4

War Cabinet Problems

Our Daily Meetings — A Fifty-Five-Division Army for Britain — Our Heavy Artillery — My Letter to the Prime Minister, September 10 — To the Minister of Supply, September 10, and His Answer — Need for a Ministry of Shipping — My Letter to the Prime Minister, September 15 — His Reply, September 16 — Further Correspondence About Munitions and Man-Power, — My Letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, September 24 — An Economy Campaign — The Search for a Naval Offensive — The Baltic — “Catherine the Great” — Plans for Forcing Entry (Appendix) — Technical and Tactical Aspects — The Prize — Views of the First Sea Lord — Lord Cork’s Appointment — Progress of the Plan — The Veto of the Air — The New Construction Programme — Cruisers — Destroyers — Numbers Versus Size — Long- and Short-Term Policies — Speeding the Programme — Need of an Air-Proof Battle Squadron (Appendix) — The Waste of the “Royal Sovereigns” — I Establish My Own Statistical Department.

THE WAR CABINET and its additional members, with the Chiefs of the Staff for the three services and a number of secretaries, had met together for the first time on September 4. Thereafter we met daily, and often twice a day. I do not recall any period when the weather was so hot – I had a black alpaca jacket made to wear over only a linen shirt. It was, indeed, just the weather that Hitler wanted for his invasion of Poland. The great rivers on which the Poles had counted in their defensive plan were nearly everywhere fordable, and the ground was hard and firm for the movement of tanks and vehicles of all kinds. Each morning the C.I.G.S., General Ironside, standing before the map, gave long reports and appreciations which very soon left no doubt in our minds that the resistance of Poland would speedily be crushed. Each day I reported to the Cabinet the Admiralty tale, which usually consisted of a list of British merchant ships sunk by the U-boats. The British Expeditionary Force of four divisions began its movement to France, and the Air Ministry deplored the fact that they were not allowed to bombard military objectives in Germany. For the rest, a great deal of business was transacted on the Home Front, and there were, of course, lengthy discussions about foreign affairs, particularly concerning the attitude of Soviet Russia and Italy and the policy to be pursued in the Balkans.

The most important step was the setting-up of the “Land Forces Committee” under Sir Samuel Hoare, at this time Lord Privy Seal, in order to advise the War Cabinet upon the scale and organisation of the Army we should form. I was a member of this small body, which met at the Home Office, and in one single sweltering afternoon agreed, after hearing the generals, that we should forthwith begin the creation of a fifty-five-division army, together with all the munition factories, plants, and supply services of every kind necessary to sustain it in action. It was hoped that by the eighteenth month, two-thirds of this, a considerable force, would either already have been sent to France or be fit to take the field. Sir Samuel Hoare was clear-sighted and active in all this, and I gave him my constant support. The Air Ministry, on the other hand, feared that so large an army and its supplies would be an undue drain upon our skilled labour and man-power, and would hamper them in the vast plans they had formed on paper for the creation of an all-powerful, overwhelming air force in two or three years. The Prime Minister was impressed by Sir Kingsley Wood’s arguments, and hesitated to commit himself to an army of this size and all that it entailed. The War Cabinet was divided upon the issue, and it was a week or more before a decision was reached to adopt the advice of the Land Forces Committee for a fifty-five-division army, or rather target.

I felt that as a member of the War Cabinet I was bound to take a general view, and I did not fail to subordinate my own departmental requirements for the Admiralty to the main design. I was anxious to establish a broad basis of common ground with the Prime Minister, and also to place him in possession of my knowledge in this field which I had trodden before; and being encouraged by his courtesy I wrote him a series of letters on the various problems as they arose. I did not wish to be drawn into arguments with him at Cabinets, and always preferred putting things down on paper. In nearly all cases we found ourselves in agreement, and although at first he gave me the impression of being very much on his guard, yet I am glad to say that month by month his confidence and good will seemed to grow. His biographer has borne testimony to this. I also wrote to other members of the War Cabinet and to various Ministers with whom I had departmental or other business. The War Cabinet was hampered somewhat by the fact that they seldom sat together alone without secretaries or military experts. It was an earnest and workmanlike body, and the advantages of free discussion among men bound so closely together in a common task, without any formality and without any record being kept, are very great. Such meetings are an essential counterpart to the formal meetings where business is transacted and decisions are recorded for guidance and action. Both processes are indispensable to the handling of the most difficult affairs.

