There is no need to apologize for there is the need to realize that the bastard hurt THE WEST.
Lessons Learned.
One of the things a foreign spy can do to a nation is make it harder to restore a situation after a surprise attack.
Much of what the Walker spy ring did has a correlative lessons learned in another example which I never forgot or forget or forgive. This one, too, affected Australia.
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During the 1920s and 1930s, the Imperial Japanese Navy, behind in technique and capability, needed a little help to improve its ability to operate aviation in general and naval ship-borne aviation in particular. So what was Lord Sempill's contribution to maintenance of international peace and the keeping the balance of power?
By name, his work product and influence resulted in
Akagi
Kaga
Soryu
Hiryu
Shokaku
Zuikaku
As he passed helpful hints along the Japanese refitted or improved their flattops' operating characteristics from generation to generation. For example, Akagi and Kaga were directly rebuilt with HMS Furious lessons learned. The Japanese started with fly-off decks and a botched launch method for aircraft, same as the British did. Then they changed their methods and ship characteristics. The timing and the results, suspiciously alike, should have been a warning that something was rotten on the Clyde, but the signal was ignored in London and the Americans missed it, too.
Here are some other helpful hints, Mister Sempill passed along;
a. The ability to use British surface action group night fighting techniques with flare dropping float planes to backlight an enemy and silhouette them.
b. The concept of the aerial torpedo plane.
c. RIKKOs.
d. Probably the outlines of the Singapore Bastion Defense.
e. Massing one's aviation effects from the sea to devastate a port.
Results... China of course, because the Japanese bombed them from the sea...
Pearl Harbor
DARWIN
and finally CORAL SEA.
How did that affect Australia?
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Johnny Walker, who should have been hanged, betrayed USN secrets to the Russians of how the Americans operated their naval forces and how they communicated among themselves and with their allies.
What did the Russians learn from this betrayal?
Some things the Russians did not know, such as prop chirping, blade interleaving, rafting of machinery to prevent transmission of knock noise or humming into a hull, turning an entire ship's hull into a _____ ______ tuning fork, or a sound short; Mister Walker, because he was too stupid to understand just what can be gleaned from something as an innocent mechanical casualty report or routine patrol check-in, passed along as message traffic, he betrayed because the Russians are SMART and could see from the day traffic and household details of what the American navy could and could not do. Not just the obvious things I mentioned, but also the op-art of the sub vs sub stalk, patrol habits, range limits of signal acquisition as contact reports were sent in, the need to keep an acoustics library, how to fight with the underwater weather, and what THAT was around the globe.
The characteristics of US combat systems and
allied ones the Russians learned, because some of that message traffic was RIMPAC type exercises simulated contacts and mock combat results.
When the Collins class put to sea, in 1996, the Americans were still repairing the Walker damage. Some things (advantages) could never be recovered, because weather is weather and physics is physics and Toshiba still happened. And when the Russians started to trail the new Australian subs, and collected sound fault and screw and sail noise data, they KNEW how to do it and for what to look.
But at least the Americans told the RAN to watch out. The British never told the Americans about Lord Sempill. The Americans found that one out the hard way at MIDWAY.
Thus endeth the lessons learned for today.
