Their Finest Hour (71 page)

Every day when they met those few who knew looked at one another. One understands the diver deep below the surface of the sea, dependent from minute to minute upon his air-pipe. What would he feel if he could see a growing shoal of sharks biting at it? All the more when there was no possibility of his being hauled to the surface! For us there was no surface. The diver was forty-six millions of people in an overcrowded island, carrying on a vast business of war all over the world, anchored by nature and gravity to the bottom of the sea. What could the sharks do to his air-pipe? How could he ward them off or destroy them?

As early as the beginning of August, I had been convinced that it would be impossible to control the western approaches through the Mersey and Clyde from the Command at Plymouth.

Prime Minister to First Lord and First Sea Lord.

4.VIII.40.

The repeated severe losses in the northwestern approaches are most grievous, and I wish to feel assured that they are being grappled with with the same intense energy that marked the Admiralty treatment of the magnetic mine. There seems to have been a great falling-off in the control of these approaches. No doubt this is largely due to the shortage of destroyers through invasion precautions. Let me know at once the whole outfit of destroyers, corvettes, and Asdic trawlers, together with aircraft available and employed in this area. Who is in charge of their operations? Are they being controlled from Plymouth and Admiral Nasmith’s staff? Now that you have shifted the entry from the south to the north, the question arises, Is Plymouth the right place for the Command? Ought not a new Command of the first order to be created in the Clyde, or should Admiral Nasmith [C.-in-C. at Plymouth] move thither? Anyhow, we cannot go on like this. How is the southern minefield barrage getting on? Would it not be possible after a while to ring the changes upon it for a short time and bring some convoys in through the gap which has been left? This is only a passing suggestion.

There were always increased dangers to be apprehended from using only one set of approaches. These dangers cannot be surmounted unless the protective concentration is carried out with vigour superior to that which must be expected from the enemy. He will soon learn to put everything there. It is rather like the early days in the Moray Firth after the east coast minefield was laid. I am confident the Admiralty will rise to the occasion, but evidently a great new impulse is needed. Pray let me hear from you.

I encountered resistances. The Admiralty accepted my view in September of moving from Plymouth to the North, rightly substituting the Mersey for the Clyde. But several months elapsed before the necessary headquarters organisation, with its operation rooms and elaborate network of communications, could be brought into being, and in the meantime much improvisation was necessary. The new Command was entrusted to Admiral Sir Percy Noble, who, with a large and ever-growing staff, was installed at Liverpool in February, 1941. Hence-forward this became almost our most important station. The need and advantage of the change was by then recognised by all.

Towards the end of 1940 I became increasingly concerned about the ominous fall in imports. This was another aspect of the U-boat attack. Not only did we lose ships, but the precautions we took to avoid losing them impaired the whole flow of merchant traffic. The few harbours on which we could now rely became congested. The turn-round of all vessels as well as their voyages was lengthened. Imports were the final test. In the week ending June 8, during the height of the battle in France, we had brought into the country 1,201,535 tons of cargo, exclusive of oil. From this peak figure imports had declined at the end of July to less than 750,000 tons a week. Although substantial improvement was made in August, the weekly average again fell, and for the last three months of the year was little more than 800,000 tons.

Prime Minister to First Lord and First Sea Lord.

3.XII.40.

The new disaster which has overtaken the Halifax convoy requires precise examination. We heard about a week ago that as many as thirteen U-boats were lying in wait on these approaches. Would it not have been well to divert the convoy to the Minches? Would this not have been even more desirable when owing to bad weather the outward-bound convoys were delayed, and consequently the escort for the inward-bound could not reach the dangerous area in time?

Prime Minister to Chancellor of the Exchequer.

5.XII.40.

Pray convene a meeting to discuss the measures to be taken to reduce the burden on our shipping and finances in consequence of the heavy sinkings off the Irish coast and our inability to use the Irish ports. The following Ministers should be summoned: Trade, Shipping, Agriculture, Food, Dominions. Assuming there is agreement on principle, a general plan should be made for acting as soon as possible, together with a time-table and programme of procedure. It is not necessary to consider either the Foreign Affairs or the Defence aspect at this stage. These will have to be dealt with later. The first step essential is to have a good workable scheme, with as much in it as possible that does not hit us worse than it does the others.

Prime Minister to Minister of Transport.

13.XII.40.

I am obliged to you for your note of December 3 on steel, and I hope that you are pushing forward with the necessary measures to give effect to your proposals.

In present circumstances it seems to me intolerable that firms should hold wagons up by delaying to unload them, and action should certainly be taken to prevent this.

A sample shows that the average time taken by non-tanker cargo ships to turn round at Liverpool rose from twelve and a half days in February to fifteen days in July and nineteen and a half in October. At Bristol the increase was from nine and a half to fourteen and a half days, but at Glasgow the time remained steady at twelve days. To improve this seems one of the most important aspects of the whole situation.

Prime Minister to Minister of Transport.

13.XII.40.

I see that oil imports during September and October were only half what they were in May and June, and covered only two-thirds of our consumption. I understand that there is no shortage of tankers, that the fall is the result of the partial closing of the south and east coast to tankers, and that a large number had to be temporarily laid up in the Clyde and others held at Halifax, Nova Scotia. More recently some tankers have been sent to the south and east coasts, and oil imports increased during November.

From the reply your predecessor
³
made to my Minute of August 26, I gathered that he was satisfied with the preparations in hand for the importation of oil through the west coast ports. His expectations do not appear to have been fulfilled.