I was deeply interested in the fate of the great mass of heavy artillery which as Minister of Munitions I had made in the previous war. Such weapons take a year and a half to manufacture, but it is of great value to an army, whether in defence or offence, to have at its disposal a mass of heavy batteries. I remembered the struggles which Mr. Lloyd George had had with the War Office in 1915 and all the political disturbance which had arisen on this subject of the creation of a dominating very heavy artillery, and how he had been vindicated by events. The character of the war on land, when it eventually manifested itself eight months later, in 1940, proved utterly different from that of 1914/1918. As will be seen, however, a vital need in home defence was met by these great cannons. At this time I conceived we had a buried treasure which it would be folly to neglect.

I wrote to the Prime Minister on this and other matters:

I hope you will not mind my sending you a few points privately.

1. I am still inclined to think that we should not take the initiative in bombing, except in the immediate zone in which the French armies are operating, where we must, of course, help. It is to our interest that the war should be conducted in accordance with the more humane conceptions of war, and that we should follow and not precede the Germans in the process, no doubt inevitable, of deepening severity and violence. Every day that passes gives more shelter to the population of London and the big cities, and in a fortnight or so there will be far more comparatively safe refuges than now.

2. You ought to know what we were told about the condition of our small Expeditionary Force and their deficiencies in tanks, in trained trench-mortar detachments, and above all in heavy artillery. There will be a just criticism if it is found that the heavy batteries are lacking…. In 1919, after the war, when I was S. of S. for War, I ordered a mass of heavy cannon to be stored, oiled, and carefully kept; and I also remember making in 1918 two twelve-inch Hows at the request of G.H.Q. to support their advance into Germany in 1919. These were never used, but they were the last word at the time. They are not easy things to lose…. It seems to me most vitally urgent, first, to see what there is in the cupboard; secondly, to recondition it at once and make the ammunition of a modern character. Where this heavy stuff is concerned, I may be able to help at the Admiralty, because, of course, we are very comfortable in respect of everything big….

3. You may like to know the principles I am following in recasting the naval programme of new construction. I propose to suspend work upon all except the first three or perhaps four of the new battleships, and not to worry at the present time about vessels that cannot come into action until 1942. This decision must be reviewed in six months. It is by this change that I get the spare capacity to help the Army. On the other hand, I must make a great effort to bring forward the smaller anti-U-boat fleet. Numbers are vital in this sphere. A good many are coming forward in 1940, but not nearly enough considering that we may have to face an attack by 200 or 300 U-boats in the summer of 1940….

4. With regard to the supply of the Army and its relation to the air force, pardon me if I put my experience and knowledge, which were bought not taught, at your disposal. The making by the Minister of Supply of a layout on the basis of fifty-five divisions at the present time would not prejudice Air or Admiralty, because (a) the preliminary work of securing the sites and building the factories will not for many months require skilled labour; here are months of digging foundations, laying concrete, bricks, and mortar, drainage, etc., for which the ordinary building-trade labourers suffice; and (b) even if you could not realise a fifty-five-division front by the twenty-fourth month because of other claims, you could alter the time to the thirty-sixth month or even later without affecting the scale. On the other hand, if he does not make a big layout at the beginning, there will be vexatious delays when existing factories have to be enlarged. Let him make his layout on the large scale, and protect the needs of the air force and Army by varying the time factor. A factory once set up need not be used until it is necessary, but if it is not in existence, you may be helpless if you need a further effort. It is only when these big plants get into work that you can achieve adequate results.

