Their Finest Hour (30 page)

Prime Minister to Minister of Supply.

7.VII.40.

What is being done about designing and planning vessels to transport tanks across the sea for a British attack on enemy countries? This might well be remitted as a study to Mr. Hopkins, former Chief Constructor of the Navy, who must have leisure now that Cultivator No. 6
¹
is out of fashion. These must be able to move six or seven hundred vehicles in one voyage and land them on the beach, or, alternatively, take them off the beaches, as well, of course, as landing them on quays – if it be possible to combine the two.

Prime Minister to General Ismay.

5.VIII.40

I asked the other day for a forecast of the development of the armoured divisions which will be required in 1941 – namely, five by the end of March and one additional every month until a total of ten is reached at the end of August, 1941; and also for the composition of each division in armoured and ancillary vehicles of all kinds.

Pray let me know how far the War Office plans have proceeded, and whether the number of tanks ordered corresponds with a programme of these dimensions.

Let me further have a report on the progress of the means of transportation overseas, which should be adequate to the movement at one moment of two armoured divisions
Who is doing this – Admiralty or Ministry of Supply? I suggested that Mr. Hopkins might have some spare time available.

Prime Minister to General Ismay.

9.VIII.40.

Get me a further report about the designs and types of vessels to transport armoured vehicles by sea and land on[to] beaches.

In July I created a separate Combined Operations Command under the Chiefs of Staff for the study and exercise of this form of warfare, and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes became its chief. His close personal contact with me and with the Defence Office served to overcome any departmental difficulties arising from this unusual appointment.

Prime Minister to General Ismay and Sir Edward Bridges.

17.VII.40

I have appointed Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes as Director of Combined Operations. He should take over the duties and resources now assigned to General Bourne. General Bourne should be informed that, owing to the larger scope now to be given to these operations, it is essential to have an officer of higher rank in charge, and that the change in no way reflects upon him or those associated with him. Evidently he will have to co-operate effectively. I formed a high opinion of this officer’s work as Adjutant-General Royal Marines, and in any case the Royal Marines must play a leading part in this organisation.

Pending any further arrangements, Sir Roger Keyes will form contact with the Service Departments through General Ismay as representing the Minister, of Defence.

* * * * *

I have already explained how smoothly the office of Minister of Defence came into being and grew in authority. At the end of August, I took the only formal step which I ever found necessary. Hitherto the Joint Planning Committee had worked under the Chiefs of Staff and looked to them as their immediate and official superiors. I felt it necessary to have this important, though up till now not very effective, body under my personal control. Therefore, I asked the War Cabinet to give approval to this definite change in our war machine. This was readily accorded me by all my colleagues, and I gave the following instructions:

Prime Minister to General Ismay and Sir Edward Bridges.

24.VIII.40.

The Joint Planning Committee will from Monday next work directly under the orders of the Minister of Defence and will become a part of the Minister of Defence’s office – formerly the C.I.D. Secretariat. Accommodation will be found for them at Richmond Terrace. They will retain their present positions in and contacts with the three Service Departments. They will work out the details of such plans as are communicated to them by the Minister of Defence. They may initiate plans of their own after reference to General Ismay. They will, of course, be at the service of the Chiefs of Staff Committee for the elaboration of any matters sent to them.

2. All plans produced by the Joint Planning Committee or elaborated by them under instructions as above will be referred to the Chiefs of Staff Committee for their observations.

3. Thereafter should doubts and differences exist, or in important cases, all plans will be reviewed by the Defence Committee of the War Cabinet, which will consist of the Prime Minister, the Lord Privy Seal, and Lord Beaverbrook, and the three Service Ministers; the three Chiefs of the Staff with General Ismay being in attendance.

4. The Prime Minister assumes the responsibility of keeping the War Cabinet informed of what is in hand; but the relation of the Chiefs of Staff to the War Cabinet is unaltered.

The Chiefs of Staff accepted this change without serious demur. Sir John Dill, however, wrote a Minute to the Secretary of State for War on which I was able to reassure him.

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War.

31.VIII.40.

