Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (143 page)

per cent cut referred was about 425 requisitioned
British trawlers in home waters which are the cream of
the fishing fleet. I will accept for April forty-two of these,
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but I shall require, unless there is a change in the war
situation, 20 per cent for the month of May. We can
consider June later. I am expecting the Admiralty to
render this great service to the British nation by
handing over these vessels with extreme promptitude
and seeing that they are made good for fishing, so far
as the Admiralty is concerned, in the full spirit of a naval
evolution. Perhaps you do not realise that “British-caught white fish” in 1938 was 750,000 tons, but in
1944 only 240,000 tons.

Prime Minister to Minister of

3 Apr. 45

Agriculture, Minister of Food,

and Minister of War

Transport

Your minute about increasing our home production
of pork and eggs.

Everything depends upon the progress of the
German war. I have given as a guesswork figure
towards which we should now work the end of May
1945, but it may well be that the end will come before
this. At any rate, before the end of April we should be in
a position to take a much more sure and precise view.

There is no reason why preparations should not be
made and shipping assigned on the basis of the war
ending on April 30, but let me see these in detail, so
that the Chiefs of Staff can consider whether it is an
undue risk to run. It is a good cause.

2. Do not, I pray you, give up the egg scheme and
the chicks necessary for full-scale production in the
spring of 1946.

3. On no account reduce the barley for whisky. This
takes years to mature, and is an invaluable export and
dollar producer. Having regard to all our other
difficulties about exports, it would be most improvident
not to preserve this characteristic British element of
ascendancy.

4. The Minister of War Transport must be bold and
not let himself be overlaid by the sombre deadweight of
military demands. The people of this country are
entitled to have their minimum food supplies. He will run
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a terrible risk if a lot of shipping is thrown on his hands
before the end of April as a result of the German
submission.

5. The Treasury should certainly be asked to
sanction the purchase of 200,000 tons of cereals from
the Plate on the assumptions mentioned. How much
would it cost?

6. I hope you will meet together and take an
altogether bolder line on the very considerable lead I
have given you, which I will do my best to support. The
revised paper could be circulated to the Cabinet. Let
me see it first.

Prime Minister to Sir Edward

4 Apr. 45

Bridges

Arrange with the Admiralty to bring up both cases of
the transfer of warships to Canada and Australia at
some Cabinet meeting to which the Dominion Ministers
are summoned. Then make them a full and free
presentation there and then across the table. The
Admiralty should propose this. No financial considerations should be adduced. We owe too much to Canada
in money alone, and the effect of gestures like this
upon both Dominions concerned will be achieved far
better than by arguments about trading off the value of
the ships against certain financial considerations. This
is not a moment for a “penny-wise, pound-foolish”

policy. We must either keep the ships or give them. If
the Admiralty think they can be given, now is the time to
make the presentation in the most friendly form. Cast
your bread upon the waters; it will return to you in not
so many days.

Bring this before the parties involved.

Prime Minister to Foreign

4 Apr. 45

Office

Attention should be drawn to the mis-spelling

“inadmissable.” I have noticed this several times before
in Foreign Office telegrams.

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Prime Minister to General

7 Apr. 45

Ismay, for C.O.S. Committee

My view [about future operations in South-East Asia]

is the following, and, if necessary, I will communicate
with General Marshall through Field-Marshal Wilson on
the subject on this sort of line:

“In the last war and this we have found it in all our
affairs most detrimental to give absolute overriding
priorities to any one set of operations-or supplies. Once
this is agreed to, those who own the absolute priority
take the last ounce of their requirements, of which they
become the sole judges, irrespective of the ruin of the
lesser priorities. For instance, a department that needs
five tons of a commodity and has the absolute priority
will not hesitate to take the five tons without consideration of other vital and important priorities which all
together may need no more than a hundredweight of
the said commodity. Widespread havoc is therefore
wrought without a due sense of proportion.

“We have always in our dealings in this war and to a
large extent on both sides of the Atlantic accompanied
and modified first priorities by assignments. We could
certainly not be bound to accept absolute priorities for
the main effort without agreements being reached as to
the very much smaller, but none the less essential,
supplies required for other operations. We should
resent and resist to the utmost of our capacity any
proposal which proceeded without the slightest regard
to operations to which we attach intrinsic importance,
though undoubtedly on a much smaller scale than the
main operation. We therefore hope that these matters
may be settled by reasonable discussion.”

