"(1) Thirty-three rounds was the Army's contribution to the battle, and they were only able to supply this after inquiring whether they would be hampering the sea or air attack. These inquiries at the last moment and while the enemy were literally at our gates show the pitiful absurdity of the whole situation and emphasize once again the pressing need to think ahead.
"(m) These battle-cruisers will sink many of our ships and will cost many of our sailors their lives. Our prestige at home and abroad has sunk to a new low level and the repercussions caused by such a calamity cannot yet be foreseen. Worst of all, perhaps, is the tragic loss of many irreplaceable airmen and sailors in an abortive action. Theirs was great and lasting gallantry called for and rendered fruitless by that reckless gamble in their lives, which was necessitated by the indolence of those in whom they trusted.
"This reverse, like many others that have occurred in this war, is attributable to lack of imagination, energy and intelligence on the part of the people who carry our burdens in great affairs. They are heavy burdens and we need great men to carry them.
"Our pressing need is for reform and reorganization. What we should have done in peacetime we must do now in the heat and fury of the battle.
"(a) There must be a properly representative Imperial War committee in the deliberations of which the heads of the services can participate. A long-term home and overseas strategy must be worked out and put into execution without delay. Above all, we must take the initiative in as many spheres of action as possible and not lose it. Sub-committees with full freedom of action must be appointed to take care of operations subsidiary to the general Imperial plans. One such sub-committee should have been charged with the job of taking care of the German battle-cruisers at Brest and should have constituted the nerve centre of the attacking organization. All information should have been received and collated by them and all orders emanated from them; thus would it have been with certainty established that one body had the whole picture that only now, long after the enemy has escaped, is being laboriously pieced together.
"(b) There must be much closer liaison between the services and by the commands and units which they comprise. The right hand must always know what the left hand is doing. Very numerous instances can be quoted illustrating the complete lack of understanding that exists between Commands, the operational areas of which overlap.
"(c) Coastal Command is to all intents and purposes subservient to the Admiralty. The Command should be abolished and most of its work carried on by a Royal Naval Air Force, the remainder becoming the responsibility of Fighter Command. The presence of Coastal Command is redundant and seems merely to increase delay and confusion.
The RAF were alone in treating the affair with light-hearted retrospective cynicism. In the forty-eight hours after the German battleships had sailed safely home, the nation grew steadily angrier.
The Daily Mail said:
"The reasons for the escape of the German warships are still being debated — in every home, in every club, in every inn throughout the land. That someone was to blame is the only certainty. Again the suspicion arises that there is a lack of necessary co-operation between the Air Force and the Navy.
"The incident is symptomatic. Public reaction to the many 'explanations' is one of weary resignation. And that too is symptomatic.
"It is symptomatic of the general feeling that there is something wrong with Britain's war direction and this feeling is crystallized in an almost universal demand for removal from high places of the tired and the incompetent."
So Churchill, although totally out of sympathy with the public outcry, took an unprecedented step to protect his administration. On the following Monday — a wet, winter's day four days after the break-out — three men sat behind a long desk in Whitehall to perform a difficult task. They were to preside over the only judicial inquiry ever held into the conduct of a battle.
The three members of the Board were its president, Mr. Justice Bucknill, Air Chief-Marshal Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt, Inspector-General of the Royal Air Force, and the Naval member, Vice-Admiral Sir Hugh Binney.
Mr. Justice Bucknill said, "The Board's terms of reference are to inquire into the circumstances in which the German battle-cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, in company with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, proceeded from Brest to Germany on 12 February 1942, and on the operations undertaken to prevent them." The terms of reference were signed by Winston S. Churchill, Minister of Defence. The real objective of this solemn tribunal was to whitewash the Navy and the RAF and help restore confidence in Churchill's government.
It had no power to compel admirals to attend. Vice-Admiral Binney hoped to persuade the Admiral Commanding Submarines, Admiral Sir Max Horton, to give evidence before the Board on this question. For the Board was not satisfied that Sir Max had drawn enough submarines from other areas to deal with a possible break-out. Horton refused to appear, saying: "If I can't find out what is wrong in my command without setting up a panel of so-called experts, then I'll resign from the Navy and raise chickens." This attitude was typical of the autocratic autonomy which Service Chiefs claimed for themselves in this period of the war.
The inquiry was a long parade of senior officers offering excuses and lame justifications for their own part in the disaster. Most of the witnesses knew it. As a result of his report, Gerald Kidd was called before the Bucknill Tribunal. After his evidence, Admiral Ramsay said to him during lunch at the Senior Services Club, "It is a waste of time. You might as well turn round and go home. They are not even making any notes. All they want is a whitewash."
Coastal Command, responsible for reconnaissance patrols— "Stopper," "Line SE" and "Habo" — produced witnesses to explain why German battleships had been at sea fourteen hours before they were spotted off Boulogne. Their explanation? A blown fuse in "Stopper," a damp plug in "Line SE."
