Their Finest Hour (58 page)

The story of the Dakar episode deserves close study, because it illustrates in a high degree not only the unforeseeable accidents of war, but the interplay of military and political forces, and the difficulties of combined operations, especially where allies are involved. To the world at large it seemed a glaring example of miscalculation, confusion, timidity, and muddle. In the United States, where special interest was taken on account of the proximity of Dakar to the American continent, there was a storm of unfavourable criticism. The Australian Government was distressed. At home there were many complaints of faulty war direction. I decided, however, that no explanations should be offered, and Parliament respected my wish.
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In retrospect a brighter view may perhaps be taken of these events. Students of naval history may be struck by the resemblance of this affair to one which occurred nearly three centuries ago. In 1655, Cromwell despatched a joint naval and military expedition to seize San Domingo, in the West Indies. The attack did not succeed, but the commanders, instead of returning empty-handed, turned failure into success by going on to capture Jamaica.

Although we failed at Dakar, we succeeded in arresting the onward progress of the French cruisers and frustrating their determined efforts to suborn the garrisons in French Equatorial Africa. Within a fortnight General de Gaulle was enabled to establish himself at Duala, in the Cameroons, which became a rallying-point for the Free French cause. Free French activities in these regions played their part, not only in halting the penetration of the Vichy virus, but in making possible, through their control of Central Africa, the later development of our transcontinental air transport route from Takoradi to the Middle East.

Retirement of Mr. Chamberlain — Cabinet Changes — The Leadership of the Conservative Party — Reasons for My Decision to Accept the Vacant Post — We Reopen the Burma Road — My Telegram to President Roosevelt — Growth of Our Strength on the Desert Front — My Complaints About the Middle East Administration — Malta Anxieties — Mr. Eden Flies to the Middle East — My Appreciation of October
13, 1940
— Mr. Eden’s Conferences with the Generals at Cairo — His Report and Requests — Our Growing Strength at Mersa Matruh — Proposed Meeting of Mr. Eden and General Smuts at Khartoum — My Desire for a Forestalling Offensive Against the Italians
—
Need for Better Use of Our Resources in the Middle East.

A
T THE BEGINNING
of October, Mr. Chamberlain’s health got far worse. The exploratory operation to which he had subjected himself in September and from which he had returned so courageously to duty had revealed to the doctors that he was suffering from cancer and that there was no surgical remedy. He now became aware of the truth and that he would never be able to return to his work. He therefore placed his resignation in my hands. In view of the pressure of events, I felt it necessary to make the changes in the Government which have been mentioned in an earlier chapter. Sir John Anderson became Lord President of the Council and presided over the Home Affairs Committee of the Cabinet. Mr. Herbert Morrison succeeded him as Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security, and Sir Andrew Duncan became Minister of Supply. These changes were effective on October 3.

Mr. Chamberlain also thought it right to resign the leadership of the Conservative Party, and I was invited to take his place. I had to ask myself the question – about which there may still be various opinions – whether the leadership of one great party was compatible with the position I held from King and Parliament as Prime Minister of an Administration composed of and officially supported by all parties. I had no doubt about the answer. The Conservative Party possessed a very large majority in the House of Commons over all other parties combined. Owing to the war conditions no election appeal to the nation was available in case of disagreement or deadlock. I should have found it impossible to conduct the war if I had had to procure the agreement in the compulsive days of crisis and during long years of adverse and baffling struggle, not only of the leaders of the two minority parties, but of the leader of the Conservative majority. Whoever had been chosen and whatever his self-denying virtues, he would have had the real political power. For me there would have been only the executive responsibility.

These arguments do not apply in the same degree in time of peace; but I do not feel I could have borne such a trial successfully in war. Moreover, in dealing with the Labour and Liberal Parties in the coalition, it was always an important basic fact that as Prime Minister and at this time leader of the largest party, I did not depend upon their votes and I could in the ultimate issue carry on in Parliament without them. I therefore accepted the position of leader of the Conservative Party which was pressed upon me, and I am sure that without it, and all the steady loyalties which attached to it, I should not have been able to discharge my task until victory was won. Lord Halifax, who was the most probable alternative choice of the party if I had declined, himself proposed the motion, which was unanimously adopted.

