Impact of one change on HMS Glorious

[The Basket]

Carriers have to point into the wind when taking off aircraft and from what I read that would mean travelling towards the sisters.

Not ideal. Although the fact the ship was travelling so slow pretty much means that there were no plans to launch aircraft.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Carriers have to point into the wind when taking off aircraft and from what I read that would mean travelling towards the sisters.

Not ideal. Although the fact the ship was travelling so slow pretty much means that there were no plans to launch aircraft.

A Admiral Beez has already mentioned the STOL qualities of the Swordfish. Understanding that crosswinds could be still an issue, would the carrier have to sail windward to launch those planes?

 

[The Basket]

With our without a torpedo?
The swordfish would still have to land and take off. Again limitations on Swordfish abilities.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

With our without a torpedo?
The swordfish would still have to land and take off. Again limitations on Swordfish abilities.

Agreed. I don't know enough to answer your questions, pertinent though they are. Hopefully he does.

 

[The Basket]

Ok D'Oyly Hughes survives and is court martialled.

What defence does he have?

There was no warning of surface vessels in the area. So that's an Intel failure.

And if there was then where were the battleships to counter that?

He was given permission to leave the convoy so he was acting under orders at the time... regardless of the reason for doing so.

The CAP or scout aircraft will depend on what was standard operating procedure. Was it under orders to launch aircraft? If not then again he wasn't wrong. If it was captain discretion then he is not negligent because he did as he pleased.

There should have been 4 destroyers and not 2. But again I don't know why that was the case. If he was low on fuel then again that's not his problem but a logistics issue and that's why he was at a reduced speed.

So I don't know enough to give a full chapter and verse because I don't know the full chapter and verse on what is what.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Ok D'Oyly Hughes survives and is court martialled. What defence does he have?

With no witnesses, he might not need one. Considering that only forty people out the total 1,529 aboard Glorious, Acasta and Ardent survived the sinking, and most of those were taken POW or died in Norway, D'Oyly Hughes' survival and return to Britain may be seen as a miracle, akin to Admiral Holland being found alongside Hood's wreckage. The fact that Glorious was on half boilers and had no lookouts or CAP may remain an unknown until after the war.

 

[ThomasP]

Hey Admairal Beez,

Not that it really matters, but not my words? Should be attributed to Thumpalumpacus.

 

[The Basket]

One of the reasons that there were few survivors is that there was no rescue as all 3 ships were sunk. And the RN were unaware. So had there been a 4th ship then who knows.

Although it has been said the bridge was hit in the initial shelling so D'Oyly Hughes may have been killed in the opening.

The closest vessel was HMS Devonshire but she took no action. Although she to has little scope against the sisters. However she could have picked up survivors or radio the warning cos it's believed that she did pick up the battle report.

But she was carrying the Norwegian government and gold reserve so she was under strict orders to sail and do nothing.

 

[Denniss]

In wartime one should always expect an enemy to surface.
With so many boilers offline you'd need to have lots of warning time to get them back online and pick up speed. For a carrier this would be some aircraft on spotting/recon missions.
If one can't launch a/c due to being overloaded with rescued aircraft one should be able to reach maximum speed with minimal delay.
With both options not even considered this was a mega fail by the commanding officer, sailing slow (and at a more economical speed) in wartime.
My highest respect to both destroyer captains and their crew who did the best they could to stop the german battleships. The crew of Glorious did their best but was hindered by abysmal leadership.
In short: the captain of Glorious was terribly unsuited for this job and killed himself and 1500 others due to his negligence.

 

[GreenKnight121]

But every so often one gets through to do great damage, like Kimmel at Pearl Harbour.

Also, I wouldn't be too hard on Kimmel, he got handed a raw deal and knew it, if you look into what he was doing and trying to get done (before December 7), he comes off a lot better than history has painted him.

Kimmel was a scapegoat, pure & simple.

There are two main charges against him...

1. failure to properly protect and deploy his ships, including having them in peacetime routine that Sunday.

2. failure to detect the approaching Japanese ships via air patrols.


#1 is simple... and is the source of 95% of what went wrong that day... overall defense of US military forces on Hawaii was actually vested upon Gen. Short... and he had ordered that "normal peacetime routine was to be followed, so as not to alarm the populace". This is why the Navy's ships were in-port and mostly unmanned that Sunday morning... weekdays were for exercises at sea, the weekend was for R&R, including attending Sunday services, visiting friends and businesses in town, etc. In addition, Gen. Short had declared that sabotage was the biggest threat to US military forces in Hawaii, and that protection against that was the prime concern - which is why the Army's aircraft were all lined up in neat rows instead of scattered and in the pre-built protective revetments, their guns had no ammo, and all of the ammo - including that intended for the AA guns - was locked up in the ammo lockers/bunkers.

