The Gathering Storm: The Second World War (100 page)

Surely if these facts are even approximately true – and I believe they are mostly understatements – how can it be contended that there is no emergency; that we must not do anything to interfere with the ordinary trade of the country; that there is no need to approach the trade unions about dilution of trainees; that we can safely trust to what the Minister of Co-ordination of Defence described as “training the additional labour as required on the job”; and that nothing must be done which would cause alarm to the public, or lead them to feel that their ordinary habit of life was being deranged?

Complaint is made that the nation is unresponsive to the national need; that the trade unions are unhelpful; that recruiting for the Army and the Territorial Force is very slack, and even is obstructed by elements of public opinion. But as long as they arc assured by the Government that there is no emergency these obstacles will continue.

I was given confidentially by the French Government an estimate of the German air strength in 1935. This tallies almost exactly with the figures I forecast to the Committee of Imperial Defence in December last. The Air Staff now think the French estimate too high. Personally I think it is too low. The number of machines which Germany could now put into action simultaneously may be nearer two thousand than fifteen hundred. Moreover, there is no reason to assume that they mean to stop at two thousand. The whole plant and lay-out of the German air force is on an enormous scale, and they may be already planning a development far greater than anything yet mentioned. Even if we accept the French figures of about fourteen hundred, the German strength at this moment is double that of our Metropolitan air force, judged by trained pilots and military machines that could go into action and be maintained in action. But the relative strength of two countries cannot be judged without reference to their power of replenishing their fighting force. The German industry is so organised that it can certainly produce at full blast a thousand a month and increase the number as the months pass. Can the British industry at the present time produce more than three hundred to three hundred and fifty a month? How long will it be before we can reach a war-potential output equal to the Germans? Certainly not within two years. When we allow for the extremely high rate of war wastage, a duel between the two countries would mean that before six months were out our force would be not a third of theirs. The preparation for war-time expansion at least three times the present size of the industry seems urgent in the highest degree. It is probable however that Germany is spending not less than one hundred and twenty millions on her Air Force this year. It is clear therefore that so far as this year is concerned we are not catching up. On the contrary, we are falling farther behind. How long will this continue into next year? No one can tell.

* * * * *

It has been announced that the programme of one hundred and twenty squadrons and fifteen hundred first-line aircraft for home defence would be completed by April 1, 1937. Parliament has not been given any information how this programme is being carried out in machines, in personnel, in organisation, or in the ancillary supplies. We have been told nothing about it at all. I do not blame the Government for not giving full particulars. It would be too dangerous now. Naturally, however, in the absence of any information at all, there must be great anxiety and much private discussion…. I doubt very much whether by July next year we shall have thirty squadrons equipped with the new types. I understand that the deliveries of the new machines will not really begin to flow in large numbers for a year or fifteen months. Meanwhile we have very old-fashioned and obsolete tackle.

There is a second question about these new machines: When they begin to flow out of the factories in large numbers fifteen months hence, will they be equipped with all necessary appliances? Take, for instance, the machine-guns. If we are aiming at having a couple of thousand of the latest machines, i.e., fifteen hundred and five hundred in reserve in eighteen months from now, what arrangements have been made for their machine-guns? Some of these modern fighting machines have no fewer than eight machine-guns in their wings. Taking only an average of four with proper reserves, that would require ten thousand machine-guns. Is it not a fact that the large-scale manufacture of the Browning and Bren machine-guns was only decided upon a few months ago?

Let us now try the airplane fleet we have built and are building by the test of bombing-power as measured by weight and range. Here I must again make comparison with Germany. Germany has the power at any time henceforward to send a fleet of airplanes capable of discharging in a single voyage at least five hundred tons of bombs upon London. We know from our war statistics that one ton of explosive bombs killed ten people and wounded thirty, and did fifty thousand pounds worth of damage. Of course, it would be absurd to assume that the whole bombing fleet of Germany would make an endless succession of voyages to and from this country. All kinds of other considerations intervene. Still, as a practical measure of the relative power of the bombing fleets of the two countries, the weight of discharge per voyage is a very reasonable measure. Now, if we take the German potential discharge upon London at a minimum of five hundred tons per voyage of their entire bombing fleet, what is our potential reply?
They
can do this from now on. What can we do? First of all: How could we retaliate upon Berlin? We have not at the present time a single squadron of machines which could carry an appreciable load of bombs to Berlin. What shall we have this time next year? I submit for your consideration that this time next year, when it may well be that the potential discharge of the German fleet is in the neighbourhood of a thousand tons, we shall not be able to discharge in retaliation more than sixty tons upon Berlin.

But leave Berlin out of the question. Nothing is more striking about our new fleet of bombers than their short range. The great bulk of our new heavy and medium bombers cannot do much more than reach the coasts of Germany from this Island. Only the nearest German cities would be within their reach. In fact the retaliation of which we should be capable this time next year from this Island would be puerile judged by the weight of explosive dropped, and would be limited only to the fringes of Germany.

Of course, a better tale can be told if it is assumed that we can operate from French and Belgian jumping-off grounds. Then very large and vital industrial districts of Germany would be within reach of our machines. Our air force will be incomparably more effective if used in conjunction with those of France and Belgium than it would be in a duel with Germany alone.

I now pass to the next stage. Our defence, passive and active, ground and air, at home. Evidently we might have to endure an ordeal in our great cities and vital feeding-ports such as no community has ever been subjected to before. What arrangements have been made in this field? Take London and its seven or eight million inhabitants. Nearly two years ago I explained in the House of Commons the danger of an attack by thermite bombs. These small bombs, little bigger than an orange, had even then been manufactured by millions in Germany. A single medium airplane can scatter five hundred. One must expect in a small raid literally tens of thousands of these bombs which burn through from storey to storey. Supposing only a hundred fires were started and there were only ninety fire brigades, what happens? Obviously the attack would be on a far more formidable scale than that. One must expect that a proportion of heavy bombs would be dropped at the same time, and that water, light, gas, telephone systems, etc., would be seriously deranged. What happens then? Nothing like it has ever been seen in world history. There might be a vast exodus of the population, which would present to the Government problems of public order, of sanitation and food-supply which would dominate their attention, and probably involve the use of all their disciplined forces.

What happens if the attack is directed upon the feeding-ports, particularly the Thames, Southampton, Bristol, and the Mersey, none of which are out of range? What arrangements have been made to bring in the food through a far greater number of subsidiary channels? What arrangements have been made to protect our defence centres? By defence centres I mean the centres upon which our power to continue resistance depends. The problem of the civil population and their miseries is one thing; the means by which we could carry on the war is another. Have we organised and created an alternative centre of Government if London is thrown into confusion? No doubt there has been discussion of this on paper, but has anything been done to provide one or two alternative centres of command with adequate deep-laid telephone connections, and wireless from which the necessary orders can be given by some coherent thinking-mechanism? …

Appendix E, Book I

Appendix A, Book II

TABLES OF NAVAL STRENGTH
S
EPTEMBER
3, 1939

B
RITISH AND
G
ERMAN
F
LEETS

UNITED STATES