The actions of the Captain of HMS Glorious, Guy Doyly-Hughes amounted to a gross dereliction of duty. No air patrol or aircraft on stand-by, no lookouts and the radio on the wrong frequency. When smoke was sighted, the Glorious did not change speed or course. Probably because of poor radio operation, no signal that the ship was being attacked was received, so over 900 sailors are estimated to have died in the water.
My late Mother in laws husband sailed in her on her fatal voyage. She was pregnant and when Jill was born obviously never met her father. Bosun Percy Caddy. RIP both.
The shortage of fuel argument is the Royal Navy’s cover for the real reason that ship was proceeding independently. The Navy’s spokesman in this video impresses me as the typical bureaucrat with a mission: maintaining the cover for an egregious decision in the part of the admiral commanding off Norway, and the real intent of the Glorious’s captain: to see to the court martial of his Air Staff leader. That the ship was proceeding with only two destroyers as escort in a combat environment is equally egregious.
Sending five Swordfish into the blue in the vain hope that they can somehow find and attack a random target of opportunity is pretty silly. What is even more crazy is sending aircraft out without maps of the area in question. They would be flying blind.
D’Oyly-Hughes clearly wanted to irrationally rush back to Scapa Flow to see to it that his Flight Command Officers would be court-martialed. Disgusting
HMS Devonshire had no real chance to intervene. One heavy cruiser with 8 203mm guns against two battlecruisers with 9 280mm guns each, the Germans would have torn her apart despite their damage. This would have meant the entire Norwegian government in a more than desperate battle at sea, propably dying because of it. Cunningham took the right decision, as hard as it might have been.
anyway Cunninghams orders were to bring the Norwegians back in one piece. Not to engage German surface warships. This was the Norwegian government and head of state. They had to be moved with the minimum of risk. The real problems were a) the Admiralty was asleep. Once they new the German capital ships were in the vicinity, the carrier should have been immediately ordered away. On top of this only two Destroyer escorts !!! b) the captain of the Glorious did not understand the danger he was in and the job he had was way over his head. I believe he went down with the ship ? Only 14 sailors saved ?
If the Devonshire with her puny 8 inch main battery and light protection had encountered the Sharnhorst and her sister ship she would have been sunk in short order. Leaving Glorious to her fate was the correct action when one considers she had the King of Norway and his cabinet on board. One can argue that the lives of the King of Norway and his Government were more important to the war effort than any one ship.
Glorious, Ardent and Acasta in Screening action for Devonshire and the 'precious cargo' of the Norwegian Royal family and government. This is the reason for the secrecy. The lack of aerial recon was the fatal error of D'oly though. He should have been able to lead the Twins astray and escape.
I am the secretary of the GLARAC Association that consists of relatives of those lost on the three ships. There is lots of speculation why these ships were lost and until the admiralty files are opened in 2041, we will not find out the truth. We are currently trying to get the new govt to open the files early, and end all the years of guesswork and speculation. The criticism of Capt Mansfield onboard HMS Devonshire is not that he failed to go to the scene of the battle, it is mainly that he failed to alert the fleet of the Glorious's situation and hence, mount a rescue operation. The vast majority of the crew of Glorious were lost due to exposure in the Arctic Sea. Captain Mansfield asked to be given the ships' communication log on the day following the loss of the three ships. That log is alleged to contain a clear message from Glorious that she was under attack, but Captain Mansfield said that Devonshire only received a garbled message. The log has never re-appeared. Everyone has their own theory about this episode, but it was wartime and people were fighting, under pressure and enemy gunfire. It's easy for us to speculate about various aspects of the losses from 85 years on, but we weren't there, and until the files are fully opened, we will never know the full story.
Contrary to popular beliefs, the Hurricanes they picked up, did not prevent Glorious's own planes from flying. They were stowed below, in the aft part of the hangar, leaving the forward part and the forward lift clear. So any claims about the Hurricanes obstructing the scout planes is baseless. When Kenneth Cross went up on the deck on the morning of June 8, he saw one Swordfish (Bob McBride's plane) and three Sea Gladiators on 10 minute standby, but not ranged on the flight deck. To him, it seemed like the possibility of attack by surface ships had been completely discounted.
