Their Finest Hour (33 page)

Prime Minister to General Ismay and First Sea Lord.

31.VIII.40.

It becomes particularly urgent to attack the batteries on the French shore. Yesterday’s photographs show guns being actually hoisted up into position, and it will be wise to fire on them before they are able to reply. There are quite enough guns in position already. I trust, therefore,
Erebus
will not be delayed, as every day our task will become harder.

It seems most necessary to damage and delay the development of the hostile batteries in view of the fact that we are so far behindhand with our own.

At the beginning of September our heavy-gun strength towards the sea was:

Pre-War Coast Defence
9.2-inch	two
6-inch	six
Recent Additions
14-inch (Naval)	one
9.2-inch	two (railway mountings)
6-inch (Naval)	two
4-inch (Naval)	two

These were soon to be further reinforced by two 13.5-inch guns from the old battleship
Iron Duke,
which were being erected on railway mountings, and a battery of four 5.5-inch guns from H.M.S.
Hood.
Many of these additional guns were manned by the Royal Navy and Royal Marines.

Although still inferior in numbers to the enemy we thus had a powerful fire concentration.

In addition one of the eighteen-inch howitzers I had saved after the First World War and twelve twelve-inch howitzers were installed for engaging enemy landings. All these were mobile and would have brought a terrible fire on any landing-area.

* * * * *

As the months of July and August passed without any disaster, we settled ourselves down with increasing assurance that we could make a long and hard fight. Our gains of strength were borne in upon us from day to day. The entire population laboured to the last limit of its strength, and felt rewarded when they fell asleep after their toil or vigil by a growing sense that we should have time and that we should win. All the beaches now bristled with defences of various kinds. The whole country was organised in defensive localities. The factories poured out their weapons. By the end of August we had over two hundred and fifty new tanks! The fruits of the American “Act of Faith” had been gathered. The whole trained professional British Army and its Territorial comrades drilled and exercised from morn till night, and longed to meet the foe. The Home Guard overtopped the million mark, and when rifles were lacking grasped lustily the shotgun, the sporting rifle, the private pistol, or, when there was no firearm, the pike and the club. No Fifth Column existed in Britain, though a few spies were carefully rounded up and examined. What few Communists there were lay low. Everyone else gave all they had to give.

When Ribbentrop visited Rome in September, he said to Ciano: “The English Territorial defence is non-existent. A single German division will suffice to bring about a complete collapse.” This merely shows his ignorance. I have often wondered, however, what would have happened if two hundred thousand German storm troops had actually established themselves ashore. The massacre would have been on both sides grim and great. There would have been neither mercy nor quarter. They would have used terror, and we were prepared to go all lengths. I intended to use the slogan, “You can always take one with you.” I even calculated that the horrors of such a scene would in the last resort turn the scale in the United States. But none of these emotions was put to the proof. Far out on the grey waters of the North Sea and the Channel coursed and patrolled the faithful, eager flotillas peering through the night. High in the air soared the fighter pilots, or waited serene at a moment’s notice around their excellent machines. This was a time when it was equally good to live or die.

Former Studies of Invasion — The New Air Power — My Statement to Parliament of June
18 —
The First Rumours, June
27, 1940 —
My Note of June
28 —
My Note on “Invasion” of July
10 —
Importance of Mobile Reserves
—
Two Thousand Miles of British Coastline — The First Sea Lord’s Memorandum — Distribution of Potential Attack
—
I
Double His Estimate for Safety
—
My Minute of August
5, 1940 —
My Suggested Distribution of Our Army — Coincidence of Chiefs of Staff View — Our Emphasis on East Coast — The Germans Choose the South Coast — We Turn Our Front — Change in Our Dispositions Between August and September — Persisting Dangers from Across the North Sea — Tension in July and August.

A
FTER
D
UNKIRK
, and still more when three weeks later the French Government capitulated, the questions whether Hitler would, or secondly could, invade and conquer our island rose, as we have seen, in all British minds. I was no novice at this problem. As First Lord I had for three years before the First Great War taken part in all the discussions of the Committee of Imperial Defence upon the point. On behalf of the Admiralty I had always argued that at least two divisions out of our Expeditionary Force of six should be kept at home until the Territorial Army and other wartime forces became militarily effective. As Admiral “Tug” Wilson put it, “The Navy cannot play international football without a goal-keeper.” However, when at the outbreak of that war we found ourselves with the Navy fully mobilised, the Grand Fleet safe beyond hostile ken at sea, all surprises, treacheries, and accidents left behind us, we felt ourselves able at the Admiralty to be better than our word. At the extraordinary meeting of Ministers and high military authorities which Mr. Asquith summoned to the Cabinet Room on August 5, 1914, I declared formally, with the full agreement of the First Sea Lord (Prince Louis of Battenberg), that the Navy would guarantee the protection of the island against invasion or serious raid even if all the Regular troops were immediately sent to the great battle impending in France. So far as we were concerned, the whole Army could go. In the course of the first six weeks all the six divisions went.

