There are sharply divided opinions of Pound as First Sea Lord during the early years of the Second World War. His admirals and captains at sea accused him of "back seat driving" and he had some clashes with Charles Forbes and John Tovey, commanders of the Home Fleet. Winston Churchill, with whom he worked from September 1939, worked with him closely on naval strategies such that he was referred to as "Churchill's anchor". He has also been described as a "cunning old badger" who had used guile to frustrate Churchill's Operation Catherine, a scheme to send a battle fleet into the Baltic, early in the war. Critically, Pound was at the helm of the Royal Navy on the day of the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse on 10 December 1941 off the coast of Kuantan, Malaysia by the Japanese Air Force. This single event emboldened the Japanese and contributed to the fall of Singapore and Malaya just two months thereafter. Perhaps Pound's greatest achievement was his defeat of the German U-boats and the winning of the Battle of the Atlantic but he has been blamed for the Channel Dash when the Navy allowed the German battlecruisers and to slip into the English Channel undetected in February 1942, and criticised for ordering the dispersal of Arctic Convoy PQ 17 in July 1942, in which 35 merchant ships were left without protection, leading to 24 of the 35 merchant ships being sunk with the loss of 153 men. By March 1942 he was no longer Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff and accepted the need for a deputy first sea lord, with Admiral Sir Charles Kennedy-Purvis installed as such in July 1942. Pound refused a peerage but was appointed to the Order of Merit on 3 September 1943, four years after the outbreak of the war. Resignation and death Pound suffered from hip degeneration, which kept him from sleeping, causing him to doze off at meetings. In July 1943 Pound's wife died; by this time it was clear that his health was declining. He had sustained one stroke and the second, during the Quebec Conference the following month, was paralytic, indicative of a fast developing brain tumour. Pound then resigned formally on 20 September 1943. He died from the tumour at the Royal Masonic Hospital in London on 21 October (Trafalgar Day) 1943 and, after a funeral service in Westminster