The Grand Alliance (175 page)

These will give flexibility to our air forces in the Middle
East.

The second requirement is to improve communications, both rail and road, throughout the areas under
our control. This is being pushed forward with all
despatch.

In addition, steps are being taken to develop as
rapidly as possible our maintenance arrangements in
the Basra area, including construction of additional
ports, so that the proposed increased forces in the
Persian Gulf area can be maintained.

Western Desert. – We must clear Eastern Cyrenaica
at the earliest possible moment, not only for the
defence of our base in Egypt, but also to retain control
of the Eastern Mediterranean. Position is as follows:
It is estimated that the enemy has at present in
Cyrenaica two German divisions (one armoured and
one light motorised) and six Italian (including one
motorised and one armoured). We do not think that with
these forces he could undertake a major offensive
against the Delta. He is in considerable difficulties with
his supply and is short of mechanical transport. In
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addition, we are sinking a good proportion of his
reinforcements of men and material from Italy. If however he were able to establish a firm base on the Halfaya-Capuzzo-Bardia line and to build up the necessary
mechanical transport and supplies, it is possible that a
limited offensive might be carried out against Sidi
Barrani.

Our aim is to take the offensive as soon as a
favourable opportunity presents itself, but Commander-in-Chief does not wish to risk another setback, such as

“Battleaxe,” or to move until he feels he can go right
forward. He estimates that for this offensive his armoured force must not be less than two armoured
divisions. These will not be ready for action until
November 1, but this would not preclude him from
attacking sooner if a favourable opportunity were
presented to him. The importance of holding Tobruk
has been clearly demonstrated.

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Appendix C, Book Two

THE BRITISH PURCHASING COMMISSION

August 11, 1941

A great mass of orders has already been placed in
the United States for British war munitions, etc. These
have been harmonised both as between British departments and between British home production and British
orders placed in America. Mr. Purvis has been made
finally responsible, and any discordances should be
reported to him for settlement in the office of the
Minister of Defence. However, it is now necessary to
make further large provision, particularly in respect of
shipping, bomber aircraft, and tanks, both for the British
account and for the United States’ armed forces.

Moreover, the arrival of Russia as an active partner
against Hitler will require not only certain readjustments
of British orders, original and supplementary, but also a
very considerable expansion of plants and installations
for the longer-term policy.

2. So far as the British supplementary programme is
concerned, there need be no trouble about priorities as
between heavy bomber aircraft and tanks. We no
longer consider priorities as dominated by the time
factor, but prefer to deal in simultaneous quantitative
allocations.

On this basis, if our American colleagues will state
what are the prospects, whether through improved
production from existing plants or the preparation of
new ones, of greatly increasing production, and will let
us know their views about how it is to be divided
between British and United States needs, we will do the
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share-out between our British departments. For instance, we do not think that our need for a supplemental programme of heavy bomber aircraft should exclude
all simultaneous expansion in tanks. The ratio for the
whole programme as between heavy bomber aircraft
and tanks would be, say, 6 to 4, or 6½ to 3½, both
types of production proceeding simultaneously as fast
as possible. This method of approach is suggested as
the most convenient.

3. We greatly welcome a further assignment of
150,000 rifles. Although ammunition is very short, these
are absolutely needed to arm the personnel defending
the fighter airfields. At least 150,000 of them have at
present to rely on pikes, maces, and grenades. Even
although .300 ammunition in Great Britain is very short
and does not amount to above eighty rounds per rifle,
production is now flowing in the United States for our
benefit, which will this month be clear of the paying off
of the overdrawn fifty million rounds, and should
amount to twenty to twenty-five million rounds per
month. Even if only ten rounds could be handed out to
the men at certain airfields with their rifles, this would
be far better than the makeshifts we now have to
employ, and would enable the strictest instructions to
be given to all uniformed personnel to fight to the
death, which instructions can hardly be given very
confidently when no weapon can be placed in the
hands of soldiers and airmen concerned.

