Tom Phillips (Royal Navy officer)
Tom Spencer Vaughan Phillips | |
---|---|
China Station (1941) (1924–25)Home Fleet Destroyer Flotillas (1938–39) HMS Hawkins (1932–35) 6th Destroyer Flotilla (1928–29) HMS Campbell (1928–29) HMS Verbena | |
Battles/wars |
|
Awards | Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath |
Early and private life
Phillips was the son of Colonel Thomas Vaughan Wynn Phillips, Royal Artillery and Louisa Mary Adeline de Horsey Phillips, daughter of Admiral Algernon de Horsey. Phillips was married to Lady Phillips, of Bude, Cornwall.[1]
Phillips was 5'4" (162 cm) tall. At the time of his death at the age of 53, he was one of the youngest admirals in the Royal Navy and one of the youngest commanders-in-chief.[2]
Phillips joined the
In the
Phillips attended the Royal Navy Staff College from June 1919 to May 1920. He was a military adviser on the Permanent Advisory Commission for Naval, Military, and Air Questions Board at the League of Nations from 1920 to 1922.[3]
Phillips was promoted to commander in June 1921, and to captain in June 1927. On 4 September 1928, he assumed command of the destroyer HMS Campbell, a position he held until August 1929.[3]
Between 24 April 1930 and September 1932, Phillips served as assistant director of the Plans Division in the
In 1938, Phillips was promoted to commodore, commanding the destroyer flotillas of the Home Fleet.[3]
On 10 January 1939, Phillips became a
Phillips gained the confidence of Winston Churchill, who had him appointed acting vice admiral in February 1940.[3] In July 1941, Phillips helped to discredit the flawed first Inquiry into the sinking of HMS Hood. When passed the file containing the findings of the first Board of Inquiry, Phillips comments in the minutes:
the report contains the findings of the Court, but not the evidence on which those findings are based...unfortunately it transpired that no shorthand notes of the evidence were taken. At my request, however, the Court have produced a summary of evidence ... This summary is, I understand, compiled from short notes kept by members of the Court at the time. This matter of the blowing up of the "HOOD" is one of the first importance to the Navy. It will be discussed for years to come and important decisions as to the design of ships must rest on the conclusions that are arrived at. This being so, it seems to me that the most searching inquiry is necessary in order to obtain every scrap of evidence we can as to the cause of the explosion. I regret to state that in my opinion the report as rendered by this Board does not give me confidence that such a searching inquiry has been carried out; in particular the failure to record the evidence of the various witnesses of the event strikes me as quite extraordinary. It may be that in years to come ... our successors may wish to look back at the records of the loss of the HOOD, and it is in the words of those who actually saw the event rather than in the conclusions drawn by any Committee that they would be likely to find matter of real value. In my view the matter is of such importance that a further Board of Inquiry should be held; that all who witnessed the blowing up should be interrogated. I also note that of the three survivors from the HOOD only one was interviewed. This strikes me as quite remarkable. I propose, therefore, that a further Board of Inquiry should be assembled as soon as possible and that the necessary witnesses should be made available. At this enquiry every individual in every ship present who saw the HOOD at or about the time of the blowing up should be fully interrogated.