Prime Minister to General

8 Apr. 45

Ismay, for C.O.S. Committee

Proposed British Bombing Research Mission. I much
regret that I do not find myself in agreement with your
proposal to spend such very large sums of money and
use so much highly skilled personnel, required in e
starting up again of our own country, upon what I judge
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to be a sterile task. You have asked for 1000 persons,
of whom one-half are high-grade experts. I cannot
conceive that any results can be yielded commensurate
with such an expenditure of our remaining resources.

I offer you thirty experts, who, with the large number
of air groundsmen who will be scattered about
Germany during the next few months, and who could
be drawn upon temporarily in any locality, should be
quite sufficient to find out the particular points about
which you are interested.

Prime Minister to Foreign

8 Apr. 45

Office

This war would never have come unless, under
American and modernising pressure, we had driven the
Habsburgs out of Austria and Hungary and the
Hohenzollerns out of Germany. By making these
vacuums we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster
to crawl out of its sewer on to the vacant thrones. No
doubt these views are very unfashionable….

Prime Minister to First Lord

8 Apr. 45

I will certainly try to fit in an opportunity for seeing
you and the First Sea Lord this week, but I cannot hold
out any expectation that my most modest request [for
the release of trawlers] should not be met now, so that
our fishermen can get to work and relieve the great
strain on British food. There should be no delay in
taking action.

Prime Minister to President

14 Apr. 45

of the Board of Trade

It is absolutely essential to increase the supply of
civilian clothes. The suggestions I have seen that there
will be a critical shortage after VE-Day are intolerable,
and it would be a grave reflection on the Board of
Trade if such a thing occurred. You should be getting a
considerable increase of labour as a result of my
directive of February 26, and of this I trust that the
clothing trades will receive an early and adequate quota.

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If this is not enough to ensure sufficient supplies of
civilian clothing in the autumn I am quite willing to
consider diverting from making military clothing up to 20

per cent of the man-power engaged, even if this entails
delay in fulfilling Service demands.

MAN-POWER IN 1945

DIRECTIVE BY THE PRIME MINISTER AND MINISTER OF

DEFENCE

14 Apr. 45

At the Yalta Conference it was agreed that for the
purpose of planning production and allocating manpower the earliest date for the end of the German war
should be assumed to be July 1, 1945, and the latest
December 31, 1945. The deterioration in the German
situation in the lew weeks that have elapsed since the
Conference has been far more rapid than was
foreseen. The disruption of the Western Front, the
annihilation of a great part of his armies in the West
and the virtual exhaustion of his oil stocks have
presented the enemy with a situation which he cannot
retrieve. The time has now come when we can look
forward with confidence to the end of organised
resistance this summer. I therefore propose that we
should now adopt as a firm date for all plans May 31. If
our preparations are related to that date we shall not be
materially at fault if the end of the war comes a week or
two earlier or later.

2. It will be the duty of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer’s Man-power Committee to discharge the
same tasks in the period of national demobilisation as
they have undertaken in the period of national
mobilisation. They should first call for a report from the
Service departments on the state of readiness of their
machinery for release. It is of the utmost importance
that releases from all three Services should begin not
more than six weeks after the end of the German war.

3. The Chiefs of Staff should present without delay
to the Defence Committee a statement of the size of
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the forces which they plan to deploy against Japan.

These should be related strictly to what can be brought
into action in time to play a part within the assumed
duration of the Japanese war. When this calculation
has been completed the level of munitions required to
sustain these forces should be worked out, and
administrative preparations in India and the Far East
should be adjusted as may be found necessary.

4. The Man-power Committee should then draw up
a balance-sheet to cover the period June 1 to
December 31, 1945. I call upon the Service departments and the Ministry of Labour to ensure that much
greater progress is made during this period in reducing
the Services and munitions industries to the ultimate
Stage II levels than has hitherto been suggested.

5. I trust that the processes I have outlined above
may bebrought to a conclusion so that the results can
be presented to the War Cabinet by the middle of May.

Prime Minister to Major

15 Apr. 45

Lloyd George and Mr.

Geoffrey Lloyd

I understand that the position with regard to
easements of petrol rationing after the end of the
German war was provided for during the discussions in
Washington.

I attach importance to easing these restrictions on
the civilian population as soon as possible after V-Day.

If the German war ends soon and the supply position
permits it should be possible to restore the basic ration
on June 1. Please let me have a report on the
administrative preparations.

Prime Minister to Secretary