The Grand Alliance (119 page)

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power and that of the United States. They admired the secure majesty of the English monarchy. They leaned continuously upon their skin-deep parliamentarianism, and hoped they might continue to reign or rule in peace. But who should say what the Army would do? No patriarchate, no Emperor, no dynasty could separate themselves from it.

The Emperor and the Princes were for peace and prudence, but had no wish to perish for such a cause.

The drastic application of economic sanctions in July, 1941, brought to a head the internal crisis in Japanese politics.

Conservative elements were shocked and the moderate leaders scared. The domestic prestige of the Japanese Army as a constitutional factor in shaping Japanese policy was already involved. Hitherto the Navy had exerted its restraining force. But the embargoes which the United States, Britain, and Holland had enforced cut off from Japan all supplies of oil, on which the Navy, and indeed the whole war-power of Japan, depended. The Japanese Navy was at once forced to live on its oil reserves, and at the outbreak of the Pacific war had in fact consumed four out of eighteen months’ supply. It was evident that this was a stranglehold, and that the choice before them was either for Japan to reach an agreement with the United States or go to war. The American requirements involved Japanese withdrawal, not only from their new aggression in Indo-China, but from China itself, where they had already been fighting at heavy expense for so long. This was a rightful but a hard demand. In these circumstances the Navy associated itself with the Army in the policy of war if an acceptable diplomatic agreement could not be obtained.

The fact that the Navy had now developed its air arm to a

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high pitch of offensive capacity hardened them in this course of action.

The tense debate within the ruling circles in Japan was prolonged throughout the summer and autumn. The supreme question of facing war with the United States was, we now know, discussed on July 31, on the morrow of the embargoes. It was clear to all the Japanese leaders that the time for choice was short. Germany might win the war in Europe before Japan had realised any of her ambitions.

The conversations between the Japanese and American Governments continued. The Japanese conservative politicians and the Imperial Court hoped to obtain terms which would enable them to control their war party at home.

The State Department at Washington believed, as I did, that Japan would probably recoil before the ultimately overwhelming might of the United States.

The reader has seen how from the first day of the war our anxieties about Japan weighed relentlessly upon us. Her appetites and opportunity were alike obvious. We wondered why she had not struck at the moment of the French collapse. Afterwards we drew breath more freely, but all the time we were at our utmost stress and strain to defend the British Island from destruction and carry on the war in the Western Desert. I confess that in my mind the whole Japanese menace lay in a sinister twilight, compared with our other needs. My feeling was that if Japan attacked us the United States would come in. If the United States did not come in, we had no means of defending the Dutch East Indies, or indeed our own Empire in the East. If, on the other hand, Japanese aggression drew in America I would be content to have it. On this I rested. Our priorities during

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1941 stood: first, the defence of the Island, including the threat of invasion and the U-boat war; secondly, the struggle in the Middle East and Mediterranean; thirdly, after June, supplies to Soviet Russia; and, last of all, resistance to a Japanese assault. It was however always understood that if Japan invaded Australia or New Zealand, the Middle East should be sacrificed to the defence of our own kith and kin. This contingency we all regarded as remote and improbable because of the vast abundance of easier and more attractive conquests offered to Japan by Malaya, Siam, and above all the Dutch East Indies. I am sure that nothing we could have spared at this time, even at the cost of wrecking the Middle Eastern theatre or cutting off supplies to the Soviet, would have changed the march of fate in Malaya. On the other hand, the entry of the United States into the war would overwhelm all evils put together.

It must not be supposed that these broad decisions were taken unconsciously or without profound and constant heart-searching by the War Cabinet and their military advisers.

As time passed and I realised the formidable effect of the embargoes which President Roosevelt had declared on July 26, and in which we and the Dutch had joined, I became increasingly anxious to confront Japan with the greatest possible display of British and American naval forces in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Naval forces were all we could spare. Narrowly did we scan our resources.

On August 25 I sent a minute to the First Sea Lord about the formation of an Eastern Fleet and setting out my views regarding its composition. I felt strongly that it should be possible in the near future to place a deterrent squadron in the Indian Ocean, and that this should consist of the

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smallest number of the best ships. The First Sea Lord replied that the Admiralty plan was to build up a force in Ceylon by the beginning of 1942, comprising the battleships
Nelson
and
Rodney,
the battle-cruiser
Renown,
and the small aircraft-carrier
Hermes.
The
Ark Royal
would follow later, but not until April. Meanwhile the four “R” class battleships would be sent to the Indian Ocean as escorts for troop convoys. In his memorandum the First Sea Lord dwelt on the overriding importance of the Atlantic theatre, where he considered it essential to retain all three of our latest battleships of the
King George V
class to guard against a possible break-out by the
Tirpitz.

I did not like these dispositions. The use of the old “R” class for convoy work was good against eight-inch cruisers, but if the enemy were prepared to detach a fast modern battleship for raiding purposes they and their convoys would become an easy prey. In their present state these old ships would be floating coffins. It would therefore be necessary to have one or two fast capital ships to deter the Japanese from detaching individual heavy raiders.

I ended my correspondence with the Admiralty as follows:
29 Aug. 41

… I must add that I cannot feel that Japan will face
the combination now forming against her of the United
States, Great Britain, and Russia, while already preoccupied in China. It is very likely she will negotiate with
the United States for at least three months without
making any further aggressive move or joining the Axis
actively. Nothing would increase her hesitation more
than the appearance of the force I mentioned, and
above all a K.G.V. This might indeed be a decisive
deterrent.
1

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It was decided to send as the first instalment of our Far Eastern Fleet both the
Prince of Wales
and the
Repulse,
with four destroyers, and as an essential element the modern armoured aircraft-carrier
Indomitable.
Unhappily the
Indomitable
was temporarily disabled by an accident. It was decided in spite of this to let the two fast capital ships go forward, in the hope of steadying the Japanese political situation, and also to be in relation to the United States Pacific Fleet. Our general naval policy was to build up under the remote cover of the main American Fleet in the Pacific a British Eastern Fleet based on Singapore, which by the spring of 1942 would comprise seven capital ships of various quality, one first-class aircraft-carrier, ten cruisers, and twenty-four destroyers. Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, till now our trusted Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff, was selected for command, and hoisted his flag at Greenock on October 24.

At the end of October I telegraphed to the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand, and gave them details of our proposed naval dispositions in the Far East.

Prime Minister to Prime Ministers Australia and New
Zealand

I am still inclined to think that Japan will not run into
war with A.B.C.D. [American-British-Chinese-Dutch]

Powers unless or until Russia is decisively broken.

Perhaps even then they will wait for the promised
invasion of the British Isles in the spring. Russian
resistance is still strong, especially in front of Moscow,
and winter is now near.

2. Admiralty dispositions had been to build up
towards the end of the year Rodney, Nelson, and four
R’s, based mainly on Singapore. This however was

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spoiled by recent injury to Nelson, which will take three
or four months to repair.