It was this attention to detail and refusal to accept anything less than the complete scrutiny of a wartime disaster which won Churchill's respect and confidence. His comment that "It may be that in years to come ... our successors may wish to look back at the records of the loss of the HOOD" demonstrated remarkable foresight on his part.[citation needed]
As a result, a second inquiry was convened (under Rear Admiral Sir Harold Walker), reporting in September 1941.[4] This investigation was "much more thorough than was the first, taking evidence from a total of 176 eyewitnesses to the disaster."[5]
Force Z
Phillips was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the
The deployment of the ships was a decision made by
It was intended that the new aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable would also travel out to Singapore, but she ran aground on her maiden voyage in the West Indies, and was not ready to sail from England with the other ships. Phillips and the vessels arrived in Singapore on 2 December 1941, where they were re-designated Force Z. Without a formal declaration of war, the Japanese landed in Malaya on 8 December 1941, on the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor (on the other side of the International Date Line). The Japanese, by striking at three points almost simultaneously, hoped to attract all available land-based fighters of the Royal Air Force and leave Phillips without air cover when they were ready for him; and he steamed right into this trap.[8]
The earlier grounding of the carrier HMS Indomitable left the capital ships without naval air cover. Phillips had long held the opinion that aircraft were no threat to surface ships, and so he took Force Z, consisting of HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Repulse, and four destroyers (HMS Electra, HMS Express, HMAS Vampire and HMS Tenedos) to intercept the Japanese without air cover. That decision has been discussed ever since. Force Z sailed from Singapore at 17:35 on 8 December. Admiral Phillips left his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Arthur Palliser, at the command post ashore. Phillips used HMS Prince of Wales as his flagship.[8]
Phillips hoped to intercept any further Japanese convoys to prevent the landing of more troops. He signalled his fleet upon departure, "We are out looking for trouble, and no doubt we shall find it. We hope to surprise the enemy transports tomorrow and we expect to meet the Japanese battleship Kongō."[9]
Shortly after midnight, Phillips's chief of staff radioed that the Royal Air Force was so pressed by giving ground support to land operations that the Admiral could expect no air cover off
Force Z steamed north, leaving the
At 14:15, the Japanese submarine I-65 under command of Lieutenant Commander Harada Hakue reported sighting "two enemy battleships, course 240, speed 14 knots." I-65 surfaced and started a tail chase, but a sudden squall cloaked the British ships. While Harada continued the chase, a Kawanishi E7K "Alf" from the Japanese cruiser Kinu buzzed the I-65, mistaking it for an enemy submarine. Harada ordered a crash-dive. When the I-65 surfaced 30 minutes later, the contact with Phillips's force had been lost.[10]
At 18:30, when the weather cleared and three Japanese naval reconnaissance planes were sighted from the flagship, Phillips realized that his position was precarious and untenable. Reluctantly, he reversed course to return to Singapore at high speed. As Phillips steamed south, dispatches from Singapore portrayed impending doom on the shores of Malaya. The British Army was falling back fast. Shortly before midnight on 9 December, word came through of an enemy landing at Kuantan, halfway between Kota Bharu and Singapore. Phillips, in view of the imminent danger to Singapore, decided to strike at Kuantan.[8]
At dawn on 10 December, an unidentified plane was sighted about 60 miles (97 km) off Kuantan. Phillips continued on his course while launching a reconnaissance plane from Prince of Wales. The reconnaissance plane found no evidence of the enemy. The destroyer Express steamed ahead to reconnoitre the harbour of Kuantan, found it deserted, and closed with the flagship again at 08:35. Phillips had not yet realized that his intelligence from Singapore was faulty, and he continued to search for a nonexistent surface enemy, first to the northward and then to the eastward.[8]
Ten
At 11:00, by which time the sea was brilliantly sunlit, nine Japanese planes were sighted at an altitude 10,000 feet. They flew in single file along the length of the 32,000-ton battle cruiser Repulse. A bomb hit the catapult deck and exploded in the hangar, setting a fire below decks.[9]
At 11:15, Captain William Tennant of Repulse radioed the RAAF for help. At 11:40, the Prince of Wales was attacked by torpedo bombers. She was hit astern, knocking out her propellers and rudder. Several waves of torpedo bombers swooped in on the Repulse. The Prince of Wales signalled, asking whether she had been hit. The Repulse replied, "We have avoided 19 torpedoes till now, thanks to Providence." Australian air protection was still not on hand at 12:20 p.m. CBS reporter Cecil Brown, who was on board the Repulse, described the battle:[9]
"Stand by for barrage," comes over the ship's communication system. One plane is circling around. It's now at 300 or 400 yards, approaching us from the port side. It's coming closer head-on, and I see a torpedo drop. A watcher shouts, "Stand by for torpedo", and the tin fish is streaking directly for us.
Some one says: "This one's got us."
The torpedo struck the side on which I was standing, about twenty yards astern of my position. It felt like the ship had crashed into a well-rooted dock. It threw me four feet across the deck, but I did not fall, and I did not feel any explosion—just this very great jar.
