Scapegoat: The Death of Prince of Wales and Repulse Read Online Free PDF Page A

Walsingham’s spy network a very healthy compensation for the lack of cash to pay soldiers and sailors. Quite simply, the Royal Navy did not know enough about its enemy in 1941, down to the fact that one of its best brains, Tom Phillips, in all probability was simply unaware that he was within the range of the torpedo bombers that sank his two ships. Failure of Intelligence was also a failure of the naval establishment for which Phillips must take his share of the responsibility, and one he paid for by the loss of his life.
    It is possible that Churchill’s insistence on the deterrent effect of Force Z was in fact a cloak for his real motives in sending the ships out, which may have been as an act of good faith designed to draw the United States in to full military co-operation against the Japanese in the Far East. Fierce argument has raged over many aspects of Churchill’s thinking before and during the war. It is at least a possible view that Churchill, as a realist, had long given up all hope that Britain could defend its empire in the Far East from within its own resources, and as a result was reliant on the active help of the United States. Deterrent to the Japanese or lure for the Americans came down to the same thing. Force Z was a military force sent on a diplomatic mission that should not have required it to fight, its job being either to deter the Japanese or to cement an alliance with America, or both. The government of the day and the Admiralty not only sent out a force that even by its own inadequate standards was ill-equipped for the job but was also designed to tackle what turned out to be the wrong job altogether. When that job changed its immediate reaction should have been to call the two capital ships back, or at least order them out of danger. As it was, it left them with no option but to take on a fight in which the odds were stacked against them.

Chapter 2
    The Loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse The Action: The Case Against Tom Phillips
    I t is a basic truth of human nature that the immediate reaction to a disaster is a massive closing of stable doors, the main feature of which is the overwhelming need to find a culprit or culprits. The racket caused by the stampede to find a scapegoat also helps to drown out the noise of those covering their backs. The sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse has been the subject of, or covered in, numerous books. The sheer volume of comment has produced an orthodoxy summed up in what is probably the best – and certainly the most vivid – book about the engagement: ‘… the facts speak for themselves: two great ships and many good men were lost because one stubborn old sea-dog refused to acknowledge that he had been wrong.’ 1
    To varying degrees most historians have tended to load the lion’s share of blame for the disaster upon the shoulders of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips. To understand who actually was to blame one obviously has to know details of the action. These details are well publicized and documented and rank alongside the story of the sinking of the Bismarck in terms of the coverage they have received and the number of published books devoted to the action. In this chapter I have chosen to describe the events that led to the loss of the ships as briefly as possible and to combine in that account the majority of the negative comments and interpretations made by historians about Tom Phillips and his part in it. In fairness to post-war historians, no single book is as negative towards Phillips as what follows. Even some of those who condemned him most strongly for what happened list some things in his favour, one example being the recognition even by one of his fiercest critics that his calling off of the action was an act requiring considerable moral courage. However, if the charges laid against Tom Phillips are to receive a proper trial it is necessary to list all the charges against him so they can be re-examined, and concentrating the charges against