There is no question of the Joint Planning Committee “submitting military advice” to me. They are merely to work out plans in accordance with directions which I shall give. The advice as to whether these plans or any variants of them should be adopted will rest as at present with the Chiefs of Staff. It is quite clear that the Chiefs of Staff also have their collective responsibility for advising the Cabinet as well as the Prime Minister or Minister of Defence. It has not been thought necessary to make any alteration in their constitutional position. Moreover, I propose to work with and through them as heretofore.

I have found it necessary to have direct access to and control of the Joint Planning Staffs because after a year of war I cannot recall a single plan initiated by the existing machinery. I feel sure that I can count upon you and the other two Service Ministers to help me in giving a vigorous and positive direction to the conduct of the war, and in overcoming the dead weight or inertia and delay which has so far led us to being forestalled on every occasion by the enemy.

It will, of course, be necessary from time to time to increase the number of the Joint Planning Staffs.

In practice the new procedure worked in an easy and agreeable manner, and I cannot recall any difficulties which arose.

* * * * *

Henceforth intense energy was imparted to the development of all types of landing craft and a special department was formed in the Admiralty to deal with these matters. By October, 1940, the trials of the first Landing-Craft Tank (L.C.T.) were in progress. Only about thirty of these were built, as they proved too small. An improved design followed, many of which were built in sections for more convenient transport by sea to the Middle East, where they began to arrive in the summer of 1941. These proved their worth, and as we gained experience the capabilities of later editions of these strange craft steadily improved. The Admiralty were greatly concerned at the inroads which this new form of specialised production might make into the resources of the shipbuilding industry. Fortunately it proved that the building of L.C.T. could be delegated to constructional engineering firms not engaged in shipbuilding, and thus the labour and plant of the larger shipyards need not be disturbed. This rendered possible the large-scale programme which we contemplated, but also placed a limit on the size of the craft.

The L.C.T. was suitable for cross-Channel raiding operations or for more extended work in the Mediterranean, but not for long voyages in the open sea. The need arose for a larger, more seaworthy vessel which, besides transporting tanks and other vehicles on ocean voyages, could also land them over beaches like the L.C.T. I gave directions for the design of such a vessel, which was first called an “Atlantic L.C.T.,” but was soon renamed “Landing Ship Tank” (L.S.T.). The building of these inevitably impinged on the resources of our hard-pressed shipyards. Thus, of the first design, nicknamed in the Admiralty the “Winette,” only three were built; others were ordered in the United States and Canada, but were superseded by a later design. Meanwhile we converted three shallow-draft tankers to serve the same purpose, and these too rendered useful service later on.

By the end of 1940 we had a sound conception of the physical expression of amphibious warfare. The production of specialised craft and equipment of many kinds was gathering momentum, and the necessary formations to handle all this new material were being developed and trained under the Combined Operations Command. Special training centres for this purpose were established both at home and in the Middle East. All these ideas and their practical manifestation we presented to our American friends as they took shape. The results grew steadily across the years of struggle, and thus in good time they formed the apparatus which eventually played an indispensable part in our greatest plans and deeds. Our work in this field in these earlier years had such a profound effect on the future of the war that I must anticipate events by recording some of the material progress which we made later.

In the summer of 1941, the Chiefs of Staff pointed out that the programme of landing-craft construction was related only to small-scale operations and that our ultimate return to the Continent would demand a much greater effort than we could then afford. By this time the Admiralty had prepared a new design of the landing ship tank (L.S.T.), and this was taken to the United States, where the details were jointly worked out. In February, 1942, this vessel was put into production in America on a massive scale. It became the L.S.T.(2), which figured so prominently in all our later operations, making perhaps the greatest single contribution to the solution of the stubborn problem of landing heavy vehicles over beaches. Ultimately over a thousand of these were built.

Meanwhile the production of small craft of many types for use in a Continental assault was making steady progress on both sides of the Atlantic. All these required transport to the scene of action in the ships carrying the assaulting troops. Thus an immense conversion programme was initiated to fit British and American troopships to carry these craft as well as great quantities of other specialised equipment. These ships became known as “Landing Ships Infantry” (L.S.I.). Some were commissioned into the Royal Navy, others preserved their mercantile status, and their masters and crews served them with distinction in all our offensive operations. Such ships could ill be spared from the convoys carrying the endless stream of reinforcements to the Middle East and elsewhere, yet this sacrifice had to be made. In 1940 and 1941 our efforts in this field were limited by the demands of the U-boat struggle. Not more than seven thousand men could be spared for landing-craft production up to the end of 1940, nor was this number greatly exceeded in the following year. However, by 1944, no less than seventy thousand men in Britain alone were dedicated to this stupendous task, besides much larger numbers in the United States.

