Thank you Hipper for that clip.

Most of the footage was new to me. Refreshing to see that you didn't get any modern day filming until it was almost completed.

Well worth watching, even if I don't understand the German commentary.

Perhaps amongst this orgy of hindsight, guessing, second-guessing, unqualified medical surmise and classist prejudice we might consider what might (would) have happened has PQ17 not been so ravaged.

It was only the shock at the scale of the losses that prompted the Admiralty to rethink light escort convoys and beef the Naval support of subsequent ones up to a level that actually achieved some useful protection. Had this not happened it is quite possible (inevitable) that the Axis efforts on later convoys would have been far better organised and far, far more successful.

War is often a learning process. Lessons are often learned the hard way. As ever, rather than all the usual conspiracy theories the truth is probably far more mundane. Pound (like the rest of the Admiralty, Navy and Government) was so scared at the hazard from of the big German Battlewagons that he based his decision on this. As a Naval man he could not believe that that Germans would NOT use Tirpitz on this occasion. No normal Naval commander would have passed up such an opportunity. The German's reluctance to use their battleships repeatedly wrongfooted the Allies who always expected them - well - to be used, not tied up when they had the opportunity to be so devastating.

It took a long while for the lesson to be learned that aircraft were effective against subs, but before radar, end especially before centimetric radar they weren't so useful. Might that not just have a bearing on the perceived importance of Coastal Command?

PQ17 taught that convoys must be heavily supported and that the must stick together come what may. Pound's undoubted misjudgement taught us that valuable lesson.

Consider how many victories have been won by commanders ignoring the advice of their "intelligence" staff. Are they vilified? A commander has to decide something, and as commander it is his can to carry if it is the wrong one. Or the right one for the wrong reasons. Or the right one in the face of incorrect intel (WMD - GW2) that certainly wouldn't have been believed had it been correct as there was no precedent in warfare for secretly disposing of game-changing weapons. A situation not entirely dissimilar to the failure to deploy the Kriegsmarine's major assets in the face of all convention Naval wisdom to the astonishment - and confusion of conventional Naval tacticians.

And finally on the results of disobeying orders, when it was said that the heroic commander of that little trawler got a DSO for his troubles I cried "Whaaat!", and they then said that if he hadn't disobeyed orders it would probably have been the DSC. Sometimes you're wrong even if you do the right thing. Except that disobeying orders is just wrong, even if it works...

Chug....are you being deliberately thick about this?

Pound was the FSL.

He made the decision.

He hand wrote the original Order to Disperse and withdraw the Escorts.

He alone bears the responsibility for the decision he alone made and the orders he issued following that decision.

You can argue all week.....which you have.....and the facts don't change.

Pound owned it lot, stock, and barrel.

That is the essence of Military Leadership and Command.

You can pontificate, posture, pose, suggest, accuse, whatever.....but Pound was the Man. He got it WRONG! Why he did so, does not matter in reality. It was his decision to make....he made it .....and there it is. We cannot see into his mind to determine what his thinking was. He did not explain his decision....he just made it and issued the orders by his own hand.

Staff advise.....the Commander decides.

SASless:-
Well, not deliberately....FSL was not being staffed, he was consulting fellow members of the Board of Admiralty. OK he was the serving head of the Royal Navy, and had the power to go against their advice, as he did (bar one). I'm not criticising him for exercising that power so much as criticising his fellow Board members for apparently shrugging their shoulders with a collective "Yeah, well what can you do?". This was more akin to a Cabinet decision whereby all the Members present are opposed (bar two) yet the action taken is presented as a united one. The cost in materiel was immense, at a time when it was greatly needed.
I find it strange that the Bismark when seen as a direct threat to Atlantic convoys was hunted down and despatched by the Royal Navy, despite its ability to outgun them, yet her sister ship when similarly a direct threat to the Arctic convoys was avoided like the plague. Did Stalin have a point (even if I don't)?

Perhaps they thought trading another "Hood" or two might not be worth it when they were thinking Air Attacks, X-Boats, and Submarines might prove much cheaper in lives. The psychological effect offered by the loss of the Hood cannot be overstated.