5. Up to the present (noon) no further losses by U-boats are reported, i.e., thirty-six hours blank. Perhaps they have all gone away for the week-end! But I pass my time waiting to be hit. Nevertheless, I am sure all will be well.

I also wrote to Doctor Burgin:

In 1919 when I was at the War Office, I gave careful instructions to store and oil a mass of heavy artillery. Now it appears that this has been discovered. It seems to me the first thing you should do would be to get hold of this store and recondition them with the highest priority, as well as make the heavy ammunition. The Admiralty might be able to help with the heavy shells. Do not hesitate to ask.

The reply was most satisfactory:

The preparation for use of the super-heavy artillery, of which you write, has been the lively concern of the War Office since the September crisis of 1938, and work actually started on the reconditioning of guns and mountings, both of the 9.2-inch guns and the 12-inch howitzers, last January.

These equipments were put away in 1919 with considerable care, and as a result, they are proving to be, on the whole, not in bad condition. Certain parts of them have, however, deteriorated and require renewal, and this work has been going on steadily throughout this year. We shall undoubtedly have some equipments ready during this month, and, of course, I am giving the work a high priority….

I am most grateful for your letter. You will be glad to see how much has already been done on the lines you recommend.

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Everyone says there ought to be a Ministry of Shipping. The President of the Chamber of Shipping today pressed me strongly for it at our meeting with the shipowners. The President of the Board of Trade asked me to associate him in this request, which, of course, entails a curtailment of his own functions. I am sure there will be a strong parliamentary demand. Moreover, the measure seems to me good on the merits. The functions are threefold:

(a) To secure the maximum fertility and economy of freights in accordance with the war policy of the Cabinet and the pressure of events.

(b) To provide and organise the very large shipbuilding programme necessary as a safeguard against the heavy losses of tonnage we may expect from a U-boat attack apprehended in the summer of 1940. This should certainly include the study of concrete ships, thus relieving the strain on our steel during a period of steel stringency.

(c) The care, comfort, and encouragement of the merchant seamen who will have to go to sea repeatedly after having been torpedoed and saved. These merchant seamen are a most important and potentially formidable factor in this kind of war.

The President of the Board of Trade has already told you that two or three weeks would be required to disentangle the branches of his department which would go to make up the Ministry of Shipping from the parent office. It seems to me very wise to allow this period of transition. If a Minister were appointed and announced, he would gather to himself the necessary personal staff, and take over gradually the branches of the Board of Trade which are concerned. It also seems important that the step of creating a Ministry of Shipping should be taken by the Government before pressure is applied in Parliament and from shipping circles, and before we are told that there is valid complaint against the existing system.

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This Ministry was formed after a month’s discussion and announced on October 13. Mr. Chamberlain selected Sir John Gilmour as its first head. The choice was criticised as being inadequate. Gilmour was a most agreeable Scotsman and a well-known Member of Parliament. He had held Cabinet office under Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Chamberlain. His health was declining, and he died within a few months of his appointment, and was succeeded by Mr. Ronald Cross.

As I shall be away till Monday, I give you my present thought on the main situation.

It seems to me most unlikely that the Germans will attempt an offensive in the West at this late season…. Surely his obvious plan should be to press on through Poland, Hungary, and Rumania to the Black Sea, and it may be that he has some understanding with Russia by which she will take part of Poland and recover Bessarabia….

It would seem wise for Hitler to make good his Eastern connections and feeding-grounds during these winter months, and thus give his people the spectacle of repeated successes, and the assurance of weakening our blockade. I do not, therefore, apprehend that he will attack in the West until he has collected the easy spoils which await him in the East. None the less, I am strongly of opinion that we should make every preparation to defend ourselves in the West. Every effort should be made to make Belgium take the necessary precautions in conjunction with the French and British Armies. Meanwhile, the French frontier behind Belgium should be fortified night and day by every conceivable resource. In particular the obstacles to tank attack, planting railway rails upright, digging deep ditches, erecting concrete dolls, landmines in some parts and inundations all ready to let out in others, etc., should be combined in a deep system of defence. The attack of three or four German armoured divisions, which has been so effective in Poland, can only be stopped by physical obstacles defended by resolute troops and a powerful artillery…. Without physical obstacles the attack of armoured vehicles cannot be effectively resisted.