* * * * *

As all our work in this sphere had a powerful bearing on the future of the war, I print at this point a telegram which I sent to President Roosevelt in 1941:

25.VII.41.

We have been considering here our war plans, not only for the fighting of 1942, but also for 1943. After providing for the security of essential bases, it is necessary to plan on the largest scale the forces needed for victory. In broad outline we must aim first at intensifying the blockade and propaganda. Then we must subject Germany and Italy to a ceaseless and ever-growing air bombardment. These measures may themselves produce an internal convulsion or collapse.
But plans ought also to be made for coming to the aid o f the conquered populations by landing armies of liberation when opportunity is ripe. For this purpose it will be necessary not only to have great numbers of tanks, but also of vessels capable of carrying them and landing them direct onto beaches.
It ought not to be difficult for you to make the necessary adaptation in some of the vast numbers of merchant vessels you are building so as to fit them for tank-landing ships.

And a little later:

Prime Minister to First Sea Lord.

8.IX.41.

My idea was not that the President should build Winettes as such, apart from any already arranged for, but that, out of the great number of merchant vessels being constructed in the United States for 1942, he would fit out a certain number with bows and side-ports to enable tanks to be landed from them on beaches, or into tank-landing craft which would take them to the beaches.

Please help me to explain this point to him, showing what kind of alteration would be required in the American merchant ships now projected.

In view of the many accounts which are extant and multiplying of my supposed aversion from any kind of large-scale opposed-landing, such as took place in Normandy in 1944, it may be convenient if I make it clear that from the very beginning I provided a great deal of the impulse and authority for creating the immense apparatus and armada for the landing of armour on beaches, without which it is now universally recognised that all such major operations would have been impossible. I shall unfold this theme step by step in these volumes by means of documents written by me at the time, which show a true and consistent purpose on my part in harmony with the physical facts, and a close correspondence with what was actually done.

Can Britain Survive? — Anxiety in the United States
—
Resolute Demeanour of the British Nation — The Relief of Simplicity
— Hitler’s Peace Offer, July
19
— Our Response
—
German Diplomatic Approaches Rejected
—
The King of Sweden’s Démarche — I Visit the Threatened Coasts
—
General Montgomery and the Third Division at Brighton
—
The Importance of Buses — My Contacts with General Brooke
—
Brooke Succeeds Ironside in Command of the Home Army
—
Stimulus of Invasion Excitement
—
Some Directives and Minutes of July
—
The Defence of London
—
Conditions in the Threatened Coastal Zones
—
Statistics on the Growth and Equipment of the Army
—
Lindemann’s Diagrams
—
The Canadian Second Division Retrieved from Ice
-
land
—
Need to Prevent Enemy Concentration of Shipping in the Channel
—
Arrival of the American Rifles
—
Special Precautions
—
The French Seventy-Fives
—
The Growth of the German Channel Batteries
—
Our Counter-Measures — My Visits to Admiral Ramsay at Dover
—
Progress of
Our Batteries Coaxed and Urged
—
The Monitor “Erebus”
—
The Defence of the Kentish Promontory — British Heavy-Gun Concentration, September
—
Our Rising Strength — An Ordeal Averted.

I
N THESE SUMMER DAYS OF
1940 after the fall of France we were all alone. None of the British Dominions or India or the Colonies could send decisive aid, or send what they had in time. The victorious, enormous German armies, thoroughly equipped and with large reserves of captured weapons and arsenals behind them, were gathering for the final stroke. Italy, with numerous and imposing forces, had declared war upon us, and eagerly sought our destruction in the Mediterranean and in Egypt. In the Far East, Japan glared inscrutably, and pointedly requested the closing of the Burma Road against supplies for China. Soviet Russia was bound to Nazi Germany by her pact, and lent important aid to Hitler in raw materials. Spain, which had already occupied the International Zone of Tangier, might turn against us at any moment and demand Gibraltar, or invite the Germans to help her attack it, or mount batteries to hamper passage through the Straits. The France of Pétain and Bordeaux, soon moved to Vichy, might any day be forced to declare war upon us. What was left at Toulon of the French Fleet seemed to be in German power. Certainly we had no lack of foes.