Almost immediately, it seemed, we began to list, and less than a minute later there was another jar of the same kind and same force, except that it was almost precisely the same spot on the starboard.
After the first torpedo, the communications system coolly announced: 'Blow up your lifebelts.' I was in this process when the second torpedo struck, and the settling ship and crazy angle were so apparent that I didn't continue blowing the belt.
The communications system announced: "Prepare to abandon ship. May God be with you."
Prince of Wales and Repulse were
Aftermath of the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse
After the destruction of the British fleet, the Japanese continued to advance in Malaya. British
Regarding Phillips's decision to proceed without air cover, Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote:
Those who make the decisions in war are constantly weighing certain risks against possible gains. At the outset of hostilities [U.S.] Admiral Hart thought of sending his small striking force north of Luzon to challenge Japanese communications, but decided that the risk to his ships outweighed the possible gain because the enemy had won control of the air. Admiral Phillips had precisely the same problem in Malaya. Should he steam into the Gulf of Siam and expose his ships to air attack from Indochina in the hope of breaking enemy communications with their landing force? He decided to take the chance. With the Royal Air Force and the British Army fighting for their lives, the Royal Navy could not be true to its tradition by remaining idly at anchor.[8]
Morison wrote, that as a result of the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse:
...[T]he half-truth "Capital ships cannot withstand land-based air power" became elevated to the dignity of a tactical principle that none dared take the risk to disprove. And the Japanese had disposed of the only Allied battleship and battle cruiser in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii. The Allies lost face throughout the Orient and began to lose confidence in themselves.[8]
U.S. Admiral Thomas Hart, Phillips's American counterpart, was critical of the air support to Force Z. He was unaware of Phillips's preference for radio silence at the time. Hart told Time magazine in 1942:
The only thing that would have saved Singapore would have been the success of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips's attempt to place his heavy ships where they could sink the Japanese transports at sea. We have never heard why the R.A.F. fighters, which were half an hour away, gave Admiral Phillips no help whatever.[15]
Phillips's name is inscribed at the
Notes
- U.S. Army Lieutenant Generals Lesley J. McNair and Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr.were posthumously promoted to the rank of General decades after being killed.
Citations
- ^ a b "Admiral Sir TOM SPENCER VAUGHAN PHILLIPS, KCB". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 5 May 2010.
- ^ Time Magazine. 22 December 1941. Archived from the originalon 5 November 2012. Retrieved 5 May 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f g h C. Peter Chen. "Thomas Phillips". World War II Database. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
- ^ Report on the Loss of H.M.S. Hood (Admiralty record ADM116-4351, London, 1941)
- ^ Jurens, op cit
- ^ L, Klemen (1999–2000). "Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Francis Eric Palliser". Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942.
- ^ Captain Stephen Roskill: The war at sea, 1939–1945 Three volumes (1954–61; 1994)
- ^ Little, Brown & Company. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
- ^ Time Magazine. 22 December 1941. Archived from the originalon 9 June 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2010.
- ^ Bob Hackett & Sander Kingsepp. "IJN Submarine I-165: Tabular Record of Movement". Combinedfleet.com. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
- ^ Stephen, p. 108.
- ^ a b "Tim Vigors – Telegraph". The Telegraph. 19 November 2003. Retrieved 12 June 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-14-190662-1.
- Time Magazine. 2 December 1991. Archived from the originalon 2 September 2010. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
- Time Magazine. 12 October 1942. Archived from the originalon 14 October 2010. Retrieved 5 May 2010.
References
- Mark M. Boatner: The Biographical Dictionary of World War II. – Presidio Press, Novato CA, 1996. – ISBN 0-89141-548-3
- H. G. Thursfield: Phillips, Sir Tom Spencer Vaughan (1888–1941). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. – Oxford und New York, 1959
- Stephen, Martin. Sea Battles in Close-up, p. 99–114. Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allan, 1988.
- Part of this article are based on a translation of the equivalent article of the German Wikipedia, dated 28 September 2006