Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: MILITARY AND NAVAL HISTORY

Volume 19

NO MORE HEROES Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 NO MORE HEROES The in the Twentieth Century: Anatomy of a Legend

CHARLES OWEN Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 First published in 1975 This edition first published in 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1975 Charles Owen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-90784-3 (Set) ISBN: 978-1-315-67905-1 (Set) (ebk) ISBN: 978-1-138-93563-1 (Volume 19) (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-67724-8 (Volume 19) (ebk)

Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 NO MORE HEROES The Royal Navy in the Twentieth Century: Anatomy of a Legend

CHARLES OWEN Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

London George Allen & Unwin Ltd Ruskin House Museum Street First published in 1975

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights are reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, 1956, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. © Charles Owen, 1975

sb n 0 04 359007 1 Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

Printed in Great Britain in 11 point Times Roman type by Cox & Wyman Ltd, London, Fakenham and Reading For the Heroes who made the Legend Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Preface

Among the several people who went out of their way to help me during the three years in which this book was being prepared, I wish to thank specially Sir Charles Madden and H. K. Oram, R.N., each of whom read, discussed and commented in detail upon virtually the entire text; Admiral Sir John Hamilton, Lt-General Sir Ian Jacob, Major-General John Owen, Captain S. W. Roskill, R.N., Professor Bryan Ranft, Douglas Matthews, T. H. Hawkins, Benjamin Varela and Anthony Hallett, R.N., each of whom gave similar painstaking atten­ tion to substantial portions of the text; and Captain Donald Titford, R.N., Professor Michael Balfour and Michael Horniman for much practical assistance. I am grateful also to Oram, Hawkins, Horniman and Varela, among others, for invaluable advice and suggestions at the planning stage of the book. My wife, Felicity, besides helping and encouraging me constantly in all these ways, unearthed, fetched and often scrutinised for me much of my research material, including a non-stop flow of books from die London Library; and a good deal of basic research, particularly that covering the first and fourth decades of the century, was her work. I interviewed numerous individuals fairly thoroughly, some in their official and others in their personal capacities. Among the former were the First Sea Lord, the Second Sea Lord, the -in-Chief Fleet and Naval Home, the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff for Policy, the Flag Officers Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Sea Training, Medway and Gibraltar, the President Admir­ alty Interview Board, the Directors General Ships, Personal Services, Manpower and Training, the Commanding Officers Britannia R.N. College, H.M.S. Excellent, H.M.S. Dryad, H.M.S. Dolphin, H.M.S. Daedalus and H.M.S. Raleigh, and the Directors Naval Warfare, Operations and Trade. I am grateful also to the -in-Chief Netherlands Home Command, the Commandant Joint Warfare School, the 10 No More Heroes Chairman of the Navy League, the Commanding Officer of the described in Chapter One, the Navy’s Director of Public Relations and the Manager of the branch of Gieves Limited for kindly making time available. Those who were interviewed in their personal capacities included of the Fleet Sir Algernon Willis, Sir Varyl Begg and Sir Michael Pollock, Admirals Sir John Bush and Sir John Frewen, Sir Peter Gretton, Captain Donald Macintyre, R.N., Professors Alec Rodger and Temple Patterson, Doctors V. Berghahn and Frank Hardie, Oliver Warner, Corelli Barnett, Hugh Hanning, John Harbron, Kenneth Lindsay, A. R. Smith and P. D. Nairne. The confidential records which I made after every interview, official and personal, form an important part of the book’s research material. Other visited research sources, apart from libraries, were the National Maritime Museum, the Imperial War Museum, the Priddy’s Hard Weapons Museum (Gosport), the Sub­ marine Museum (Gosport) and the Naval Gunnery School Photographic Museum (Portsmouth). Among the libraries which proved useful were those of the Admiralty, the Univer­ sity of Southampton, the Royal Naval Club (Portsmouth) and, above all else, the London Library. I am greatly obliged to the staffs of these institutions. Also, I wish to thank for comments or advice Professor Arthur Marder, David Clark, Raymonde Homer, April Weiss and Angela Evans; and for help at various stages with research, organisation and typing Jillian Bond, Pat Chan, Nicky Clark, Faith Holland-Martin, Adrienne Salonika, Jackie Solon and Liz Theobald. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Unless otherwise stated, an individual’s title, rank, sur­ name and appointment, when mentioned in this book, are those applying on the particular occasion. Decorations and other awards, however, have usually been omitted. The term ‘the Navy’ or ‘Royal Navy’ refers to Britain’s Navy.

CHARLES OWEN Contents

Preface page 9

1 YOU KNOW WHAT SAILORS ARE 15 At sea in a modern destroyer. Views of Portsmouth and Dartmouth, and comparison with earlier days. Interview with a First Sea Lord. Short appraisal of Britain’s defence organisation and the Royal Navy’s place in NATO.

2 THE TUMULT AND THE SHOUTING 39 The flamboyant era. The great naval revolution, led by Fisher; the fracas with Beresford. Development of the big gun; the Dreadnought. The growing German menace and the armaments race (1900-12).

3 THE GIANTS 63 Preparations for war. First World War: its naval cornerstones, Jutland and the U-boat conflict. The roles of the giants, notably Lloyd George, Churchill, Fisher, Jellicoe, Beatty (1912-19).

4 SECOND TO NONE 92 The disarmament tangle. The rise in power and influence of the U.S. Navy, and its success in cutting the Royal Navy down to size. Other political and Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 economic factors contributing to the Navy’s decline. The Invergordon nadir (1919-31).