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The summer had crashed its way along with massive, rending shocks, but with growing assurance of survival. Autumn and winter plunged us into a maze of complications, less mortal but more puzzling. The invasion challenge had definitely weakened. The Battle of Britain in the air was won. We had bent the German beam. Our Home Army and Home Guard had grown vastly more powerful. The equinoctial gales of October stretched rough, capricious hands across the Channel and the Narrow Seas. All the arguments from which I had formerly drawn comfort were justified and strengthened. In the Far East the danger of a Japanese declaration of war seemed to have receded. They had waited to see what would happen about the invasion; and nothing had happened. The Japanese war lords had looked for a certainty. But certainties are rare in war. If they had not thought it worth while to strike in July, why should they do so now when the life of the British Empire burned brighter and fiercer and world conditions were less favourable to them? We felt ourselves strong enough to reopen the Burma Road when its three months’ closure had elapsed. The Japanese were experienced in sea war, and probably thought about it along the same lines as the British Admiralty. Nonetheless, it was not without anxiety that the decision to open the Burma Road and allow supplies to flow along it into China was taken. In this broad measurement of the unknowable our judgment was not proved wrong.

I was glad to telegraph to the President news which I was sure would be agreeable to him and to the United States.

Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt.

4.X.40.

After prolonged consideration of all the issues involved we today decided to let the Burma Road be reopened when the three months’ period expires on October 17. The Foreign Secretary and I will announce this to Parliament on Tuesday, 8th. I shall say that our hopes of a just settlement being reached between Japan and China have not borne fruit, and that the Three-Power Pact revives the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1939 and has a clear pointer against the United States. I know how difficult it is for you to say anything which would commit the United States to any hypothetical course of action in the Pacific. But I venture to ask whether at this time a simple action might not speak louder than words. Would it not be possible for you to send an American squadron, the bigger the better, to pay a friendly visit to Singapore? There they would be welcomed in a perfectly normal and rightful way. If desired, occasion might be taken of such a visit for a technical discussion of naval and military problems in those and Philippine waters, and the Dutch might be invited to join. Anything in this direction would have a marked deterrent effect upon a Japanese declaration of war upon us over the Burma Road opening. I should be very grateful if you would consider action along these lines, as it might play an important part in preventing the spreading of the war.

In spite of the Dakar fiasco, the Vichy Government is endeavouring to enter into relations with us, which shows how the tides are flowing in France now that they feel the German weight and see we are able to hold our own.

Although our position in the air is growing steadily stronger both actually and relatively, our need for aircraft is urgent. Several important factories have been seriously injured and the rate of production is hampered by air alarms. On the other hand, our losses in pilots have been less than we expected, because in fighting over our own soil a very large proportion get down safely or only wounded. When your officers were over here, we were talking in terms of pilots. We are now beginning to think that aeroplanes will be the limiting factor so far as the immediate future is concerned.

I cannot feel that the invasion danger is past. The gent has taken off his clothes and put on his bathing-suit, but the water is getting colder and there is an autumn nip in the air. We are maintaining the utmost vigilance.

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These welcome events at opposite ends of the world cleared the way for stronger action in the Middle East. Every nerve had to be strained to make headway against Italy, whose movements were slower than I had expected. Strong reinforcements had reached General Wavell. The two tank regiments had arrived in the desert. General Maitland-Wilson, who commanded the “Army of the Nile,” as it was now called, formed a high opinion of the possibilities of the “Matildas,” as the infantry or “I” tanks were nick-named by the troops. Our defence position at Mersa Matruh was now far more solid, and – though this I did not yet knew – new thoughts began to stir in Staff and planning circles at the Middle East Headquarters. Obviously our next main task was to strengthen our forces in the Middle East, and especially in the Western Desert, both from Britain and from India.

