The Grand Alliance (164 page)

“(2) I am requested to beg of you most earnestly to
take these instructions into account. Good-will on your
part on this occasion will make the best impression.

“(3) Failure to meet this, the first wish expressed by
my Government so soon after my return, would have an
unfortunate influence on my future actions.”

This must be considered in relation to the formal
request for armistice with which you have already been
acquainted. We propose replying to the agent for
Pétain and Huntziger to the effect that:
(1) England has no interest in Syria except to win
the war.

(2) Arab independence is a first essential and
nothing must conflict with that.

(3) De Gaulle must naturally in the circumstances
represent French interests in Syria in the interim. He
will thus keep alive the fact that, without prejudice to
Arab independence, France will have the dominant
privileged position in Syria among all European nations.

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(4) Everything must be done to soften (adoucir) the
relations between the de Gaulle and French adherents
in the meanwhile. We are all committed to Arab independence, but we think that France could aim at having
in Syria after the war the same sort of position as we
had established between the wars in Iraq.

(5) Don’t forget that when we win, as we shall, we
shall not tolerate any separation of Alsace-Lorraine or
of any French colony from France. So try your best to
feel your way through the detestable difficulties by
which we are both at present afflicted.

Prime Minister to General

10.VII.41.

Ismay

In future the expression “landing” will be applied
exclusively to landings from the sea. All arrivals from
the air will be described as “descents,” and this termi-nology will rule throughout official correspondence.

PARACHUTE EXERCISE

Prime Minister to

10.VII.41.

Commander-in-Chief Home

Forces, and to General

Ismay for C.O.S. Committee

It is said that the attack will be made at dawn. This
cannot however imply that all the parachute and glider
troops will arrive simultaneously at dawn. To move as
many as one thousand troop-carrying planes, or their
equivalent, from French, Belgian, and Dutch bases
would occupy several hours – at least four or five, i.e.,
almost all the present hours of darkness. Therefore, as
the journey is short, they would either be arriving in
instalments during the night (in which case zero hour
would probably be 1 A.M.), or if the first ones arrived at
dawn the rest would straggle out during the remaining
hours of daylight. In the latter case they would be cut to
pieces by our fighters. There can be no question of
parachutists arriving in instalments by daylight. It is
noticeable that the Germans have never yet tried these
descents by night. There are very great difficulties in
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finding exact points in which to make low-altitude
descents at night.

The Air Staff must be consulted upon all these vital
problems. It is no good starting staff exercises or
studies of this kind, involving so much dislocation, upon
a basis which is unreal and could not. possibly occur. It
is quite easy to say, “Twelve thousand parachutists
land at dawn. What would you do?” but this statement
is meaningless without a detailed analysis of the
movements which I have indicated.

2. A smaller-scale attack might well be more dangerous. Five hundred desperadoes, coming out of the blue
without the slightest preliminary indication, might
descend by day, or at any rate in the half-light of dawn,
at or near the centre of government. These however
would first be picked up by the R.D.F., and would run
serious risk of interception by night and almost certain
destruction by day. Nevertheless, surprise has such
sovereign virtues in war that the proposition should be
attentively examined. The centres of government and
executive control should at any rate be made reasonably secure against a sudden rush of this kind if upon
examination any probability can be attached to it. The
first hour is the only hour that matters, and the first ten
minutes are the minutes that matter most.

3. I shall be glad if Home Forces will consult with the
Air Staff, and hack me out clear-cut answers to the
above queries and suggestions. Two or three days
should suffice for the study.

Prime Minister to

10.VII.41.

Commander-in-Chief Home

Forces, and to General

Ismay for C.O.S. Committee

How do we stand at present on the strategic and
tactical camouflaging of defences against enemy
attacks on airfields? What body is studying the lessons
of Maleme and the batteries thereabouts?

Obviously action proceeds on two lines, namely: (a)
The concealment of the real guns and deceitful presentation of the dummy guns. There might well be two or
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three dummy guns, or even more, for every real gun.

(b) The best of all camouflage is a confusing variety of
positions made in which no one can tell the real from
the sham.

The tactics of holding fire from particular batteries
during the early phases of an attack are no doubt also
being studied.

Pray let me have a report by Saturday next.

Prime Minister to Sir Edward

11.VII.41.

Bridges

Take the Hansards of the two days’ production
debate, and have all the passages which affect particular departments extracted and sent to the departments
concerned with a request for their answers by July 19.

