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the admitted uncertainties of war should exclude all
these possibilities before the spring of 1942.

5. I cannot therefore accept the theory of continuous
even risk from day to day, and I consider that we are
justified in relying upon no “serious fighting” other than
in the Western Desert in this theatre till March, 1942,
unless of course we choose to take the offensive. In
these circumstances I feel free to give proper weight to
the major political-strategic issues involved in the broad
decision to send two additional divisions in the van of
the reinforcements.

6. What are these considerations? First, the moral
need of our having a substantial, recognisable British
stake and contribution in the Middle East, and freeing
ourselves from the imputation, however unjust, of
always using other people’s troops and blood.

Secondly, the effect produced upon Turkey by our
being able to add two divisions to the forces already
mentioned in the Staff conversations, thus appreciably
increasing the chances of influencing Turkish action.

Thirdly, the basis of my appeal to the President, which I
do not wish upset. Fourthly, the possibility that these
two divisions may move in by Basra, in order to give an
effective right hand to the Russian reserve forces to the
north of the Caspian.

The various alternatives will remain open to us in the
three months during which these divisions will be in
transit….

As usual I kept Smuts informed.

Prime

Minister

to

20 Sept. 41

General Smuts

Am sending two divisions and about eighty thousand
other reinforcements to Middle East between now and
Christmas. To help in this I have had to beg loan of
American transports from Roosevelt, which has been
kindly given. If we can clear up Cyrenaica we shall
have substantial forces to give right hand to Russia in
Caspian region and/or influence action Turkey. This last
regard as our most immediate prize. Hope at least to

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procure Turkish resistance to German demands for
passage through Anatolia. Meanwhile Beaverbrook and
Harriman are leaving for Moscow. We have had to
make terrible sacrifices in tanks and aircraft and other
munitions so sorely needed. If Russians stay in it is
worth it. If they quit we don’t have to send it. Hope to
reach total of twenty-five divisions from Caspian to Nile
during 1942. I doubt very much whether Russians
would be wise to press us to cumber the Trans-Persian
Railway, which we are rapidly developing, with movement and supply of the few divisions we could actually
send into Russia. All these matters will be discussed at
Moscow and studied by our Staffs. Will keep you
informed.

All our minds were constantly turned to the Desert. I may recur to the note I had written on the voyage to Placentia in the first week of August about the impending Desert operations. I showed my draft to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and to General Brooke, Commander-in-Chief of our Home Forces. They both expressed their full concurrence, subject to a few minor alterations not affecting the principles involved.

I circulated this paper to various high commanders as from October 7, 1941. The ruling given in paragraph 4 about the military and air commands was made operative by telegrams to General Auchinleck and Air Marshal Tedder, defining their relation and affirming the supremacy of the military commander over the use to be made of the air force, both during a battle and in its preparatory phase. This rule prevailed henceforward in the British Service, and was later independently developed by the United States.

A NOTE BY THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE

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Renown awaits the Commander who first in this war restores’ artillery to its prime importance upon the battlefield, from which it has been ousted by heavily armoured tanks. For this purpose three rules are necessary:

(a)
Every field gun or mobile A.A. gun should carry a plentiful supply of solid armour-piercing tracer shot; thus, every mobile gun will become an anti-tank gun, and every battery possess its own anti-tank protection.

(b)
When guns are attacked by tanks they must welcome the occasion. The guns should be fought to the muzzle. Until the approaching tanks are within close range batteries should engage them at a rapid rate of fire with H.E. During this phase the tracks of the tanks are the most vulnerable target. At close quarters solid A.

P. shot should be fired; this should be continued so long as any of the detachments survive. The last shot should be fired at not more than ten yards’ range. It may be that some gun crews could affect to be out of action or withhold their fire, so as to have the superb opportunity of firing A.P. at the closest range.

(c)
It may often happen as a result of the above tactics, especially when artillery is working with tanks, that guns may be overrun and lost. Provided they have been fought to the muzzle, this should not at all be considered a disaster, but on the contrary, the highest honour to the battery concerned. The destruction of tanks more than repays the loss of field guns or mobile A.A. guns. The Germans have no use for our captured guns, as they have a plethora of their own types, which they prefer. Our own supplies are sufficient to make good the deficiencies.

The principle must be established by the Royal Artillery that it is not good enough for tanks to attack a group of British batteries properly posted, and that these batteries will always await their attack in order to destroy a good proportion of tanks. Our guns must no more retreat on the approach of tanks than Wellington’s squares at Waterloo on the approach of hostile cavalry.

