Scapegoat: The Death of Prince of Wales and Repulse (22 page)

Yes indeed, but the excuse is startlingly cheeky for a Commander in Chief so obviously closing a stable door long after the horse had gone. A more correct message grammatically might have been: ‘We ought to have had this harbour secure.’

What is most interesting about Cunningham in the context of Phillips is Cunningham’s tendency to blame others for mishaps.
Barham
was torpedoed and blew up because a destroyer ‘pinged’ the attacking submarine but did not take the correct action subsequently. Cunningham blamed the destroyer, whilst admitting his ships were under-trained in anti-submarine work. According to Cunningham, Crete was lost because the Army did not use the time the Navy’s sacrifice had bought them. Cunningham summed up rather self-admiringly what became a standard part of his management technique: ‘I have had to deal with many technical gadgets in my time and when one has gone wrong I have found there are two things I could do, either get a new technical gadget or a new technical officer, and I have invariably found that the more satisfactory alternative was to get a new technical officer.’
²⁵

Cunningham’s first response to any failure was to dismiss subordinates, starting with a succession of First Lieutenants he dismissed from
Scorpion
when he was in command. His post-war image succeeded in blotting out some of his defects: ‘There were those who could not stand him, considering him a bully and careless of other people’s opinions and feelings.’
²⁶

Neither was he as popular with the ordinary sailors as much history has made out. A Signalman commented: ‘I could never understand why he was not more popular with the lower deck.’
²⁷

One reason was the comparison with his friend James Somerville. When Somerville took risks, it was often to save the lives of his men. During Operation Tiger in the Mediterranean, Somerville turned his whole fleet back to escort the destroyer
Fortune
which was restricted to twelve knots: ‘I couldn’t leave my little boats unprotected, though I suppose in cold blood I ought to have. If Dad does not take a chance in helping the boys, the latter will inevitably lose confidence.’
²⁸

When Cunningham took risks, it was more likely to lose lives.

Perhaps the most telling comment of all was contained in a letter from a contemporary written to the historian Arthur Marder:

‘There was probably a considerable element of jealousy in the dislike [by Cunningham of Phillips]. I often noticed, with surprise a strong streak of jealousy where other ‘up and coming’ Flag Officers were concerned. Surprising in a man of such sterling qualities.’
²⁹

Cunningham was a deeply flawed figure, and a close analysis of those fellow Admirals he selected for special praise have a common denominator. They posed no threat to Cunningham’s career. It is unfortunate that he has become the Second World War Admiral whose credibility rides most high, and his failure to speak out in favour of Tom Phillips is something that should do more damage to his own reputation than to that of Phillips.

What emerges from a study of the human context of the loss of
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
is a sense of some very murky waters indeed, and no small amount of scrabbling for cover. The most influential Admirals of the day, in the sense of those most listened to after the war, did not like Tom Phillips before the sinking of Force Z and offered his reputation no support after his death. Another individual was a classic case of sour grapes. There is at the very least a serious question to be asked over whether or not there was ever any actual commitment from the Admiralty to send
Indomitable
to join up with Force Z, and if there was not what we have witnessed since 1941 is a classic cover-up to hide the guilty parties.

One individual who could have put this right was the writer of the official history of British naval operations during the war, Stephen Roskill. Unfortunately Roskill can be accused of lacking proper objectivity. Roskill was actually a serving naval officer during the war, and at times is a little too keen to tell the reader of his own importance to the war effort. In a footnote to one of his books he writes regarding the Navy’s decision to form a Gunnery and Anti-Aircraft Warfare Division, and appoint a new Assistant Chief of Naval Staff to supervise Weapons Development:

‘The author this history can claim to have had a share in these developments … During a quiet visit to my home the need for a Gunnery and A-A Division was agreed and its organization outlined.’
³⁰

Roskill is at pains to dismiss Phillips’s suitability for the Far Eastern Command:

‘Early in November Churchill telegraphed to General Smuts … that Phillips was on the way to the Far East in the
Prince of Wales
. “He is a great friend of mine and one of our ablest officers”, he added, and having been VCNS since the beginning of the war “he knows the whole story back and forth”. This was of course a great exaggeration of Phillips’s experience, which had been entirely confined to Whitehall.’
³¹

