The Grand Alliance (151 page)

This method of defence is not desirable for aerodromes, since the balloons would all have to be hauled
down when our own machines were taking off or
landing. For the defence of aerodromes therefore
rockets carrying mines into the air seem particularly
suited.

(Action this day.) Prime

10.III.41.

Minister to Minister of

Information

Obviously there are two conditions, districts where
fighting is going on and districts where it is not. The
words “stay put” are wholly inapplicable to the second
class, which is by far the more numerous, probably
ninety-nine one-hundredths of the country. For these
districts the order should be “Carry on.”

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Neither is the expression “Stay put” really applicable
to the districts where fighting is going on. First of all, it
is American slang; secondly, it does not express the
fact. The people have not been “put” anywhere. What is
the matter with “Stand fast,” or “Stand firm”? Of the two
I prefer the latter. This is an English expression, and it
says exactly what is meant by paragraph 3.

The paragraphs about destroyers, maps, etc., clearly apply only to the fighting areas. In the present context you might have a wholesale massacre of maps, motor-cars, and bicycles throughout the country.

You might begin like this: “If this Island is seriously invaded, everyone in it will immediately receive orders either to

‘Carry on’ or to ‘Stand firm.’ In the vast majority of cases the order will be ‘Carry on’ as is set out in the first three paragraphs of the following paper. The order ‘Stand firm’

applies only to those districts where fighting is actually going on, and is intended to make sure that there will be no fugitives blocking the roads, and that everyone who has decided to stay in a likely area of attack, as, for instance, on the East and South Coasts, will ‘Stand firm’ in his dwelling or shelter till the enemy in the neighbourhood have been destroyed or driven out.”

Prime Minister to Minister of

10.III.41.

Food

Yours of March 8. Would you kindly let me know
what will be the objects and duties of the Food Mission
you propose to send to the United States. I am at this
time actively considering sending Sir Arthur Salter there
to expedite and animate the whole business of merchant shipbuilding. This is a process which requires
continued effort and attention, as an enormous scheme
of shipbuilding has to be set on foot in American yards.

What has been done up to the present is less than half
of what we need.

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I do not however see food problems in the same
plane as this. There is plenty of food in the United
States, and with our dollar allocations we should be
able to select wisely what to use in our tonnage. Why
does this require a special mission?

I have been trying as much as possible to keep the
missions to the United States as few as possible.

However, I shall be very glad to hear what your reasons
are.

Prime Minister to Secretary

10.III.41.

of State for War and others

It is of the utmost importance that a clear and
consistent picture of our requirements should be
presented to the United States Administration, and that
their efforts on our behalf should not be hampered by
any doubts as to our vital needs and their order of
priority.

I had occasion to deal with one aspect of this matter
recently, when I directed that all statistical statements
relating to our war effort intended for the United States
Government should be co-ordinated centrally here and
despatched through our Ambassador at Washington.

Another aspect of the same question has now been
brought to my notice. Mr. Hopkins has reported that the
Service attaches at the American Embassy in London
are in the habit of sending messages, based on contacts with subordinate officers in the Service and
Supply Departments in London, which may well differ
from the case which is being put to the Navy and Army
Departments in Washington. He quoted a case in which
the Navy Department were being pressed to allot
destroyers to us, and found themselves confronted with
an expression of opinion of some anonymous officer in
one of the Service Departments in London, conveyed
through a Service attaché of the United States
Embassy in London, to the effect that it was no good
hoping to cope with submarines by destroyers until we
had more long-range fighters.

I should be glad if you would be good enough to
take the necessary steps to ensure that officers in your
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department who are brought into contact with the staff
of the American Embassy, and particularly with the
Service attachés, do not express opinions which are
likely to conflict with the views which are being urged
on our behalf in Washington. These officers may not
perhaps be aware that the views which they happen to
express casually are liable to be reported to Washington. It would also seem important that officers who are
in contact with the United States Service attachés
should be acquainted in general terms with the nature
of the requests which are being put from time to time to
the United States Government in Washington, so that
they may be on their guard against making remarks
which would be inconsistent with those requests.

Prime Minister to Professor

11.III.41.

Lindemann

I am expecting you to have ready for me tonight the
general layout of the imports programme under
different heads, so that I can see where I can scrape off
with a pencil another half-million tons for food.

Prime Minister to C.A.S.

12.III.41.

I see accounts of Germans increasing their aerodrome accommodation in Northern France. I suppose
our aerodromes in the southeast of the Island which we
planned some time ago will now be coming steadily into
use? Let me have a note on the augmentation which is
in progress or has been achieved.