I am very glad to find that the mass of wartime artillery which I stored in 1919 is all available. It comprises 32 twelve-inch, 145 nine-inch, a large number of eight-inch, nearly 200 six-inch, howitzers, together with very large quantities of ammunition; in fact it is the heavy artillery, not of our small Expeditionary Force, but of a great army. No time should be lost in bringing some of these guns into the field, so that whatever else our troops will lack, they will not suffer from want of heavy artillery….

I hope you will consider carefully what I write to you. I do so only in my desire to aid you in your responsibilities, and discharge my own.

The Prime Minister wrote back on the sixteenth, saying:

All your letters are carefully read and considered by me, and if I have not replied to them, it is only because I am seeing you every day, and, moreover, because, as far as I have been able to observe, your views and mine have very closely coincided…. To my mind the lesson of the Polish campaign is the power of the air force, when it has obtained complete mastery in the air, to paralyse the operations of land forces…. Accordingly, as it seems to me, although I shall, of course, await the report of the Land Forces Committee before making up my mind, absolute priority ought to be given to our plans for rapidly accelerating the strength of our air force, and the extent of our effort on land should be determined by our resources after we have provided for air force extension.

I am entirely with you in believing that air power stands fore-most in our requirements, and indeed I sometimes think that it may be the ultimate path by which victory will be gained. On the other hand, the Air Ministry paper, which I have just been studying, seems to peg out vast and vague claims which are not at present substantiated, and which, if accorded absolute priority, would overlay other indispensable forms of war effort. I am preparing a note upon this paper, and will only quote one figure which struck me in it.

If the aircraft industry with its present 360,000 men can produce nearly one thousand machines a month, it seems extraordinary that 1,050,000 men should be required for a monthly output of two thousand. One would expect a very large “reduction on taking a quantity,” especially if mass-production is used. I cannot believe the Germans will be using anything like a million men to produce two thousand machines a month. While, broadly speaking, I should accept an output of two thousand machines a month as the objective, I am not at present convinced that it would make anything like so large a demand upon our war-making capacity as is implied in this paper.

The reason why I am anxious that the Army should be planned upon a fifty- or fifty-five division scale, is that I doubt whether the French would acquiesce in a division of effort which gave us the sea and air and left them to pay almost the whole blood-tax on land. Such an arrangement would certainly be agreeable to us; but I do not like the idea of our having to continue the war single-handed.

There are great dangers in giving absolute priority to any department. In the late war the Admiralty used their priority arbitrarily and selfishly, especially in the last year when they were overwhelmingly strong, and had the American Navy added to them. I am every day restraining such tendencies in the common interest.

As I mentioned in my first letter to you, the layout of the shell, gun, and filling factories, and the provision for explosives and steel, does not compete directly while the plants are being made with the quite different class of labour required for aeroplane production. It is a question of clever dovetailing. The provision of mechanical vehicles, on the other hand, is directly competitive, and must be carefully adjusted. It would be wise to bring the army munitions plants into existence on a large scale, and then to let them begin to eat only as our resources allow and the character of the war requires. The time factor is the regulator which you would apply according to circumstances. If, however, the plants are not begun now, you will no longer have the option.

I thought it would be a wise thing to state to the French our intention to work up to an army of fifty or fifty-five divisions. But whether this could be reached at the twenty-fourth month or at the thirtieth or fortieth month should certainly be kept fluid.

At the end of the late war, we had about ninety divisions in all theatres, and we were producing aircraft at the rate of two thousand a month, as well as maintaining a Navy very much larger than was needed, and far larger than our present plans contemplate. I do not, therefore, feel that fifty or fifty-five divisions and two thousand aircraft per month are incompatible aims, although, of course, the modern divisions and modern aircraft represent a much higher industrial effort – everything having become so much more complicated.