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2. The Germans made a practice from the beginning of their invasion of France, and have since developed it consistently, of taking what they call “flak” artillery with their most advanced parties and interspersing all their armoured and supply columns with it. We should do the same. The principle should be that all formations, whether in column or deployed, should be provided with a quota of A.A. guns for their protection. This principle is applicable to columns of all kinds, which should be freely supplied with machine guns, as well as with Bofors as the supply of these weapons becomes more plentiful.

3. Two hundred and fifty Bofors are now being sent to General Auchinleck for him to use in the best possible way with all his columns, and at all the assembly points of his troops or refuelling stations required in the course of offensive operations.

Nevermore must the Army rely solely on aircraft for its protection against attack from the air. Above all, the idea of keeping standing patrols of aircraft over moving columns should be abandoned. It is unsound to “distribute” aircraft in this way, and no air superiority will stand any large application of such a mischievous practice.

4. Upon the Military Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East announcing that a battle is in prospect, the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief will give him all possible aid irrespective of other targets, however attractive. Victory in the battle makes amends for all, and creates new favourable situations of a decisive character. The Army Commander-in-Chief will specify to the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief the targets and tasks which he requires to be performed, both in the preparatory attack on the rearward installations of the enemy and for air action during the progress of the battle. It will be for the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief to use his maximum force for these objects in the manner most effective. This applies not only to any squadrons assigned to Army Co-operation permanently, but also to the whole air force available in the theatre.

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troops, the sole object being the success of the military operation. As the interests of the two Commanders-in-Chief are identical, it is not thought that any difficulty should arise. The Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief would naturally lay aside all routine programmes and concentrate on bombing the rearward services of the enemy in the preparatory period. This he would do not only by night, but by day attacks with fighter protection.

In this process he will bring about a trial of strength with the enemy fighters, and has the best chance of obtaining local command of the air. What is true of the preparatory period applies with even greater force during the battle. All assembly or refuelling points or marching columns of the enemy should be attacked by bombers during daylight with strong fighter protection, thus bringing about air conflicts not only of the highest importance in themselves, but directly contributing to the general result.

General Montgomery was not one of those to whom the paper was sent, and it was not till after I met him in Tripoli in 1943, after the victory of the Eighth Army at Alamein eighteen months later, that I chanced to show him a copy.

“It is as true now,” he wrote, “as when it was written.”

Renown by then had certainly attended his restoration of artillery to its position upon the battlefield.

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7

The Mounting Strength of Britain
Autumn, 1941

Review of Our Military Position — My Minute of
October
4
— Need to Preserve the Military Efficiency of the Home Forces — Restrictions upon
Air Defence of Great Britain — Immense Advance
in Our Air Fighter Strength — Limitations on Our
Bombing Offensive

—

Army Strength:

My

Directive of October
9
— The Problem of ManPower: My Memorandum of November
6
— I
Question the Invasion Menace — A Plan for the
Home Guard — General Embick’s Mission and
Report — My Comments Thereupon — Our
Atlantic Life-Line — President Roosevelt’s “Shoot
First” Order, September
11
— Telegram to
General Smuts — Greater Safely of the Convoys

— Sinking of the “Reuben James,” October
31
—

Our Air Offensive in the Bay of Biscay — A
Submarine Surrenders to an Aeroplane — The
Sea Routes to Russia — Our First Convoy to
Russia, August
12
— The Focke-Wulf Mastered

— We Develop the Escort Carrier — Our
Foremost U-Boat Killer — U-Boats in the Mediterranean — War on the German Surface Raiders —

Table of Shipping Losses — British Power in the
Autumn of
1941.

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A
S THE WINTER APPROACHED, the strength and organisation of the Army in 1942 had to be reviewed in a new light of circumstances. We could not be sure that Germany had not by now constructed many varieties of landing- and tank-landing-craft for invasion. We ourselves were doing this on an ever-increasing scale. Surely her need was even greater. We could not be certain in October that, having smitten and hurled back the Russian armies in the first phase of his onslaught, Hitler might not suddenly halt and take up a winter position as he was first advised to do by his host of generals. Having made preparations in good time, might he not switch back twenty or thirty divisions across his lateral roads for a spring invasion of Britain? It was not even known whether he had not sufficient good troops still remaining in the Western theatre.