Sea-power, when properly understood, is a wonderful thing. The passage of an army across salt water in the face of superior fleets and flotillas is an almost impossible feat. Steam had added enormously to the power of the Navy to defend Great Britain. In Napoleon’s day the same wind which would carry his flat-bottomed boats across the Channel from Boulogne would drive away our blockading squadrons. But everything that had happened since then had magnified the power of the superior navy to destroy the invaders in transit. Every complication which modern apparatus had added to armies made their voyage more cumbrous and perilous, and the difficulties of their maintenance when landed probably insuperable. At that former crisis in our island fortunes we possessed superior and, as it proved, ample sea-power. The enemy was unable to gain a major sea battle against us. He could not face our cruiser forces. In flotillas and light craft we outnumbered him tenfold. Against this must be set the incalculable chances of weather, particularly fog. But even if this were adverse and a descent were effected at one or more points, the problem of maintaining a hostile line of communication and of nourishing any lodgments remained unsolved. Such was the position in the First Great War.

But now there was the air. What effect had this sovereign development produced upon the invasion problem? Evidently if the enemy could dominate the narrow seas, on both sides of the Straits of Dover, by superior air power, the losses of our flotillas would be very heavy and might eventually be fatal. No one would wish, except on a supreme occasion, to bring heavy battleships or large cruisers into waters commanded by the German bombers. We did not in fact station any capital ships south of the Forth or east of Plymouth. But from Harwich, the Nore, Dover, Portsmouth, and Portland we maintained a tireless, vigilant patrol of light fighting vessels which steadily increased in number. By September they exceeded eight hundred, which only a hostile air power could destroy, and then only by degrees.

But who had the power in the air? In the Battle of France we had fought the Germans at two and three to one and inflicted losses in similar proportion. Over Dunkirk, where we had to maintain continuous patrol to cover the escape of the Army, we had fought at four or five to one with success and profit. Over our own waters and exposed coasts and counties Air Chief Marshal Dowding contemplated profitable fighting at seven or eight to one. The strength of the German Air Force at this time, taken as a whole, so far as we knew – and we were well informed – apart from particular concentrations, was about three to one. Although these were heavy odds at which to fight the brave and efficient German foe, I rested upon the conclusion that in our own air, over our own country and its waters, we could beat the German Air Force. And if this were true, our naval power would continue to rule the seas and oceans, and would destroy all enemies who set their course towards us.

There was, of course, a third potential factor. Had the Germans with their renowned thoroughness and foresight secretly prepared a vast armada of special landing craft, which needed no harbours or quays, but could land tanks, cannon, and motor-vehicles anywhere on the beaches, and which thereafter could supply the landed troops? As had been shown, such ideas had risen in my mind long ago in 1917, and were now being actually developed as the result of my directions. We had, however, no reason to believe that anything of this kind existed in Germany, though it is always best when counting the cost not to exclude the worst. It took us four years of intense effort and experiment and immense material aid from the United States to provide such equipment on a scale equal to the Normandy landing. Much less would have sufficed the Germans at this moment. But they had only a few Siebel ferries.

Thus the invasion of England in the summer and autumn of 1940 required from Germany local naval superiority and air superiority and immense special fleets and landing craft. But it was we who had the naval superiority; it was we who conquered the mastery in the air; and finally we believed, as we now know rightly, that they had not built or conceived any special craft. These were the foundations of my thought about invasion in 1940, from which I gave from day to day the instructions and directives which these chapters contain.

* * * * *

I laid the broad outlines plainly before Parliament on June 18:

The Navy has never pretended to be able to prevent raids by bodies of five or ten thousand men flung suddenly across and thrown ashore at several points on the coast some dark night or foggy morning. The efficacy of sea-power, especially under modern conditions, depends upon the invading force being of large size. It has to be of large size, in view of our military strength, to be of any use. If it is of large size, then the Navy have something they can find and meet and, as it were, bite on. Now we must remember that even five divisions, however lightly equipped, would require two hundred to two hundred and fifty ships, and with modern air reconnaissance and photography it would not be easy to collect such an armada, marshal it, and conduct it across the sea with any powerful naval forces to escort it; and there would be very great possibilities, to put it mildly, that this armada would be intercepted long before it reached the coast, and all the men drowned in the sea or, at the worst, blown to pieces with their equipment while trying to land.

