The Grand Alliance (24 page)

Minister

to

9 March 41

Mr. Eden, Cairo

I entirely agree with all your handling of the Balkan
telegrams. There seems still a chance of Yugoslavia
coming in, and more than a chance of her keeping the
door shut.

2. While you are on the spot you should deal faithfully with Egyptian Prime Minister, Farouk, and anyone
else about our security requirements. It is intolerable
that Rumanian Legation should become a nest of Hun
spies, or that the Canal Zone should be infested by
enemy agents. I am relying on you to put a stop to all
this ill-usage we are receiving at the hands of those we
have saved.

3. Will you tell Smuts how glad I should be if now he
is so near he could come and do a month’s work in the
War Cabinet as of old.

4. Do not overlook those parts of your instructions
dealing with the economy of the Middle East armies.

Am relying on you to clean this up, and to make sure
that every man pulls his weight. A few days might well
be devoted to this.

Meanwhile New Zealand made a fine response to our request for her division.

The Grand Alliance

148

Prime Minister to

12 March 41

Prime Minister of

New Zealand

We are deeply moved by your reply, which,
whatever the fortunes of war may be, will shine in the
history of New Zealand and be admired by future
generations of free men in every quarter of the globe.

To make good the request and assumption at the
end of your message shall be our faithful, unremitting
endeavour.

Prime Minister to

14 March 41

Mr. Eden, Cairo

I have come to the conclusion that it is better for you
to stay in Middle East until the opening phase of this
crisis has matured. Your instructions give you the
means of concerting the political and military action of
all the factors involved. The attitude of Yugoslavia is
still by no means hopeless, and a situation may at any
moment arise which would enable you to go there.

Turkey requires stimulus and guidance as events
develop. No one but you can combine and concert the
momentous policy which you have pressed upon us
and which we have adopted. The War Cabinet needs a
representative on the spot, and I need you there very
much indeed.

2. I saw Sikorski this morning and asked for the
Polish Brigade. He agreed in the most manly fashion,
but he asked that this Brigade, which was one of the
few remaining embodiments of Polish nationality,
should not be lightly cast away or left to its fate. I
promised full equipment and no greater risks than
would be run by own flesh and blood. He said, “You
have millions of soldiers; we have only these few units.”

I hope you appreciate what we are asking of these
valiant strangers, and that General Wavell will have this
in his mind always.

3. I feel very much the fact that we are not using a
single British division. I am arranging to send the 50th
The Grand Alliance

149

Division with Convoy W.S. 8, leaving April 22. A special
convoy would only have saved a week, and we cannot
afford the extra escort.

4. We have not been told by Wavell whether Glens
3

got through Canal, but presume this will be regarded as
urgent in the highest degree. A source of which you are
aware shows that preparations are being made to
withdraw German personnel from Rhodes in expectation of its British occupation. You ought not to be easily
contented with delaying Rhodes indefinitely. We need
to take it at earliest moment, and thereafter we need
the 6th British Division, whether things go well or ill. We
must not be reproached with hazarding only other
people’s troops. You ought to press hard and long for
taking Rhodes before the end of this month.

5. Can you tell me why Papagos does not draw
three or four divisions from Albania to strengthen his
right front? Recent check which Italians are said to
have received and fact that German advance has not
yet begun may still give time for this. Present strategic
layout of Greek Army looks to me most dangerous.

Papagos must have good reasons, and if you have
learned them pray let me know.

6. Of course, if Yugoslavia came in this would justify
Greek strength in Albania. But this is not yet known.

Presume you and Dill have studied carefully possibilities of a Yugoslav attack on Italians in Albania. Here
they might win victory of the first order, and at the same
time gain the vast mass of the equipment they need to
preserve their independence and can never find elsewhere in time.

7. Do not let Lemnos be picked up by the Germans
as an air base for nothing.

8. It seems right to obtain a decision at Keren before
withdrawing air squadrons you have thereabouts.

9. Your message containing Longmore’s complaints
overlooks what is on the way.

After giving the details of these air reinforcements I added: The fact that Longmore thinks you ought to come home via Lagos, in which view Portal concurs, is final The Grand Alliance

150

reason for my wish for you and Dill to remain on scene.

For otherwise, apart from larger considerations in my paragraph 1, you will both be out of action at either end during a most critical seven days. Everything is going quietly here, and we have begun to claw the Huns down in the moonlight to some purpose. God bless you all.

I thought it right to inform President Roosevelt of our plans in a message which may well end this anxious chapter.