This statement does not stand up to scrutiny. Firstly, Phillips had had a long and distinguished career as a naval officer, which included seagoing commands: his experience had not been ‘entirely confined to Whitehall’. Secondly, Churchill does not refer to Phillips’s experience, but rather to his knowledge of what was going on in the naval war. From his position at the nerve centre of British naval operations, no one other than Dudley Pound himself had more knowledge of naval operations and what was going on than Phillips. If one believes that Phillips’s mission was less to deter the Japanese than to cement a united Anglo-American naval alliance in the Far East, Churchill’s comment that Phillips knew ‘the whole story back and forth’ takes on a potential new significance.

Roskill had a falling out with Tom Phillips: ‘Rear-Admiral Tom Phillips, the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, who had no first-hand experience of the deadly effect of unopposed dive-bombers on warships, insisted that all that was needed to deal with them effectively was greater courage and resolution; and he took it very badly when told that such ideas were unjust to those officers who had the experience, and were in fact far from the truth.’
³²

The footnote appended to this comment suggested a more accurate statement might have been ‘took it badly when told by Roskill’: ‘I had a stormy interview with Phillips on this matter when I brought back to the Admiralty first-hand reports of the effect of bombing off Norway in April 1940. Phillips would
not
accept that it was suicidal to send warships to operate off an enemy-held coast without air cover.’
³³

We know that Phillips had changed his mind by December 1941, and the letter to Arthur Marder quoted earlier suggests Roskill did too, though he never issued a correction. Official historians really should not let their being given an earful by one of their superiors act as the basis of history. Possibly the objectivity of official histories is compromised if the author was ever in a position to receive such a telling-off. Very few Admirals in any war I know of took kindly to being told they were wrong by a junior officer, and it was a brave and even foolhardy person who told A. B. Cunningham that he was wrong. However, Cunningham was as popular with Roskill as Phillips was unpopular. Another footnote reads:

‘In 1944 I was serving in the British Mission in Washington, and was sent back to London to explain the difficulties we were having with King to Admiral Cunningham. After hearing me out Cunningham said, “Roskill, we’d get on better if you’d shoot Ernie King!” To which, knowing “ABC” quite well, replied “Is that an order, Sir, or merely a suggestion?”, whereupon he good humouredly turned me out of his office.’
³⁴

Ho ho. Granted, this and other asides do not form part of the official history, but are found in Roskill’s private publications, which his status as the official historian guaranteed a publisher. However, there are grounds for suggesting that Roskill was too willing to pursue personal vendettas. He is hostile to Churchill, who in an unprecedented action, delayed publication of the official history as he objected in part to the way it treated him. Roskill also reacted at length to what he clearly perceived as writing critical of Roskill’s stance by the historian Arthur Marder. Ironically, Churchill’s attempted censorship has done wonders for Roskill’s reputation, suggesting he was a victim of an attempt to restrict academic freedom of comment. No one seems to have thought that Churchill may have had a point in seeing in the work not a cause celebre of academic freedom, but rather a simple case of personal bias.

There was no military, political or career advantage in exonerating Admiral Sir Tom Phillips during or after the war. The rather heroic attempts to do so were confined, after the death of his friend Dudley Pound, to junior officers who had served with Phillips, and who had the first-hand experience so praised by Roskill in his own case. I hope it is fitting to end this chapter with one of those attempts, a letter to the
Daily Telegraph
from Captain S. E. Norfolk, written in response to reviews of the Middlebrook and Mahoney book
Battleship
which was so critical of Phillips:

‘The attempt by the writers of the articles on the loss of the
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
(Sept. 25 and Oct. 2) to put the blame on Admiral Sir Tom Phillips and their portrayal of him as a stiff-necked, obstinate, outdated old sea dog is utterly untrue. He was a clear-thinking, up-to-date, reasonable, and approachable man, devoted to the Service.