We hope therefore that the most rapid deliveries
possible of 150,000 rifles will be made, as the invasion
season is fully operative after September 15. In the
event of our reporting to the President that great and
active preparations are being made by the enemy in the
Dutch, Belgian, and French ports for invasion, of which
there is no sign at present, we would ask as a matter of
emergency that a further consignment of .300 ammunition should be rushed across, this being recovered later
from our monthly quotas of production.

4. It would seem indispensable that the re-equipment of the Russian armies should be studied at
once upon the grand scale. After preliminary conferences between the British and United States supply
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departments, it would seem advisable, and indeed
inevitable, that a further conference should be held in
Moscow. Both for this purpose and in any preliminary
conference that may be necessary the Prime Minister
would nominate Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Supply,
who should arrive here today, as the British representative, with power to act for all British departments.
37

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Appendix D, Book Two

ANGLO-AMERICAN-RUSSIAN CONFERENCE

G
ENERAL
D
IRECTIVE BY THE
P
RIME
M
INISTER AND

M
INISTER OF
D
EFENCE

22.IX.41.

The position reached as the result of the Beaverbrook-Harriman conversations is set out in Lord Beaverbrook’s report of today’s date. We must consider
ourselves pledged to fulfil our share of the tanks and
aircraft which have been promised to Russia, and Lord
Beaverbrook must have a considerable measure of
discretion as to what quantities of other equipment and
of material should be offered at the conversations in
Moscow.

2. Assurance must be given to Russia of increased
quotas from July 1, 1942, to June 30, 1943. During this
period British war production will be at its height, and
American ditto in its third year of development. It would
be wiser not to be committed to precise figures based
on optimistic forecasts of Anglo-American production.

There are dangers also in promising the Russians a
percentage of British and American output, which they
may immediately ask should be increased. We should
not disclose speculative figures of our joint production
when none are given of theirs by the Russians. They
should however be invited to set forth their remaining
resources in accordance with the various rearward lines
they may hope to hold. Lord Beaverbrook should be
free to encourage the prolonged resistance of Russia
by taking a justifiably hopeful view of these more distant
prospects.

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3. Russian attention should be directed to the
limitations of shipping, and still more of transportation
from the various ports of access. The rapid destruction
of world shipping, the effort required to make it good,
and the vital needs of this country, now cut to the bone,
should be stressed.

4. Encouragement should be offered, with American
approval, to the keeping open of the Vladivostok route
and overawing Japan for that purpose. Special emphasis should be laid upon the development on the largest
scale and with the utmost energy of the route from the
Persian Gulf to the Caspian, both by rail and road. The
practical limitations which time enforces both upon
working up the traffic on the Trans-Persian Railway and
upon the motor-road construction should be explained.

The conflict between the movement of supplies and of
troops and their maintenance at any given period along
this route must be pointed out. The Russians will no
doubt give their own estimate of the capacity and
facilities of Archangel and of its railway connections
with Central Russia, having regard both to winter ice
and probable enemy action.

5. The Conference must proceed upon the basis
that the United States is not a belligerent. The burden
upon British man-power is already heavy, and the strain
will be intense during 1942 and onwards. Apart from
the help we get from the Dominions, India, and the
Colonies, our man-power is fully engaged. We have to
feed ourselves and keep alive by maintaining vast
merchant fleets in constant movement. We have to
defend the British Isles from invasion, for which the
Germans can at any time gather a superior army, and
also from the most dangerous forms of air attack by the
main strength of the enemy air force, which can rapidly
be transferred from East to West at the enemy’s convenience. We have to maintain our armies in the Middle
East and hold a line from the Caspian to the Western
Desert. We hope to develop on this front during 1942

approximately twenty-five divisions, British, Indian, and
Dominion, comprising, with all the exceptional rearward
services needed in these undeveloped regions and
strong proportionable air force, about a million men.