(Action this day.) Prime

14.III.41.

Minister to C.A.S.

The egg-layer pulled off another success last night.

Only one was up, but it got its prey. I cannot understand how there has been this frightful delay in devising
and making the release gear. More than three months
seem to have been consumed upon a task so incomparably easier than many which are being solved. Failing
any mechanical solution, why cannot a hole be cut in
the floor of the aeroplane and a man lying on his
stomach push by hand the eggs, which are about the
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size of a Slilton cheese, one after another through the
hole? The spacing would not be absolutely regular, but
it might be just as lucky. At any rate, I want to see this
hold-up and hitch for myself. I could come to Northolt
Aerodrome at four o’clock this afternoon, Friday, if you
can arrange to have the people concerned on the spot.

It would be very nice if you would come too, and spend
the night at Chequers.

There is a new danger. Now that the Admiralty
balloon barrage people have exposed the idea of the
aerial mine and its wire, parachute, etc., the cutter may
soon be coming along, and when we are at last ready
we may be too late.

Surely now, when they seem to be turning onto the
Mersey and the Clyde and will have to be working up to
those fixed points, now is the time of all others for the
egg-layers to reap their harvest.

Prime Minister to Secretary

14.III.41.

of State for Air

Your programme [of R.A.F. expansion] assumed for
these four months a loss [in pilots] of 1550, whereas
actually 1229 was the figure. You have therefore saved
321 pilots, and your original estimate was 26 per cent
on the safe side. This is satisfactory.

2. I always expected and repeatedly told you that
there would be a marked falling-off in war activity during
the winter months. This has always been so. Let me
know what are your forecasts for the next four or six
months, including March. The “postulates,” as you like
to call them, though “forecasts” seem more natural, are
in any case only of academic interest, because we are
making every pilot we can as fast as we can, and our
programme is based on capacity, not assignment.

None the less, one may just as well see what the
possibilities are.

Prime Minister to General

15.III.41.

Ismay

I agree that the 50th Division should go with W.S.8,
and that that convoy should have additional ships
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provided to make sure that none of the essentials, apart
from the 50th Division, which is to go in its integrity, are
cut out. Let me know what this will involve, in extra
drain on shipping.

(Action this day.) Prime

15.III.41.

Minister to Controller,

Admiralty

Give me a report on the progress of the ships to
carry and disgorge tanks. How many are there? What is
their tonnage? How many tanks can they take in a
flight? When will each one be ready? Where are they
being built? What mark of tank can they carry?

Prime Minister to Foreign

15.III.41.

Office

Being a strong monarchist, I am in principle in favour
of constitutional monarchies as a barrier against dicta-torships, and for many other reasons. It would be a
mistake for Great Britain to try to force her systerns on
other countries, and this would only create prejudice
and opposition. The main policy of the Foreign Office
should however be to view with a benevolent eye
natural movements among the populations of different
countries towards monarchies. Certainly we should not
hinder them, if we cannot help.

Prime Minister to Minister of

21.III.41.

Food

I hope the term “Communal Feeding Centres” is not
going to be adopted. It is an odious expression, suggestive of Communism and the workhouse. I suggest you
call them “British Restaurants.” Everybody associates
the word “restaurant” with a good meal, and they may
as well have the name if they cannot get anything else.

(Action this day.) Prime

21.III.41.

Minister to First Lord and

First Sea Lord

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When I was at the Admiralty I repeatedly asked that
more attention should be paid to the development of
fuelling at sea. Now we find the German battle-cruisers
are able to remain out for many weeks at a time without
going into any base or harbour to replenish. If they can
refuel at sea, it is a scandal that we cannot do so.

Again and again our ships have to be called off promising hunts in order to go back to fuel, six or seven
hundred miles away. The argument that the Germans
can send their tankers where they know they will find
them, when we never know what is going to happen,
being on the defensive and not having the initiative,
does not appeal to me. Arrangements should be made
to have a few tankers in suitable positions off the usual
routes, so that if our ships are operating as they are
now they could call one of these up and make a rendezvous. The neglect of this principle of fuelling at sea
is a grievous drag on the power of the Fleet. It is the
duty of the Admiralty to solve the problem.

2. Even more painful is the fact that we are not
apparently able to fuel our destroyers in the comparatively calm waters off the African coast. The spectacle
of this big convoy now coming up from Sierra Leone
having one or two ships sunk every day by a trailing U-boat, and now the battleship escort herself also being
torpedoed, is most painful. Nothing can be more like