The deployment of the ships was a decision made by Winston Churchill. He was firmly warned against it by the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound,Captain Stephen Roskill: The war at sea, 1939–1945 Three volumes (1954–61; 1994) and later by his friend, Field Marshal Jan Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa, who prophesied the fate of the capital ships, when he addressed the crew of HMS Repulse just before she left Durban for Singapore.