Thank goodness the Americans at the Battle of Leyte Gulf didn’t make the same mistake. Taffy-3 carriers launched their planes and the destroyers fended off a much superior Japanese battle force. Admiral Kurita was duped into losing his nerve and turned his ships back. Glorious skipper was incompetent and was given too much authority. He had no naval aviator background unlike how things were run in the US Navy
You have to admit, when Britain screws up they do it on a grand scale....then try to cover it all up to save the Admiralty's face...or ass....can't tell the difference.
The Royal family where never allowed to forget what happend to the Tsar and his family, and there lack of interest in his plight and demise, perhaps this was some sort of way of making up for that event.
Sacrifice some ordinary servicemen and a minor aircraft carrier to improve the safety of some upper crust fellows (ex government officials) travelling on the battle cruiser. Although, if it was hopelessly outgunned, as pointed out below, then why the need for a cover up?
@@dovetonsturdee7033 it’s a summary not a reason. Why abandon the servicemen on the Glorious? They were carrying the Norwegian politicians, and they would have been outgunned and maybe sunk as well.
@@davidgriffiths7696 Devonshire was a heavy cruiser, not a battlecruiser. In any case, the proof that she actually received a distress signal from Glorious is debatable, to say the least. The signal she did receive, on the Aircraft Carrier wave, not the fleet wave, was garbled to say the least. It apparently read 'R.A.A. from Glorious My 1615 2 PB Time of Origin 1640.' At 1600, Devonshire was 80 - 100 miles East of Glorious. Ark Royal was 190 miles to the North East, Southampton & Coventry 200 miles to the East, and Valiant 470 miles to the South West. On Devonshire received anything. The signal was not a general distress one, but on the band reserved for Aircraft Carrier traffic. Based upon that, exactly what should Devonshire have done?
@@dovetonsturdee7033 that is just your opinion. We are going by the contents of the documentary, which of course is one story/collection of accounts (signal operator etc) v the commanding officers and official records so you can choose whatever story you like. It doesn’t matter exactly what kind of cruiser it was. All we need to know was that it was inferior in range/firepower (only had 8in. guns/light armour etc) to the opposition (Scharnhorst etc if I remember rightly). So nothing to argue about. Obviously if the Devonshire stood high odds of being sunk as well, then it would have been unwise to try and mount a rescue.
@@davidgriffiths7696 Actually, it is also the opinion of the logs of the various ships I named, none of which either acknowledged, or even received Glorious' signal. It was also the opinion of Gneisenau's log, as her B-Dienst team failed to detect an acknowledgement from any British ship or shore base. Moreover, Devonshire was at least three hours steaming away, even if the garbled signal had even contained a position. Didn't you say 'Sacrifice some ordinary servicemen and a minor aircraft carrier to improve the safety of some upper crust fellows?' Apart from a comment made years after the event, there is actually no proof that anything of the sort happened.
Strictly speaking, Cdr. Heath was correct. Its practically a certainty that a strike force consisting of only a handful of aircraft (remember, the Glorious had only a third of her normal aircraft compliment on board, which would be something like 15 or 16 aircraft and of that number, about a third to a half had to be held back for defensive purposes) would be ineffective against any target and would only prove symbolic. Nevertheless, and this is where the difference in personalities between the Glorious' commander, Captain D'Oyly-Hughes, and the carrier's air group commander, Cdr. Heath, comes into play. Capt. D'Oyly was a former submariner. Submarines, almost out of necessity, exhibit a kind of personalty unlike those in most any other branch of the naval service. They tend to be a bit reckless. Aviators are a different breed altogether. They tend to be practical and pragmatic. And there lay the seeds of command discontent and friction. I suspect Capt. D'Oyly Hughes wanted to do something for the Army, even if it was a bravado stunt, whereas Cdr. Heath saw no real benefit in such an act. I'm quite certain Cdr. Hughes as a fine officer, courageous when courage was called for, able and competent. I'm equally certain Captain D'Oyly Hughes was courageous, able and competent. However, there are times when one has to throw caution to the wind, and I believe the strike against German positions was just such a time. Later in the war, in April of 1942, the US would send an aircraft carrier laden with B-25 bombers to just a few hundred miles off the coast of Japan to bomb industrial facilities and shipyards. I'm sure there were those in both the Navy and the Army who criticized the plan as a misuse of naval and army air corps resources, in the same vein as Cdr. Hughes criticism of the proposed strike against German positions in Norway. Nevertheless, their demurs were over-ridden by their superiors because the nation's morale was deemed of higher priority than an aircraft carrier and 16 or so bombers. And quite frankly, they were right.