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I wonder if you would consider having an occasional meeting of the War Cabinet Ministers to talk among themselves without either secretaries or military experts. I am not satisfied that the large issues are being effectively discussed in our formal sessions. We have been constituted the responsible Ministers for the conduct of the war; and I am sure it would be in the public interest if we met as a body from time to time. Much is being thrown upon the Chiefs of the Staffs which falls outside the professional sphere. We have had the advantage of many valuable and illuminating reports from them. But I venture to represent to you that we ought sometimes to discuss the general position alone. I do not feel that we are getting to the root of the matter on many points.

I have not spoken to any colleague about this, and have no idea what their opinions are. I give you my own, as in duty bound.

On September 24, I wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer:

I am thinking a great deal about you and your problem, as one who has been through the Exchequer mill. I look forward to a severe budget based upon the broad masses of the well-to-do. But I think you ought to couple with this a strong anti-waste campaign. Judging by the small results achieved for our present gigantic expenditure, I think there never was so little “value for money,” as what is going on now. In 1918, we had a lot of unpleasant regulations in force for the prevention of waste, which after all was part of the winning of victory. Surely you ought to make a strong feature of this in your Wednesday’s statement. An effort should be made to tell people the things they ought to try to avoid doing. This is by no means a doctrine of abstention from expenditure. Everything should be eaten up prudently, even luxuries, so long as no more are created. Take stationery, for example – this should be regulated at once in all departments. Envelopes should be pasted up and redirected again and again. Although this seems a small thing, it teaches every official, and we now have millions of them, to think of saving.

An active “savings campaign” was inculcated at the Front in 1918 and people began to take a pride in it, and look upon it as part of the show. Why not inculcate these ideas in the B.E.F. from the outset in all zones not actually under fire?

I am trying to prune the Admiralty of large schemes of naval improvement which cannot operate till after 1941, or even in some cases [when they cannot operate] till after the end of 1940. Beware lest these fortification people and other departmentals do not consume our strength upon long-scale developments which cannot mature till after the climax which settles our fate.

I see the departments full of loose fat, following on undue starvation. It would be much better from your point of view to come along with your alguazils as critics upon wasteful exhibitions, rather than delaying action. Don’t hamper departments acting in a time of crisis; give them the responsibility; but call them swiftly to account for any failure in thrift.

I hope you will not mind me writing to you upon this subject, because I feel just as strongly about the husbanding of the money power as I do about the war effort, of which it is indeed an integral part. In all these matters you can count on my support, and also, as the head of a spending department, upon my submission to searching superintendence.

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In every war in which the Royal Navy has claimed the command of the seas, it has had to pay the price of exposing immense targets to the enemy. The privateer, the raiding cruiser, and above all the U-boat, have in all the varying forms of war exacted a heavy toll upon the life-lines of our commerce and food-supply. A prime function of defence has, therefore, always been imposed upon us. From this fact the danger arises of our being driven or subsiding into a defensive naval strategy and habit of mind. Modern developments have aggravated this tendency. In the two Great Wars, during parts of which I was responsible for the control of the Admiralty, I have always sought to rupture this defensive obsession by searching for forms of counter-offensive. To make the enemy wonder where he is going to be hit next may bring immeasurable relief to the process of shepherding hundreds of convoys and thousands of merchantmen safely into port. In the First World War I hoped to find in the Dardanelles, and later in an attack upon Borkum and other Frisian islands, the means of regaining the initiative, and forcing the weaker naval power to study his own problems rather than ours. Called to the Admiralty again in 1939, and as soon as immediate needs were dealt with and perils warded off, I could not rest content with the policy of “convoy and blockade.” I sought earnestly for a way of attacking Germany by naval means.

