Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
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A Question For The Brits

On Dec 7, 1941 the US suffered an humiliating attack by the Japanese Navy on Pearl Harbor that killed over 2000 US personnel and sunk or irreparably damaged seven capital ships of the Pacific fleet. This two hour attack was a stunning success for the Japanese Navy and significantly altered the balance of naval power in the Pacific. The US Navy was caught completely by surprise. Yet there was warning of the attack. General George C Marshall had sent an “Alert” message which was mistakenly transmitted by Western Union rather than through military channels and was not delivered until about twenty four hours after the attack. A newly installed radar station on Oahu detected a flight of about a hundred planes approaching Pearl Harbor when they were out about fifty miles and reported this contact but it was ignored. Either one of those warnings had they been observed could have resulted in getting major elements of the fleet under weigh and possibly saving many lives.

Yet no one was severely punished for the lapse in readiness at Pear Harbor. Both the commanding Admiral at Pearl Harbor and the Commanding General of the Army forces at Pearl were admonished and retired early but both were nearing retirement..It was almost as if their sin was not admitted because it might implicate others or because it was such a huge sin that no adequate punishment existed.

Strangely a similar event on a much smaller scale cost the Royal Navy one of its proudest ships in the opening days of World War II.. The battleship Royal Oak was anchored in the northeast corner of Scapa Flow, an almost completely landlocked bay in the Orkney Islands, when on 14 October 1939 Otto Prien conned his U47 submarine through an opening hardly more than fifty yards wide and only 35 feet deep. It was thirty minutes past midnight and the submarine entered the Flow on the surface and saw the Royal Oak at anchor. She had 1200 men aboard. Prien fired his first torpedos at 3000 yards and then approached much closer on the surface and one torpedo struck the battleship. Prien then fired a stern salvo of three torpedos all of which missed and swung the U-boat around and fired another salvo from the bow tubes which registered two more hits and sealed the fate of the Royal Oak. She capsized and sank. All of this ordnance was released from a surfaced submarine and none of the personnel on Royal Oak saw the submarine or the torpedo tracks. Until a diver found a torpedo propeller later it was believed that Royal Oak had been bombed by high altitude bombers. There were 883 dead of the Royal Oak complement.
Prien was in open sea through the same narrow gap in the Orkneys that he had entered by 0215 hours, having spent a little less than two hours on the surface of the Flow without ever being seen.

Now the question for the Brits: Was anyone in the British Navy punished for this laxity in watch aboard a naval vessel in time of war? Was Captain William Benn who commanded the Royal Oak even admonished? Or did the Brits like us Yanks just say c’est le vie?

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oxsan


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Registered: Mar 2004
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/me checks watch and looks around for Smug.

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Registered: Aug 2001
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Funkyrooster or Weasel would be the men to answer this.

One guy did get screwed recently, for the grounding of a British ship, as I recall.

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Registered: Mar 2004
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Who did the screwing, Funky or Weasel?

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Registered: Jun 2002
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I think the Royal navy was glad that the Royal oak was sunk. It saved us the trouble of scrapping it. Because had it put to sea in any meaningful sense, it would have been sunk, being an unreconstituted WWI battleship. Not so good news for the 883 men on board though.

I think it was just one of those things. Like when Italian commandos sank two British Battleships in Alexandria harbour in late 1941. Sometimes the enemy plays a blinder and you have to take it on the chin

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Registered: Sep 2001
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quote:

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Originally posted by funkyrooster
Sometimes the enemy plays a blinder and you have to take it on the chin

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Registered: Oct 2001
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takin it on the chin after a huge blow is sorta anti-climactic, I'd say

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It ain't true love at least, unless you were blindered at the time.

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Registered: Jun 2002
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If they'd have got their fucking line out functioning it might have made a difference

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
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True Funky, the Royal Oak was WWI vintage and like me too slow and decrepit for naval engagements (you can parse that sentence any way you like) but Prien's feat at Scapa Flow was a fantastic propoganda tool for Herr Goebbels and a real blow in the gut to the British public in those early days of the war. The U47 itself was a WWI U-Boat. As riled as the Admiralty got at Admiral Byng I would have expected a bit of hubris for Captain Benns.

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