‘Accepting, regrettably, the overall responsibility of Winston Churchill, the man with the professional responsibility for the loss of the ships was the then First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, on two counts – he gave way to Churchill’s pressure to send the ships to the Far East against the advice of the Naval Staff led by Admiral Phillips, then Vice Chief of the Naval Staff; and he failed to give the necessary order for putting into effect the accepted policy for the disposition of naval forces in the Far East in the event of a Japanese attack on Singapore, which required naval surface units to be withdrawn to a secure base to pose a potential threat to the Japanese lines of communication.

‘The failure sealed the fate of Force Z, which Admiral Phillips must have known, as he had been the architect of the policy for dealing with this eventuality when he was Director of Plans at the Admiralty in 1937.

‘But as Admiral Phillips said to me in 1937, for obvious reasons the implementation of this policy could not be left to the man-on-the-spot; it would have to be ordered by the Admiralty. In the event Admiral Phillips was the man-on-the-spot, and the order was never given.

‘Having left Force Z to face the full weight of Japanese naval and air power there could only be one outcome. The tactical details of the action, though of professional interest, are of comparatively little relevance.’

The letter again emphasizes the crucial point. Force Z should have been withdrawn from Singapore once war broke out. The failure to do so sank the ships. Whether or not Tom Phillips made a mistake in ordering the two ships to stick together during the first attack or whatever is of purely academic interest. Winston Churchill had decided that in the worst-case scenario it was acceptable for Great Britain to lose Singapore. Even if that was indeed necessary, it was totally unnecessary to sacrifice
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
along with Singapore. If the reason for the recall not being sent was a Prime Minister who worked late and slept late it adds an element of black comedy to the whole disaster.

Chapter 11

The Loss of
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
:
A Revaluation – the Preliminaries

S
o what is the true story of the loss of
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse?
What did actually happen before and on 10 December 1941? The account that follows in many cases simply summarizes the conclusions reached in chapters above, and whilst reproducing some of the content of
Chapter 2
adds to and amends them. Again, I apologise for the element of repetition in this summary of what has gone before. The justification is that this is, to my knowledge, the first ever summary of its type of the case for Admiral Sir Tom Phillips. What follows is a compendium of all the research that has been undertaken into the engagement, and my best stab at giving an accurate and fair account of the events that led to the sinking of
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse.
It is in effect, an executive summary of the case for Phillips.

The Preliminaries

The Royal Navy in 1941 was straining hard to find the men and the ships to fight the European war on one front, never mind opening a second front in the Far East. Yet it was clear that the possibility of war with Japan was rapidly developing into a probability. Regardless of the Malayan Peninsula being a major source of rubber and tin for Britain, British prestige, its ability to maintain an Empire and its obligations to Australia and New Zealand and a military alliance with the United States all demanded that some show of naval force would be required in the Far East in the event of war with Japan threatening to break out.

The situation was rendered more bleak for the Royal Navy by a range of factors. Much of its supposed naval superiority over other nations was formed of worn-out and obsolete ships. The effectiveness of the relatively small new build it had been able to afford was seriously reduced by design restrictions imposed by the various inter-war Naval treaties, designed to stop or at least curtail a new naval race, and by bad design. A manpower crisis provoked by all-out war, and the urgent need for ships, meant that too many were sent out to war too quickly, with their crews not worked up and their weaponry not tested. Heavy losses in the invasion of Greece and the evacuation of Crete had come near to crippling the Navy and added to the shortages of escorts in particular. Late 1941 also saw a crisis in the availability of aircraft carriers caused by sinkings, battle damage and the need for refit and repair if the vessels were to remain in service. Unbeknown to the Admiralty, a number of the new weapons developed in the inter-war years to meet the threat of modern naval warfare would not prove as effective as had been hoped. Also unbeknown to them, they were woefully ill-informed about the power and strength of Japanese weaponry and the men who used it, something for which the Naval establishment of the 1930s, of which Tom Phillips was an influential member, must take a degree of responsibility. Regardless of political or any other issues, it could only be a scratch force that was sent out East in the event of war looming in the Far East. The popular cry ‘Main Fleet to Singapore!’ reflected the belief that Britain’s ‘impregnable fortress’ could and would have to survive for ninety days before the Fleet arrived. It was a myth; there was no Main Fleet to send.