Also pick out any passages which affect the central
direction of the war and let me have them.

It seems to me there were a lot of very good points
made.

Prime Minister to Secretary

11.VII.41.

of State for Air

Although radio beam bombing was neutralised last
winter by our interference, it seems that the enemy is re-equipping his whole bomber force with improved radio
receivers, and hopes to overwhelm our counter-measures next winter by the multiplicity of his beam
stations.

No radio methods can of course prevent his finding
and bombing targets like Coventry and Birmingham on
fine moonlight nights. But it is on these that our normal
night defence should be most effective. It is the dark,
cloudy nights that will be our main danger, and we
should make every preparation to deal with the enemy
beams, whose positions and wave-lengths we now
know.

I am informed that the equipment needed is not very
remote from that used in ordinary commercial practice,
so that it should be possible to obtain it from America
even if it cannot be manufactured here. Everything
should be ready by the autumn. Pray let me know what
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the position is and what measures are in hand to
counter enemy developments.

Prime Minister to Minister of

12.VII.41.

Food

I am pleased to learn that the amount of food

“requisitioned” in U.S.A. is now far above the figure
quoted in your May report. I understand that the programme of our full requirements is much higher than
the amount “requisitioned” so far. I am sure that, given
sufficient warning, America can and will produce or in
some way provide a very large quantity of the
foodstuffs we need so badly. If we can import them on
the short haul, shipping for almost all we require should
be available.

The only point in doubt is whether you have asked
for sufficient pork. America would find it difficult to
provide us with beef or mutton, but pork supplies can
be rapidly expanded, and if necessary imported in non-refrigerated tonnage.

(Action this day.) Prime

12.VII.41.

Minister to Ministry of

Aircraft Production, Sir

Charles Craven, Secretary

of State for Air, C.A.S.

(General Ismay to

implement or report

progress in one week), and

Lord Cherwell

I was deeply concerned at the new programmes of
M.A.P., which show a static condition for the next
twelve or eighteen months in the numbers of aircraft.

No doubt new production would be bent on in the later
phase. I asked that these figures should be subjected
to the test of man-hours involved in each type of
machine. This certainly shows an improvement of about
fifty per cent in the British field by the twelfth month
from now. The American figures improve the calculation
both from the number of aircraft and the man-hours
standpoint, and one might almost say that the output
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for July, 1942, would be to the present output as 1 to
1.75.

2. I cannot feel that this is enough. Our estimate of
German monthly production by numbers is twenty-one
hundred, which is the numerical level at which we stand
up till July, 1942, and indeed thereafter, apart from new
projects. We must assume that the Germans also
would derive comfort from translating their numbers of
aircraft into the man-hours. They may or they may not
be making a similar expansion in size and quality.

Broadly, from the figures put before me, the impression
would be one of equality for the next twelve months, so
far as British and German construction is concerned,
leaving any increase to be supplied by our share of
United States production. Moreover, this takes no count
of M.A.P.’s caveat that their estimates may be reduced
by fifteen per cent.

3. We cannot be content with the above situation,
which excludes all possibility of decisive predominance
indispensable for victory. I wish therefore these programmes to be re-examined, and the following three
methods of expansion, together with any others suggested, to be explored by the highest authorities
concerned. The three methods are: (a) An improvment
in the existing figures by speeding up and working the
machine tools longer, or by any other measures taken
in the sphere of M.A.P. production, (b) By the construction of new factories and assembling plants, or by the
reoccupation or full occupation of plants vacated for the
sake of dispersion. This may well be justified in view of
our increasing command of the British air by day and
the improvement in night-fighting devices, (c) By a
reclassification of the bomber programme so as to
secure a larger delivery from well-tried types in that
period.

Fighter aircraft must continually strive for mastery,
and rapid changes of design may be imperative. But a
large proportion of the bomber force will in the next
twelve months be employed under steady conditions
and within ranges which are moderate. While all
bombers required for long-distance or great heights or
daylight action must be the subject of intensive im-The Grand Alliance

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provement, a large proportion of the bombing force will
be carrying their nightly load to, say, the Ruhr or other
near-by targets. It would seem that the Air Staff could
divide their activities into near and far, and that on this
basis some good lines of production, which have not
yet reached their maximum, could be given a longer run
at the peak, with very definite addition to numbers. This
would, for instance, seem to apply to the Blackpool
Wellington, which is a new supply, reaching its peak in
November, but only running for six months at that level.