Talk:HMS Dorsetshire (40)

Captain of Dorsetshire

At the time of the hunt for the Bismarck the Dorsetshire was captained by Capt. Benjamin C.S. Martin. Agar did not become her captain until AFTER the action of May 1941.

After firing three torpedoes at the sinking Bismarck, Dorsetshire was in the midst of rescuing approximately 80 members of the Bismarck's crew when Captain Martin was alerted (apparently incorrectly) that a German U-Boat had been sighted. Martin gave orders to end the rescue effort and get underway. By Martin's own account he left "some hundreds of enemy personnel to their fate" when Dorsetshire steamed away from the scene.

This account is based on the memoirs of Baron Burkard Von Mullenheim-Rechberg, the senior surviving officer from the Bismarck who had been rescued by the Dorsetshire prior to the alleged U-Boat sighting.

Source: Battleship Bismarck: A Survivor's Story. Naval Institute Press 1980. 67.143.164.87 15:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone else become suspicious of the number of times in both world wars that 'fear of a U-boat' "forced" the end of RN rescue work?Keith-264 (talk) 12:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

HMS Aboukir (1900), HMS Cressy (1899), HMS Hogue (1900) and the Action of 22 September 1914. WCM_email 09:07, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

U74 (Kpt Lt Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat) was in the area of the sinking as detailed in her kriegstagebuch. Also it was known by the Royal Navy that Bismarck had been transmitting beacon signals on known U-boat frequencies for the previous 12 hours at least.

Also from "Battleship Bismarck: A Survivor's Story" (Chapter 35 "Survival") a direct quote from Baron Burkard Von Mullenheim-Rechberg

"Apparently some floating object had been mistaken for a periscope or a strip of foam on the water for the wake of a torpedo. No matter what it was, I am now convinced that, under the circumstances, Martin had to act as he did Pro Patria et Comitatu (talk) 21:00, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Mystery Photograph

WT:MILHIST#Mystery Photograph Cross-posted here to request help. WCM_email 09:03, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

CE

The ship had a capacity of 3,210 t (3,160 long tons; 3,540 short tons) of fuel oil as built, which provided

a top speed of 12,500 nautical miles [should this be a range of 12.5 kn at top speed]?

(23,200 km; 14,400 mi) at a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). She had a crew of 710 officers and enlisted men.[1][2]Keith-264 (talk) 18:29, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Oops, no, it should be a "range of 12,500 nautical miles at a speed of 12 knots..." Thanks for catching that :) Parsecboy (talk) 18:44, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Tidied a few typos. Shouldn't the description of the rescue of survivors from Bismarck being interrupted by a u-boat sighting be in inverted commas? "Sightings of u-boats" forcing the RN to leave before picking up all survivors occurred with suspicious regularity in both wars....Keith-264 (talk) 19:06, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up my typos :) As for the false U-boat report, I wouldn't ascribe much to it - jumpy lookouts on all sides "spotted" submarines and even torpedo wakes all the time (just look at the experiences of both fleets at Jutland) - and as Wee Curry Monster pointed out above, the British learned the hard way what happens when a warship stops to pick up survivors while a submarine is in the area. Which is not to say that the British never intentionally left men to die, as was the fate of SMS Scharnhorst's crew – just that I don't think anything particularly nefarious went on with regards to Bismarck. Parsecboy (talk) 19:15, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I smell a rat.Keith-264 (talk) 19:29, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

PS very interesting article, thanks.Keith-264 (talk) 20:08, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Eh, I'm inclined to cut them some slack - the experience with Cressy, Aboukir, and Hogue surely went a long way to make British officers leery of stopping to pick up men in the water when a submarine might be in the area. And if the British hadn't wanted to pick up any survivors, they would have simply left, as they did with Scharnhorst (both of them, actually). Unlike Fraser, Tovey can at least be credited with ordering his ships to pick up survivors, even if the attempt was broken off. It seems the men who were rescued at North Cape were rescued by destroyers that had received no order from Fraser to do so (and indeed, he ordered them to withdraw while men were still alive in the water, for no reason that I have been able to discover).

Thanks - sometimes I get bored writing about German warships (or, more accurately, I get bored having to translate Hildebrand et. al.) and I stumble onto other things. That's partly the reason I've been whittling away at the Franco-Prussian War article - something I can do in small pieces without having to dedicate time to translating things first ;) Parsecboy (talk) 20:18, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Geta loada this through the online translator ;O) http://digi.landesbibliothek.at/viewer/metadata/AC01858814/1/LOG_0000/ Keith-264 (talk) 20:45, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Pretty neat that they have the entire official history online - though for some reason my brain has trouble parsing the Gothic script ;) Parsecboy (talk) 20:51, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Click "full text" and you get a somewhat wayward sans serif version.Keith-264 (talk) 23:10, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Metres first?

As a British vessel, shouldn't all units be presented in Imperial units converted to Metric? Mjroots (talk) 20:37, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Magazine detonation

Which of wikipedia's rules does a reasonable request for a citation of an unsubstatiated statement break?

You could start by reading the sources cited... Parsecboy (talk) 21:03, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

So I have to read a list of 14 books that may or may not include that information? Pro Patria et Comitatu (talk) 21:07, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Do you understand how footnotes work? Parsecboy (talk) 21:08, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

As far as I can see there are two footnotes that refer to the numbers of Dorsetshire survivors that were rescued, but nothing that covers the unsupported "magazine detonation". Pro Patria et Comitatu (talk) 21:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok, let me make it clear to you: the two footnotes cover the entire paragraph. This is fairly basic citation stuff. Parsecboy (talk) 21:13, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

It’s a fairly big claim to be made without reference to where it actually came from. Pro Patria et Comitatu (talk) 21:08, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

No I'm a new user to wiki I'd be grateful for the fruits of your knowledge. Pro Patria et Comitatu (talk) 21:09, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

That paragraph has two little superscript numbers in brackets at the end: "[34][35]" You can click those to see what footnotes they correspond to. That will tell you what sources are being cited for the contents of that paragraph. Parsecboy (talk) 21:10, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I see the references to Campbell & Rohwer with regard to the numbers of Dorsetshire suvivors picked up, but nothing for the claim of a magazine detonation. Pro Patria et Comitatu (talk) 21:14, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

As I have said twice now, the two citations cover all of the material in the paragraph. And if you doubt me, you are free to go check them both, not all 14 sources cited in the article. Parsecboy (talk) 21:17, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

In other words, if you’re asking that the same citations are repeated for every single sentence in the paragraph, no, that is nonsensical and we won’t be doing that. Parsecboy (talk) 21:18, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I have a copy of "Conway's All the world's fighting ships, 1922-1946" as described in the footnotes, and the "citation" given (pages 2 - 85) is a general section giving gerenal details of the various classes of ship in the Royal Navy between those dates, and the section regarding RN Heavy cruisers gives NO reference to a supposed magazine detonation onboard Dorsetshire. Pro Patria et Comitatu (talk) 21:25, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Turn to page 27 and look about halfway down the page… Parsecboy (talk) 21:32, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Although strangely the "Norfolk" class in my edition is on page 28... but yes I've spotted the reference. Best wishes. 92.15.211.142 (talk) 21:35, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I've now found the details in the book. Thank you for pointing out the footnotes. 92.15.211.142 (talk) 21:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)