The Grand Alliance (27 page)

Throughout the wide circles of our war machine, embracing thousands of able, devoted men, a new proportion was set, The Grand Alliance

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and from a hundred angles the gaze of searching eyes was concentrated. March 6, as the preceding chapter may have shown, was an exacting day, when the decision about sending the Army to Greece hung in the balance.

Nevertheless, before it ended my directive entitled “The Battle of the Atlantic” was achieved. I read this to the House in the Secret Session of June 25, 1941, but it is necessary to the story to reprint it here.

THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC

Directive by the Minister of Defence, March
6, 1941

In view of various German statements, we must
assume that the Battle of the Atlantic has begun.

The next four months should enable us to defeat the
attempt to strangle our food supplies and our
connection with the United States. For this purpose –

1. We must take the offensive against the U-boat
and the Focke-Wulf wherever we can and whenever we
can. The U-boat at sea must be hunted, the U-boat in
the building yard or in dock must be bombed. The
Focke-Wulf and other bombers employed against our
shipping must be attacked in the air and in their nests.

2. Extreme priority will be given to fitting out ships to
catapult or otherwise launch fighter aircraft against
bombers attacking our shipping. Proposals should be
made within a week.

3. All the measures approved and now in train for
the concentration of the main strength of the Coastal
Command upon the northwestern approaches, and
their assistance on the East Coast by Fighter and
Bomber Commands, will be pressed forward. It may be
hoped that, with the growing daylight and the new
routes to be followed, the U-boat menace will soon be
reduced. All the more important is it that the Focke-Wulf, and, if it comes, the Junkers 88, should be
effectively grappled with.

4. In view of the great need for larger numbers of
escorting destroyers, it is for consideration whether the
American destroyers now in service should go into dock
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for their second scale of improvements until the critical
period of this new battle has been passed.

5. The Admiralty will re-examine, in conjunction with
the Ministry of Shipping, the question of liberating from
convoys ships between thirteen and twelve knots, and
also whether this might not be tried experimentally for a
while.

6. The Admiralty will have the first claim on all the
short-range A.A. guns and other weapons that they can
mount upon suitable merchant ships plying in the
danger zone. Already two hundred Bofors or their
equivalents have been ordered to be made available by
Air Defence Great Britain and the factories. But these
should be followed by a constant flow of guns, together
with crews or nucleus crews, as and when they can be
taken over by the Admiralty. A programme for three
months should be made.

7. We must be ready to meet concentrated air
attacks on the ports on which we specially rely (Mersey,
Clyde, and Bristol Channel). They must, therefore, be
provided with a maximum defence. A report of what is
being done should be made in a week.

8. A concerted attack by all departments involved
must be made upon the immense mass of damaged
shipping now accumulated in our ports. By the end of
June this mass must be reduced by not less than
400,000 tons net. For this purpose a short view may for
the time being be taken both on merchant and naval
shipbuilding. Labour should be transferred from new
merchant shipbuilding which cannot finish before
September, 1941, to repairs. The Admiralty have
undertaken to provide from long-distance projects of
warship building or warship repairs up to five thousand
men at the earliest moment, and another five thousand
should be transferred from long-distance merchant
shipbuilding.

9. Every form of simplification and acceleration of
repairs and degaussing, even at some risk, must be
applied in order to reduce the terrible slowness of the
turn-round of ships in British ports. A saving of fifteen
days in this process would in itself be equivalent to
5,000,000 tons of imports, or a tonnage [equal to]

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1,250,000 of the importing fleet saved. The Admiralty
have already instructed their officers in all ports to aid
this process, in which is involved the process of repairs,
to the utmost. Further injunctions should be given from
time to time, and the port officers should be asked to
report what they have done and whether they have any
recommendations to make. It might be desirable to
have a conference of port officers, where all difficulties
could be exposed and ideas interchanged.