5 RENAISSANCE 128 The Chatfield era. Re-invigoration, rearmament, renaissance. Hitler and Mussolini; critical impact of the Italo-Ethiopian war. Hesitations about the role of aircraft and submarines (1931-39). 12 No More Heroes

6 THE YOUNG PROFESSIONALS pages 157 Second World War: the Navy’s versatility and endur­ ance. The U.S. Navy’s role. Development of multi­ national multi-element warfare: the Normandy invasion. Contributors to victory, notably Roosevelt, Churchill, King, Pound, Cunningham, Mountbatten (1939-45).

7 NO MORE HEROES 181 The Royal Navy today and tomorrow. An examina­ tion of its place in modern society; of trends or reforms, actual and potential, in naval strategy, tactics, administration, materiel and personnel. Has Britain the Navy it needs and deserves?

Notes 214 Appendixes 229 a . The British Ministry of Defence, b . First Sea Lords since 1900. c . A Note on NATO. d . The Dreadnought Revolution, 1906-16. e . The Royal Navy Today.

Bibliography 236

Index 244 Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Illustrations

1. County-class destroyer facing page 48 2. Operations room of frigate 3. Fisher with Churchill 49 4. Beresford 5. Wilson

6. First World War: British battle squadron 64

7. Jellicoe 65 8. Keyes 9. Beatty with George V

10. 1930s: British battle squadron 112

11. Chatfield 113 12. Churchill greeting victorious sailors 13. Pound with King 14. Second World War: British squadron 128 15. Second World War: Swordfish aircraft 16. British destroyer in action 17. Cunningham 129 18. Mountbatten among friends 19. 1944: Destroyer’s bridge, officers looking ahead

d i a g r a m : British Ministry of Defence, Navy

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Department 1970 (reproduced by courtesy o f The Ministry of Defence) 201 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Chapter One

