Force Z...RSRD

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Not sure how they could think planes were out of range when JP G3/4M bombers were already attacking Singapore before force Z went out.

Really, they did. I read this not only in WSCs book, but also in a ww2 bombers compendium which has an article on the G3M. Now, it sure was an ill-informed assesment.

However, they were indeed still to find out the decisiveness of air power by then. The Pearl Harbour attack was not 48-hours old by then, and it would be a lot of time till the coral sea engagement, so it's possible they were overconfident about their capital ship's survival abilities.

[WernherVonTrapp]

It's hard to rationalize, sometimes, which account of an engagement is the most accurate. I've read so many WWII books and watched so many documentaries only to end up with more questions than answers. There are so many different accounts, viewpoints and perspectives in these books/documentaries that, even trying to extrapolate the facts can be challenging. No doubt, the "black shoes" who held the upper hand until Pearl Harbor, believed in the "big gun" mentality and the battleship. Even after Pearl Harbor, there were those who continued to adhere to the "big gun" school of thought.

I've read so many different viewpoints as to what admirals fit into which category (black shoe .vs brown shoe) and who was a better or worse choice to lead a carrier TF that it boggles my mind. Anyway, the point is, western views seem to be dictated (or perhaps biased is a better word) by our own tactics and doctrines. We tend to believe or rationalize according to the way we think. It's not intentional but rather, consequential. If the attack on PH didn't prove Billy Mitchell right, the sinking of the POW & Repulse should've layed all doubts to rest.

The British still believed in the Battleship before the sinking of these two BBs. Perhaps they needed a Pearl Harbor of their own to break the camel's back. I'm not saying anyone is correct over the other but, Armistead seems to rationalize a valid point. How could the BRN believe that their ships were out of range if the Japanese had already proven otherwise? Then again, how the heck did Singapore fall into Japanese hands, despite the historical archives? I'm not saying the Bristish didn't believe they were out of range. I'm asking, how could they believe they were out of range? Maybe something as simple as deprecation of the enemy and/or his capabilities?

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by WernherVonTrapp

I'm not saying the Bristish didn't believe they were out of range. I'm asking, how could they believe they were out of range? Maybe something as simple as deprecation of the enemy and/or his capabilities?

Again, we are talking about things that happened in a 24-hour time frame, 48 at the best. This "they should know better" pondering is not taking into account the fact that the japanese attacked the far east in december 8th (in the other side of the time/date line, so in the US it would be the 7th) and the bombings you are mentioning happened around one day previous to the sinking of the BBs (10th dec), so it is fair to say they were unaware of the danger.

Of course, unless someone here has any evidence that they were aware of the fighting and decided to sail without an umbrella anyway, that's another thing. But I don't think we can drag and admiral's name in the mud (the fellows' name is Tom Phillips) like that.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally Posted by Daniel Prates

Again, we are talking about things that happened in a 24-hour time frame, 48 at the best. This "they should know better" pondering is not taking into account the fact that the japanese attacked the far east in december 8th (in the other side of the time/date line, so in the US it would be the 7th) and the bombings you are mentioning happened around one day previous to the sinking of the BBs (10th dec), so it is fair to say they were unaware of the danger.

Yes, another valid point. Communications were nothing like the instantaneous, on the spot reporting of today. And I suppose this is an understatement. If I remember correctly, Japanese air assault was a major concern of the British but they had little choice, considering the speed of the evolving situation. I don't think anyone was prepared for the speed and depth of Japanese plans/movements in the SWP. This alone helps to explain alot. Though I still can't reconcile MacArthur's handling of the USAAF in the Philippines after the attack on PH. Yeah, I know, I'm jumping around as usual. Either way, it may have been better, in retrospect, for the British to forego the deployment of POW/Repulse and save them for a time where they'd actually be useful.

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by WernherVonTrapp

SS?

A few shots I snapped of Forze Z before battle and after...