* * * * *

As early as the end of June, some reports indicated that the enemy’s plans might include the Channel, and I immediately called for inquiry.

Prime Minister to General Ismay.

27.VI.40.

It seems difficult to believe that any large force of transports could be brought to the Channel ports without our being aware of it, or that any system of mining would prevent our sweepers from clearing a way for attack on such transports on passage. However, it would be well if the Chiefs of the Staff gave their attention to this rumour.

Anyhow, the possibility of a cross-Channel invasion, improbable though it was at that time, had to be most closely examined. I was not entirely satisfied with the military dispositions. It was imperative that the Army should know the exact task assigned to it, and above all should not fritter away strength in a sedentary dispersion along the threatened coasts or exhaust the national resources by manning unduly all the coasts. Therefore I wrote:

Prime Minister to General Ismay.

28.VI.40

Note by the Prime Minister to C.O.S. Committee.

1. See papers by Vice-Chiefs of Staff and further papers by C.O.S. Committee.

2. It is prudent to block off likely sections of the beaches with a good defence and to make secure all creeks and harbours on the east coast. The south coast is less immediately dangerous. No serious invasion is possible without a harbour with its quays, etc. No one can tell, should the Navy fail, on what part of the east coast the impact will fall. Perhaps there will be several lodgments. Once these are made, all troops employed on other parts of the coastal crust will be as useless as those in the Maginot Line. Although fighting on the beaches is favourable to the defence, this advantage cannot be purchased by trying to guard all the beaches. The process must be selective. But if time permits, defended sectors may be widened and improved.

3. Every effort should be made to man coast defences with sedentary troops, well sprinkled with experienced late-war officers. The safety of the country depends [however] on having a large number (now only nine, but should soon be fifteen) “Leopard” brigade groups which can be directed swiftly, i.e., within four hours, to the points of lodgment. Difficulties of landing on beaches are serious, even when the invader has reached them; but difficulties of nourishing a lodgment when exposed to heavy attack by land, air, and sea are far greater. All therefore depends on rapid, resolute engagement of any landed forces which may slip through the sea-control. This should not be beyond our means provided the field troops are not consumed in beach defences, and are kept in a high condition of mobility, crouched and ready to spring.

4. In the unhappy event of the enemy capturing a port, larger formations with artillery will be necessary. There should be four or five good divisions held in general reserve to deal with such an improbable misfortune. The scale of lodgment to be anticipated should be not more than ten thousand men landed at three points simultaneously – say thirty thousand in all; the scale of air attack not more than fifteen thousand landed simultaneously at two or three points in all. The enemy will not have strength to repeat such descents often. It is very doubtful whether air-borne troops can be landed in force by night; by day they should be an easy prey [to our Air Force].

5. The tank story is somewhat different, and it is right to minimise by local cannon and obstacles the landing places of tanks. The Admiralty should report upon the size, character, and speed of potential tank-carrying barges or floats, whether they will be self-propelled or towed and by what craft. As they can hardly go above seven miles an hour, they should be detected in summertime after they have started, and even in fog or haze the R.D.F. stations should give warning while they are still several hours from land. The destroyers issuing from the sally-ports must strike at these with gusto. The arrangement of stops and blocks held by local sedentary forces should be steadily developed, and anti-tank squads formed. Our own tank reserve must engage the surviving invader tanks, and no doubt it is held in a position which allows swift railing [transport by rail] to the attacked area.

6. Parachutists, Fifth-Columnists, and enemy motor-cyclists who may penetrate or appear in disguise in unexpected places must be left to the Home Guard, reinforced by special squads. Much thought must be given to the [enemy] trick of wearing British uniform.

7. In general I find myself in agreement with the Commander-in-Chief’s plan, but all possible field troops must be saved from the beaches and gathered into the “Leopard” brigades and other immediate mobile supports. Emphasis should be laid upon the main reserve. The battle will be won or lost, not on the beaches, but by the mobile brigades and the main reserve. Until the Air Force is worn down by prolonged air fighting and destruction of aircraft supply, the power of the Navy remains decisive against any serious invasion.

8. The above observations apply only to the immediate summer months. We must be much better equipped and stronger before the autumn.

In July there was growing talk and anxiety on the subject both inside the British Government and at large. In spite of ceaseless reconnaissance and all the advantages of air photography, no evidence had yet reached us of large assemblies of transport in the Baltic or in the Rhine or Scheldt harbours, and we were sure that no movement either of shipping or self-propelled barges through the Straits into the Channel had taken place. Nevertheless, preparation to resist invasion was the supreme task before us all, and intense thought was devoted to it throughout our war circle and Home Command.