Scapegoat: The Death of Prince of Wales and Repulse (26 page)

Whatever else may have been wrong with Admiral Palliser, he was not shy about sending signals. The problem was rather that he sent the wrong ones. At 0952 he reported fifteen Japanese transports and an aircraft carrier off Singora ‘… further reinforcing the obvious, that no one in Singapore had expected Force Z to arrive off Kuantan that morning.’
¹⁸

The question is not whether they had expected it, but whether they should have expected it. Meanwhile,
Tenedos
had sent off her signal at 0800. It is believed it was received at Singapore, but the timing has not been established beyond doubt. We have to assume that, at the very least, Singapore knew sometime after 0800 that Force Z had abandoned its mission to Singora. ‘… but there [Singapore] it was only inferred that the Admiral’s plans had changed and that he could not have gone as far north as Singora.’
¹⁹

One is tempted to ask just how well qualified one has to be to work out that an Admiral who is now heading south and has been told of an enemy landing on his way is likely to head to the reported site of that landing.

The Engagement

Throughout the engagement that was to follow both
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
faced continual problems with the ammunition for their short-range anti-aircraft weaponry separating out and jamming the guns. It is not possible to give exact figures, but the comments of survivors suggest it caused a major diminution in the ships’ short-range firepower.

The battle started at 0952 when
Tenedos
was sighted and attacked by a Japanese reconnaissance plane searching for Force Z. It launched two bombs, both of which missed. At 0955 it reported the attack. At 1030
Tenedos
skillfully avoided nine bombs, and sent off signals at 1005, 1020 and 1030. It is unclear whether or not these were received in Singapore, though they were received by Force Z. Meanwhile, at 1015, a Japanese Nell search plane, piloted by Ensign Hoashi Masane, sighted Force Z, and sent a report.
Repulse
detected the plane on radar. The Japanese bomber and torpedo squadrons were low on fuel and about to reach their point of no return. At 1020 Force Z made its first visual sighting, and at 1030, on receipt of the signal from
Tenedos,
Phillips ordered first–degree readiness for air attack, an increase of speed to twenty-five knots, and a change of course for Singapore.

It is at this point that there is the most unity among commentators in condemning Phillips. It is frequently pointed out that had he sent a report to Singapore when he knew he had been spotted the squadron of Brewster Buffaloes reserved for covering Force Z could have been at the scene of the attack by the time the first torpedoes were launched.

The signals from
Tenedos
have been recorded as having happened in all accounts of the engagement, but their true importance has not been commented on. Lost and vanished records and the death of all the senior figures involved, if not in the sinkings then of old age, mean that certain issues can never be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Did Singapore fail to receive
Tenedos’s
signals stating she was under air attack, even though they were received on board
Prince of Wales?
Those signals made it clear there was still a sizable force in the air. What is certain is that Singapore sent out no aircraft in response to
Tenedos
’s request. Either Singapore did not indeed receive the signals, or it did and there was a monumental cock-up in notifying those who could have sent air support. Historians have worked backwards from the fact that Singapore did not dispatch aircraft either to support
Tenedos
when it had signalled it was under air attack, and did not dispatch any aircraft to find and provide support for Force Z (no organizer of a lottery would have made knowing where Force Z was the jackpot winner: too many people would have won). It seems appalling even beyond the tragi-comedy of the fall of Singapore to contemplate that such crucial signals might not have been passed on, but is it any more appalling than the fact that equally crucial sighting reports on the Japanese side were not passed on for hours to those who could act on them?

I have not been able to verify one statement by a recent historian:

‘In Singapore, Admiral Palliser had still heard nothing from Admiral Phillips. At some point, perhaps after receiving the signals from the
Tenedos,
Palliser sent Phillips a signal informing him that he had two aircraft and asking for instructions on where to send them. Admiral Palliser received no reply, and sent the aircraft off based on what he thought Phillips would do; unfortunately, his guess was not correct, and the aircraft went to the wrong location.’
²⁰