#2 is a bit more complicated, but not much more. Kimmel and Short had come to the agreement that the Army Air Force would be responsible for defensive patrols in the north-eastern half of Hawaii's airspace, while the Navy would be responsible for patrolling the south-western half (because Kimmel felt that that was the direction of strongest danger). The Navy, with ~70 PBY Catalinas, managed to maintain at a distance of over 200 miles from the islands what the Japanese considered to be "very good" patrols in their pre-war assessments, but the Army only flew sporadic short-range patrols with fighters... Short's air General, Martin, refused to use his 30 B-18s and 12 B-17s for any long-range patrols at all "to keep from wearing them out".
The Japanese, not being fools, made their approach & attack in the Army's area of responsibility.

 

[Peter Gunn]

I don't mean to derail the thread but as a last thought, wasn't there a joint exercise on 5 and 6 December that successfully tested radar and interception techniques? As memory serves Sunday was meant to be a day off after a rigorous two or three days of war games.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

<Lame double-post deleted>

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

... overall defense of US military forces on Hawaii was actually vested upon Gen. Short... and he had ordered that "normal peacetime routine was to be followed, so as not to alarm the populace". This is why the Navy's ships were in-port and mostly unmanned that Sunday morning... weekdays were for exercises at sea, the weekend was for R&R, including attending Sunday services, visiting friends and businesses in town, etc. In addition, Gen. Short had declared that sabotage was the biggest threat to US military forces in Hawaii, and that protection against that was the prime concern - which is why the Army's aircraft were all lined up in neat rows instead of scattered and in the pre-built protective revetments, their guns had no ammo, and all of the ammo - including that intended for the AA guns - was locked up in the ammo lockers/bunkers.

Was General Short Admiral Kimmel's commanding officer? Could Adm Kimmel have ordered his ships off of routine without Gen Short's approval? IIRC, Short wasn't, and Kimmel could. And I might be alone here in saying that it would have been better had he done that.

I think that both officers took the "war warning" message with the assumption that war would perhaps break out, but not in their areas of responsibility; hence Shorts ordering USAAC aircraft lined up against sabotage rather than maintaining search and rapid-response deployments, and Kimmel not adjusting the weekend routine.

I'm not saying they were themselves solely to blame. But I do think each may have had a touch of complacency about PH itself being attacked. In short (pardon the unintended pun), they assumed that PH would not be a target, and clearly did not issue orders under that framing of the danger. Rather than plan for enemy capabilities, both flag officers seemed to plan for perceived intentions, and then got caught by the short hairs.

Of course, this opinion is informed by hindsight. But it's hard for me to see how ships lined up in harbor and planes lined up on an apron are ready for war, which was the order given. Forces weren't dispersed and ammo wasn't readied because they did not think they would themselves be attacked, I believe.

Perhaps DC should have made explicit their expectations about what being "ready for war" actually meant.

 

[The Basket]

Germany is the easier side so yeah England v Germany.
Much better than Portugal or France.

I think it's evens on this one.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Kimmel was a scapegoat, pure & simple.

Maybe D'Oyly-Hughes was too?

I would have found his testimony interesting. Why running on half boilers? Why no CAP aloft? Why no TSRs readied? What would he have said?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Maybe D'Oyly-Hughes was too?

I would have found his testimony interesting. Why running on half boilers? Why not CAP aloft? Why no TSRs readied?

Had he survived, those would have been the primary questions posed in his court-martial. I can't think of any military reason, myself, but I'm a landlubber.

 

[Peter Gunn]

Was General Short Admiral Kimmel's commanding officer? Could Adm Kimmel have ordered his ships off of routine without Gen Short's approval? IIRC, Short wasn't, and Kimmel could. And I might be alone here in saying that it would have been better had he done that.

I think that both officers took the "war warning" message with the assumption that war would perhaps break out, but not in their areas of responsibility; hence Shorts ordering USAAC aircraft lined up against sabotage rather than maintaining search and rapid-response deployments, and Kimmel not adjusting the weekend routine.

I'm not saying they were themselves solely to blame. But I do think each may have had a touch of complacency about PH itself being attacked. In short (pardon the unintended pun), they assumed that PH would not be a target, and clearly did not issue orders under that framing of the danger. Rather than plan for enemy capabilities, both flag officers seemed to plan for perceived intentions, and then got caught by the short hairs.

Of course, this opinion is informed by hindsight. But it's hard for me to see how ships lined up in harbor and planes lined up on an apron are ready for war, which was the order given. Forces weren't dispersed and ammo wasn't readied because they did not think they would themselves be attacked, I believe.

Perhaps DC should have made explicit their expectations about what being "ready for war" actually meant.

You make some good points (as always) buuuut...

We had a discussion on an old Battlecruiser board years ago about if Short and Kimmel calculated that PH was the prime target. The P-40's I have no excuse for really but I do concede that Short was VERY concerned about sabotage hence the long lines of easily defensible vs said sabotage P-40's. Given ANY advance notice, a flock of Warhawks to greet the IJN strike would have been a major difference obviously. While it would be the first clash betwixt P-40 and A6M, I can't see the Japanese coming off without some pretty harsh losses.