PQ17 was replaceable (terrible, but true). Pound's capital ships were not.
If he were to take on the Tirpitz he needed to know exactly where it was and meet it with the very few allied warships capable of matching it in speed and armament. He couldn't run the risk of it meeting warships that couldn't either outfight it or outrun it - of which he had many.
He didn't know for certain where it was. The bigger picture prevailed.

153 PQ17 lives were lost. Compare that with the number of crew on a single battleship or carrier, of which we lost many.

'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.'


SASlass, the German Admiral had in fact departed to attack the convoy (after it had scattered) in anticipation that orders would be forthcoming. Hitler gave the go ahead before noon that day, the 5th. They were not exactly aware of the presence of battleships or aircraft carriers in the region.


It was Hitler who placed the 'no aircraft carrier or battleship' restriction on Tirpitz but it was Raeder who signalled for the Tirpitz group to return to Norway. I would therefore think that, given the situation before the convoy scattered, the Germans may well have continued the attack.


I agree with Agaricus bisporus. Apart from fuel shortages, the German surface fleet was restricted in its actions by Hitler, something the allies don't seem to have been aware of, hence they assumed that they would behave as the Royal Navy would in similar circumstances. And that is probably the cause of the PQ17 disaster.

Regarding the trawler's CO. Who's orders did he disobey?

OK the big boys were recalled by higher command. The convoys direct escort pulled off because the CO thought there was going to be an attack by German task force and therefore he was to support the RN task force.

Now I'm no military person but I can't believe that an armed trawler would be of any help to the main RN fleet, if indeed she could keep up with the departing escorts.

Churchill sent Repulse and the POW as Force Z to bolster the Far East against the Japanese. They were sunk just 3 days after Pearl Harbour when the USN lost most of its battleships.

No. 453 Squadron RAAF, which was to provide air cover for Force Z, was not kept informed of the ships' position. No radio request for air cover was sent until one was sent by the commander of Repulse an hour after the Japanese attack began. Flight Lieutenant Tim Vigors proposed a plan to keep six aircraft over Force Z during daylight, but this was declined by Phillips. After the war, Vigors remained bitter towards him for his failure to call for air support on time.[4] He later commented, "I reckon this must have been the last battle in which the Navy reckoned they could get along without the RAF. A pretty damned costly way of learning. Phillips had known that he was being shadowed the night before, and also at dawn that day. He did not call for air support. He was attacked and still did not call for help."[20] Daytime air cover off the coast was also offered by Wing Commander Wilfred Clouston of No. 488 Squadron RNZAF, but his plan, "Operation Mobile", was also rejected.[21]

the Royal Air Force and the British Army fighting for their lives, the Royal Navy could not be true to its tradition by remaining idly at anchor.[22]

Air cover was clearly limited but there was no question of the ships being 'sent', especially by someone that had no strategic oversight.

I'm not sure if the iPlayer link to the JC prog has been posted before, but if not here it is:-
BBC iPlayer - PQ 17: An Arctic Convoy Disaster

Despite having infuriated and exasperated others, I have enjoyed this thread, as others on PPRuNe, for its ability to dot and cross the i's and t's. I'm sure that I am not alone in seeing the irony of the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine avoiding their prize fighters coming into contact with each other, preferring to endlessly circle the ring waiting for the bell. I wonder if the Red Army appreciated it as well?

Rather like the eternal squabble over the CBO, the PQ17 saga seems to divide opinion. It appears that some still see Pound as having acted correctly in securing his warships at the cost of expendable freighters and crews, and that it was the Board (bar two) that got it wrong. If Hitler had sent Tirpitz into the North Atlantic instead, I suspect that reaction would have been very different. Once again it appears that he was our greatest asset, to be kept alive if at all possible. :ok:

Early on in the war? Britain was well into its third year by Dec 1941.

It's a question of scale, chugalug.

Large numbers of convoys were in continuous operation around the world from 1939. Vast numbers of merchant ships were lost both in and out of convoy. Difficult decisions had to be taken daily as to whether to support which convoy, with what sort of cover and for how far. Many other convoys lost their cover at short notice and in desperate circumstances at times. PQ17 was an extreme example but just one of many.

I'm not unaware of the loss of merchant seamen in WW2. My own father-in-law only narrowly survived one such sinking. Their plight was dreadful.

