Closing the Ring (99 page)

Prime Minister to Minister of Supply
    9 Mar. 44

I am told that the demand for the new insecticide, D.D.T., is urgent and increasing. Pray let me know what output is to be expected, whether this is completely adequate, and, if not, whether anything can be done to expand and accelerate it. It is most important, especially for the Southeast Asia Command, that ample supplies should be made available at the earliest possible moment.

Please try to get a move on on a large scale.

Prime Minister to President Roosevelt
    10 Mar. 44

I am sending you today by courier an inscription I have had drawn up for Harry about his boy who was killed. It would be very kind of you to have it sent him wherever he is recuperating. How does his operation stand now?

Prime Minister to General Giraud
(
Algiers
)       10 Mar. 44

Pray accept my profound sympathy with you in the death of your daughter, who was captured in Tunisia and carried off into Germany with her four children.

Prime Minister to Mr. Duff Cooper
(
Algiers
)         10 Mar. 44

You may let General de Gaulle know privately that I am much in favour of the Leclerc division fighting with us in the main battle here, and from my talks with General Eisenhower I gather he has the same view. I am therefore working in this sense to overcome the difficulties of transportation, etc., and am pretty confident I shall succeed.

Prime Minister to First Lord and First Sea Lord
    11 Mar. 44

Let me have a short report on the character and quality of the U-boat prisoners now being taken, compared with any other significant period of the war.

Prime Minister to Foreign Secretary
    11 Mar. 44

It seems to me a pity to move Mallet from Stockholm at this critical time I always deprecate military men being moved from employments or commands where they have gained a great mass of special information and are pursuing a definite theme, because of promotion in ordinary Service routine. In wartime the convenience of the State ranks above the careers of individuals. An Ambassador has to be given time to take root. The first year he is probably not much use. The second he begins to function effectively. He is nearly always brought away in the third. Mallet must be in the midst of
all this Stockholm tangle. I am most anxious that Sweden shall eventually come into the war, which I think there is quite a chance of her doing.

Prime Minister to C.I.G.S.
    13 Mar. 44

What is all this about, and what are these troops that are taking part and have lost thirty lives in these vigorous manoeuvres?
⁴
Surely these forces should be brought into battle somewhere or other instead of losing their lives in exercises. How many are engaged?

Prime Minister to Lord President, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Minister of Works and Buildings, and Minister of Health
    14 Mar. 44

General Bedell Smith mentioned to me yesterday the very high and extortionate prices now being charged to American officers over here for flats and small houses. A medium-sized flat, he said, was twenty-eight pounds a week, and the small house that he occupied was thirty-five pounds a week. There is no reason why the Americans should not pay a fair and equitable price for accommodation, which they are quite willing to do, but I do not think extortion or profiteering should be allowed.

I am not certain who deals with this, but would you very kindly give it your attention and let me know, first, about the facts, and, secondly, whether there is any remedy.

Prime Minister to C.A.S. and General Ismay
    18 Mar. 44

What air authority in Italy was responsible for ordering low-level machine-gunning attacks on civilians in the streets? I can quite understand bombing the marshalling yards in Rome, but I trust it was not a British airman who committed the offence here described.

Let me have a special report.

Prime Minister to President Roosevelt
    19 Mar. 44

We have followed Gray’s
⁵
lead in Ireland, and it is early days to start reassuring de Valera. There is not much sense in a doctor telling a patient that the medicine he has just prescribed for his nerve troubles is only coloured water. I think it would be much better to keep them guessing for a while.

2. I do not propose to stop the necessary trade between Britain and Ireland or to prevent anything going into Ireland. I do propose to stop ships going from Ireland to Spain and Portugal and other foreign ports until “Overlord” is launched. One must remember that a ship may start out in one direction and turn off in another. There is no difficulty in stopping ships. The above also applies to outward-bound airplanes, which we shall try to stop by every means in our power. The object of these measures is not spite against the Irish, but preservation of British and American soldiers’ lives and against our plans being
betrayed by emissaries sent by sea or air from the German Minister in Dublin. Since the beginning of 1943 only nineteen Irish ships have left Irish ports, some several times, so the evil is not very great. We are also cutting off telephones and restricting communications to the utmost, and also stopping the Anglo-Irish air line from running. I repeat, all our actions will be taken from motives of self-preservation and none from those of spite.

3. If however the Irish retaliate by doing something which in no way helps them but merely annoys us, such as stopping the Foynes airport facilities, I should feel free to retaliate on their cross-Channel trade. They would have opened a new chapter and economic measures of retaliation would be considered. I would tell you about these before we took them.

4. It seems to me that so far from allaying alarm in de Valera’s circles we should let fear work its healthy process. Thereby we shall get behind the scenes a continued stiffening-up of the Irish measures to prevent leakages which even now are not so bad.

5. I gather that the State Department will probably not disagree with the above, for Mr. Hull says in his message: “I am inclined to believe however that for the time being at least we should not make any statement to the press or commit ourselves to the Irish Government that we have no intention of instituting economic sanctions.” And I hope this may also be your view.

Prime Minister to General Ismay, for C.O.S. Committee
    19 Mar. 44

The difference between a Chief of Staff and a Commander-in-Chief in the field is more apparent than real. Both are office workers. Both may make periodical trips to the front. Both are subject to air raids. Indeed, in many cases the similarity might be extended to Army Group Commanders, and even to Army Commanders. The modern conditions under which the military art is practised nowadays are not at all similar to those of former generations. There is therefore no reason why General Marshall should not receive the Soviet military decoration.

