Their Finest Hour (75 page)

M
AY
– D
ECEMBER
, 1940

Prime Minister to General Ismay, for those concerned.

18.V.40.

The proximity fuze and the necessary rocket projectors have hitherto been treated as important protection for ships, but even larger numbers will be needed, even some perhaps more urgently, for the protection of aircraft factories and other exceptionally important points. What is being done about this? Let proposals be made tomorrow for setting up the necessary manufacture. Are any modifications in the design of the projectors necessary? The Director of Naval Ordnance (D.N.O.) can go on with the ship side of the business, but be careful no hold-up takes place in the supply for the vulnerable points ashore. Report tomorrow night what organisation or measures are required to procure this production.

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for the Colonies .

23.V.40

I am in full agreement with the answer you propose to Wedgwood’s
^l
Questions, and 1 do not want Jewish forces raised to serve outside Palestine. The main and almost the sole aim in Palestine at the present time is to liberate the eleven battalions of excellent Regular troops who are now tethered there. For this purpose the Jews should be armed in their own defence, and properly organised as speedily as possible. We can always prevent them from attacking the Arabs by our sea-power, which thus them off from the outer world, and by other friendly influences. On the other hand, we cannot leave them unarmed when our troops leave, as leave they must at a very early date.

Prime Minister to Minister of Aircraft Production.

24.V.40.

I should be much obliged if you would have a talk with Lindemann, so as to get at some agreed figures upon aircraft outputs, both recent and prospective. I have for a long time been convinced that the Air Ministry do not make enough of the deliveries with which they are supplied, and Lindemann is obtaining for me returns of all aircraft in their hands, so that one can see what use is made of them.

It is of the highest importance that all aircraft in storage and reserve should not only be made available for service, but that these should be organised in squadrons with their pilots. Now that the war is coming so close, the object must be to prepare the largest number of aircraft, even, as you said, training and civil aircraft, to carry bombs to enemy aerodromes on the Dutch, Belgian, and French coasts. I must get a full view of the figures, both of delivery and employment, and this can be kept up to date weekly.

Prime Minister to Professor Lindemann.

24.V.40.

Let me have on one sheet of paper a statement about the tanks. How many have we got with the Army? How many of each kind are being made each month? How many are there with the manufacturers? What are the forecasts? What are the plans for heavier tanks?

NOTE.
– The present form of warfare, and the proof that tanks can overrun fortifications, will affect the plans for the “Cultivator,” and it seems very likely that only a reduced number will be required.

 

Prime Minister to Sir Edward Bridges.

24.V.40.

I am sure there are far too many committees of one kind and another which Ministers have to attend, and which do not yield a sufficient result. These should be reduced by suppression or amalgamation. Secondly, an effort should be made to reduce the returns with which the Cabinet is oppressed to a smaller compass and smaller number. Pray let proposals be made by the Cabinet Office Staff for effecting these simplifications.

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Air.

27.V.40.

In your communiqué today you distinguish in several cases between enemy aircraft “put out of action” or “destroyed.” Is there any real difference between the two, or is it simply to avoid tautology? If so, this is not in accordance with the best authorities on English. Sense should not be sacrificed to sound.

2. Will you also report today whether you would like the weather to be clear or cloudy for the operations on the Belgian coast.

Prime Minister to General Ismay and C.I.G.S.

29.V.40.

The change which has come over the war affects decisively the usefulness of “Cultivator Number 6.” It may play its part in various operations, defensive and offensive, but it can no longer be considered the only method of breaking a fortified line. I suggest that the Minister of Supply should today be instructed to reduce the scheme by one-half. Probably in a few days it will be to one-quarter. The spare available capacity could be turned over to tanks. If the Germans can make tanks in nine months, surely we can do so. Let me have your general proposals for the priority construction of an additional thousand tanks capable of engaging the improved enemy pattern likely to be working in 1941.

There should also be formed, if it does not already exist, an anti-tank committee to study and devise all methods of attacking the latest German tanks. Pray let me have suggested list of names.

Prime Minister to Sir Edward Bridges.

3.VI.40.

Has anything been done about shipping twenty thousand internees to Newfoundland or St. Helena? Is this one of the matters that the Lord President has in hand? If so would you please ask him about it. I should like to get them on the high seas as soon as possible, but I suppose considerable arrangements have to be made at the other end. Is it all going forward?

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Air.

3.VI.40.

The Cabinet were distressed to hear from you that you were now running short of pilots for fighters, and that they had now become the limiting factor.

This is the first time that this particular admission of failure has been made by the Air Ministry. We know that immense masses of aircraft are devoted to the making of pilots, far beyond the proportion adopted by the Germans. We heard some months ago of many thousands of pilots for whom the Air Ministry declared they had no machines, and who consequently had to be “re-mustered”: as many as seven thousand were mentioned, all of whom had done many more hours of flying than those done by German pilots now frequently captured. How then, therefore, is this new shortage to be explained?

