The Grand Alliance (150 page)

Labour and National Service

(Copy to Minister of Supply.)

We are very short of ammunition. Production is held
up entirely on account of filling, which in turn is held up
on account of labour. With our present factories we
could increase the ammunition output two-and-a-half-fold by mid-May if we could provide the labour to run
them.

The additional labour required is:
Please inform me what difficulties stand in the way
of providing this labour and what measures are being
taken to overcome them.

Prime Minister to Minister of

20.II.41.

Supply

It is satisfactory that arrangements have now been
made to link the shipping figures more closely to those
on which plans for consumption will be based.

Meanwhile, it appears that the rate of delivery of
steel to consumers during the first five weeks of the
current quarter has been no higher than during the last
three quarters, despite the greater need.

I understand that imports of steel during the last
seven months have been equivalent to 2.3 million
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finished tons and output to 5.1 million finished tons,
while deliveries to consumers have been only 6.1

million finished tons. Would not the position be greatly
relieved if some of this apparent excess of 1.3 million
tons could be made available for consumption?

I see that imports of iron ore continue ahead of
programme, while steel and other commodities lag
behind. This seems strange in view of the shipping
situation.

Prime Minister to Secretary

21.II.41.

for Petroleum

The very low imports of oil previously reported for
the week ended January 11 have remained low,
amounting to only half what they were in January last
year, and covering only half the consumption.

I trust steps are being taken to draw as much oil as
possible from America, thus avoiding the long pull from
the Persian Gulf round the Cape. It should be possible
to arrange with the American producers for their customers in the East to be supplied from the Persian Gulf,
Burma, and the Netherlands East Indies in return for a
corresponding amount of oil being delivered to us,
some arrangement being made to retain good-will.

Prime Minister to Prime

21.II.41.

Minister of Canada

I was delighted to read your speech in the Canadian
House of Commons on February 17. You are quite right
to prepare men’s minds for a coming shock of extreme
severity. It is a comfort to think how much better prepared we are than in the autumn.

Let me also tell you how encouraged everyone here
was by the strong array of facts which you brought
together when broadcasting on February 2. Your ships
and planes are doing great work here. The air-training
scheme is one of the major factors, and possibly the
decisive factor, in the war. Your plans for the Army are
of enormous help. I lunched with McNaughton last
week, and had very good talks with him and his
principal officers about the Canadian Corps. They lie in
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the key positions of our National Defence. The Secretary of State for War, who is with me now, wishes to
endorse all this, and sends his kindest regards.

What a pleasure it is to see the whole Empire pulling
as one man, and believe me, my friend, I understand
the reasons for your success in marshalling the great
war effort of Canada.

Prime Minister to Secretary of
22.II.41.

State for War

The approved scale of the Army is fifty-five divisions
plus one additional South African division, and minus,
in my opinion, three African Colonial divisions; total
tactical divisional units, fifty-three, of which eleven are
to be armoured. I see no reason to alter this target at
the present time.

2. During the next six months only 130,000 men are
required by the Army, and the Minister of Labour is
ready to supply 150,000. Would it not be prudent to
take a decision governing the six months only, and
review the position in four months’ time, when we shall
know more of the scale and character of the fighting?

3. Will you kindly give me your views upon the
Minister of Labour’s paper, and also some notes
prepared for me by Professor Lindemann, which are to
be treated as private. I am very much inclined to a
greater development of armoured divisions than we
have now, but it is not necessary to take a decision at
the present time, as tanks and tank guns, not
personnel, are the bottleneck.

4. You may count on me to sustain the Army in
every possible way, provided I am convinced that it will
comb itself.

Prime Minister to Sir A.

23.II.41.

Cadogan

All this goes to show that we should continue to give
increasing support to General de Gaulle. I cannot
believe that the French nation will give their loyalty to
anyone who reaches the head of the State because he
is thought well of by the Germans. We should reason
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patiently with Washington against giving any food to
unoccupied France or North Africa. For this purpose all
the unsatisfactory feeling about the Vichy-Weygand
scene should be in the hands of our Ambassador in
Washington. I am sure Darlan is an ambitious crook.

His exposure and Weygand’s weakness will both, as
they become apparent, enure to the credit of de Gaulle.

Prime Minister to V.C.I.G.S.

25.II.41.

Let me know what older guns they have in India
now, and how many of each nature. I should like the
new regiments which are forming out there to train on
the twenty-five-pounders, but actually to have available
for local purposes enough of the older unconverted
eighteen-pounders. I presume also that the old regiments of artillery in India not to be included in the
artillery of the four divisions have also got their regular
complements of guns.

Are there any reserves of guns of the older natures
in India?