Former

Naval

10 March 41

Person

to

President

Roosevelt

I must now tell you what we have resolved about
Greece. Although it was no doubt tempting to try to
push on from Benghazi to Tripoli, and we may still use
considerable forces in this direction, we have felt it our
duty to stand with the Greeks, who have declared to us
their resolve, even alone, to resist the German invader.

Our Generals Wavell and Dill, who accompanied Mr.

Eden to Cairo, after heart-searching discussions with
us, believe we have a good fighting chance. We are
therefore sending the greater part of the Army of the
Nile to Greece, and are reinforcing to the utmost
possible in the air. Smuts is sending the South Africans
to the Delta. Mr. President, you can judge these
hazards for yourself.

At this juncture the action of Yugoslavia is cardinal.

No country ever had such a military chance. If they will
fall on the Italian rear in Albania there is no measuring
what might happen in a few weeks. The whole situation
might be transformed, and the action of Turkey also
decided in our favour. One has the feeling that Russia,
though actuated mainly by fear, might at least give
some reassurance to Turkey about not pressing her in
the Caucasus or turning against her in the Black Sea. I
need scarcely say that the concerted influence of your
Ambassadors in Turkey, Russia, and above all in
The Grand Alliance

151

Yugoslavia, would be of enormous value at the
moment, and indeed might possibly turn the scales.

In this connection I must thank you for magnificent
work done by Donovan in his prolonged tour of Balkans
and Middle East. He has carried with him throughout an
animating, heart-warming flame.

The Grand Alliance

152

7

The Battle of the Atlantic, 1941

The Western Approaches

A Supreme Anxiety
—
Combination of U-Boats
and Aircraft
—
Strain on the Western Approaches

—
Our Counter-Measures — A Struggle to
Breathe — Landed Cargoes Drop by Half —

Damage to Shipping and Congestion at the Ports

— Formation of the Import Executive, January
—

The Work of the Lord President’s Committee
—

My Minute of January
28
— And of February
22
—

Move of the Command of the Western Approaches from Plymouth to Liverpool, February
17
—

Storm Havoc Among Our Older Ships
—
Hitler’s
Menace of January
30
— The Admiralty Salvage
Organisation
—
Sorties by German Cruisers
—

The “Scheer” in the South Atlantic
—
The “Scharnhorst” and “Gneisenau” Break Out
—
Eighty
Thousand Tons of Shipping Sunk in Two Days,
March
15-16
— Raiders Take Refuge in Brest,
March
22
— Hitler’s Error
—
The Battle of the
Atlantic
—
The Battle of the Atlantic Committee
—

My Directive of March
6
— The U-Boats in “Wolf-Packs”
—
Tactical Problems — Help from the
United States, March
11
— Passing of the Lend-Lease Bill
—
The Imports Budget, March
26
—

Close Relations with the United States — The
The Grand Alliance

153

“Dunkerque” Incident
—
Pressure by President
Roosevelt on Vichy.

A
MID THE TORRENT of violent events one anxiety reigned supreme. Battles might be won or lost, enterprises might succeed or miscarry, territories might be gained or quitted, but dominating all our power to carry on the war, or even keep ourselves alive, lay our mastery of the ocean routes and the free approach and entry to our ports. I have described in the previous volume the perils which the German occupation of the coast of Europe from the North Cape to the Pyrenees brought upon us. From any port or inlet along this enormous front the hostile U-boats, constantly improving in speed, endurance, and radius, could sally forth to destroy our sea-borne food and trade.

Their numbers grew steadily. In the first quarter of 1941

production of new craft was at the rate of ten a month –

soon afterward increased to eighteen a month. These included the so-called 500-ton and 740-ton types, the first with a cruising range of 11,000 miles and the latter of 15,000 miles.

To the U-boat scourge was now added air attack far out on the ocean by long-range aircraft. Of these the Focke-Wulf 200, known as the Condor, was the most formidable, though happily at the beginning there were few of them.

They could start from Brest or Bordeaux, fly right round the British Island, refuel in Norway, and then make a return journey next day. On their way they would see far below them the very large convoys of forty or fifty ships to which scarcity of escort had forced us to resort, moving inward or outward on their voyages. They could attack these convoys, or individual ships, with destructive bombs, or they could signal the positions to which the waiting U-boats should be directed in order to make interceptions. Already in The Grand Alliance

154

December we had begun preparations for the desperate expedient of an underwater dynamite carpet from the mouths of the Mersey and the Clyde to the hundred-fathom line northwest of Ireland.
1