Historians are best-advised not to crouch in defended positions and seek to pour a withering fire on their enemies and so destroy them. That is the task of those they write about. There is rarely total certainty over an historical event. It can therefore never be proven beyond all reasonable doubt that Winston Churchill had concluded that Britain’s Far Eastern Empire was indefensible by available British force of arms, and that such few spare military resources as there were should be sent to Britain’s one undefeated ally in the European war, Russia, also on the grounds that if Britain lost its Far Eastern Empire it lost prestige and profit, but if it lost the war in Europe Britain lost its very existence. It can, similarly, never be proven beyond reasonable doubt that Churchill’s solution to Britain continuing to hold ground it could not hope to keep by virtue of its own military resources in the Far East, was to cement a military alliance with a country he believed did have the necessary resources – the United States of America – and make American and British interests in the Far East one and the same thing, as symbolized by Singapore becoming a joint naval base for the British and American fleets. Neither Churchill’s having given up hope of Britain alone defending the Far East nor his hope that it could only be done alongside America can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. What there is is sufficient evidence to suggest it as at least a possibility, something rendered stronger by the fact that this theory goes some way to explain what are otherwise inexplicable features in the sinking of
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
. Of course, the sending of
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
to Singapore as a gambling ploy in a game which had as first prize a secret alliance with America was entirely capable of running parallel with the reason most historians have plumped for, namely to act as a deterrent to Japanese aggression: the two were not mutually exclusive. This latter was certainly the line Churchill was to take post-event.

There was a clear clash between the Admiralty, led by Admiral Sir Tom Phillips as Vice Chief of Naval Staff, and Churchill over what ships should be sent out to Singapore. Supporters of Churchill would argue that he took a close interest in naval affairs throughout the war. Critics would argue that he interfered remorselessly, and often to bad effect. The Admiralty wished to send out a force of ‘R’ class battleships, possibly reinforced by the slow but heavily-armed and armoured battleships
Nelson
and
Rodney.
In sheer weight of firepower this looked an impressive force. The ‘R’ class battleships each carried eight 15-inch guns in tried and tested mountings, while
Nelson
and
Rodney
carried the largest main armament ever placed on a Royal Navy battleship, nine 16-inch guns in three triple turrets mounted forward of the bridge. The turrets had problems as a result of excessive safety precautions but had been good enough to punch holes in the thick armour of the
Bismarck.
If a clear attempt was being made to prove Britain’s seriousness of intent to the Americans, those in the know in the Admiralty (which would certainly have included Phillips) might have hoped that sheer numbers and weight of firepower of the proposed force might have made a powerful statement. Probably a more compelling reason was that the ‘R’ class battleships were those the Royal Navy could most easily spare.
Prince of Wales
and
Hood
had proved no match for the
Bismarck
, and with her sister ship
Tirpitz
and the powerful battle-cruisers
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
unsunk, the Admiralty was understandably concerned to keep a superior or at least equivalent force in northern waters to counter a break-out against Atlantic convoys.

The Admiralty’s preferred option was overturned by Churchill. He pointed out that the ‘R’ class were obsolete and slow floating coffins, badly-ventilated and unsuitable for tropical service, and that apart from aging machinery they were neither armed nor armoured to cope with modern warfare. His wish was for the modern
Prince of Wales
to go out as the main element of a fast raiding force, but primarily as a deterrent. Is it coincidence that it was
Prince of Wales
that had taken Churchill to meet President Roosevelt, and that of all symbols of British naval might this ship might be calculated to most impress the American President? Certainly Churchill had holes punched in his argument when it was pointed out that one of his arguments against using the ‘R’ class applied equally if not more to the KGV (King George V class) to which
Prince of Wales
belonged. The class not only had inadequate ventilation, being designed primarily for service in cold northern waters, but it was known that a crucial piece of machinery essential for the working of the main armament was liable to failure in tropical heat. Furthermore,
Prince of Wales
had never had the time to work-up its crew properly. It was seen as a jinxed ship in the Navy, largely as a result of it having been in the company of the symbol of the Royal Navy, HMS
Hood,
when it was blown up by the
Bismarck,
and been forced to retire from the action or face its own destruction. Nevertheless Churchill’s wish carried the day, with the old battle-cruiser
Repulse
added to the force.