First and foremost gleamed the Baltic. The command of the Baltic by a British Fleet carried with it possibly decisive gains. Scandinavia, freed from the menace of German invasion, would thereby naturally be drawn into our system of war trade, if not indeed into actual co-belligerency. A British Fleet in mastery of the Baltic would hold out a hand to Russia in a manner likely to be decisive upon the whole Soviet policy and strategy. These facts were not disputed among responsible and well-informed men. The command of the Baltic was the obvious supreme prize, not only for the Royal Navy but for Britain. Could it be won? In this new war the German Navy was no obstacle. Our superiority in heavy ships made us eager to engage them wherever and whenever there was opportunity. Minefields could be swept by the stronger naval power. The U-boats imposed no veto upon a fleet guarded by efficient flotillas. But now, instead of the powerful German Navy of 1914 and 1915, there was the air arm, formidable, unmeasured, and certainly increasing in importance with every month that passed.

If two or three years earlier it had been possible to make an alliance with Soviet Russia, this might have been implemented by a British battle squadron joined to the Russian Fleet and based on Kronstadt. I commended this to my circle of friends at the time. Whether such an arrangement was ever within the bounds of action cannot be known. It was certainly one way of restraining Germany; but there were also easier methods which were not taken. Now in the autumn of 1939, Russia was an adverse neutral, balancing between antagonism and actual war. Sweden had several suitable harbours on which a British Fleet could be based. But Sweden could not be expected to expose herself to invasion by Germany. Without the command of the Baltic, we could not ask for a Swedish harbour. Without a Swedish harbour we could not have the command of the Baltic. Here was a deadlock in strategic thought. Was it possible to break it? It is always right to probe. During the war, as will be seen, I forced long staff studies of various operations, as the result of which I was usually convinced that they were better left alone, or else that they could not be fitted in with the general conduct of the struggle. Of these the first was the Baltic domination.

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On the fourth day after I reached the Admiralty, I asked that a plan for forcing a passage into the Baltic should be prepared by the Naval Staff. The Plans Division replied quickly that Italy and Japan must be neutral; that the threat of air attack appeared prohibitive; but that apart from this the operation justified detailed planning and should, if judged practicable, be carried out in March, 1940, or earlier. Meanwhile, I had long talks with the Director of Naval Construction, Sir Stanley Goodall, one of my friends from 1911/12, who was immediately captivated by the idea. I named the plan “Catherine,” after Catherine the Great, because Russia lay in the background of my thought. On September 12 I was able to write a detailed minute to the authorities concerned.¹

Admiral Pound replied on the twentieth that success would depend on Russia not joining Germany and on the assurance of co-operation by Norway and Sweden; and that we must be able to win the war against any probable combination of Powers without counting upon whatever force was sent into the Baltic. He was all for the exploration. On September 21, he agreed that Admiral of the Fleet the Earl of Cork and Orrery, an officer of the highest attainments and distinction, should come to work at the Admiralty, with quarters and a nucleus staff, and all information necessary for exploring and planning the Baltic offensive project. There was an apt precedent for this in the previous war, when I had brought back the famous Admiral “Tug” Wilson to the Admiralty for special duties of this kind with the full agreement of Lord Fisher; and there are several instances in this war where, in an easy and friendly manner, large issues of this kind were tested without any resentment being felt by the Chiefs of Staff concerned.

Both Lord Cork’s ideas and mine rested upon the construction of capital ships specially adapted to withstand air and torpedo attack. As is seen from the minute in the Appendix, I wished to convert two or three ships of the Royal Sovereign class for action inshore or in narrow waters by giving them super-bulges against torpedoes and strong armour-plated decks against air bombs. For this I was prepared to sacrifice one or even two turrets and seven or eight knots’ speed. Quite apart from the Baltic, this would give us facilities for offensive action, both off the enemy’s North Sea coast, and even more in the Mediterranean. Nothing could be ready before the late spring of 1940, even if the earliest estimates of the naval constructors and the dockyards were realised. On this basis, therefore, we proceeded.