As for Kimmel, well, as memory serves the fleet's BB's had just completed some exercises and were reasonably ready to sail but as we discussed on the BC board years ago, when do they sortie? You can't have them at sea constantly as they were pretty good fuel hogs. Even if Kimmel had them rotating in and out as fast as possible you still don't know when the hammer will drop, it's expensive in fuel and wear and tear on the ships to keep them at sea for no real reason other than a "threat" of war. The cost of fuel alone would be prohibitive.

Also where to the BB's go? Having your entire fleet stand out to sea without a destination means their just steaming around burning fuel and oil. The worst case scenario we came up with was that the fleet was indeed at sea but still within range of the carrier strike force. Now we have seven or eight slow battle wagons with marginal maneuverability out in deep water. Granted they would have freedom of movement and would put up a pretty stiff AA defense but any ships that took catastrophic damage are lost, no raising them from the mud of Pearl Harbor and with significantly more lives lost.

These are just some of the issues Kimmel had to face in the fall of 1941 with real ships and more importantly, real lives on the line. There is some justification for his actions just a few days later when HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales are caught at sea by superior air forces.

I give Kimmel a lot of credit for doing what he could and for standing up like a man even though he must have known he was going to have to bite the bullet and go down in history as the admiral who let his fleet get "surprised at Pearl Harbor".

Agree or disagree with my rhetoric but give the man his due on this part, there were no carriers in Pearl on December 7, yes they were making plane deliveries but he made sure they were in and out (mostly out) of PH as fast as possible.

Apologies Beez, I'm not trying to hijack your thread, I will cease and desist now.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

As for Kimmel, well, as memory serves the fleet's BB's had just completed some exercises and were reasonably ready to sail but as we discussed on the BC board years ago, when do they sortie? You can't have them at sea constantly as they were pretty good fuel hogs. Even if Kimmel had them rotating in and out as fast as possible you still don't know when the hammer will drop, it's expensive in fuel and wear and tear on the ships to keep them at sea for no real reason other than a "threat" of war. The cost of fuel alone would be prohibitive.

Also where to the BB's go? Having your entire fleet stand out to sea without a destination means their just steaming around burning fuel and oil. The worst case scenario we came up with was that the fleet was indeed at sea but still within range of the carrier strike force. Now we have seven or eight slow battle wagons with marginal maneuverability out in deep water. Granted they would have freedom of movement and would put up a pretty stiff AA defense but any ships that took catastrophic damage are lost, no raising them from the mud of Pearl Harbor and with significantly more lives lost.

These are just some of the issues Kimmel had to face in the fall of 1941 with real ships and more importantly, real lives on the line. There is some justification for his actions just a few days later when HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales are caught at sea by superior air forces.

I give Kimmel a lot of credit for doing what he could and for standing up like a man even though he must have known he was going to have to bite the bullet and go down in history as the admiral who let his fleet get "surprised at Pearl Harbor".

Agree or disagree with my rhetoric but give the man his due on this part, there were no carriers in Pearl on December 7, yes they were making plane deliveries but he made sure they were in and out (mostly out) of PH as fast as possible.

Apologies Beez, I'm not trying to hijack your thread, I will cease and desist now.

Thank you for offering your good points in return. I didn't consider fuel consumption, but did consider where the BBs ought to be. Ideally they'd head southwest or southeast, in order to open the range and avoid their irrecoverable loss. Had Kimmel made the decision to sail, however, somewhere near Midway could also be chosen, and that could be very bad for the BBs.

Having written all that, your point about fuel rather renders my point nugatory. I didn't realize they burnt through oil at such a prodigious rate.

My opinion of Kimmel (and Short for that matter) is that while they may have done some things wrong, the blame for the disaster rises both higher and lower in the chain of command.

 

[SaparotRob]

I think Admiral Kimmel and General Short might have gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop. I wonder too about the bad rap D'Oyly-Hughes received.
This is my attempt to bring the thread back.

 

[Admiral Beez]

As for Kimmel, well, as memory serves the fleet's BB's had just completed some exercises and were reasonably ready to sail but as we discussed on the BC board years ago, when do they sortie? Also where to the BB's go? Having your entire fleet stand out to sea without a destination means their just steaming around burning fuel and oil.

Kimmel, and Phillips with Force Z had the same issue as D'Oyly-Hughes, an omission or insufficient use of reconnaissance patrol aircraft. Had Kimmel maintained long range recon (along with picket ships) to discover the IJN approaching, or had Phillips used his eight Shagbats to search for reported IJA transports from a safe distance (instead of within 300 nmi of FIC), or had D'Oyly-Hughes used his nine Gladiators to look for any enemy surface warships.... Well in all three cases, information is power.