But... in the scale of war all these losses were of far less long-term consequence than, for example, the loss of the early fast carriers (32 knots wasn't enough for Glorious to escape Scharnhorst). The Hood disaster showed we had nothing to rival Bismarck/Tirpitz and Scharnhorst/Gneisenau and they could only be brought down by numbers - or by air power, of which there was not much more than the Swordfish variety at the time, which meant essentially a trap had to be carefully laid. There could be no question of sending out battleships of the R Class or the Queen Elizabeth class, even in numbers, at 21 knots against these ships and after Hood even the big fast battle-cruisers were out of the picture.

In these circumstances extreme caution was necessary. Pound wasn't kept awake at night by his bad hip. He was kept awake by his responsibility to keep the fleet intact until the cavalry arrived to cover the Atlantic supply chain and give him some slack, and until he possessed some decent naval air power.

Good post and well explained AD, thank you. Your comment re the Merchant Marine is very apposite. I remember well one of their ex seamen recounting his experience as a young man, on shore leave and between convoys in a blitzed Liverpool (in civvies of course), in The World at War. He was waiting for a bus when a woman walking on the opposite pavement, crossed the road, spat in his face, and then retraced her steps. His crime of course was that he was not in uniform. A Service with a loss rate approaching that of Bomber Command, their pay stopped as they jumped from their sinking ships as the voyage was now over.

The real victims of PQ17 though were blissfully unaware of it I suspect, ie the front line troops of the Red Army. Were they still advancing unarmed with orders to relieve the dead and injured of their weapons in order to arm themselves?

War's a bitch!

FOD,

Just once I wish you would get your facts straight before you make like a count without the "O".

Just Exactly how long had you been at War with Japan when Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk?

They arrived in Singapore on 2 December and were sunk on 10 December....three Days after Pearl Harbor.

We began to patrol upon the start of the War in September 1939. and then escorted Convoys to Iceland for a period of time before going all the way to the UK....and lost our first ship in October 1941....three months before Pearl Harbor.

Remember the German Navy was under orders to not attack US Ships until we declared War on them following Pearl Harbor.

Fod......do spare me will you......European Wars were of no obligation to us but we were giving you lot plenty of support well before December 7, 1941 much of it in direct violation of International Law. Our Navy was escorting convoys and fighting U-Boats well before our Declaration of War on the Axis Powers.....remembering Germany and Italy that had not attacked us.



Your Prime Minister went for appeasement and it got you a big War rather than a much smaller one had you stood up to A. Hitler before he built up his War Machine.

Think for a second just how many American War Dead are buried in the UK and Europe......before you go telling the Yanks about how you won the War will you.

As I understand it Pound was advised by his intelligence officer that the Tirpitz was not out, as supported by Naval intelligence. Pound did not believe this and called a meeting of his operations staff, and apart from one they all voted not to remove the escorts and disperse the convoy.

Seems Pound ignored his staff and took the decision on his own, and had to live with it.

Bob C

I wonder if Pound was remembering Jutland, its causes and results. After all he was there.

If I read my history books correctly while claimed as a victory for the RN, in the long term that was true, in the short term the RN suffered a very bloody nose, both in ships and men. Not helped by the lost of several warships though the incorrect handling of the cordite charges to get the firing rate quicker.

Perhaps Pound was concerned that any victory over the German fleet might be too costly in short term.

Chugalug ... regards merchant sailors pay being stopped once they were sunk etc. That is very true. In the case of an Uncle of my wife he was torpedoed, picked up by another merchant ship, and subsequently lost his life when that ship was itself torpedoed.
So, the Uncle died at sea whilst not being paid.

Sasless ... .. "we were giving you plenty of support well before December 7th.1941"....
very true but it was all paid for and that's why Britain ended up bankrupt and the America's wealth had tripled by the cessation of hostilities. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...cons/icon7.gif

bosnich, very true, my old man, a 2nd at the time, and the 3rd, were evacuated to Australia and one had a job treading grapes and the other sewing mail bags.

At the end of a weak one had blistered hands and the other feet so they swapped jobs . . . no welfare there either. He got a job as 2nd on a Blue Star and worked passage back to UK.

Your initial post just said "the War".

There was only one Second World War. I read it in a book somewhere. :hmm: