Admiral Sir Tom Spencer Vaughan Phillips, KCB (19 February 1888 – 10 December 1941) was a Royal Navy officer who served during the First and Second World Wars.

[2] Phillips joined the Royal Navy in 1903 as a naval cadet following education at Stubbington House School.

[3] Phillips gained the confidence of Winston Churchill, who had him appointed acting vice admiral in February 1940.

I regret to state that in my opinion the report as rendered by this Board does not give me confidence that such a searching inquiry has been carried out; in particular the failure to record the evidence of the various witnesses of the event strikes me as quite extraordinary.

It may be that in years to come ... our successors may wish to look back at the records of the loss of the HOOD, and it is in the words of those who actually saw the event rather than in the conclusions drawn by any Committee that they would be likely to find matter of real value.

At this enquiry every individual in every ship present who saw the HOOD at or about the time of the blowing up should be fully interrogated.It was this attention to detail and refusal to accept anything less than the complete scrutiny of a wartime disaster which won Churchill's respect and confidence.

His comment that "It may be that in years to come ... our successors may wish to look back at the records of the loss of the HOOD" demonstrated remarkable foresight on his part.

[citation needed] As a result, a second inquiry was convened (under Rear Admiral Sir Harold Walker), reporting in September 1941.

"[5] Phillips was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the China Station in late 1941, an action which raised some controversy in the higher echelons of the Royal Navy, where he was considered a "desk admiral".

He was firmly warned against it by the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound,[7] 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.

It was intended that the new aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable would also travel out to Singapore, but she ran aground on her maiden voyage in the West Indies, and was not ready to sail from England with the other ships.

Without a formal declaration of war, the Japanese landed in Malaya on 8 December 1941, on the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor (on the other side of the International Date Line).

[8] The earlier grounding of the carrier HMS Indomitable left the capital ships without naval air cover.

While Harada continued the chase, a Kawanishi E7K "Alf" from the Japanese cruiser Kinu buzzed the I-65, mistaking it for an enemy submarine.

[10] At 18:30, when the weather cleared and three Japanese naval reconnaissance planes were sighted from the flagship, Phillips realized that his position was precarious and untenable.

Shortly before midnight on 9 December, word came through of an enemy landing at Kuantan, halfway between Kota Bharu and Singapore.

The destroyer Express steamed ahead to reconnoitre the harbour of Kuantan, found it deserted, and closed with the flagship again at 08:35.

Phillips had not yet realized that his intelligence from Singapore was faulty, and he continued to search for a nonexistent surface enemy, first to the northward and then to the eastward.

[11] They were designated the Fleet Defence Squadron for this task, with Flight Lieutenant Tim Vigors given the radio procedures used by Force Z.

[12] After the war, Vigors remained bitter towards Admiral Phillips for his failure to call for air support.

Australian air protection was still not on hand at 12:20 p.m. CBS reporter Cecil Brown, who was on board the Repulse, described the battle:[9] "Stand by for barrage," comes over the ship's communication system.

I was in this process when the second torpedo struck, and the settling ship and crazy angle were so apparent that I didn't continue blowing the belt.

At the outset of hostilities [U.S.] Admiral Hart thought of sending his small striking force north of Luzon to challenge Japanese communications, but decided that the risk to his ships outweighed the possible gain because the enemy had won control of the air.

Should he steam into the Gulf of Siam and expose his ships to air attack from Indochina in the hope of breaking enemy communications with their landing force?

[8]Morison wrote, that as a result of the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse: ...[T]he half-truth "Capital ships cannot withstand land-based air power" became elevated to the dignity of a tactical principle that none dared take the risk to disprove.

Admiral Thomas Hart, Phillips's American counterpart, was critical of the air support to Force Z.

Hart told Time magazine in 1942: The only thing that would have saved Singapore would have been the success of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips's attempt to place his heavy ships where they could sink the Japanese transports at sea.