[WernherVonTrapp]

Hey, nice screenies Bubblehead. Those are some of the coolest camo schemes I've yet seen on a ship. I guess you weren't able to turn the tide with your AA support.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by Daniel Prates

Really, they did. I read this not only in WSCs book, but also in a ww2 bombers compendium which has an article on the G3M. Now, it sure was an ill-informed assesment.

However, they were indeed still to find out the decisiveness of air power by then. The Pearl Harbour attack was not 48-hours old by then, and it would be a lot of time till the coral sea engagement, so it's possible they were overconfident about their capital ship's survival abilities.

I wasn't saying you were wrong, think I said the Admiral thought he could stay out of range of JP airpower, but it made no sense in light of the air raids on Singy, he was closing range, not getting further away. I'm not sure what he was thinking, prolly that air power couldn't sink a BB. I know two JP search planes spotted the Z force, but not sure if the ships saw them, if they did that should tell them something.

Also, the Z force was to attack the JP landing group, but the JP's knowing the force was coming turned the majority of it back to port Cam., so it wouldn't have been there.

Also wonder why many of the other ships there from several nations didn't join the force.

Early war ego and fubar...

Before the destruction of Force Z no battleship had been sunk while under weigh by aircraft after well over two years of intensive combat. So it's not too unreasonable to assume that at the time, the risk of operating without fighter cover appeared acceptable.

Indeed, aircraft in the Med, the Atlantic and the North Sea (including the Barents and Norwegian Sea's) had been remarkably unsuccessful at sinking large warships that had freedom to maneuver. Even Bismarck was only winged and needed to be finished off with guns and surface launched torpedoes. This was the reality of air power as seen at the Admiralty and if they were ultimately wrong, they had some 27-months of combat experience that indicated otherwise.

With anything to do with Singapore or the Malaysian Campaign, take everything WCS wrote with a very large grain of salt, as PM he had a large number of cabinet and CIGS documents classified under the 100-year law in the interest of "national security" and many will not be available until 2043 or so. Winston was remarkably good at spinning the narrative so he would be blameless. A good single volume on Force Z is Battleship by Martin Middlebrook.

Poor coordination more than anything else prevented an air umbrella, what would soon be known as ground-based CAP; the destroyers were still picking survivors out of the water when a flight of Australian Buffalo's arrived over the scene of the disaster.

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

Winston was remarkably good at spinning the narrative so he would be blameless.

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it" - WSC.

[zed055]

I read this just the other day and I immediately thought it rang true, compared to all the potential explanations for the logic behind the decision to proceed without air cover:

From the Wikipedia entry:

"Regarding Phillips' decision to proceed without air cover, Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote:

Those who make the decisions in war are constantly weighing certain risks against possible gains. At the outset of hostilities Admiral Hart thought of sending his small striking force north of Luzon to challenge Japanese communications, but decided that the risk to his ships outweighed the possible gain because the enemy had won control of the air. Admiral Phillips had precisely the same problem in Malaya. Should he steam into the Gulf of Siam and expose his ships to air attack from Indochina in the hope of breaking enemy communications with their landing force? He decided to take the chance. With 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."

Better to fight and lose the battle than to sit back and watch fellow Brits die in the attempt.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by zed055

I read this just the other day and I immediately thought it rang true, compared to all the potential explanations for the logic behind the decision to proceed without air cover:

From the Wikipedia entry:

"Regarding Phillips' decision to proceed without air cover, Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote:

Those who make the decisions in war are constantly weighing certain risks against possible gains. At the outset of hostilities Admiral Hart thought of sending his small striking force north of Luzon to challenge Japanese communications, but decided that the risk to his ships outweighed the possible gain because the enemy had won control of the air. Admiral Phillips had precisely the same problem in Malaya. Should he steam into the Gulf of Siam and expose his ships to air attack from Indochina in the hope of breaking enemy communications with their landing force? He decided to take the chance. With 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."

Better to fight and lose the battle than to sit back and watch fellow Brits die in the attempt.

Sad logic, often better to live and fight another day, if the US didn't do this early war, we probably would've lost Midway.