Sir Philip Joubert, who had his three squadrons of Beaufort torpedo bombers in the wrong place, explained, "The enemy broke out of Brest unobserved owing to the darkness of the night and the breakdown of radar."
The Board wanted to know why, when Victor Beamish sighted the battleships, he did not use his radio to warn Fighter Command. The Navy particularly criticized this hidebound inefficiency of Fighter Command. When Royal Naval warships sighted the enemy they were under orders to give instant information about his position, course and speed — as Nigel Pumphrey's MTBs had done. Admiral Binney, commenting on the practice of keeping quiet about sighting the enemy, said: "If a ship waited until returning to port before telling anyone it would be ridiculous."
Yet the Board's view was that Beamish made the right decision. In his case any blame attached did not matter, for a month later he was killed when his Spitfire was shot down in a dog-fight over the Somme estuary. His body was never found.
The fact that at the same time Sq. Ldr. Oxspring did break the silence rule and was ignored by 11 Group was carefully hushed up. Concerning No. 11 Group of Fighter Command, the Bucknill Tribunal said:
"Unfortunately No. 11 Group, who were responsible for the "Jim Crow" reconnaissance, were not sufficiently alive to the fact that the German ships might be coming out about that time. True, they knew that operation Fuller was in operation but some of the witnesses said they had not been informed that there had been any breakdown in the night patrols, and in consequence their minds were not especially directed to the possible significance of the radar plots; and they were slow to order investigation by additional reconnaissance. Had these plots been investigated as soon as their character came under suspicion, it is possible that the enemy Squadron would have been sighted an appreciable time earlier than it was."
If No. 11 Group had been efficient they could have given at least two hours additional warning. The weather was clearer then and bombers might have attacked successfully with armour-piercing bombs.
Wing-Commander Constable-Roberts reported that No. 11 Group had said they had supplied fighter escort when Esmonde had taken off. He was supported
by the written report of Flt.-Lt. Gerald Kidd.
Kidd told the Tribunal that Manston informed him that the Swordfish had taken off and were circling the airfield. At the same time, Hornchurch reported that their fighters were over Manston. When Manston said there was no sign of the fighters, Kidd asked the woman on the end of the line at Hornchurch to speak to the controller. She said he was busy on the plotting table. When he said he wanted to check with the controller where the fighters were, the woman replied the controller did not know. When Kidd persisted, he was finally informed the fighters had failed to join the Swordfish.
This is when he began to be angry. Had Hornchurch told him the fighters were going to be late he would have tried to keep the Swordfish orbiting to wait for them. Admiral Ramsay had only permitted Esmonde to take off on his suicide mission because he believed five fighter squadrons were on their way to escort the Swordfish. But the Bucknill Tribunal ignored the fact that four squadrons failed to arrive in time.
It was apparent that after the Germans had successfully defied the might of the Royal Navy and the RAF there could only be excuses from the British services. As Hitler had foreseen, they had been unable to "conceive and execute lightning decisions." Bomber Command even made the typically bureaucratic complaint that their operations were limited because there had not been "reasonable notice."
Admiral Ramsay was one of the few who was open and honest. He frankly admitted he felt bitter at his own failure to anticipate more accurately the Germans' arrival in the Straits. Ramsay said, "The main feature which influenced all operations was the failure to detect the enemy heavy ships at daylight on 12 February. Had they been sighted then there would have been ample time for our main striking forces to get off and make attacks in the narrow waters of Dover Straits. We would have had maximum advantage, and would have been able to use our numerical and tactical air superiority, combined with accurate knowledge of the enemy's path on the radar plot. Failing other information during the night, a successful dawn reconnaissance to the westward of Dover Command would have given two hours extra warning of their approach.
"The main hope rested on the expectation that the passage would be made before daylight. This would have afforded the most favourable conditions not only for the Swordfish aircraft but also for coastal craft and destroyers. In the event, these forces had to attack in daylight without the advantage of potentially overwhelming fighter support which never developed. Little hope could be placed in daylight torpedo attacks from surface craft, for these now actually went to sea under much more unfavourable conditions than had been anticipated.
"Some measure of success from recently laid minefields had also been hoped for, but the enemy had employed a large number of minesweepers to search a selected route, although actually the heavy ships were known to have passed over two of them."
Like his air liaison officers, he was critical towards all three commands of the RAF — Coastal, Bomber and Fighter. His report was smothered in secrecy. No mention of it appears in the published records of the inquiry.
The Admiralty must take much of the blame. The Germans sailed triumphantly, untouched past Dover while the Royal Navy refused to move battleships out of Scapa Flow.
First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Dudley Pound was insistent that he would employ his battleships in only the safest waters. He had his reasons, but this decision perhaps erred too much on the side of caution.
The Fleet Air Arm also faced a vital question. Why did twenty-four Swordfish remain on the ground at Lee-on-Solent that day? Official explanation — there was not a single trained pilot, observer or gunner at Lee-on-Solent. Was this true — or was it another bureaucratic answer?