On the twenty-sixth, Lord Cork presented his preliminary appreciation, based, of course, on a purely military study of the problem. He considered the operation, which he would, of course, have commanded, perfectly feasible but hazardous. He asked for a margin of at least thirty per cent over the German Fleet on account of expected losses in the passage. If we were to act in 1940, the assembly of the Fleet and all necessary training must be complete by the middle of February. Time did not, therefore, permit the deck-armouring and side-blistering of the Royal Sovereigns, on which I counted. Here was another deadlock. Still, if these kinds of things go working on, one may get into position – maybe a year later – to act. But in war, as in life, all other things are moving too. If one can plan calmly with a year or two in hand, better solutions are open.

I had strong support in all this from the Deputy Chief of Staff, Admiral Tom Phillips (who perished in the Prince of Wales at the end of 1941 near Singapore); and from Admiral Fraser, the Controller and Third Sea Lord. He advised the addition to the assault fleet of the four fast merchant ships of the Glen Line, which were to play their part in other events.

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One of my first duties at the Admiralty was to examine the existing programmes of new construction and war expansion which had come into force on the outbreak.

At any given moment there are at least four successive annual programmes running at the Admiralty. In 1936 and 1937, five new battleships had been laid down which would come into service in 1940 and 1941. Four more battleships had been authorised by Parliament in 1938 and 1939, which could not be finished for five or six years from the date of order. Nineteen cruisers were in various stages of construction. The constructive genius and commanding reputation of the Royal Navy in design had been distorted and hampered by the treaty restrictions for twenty years. All our cruisers were the result of trying to conform to treaty limitations and “gentleman’s agreements.” In peace-time vessels had thus been built to keep up the strength of the Navy from year to year amid political difficulties. In war-time a definite tactical object must inspire all construction. I greatly desired to build a few 14,000-ton cruisers carrying 9.2-inch guns, with good armour against eight-inch projectiles, wide radius of action, and superior speed to any existing Deutschland or other German cruiser. Hitherto the treaty restrictions had prevented such a policy. Now that we were free from them, the hard priorities of war interposed an equally decisive veto on such long-term plans.

Destroyers were our most urgent need, and also our worst feature. None had been included in the 1938 programme, but sixteen had been ordered in 1939. In all, thirty-two of these indispensable craft were in the yards, and only nine could be delivered before the end of 1940. The irresistible tendency to make each successive flotilla an improvement upon the last had lengthened the time of building to nearer three than two years. Naturally, the Navy liked to have vessels capable of riding out the Atlantic swell and large enough to carry all the modern improvements in gunnery and especially anti-aircraft defence. It is evident that along this line of solid argument a point is soon reached where one is no longer building a destroyer but a small cruiser. The displacement approaches or even exceeds two thousand tons, and a crew of more than two hundred sail the seas in these unarmoured ships, themselves an easy prey to any regular cruiser. The destroyer is the chief weapon against the U-boat, but as it grows ever larger it becomes itself a worth-while target. The line is passed where the hunter becomes the hunted. We could not have too many destroyers, but their perpetual improvement and growth imposed severe limitation on the numbers the yards could build, and deadly delay in completion.

On the other hand, there are seldom less than two thousand British merchant ships at sea, and the sailings in and out of our home ports amounted each week to several hundreds of ocean-going vessels and several thousands of coastwise traders. To bring the convoy system into play, to patrol the Narrow Seas, to guard the hundreds of ports of the British Isles, to serve our bases all over the world, to protect the minesweepers in their ceaseless task, all required an immense multiplication of small armed vessels. Numbers and speed of construction were the dominating conditions.

It was my duty to readjust our programmes to the need of the hour and to enforce the largest possible expansion of anti-U-boat vessels. For this purpose two principles were laid down. First, the long-term programme should be either stopped or severely delayed, thus concentrating labour and materials upon what we could get in the first year or year and a half. Secondly, new types of anti-submarine craft must be devised which were good enough for work on the approaches to the island, thus setting free our larger destroyers for more distant duties.