I was still in argument with the Admiralty about military convoys attempting the passage of the Mediterranean, I saying, “You can now see that we ought to have tried it,” and they, “There was not so much hurry after all.” I still remained extremely dissatisfied with the distribution of our forces already in the Middle East, and with the disparity, as I judged it, between ration and fighting strength. I feared greatly for Malta. I pressed General Wavell and the Secretary of State, both directly and through the Chiefs of Staff, on all these points. To Mr. Eden I wrote:

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War.

24.IX.40.

There is no difference between us in principle; but the application of the principle raises issues of detail, and this is especially true of the denudation of this island in the face of the imminent threat of invasion. Meanwhile, the General Staff continue to press for diversions from the Middle East, such as the Seventh Australian Division to be used for garrisoning the Malay peninsula. Now the two Indian brigades are to be employed in these jungles against a possible war with Japan, and a still more unlikely Japanese siege of Singapore. The paper on Indian reinforcements was considered last night by me and the Chiefs of the Staff. You will see in it that a division is to be provided for Malaya, another for Basra, and a corps for Iraq, thus absorbing all the Indian reinforcements available in 1941. This geographical distribution or dispersion of our forces shows the ideas prevailing, which are altogether erroneous in a strategic sense. However, it was explained to me that, although these forces were earmarked for particular theatres, they could all go to the Middle East if required. I therefore agreed to words being inserted making this clear. Nonetheless, the impression produced by the paragraph dispersing these divisions without regard to war needs made an unfavourable impression upon me.

We have next to consider the increasing waste of troops in Kenya, and the continued waste in Palestine. Some improvement has been made in Palestine, but Kenya, on the contrary, is at this moment to have a mountain battery sent there instead of to the Soudan. I fear that when General Smuts goes there he will naturally be influenced by the local situation. However, I hope to keep in touch with him by cable.

Lastly, there is the shocking waste of British Regular troops on mere police duty in the Canal Zone, in Cairo, and at Alexandria, and the general slackness of the Middle East Command in concentrating the maximum for battle and in narrowing the gap between ration strength and fighting strength. I have not had any answer to my request for figures on this point.

My idea, like yours, is to gather the strongest army in the Middle East possible in the next few months, and I have indicated on other papers the number of divisions I hope can be assembled there. But I think the first thing would be for the War Office and the Egyptian Command to make the best use possible of the very large number of troops they have already, and for which we are paying heavily.

Further, I am much disquieted about the position at Malta. It is now agreed that two battalions shall be sent as reinforcements; but after how much haggling and boggling, and excuses that they could not be accommodated in the island! Have you read General Dobbie’s appreciation and his statement that he has his battalions all spread on fifteen-mile fronts each, with no reserves not already allocated to the defence of aerodromes? Do you realise there is no command of the sea at Malta, and that it might be attacked at any time by an expeditionary force of twenty or thirty thousand men from Italy, supported by the Italian Fleet? Yet it was proposed that these two battalions should go to Freetown to complete the brigade there, although no enemy can possibly attack Freetown while we have the command of the Atlantic Ocean. You will, I am sure, excuse my putting some of these points to you, because they illustrate tendencies which appear ill-related to the very scheme of war which you have in mind.

Prime Minister to General Ismay.

6.X.40.

Whenever the Fleet is moving from Alexandria to the Central Mediterranean, reinforcements should be carried in to Malta, which I consider to be in grievous danger at the present time. These reinforcements should be found by taking battalions from the Canal Zone and replacing them by dismounted Yeomanry or Australian details now in Palestine, or by South African units presently to be moved from Kenya. Pray let me have proposals on these lines, and make sure that at least one battalion goes to Malta on the next occasion. We cannot waste Regular battalions on internal security duties in Egypt. If they were needed for the Field Army, they would of course be irremovable, but that is not what they are being used for.