Month: May 2025

What’s in a name?

Fighters Over the Fleet: Naval Air Defence from Biplanes to the Cold War: Amazon.co.uk: Friedman, Norman: 9781591146162: Books

I may have ranted before on 𝕏 about Norman Friedman’s complete lack of attention to detail when it comes to Admiralty administration in his many, many books. He may well have a perfect understanding of it, but the way he presents it in print is misleading at best. And so the other day I looked at his 2016 Fighters over the Fleet: Naval Air Defence from Biplanes to the Cold War for the first time. The first chapter opens with the Royal Navy on page 11. These are some of the errors on that page.

‘During most of the period covered by this book, the Royal Navy was administered by a five-man Board of Admiralty headed by the First Sea Lord.’ Utter nonsense. The Board of Admiralty was headed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, a politician, and not the First Sea Lord. The last time there had been five men on the Board of Admiralty was in early 1882. The number would never fall this low again whilst the office of Lord High Admiral was in commission (which ended in 1964). If (and one is being extremely charitable here) he was thinking of naval officers on the board given his First Sea Lord claim, then there were five for two periods in the 20th century: four months in 1917, and six years between 1929 and 1935. Hardly ‘most of the period covered by this book’.

‘In theory, the materiel departments of the navy, the Department of Naval Construction (DNC), the Department of Naval Ordnance (DNO) and Engineer-in-Chief (propulsion) met the Staff Requirements and supervised the acquisition of ships and weapons. DNC (the same letters are used for the Director of Naval Construction) was, for example, responsible for aircraft carrier design, which in turn set the limits within which British naval aircraft were built.’ There was never a Department of Naval Construction. There was the Naval Construction Department, also known as the Department of the Director of Naval Construction. Likewise there was never a Department of Naval Ordnance. There was a Naval Ordnance Department, also known as the Department of the Director of Naval Ordnance. These departments and their directors were subsumed into new departments in 1958.

‘Before the First World War, a new Department of Naval Aircraft was created, headed by the Director of Naval Air Division (DNAD);’ No. An ‘Air Department’ was founded under a ‘Director of Air Department’ in 1912. An Air Division of the Naval Staff existed in 1918 and 1919. Its duties were then vested in the Royal Air Force’s liaison officer to the Admiralty, then the Tactical Section of the Naval Staff, and from 1920 an Air Section. This finally became the Naval Air Division, under a Director, on 31 December 1928.

Most of these details are in the archival material which he has looked at, and it simply beggars belief that he is incapable of copying it faithfully. With regards to the Board of Admiralty, one can only marvel at his ignorance.

A Signal Error

A British signalling lantern of a pattern likely used at Jutland. Not a flag.

A while back a responsible person (who really ought to know better) implied that the Germans did not use visual signalling at the Battle of Jutland, because they had ‘perfected’ wireless telegraphy. This was contrasted with the use of flag signalling by the British. Of course, this last part is immediately incorrect because the British also used wireless telegraphy, as well as signalling lanterns and projectors, and mechanical semaphores, in addition to flags.

So, did the Germans rely solely on wireless telegraphy at Jutland? Let us look at the Royal Navy’s 1926 translation of the German official history of the battle adapted from Der Krieg zur See, 1914-1918, North Sea, Volume V (copy at The National Archives, ADM 186/626). It thoughtfully includes, as an appendix, a ‘Summary of the More Important German Wireless Messages and Signals Relating to the Battle of Jutland’ (pp. 279-305). ‘All messages not sent by wireless are indicated by the word “visual.”’ This, of course, might not be an exhaustive list, either on the Admiralty’s part or the German historian’s. Then let us look at the signals sent by Vice-Admiral Franz Hipper in the Lützow to the ships of his command, the 1st Scouting Group (not including signals addressed to specific ships). Between 15:27 and 19:20 (C.E.T.) he sent 64 signals, all specifically listed as ‘visual’. This works out at one signal every 3 minutes 38 seconds. The 19:20 signal was the last Hipper made from Lützow to the ships of 1st Scouting Group, before being compelled to transfer his flag later in the evening.

So, the Germans evidently did not rely on wireless telegraphy at Jutland, and Hipper was clearly making a lot of signals without recourse to it.