The RAF command was equally to blame. After the Sword-fish attack, three hours elapsed before Coastal Command put every available aircraft into the air, throwing squadrons of torpedo bombers from Scotland to Cornwall into the battle — but too late.
The Tribunal sat for twelve days. Their findings reached the Prime Minister at the beginning of March 1942. When he read it, security descended like a fog blanket. Although it was claimed to bé a complete "answer" to any carping criticism, not even Members of Parliament were allowed to have more than minor information on the true facts.
The Bucknill Report, Command Paper 6775, was produced in Parliament by Deputy Premier Attlee on 18 March 1942. He stated in reply to a question that the report had been received, but its contents could not be made public since it contained information which would be of value to the enemy. He added, "The general findings do not reveal that there were any serious deficiencies either in foresight, co-operation or organization." The House was not satisfied. Neither was the Press.
Evidently deeply stung by the criticism, Churchill quoted to the House an Admiralty statement of 2 February 1942, ten days before the warships broke out: "At first sight this passage up the Channel appears hazardous for the Germans. It is probable, however, that as their heavy ships are not fully efficient they would prefer such a passage, relying for security on their destroyers and aircraft which are efficient, and knowing full well that we have no heavy ships with which to oppose them in the Channel. We might well therefore find the two battle-cruisers and the eight-inch cruiser with five large and five small destroyers, also say twenty fighters constantly overhead — with reinforcements within call— proceeding up the Channel. Taking all factors into consideration… the Channel passage appears to be their most probable direction if and when they leave Brest." Churchill said, "I have read this document to the House because I am anxious that Members should realize our affairs are not conducted entirely by simpletons and dunderheads as the comic papers try to depict."
The Report was not "tabled" until 1946. Even when the details which had been kept hidden for four years were revealed, they were not sensational. The determined smokescreen made sure that no details of the mishandling of the German break-out reached even the peacetime public. For the official account contains more misinformation and downright rubbish than most government documents. It is difficult to believe that some of the facts had been deliberately falsified even in such a perilous time as this mid-war period. But it is such a farrago of omissions and evasions that the tribunal must have skimped their inquiries.
The period in which this happened must be taken into account. It was right in the middle of the war. The British public were despondent enough about defeats from Dunkirk to Singapore without being dismayed further by revealing the full facts of the inefficiency which allowed the German battleships to sail unscathed past the cliffs of Dover.
The Report said:
"The Gneisenau and Scharnhorst were located at Brest after shipping raids on 28 March 1941. The 8-inch cruiser, Prinz Eugen, which left Norway in company with the Bismarck, joined the battle-cruisers in Brest after the loss of the Bismarck. She was first seen in dry-dock there on 4 June.
"A photographic reconnaissance on 29 and 31 January 1942 revealed the arrival in Brest of two destroyers, five torpedo boats and eight mine-sweepers.
"The Admiralty always maintained that the most likely and safest course for the battle-cruisers when they left Brest was to break up the Channel to German waters. They would either do this or they would break into the Atlantic. Or they might go to the Mediterranean to Genoa or go north about the British Isles to return to German waters.
"On 2 February the Admiralty reviewed the position and drew up an appreciation that the ships would most probably proceed up the Channel. This was supported by indications like the concentration of torpedo boats, E-boats, mine-sweepers and other light craft along the coast from Le Havre to the Hook.
"The strong possibility was that the enemy ships would seek to pass the narrows at Dover under the cover of darkness. The distance from Brest to the Straits is 360 miles. During the winter months they could leave Brest shortly before dusk and run up the Channel in the dark, reaching the Straits about dawn. Or they might leave Brest to lie up in Cherbourg next day to run the Straits the following night.
&n
bsp; "The enemy's occupation of the continental seaboard from Norway to Spain had rendered the participation of our own heavy ships in the operation impracticable. [8]
"Concerning executive order Fuller, on 3 February the Admiralty ordered the C-in-C Nore to have six destroyers with torpedoes on six hours notice in the Thames estuary to operate under the orders of the Vice-Admiral, Dover. Two fast mine-layers, the Wekhman and the Manxman [9] were put on readiness and six Swordfish were sent to Manston. The submarine Sealion was ordered to join two submarines patrolling off Brest. Three squadrons of Beauforts were also put in readiness. One was at Leuchars, Scotiand, to operate against the Tirpitz at Trondheim. One squadron was at St. Eval in Cornwall. The third squadron was split up between St. Eval and Thorney Island, near Portsmouth. The Beauforts from Leuchars were ordered to Coltishall in Norfolk.
"From 10 February, 100 bombers were ordered to stand by and 11 Group of Fighter Command was also warned. [10] On 11 February two more German destroyers entered Brest, making four.
"On 11 February a photo reconnaissance showed all three ships out of dock and six destroyers in harbour.
"The submarine, H.M.S, Sealion, saw no big ships while she remained in the vicinity of Whistle Buoy until 19:00, and then withdrew on the tide from this most dangerous patrol. She surfaced south of Whistle Buoy and remained there until 20:35, but saw no enemy squadron. [11]
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