Errors in naval history books

I have recently been working on a talk about the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU). The two main books that talk about WATU are references 1 and 2. Both of these contain errors which one would have expected the research for these to have caught.

Examples are calling HMS Prince of Wales, which Gilbert Rodgers, the head of WATU visited while it was fitting out, as a battle cruiser, giving the gun calibre of Spitfire guns a value that never existed. Possibly worse is not mentioning operation Drum Beat as the cause of the second U-boat Happy Time.

 As a result of a question when I was presenting this talk, I had to consult reference 3. Here the author failed to convert between metres per second, knots and mph. Having piqued my curiosity I looked at other parts that i know about (ATTs) and found errors there. Also I am left with a feeling that research for (3) was largely confined to Wikipedia.

All this leaves with the impression that these books are written by "journalists" with no real background interest in naval history. Just as well these books were all borrowed rather than purchased.

References

1. Mark Williams, Captain Gilbert Roberts, and the Anti-U-Boat School, Cassell, 1979

2. Simon Parkin, A Game of Birds and Wolves, Sceptre, 2020
3. Roger Branfill-Cook, Torpedo, Seaforth Publishing, 2014