I first met Tim Slessor when we were contemporary undergraduates at Cambridge, half a century ago. Etched into my memory are Slessor’s pride in and sadness about his naval officer dad, whom he had adored, and whom he had lost as an eight-year-old. Becoming a successful TV producer and journalist, Slessor worked in the United States and Britain, being for many years a senior editor of the BBC’s documentary department.
In recent years, Slessor has used this considerable and relevant probing experience to try to ascertain the truth behind his father’s death, on the carrier, HMS Glorious on 8 June 1940, during the evacuation from Norway. His devastating chapter, ‘An accident of war’, starts with three quotations.
(Capt. Stephen Roskill DSC, author of the 1954 Official History of the Royal Navy in World War II, writing 26 years later in 1980.)The Admiralty has tried to suppress the truth for 40 years.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Louis Le Bailly KBE, CB, Royal Navy 1932 to 1972.)The loss of the Glorious and her destroyers is one of the three great RN tragedies of the War (Convoy PQ17, Prince of Wales and Repulse are the other two) which were due to incompetence and misjudgment. And it is the one which has been the least explained.
(Sir Winston Churchill in the first volume of his war memoirs, The Gathering Storm.)The Glorious had been detached to proceed home independently owing to a shortage of fuel and was now 200 miles ahead of the main convoy. This explanation is not convincing. The Glorious presumably had enough fuel to steam at the speed of the main convoy. All should have kept together.
Slessor quite simply seeks the truth. Any reader of The Spectator with ties with the Royal Navy or an interest in naval affairs should most certainly read this disturbing chapter.
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