blood went to the Germans. Notwithstanding rudder damage, Bismarck had all her guns and armour intact at the final action.

I beg to differ. It was not the V-force; it was a single crew; it was near the end of the cold war.

A fait accompli rather than an implicit endorsement.

[I] his successful campaign against German U-boat activity and the winning of the Battle of the Atlantic

He was a hero.

There were only two higher than Pound.

One was Churchill and the other was the great one, Politics and Propaganda.

As you know, Stalin and King were very displeased and the civilian morale was still fragile and to punish a hero would not have helped.

Piffle. That might have been true of the lower ranks in the Army but the RN was resolute in dividing RN from RNR from RNVR. Pound joined the RN as a midshipman in 1891 Born the son of Alfred John Pound (an Eton-educated[1] barrister) and Elizabeth Pickman Pound (née Rogers) (an American from Boston),[2] Pound was descended from Dudley Leavitt Pickman,[3] an early Salem, Massachusetts merchant, on his mother's side.[4][5] He was educated at Fonthill School in East Grinstead, Sussex.[6]

No way was he not of the 19th Century officer class.

The same was true of Tovey was born on 7 March 1885 at Borley Hill, Rochester, Kent, the youngest child (of eleven) of Lt Col Hamilton Tovey, RE, and Maria Elizabeth Goodhue.[2] He was educated at Durnford School, Langton Matravers

2SL was a cadet in 1899.

Sorry if I misunderstood the situation re your captain, PN. Whatever it was, if he was contemplating disobeying an anticipated order then my reaction remains as was, ie don't!
By the same token I am not suggesting that Pound's order should have been disobeyed. Why should it have been? Those receiving it assumed that Tirpitz was out and close by. The trouble was that it wasn't. The only people who knew enough about it to know different were at the Admiralty. If the only person senior to Pound was Churchill, then he should have been told of their concerns about Pound. Instead the RN closed ranks and PQ17 was fed to the wolves.

Nor am I suggesting that Pound deserved punishment of any kind. On the contrary he had served his country well to this point, but he should have been retired on health grounds. As to his CV, what is the point that you are making? None of it suggests that he was FSL because of his birth, rather it was because of his ability. What is wrong with that? Are you suggesting that a wavy navy hostilities only FSL would have been better? PQ17's scatter was not because of Pound's birth but rather because of his health. We keep coming back to that and why it meant that others should have stepped in.

I can't see why that is so difficult to accept. Goodness knows there were examples of some who were never up to their job, and if you throw in accident of birth as well you end up with SAC SEAC, but he was hardly typical. British Commanders served us well on the whole, subject of course to the usual revisionists.

The loss of PQ17 cost 153 lives.
The loss of the Hood, leading a superior force against the Bismarck, at one stroke cost 1415 lives.
The PQ17 ships and cargo were replaceable.
The Hood was not. Its loss had an effect on operations in the Med and in the North Atlantic until much later in the war when the rest of the KGV class battleships were ready (and even then individually no match for the Tirpitz).
The bigger picture casts a different light on Pound's decision.

The Nelson Spirit is all very well but it is necessary to have the superior ships and gunnery to carry it off. In WW2 the RN did not have that luxury, dependent as it was for the first part on a largely WW1-built battle fleet.

Agree. Never suggested any difference.

Agree.

Agree, but even retirement on health grounds, a well known Soviet euphemism may have been misconstrued.

I am suggesting that he was Navy through and through and so were his subordinated.

No, that they were not Navy through and through like the Admiralty Board; they were different.

Neither statement is proven.

Andrew Robert's Masters and Commanders is a good read if you want to know more about Pound and Churchill.
IIRC He makes the point that Churchill had decided to take his whole Chiefs of Staff team through the war, favouring consistency. In the end Pound was the only one to be 'subbed', for Cunningham.

I had the privilege of interviewing our local butcher for my school history project on the Arctic Convoys, as he had been a seaman on PQ17. He had never talked to anybody about it before, or since. I think he only agreed as he already knew I was set on a military career. Hel is cold, not hot.

Crewing a Tanker off the East Coast of the United States was no picnic either.....and could be a fair imitation of "Hell".

User:Gatechjon/OSCAR CHAPPELL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I didn't see the programme but did it consider what would have happened if Pound had kept the convoy and its escorts intact?


Tirpitz, Scheer and Hipper sailed at 1055 on the 5th (the convoy scattered on the 4th) but after numerous intercepts by the Germans of Russian and British radio messages indicated the German force had been spotted, plus the decimation of PQ17 by U-boats and aircraft, the Germans thought it wise not to take further risks and the force returned to base.


Had the convoy not scattered perhaps the Germans would have thought the risks worth it.


Having said that, the Barents Sea battle on New Years Day 1943 showed that a weakish allied escort could fend off a timid German attack.


Was it really Pound's illness that caused this debacle? I understood he simply misjudged the situation perhaps because he was not convinced of the intelligence suggesting Tirpitz and co had returned to base. The PRU could not find them.


This film gives some good images of the ships and maps, starting around 23.45.

Three Part Series by the History Channel.....

Matter of historical interest. Lloyd George had to force the Admiralty to institute a convoy system in the First World War.

David Irving is not at all happy with this programme, claiming blatant plagiarism

Jeremy Clarkson?s BBC show in battle with Nazi historian - Telegraph

David Irving is not at all happy with not having been in a national newspaper for a while........:suspect:

No way.....the Germans knew they had the Air Power and U-Boats arrayed to do the job with no risk of losing their very limited Surface fleet units in a sea battle with Allied Surface Units that included an Aircraft Carrier.

They had learned the lesson about what threat enemy aircraft could be.

Unlike the British who sent two fine ships to a certain death early on in the War during the fight for Singapore.

Now if they could have coordinated an Air/Sea attack.....perhaps they might have thought about it.....but they probably had not progressed to that ability owing to the distances involved and the questionable weather.

The Tirpitz did far more good at anchor as a potential threat than at sea engaging numerically superior Allied Naval Units with far less risk of loss.

Hipper:-
When you alone, whoever you are, are confronted with the same information as everyone else but come to a different conclusion to all of them (bar one), a little voice inside your head should be asking yourself why is that? Given that Pound died of an already diagnosed Brain Tumour the following year it is highly probable that the lack of that little voice and the Brain Tumour were related. Of course, as PN has pointed out, it is unproven. I suspect though that it was the case.


The really sad thing is that it seems the others sitting around that table (bar one) did not think that Pound should have heeded them, nor that they should take further action. PN points out that they were all 'Navy through and through', and hence placed their Service above all else, including PQ17. If fingers need to be pointed anywhere then mine would be pointed at them, rather than at Pound.