Scapegoat: The Death of Prince of Wales and Repulse by Dr Martin Stephen Read Free Book Online Page A

operation, Phillips continued to show a disregard, almost a contempt, for the dangers of any type of air attack. It is possible (and no more than possible, for there is no hard evidence) that Phillips had quarrelled with Brooke-Popham over the potential danger from the air. It is probable that he had made difficulties over co-operating with the RAF on 453 Squadron’s provision of standing patrols.’ 25
    Others have seen his failings as more concerned with his personality. ‘Few [survivors] realized, however, that they had been let down, not by the RAF, but by the dogmatic obstinacy of their admiral.’ 26
    Either way, majority opinion holds Phillips to have a very significant responsibility for the disaster:
    ‘Apologists for Phillips have claimed that the admiral was upholding the fighting traditions of the Royal Navy by taking Force Z in to the South China Sea to look for Japanese shipping. If Phillips’s foray had been well timed and executed that line of argument might have had some validity. But Force Z’s final cruise was launched too late to be effective and was riddled with operational mistakes. Two capital ships and many lives were wasted.’ 27
    Is it actually true, as stated in the most highly-regarded book written about the sinkings, that ‘… 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’ 28 ?
    There is an alternative argument that of all the people involved directly and indirectly in the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, Admiral Sir Tom Phillips and the crews of his ships were the least responsible of all for the tragedy.

Chapter 4
    Singapore and Signals
    Singapore
    T he majority of books written about the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse acknowledge that the loss of the two ships was part of the wider defeat of British power and influence in the Far East, culminating in the loss of Singapore itself. The fact that Force Z was always seen and constituted as a separate command, with the navy working independently of the control of both the Army and the RAF in Singapore, has tended to mean that the loss of Force Z is talked and written about in many respects as a stand-alone incident, a harbinger of the defeat that was to come to Singapore but not linked by umbilical cord to Singapore itself. It is an easy mistake to make. A battleship at sea looks like the classic island unto itself, a self-contained world operating independently from the land. The truth is that any warship functions only whilst it is being stored, fuelled, maintained and repaired from shore. The nuclear submarine is the first and only warship able to function effectively and healthily for long periods without calling in to a port. A further truth about Prince of Wales and Repulse is that their survival hinged on two vital inputs from Singapore – intelligence reports and communications. It was to play a major role in the sinking of the two ships in that both these areas were not being managed to the necessary level of efficiency in Singapore’s command structure. Of course the two ships were ‘independent’ in the sense that, subject to orders and the range of his ships, Tom Phillips could take them wherever he wished. Yet at the same time they were acting as one of the major arms of the military effort Singapore could exert against a Japanese attack. If they were not the only such arm, the weakness of the RAF in Singapore made them almost such. Inevitably, these two arms were not immune from the illness affecting the main body back at Singapore.
    The Admiralty did not seek to deny the possibility of war against Japan in the inter-war years, though it underestimated the probability. It took a decision to a question to which there was no perfect answer in stating that there were too many potential threats facing Britain to allow the Royal Navy to station capital ships in Singapore in peacetime. The plan was for