Lord Beaverbrook has made a surprising improvement in the supply and repair of airplanes, and in clearing up the muddle and scandal of the aircraft production branch, I greatly hope that you will be able to do as much on the personnel side, for it will indeed be lamentable if we have machines standing idle for want of pilots to fly them.

Prime Minister to Professor Lindemann.

3.VI.40.

You are not presenting me as I should like every few days, or every week, with a short, clear statement of the falling-of or improvement in munitions production. I am not able to form a clear view unless you do this.

Prime Minister to Professor Lindemann.

3.VI.40.

See attached paper [Production Programmes: Memorandum by Chiefs of Staff], which seems to contain a lot of loose thinking. Evidently we must “pull forward” everything that can be made effective in the next five months, and accept the consequent retardation of later production, but there is no reason whatever to alter, so far as I can see, the existing approved schemes for a three years’ war. Indeed, they will be more necessary than ever if France drops out.

Pray let me have your views.

Prime Minister to Professor Lindemann. (Secret.)

7.VI.40.

I am much grieved to hear of the further delay in the proximity fuze (P.F.).

Considering the enormous importance of this, and the directions I have given that all possible pressure should be put behind it, it would surely have been right to have two or three firms simultaneously making the experimental pattern, so that if one failed the other could go on.

Please report to me what has been done.

You have not given me yet either a full statement of the production which is already ordered in rockets for the proximity fuze and in rockets for the ordinary fuze before we get the P.F.

It is of the utmost importance that you should go forward with the stabilising bomb-sight, as we must knock out their aircraft factories at the same rate that they affect ours. If you will gather together
(a
) all the people interested in the P.F. and
(b)
all those interested in the stabilised bomb-sight, I will next week receive their reports and urge them on.

Prime Minister to Minister of Aircraft Production.

11.VI.40.

It was decided on December 22 at a conference on bomb-sight design that urgent action should be taken to convert two thousand six hundred A.B.s, Mark II, into stabilised high altitude bomb-sights, over ninety percent of the drawings then being completed. Please let me know exactly what followed. How is it that only one bomb-sight was converted? I should be very glad if you would look at the files and ascertain who was responsible for stifling action.

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Air and C.A.S.

11.VI.40.

This report
²
is most interesting, and I shall be glad if you will arrange to use the squadron you mentioned yesterday for the purpose of infecting the reaches mentioned, where the traffic is reported to be so heavy. We do not need to ask the French permission for this, but only for the continuous streaming of the naval fluvials. This I am doing. Meanwhile you should act as soon as you can on the lower reaches. Kindly report what you will do.

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for the Colonies.

16.VI.40.

Have you considered the advisability of raising a West Indies Regiment? It might have three battalions strongly officered by British officers, and be representative of most of the islands; to be available for Imperial Service; to give an outlet for the loyalty of the natives, and bring money into these poor islands.

At present we are short of weapons, but these will come along.

Prime Minister to First Lord of the Admiralty.

17.VI.40.

I am content with your proposed disposition of the heavy ships in the West, namely,
Repulse
and
Renown
to maintain the blockade at Scapa;
Rodney, Nelson,
and
Valiant
at Rosyth to cover the island;
Hood
and
Ark Royal
to join
Resolution
at Gibraltar, to watch over the fate of the French Fleet.

It is of the utmost importance that the fleet at Alexandria should remain to cover Egypt from an Italian invasion which would otherwise destroy prematurely all our position in the East. This fleet is well placed to sustain our interests in Turkey, to guard Egypt and the Canal, and can if the situation changes either fight its way westward or go through the Canal to guard the Empire or come round the Cape onto our trade routes.

The position of the Eastern fleet must be constantly watched, and can be reviewed when we know what happens to the French Fleet and whether Spain declares war or not.

Even if Spain declares war it does not follow that we should quit the Eastern Mediterranean. If we have to quit Gibraltar, we must immediately take the Canaries, which will serve as a very good base to control the western entrance to the Mediterranean.

Prime Minister to Minister of Home Security.

20.VI.40.

I understand that it was settled last Saturday that your department was to take on the executive control of smoke as a means of hiding factories and similar industrial targets. I should be glad to know whom you have put in charge of this work, which I regard as of the highest importance, and what progress he has made.

Prime Minister to Admiralty..

23.VI.40.

I do not think it would be a good thing to keep
Hood
and
Ark Royal
lolling about in Gibraltar Harbour, where they might be bombed at any time from the shore.

Surely when they have fuelled they should go to sea, and come back only unexpectedly and for short visits.

What is being done?