On all these questions I addressed a series of minutes to my naval colleagues:

Having regard to the U-boat menace, which must be expected to renew itself on a much larger scale towards the end of 1940, the type of destroyer to be constructed must aim at numbers and celerity of construction rather than size and power. It ought to be possible to design destroyers which can be completed in under a year, in which case fifty at least should be begun forthwith. I am well aware of the need of a proportion of flotilla leaders and large destroyers capable of ocean service, but the arrival in our fleets of fifty destroyers of the medium emergency type I am contemplating would liberate all larger vessels for ocean work and for combat.

The usual conflict between long-term and short-term policy rises to intensity in war. I prescribed that all work likely to compete with essential construction should be stopped on large vessels which could not come into service before the end of 1940, and that the multiplication of our anti-submarine fleets must be effected by types capable of being built within twelve months, or, if possible, eight. For the first type we revived the name corvette. Orders for fifty-eight of these had been placed shortly before the outbreak of war, but none were yet laid down. Later and improved vessels of a similar type, ordered in 1940, were called frigates. Besides this, a great number of small craft of many kinds, particularly trawlers, had to be converted with the utmost dispatch and fitted with guns, depth-charges, and Asdics; motor launches of new Admiralty design were also required in large numbers for coastal work. Orders were placed to the limit of our shipbuilding resources, including those of Canada. Even so we did not achieve all that we hoped, and delays arose which were inevitable under the prevailing conditions and which caused the deliveries from the shipyards to fall considerably short of our expectations.

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Eventually my view about Baltic strategy and battleship reconstruction prevailed in the protracted discussions. The designs were made and the orders were given. However, one reason after another was advanced, some of them well-founded, for not putting the work in hand. The Royal Sovereigns, it was said, might be needed for convoy in case the German pocket battleships or eight-inch-gun cruisers broke loose. It was represented that the scheme involved unacceptable interference with other vital work, and a plausible case could be shown for alternative priorities for our labour and armour. I deeply regretted that I was never able to achieve my conception of a squadron of very heavily deck-armoured ships of no more than fifteen knots, bristling with anti-aircraft guns and capable of withstanding to a degree not enjoyed by any other vessel afloat both air and under-water attack. When in 1941 and 1942, the defence and succouring of Malta became so vital, when we had every need to bombard Italian ports and, above all, Tripoli, others felt the need as much as I. It was then too late.

Throughout the war the Royal Sovereigns remained an expense and an anxiety. They had none of them been rebuilt like their sisters the Queen Elizabeths, and when, as will be seen in due course, the possibility of bringing them into action against the Japanese Fleet which entered the Indian Ocean in April, 1942, presented itself, the only thought of the Admiral on the spot, of Admiral Pound and the Minister of Defence, was to put as many thousands of miles as possible between them and the enemy in the shortest possible time.

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One of the first steps I took on taking charge of the Admiralty and becoming a member of the War Cabinet was to form a statistical department of my own. For this purpose I relied on Professor Lindemann, my friend and confidant of so many years. Together we had formed our views and estimates about the whole story. I now installed him at the Admiralty with half a dozen statisticians and economists whom we could trust to pay no attention to anything but realities. This group of capable men, with access to all official information, was able, under Lindemann’s guidance, to present me continually with tables and diagrams, illustrating the whole war so far as it came within our knowledge. They examined and analysed with relentless pertinacity all the departmental papers which were circulated to the War Cabinet, and also pursued all the inquiries which I wished to make myself.

At this time there was no general governmental statistical organisation. Each department presented its tale on its own figures and data. The Air Ministry counted one way, the War Office another. The Ministry of Supply and the Board of Trade, though meaning the same thing, talked different dialects. This led sometimes to misunderstandings and waste of time when some point or other came to a crunch in the Cabinet. I had, however, from the beginning my own sure, steady source of information, every part of which was integrally related to all the rest. Although at first this covered only a portion of the field, it was most helpful to me in forming a just and comprehensible view of the innumerable facts and figures which flowed out upon us.