wow poor you. To let you know u may have a smaller commute for a good battle. I will be building a 20 x 23ft pond that will be 4 feet deep!
Zeke, have you seen the artificial pond the WWCC builds every year for the Maker Faire? 1ft deep by 30ft by 60ft, IIRC. More space to spread out and maneuver, and the sunken wrecks form a navigational hazard for other boats. More importantly, reducing the depth reduced the pressure the walls needed to withstand, making construction easier and reduced the filling and drain time so we could set up and tear down the pond faster. Tactics vs logistics...
naw heard heard of it wish i was their. but i am going to keep the pond for my own personal plans and recreation. i go for tactics. i will not drain it and all so that will be kind of different and it will be made from a natural creek on my property.
This is a great story, Tug. Thanks for posting this. I should point out that Lieutenant Commander Roope's order to ram is in dispute. According to the book, The German Invasion of Norway, April 1940, the surviving officer, Lieutenant Ramsay, told his German rescuers that the helm (the Glowworm's bridge was destroyed) and emergency rudder were unmanned at the time, making it likely that Glowworm's ram of Hipper was an accident, not the result of an order to ram. BTW, photos taken of the Glowworm after the ram showed all eight of the DD's torpedo tubes empty, indicating that she launched two torpedo salvos, not one. She definitely gave Hipper all she had... Carl
i don't blame the Glowworm about all tubes used up. so you say the order to ram the hipper was never made?
No one is blaming the DD for emptying all her tubes. That was to her credit! Her captain and crew were tenacious in their valiant attempt to sink the Hipper. No one knows for sure if the order was given or not. Lt Ramsay evidently did not hear the order if it was given. But even if the order was given, there was no way it could have been carried out given that the helm and emergency steering stations were unmanned... Carl
My contention to the good lieutenant (who had just been through much) would be that the helm and the emergency rudder control sations are widely separated within the ship, making it unlikely that he would know the status of each in the last 5-10 minutes of a raging firefight. Possible, but unlikely.
I can not speak from experience at sea, but I have been in more combat situations on the ground in real life than I care to share, that being said it is Chaos, controlled chaos at best, while in a Tank platoon it was difficult to keep track of everything at all times, I imagine the only thing everyone on HMS Glowworm equally had knowledge of, without a doubt, was that she was in combat. It is my opinion that given the nationality of the Sailors on board HMS Glowworm, that not only did she ram the Hipper, but had every intention on doing so...
Having been underway with British sailors and participated with them in shore bound "activities" I am very inclined to agree with Glaizilla. Das Bütts Aka- MN2 (SW) Butts
Oooo, I love a good debate! In the Lieutenant's defense, you must take into account that the bridge was destroyed by shell fire from Hipper's guns well before the collision. So not only was the helm unmanned, it was destroyed. So the only relevant part here was whether or not the emergency steering station was manned, and the Lieutenant may have been in a position to observe this. Even if it was manned, given the DD's damage and the chaos of exchanging shells with Hipper at close range, I'm doubtful that orders from the captain were making it back to the emergency steering station. The good captain may well have given the order to ram. No one knows for sure. I am willing to give the captain the benefit of the doubt as it certainly seems in character that he would have given such an order. However, given the damage to the DD and the Lieutenant's testimony, I am unconvinced that Glowworm was actually capable of carrying out an order to ram Hipper. Carl
In that era there were many times both sound tubes and other phone types in direct link from the bridge, captains quarters, aux./ emergency helm, etc... I also can tell you that the last people to abandon their posts will be the Officer Of the Deck, the Captain, and the Helmsman. It has been standard procedure for decades upon decades that ALL means of controlling a vessel are manned at all times during GQ. If there was a single person alive, any helm not destroyed would be manned and following orders. It is very easy to captain a ship from almost anywhere. While minehunting on my minesweeper we drive the ship from "Combat". The OOD is only on the bridge to report hazards. I have seen an OOD earn his qualification by navigating the ship from the Galley. He had a sound powered phone held to each ear and one was to aft steering (not the bridge) and one was to a Junior OOD standing on a weatherdeck (near the focsle). We have established then that 1) The order was likely given. 2) There are many ingenious ways to communicate on board a vessel. 3) That the helm must be manned. I would dispute the claim that the auxiliary rudder was unmanned. In addition, how did he know it was? Das Butts
Well said. No one has suggested that anyone abandoned their posts. The emergency steering could have been left unmanned for several reasons, including the death of the men who stood watch there, or their being pressed into fighting fires nearby, for example. Hipper was engaging Glowworm at close range with both her main guns and secondary batteries. Accounts of the battle have the Glowworm being hit beginning with Hipper's fourth salvo. I daresay the topside of Glowwarm was little more than a smoldering ruin by the time of the ram. After all, by this time she had, by all accounts, but a single gun still firing. I do wonder, however, how effective sound tubes are in the heat of battle. I would imagine the din of battle makes it hard to hear over the tubes. But I have no experience in such matters. I will leave that to the professionals. I have heard several stories of captains moving their command from the bridge to emergency steering when the bridge was too badly damaged. Its possible such a move was in progress when the ram occurred. Lt Ramsey may have witnessed this move in progress. But this, of course, is sheer speculation. Sadly, the story of the account I have read does not reveal Ramsey's position on the Glowworm, only his rank. So I do not know where his battle station would have been, and I've no idea if he was the OOD or not. There's not enough information to know what he witnessed, or if he was in a position to have seen what he claims to have seen. However, I see little reason for him to lie to the Germans about the manning of the emergency steering... Carl