You Know What Sailors Are

The vessel was a destroyer, a County-class guided missile destroyer. But here was no lean ocean greyhound: this was a tall, hefty ship, nearly 200 yards long, carrying almost 500 officers and men, armed with a helicopter and a lethal galaxy of guns, missiles and anti-submarine devices. A quarter- century ago they would have called it a . The ship slipped from the quay in Portsmouth dock­ yard shortly after 08.00 hours. A band on deck filled the quiet morning air with music. When the bugler saluted an admiral’s flag at H.M.S. Victory's masthead the crew, paraded on the upper deck, stood to attention. Harbour ferries gave way, their passengers lining the rails to appraise the warship. The departure was watched from an open platform just Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 abaft the bridge. As the ship passed through the harbour’s narrow entrance, the visitor recognised a familiar figure ashore and waved vigorously with his handkerchief. He had forgotten that it is a breach of the formalities to break ranks in this way. Within a few moments an officer appeared. To whom are we surrendering, may I ask?’ The voice was tolerant, but there was a caustic note in it. ‘If you could see her, you would willingly give in,’ the 16 No More Heroes offender quipped. The officer shrugged and put his binoculars to his eyes but the girl was now too far astern. ‘Oh, well,’ he smiled. ‘I’ll have to take your word for it.’ He led the way forward. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘You must meet Father.’ This proved to be an apt title for the skipper. A relaxed, almost family feeling prevailed on board this ship. Relation­ ships seemed laconic: no shouting, no forelock-tugging, no wariness. The keynote was dignity and courtesy, leavened with good-natured banter. Yet in this, as in all naval units, there were clearly marked ranks and lines of authority. The higher ranks give orders and enjoy privileges denied to the remainder. Varying social and educational backgrounds are discernible. Even so, the mood of today’s British warship is almost classless; and, unlike many of his peers in industry, the sea-going naval officer manages his men without misgiving or mistrust. While codes of discipline underlie the relationships, the harmony achieved in this destroyer rested essentially on con­ sent and comradeship. Penalties for minor misdemeanours are on a fixed scale; thus, any man can calculate in advance the price of a relatively trivial lapse. The old-fashioned ‘strafes’ and pack drills are virtually no more, while punish­ ments for the more serious crimes are subject to painstaking procedures by which the defaulter is quite often, as his own mess-mates would agree, given more latitude than he deserves. In a warship, officers and men live and work cheek by jowl; their common purpose is altruistic; they deal directly with one another and not through remote negotiators or distant committees. While the resulting esprit de corps is largely the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 gift of ages, in modem times the Navy’s genius has been to accommodate drastic social and technological changes and a diminished world role without loss of vitality. The people, the ships, the weapons, the strategic framework: all these are new. But the Navy’s lifeblood is still its own continuing blend of pride, zeal, sense of history and professionalism. The Captain, with his benign good-humoured manner, looked more advocate or doctor than dashing man of Mars. You Know What Sailors Are 17 ‘You have brought fine weather,’ he smiled. ‘The Com­ mander has a programme for you. I hope it’s what you want.’ Commander? This was the ship’s second-in-command, a post known as First Lieutenant when the officer’s rank is below that of commander. A warship’s commanding officer, how­ ever, whatever his rank, and more often than not this is below that of captain, is invariably known as the Captain. With the Captain was a group of officers and ratings on duty, the whole of the bridge, except two small wings, being enclosed. Here was one of many contrasts with previous eras, when warship bridges were open to the elements, and one good reason for enclosure is to protect the personnel from radio-active fall-out. Now, the captain of a modern warship need seldom go into the open air. At sea, on duty, when not viewing the world through the de-misted windscreen-wiped windows of his bridge, he is likely to be at his war station in the ship’s operations room below decks, or in his cell-like cubicle adjoining it. The scene in the operations room was a revelation. It was like some sinister Wellsian dream. The large, crowded, half­ darkened room was a mass of moving dials and glowing scanners. There was a constant murmur of voices on the intercoms. Men crouched on padded stools, absorbed by the mass of constantly changing information fed to them from the ship’s radar and radio sets. From this kind of room today’s sea battles are fought. The enemy, however close, does not have to be seen with the human eye. It is an eerie concept. Even the captain at his post in the operations room may be anchored to a stool, with ear­ phones restricting his head movements. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Tethered like that, any man of action must suffer moments of claustrophobia, made worse in modern warships by the distance separating operations room from bridge. For cen­ turies, a captain’s place in action or emergency has been where he can best see for himself, and be seen: is it not emasculating him to hide him below decks? Since the advent of radio, there has been a gradual erosion of the captain’s scope to use his own eyes and judge for himself; as this 18 No More Heroes process takes its course, executive becomes administrator, decision-maker becomes co-ordinator. The Navy’s operations room concept contributes to the process. The next port of call was the machinery control room. Here was another glittering array of dials, repeaters, gauges, control handles, telephones. Out of sight, in the bowels of the ship, two or three junior ratings were on maintenance duty or tending auxiliary plant in engine and boiler rooms while here, in the control room, remote from the hum and vibra­ tions and greasy stench of the machinery spaces, the bulk of the skilled personnel on watch, responding both to orders from the bridge and to the demands of a variety of power- thirsty services, were quietly working their ship’s propulsion and generating equipment. A morning going up and down ladders, in and out of com­ partments, ended in the central galley to watch the issue of lunch. There was a choice of five main courses, any of which would have done credit to a good hotel restaurant; the food was of excellent quality, well-cooked, appetisingly presented. Improvement in catering is one of the Navy’s unsung yet significant revolutions, one result being that the calibre and morale of the formerly undistinguished catering branches have soared. And so, evidently, enhanced with prandial satis­ faction, has the average sailor’s girth. Previously, each mess chose its own menu, prepared the dishes and took them to the galley to be cooked. The meal, when ready, was carried back to the mess deck, portioned and eaten there, in the cramped space used also for recreation, clothing and sleeping. Each mess washed up and stowed its own utensils. Now, every man helps himself, swiftly, at a Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 spacious self-service counter and, after eating in the crew’s dining hall, hands in his dirty utensils for others to wash up and stow. Chief petty officers and petty officers follow the same drill but have their own counter and eating area. Only the officers have segregated facilities, including service by stewards at table. Another surprise, of more dubious merit, was the prolifera­ tion of bars. This ship had seven bars in all; all but one You Know What Sailors Are 19 served spirits and each was separately stocked and audited. Some Bacchanalian substitute for the old rum ration is desirable but seven bars in a ship of this size, most of them for the petty officers’ pleasure, is going it a bit. Living stand­ ards as a whole improve all the time though in this ship they gave the impression that those of the commissioned officers were in decline, due mainly to overcrowding. On the other hand Father, when not at one of his places of duty, lives in regal splendour. This was made clear when the Captain, in his spacious day quarters, provided a fine lunch served immaculately by his personal attendants. Here little has changed over the years. In the Royal Navy a senior officer seems fated, more often than not, to display his personality against a sedately stereotyped background of green walls, white ceilings, wine-red carpets, chintz curtains and chair covers, and heavy mahogany wood­ work. Silver mementoes, the ship’s crest, framed sea-scapes and family photographs adorn the walls and mantel shelves. The desk is bare, as though a spread of paper work might look unseamanlike; the large table, when not laid for a meal, awaits ruefully the conference that seldom assembles. There is one novelty: messages from the bridge no longer come croakingly down a voice pipe; the modem captain is in instant touch through a smooth-toned intercom. Over lunch the talk was mostly naval shop. ‘After a long routine overhaul in the dockyard we have started equipment trials,’ the Captain explained. ‘These will last several weeks, with spells of home life in between. Today it’s radio tests. At the same time, we’ve begun the steady haul of shaking down a new crew. For them, the main exercise today will be Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 fire stations.’ The soup plates removed, a dish of dressed crab adorned the table. ‘The trials done, we go to Portland,’ the Captain went on. ‘The Admiral there will take care of us for a couple of months, putting us through a rigorous programme of sea­ going drills. At the end, there will be tests of the ship’s efficiency in all departments, and woe betide me if we don’t get passed fit for duty. The standards are very high, so much 20 No More Heroes so that the Germans and Dutch, among others, send some of their best warships to Portland to be put through the British paces. But every R.N. ship goes to Portland at set intervals during her life. It’s our bed of nails; we lie on it in turn.’ With other NATO navies seeking to emulate Britain’s, the second largest, is Portland setting the standard for Western naval competence as a whole? ‘That might be going a bit far,’ said the Captain. ‘You can hardly expect foreign admirals to admit their own navies are second best. But we lead in some fields, and anti-submarine warfare is certainly one of them.’ After Portland there would be ‘some showing the flag, tactical exercises with other ships, a break for leave and replenishment. Then, abroad for the best part of a year: a lot of sea-time, exercises with other navies, patrol duties, per­ haps some rescue work or a spot of gunboat diplomacy. And in the process, with luck, a trip right round the world.’ The discussion, punctuated by several brief exchanges through the bridge intercom, peach melbas and coffee, turned to discipline and morale. ‘You know how it used to be: when the grousing stopped, the grievances began,’ said the Captain. ‘That’s still true. Grousing is the salt in the sailor’s daily bread but, these days, there’s less sourness, less “them and us” undertone, because the social and educational gap between officers and ratings narrows all the time.’ ‘Does this mean that the Navy is promoting more and more of its officers from the ranks?’ ‘There seems to be a limit. Already, nearly half our officers Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 are lower deck promotions. But, naturally, we try to tap every likely source and, with most of the nation’s best brains going up to university, that is increasingly where the Navy must look for its own share of officer talent.’ The Captain paused. ‘On balance,’ he went on, ‘the Navy does seem to be moving, in this context, from a democratic towards a meritocratic policy. But for those who become frustrated we have a useful safety valve: shortened, almost tentative, forms of service You Know What Sailors Are 21 which, at certain stages, allow the disappointed blokes to quit more or less when they’ve had enough.’ ‘So, those remaining are the keen ones, whatever their rank?’ ‘I hope so,’ smiled the Captain, ‘though, inevitably, some do fall into the rut and become time-servers. You can’t keep everybody’s pecker up all the time.’ After lunch, the Captain returned to the bridge. It was a warm, calm, sunny afternoon. The destroyer was weaving sleepily around in the still water. Bembridge and the Isle of Wight coastline lay close at hand. There was a good deal of traffic: a large tanker heading seaward, a car ferry hurrying in from France, the Ryde passenger ferry, hovercraft, yachts, a slowly circling submarine. Sailors, in blue denims, were engaged in twos and threes on various ploys: re-wiring a junction box, checking stores in the helicopter’s hangar, stripping down the parts of a gun, greasing a winch, cleaning down a door. Has the sailor’s day changed much over the years? At the turn of the century, when his ship was in a home port, he would have been roused at 05.00 hours; today the call comes at 06.30. Breakfast used to be nominal: a mug of thick, steamy cocoa at 05.15, though a short break about three hours later allowed for further sustenance. The early morning chore in the small hours was scrubbing decks, clean­ ing guns, wiping down paintwork, polishing brasswork; today, cleaning is confined to essentials and much of it is mechanised, using labour-saving materials. After the Colours ceremony at 08.00, the sailor of seventy years ago would wash and change, ready for morning Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Divisions; then, if he was not to be subjected to general drills, he would settle down to a further period of maintenance and cleaning. In those days, the object was to employ ‘the hands’; today, emphasis is more on brains. Cleanliness was a fetish, pursued to the exclusion of the ship’s basic efficiency. If gun­ fire might scratch or crack the paintwork, many captains would postpone the practice or, sometimes, quietly ditch the quarterly allowance of ammunition over die lee side. 22 No More Heroes We have it, on good authority, that ‘the state of the paint­ work was the one and only idea. To be the cleanest ship in the fleet was still the objective for everyone; nothing else mattered.’1 The dinner break continues to be at noon and, after it, the forenoon’s work is resumed. For men not on evening duty, the work-day ends at 16.00, the liberty men being free to don civilian clothes and go ashore. Formerly, there would have been Evening Quarters, allowing another opportunity for drills or evolutions, before releasing the first batch of uni­ formed sailors for shore leave. And in 1900, general leave in port was given only two days a month', the sailor today, when not at sea, expects to enjoy his leave three days out of every four and, once ashore, he is usually clear until 07.30 the next morning. The next call was below decks, in the cramped and crowded office area and thence in the care of the chief petty officer who does the job of ship’s head clerk, to tea in his mess, a cosy room but very congested, most of the space being occupied by tiers of bunks and lockers. At one end was a small open area, furnished with a long settee, two or three armchairs and, across the corner, a bar counter. No daylight entered and, despite air-conditioning, there was a distinct aroma of old clothes and stale bodies, reminiscent of the boys’ locker room at school. But these are large, bulky, fully grown men, and the attempt to create a kind of home from home seems uncon­ vincing, some of the small, almost feminine touches of com­ fort being comic and incongruous. In the early evening, the ship’s company was called to fire stations. The evolution lasted an hour or so, ending with a Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 commentary broadcast by the Commander to the effect that it was a good show, everyone had done well, b u t. . . There were quite a lot of ‘buts’: water-tight doors not closed, hoses not ready, some chaps not at their proper stations, and so on. It was tactful, carefully formulated, patient, avuncular. One could not avoid the suspicion, however, that the fire, if real, might have won the day. It seemed tactful to compliment the Commander, but he You Know What Sailors Are 23 was not impressed. ‘Bloody cock-up,’ he sighed. ‘But you daren’t say so; anyway, not the first time.’ Here was yet another change. As Lionel Yexley recounts, at the turn of the century naval drills were invariably carried out ‘at the rush’, many a naval commander taking as his text: ‘I don’t want you to walk; I don’t want you to run; I want you to FLY!!! !’2 It needed the Second World War to put an end to all that. The Commander, asked if it would take long to get his fire practice right, replied: ‘Two or three further drills should do the trick. And,’ he emphasised, ‘by that time they will have learned it well, at their speed, as though it was largely their idea; and after that, they will remember it.’ And meanwhile? He crossed his fingers. ‘One must pray for rain,’ he grinned. Towards dusk, the ship nosed its way into Spithead and stopped. A tender from the dockyard came alongside. Some mail, a few stores and two or three ratings climbed aboard. Into the tender went a handful of dockyard technicians, spruced up, ready for their evening at home, the ship and its crew being destined to spend the night at sea. The Commander and other officers came to the side to say good-bye and, as the tender drew away, the Captain waved from the bridge. The detail of the destroyer receded: the faces of men on deck went out slowly, like small lights, bits of gear, life rafts, davits merged into the grey background; the ship’s number, painted on its side, became indistinguishable. Soon, the destroyer was a dark profile in the evening light; as it turned, heading for the sea, a reflection of the sun, dappling the water, gave it a momentary glow. Then it was stem Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 on, gathering speed and, in a few minutes, almost out of sight. Eyes turned to the nearing scene ashore. The tender was in the deep-water channel, parallel to Southsea beach, whence Nelson and his ships set sail for Trafalgar, a channel scoured more recently by the giant hulls of twentieth-century battle­ ships making their majestic way towards the narrow, fortified harbour entrance. People were strolling along the sea front or 24 No More Heroes sitting in their cars, awaiting the sunset. The waters of Spit- head were now almost empty. Throughout the years of British dominion, these waters have been a venue of imperial splendour, an anteroom of naval might and pageantry. This evening, one solitary destroyer had slid quietly into view, paused and slipped out again to sea. Who had noticed? Were there any there who could recall the great assemblies of earlier days? Maybe there was an old warrior on the back seat of one of those cars, nodding his head in senile slumber, who could remember, vaguely, the most formidable of them all: the Royal review of July 1914. If he had been of that brave company, on the eve of holocaust, he would have been witness to the presence of an unprecedented armada, ar­ ranged in twelve impeccable lines, which comprised, among many lesser craft, fifty-seven , four battle , sixty-two cruisers and fifty-seven . And these were only the Navy’s home-based squadrons; all around the world, about their daily business, was a host of other British warships. And here also, at Spithead, as a gesture of foresight, dwarfed by the leviathans and their galaxy of supporting warships, were two flotillas of tiny submarines - and twenty- four seaplanes. The King was afloat in the Royal yacht, supported by the First Lord, Winston Churchill; the First Sea Lord, Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg; the other Lords of Admiralty; no less than twenty-five commanding admirals, each with his own flag at a ’s masthead; and a total of 75,000 other naval officers and ratings. On the third day, this multitude of ships weighed anchor, formed into column in close order and, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 without hitch, proceeded, cheering, past the Royal Yacht to the open sea, a mammoth steam-past of nearly two hours’ duration. Here was steely evidence of a force of which its chief architect and creator, the great Admiral Fisher, had exulted in 1911. ‘Our Navy at this moment could take on all the Navies of the world! Let ’em all come!’ And who, that day, could doubt it; or, doubting it, could bring himself to speak?3 You Know What Sailors Are 25 The harbour entrance, its ancient bastions and gun emplacements given over to the trippers, was now abeam. On the port hand, behind its ramparts, H.M.S. Dolphin, for many years headquarters and training school of British sub­ marines; from its mast still flew a white ensign and the flag of a rear-admiral. But Haslar Creek, the submarine anchorage, was almost deserted. On the starboard hand, H.M.S. Vernon: another flagstaff, another array of well-groomed buildings, another parade ground; and another dwindling function. This establishment, home of the torpedo, the mine and, in its prime, the wonders of electricity, is now largely a parking lot for service trans­ port; and its naval days are numbered. A little farther up, past the jetty supporting the main rail­ way terminus and the pontoons of the Isle of Wight and Gosport ferries, high above the naval dockyard, the great signal tower pierced the sky; on it another mast, another rear- admiral’s flag, another ensign. Then, beyond the tower, the tall spars and rigging of H.M.S. Victory wearing another pair of flags, one of them the red St George’s Cross of a full admiral, the daddy of them all. In the distance, as the tender circled to come alongside, H.M.S. Excellent, spread squatly on the low-lying Whale Island, its tall flag-staff supporting yet another large white ensign. Here, for many years, has throbbed the Navy’s secret phallus: here is the proud home of the gun, chief weapon and raison d’etre of the ironclad battlefleets; here a prime source of the Navy’s verve and vitality, and nursery of more than a lion’s share of naval chiefs. The crest is apt: a nubile Britannia waiting coyly beside a huge, thrusting Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 gun; and below her, the muscular slogan, Si vis pacem para bellum. What is the significance of all these ‘stone frigates’, steeped in their various traditions, replete with their sense of fulfil­ ment, each with its proud white ensign and, often, its separate admiral: are they monuments or empty shells; or are they vital nuclei on which to build Britain’s next wartime Navy?4 In the quiet evening sunlight, these echoing establishments 26 No More Heroes seemed oddly forlorn. Britain still has a Navy, but the lustre it sheds on Portsmouth is dimmer than it was. The submarines operate mainly from Scotland; the surface ships are scattered upon their various errands; the navigation and signals schools, formerly in the dockyard, have moved inland to quieter pastures. Fewer sea-borne admirals come this way, the Navy’s sole remaining fleet Commander-in-Chief flying his flag at an office in a north London suburb. An increasing area of Portsmouth dockyard is now given over to commerce and the naval quays, that evening, were almost bare of ships; only one foreign and two British frigates were in sight. Upon landing from the tender, it was barely 19.00. The dockyard was deserted. At the gate, a uniformed policeman checked credentials. The Hard seemed empty. Where were all the sailors? Not so long ago, in the yard and out, the blue of their uniforms would have dominated the scene. There would have been sailors everywhere: strolling the decks of their ships, passing to and from the dockyard gate, milling around the pubs and bus stops of The Hard, hurrying into town in search of wives or girl-friends. Some of the familiar land­ marks, having survived or re-emerged from the blitz, remain: the Keppel’s Head; Gieves; the wine merchants, John Harvey and Saccone & Speed; and, under the arches below the railway line: the Lower Deck Cafe, ‘licensed for music and dancing’; and the Tattoo Artist, ‘I do not tattoo girls.’ Every Nice Girl Loves a Sailor . . . In the early years of this century, maybe. For many girls, nice or nasty, for keeps or just for kicks, Jack Tar was certainly a catch. Ill-paid, poorly educated, rough-tongued though he was, when Jack came Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ashore, with his purse full of money saved during long spells afloat, jaunty in his loin-hugging uniform, exuding pent-up zest, he was a living reassurance that all was well with England - and with Englishmen. . . . And You Know What Sailors Are.5 The sailor and his ways permeated every walk of life. He was a symbol of strength, vigour and quality. Advertisers stamped their products with his visage; the trendy gear for children, even You Know What Sailors Are 27 for girls, was a polite version of the sailor’s suit; tobacco was sold in packs bearing the famous bearded face. In its prime, those few decades ago, the Royal Navy policed the seven seas as the chief instrument and protector of British imperial power. Pax Britannica, an expression of the only world-wide political and trading apparatus in human history, was well served by a maritime force of unique character and achievement. And now: what survives of this phenomenon?