The primary fact remains that Phillips and his staff had been informed unequivocally that fighter protection was not available, once from Pulford and once from Palliser, a message that was not challenged in any of the numerous signals received subsequently. Its unavailability was confirmed by Force Z seeing only one friendly aircraft for the whole length of the mission, and a complete absence of air cover over a supposed invasion area. Had any fighter protection been available Phillips might reasonably assume the
Tenedos
signals would draw it out, and had no reason to think that its signals received by him were not being received by Singapore. As it was, yet again Force Z had appallingly bad luck:

‘By 11.00am all ninety-five aircraft of the 22nd Air Flotilla were on their return leg, with fuel gauges registering well below the half level, and with hopes of finding the battle fleet almost abandoned. Many of the crews, in fact, were preoccupied with endurance calculations rather than the enemy, and several squadrons had determined to set course for Kota Bharu rather than risk the longer sea passage to Cape Cambodia. Then at approximately 11.05 am Ensign Hoashi … on the last leg of his sector search, caught sight of several unidentifiable vessels between a gap in the clouds.’
²¹

The Japanese aircraft had been sent out with over an hour and a half between the first and the last squadrons taking to the air, and had been in the air for several hours. The divided force attacked as and when it spotted its enemy. The first attack was by bombers on
Repulse
, from Lieutenant Yoshimi Shirai’s eight Nell bombers. One bomb hit. It detonated against an inch of deck armour she had gained in one of her many refits (the bomb, at 250kg, was a relatively light one, as all the available heavy armour-piercing bombs had been allocated to the Pearl Harbor attack), and Shirai’s squadron did not even have the 500kg bombs the other Japanese bombers carried, but appalling injuries were caused to some of the crew by burst steam pipes. In the cruel language unlikely to be appreciated by someone skinned alive by superheated steam, ‘her fighting efficiency was not impaired’.

Tom Phillips has been heavily criticized for his initial order for the two ships to manoeuvre together by flag signal, which totally confused both ships’ fire control systems and masked their fire. ‘Admiral Phillips had made a fiasco out of his first handling of ships in action …’
²²

He soon realized his mistake, and allowed the ships to operate independently. Events proved his orders to be a mistake, but it is rarely pointed out that there was a sound reason behind them.
Prince of Wales
’s 5.25-inch guns were state-of-the-art,
Repulse
’s equivalent antediluvian. Phillips’s orders brought
Repulse
under a protective umbrella. The vulnerability of
Repulse
was confirmed by the Japanese attackers, who flew over
Prince of Wales
to attack the weaker
Repulse.

At 1132 Force Z was sighted by sixteen Nells of the Genzen Air Group, with the first attack, by nine Nells of Lieutenant Ishihara’s squadron, made on
Prince of Wales
. The
Express
signalled ‘Planes approaching have torpedoes’. An officer on bridge of
Prince of Wales
said: ‘I think they’re going to do a torpedo attack.’ Admiral Phillips is reported to hear the remark, turn round and say: ‘No, they’re not. There are no torpedo aircraft about’. These famous almost-last words have been used against him, but if they are to be used against anyone it should be against the British Intelligence who had given him the information:

‘I could see a formation of about ten planes skimming low on the water towards us. I … awaited with excitement the massacre of this echelon monster that would frighten the life out of lesser mortals. But, no, not us; let them get nearer, catch them on the upsweep. A deafening crescendo of noise erupted into the heavens. Eight 5.25’s fired simultaneously. I watched the shells burst – but not a plane was hit. To me they seemed well
off
target. The planes came on remorselessly as all the pom-poms, machine guns and the Bofors gun opened up. All hell seemed to be let loose at once but nothing seemed to stop them …’
²³

One Nell was discomfited by
Prince of Wales
making a sharp turn to port, and switched its attack to
Repulse
, but eight torpedoes were launched at
Prince of Wales.
The destroyer
Express
may have been the reason some torpedoes were dropped relatively early (another reminder as to what difference might have been made if Cunningham had supplied Force Z with two seaworthy destroyers), and one torpedo appears to have exploded as it hit the water. Survivors did not realize that the ship was hit at the stern by two torpedoes, as one hit produced a plume of water but the other was masked by the overhang of the stern.

