Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "PQ-17 - A Convoy Scatters ... To Their Doom" video.
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Unfortunately, Macksey's book is riddled with inaccuracies. The German surface fleet at the time, for example, in terms of operational ships, consisted of one heavy cruiser, seven destroyers, four light cruisers, seven torpedo boats (the equivalent of destroyer escorts) a handful of minesweepers, and around thirteen S boats. Compared to what the Royal Navy had in terms of the Home Fleet at Rosyth, let alone the 70 or so destroyers and light cruisers within five hours steaming of Dover, the supposed German Fleet would not have caused much, if any, delay at all.
I fear Macksey was rather free and easy with facts, in order to make his idea of a German landing possible.
Oh, and yes, I do have the book, and have read it several times.
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@TexasSpectre Scharnhorst & Gneisenau had been in Brest since 22 March, 1941, and Prinz Eugen since 29 May, 1941. Bomber Command had been responsible for their neutralisation, and had failed consistently.
The Kriegsmarine introduced a 4th rotor to their Enigma machines on 1 February, 1942, and the revised machines could not be broken by Bletchley Park until the capture of a machine and code books from U559 by HMS Petard in October. Effectively, after 1 February, 1942, the British did not have access to naval Enigma.
The British did, however, expect an imminent breakout, and local forces were alerted of this. When the ships & escorts sailed at 2245 on 11 February, a British submarine, Sealion, patrolling the entrance to Brest, had withdrawn to charge her batteries, and the RAF's 'Stopper' patrol, a Hudson of 224 Squadron, failed to make contact with her ASV radar. Furthermore, the next patrol in line, 'Line South East' had been withdrawn by the RAF because of radar faults, and no replacement aircraft sent. The third patrol line, 'Boulogne' was also withdrawn by the RAF when the ships were still west of it, at 0630, apparently because of fog, and because no imminent operation was expected, as 'Stopper' had detected nothing.
The only other patrol over the Channel was the routine dawn patrol by Fighter Command from Ostend, south to the mouth of the Somme, which the Brest Group passed at 10:00 a.m. From 8:25–9:59 a.m. RAF radar operators, using an un-jammed radar frequency, noticed four plots of German aircraft circling in places north of Le Havre, which at first were thought to be air-sea rescue operations.
At 10:00 a.m. 11 Group RAF Fighter Command realised that the plots were moving north-east at 20–25 kn (23–29 mph; 37–46 km/h) and sent two Spitfires to reconnoitre at 10:20 a.m., about the time that news reached Fighter Command headquarters that radar-jamming had begun at 9:20 a.m. and that the station at Beachy Head was detecting surface ships. Radar stations in Kent reported two large ships off Le Touquet at 10:52 a.m. and when the Spitfire patrol landed at 10:50 a.m., having kept radio silence, the pilots reported a flotilla off Le Touquet (near Boulogne) but did not mention capital ships.
News of the sighting was rushed to 11 Group, and the Navy at Dover, by 11:05 a.m. Asecond flight of two Spitfires found themselves over a German flotilla of two big ships, a destroyer screen and an outer ring of E-boats. The Spitfires were dived on by about 12 German fighters and escaped through anti-aircraft fire from the ships, strafed an E-boat and made off at wave-top height. After they landed at 1109, the pilots reported that the German ships had been 16 nmi (18 mi; 30 km) off Le Touquet at 1042. By 11:25 a.m., the alarm had been raised that the Brest Group was entering the Straits of Dover with air cover.
At 1127, Bomber Command was alerted that the Brest Group was near Dover and warned the groups to be ready. Including aircraft that had flown the night before and those at four hours' notice, Air Marshal Richard Peirse had about 250 aircraft but the 100 bombers on two hours' notice had been loaded with semi-armour-piercing bombs which were effective only if dropped from 7,000 ft (2,100 m) or higher. Visibility was poor with rain and 8/10ths to 10/10ths cloud cover, down to 700 ft (210 m) and unless there were breaks in the cloud just when needed the task was impossible. Peirse ordered general-purpose bombs to be loaded, which could only cause superficial blast damage and attacks at low altitude, in the hope that the attacks would distract the Brest Group as Coastal Command and the Navy made torpedo attacks.
At 1219, the coastal batteries at Dover fired their first salvo but with visibility down to 5 nmi, there could be no observation of the fall-of-shot. The gunners hoped that the radar would detect the shell splashes and allow corrections to be made, although this method had never been tried before. "Blips" on the K-set radar clearly showed the ships zig-zagging but not where the shells were landing. Full battery salvo firing began and the four 9.2-inch guns fired 33 rounds at the German ships, which were moving out of range at 30 kn (35 mph; 56 km/h) and all missed.
