Plotting assumptions and ignored distress calls

Headquarters plotted major ships where they were expected to be instead of confirming their positions, partly because extra radio traffic could expose operational patterns through traffic analysis. Earlier losses such as HMS Glorious, HMS Prince of Wales, and HMS Repulse had already shown why a large ship's scheduled arrival could not be taken for granted. The Navy's official position was that no received distress message had been substantiated, while later reports said three stations heard the calls. Those accounts attribute the failures to one commander being drunk, another ordering sailors not to disturb him, and a third assuming the message was a Japanese trap. A scouting aircraft could have tested that suspicion, separating legitimate signals security from the failure to investigate a possible emergency.