After Oran it became clear to all countries that the British Government and nation were resolved to fight on to the last. But even if there were no moral weakness in Britain, how could the appalling physical facts be overcome? Our armies at home were known to be almost unarmed except for rifles. There were in fact hardly five hundred field guns of any sort and hardly two hundred medium or heavy tanks in the whole country. Months must pass before our factories could make good even the munitions lost at Dunkirk. Can one wonder that the world at large was convinced that our hour of doom had struck?

Deep alarm spread through the United States, and indeed through all the surviving free countries. Americans gravely asked themselves whether it was right to cast away any of their own severely limited resources to indulge a generous though hopeless sentiment. Ought they not to strain every nerve and nurse every weapon to remedy their own unpreparedness? It needed a very sure judgment to rise above these cogent, matter-of-fact arguments. The gratitude of the British nation is due to the noble President and his great officers and high advisers for never, even in the advent of the third-term presidential election, losing their confidence in our fortunes or our will.

The buoyant and imperturbable temper of Britain, which I had the honour to express, may well have turned the scale. Here was this people, who in the years before the war had gone to the extreme bounds of pacifism and improvidence, who had indulged in the sport of party politics, and who, though so weakly armed, had advanced lightheartedly into the centre of European affairs, now confronted with the reckoning alike of their virtuous impulses and neglectful arrangements. They were not even dismayed. They defied the conquerors of Europe. They seemed willing to have their island reduced to a shambles rather than give in. This would make a fine page in history. But there were other tales of this kind. Athens had been conquered by Sparta. The Carthaginians made a forlorn resistance to Rome. Not seldom in the annals of the past – and how much more often in tragedies never recorded or long-forgotten – had brave, proud, easygoing states, and even entire races, been wiped out, so that only their name or even no mention of them remains.

Few British and very few foreigners understood the peculiar technical advantages of our insular position; nor was it generally known how even in the irresolute years before the war the essentials of sea and latterly air defence had been maintained. It was nearly a thousand years since Britain had seen the fires of a foreign camp on English soil. At the summit of British resistance everyone remained calm, content to set their lives upon the cast. That this was our mood was gradually recognised by friends and foes throughout the whole world. What was there behind the mood? That could only be settled by brute force.

* * * * *

There was also another aspect. One of our greatest dangers during June lay in having our last reserves drawn away from us into a wasting, futile French resistance in France, and the strength of our air forces gradually worn down by their flights or transference to the Continent. If Hitler had been gifted with supernatural wisdom, he would have slowed down the attack on the French front, making perhaps a pause of three or four weeks after Dunkirk on the line of the Seine, and meanwhile developing his preparations to invade England. Thus he would have had a deadly option, and could have tortured us with the hooks of either deserting France in her agony or squandering the last resources for our future existence. The more we urged the French to fight on, the greater was our obligation to aid them, and the more difficult it would have become to make any preparations for defence in England, and above all to keep in reserve the twenty-five squadrons of fighter aircraft on which all depended. On this point we should never have given way, but the refusal would have been bitterly resented by our struggling ally, and would have poisoned all our relations. It was even with an actual sense of relief that some of our high commanders addressed themselves to our new and grimly simplified problem. As the commissionaire at one of the Service clubs in London said to a rather downcast member, “Anyhow, sir, we’re in the Final, and it’s to be played on the Home Ground.”

* * * * *

The strength of our position was not, even at this date, underrated by the German High Command. Ciano tells how when he visited Hitler in Berlin on July 7, 1940, he had a long conversation with General von Keitel. Keitel, like Hitler, spoke to him about the attack on England. He repeated that up to the present nothing definite had been decided. He regarded the landing as possible, but considered it an “extremely difficult operation, which must be approached with the utmost caution, in view of the fact that the intelligence available on the military preparedness of the island and on the coastal defences is meagre and not very reliable.”
¹
What would appear to be easy and also essential was a major air attack upon the airfields, factories, and the principal communication centres in Great Britain. It was necessary, however, to bear in mind that the British Air Force was extremely efficient. Keitel calculated that the British had about fifteen hundred machines ready for defence and counter-attack. He admitted that recently the offensive action of the British Air Force had been greatly intensified. Bombing missions were carried out with noteworthy accuracy, and the groups of aircraft which appeared numbered up to eighty machines at a time. There was, however, in England a great shortage of pilots, and those who were now attacking the German cities could not be replaced by the new pilots, who were completely untrained. Keitel also insisted upon the necessity of striking at Gibraltar in order to disrupt the British imperial system. Neither Keitel nor Hitler made any reference to the duration of the war. Only Himmler said incidentally that the war ought to be finished by the beginning of October.