10. The Minister of Labour has achieved agreement
in his conference with employers and employed about
the interchangeability of labour at the ports. This should
result in a substantially effective addition to the total
labour force. In one way or another, at least another
forty thousand men must be drawn into ship-repairing,
shipbuilding, and dock labour at the earliest moment.

Strong propaganda should be run locally at the ports
and yards, in order that all engaged may realise the
vital consequences of their work. At the same time, it is
not desirable that the press or the broadcast should be
used unduly, since this would only encourage the
enemy to further exertions.

11. The Ministry of Transport will ensure that there is
no congestion at the quays, and that all goods landed
are immediately removed. For this purpose the Minister
will ask the Chairman of the Import Executive for any
further assistance required. He should also report
weekly to the Import Executive upon the progress made
in improving the ports on which we specially rely by
transference of cranes, etc., from other ports. He
should also report on the progress made in preparing
new facilities at minor ports, and whether further use
can be made of lighterage to have more rapid loading
or unloading.

12. A Standing Committee has been set up of
representatives from the Admiralty Transport Department, the Ministry of Shipping, and the Ministry of
Transport, which will meet daily and report all hitches or
difficulties encountered to the Chairman of the Import
Executive. The Import Executive will concert the whole
of these measures and report upon them to me every

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week, in order that I may seek Cabinet authority for any
further steps.

13. In addition to what is being done at home, every
effort must be made to ensure a rapid turn-round at
ports abroad. All concerned should receive special
instructions on this point, and should be asked to report
on the measures which they are taking to implement
these instructions, and on any difficulties that may be
encountered.

On this same busy March 6 I also produced a memorandum on the strength of the Army in the light of all I had learnt about the import situation. This will be found among the Appendices.
3

The U-boats now began to use new methods, which became known as “wolf-pack” tactics. These consisted of attacks from different directions by several U-boats working together. Attacks were at this time usually made by night, the U-boats operating on the surface at full speed unless detected in the approach. Under these conditions only the destroyers could rapidly overhaul them.

These tactics, which formed the keynote of the conflict for the next year or more, presented us with two problems.

First, how to defend our convoys against this high-speed night attack, in which the Asdic was virtually impotent. The solution lay not only in the multiplication of fast escorts, but still more in the development of effective radar. Moreover, a prompt answer here was imperative or our losses would soon become unbearable. The small scale of the earlier onslaughts of the U-boats, against which we had been The Grand Alliance

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relatively successful, had created an undue sense of security. Now, when the full fury of the storm broke, we lacked the scientific equipment equal to our needs. We addressed ourselves vigorously to this problem, and by the unsparing efforts of the scientists, supported by the solid teamwork of sailors and airmen, good progress was made.

The results came slowly, and meanwhile grave anxiety and heavy losses continued.

The second need was to exploit the vulnerability to air attack of the surfaced U-boat. Only when we could afford to court attack in the knowledge that we were masters would the long-drawn battle be won. For this we needed an air weapon which would kill, and also time to train both our sea and air forces in its use. When eventually both these problems were solved the U-boat was once more driven back to the submerged attack, in which it could be dealt with by the older and well-tried methods. This vital relief was not achieved for another two years.

Meanwhile the new “wolf-pack” tactics, inspired by Admiral Doenitz, the head of the U-boat service, and himself a U-boat captain of the previous war, were vigorously applied by the redoubtable Prien and the other tiptop U-boat commanders. Swift retribution followed. On March 8 Prien’s U-47 was sunk with himself and all hands by the destroyer
Wolverine,
and nine days later U-99 and U-100 were sunk while engaged in a combined attack on a convoy. Both were commanded by outstanding officers, and the elimination of these three able men had a marked effect on the progress of the struggle. Few U-boat commanders who followed them were their equals in ruthless ability and daring. Five U-boats were sunk in March in the western approaches, and though we suffered grievous losses, amounting to 243,000 tons, by U-boat, and a further