There is no hard evidence to suggest that Churchill, faced with his former ally Phillips presenting a forceful argument on behalf of the Admiralty for not sending out
Prince of Wales,
took Phillips aside and into his confidence regarding Churchill’s hopes for a secret alliance and hence the need to impress by sending out Britain’s newest battleship, and sweetened the pill by offering Phillips the role of chief negotiator. It is an unfortunate fact of history that many of the conversations historians would most like a record of are those that the participants took the most care of to ensure that there was no record. Yet if such a conversation took place it would at least explain why one of the most cogent opponents of Churchill’s plan suddenly gave it the most tangible support possible, by agreeing to be its Commander. Equally, it may just have been that no Admiral in the Royal Navy was ever likely to refuse a fighting command.

For seventy years or more it has been assumed, largely on the word of those responsible for assembling the force, that it was intended to add to the scratch force the modern carrier
Indomitable
, an improved
Illustrious
class vessel that retained an armoured flight deck, but could carry a significantly larger number of aircraft than
Illustrious
.
Indomitable
was working up in the West Indies, but grounded on 3 November, and had to be sent for repair in the United States. However, a recent book
¹
has pointed that even had she been ordered there on the day she grounded she would not have made it in time. Until firm evidence is found that
Indomitable
was ordered to Singapore it seems best to assume that, whilst there may have been a thought to equip Force Z with a carrier it was never a firm intention, and was adopted post-event as the party line to protect those likely to be blamed for the sinkings.
Indomitable
was ordered to the Far East after completing her repairs in twelve days, and having to sail back to Kingston to pick up her aircraft, but did not arrive until January, suggesting her posting was a classic case of being wise after the event, or part of a more sinister cover up.

The loss of
Indomitable
to Force Z raises other questions. An absence of any particular record of complaint or worry from the Admiralty might be explained on the grounds that there was a major crisis over carriers at the time –
Illustrious
had been seriously damaged in the Mediterranean,
Victorious
was needed for the Home fleet and
Ark Royal
for the Mediterranean, though she was to be sunk on 13 November 1941. A string of other carriers were either in refit or due for repairs, and the Admiralty was hardly going to welcome their most modern and effective carrier being sent out as part of a tiny raiding and deterrent force to the Far East. However, Pound and others at the Admiralty, including Phillips, were immensely loyal to the service they loved and had devoted their professional lives to, and along with that loyalty and devotion went no small measure of judgment and skill. One did not have to have risen to the top of one of the most outstandingly professional navies in the world to realize that
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
constituted an appallingly unbalanced force. Admiral Sir Tom Phillips we know had persuaded himself of the importance of air cover for surface ships, and the most surprising absentee from the complainants about the absence of a carrier was Phillips himself. In none of the published comments by Phillips that I have read, and in none of the private papers held for so long by the Phillips family, is there a reference to the body blow that the loss of
Indomitable
was to the fighting and defensive strength of Force Z. This can only suggest that Phillips for one never expected to be reinforced by
Indomitable
, and confirms the suggestion that sending her out was never a serious Admiralty intention. But this then raises a further question: why not? Wars and the decisions taken in them are frequently not rational, but one of the few rational explanations for the apparent ease with which senior officers accepted the dispatch of a chronically unbalanced force (rendered even more unbalanced by the paltry number of escorts it could call on and the absence of any cruisers) is that it was never intended that Force Z should actually have to fight, and that its being sent was essentially a diplomatic mission to impress the USA with Britain’s seriousness of intent. This would also explain why Tom Phillips was chosen to command Force Z. There was no shortage of fighting admirals available, with Geoffrey Layton already out in the Far East as Commander in Chief Station, and James Somerville another obvious candidate. Yet Layton was too angular to be an effective diplomat; as referred to above, he had once called a colonial administrator a ‘black bastard’
²
and was almost the stereotype of the salty old sea dog. James Somerville had been forced to open fire on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir having failed to persuade the French Admiral to disarm, and as a result his reputation as a negotiator was at an all-time low. He also had a deserved reputation for lavatorial humour and language, a quality a sailor could get away with but an ambassador could not.