Prime Minister to First Lord and First Sea Lord
    19 Mar. 44

This is a serious disaster. Who were the 1055 drowned? Were they troops outward or homeward bound? British or American?

How is it that in a convoy of this kind more could not be rescued?
⁶

Prime Minister to Director of Military Intelligence
    19 Mar. 44

Why must you write “intensive” here? “Intense” is the right word. You should read Fowler’s
Modern English Usage
on the use of the two words.

Prime Minister to Foreign Secretary
    19 Mar. 44

It seems to me most improvident in time of war to take a man away from a post where he has gained great influence and knowledge and to send him to some entirely different atmosphere where he has to begin all over again. I gather you now propose to move two Ambassadors. Surely we are in an extraordinary period in our lives and history, and procuring the highest service for the public during this crisis should be our only aim.

All the great Ambassadors who have exercised influence have remained long at their posts. Maisky was here for about ten years. Monsieur de Staël, whom I remember as a boy, was a tradition. Soveral [Portuguese Ambassador] was here, I think, for fifteen years or more. I could quote many other examples.

The departmental view is no doubt opposed to long tenures and the doctrine of “Buggins’s turn” is very powerful. I agreed to your moving Sir Noel Charles from Rio because of the very great need there is in Italy for a competent diplomatist. You have yourself told me how many regrets this move has caused in Brazil. I certainly did not expect it would lead to a kind of “general post” among the Ambassadors, each moving into a field about which he knows nothing, and I should greatly deplore this. In my opinion, and I speak from long experience, the natural term of an Ambassador’s mission should be six years, unless he is guilty of incompetence or divergence from the Government’s policy, when, of course, he cannot be recalled too soon.

Prime Minister to Leader of the House and Secretary of State for War
    29 Mar. 44

It seems to me that the Army annual bill should be the occasion for making the following amendments in our present practice: (
a
) It should be made clear that every reasonable facility will be given for serving officers and men of all ranks to be adopted as candidates for constituencies either for by-elections or general elections. (
b
) No serving officers or men of any party, other than Members of Parliament, must take part in political demonstrations or in political agitation. They may attend meetings, but they must not appear on public platforms during the period of their service. (
c
) In the event of a by-election occurring involving a Service candidate, he should be given leave from the issue of his address or other formal opening of his candidature till the declaration of the poll, after which his rights as a Member of Parliament are valid. (
d
) The regulation against Regular officers not being eligible to stand for constituencies must be deemed henceforward to have lapsed till the end of the war, during which period Regulars and “hostilities-only” men will be treated equally. (
e
) Members of Parliament serving with the forces must be free to speak in any constituency and not merely in their own. Will you please concert this together and arrange with the Admiralty and Air Ministry, who must conform.

A
PRIL

Prime Minister to Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd, Secretary for Petroleum
    1 Apr. 44

I was most interested to hear of the successful use of the fog-dispersal equipment at Fiskerton on March 18, when it increased the visibility from two hundred yards to one thousand five hundred yards and enabled five bombers to land safely. I am delighted to know that this equipment is giving so good an account of itself. It is a fine reward to you and your department that your labours have already resulted in the saving of valuable lives and equipment. You have my full support in further developing this project.

Prime Minister to Lord Cherwell
    1 Apr. 44

Pray let me have the figures of our casualties since the beginning of the campaign on the Italian mainland analysed, first of all in relation to the numbers of fighting troops engaged in the theatre, then in relation to the proportions of killed and wounded to missing. It must be remembered that “missing” includes prisoners who give themselves up. The lower the proportion of missing the more creditable.

Prime Minister to General Ismay, for Chiefs of Staff and Vice-Chiefs of Staff
    2 Apr. 44

By all means dispose of the anti-aircraft defences in the United Kingdom as may be necessary to sustain the “Overlord” ports. You are answerable that reasonable, though reduced, security is provided elsewhere. It is quite understood that the British public will take their share of anything that is going.

Prime Minister to General Ismay, for Chiefs of Staff
    2 Apr. 44

I should think we have such good supplies of poison gas now that there could be a definite reduction in the personnel employed by forty per cent, including the ten per cent already accomplished—i.e., thirty per cent more. Let me have your views after consulting with the Ministry of Supply.

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air
    2 Apr. 44

I hear that the new insecticide D.D.T. has proved extremely successful. As it takes some time to produce, it would be well to make sure the demands stated to the Ministry of Supply will really meet all your needs, especially in the Asiatic theatre.

Pray let me know what the position is.
⁷

Prime Minister to Deputy Prime Minister
    2 Apr. 44

I am sure Bedell Smith would not have mentioned the matter to me if the charges were not excessive. Twenty-eight pounds a week for a medium-sized
flat and thirty-five pounds a week for a small house seem outside the bounds of reason. Perhaps these few cases could be examined by Lord Portal himself. Anyhow, if he got into touch with General Bedell Smith, I should have done my bit.
⁸

Prime Minister to Minister of Food
    2 Apr. 44

Good You will gain much credit by stamping on these little trashy prosecutions [against a baker], and also by purging the regulations from petty, meticulous, arrogant officialism, which tends to affect the reputation of a great and successful department.

Prime Minister to Minister of Works
    2 Apr. 44

I agree with all your comments on my paper about Emergency Housing. Pray let me have my print amended to suit them, and then submit the proof in print.

In addition we must have a better word than “prefabricated.” Why not “ready-made”?