[Daniel Prates]

Well armistead... that is just the way the standar RN commander thinks, I suppose. Cunningham never stopped the evacuation of Crete, even under heavy losses, under the argument (that would soon become famous) that "it takes 3 years to build a ship but 300 years to build a tradition".

There is no price for statements like that.

I suspect that Morison is being disingenuous after the fact as he is wont to be at times.

He also speaks of the "half truth" of the relative invulnerability of surface ships to air attacks but this is from hindsight and also from the view point of a navy that possessed a far more realistic and effective air-sea doctrine than did the RN in 1941, even after 27-months of high intensity war at sea.

In December 1941 the empirical evidence strongly suggested that a well handled warship could survive air attacks on the high seas provided it retained freedom to maneuver.

The suggestion that Tom Phillips sailed as some sort of grand gesture does the man's memory a great disservice and ignores all of the secondary evidence that:

1. Politically Singapore needed forward defence since a Japanese landing in Malaysia made the port essentially indefensible;

2. Close air cover was considered desirable but not necessary to the survival of Force Z; and

3. The cabinet decision not to hold Force Z (as it would become) in Cape Town when HMS Indomitable ran aground indicates that both 1 and 2 above were in line with Admiralty and Government policy.

Prince of Wales and Repulse were supposed to deter war with Japan, so complete was the mis-reading of the situation in the Far east by Winston Churchill. When deterrence failed, the sortie of Force Z to Kuanton represented a calculated risk that seemed entirely reasonable at the time and given the available intelligence and the strategic imperatives that the Commander Eastern "Fleet" had to operate under once the shooting started.

Many have chimed in on the subject of Force Z so very wise after the event. Admiral Phillips was certainly a proponent of the theory that surface ships were survivible in the face of air-power but he was hardly alone in that belief within the Admiralty and the British government in December 1941.

Churchill's "everywhere we were weak and naked" speech makes sense in the context of a leader whom had bet the Empire on a series of assumptions that were proved to be mistakes. But he wasn't the only one to have mis-read or under-estimate the Japanese.

[zed055]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

The suggestion that Tom Phillips sailed as some sort of grand gesture does the man's memory a great disservice and ignores all of the secondary evidence that:

1. Politically Singapore needed forward defence since a Japanese landing in Malaysia made the port essentially indefensible;

2. Close air cover was considered desirable but not necessary to the survival of Force Z; and

3. The cabinet decision not to hold Force Z (as it would become) in Cape Town when HMS Indomitable ran aground indicates that both 1 and 2 above were in line with Admiralty and Government policy.

I did not intend to imply that his sole motivation was to give his life and his crews' in vain. I merely wished to point out that, at the time, the situation was grim and that, after weighing the alternatives, he chose to take the risk in order to contribute to the defense of Singapore. I agree with your sound reasoning - indeed, in the event of a mission success it would have been much more than a gesture.

Originally Posted by zed055

I did not intend to imply that his sole motivation was to give his life and his crews' in vain. I merely wished to point out that, at the time, the situation was grim...

This is exactly what the statement

Better to fight and lose the battle than to sit back and watch fellow Brits die in the attempt.

implies, that the sortie was somehow a lost cause from the start.

I would suggest that the sortie of Force Z was nothing of the sort, rather it constituted a calculated risk based on poor intelligence, threat deflation (under-estimating Japanese naval airpower) and hard-won combat experiance from the European Theatre although the lessons were not applicable to the new situation.

I suspect that if Admiral Phillips had possession of a magical crystal ball on the evening of 9 December he would have been sailing for Columbo at maximum sustained speed; his ships were more important to the British war effort than the fortress of Singapore that they could do nothing to save.

Cannot help thinking that the last military related thought to pass through his mind as PoW rolled over might have been something like D'oh, in the context of "An exclamation of surprise or dismay when confronted by an unpleasent fact or revelation".

Whether Prince of Wales and Repulse should have been at Singapore to begin with is an entirely different subject but once in theatre, the trip to Kauntan was a reasonable decision, given all the information known or assumed at the time.