Amendments to Chronoology of the war at sea 1939-1945 English ediction 1992

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hello Gentlemen,

following the Luftwaffe torpedo bomber 11-13 Aug. 1942 thread I'm submitting you some amendments to the a.m. English edition of "Chronology". I know about a German on line constantly upgraded version of this classic and fundamental study by Jurger Rohwer and Gerhard Hummelchlen, but my German is too litte to contibute there. Maybe these notes of mine will be useful for some member of the Forum to give some little further info at that never ending study.

An introduction is however necessary to explain my method of study.

On September 1939 the just appointed First Lord Winston Churchill ordered to the Director of Naval Intelligence Admiral John Godfrey that: good news was made to seem better; bad news was toned down, delayed or, sometimes, suppressed" (David Reynolds, In Command of History, Penguin, London, 2005, page 114). These orders were confirmed when Sir Winston bevome premier on May 1940.

After 1945 the subsequent propaganda version about the Royal Navy actions and campaigns during the second world war were plastered in the London Gazette reports as, accordng a certain manicheism, it was considered politically impossible to alterate the previous statement.
The later British histories, like Playfair, were based on those reports and journalist and authors, usually English speaking, copied them and one each other in a someway perverse or lazy way.

The original documents wrote wartime are instead rich of new infos. For example:

on 12 June 1940 the cruisers HMS Gloucester and Liverpool were both slightly damaged off Tobruk by the second San Giorgio 10 in salvo and took avoid action. Not a single British 6 in shell hit the land during that shore bombardment in spite of the propaganda drawnings rich of flames and spoke published, among others, on East of malta West of Suez (page 24 of the a.m. ediction)

The shore bombardment against Bardia was not during the night between 20 and 21 June, but on 21 after the dawn (page 25) and there was no reply by the Italian coastal emplacements as there was no battery, but only two 13,2 mm MG which shot down a Swordfish floatplane spotter whose pilot become a POW.

On 1 Aug. 1940, in spite of the silence of the official RN version, HMS Hood was hit by a bomb dropped by the Italian bombers off the Balearic is. According the British source (G.M. Stephen British Warship Desing since 1906, ed. Ian Allan, Shepperton, 1985, the bomb di not explode. According the Italian report and a newsreel of the action there was a fire on the British flagship. As the raid was made at sunset the image, available on You tube too, of the flames is a clear one). For the chronicle, after the previous 9 July 1940 experience of an other Regia Aeronautica bomber attack"...large quantities of ready-use ammunition were stored topside on a needs-must basis, the supply of ammunitions to anti-aircraft guns being a higher priority even then the containment of explosives in secure magazines. It has been suggested that this practice was not rescinded when Hood set out in search of Bismarck despite the fact that this was clearly destined to be a surface engagement, and air-attack was almost inconceivable".

On 11 July 1940 the DD HMAS Vampire was damaged by Italian bombers suffering a casualty too. The accident was deleted from the reports (but no in the RAN Official story)

On 12 Oct. 1940 night HMS Ajax, during her brillant night action east of Malta, received seven direct hits, a piece of news which later disappeared (page 38)

The choice by Adm. Somerville to launch too far from Malta the Hurricanes and Skuas from HMS Argus during Operation White on November 1940 was dictated by the sighting of the Italian battlefleet. This detail is available in Somerville's diaries and in his original proceeding, but was cancelled in the later official verision (page 42)

HMS Warspite suffered damages and casualties by Italian bombers on 29 Sept. 1940. This piece of news is available on "War at Sea Preliminary Narrative" a manuscript wrote on 1945 by the Admiralty and now available at the IWM, Department of printed books, but deleted in the later reports and so absent in Chronology too.

On the other side of the hill

The Italian submarine Galvani did not sunk the Indian sloop Pathan (page 23)
The Italian submarine Serpente did not sunk the DD HMS Hyperion (page 45)               

These are only some examples. For editorial and contract reasons the ones about Pedestal must wait until the next year. The ones about the Harpoon Convoy will be proposed after Nov. 2010 as my articles about this subject are sorting now (Oct. and Nov. 2010) on Storia Militare.

         Greetings

          Enrico 

[Urs Heßling]

hello, Enrico,

as I am the one who started with questions, I say "thank you".

greetings, Urs

[t-geronimo]

Yes, every time one finds out new facts is a great time!!

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Danke shoen mein herren.

     Enrico