Battle of Savo Island

[mariandavid]

As far as the PoW and Repulse debacle the biggest - and many consider only - failure was that of Admiral Phillips. It was not an issue of fighters not arriving in time or for that matter of poor navigation - rather that the admiral quite deliberately chose not to have any cover. He was notorious in the Admiralty for believing that a modern battleship (especially one whose AA defences he had been involved in planning) was for all practical purposes immune to air attack. Mind you to be fair he was not totally wrong - the Japanese had a fair bit of luck when it came to torpedo hit location, but his arrogant incompetence was displayed by his failure to ensure that his flagship had fully operational AA defences. On balance an utter twit.

[rkr1958]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

As far as the PoW and Repulse debacle the biggest - and many consider only - failure was that of Admiral Phillips. ... On balance an utter twit.

And he paid for his failure with his life. Unfortunately, so did 800+ other RN sailors.

[ACMW]

That reminds me of the wonderful (& prophetic) quote from Bomber Harris to Admiral Phillips (noting the bit about the box was what in American football would be described as 'unnecessary roughness', as Phillips was rather short) during an argument on the relative merits of air power and big battleships:

"One day, Tom, you'll be standing on a box on your bridge, and your ship will be smashed to pieces by bombers and torpedo aircraft; as she sinks, your last words will be "That was a f**ing great mine!"

There are various versions of this quote, but I like this one best!

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

As far as the PoW and Repulse debacle the biggest - and many consider only - failure was that of Admiral Phillips. It was not an issue of fighters not arriving in time or for that matter of poor navigation - rather that the admiral quite deliberately chose not to have any cover. He was notorious in the Admiralty for believing that a modern battleship (especially one whose AA defences he had been involved in planning) was for all practical purposes immune to air attack. Mind you to be fair he was not totally wrong - the Japanese had a fair bit of luck when it came to torpedo hit location, but his arrogant incompetence was displayed by his failure to ensure that his flagship had fully operational AA defences. On balance an utter twit.

Well, in fairness to him, he was not entirely alone. Some years ago, I was reading my grandfather's collection of Life magazines from the war years. In one of the first issues after the start of the war, Life was comparing the armed forces of the various combatants. In the section on the navies, there was a sentence that included "...the modern battleship, which is theoretically immune to aerial bombardment...". [X(] I remember thinking that this was one case in which theory did not match reality!