Such was Ciano’s report. He also offered Hitler, at “the earnest wish of the Duce,” an army of ten divisions and an air component of thirty squadrons to take part in the invasion. The army was politely declined. Some of the air squadrons came, but, as will be presently related, fared ill.

* * * * *

On July 19, Hitler delivered his triumphant speech in the Reichstag, in which, after predicting that I would shortly take refuge in Canada, he made what has been called his Peace Offer. The operative sentences were:

In this hour I feel it to be my duty before my own conscience to appeal once more to reason and common sense in Great Britain as much as elsewhere. I consider myself in a position to make this appeal, since I am not a vanquished foe begging favours, but the victor, speaking in the name of reason. I can see no reason why this war need go on. I am grieved to think of the sacrifices it must claim…. Possibly Mr. Churchill will brush aside this statement of mine by saying it is merely born of fear and doubt of final victory. In that case I shall have relieved my conscience in regard to the things to come.

This gesture was accompanied during the following days by diplomatic representations through Sweden, the United States, and at the Vatican. Naturally Hitler would be very glad, after having subjugated Europe to his will, to bring the war to an end by procuring British acceptance of what he had done. It was in fact an offer not of peace but of readiness to accept the surrender by Britain of all she had entered the war to maintain. As the German Chargé d’Affaires in Washington had attempted some communication with our Ambassador there, I sent the following telegram:

20.VII.40.

I do not know whether Lord Halifax is in town today, but Lord Lothian should be told on no account to make any reply to the German Charge d’Affaires’ message.

My first thought, however, was a solemn, formal debate in both Houses of Parliament. I therefore wrote at the same time to Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Attlee:

20.VII.40.

It might be worth while meeting Hitler’s speech by resolutions in both Houses. These resolutions should be proposed by private Peers and Members. On the other hand, the occasion will add to our burdens. What do you say?

My colleagues thought that this would be making too much of the matter, upon which we were all of one mind. It was decided instead that the Foreign Secretary should dismiss Hitler’s gesture in a broadcast. On the night of the 22d he “brushed aside” Hitler’s “summons to capitulate to his will.” He contrasted Hitler’s picture of Europe with the picture of the Europe for which we were fighting, and declared that “we shall not stop fighting until Freedom is secure.” In fact, however, the rejection of any idea of a parley had already been given by the British press and by the B.B.C., without any prompting from His Majesty’s Government, as soon as Hitler’s speech was heard over the radio.

Ciano, in his account of another meeting with Hitler on July 20, observes:

The reaction of the English Press to yesterday’s speech has been such as to allow of no prospect of an understanding. Hitler is therefore preparing to strike the military blow at England. He stresses that Germany’s strategic position, as well as her sphere of influence and of economic control, are such as to have already greatly weakened the possibilities of resistance by Great Britain, which will collapse under the first blows. The air attack already began some days ago, and is continually growing in intensity. The reaction of the anti-aircraft defences and of the British fighters is not seriously hindering the German air attack. The decisive offensive operation is now being studied, since the fullest preparations have been made.
²

Ciano also records in his diaries that “Late in the evening of the 19th, when the first cold British reaction to the speech arrived, a sense of ill-concealed disappointment spread among the Germans.” Hitler “would like an understanding with Great Britain. He knows that war with the British will be hard and bloody, and knows also that people everywhere are averse from bloodshed.” Mussolini, on the other hand, “fears that the English may find in Hitler’s much too cunning speech a pretext to begin negotiations.” “That,” remarks Ciano, “would be sad for Mussolini, because now more than ever he wants war.”
³
He need not have fretted himself. He was not to be denied all the war he wanted.