9:06 - The idea to use Glorious's planes against land-target wasn't something Captain Hughes came up with on his own - it was an order from above. Now, While Cmdr. Heath was within his right to state his (probably valid) objections, his outright refusal was full-blown insubordination. I believe the only reason Heath wasn't court-martialled, but instead quietly sidelined, was to avoid any chance of further inquiries. No good Soldier wants to send his men on a badly defined and possibly suicidal mission, but in war, executing that kind of orders can be part of being an Officer.
if there had been an air patrol out from Glorious, it is entirely likely that with her 1+ knot advantage in speed, she and her 2 (paltry) destroyers could have outrun the 2 Scharnhorsts. those 2 had very temperamental, very high pressure steam engines, capable of only short stints at maximum speed, and which had a regular habit of breaking down.
Moreover, if there had been an air patrol the Germans would probably have been detected in reasonable time in the first place given the clear visibility that there happened to be. This would have enabled them to change course to avoid any encounter without the need to increase speed at all, low on fuel or not.
A 1 knot advantage on paper is so little, it could be obliterated by any number of factors. However, With a bit of luck, her planes could have spotted the PBs without getting detected and the ship might evaded the Germans. If I remember correctly, they only had some kind of gunnery radar, but nothing except lookouts for "long-range" detection.
@@A_Haunted_Pancake Yes, the part about radar is correct. Helping with evasion-had her planes carried torpedoes they could have forced the germans to make evasive maneuvers and thus lose ground with the fleeing British.
The Royal Navy should admit what actually happen, however, HMS Devonshire had the Norwegian Government in exile on board. Under those circumstances it's only logical that HMS Glorious was expendable. By the way, I tried "cc" option to read what the Germans were saying, but you should see the "word salad" I got.
What i dont understand is there were 2 escort destroyers Ardent and Acaster engaged with the German battle cruisers. They must have sent signals in the 2 hour destruction of Glorious. And why did They not look for survivors. To put it bluntly from this story they engaged in a battle with 2 German capital ships and the sinking of a British capital ship and just buggered off to God knows where in radio silence. The fact the 2 captains of the destroyers turned down VCs suggests a level of guilt or worse some participation in some conspiracy.
Ardent and Acaster were both sunk in the fight with the 2 German battle cruisers. Both Captains were killed in action. The Germans saluted the bravery of the destroyers as they sank. The captains did not turn down VCs, the recommendation that they be awarded VCs was turned down by the powers that be. Awarding them VCs would have just highlighted the disaster and incompetence of flag officers.
Both destroyers had their hands full fighting the fight of their lives, trying to screen the Glorious from shellfire from two very fast well armed battle cruisers and being shot at by 11 inch shells, very destructive for lightly built small ships They were both sunk not later if not earlier than the Glorious sank.Both destroyer captains were killed in the action so they were hardly in the position of turning down AVC’s. It was the Admiralty who turned down the award, possibly as the award would have drawn attention to the cockup in passing on information of the battle cruisers and Glorious captain in not staying with the convoy.
David Brown of the Royal Navy Historiography Office with his smug, arrogant dismissals of FACT is REPUGNANT.
Just a jobsworth bureaucrat. You have them in every organisation.
The German sailors are full of praise for the two destoyer Ardent and Acasta in case someone wants to know
The actions of the Captain of HMS Glorious, Guy Doyly-Hughes amounted to a gross dereliction of duty. No air patrol or aircraft on stand-by, no lookouts and the radio on the wrong frequency. When smoke was sighted, the Glorious did not change speed or course. Probably because of poor radio operation, no signal that the ship was being attacked was received, so over 900 sailors are estimated to have died in the water.
My late Mother in laws husband sailed in her on her fatal voyage. She was pregnant and when Jill was born obviously never met her father. Bosun Percy Caddy. RIP both.