The effect of these initial hits on
Prince of Wales
was catastrophic. In a tragic and ironic echo of the fate of her erstwhile opponent
Bismarck
, her fate was sealed by a single torpedo hit on the stern. The bracket securing the port outboard propeller shaft to the hull sheared, and the unsecured revolving shaft tore a gash in the hull along the length of the shaft. Earlier damage to the hull sustained as the result of the near-miss bomb in dock may have exacerbated the damage, creating a ‘fault line’ in the plating. Within seconds the ship took on an immediate list of 11.5° to port. With only the two starboard shafts operating, speed dropped from 25kt to 16kt. Flooding and shock damage disabled much of the ship’s electrics. As a result four of its eight 5.25-inch turrets were put out of action, as was her steering. Lighting, ventilation and communication were lost below decks, where damage control was most needed, and much of the ship’s capacity to pump out water was also disabled. Just as crucially, much of the ship’s counter-flooding capacity was lost.
Prince of Wales
was one of a new type of warship, designed from the outset to be worked by electricity, but not as it turned out designed to ensure the continuation of her power supplies following a major blow to the hull. Everyone on the ship appears to have realized that something frighteningly extraordinary had occurred. Various unattributed comments include: ‘It was as if the ship had collided with a very solid object coupled with a leap in the air’, ‘The ship appeared to be on springs; it lifted into the air and settled down again’ and ‘the ship’s structure whipped violently like a springboard.’

At this one moment a number of factors came together in effect to sink
Prince of Wales.
Hull weaknesses, a single hit in just the wrong place and a design that proved horrendously susceptible to a body-blow to the hull turned this ‘unsinkable’ ship into a sitting duck. The torpedo hit rendered
Prince of Wales
useless as a fighting vessel, but did not sink her. Critics comment that even at this stage, when his ship could have been kept afloat, Phillips did not signal to Singapore for air support. Of course. Why should he when he had been told there was none?

It seems likely that what was meant to be a pincer attack failed to coordinate because one squadron believed it might be Japanese ships that were being attacked, and held back. In any event, it was some ten to twelve minutes after
Prince of Wales
had been disabled that a combined bomb and torpedo attack was launched against
Repulse
, which, magnificently handled like a destroyer by Captain Tennant, managed to avoid seven torpedoes and six bombs, acting now as the focus of the Japanese attacks as her consort was so clearly wounded. Critics of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips usually fail to point out that at this point in the action
Repulse
seemed a convincing example of the capital ship’s ability to resist air attack.

In the brief lull that followed the last attacks on
Repulse
, Captain Tennant decided he should manoeuvre closer to
Prince of Wales
to see if he could offer assistance. He was reported as being horrified to be told that
Prince of Wales
had made no signal to Singapore reporting the attack, and immediately made his own at 1158. Received in Singapore at 1204, it resulted in the scrambling of eleven Buffalo fighters of 453 Squadron, at 1225, under the command of Flight-Lieutenant Tim Vigors.

It is about as wise for a historian to say there is no evidence for something as it was to claim that a ship is unsinkable. Suffice it to say that I am not aware of any evidence that Tennant was ‘horrified’. It is extraordinary what a spin a writer can put on an action by the simple use of an adjective. The suggestion that Tennant was horrified by the failure to call for fighter protection (which is what the story has become) requires interrogation on a number of fronts. Firstly,
Prince of Wales
’s radio aerials, always a fragile part of any warship delivering or receiving heavy blows, had been partially affected by the torpedo explosion. Secondly, we know that a room crucial to her signals structure had to be evacuated quickly as a result of the hit. Thirdly, the assertion that the ship’s signalling capacity was intact until the end, when tracked down, appears to hinge on the word of one Petty Officer Telegraphist. Tennant was certainly concerned; one of his first questions by signal lamp, as he moved over to
Prince of Wales,
was whether or not her wireless was out of action. As well as aerial damage, we know how badly the ship’s electrics were affected. I find it difficult to accept that there might not have been difficulties with the ship’s ability to signal. Phillips was no fool, and nor were his Staff and Captain Leach. Why should he not signal when there was nothing to lose by it? Even if Phillips had had a rush of blood to the head there were enough people on the bridge of his flagship to put him right. It has to be left as at least a possibility that Phillips did not signal Singapore because he could not do so. Fourthly, at no time following the sinkings did Tennant criticize his flagship’s failure to signal.