In appraising any organisation, one place to begin is at the top; and after meeting the paterfamilias, a visit to the nursery may be no less revealing. The professional head of the Navy is the First Sea Lord; in the present century, nearly thirty admirals have had this job. What may be gleaned from a visit to a First Sea Lord of the 1970s? At the approach to the headquarters of the Royal Navy, just off Whitehall, one might expect some sign of the sea: flag, battle honour, brass cannon, a sailor or two in uniform. But the large modern building which houses the Admiralty Board reveals at the entrance nothing of its character, no aura of past glory, no sense of occasion. The elderly doorman, dressed in a nondescript uniform, pointed to a large glass booth, blocking the way upstairs. Inside sat two or three grey-haired amazons, like a bevy of ticket clerks, but more austere. ‘Yes? Who do you want?’ ‘The First Sea Lord. I have an appointment.’ The lady gave a sharp look as she pushed pad and pencil Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 forward. ‘Fill that in.’ Then, she checked a list, and, finding nothing to his dis­ advantage, waved her visitor through. Another woman, a jolly overalled messenger, led the way to the lift. Upstairs, in the outer office, were four officers in civilian clothes. At the appointed minute, one of them opened the door communicating with the First Sea Lord’s sanctum and beckoned. ‘We’re in,’ he smiled. 28 No More Heroes The First Sea Lord wore an old-fashioned dark lounge suit with waistcoat and black leather shoes; he was disting­ uishable from the stereotyped City commuter only by his salty language. On a coat hanger, however, was a naval officer’s jacket with layers of gold braid mounting its sleeves almost to the armpits. The First Sea Lord waved to a chair by the window, choos­ ing for himself a seat which faced the light. This was an unusual way to place a visitor. ‘Yes, it’s a bit odd,’ he explained affably, ‘but I like to keep an eye on the time. They’ve given me two clocks but today, for some reason, only the one behind your head is opera­ tional.’ Under the admiral’s crisp scrutiny one expected the clock to strike several bells, but it maintained a respectful silence and, indeed, was rewarded during the next hour with hardly a glance from its master. During the past half-century, what had been the main changes in the First Sea Lord’s role? ‘Ever-increasing detail and the constant need to assimilate it: that’s what’s new,’ came the reply. ‘When the politicians send for you, they expect immediate answers. Their questions may be highly complex or quite trivial. You really have to work at it, long hours, if you’re to be up to date with all that’s going on.’ ‘The Navy’s shrunk,’ he continued, ‘but instant communica­ tions bring instant problems; and decisions of all kinds tend more and more to be made where most of the know-how is, in the centre, here in London. Yet, to make the right decisions, this still means having your finger on the human pulse, seeing and being seen by officers and men; and this means, or ought Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 to mean, a lot of time on the move, travelling. It really does get a bit strenuous, trying to be here and there, everywhere, all the time.’ Besides his customary functions, is not the First Sea Lord becoming virtually commander-in-chief of Britain’s sea­ going ships as well? The admiral, pointing to a rather archaic telephone set screwed to the wall behind his desk, asked: ‘If I can go to my You Know What Sailors Are 29 desk and pick that up and give an order personally to almost any British warship captain anywhere in the world, what else can you expect?’ In view of the antiquity of the instrument, not to mention the vagaries of the admiral’s clocks, the feat seemed miraculous; and presumably, to far-flung sea cap­ tains, not all that agreeable. This First Sea Lord’s cheerful endorsement of the perennial trend towards centralisation of major command decisions was not encouraging. Inability or unwillingness to delegate has too often been a failing of first sea lords, their record in this respect comparing ill with those of the professional heads of other fighting Services. The tradition among British admirals since Victorian times that, in operational matters, only the panjandrum can decide has sometimes led to chronic failures of initiative among squadron flag officers and warship captains notably, perhaps, in the First World War. Although the scale and scope of today’s Navy are smaller, its administration and technology are much more complex and, in recognition of these changes and of the need to devolve initiative, the Navy possesses elaborate staff struc­ tures. But these could serve no useful purpose if the head men ignored them when the big decisions came along. Are the staffs well used and, if so, why should the First Sea Lord think it his duty to be at hand throughout his waking day to the politicians while, at the same time, trying to be visible to all and sundry as leader of his service? When this point was pressed, the First Sea Lord demurred: ‘Well, obviously I don’t do it all single-handed. To start with, there are the other sea lords among whom, you understand I am primus inter pares. And we do have a staff, enabling me to Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 delegate a wide range of functions, as well as day-to-day operations,’ he continued. ‘But the fact remains: today’s First Sea Lord, while essentially sea-orientated, has to be extremely well-informed about everything to do with defence, however remotely. He has to be a rounded man, at one not only with politicians and pundits and the heads of other Services, including the foreigners, but with the entire Whitehall apparatus.’ 30 No More Heroes Outside the window, through the trees, was the sparkle of the river Thames and, in the distance, the great bulk of County Hall. The First Sea Lord’s office looked anything but nautical, but at least it had a view of water. The decor, as one had come to expect, was predominantly green but the walls were adorned with three oils of distinction: one of Nelson, one of Cunningham and one of a modern warship entering Portsmouth harbour. A large illuminated globe reminded us of the Navy’s world-wide role. Apart from a silver dagger, all the accoutrements were peace-loving. This Lord, how important is he? By the door hung a framed list of all the former first sea lords, stretching back into the nineteenth century. Not all were famous, of course, but who nowadays is destined to match the stature of Fisher, Jellicoe, Beatty, Chatfield, Pound, Cunningham, Mount- batten? The man in the street has heard of Mountbatten; since the latter ended his period as First Sea Lord in 1955, there have been several successors: Lambe, John, Luce, Begg, Le Fanu, Hill-Norton, Pollock, Ashmore. Who has heard of them? If Fisher, who held this office twice, were judged by his first term (October 1904-January 1910), he would be counted the most brilliantly successful and by far the most powerful of his kind. Under Edward VII’s patronage; in harness with progressive First Lords, such as Selborne, Tweedmouth and McKenna; in intimate touch with leading figures in politics and the press; supported by an eager coterie in the senior ranks of the Navy, active and retired: Fisher in the space of a few years wrought a human and technological revolution throughout a Service, which, during the century since Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Trafalgar, had enjoyed the pleasant contortion of ruling the waves while resting on its laurels. Captain H. K. Oram writes:6