The shortage of fuel argument is the Royal Navy’s cover for the real reason that ship was proceeding independently. The Navy’s spokesman in this video impresses me as the typical bureaucrat with a mission: maintaining the cover for an egregious decision in the part of the admiral commanding off Norway, and the real intent of the Glorious’s captain: to see to the court martial of his Air Staff leader. That the ship was proceeding with only two destroyers as escort in a combat environment is equally egregious.
One of My Late Fathers Brothers was on HMS Glorious
Sending five Swordfish into the blue in the vain hope that they can somehow find and attack a random target of opportunity is pretty silly. What is even more crazy is sending aircraft out without maps of the area in question. They would be flying blind.
D’Oyly-Hughes clearly wanted to irrationally rush back to Scapa Flow to see to it that his Flight Command Officers would be court-martialed. Disgusting
HMS Devonshire had no real chance to intervene. One heavy cruiser with 8 203mm guns against two battlecruisers with 9 280mm guns each, the Germans would have torn her apart despite their damage.
This would have meant the entire Norwegian government in a more than desperate battle at sea, propably dying because of it. Cunningham took the right decision, as hard as it might have been.
anyway Cunninghams orders were to bring the Norwegians back in one piece. Not to engage German surface warships. This was the Norwegian government and head of state. They had to be moved with the minimum of risk. The real problems were a) the Admiralty was asleep. Once they new the German capital ships were in the vicinity, the carrier should have been immediately ordered away. On top of this only two Destroyer escorts !!! b) the captain of the Glorious did not understand the danger he was in and the job he had was way over his head.
I believe he went down with the ship ? Only 14 sailors saved ?
@@glennpickard2239 he could have at least given the actual report for the search and rescue.
Yes, with the Norwegian Government in exile on board HMS Devonshire, HMS Glorious was naturally expendable.
If the Devonshire with her puny 8 inch main battery and light protection had encountered the Sharnhorst and her sister ship she would have been sunk in short order. Leaving Glorious to her fate was the correct action when one considers she had the King of Norway and his cabinet on board. One can argue that the lives of the King of Norway and his Government were more important to the war effort than any one ship.
Glorious, Ardent and Acasta in Screening action for Devonshire and the 'precious cargo' of the Norwegian Royal family and government. This is the reason for the secrecy. The lack of aerial recon was the fatal error of D'oly though. He should have been able to lead the Twins astray and escape.
Further proof that, in war, truth is the first casualty. 😢
I am the secretary of the GLARAC Association that consists of relatives of those lost on the three ships. There is lots of speculation why these ships were lost and until the admiralty files are opened in 2041, we will not find out the truth. We are currently trying to get the new govt to open the files early, and end all the years of guesswork and speculation. The criticism of Capt Mansfield onboard HMS Devonshire is not that he failed to go to the scene of the battle, it is mainly that he failed to alert the fleet of the Glorious's situation and hence, mount a rescue operation. The vast majority of the crew of Glorious were lost due to exposure in the Arctic Sea. Captain Mansfield asked to be given the ships' communication log on the day following the loss of the three ships. That log is alleged to contain a clear message from Glorious that she was under attack, but Captain Mansfield said that Devonshire only received a garbled message. The log has never re-appeared. Everyone has their own theory about this episode, but it was wartime and people were fighting, under pressure and enemy gunfire. It's easy for us to speculate about various aspects of the losses from 85 years on, but we weren't there, and until the files are fully opened, we will never know the full story.
Contrary to popular beliefs, the Hurricanes they picked up, did not prevent Glorious's own planes from flying. They were stowed below, in the aft part of the hangar, leaving the forward part and the forward lift clear. So any claims about the Hurricanes obstructing the scout planes is baseless.
When Kenneth Cross went up on the deck on the morning of June 8, he saw one Swordfish (Bob McBride's plane) and three Sea Gladiators on 10 minute standby, but not ranged on the flight deck.
To him, it seemed like the possibility of attack by surface ships had been completely discounted.
Thank goodness the Americans at the Battle of Leyte Gulf didn’t make the same mistake. Taffy-3 carriers launched their planes and the destroyers fended off a much superior Japanese battle force. Admiral Kurita was duped into losing his nerve and turned his ships back.
Glorious skipper was incompetent and was given too much authority. He had no naval aviator background unlike how things were run in the US Navy
Not remotely an even similar situation,or stage of war,enemy etc.