Prime Minister to General

26.II.41.

Ismay

Let me know the field state and ration strength of the
troops in Malaya and of the garrison at Singapore,
showing what military formations there are.

(Action this day.) Prime

28.II.41.

Minister to First Lord and First
Sea Lord

City of Calcutta, due Lock Ewe March 2, is reported
to be going to Hull, arriving March 9. This ship must on
no account be sent to the East Coast. It contains 1700

machine guns, forty-four aeroplane engines, and no
fewer than 14,000,000 cartridges. These cartridges are
absolutely vital to the defence of Great Britain, which
has been so largely confided by the Navy to the Army
and the Air. That it should be proposed to send such a
ship round to the East Coast, with all the additional risk,
is abominable. I am sending a copy of this minute to the
Minister of Transport.

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Another ship now of great importance is the Euri-ades, due Liverpool March 3. She has over 9,000,000

cartridges.

I shall be glad to receive special reports as to what
will be done about both these ships.

MARCH

Prime Minister to Secretary of
1.III.41.

State for War

I am relieved to hear that the 250,000 rifles and the
50,000,000 rounds of ammunition have arrived safely
with the Canadian troop convoy. When I raised the
point of getting the Admiralty to give up the .303 rifles
and take the American .300 in exchange, it was proposed to me on other papers that a very much larger
and better change was possible by giving the newly
arrived American rifles to the static troops in Great
Britain, thus liberating 250,000 .303’s for the Regular
Army. I presume this will now be done. On the last
occasion when we got the American rifles across we
made a regular evolution of it, and had special trains
waiting, and the like. I now hope you will make a rapid
evolution of this new windfall, so that the weapons are
in the hands of those who need them at the earliest
moment.

Perhaps you will let me know what arrangements
are being made.

Prime Minister to Secretary of
I.III.41.

State for the Colonies

General Wavell, like most British military officers, is
strongly pro-Arab. At the time of the licences to the
shipwrecked illegal immigrants being permitted, he sent
a telegram not less strong than this, predicting
widespread disaster in the Arab world, together with the
loss of the Basra-Bagdad-Haifa route. The telegram
should be looked up, and also my answer, in which I
overruled the General and explained to him the reasons
for the Cabinet decision. All went well, and not a dog
barked.

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It follows from the above that I am not in the least
convinced by all this stuff. The Arabs, under the impression of recent victories, would not make any trouble
now. However, in view of the “Lustre” [Greek] policy I
do not wish General Wavell to be worried now by
lengthy arguments about matters of no military consequence to the immediate situation. Therefore, Doctor
Weizmann should be told that the Jewish Army project
must be put off for six months, but may be reconsidered
again in four months. The sole reason given should be
lack of equipment.

Prime Minister to Minister of

7.III.41.

Home Security, Minister of

Information, and Secretary of

State for Air

For the last two months there has been a great
decline in air raids, and I do not see why the carefully
considered method by which we got through the period
July-November, inclusive, should be now cast aside. I
am not aware of any “depressing effect” produced upon
the public morale, and as a matter of fact I thought they
were settling down very well to the job. I should therefore, as at present advised, strongly deprecate change
in the practice which has carried us through a very
severe (and now perhaps discarded) indiscriminate
attack upon the civil population. Still more should I
regret precise signals being given of the hits the enemy
make on specific military targets. These are however
my personal views, and I am quite agreeable to the
whole matter being discussed again in Cabinet, should
you think this necessary.
5

Prime Minister to General

9.III.41

Ismay

I am thoroughly mystified about this operation

[against Castelorizzo], and I think it is the duty of the
Chiefs of Staff to have it probed properly. How was it
that the Navy allowed these large reinforcements to be
landed, when in an affair of this kind everything depended upon the Navy isolating the island? It is neces-The Grand Alliance

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sary to clear this up, on account of impending and more
important operations. One does not want to worry
people who are doing so well for us in many ways and
are at full extension, and yet it is indispensable for our
success that muddles of this kind should not be repeated.
6

Prime Minister to General

10.III.41.

Ismay

Low-flying attack should only be a real danger on
days of low cloud or mist, when our fighters cannot find
the enemy. The use of aerial mines hung from small
balloons should be considered for the defence of
factories. Only twenty-pound lift is required, so that
quite a small balloon should be sufficient. When this
proposal was put forward for defending estuaries it was
decided that a considerably greater altitude was required, so as to have a double-purpose defence, which
has entailed the production of much larger balloons,
which in turn require power winches, etc. We must be
content with defence up to heights of one thousand or
fifteen hundred feet by smaller, simpler balloons without
power winches. On windy days they could be replaced
by kites.