There are two policies which can be followed to meet this situation. We can either expose oil tankers to additional risk by bringing them to south and east coast ports, and thus increase our current imports; or we can continue to draw upon our stocks, relying upon being able to replenish them from the west coast ports when arrangements have been completed for the handling of the cargoes, and accepting the resulting inconvenience. I should be glad if you would consider, in consultation with the First Lord, to what extent each of these two policies should be followed.

I am sending a copy of this letter to the First Lord.

Prime Minister to First Lord.

14.XII.40.

Let me have a full account of the condition of the American destroyers, showing their many defects and the little use we have been able to make of them so far. I should like to have the paper by me for consideration in the near future.

Prime Minister to First Lord and First Sea Lord.

27.XII.40.

What have you done about catapulting expendable aircraft from ships in outgoing convoys? I have heard of a plan to catapult them from tankers, of which there are nearly always some in each convoy. They then attack the Focke-Wulf and land in the sea, where the pilot is picked up, and machines salved or not as convenient.

How is this plan viewed?

As we shall see in the next volume, this project was fruitful. Ships equipped for catapulting fighter aircraft to attack the Focke-Wulf were developed early in 1941.

Prime Minister to Minister of Transport.

27.XII.40.

It is said that two-fifths of the decline in the fertility of our shipping is due to the loss of time in turning round ships in British ports. Now that we are confined so largely to the Mersey and the Clyde, and must expect increasingly severe attacks upon them, it would seem that this problem constitutes the most dangerous part of the whole of our front.

Would you kindly give me a note on:

a.
The facts.

b.
What you are doing, and what you propose to do.

c.
How you can be helped.

Prime Minister to First Lord.

29.XII.40.

These [U-boat decoy ships]
⁴
have been a great disappointment so far this war. The question of their alternative uses ought to be considered by the Admiralty. I expect they have a large number of skilled ratings on board. Could I have a list of these ships, their tonnage, speeds, etc. Could they not carry troops or stores while plying on their routes?

* * * * *

My indignation at the denial of the Southern Irish ports mounted under these pressures.

* * * * *

Prime Minister to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

1.XII.40.

The straits to which we are being reduced by Irish action compel a reconsideration of these subsidies [to Ireland]. It can hardly be argued that we can go on paying them till our last gasp. Surely we ought to use this money to build more ships or buy more from the United States in view of the heavy sinkings off the Bloody Foreland.

Pray let me know how these subsidies could be terminated, and what retaliatory measures could be taken in the financial sphere by the Irish, observing that we are not afraid of their cutting off our food, as it would save us the enormous mass of fertilisers and feeding-stuffs we have to carry into Ireland through the De Valera-aided German blockade. Do not assemble all the pros and cons for the moment, but show what we could do financially and what would happen. I should be glad to know about this tomorrow.

Prime Minister to General Ismay, for C.O.S. Committee.

3.XII.40.

I gave you and each of the C.O.S. a copy of the Irish paper. The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s comments are also favourable, and there is no doubt subsidies can be withdrawn at very short notice.

We must now consider the military reaction. Suppose they invited the Germans into their ports, they would divide their people, and we should endeavour to stop the Germans. They would seek to be neutral and would bring the war upon themselves. If they withdrew the various cable and watching facilities they have, what would this amount to, observing that we could suspend all connections between England and Southern Ireland? Suppose they let German U-boats come in to refresh in west coast ports of Ireland, would this be serious, observing that U-boats have a radius of nearly thirty days, and that the limiting factor is desire of crews to get home and need of refit, rather than need of refuelling and provisioning? Pray let me have your observations on these and other points which may occur to you.

I thought it well to try to bring the President along in this policy.

Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt.

13. XII.40.

North Atlantic transport remains the prime anxiety. Undoubtedly, Hitler will augment his U-boat and air attack on shipping and operate ever farther into the ocean. Now that we are denied the use of Irish ports and airfields, our difficulties strain our flotillas to the utmost limit. We have so far only been able to bring a very few of your fifty destroyers into action on account of the many defects which they naturally develop when exposed to Atlantic weather after having been laid up so long. I am arranging to have a very full technical account prepared of renovations and improvements that have to be made in the older classes of destroyers to fit them for the present task, and this may be of use to you in regard to your own older flotillas.

In the meanwhile we are so hard pressed at sea that we cannot undertake to carry any longer the 400,000 tons of feeding-stuffs and fertilisers which we have hitherto convoyed to Eire through all the attacks of the enemy. We need this tonnage for our own supply, and we do not need the food which Eire has been sending us. We must now concentrate on essentials, and the Cabinet proposes to let De Valera know that we cannot go on supplying him under present conditions. He will, of course, have plenty of food for his people, but they will not have the prosperous trading they are making now. I am sorry about this, but we must think of our own self-preservation, and use for vital purposes our own tonnage brought in through so many perils. Perhaps this may loosen things up and make him more ready to consider common interests. I should like to know quite privately what your reactions would be if and when we are forced to concentrate our own tonnage upon the supply of Great Britain. We also do not feel able in present circumstances to continue the heavy subsidies we have hitherto been paying to the Irish agricultural producers. You will realise also that our merchant seamen, as well as public opinion generally, take it much amiss that we should have to carry Irish supplies through air and U-boat attacks and subsidise them handsomely when De Valera is quite content to sit happy and see us strangle.