Devonshire, alone with no escort, would have surely been destroyed as well had she encountered the two German battlecruisers.
of course the heavy cruiser might have been able to rescue some of the sailors
You have to admit, when Britain screws up they do it on a grand scale....then try to cover it all up to save the Admiralty's face...or ass....can't tell the difference.
This video is missing some subtitles
The Royal family where never allowed to forget what happend to the Tsar and his family, and there lack of interest in his plight and demise, perhaps this was some sort of way of making up for that event.
Mason's cover up embarrassments for each other.😎
So this is when heavy ships sank a carrier
Sacrifice some ordinary servicemen and a minor aircraft carrier to improve the safety of some upper crust fellows (ex government officials) travelling on the battle cruiser. Although, if it was hopelessly outgunned, as pointed out below, then why the need for a cover up?
How do you reason that?
@@dovetonsturdee7033 it’s a summary not a reason. Why abandon the servicemen on the Glorious? They were carrying the Norwegian politicians, and they would have been outgunned and maybe sunk as well.
@@davidgriffiths7696 Devonshire was a heavy cruiser, not a battlecruiser. In any case, the proof that she actually received a distress signal from Glorious is debatable, to say the least. The signal she did receive, on the Aircraft Carrier wave, not the fleet wave, was garbled to say the least. It apparently read 'R.A.A. from Glorious My 1615 2 PB Time of Origin 1640.'
At 1600, Devonshire was 80 - 100 miles East of Glorious. Ark Royal was 190 miles to the North East, Southampton & Coventry 200 miles to the East, and Valiant 470 miles to the South West. On Devonshire received anything.
The signal was not a general distress one, but on the band reserved for Aircraft Carrier traffic. Based upon that, exactly what should Devonshire have done?
@@dovetonsturdee7033 that is just your opinion. We are going by the contents of the documentary, which of course is one story/collection of accounts (signal operator etc) v the commanding officers and official records so you can choose whatever story you like. It doesn’t matter exactly what kind of cruiser it was. All we need to know was that it was inferior in range/firepower (only had 8in. guns/light armour etc) to the opposition (Scharnhorst etc if I remember rightly). So nothing to argue about.
Obviously if the Devonshire stood high odds of being sunk as well, then it would have been unwise to try and mount a rescue.
@@davidgriffiths7696 Actually, it is also the opinion of the logs of the various ships I named, none of which either acknowledged, or even received Glorious' signal. It was also the opinion of Gneisenau's log, as her B-Dienst team failed to detect an acknowledgement from any British ship or shore base. Moreover, Devonshire was at least three hours steaming away, even if the garbled signal had even contained a position.
Didn't you say 'Sacrifice some ordinary servicemen and a minor aircraft carrier to improve the safety of some upper crust fellows?' Apart from a comment made years after the event, there is actually no proof that anything of the sort happened.
Strictly speaking, Cdr. Heath was correct. Its practically a certainty that a strike force consisting of only a handful of aircraft (remember, the Glorious had only a third of her normal aircraft compliment on board, which would be something like 15 or 16 aircraft and of that number, about a third to a half had to be held back for defensive purposes) would be ineffective against any target and would only prove symbolic. Nevertheless, and this is where the difference in personalities between the Glorious' commander, Captain D'Oyly-Hughes, and the carrier's air group commander, Cdr. Heath, comes into play. Capt. D'Oyly was a former submariner. Submarines, almost out of necessity, exhibit a kind of personalty unlike those in most any other branch of the naval service. They tend to be a bit reckless. Aviators are a different breed altogether. They tend to be practical and pragmatic. And there lay the seeds of command discontent and friction. I suspect Capt. D'Oyly Hughes wanted to do something for the Army, even if it was a bravado stunt, whereas Cdr. Heath saw no real benefit in such an act. I'm quite certain Cdr. Hughes as a fine officer, courageous when courage was called for, able and competent. I'm equally certain Captain D'Oyly Hughes was courageous, able and competent. However, there are times when one has to throw caution to the wind, and I believe the strike against German positions was just such a time. Later in the war, in April of 1942, the US would send an aircraft carrier laden with B-25 bombers to just a few hundred miles off the coast of Japan to bomb industrial facilities and shipyards. I'm sure there were those in both the Navy and the Army who criticized the plan as a misuse of naval and army air corps resources, in the same vein as Cdr. Hughes criticism of the proposed strike against German positions in Norway. Nevertheless, their demurs were over-ridden by their superiors because the nation's morale was deemed of higher priority than an aircraft carrier and 16 or so bombers. And quite frankly, they were right.