German sources state that the fleet had already passed Dover when the coastal artillery opened fire and that the shells landed well astern of the major German units. The coastal guns ceased fire when light naval forces and torpedo-bombers began to attack and by 1321 the German ships passed beyond the effective range of the British radar.
Five operational MTBs left Dover at 1155, and sighted the German force at 1223. RAF fighter cover for these boats had not arrived (it hadn't actually taken off).
Six Swordfish torpedo bombers of the Fleet Air Arm left Manston at 1220. An escort of Spitfires from 72 Squadron failed to arrive, having been intercepted by Fw190s. The Swordfish made their attacks, therefore, unsupported, and all were lost.
Four Beauforts left THorney Island at 1325 were late to meet their fighter escorts at Manston and the torpedo-bombers and fighters were ordered independently to attack the German ships. The position, course and speed of the Brest Group was given by R/T to the Spitfires and Morse W/T to the Beauforts. The torpedo-bombers failed to receive the orders, because 16 Group forgot that they had been fitted with R/T for Operation Fuller. When the Beauforts reached Manston they circled with numerous fighters which appeared to ignore them. Two Beauforts flew to the French coast, found nothing and landed at Manston where the confusion was resolved.
Finally, the destroyers HMS Campbell, Vivacious of the 21st Flotilla and HMS Mackay, Whitshed, Walpole and Worcester of the 16th Flotilla (Captain Charles Pizey), from Nore Command, which were First World War-vintage and used to escort east coast convoys, were practising gunnery off Orford Ness in the North Sea when alerted at 1156. The destroyers sailed south to intercept the Brest Group but it steamed much faster than expected and to catch up,
Pizey took the destroyers over a German minefield and at 1431, just before the destroyers attacked, north of the Scheldt Estuary, Scharnhorst had hit a mine and was stopped for a short time, before resuming at about 25 kn. At 1517 the destroyers made radar contact at 9 nm, and visual contact at 4 nmi at 1543 . Walpole had already dropped out with engine trouble; as the other five emerged from the murk, they were immediately engaged by the German ships. The destroyers pressed on to 3,000 yds. and two destroyers fired torpedoes; Worcester closed further and was hit by return fire from Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, then the last two destroyers attacked but all their torpedoes missed.
By the way, the German force consisted, in addition to two battleships and a heavy cruiser, 6 destroyers, 14 torpedo boats, 26 'S' boats, 252 fighters, and 35 bombers. Do you really think that an 'ambush' by five MTBs and six V & W class destroyers was ever a realistic possibility?
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@carlpolen7437 I did not claim that Enigma was the only source of intelligence information. If you care to read my post again, you will realise that I was explaining a fact to someone who had claimed that the date of the Dash was known via Enigma, when it was not.
What resources do you suggest the Admiralty had available? Let's see. In February, 1942, were were the heavy units of the Royal Navy :-
King George V - Hvalfjord.
Duke of York - Scapa Flow, working up.
Rodney - Hvalfjord.
Nelson - Refitting at Rosyth.
Queen Elizabeth - Alexandria under repair.
Warspite - Eastern Fleet.
Valiant - Alexandria under repair.
Malaya - In the Clyde. Escort for Troop Convoy WS16
Royal Sovereign, Ramillies, Resolution, Revenge. - Eastern Fleet.
Renown - Hvalfjord.
Where were these 'plenty of resources available' of which you speak? Would you like me to list the locations of the RN's heavy cruisers, perhaps?
The fact is that the priority at the time was maintaining a presence in the Indian Ocean, with what was largely a Fleet in Being of four obsolete battleships, one modernised battleships, and two aircraft carriers, and at the same time providing heavy cover for Russian convoys, in the knowledge that Tirpitz was now fully operational, and had been in Trondheim for around a month, along with Admiral Scheer and several fleet destroyers.
Please explain which of the Admiralty's perceived priorities was less important? Especially since Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had been in Brest for eleven months, and Prinz Eugen for nine, during which period Bomber Command had regularly attacked them without success. There were 63 raids on Brest from March 1941 to the end of the year, by the way.
THe fact is that Bomber Command was given the task of dealing with the three German heavy ships in Brest, and, as Churchill himself remarked, the inability of Bomber Command to do this was a serious failure.
By the way, 'thin-skinned?' Not at all. I simply know far more about the actual facts and details of Operation Cerberus than most do.
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