I think the RN suffered by not having enough senior officiers who had come up through the FAA and so were familiar with carrier and air operations.
9:06 - The idea to use Glorious's planes against land-target wasn't something
Captain Hughes came up with on his own - it was an order from above.
Now, While Cmdr. Heath was within his right to state his (probably valid) objections, his outright refusal was full-blown insubordination.
I believe the only reason Heath wasn't court-martialled, but instead quietly
sidelined, was to avoid any chance of further inquiries.
No good Soldier wants to send his men on a badly defined and
possibly suicidal mission, but in war, executing that kind of orders
can be part of being an Officer.
if there had been an air patrol out from Glorious,
it is entirely likely that with her 1+ knot advantage in speed,
she and her 2 (paltry) destroyers could have outrun the 2 Scharnhorsts.
those 2 had very temperamental, very high pressure steam engines,
capable of only short stints at maximum speed,
and which had a regular habit of breaking down.
Moreover, if there had been an air patrol the Germans would probably have been detected in reasonable time in the first place given the clear visibility that there happened to be. This would have enabled them to change course to avoid any encounter without the need to increase speed at all, low on fuel or not.
A 1 knot advantage on paper is so little, it could be
obliterated by any number of factors.
However, With a bit of luck, her planes could have spotted
the PBs without getting detected and the ship might
evaded the Germans.
If I remember correctly, they only had some kind of gunnery radar,
but nothing except lookouts for "long-range" detection.
@@A_Haunted_Pancake Yes, the part about radar is correct. Helping with evasion-had her planes carried torpedoes they could have forced the germans to make evasive maneuvers and thus lose ground with the fleeing British.
The Royal Navy should admit what actually happen, however, HMS Devonshire had the Norwegian Government in exile on board. Under those circumstances it's only logical that HMS Glorious was expendable. By the way, I tried "cc" option to read what the Germans were saying, but you should see the "word salad" I got.
was the Glorious used as bait to allow Devonshire to bring the Norwegian Government and King to the UK ?
Whats that choir music?
Yeah, this wasn’t tragedy. This was incompetency mismanagement, and maybe even suicidal behavior. It’s just a shame. He took so many men with him
Wasn’t it because the captain was late for a date? 😂😂. Daft class systems
Easy answer as to why. F the sailors protect the king of Norway.
Tragedy? Tragedy was Titanic. This was war.
🫡🇬🇧🏴⚽️👏
What i dont understand is there were 2 escort destroyers Ardent and Acaster engaged with the German battle cruisers. They must have sent signals in the 2 hour destruction of Glorious. And why did They not look for survivors. To put it bluntly from this story they engaged in a battle with 2 German capital ships and the sinking of a British capital ship and just buggered off to God knows where in radio silence. The fact the 2 captains of the destroyers turned down VCs suggests a level of guilt or worse some participation in some conspiracy.
I think this interpretation of the story will clear up some of your misconceptions ruclips.net/video/9QvkTdcsXpY/видео.html
Ardent and Acaster were both sunk in the fight with the 2 German battle cruisers. Both Captains were killed in action. The Germans saluted the bravery of the destroyers as they sank. The captains did not turn down VCs, the recommendation that they be awarded VCs was turned down by the powers that be. Awarding them VCs would have just highlighted the disaster and incompetence of flag officers.
jon, you've not really looked into this too closely have you? They actually buggered off to the bottom of the ocean with a great loss of life. Smh...
Oh shut up, you fool.
Both destroyers had their hands full fighting the fight of their lives, trying to screen the Glorious from shellfire from two very fast well armed battle cruisers and being shot at by 11 inch shells, very destructive for lightly built small ships They were both sunk not later if not earlier than the Glorious sank.Both destroyer captains were killed in the action so they were hardly in the position of turning down AVC’s. It was the Admiralty who turned down the award, possibly as the award would have drawn attention to the cockup in passing on information of the battle cruisers and Glorious captain in not staying with the convoy.
Id be ashamed and embarrassed if my names was Gay Doyle Hughes too.