‘More or less within a generation, ideas of battle changed from blasting off at point blank range to the concept of fight­ ing at unprecedented ranges of ten miles or more. It is remark­ able that Jacky Fisher and his small minority were able to You Know What Sailors Are 31 dragoon the Navy into the 20th century in so short a time. [His] Dreadnought was, in every sense, a masterpiece ...’ If H.M.S. Dreadnought, breaking new ground in capital ship performance, was his technical masterpiece, his greatest achievement was in rousing his country to the new menace of German imperialism and in ensuring that Britain and its Empire, in the nick of time, would gain a modern maritime force fitted for its dominant role in the First World War, a conflict the outbreak and character of which he foresaw, with uncanny precision, several years earlier. In 1911, besides fore­ casting October 1914 as ‘the date of the Battle of Armaged­ don’, Fisher predicted that Jellicoe would by then be com­ manding Britain’s Home Fleet. And so he was: Jellicoe, whom Fisher, in 1912, described as having ‘all the attributes of Nelson, and his age’; but not, as time would show, his daring. But Fisher achieved his ends only at the cost of fierce enmities; if blood was not actually shed, tom hair, apoplexy and broken careers were part of the price. Professionally, his blunder was to thwart the creation of an effective Admiralty staff, causing his admirer, Lord Esher, to complain that Fisher ‘wants to administer solus. That is his danger and his pitfall.’7 In a broader sphere, Professor Marder8 tells us that, as early as 1906, Fisher’s enemies, led by the redoubtable Lord Beres- ford,9 trumpeting his fury wherever there were ears to hear, included half a dozen prominent admirals and, more damag­ ing, at least as many influential newspapers and magazines. Esher went so far as to warn Fisher:

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ‘In a country like ours, governed by discussion, a great man is never hanged. He hangs himself. Therefore pray be Machia­ vellian, and play upon the delicate instrument of public opinion with your fingers and not your feet.’10 And yet, when the time came for Fisher to withdraw in 1910, it was Stead, an outstanding leader of public opinion, who paid him this most eloquent tribute: ‘It’s almost as if Nelson had stepped down from his monument in Trafalgar Square.’ 32 No More Heroes But there was an echo of Esher in his further remark that Fisher’s ‘greatness was attested alike by the devotion that he commanded from all the greatest, and the fierce rancour of animosity which he aroused in the worst, of his contem­ poraries’.11 Today, when the Navy weighs little in the scales of political and public opinion, a First Sea Lord can still breathe fire and thunder within the four walls of his office, where the heat and the din are muffled, realising that, if they were not, the kick- back would doubtless knock him into oblivion. For a con­ temporary First Sea Lord no longer involves himself in public controversy, however muted; he could certainly not afford to go along with Fisher’s contention: ‘Emotion can sway the world. The heart, not the brain, gets victory!’ Or with his declaration: ‘Never explain . . . Your enemies won’t believe any explanation.’12 He is no longer a very newsworthy com­ modity and, anyway, a carefully reticent directorate of public relations stands between him and the press. Except as a matter of form, he answers no longer to kings and potentates; his own boss nowadays is another, more senior officer, the Chief of the Defence Staff, whose appointment, rotated in turn among the three Services, has no continuing or deep-rooted power base and, therefore, is politically innocuous. It must be very frustrating, sitting in the great Fisher’s shadow, to be reduced to stabbing the air with a silver dagger. In the political sphere, since the post of First Lord became redundant, as part of the move towards tri-Service unifica­ tion, the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force have shared only one representative in the Cabinet, the Secretary of State for Defence, and, as he has to hold a balance between the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 three Services, the Navy’s separate point of view is no longer heard directly in the highest national councils. On the other hand, when a present-day Defence Secretary does speak for the Navy, it may be assumed that he utters only after giving fair consideration to competing factors; thus, at least, unlike most First Lords, he is above suspicion as a special pleader. With so much talent concentrated at the centre, what functions remain to the Commander-in-Chief of the British You Know What Sailors Are 33 Fleet? Here we have a full admiral, occupying a post in the tradition of the Navy’s great sea commanders: and where does his flag fly? Not afloat, not even within sight of blue water. This officer and his staff occupy headquarters, resem­ bling a Schweppes regional office, in Northwood, a wooded north London suburb. Incongruously, by the parking lot, from a tall mast, fly the Admiral’s flag and a king-size white ensign. When this fleet supremo ventures afloat, he goes by air; his ships being usually scattered, it is rare indeed for any substantial number of them to come together in his presence. On the face of it, there is little to be done from Northwood that could not be just as well done from Whitehall. So, what price a First Sea Lord’s take-over bid? Pretty high, it seems, for the man who holds the appoint­ ment of Commander-in-Chief Fleet wears two other hats as well, both of them signifying senior posts in the NATO maritime hierarchy, with separate multi-national staffs in their own quarters at Northwood; and in these capacities the admiral derives his authority, not merely from Whitehall, but from an international political and military junta, centred in Brussels, acting in the combined names of the U.S.A., Canada, and all the European member nations. Thus, when­ ever Royal Navy units are allocated to NATO, and this should mean any time there is a threat to Western security or a serious pre-war situation in Europe or the North Atlantic, the vessels concerned, perhaps the majority of available British warships, come directly under the orders of their NATO commander; and he, who may be one and the same man as the British Commander-in-Chief Fleet, is, in his NATO capacity, outside the First Sea Lord’s jurisdiction. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 This raises problems, not only of lines of authority and administrative overlap, but, in the last resort, of personal loyalty. Here is a man at Northwood, owing loyalty in one set of situations, through the First Sea Lord, to the British Sovereign; and then, in other situations, most likely those of greater peril to Britain, having to switch his loyalty to - whom? When the essentials of power are weighed in the scales, there can be only one answer: the President of the 34 No More Heroes United States. As most of NATO’s resources, including its supremo in Europe, are American, is it not to be expected that, in any major crisis threatening their own country’s security, American voices would expect to give the firing orders? If that option were removed and the U.S.A. with­ drew, NATO would not count for much; and nor, for that matter, would Northwood. Having turned to questions of morale, the First Sea Lord was explaining how, with today’s average age of marriage at twenty-one, several years lower than a generation ago, and with the age of naval recruitment still tending to rise, con­ flicting self-interests have become the crux of the contem­ porary manpower problem. ‘You really might say,’ the First Sea Lord explained, ‘that naval strategy is nowadays decided by the demands of naval wives and sweethearts. We have had to adopt a policy where­ by no man serves abroad continuously for more than nine months; and if that’s not the girls’ doing, what is?’ Nine months: can Britain run a foreign-going Navy with that kind of restriction? Two or three decades ago, a man went abroad for two years or more; now, nine months; soon, what? ‘We do our best,’ the First Sea Lord went on. ‘Life afloat is pretty comfortable. The food is a sight more eatable than it often is at home. We mollycoddle them, divert them, stimu­ late them but, I fear, none of this wholly makes up for the pangs of separation.’ When asked whether, in general, the Navy was in good heart and shape, the First Sea Lord rose to give emphasis to his reply. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ‘Make no mistake,’ he insisted. ‘It’s a bloody good show, never been better.’ Another officer, who had been quietly making notes at a separate table, nodded. It was time to go. The note-gatherer was the captain in charge of naval public relations, including liaison with writers and journalists; playing no part in the discussion, he was there just to keep the record. In the corri­ dor, he paused. You Know What Sailors Are 35 ‘I think that went very well,’ he said kindly. Then, with a smile, he handed over his notes. ‘But surely ... isn’t this the official record?’ He shrugged, shook hands and went his way. This gesture of confidence in a visitor’s discretion was astute, for it put him on the spot: the Navy’s reputation for diplomacy must still be well-deserved.

Outwardly, forty years after having first set foot there, the Dartmouth scene looked much the same. The naval college’s parade ground with its flanking roads sweeping up to the long terrace was immaculate as ever. The commanding views over the town to the open sea beyond the estuary were unchanged. After seventy years of exposure to the elements, the fabric of the main building seemed in perfect order. The famous legend, worked immovably into the facade, still announced in bold and confident letters that, under God’s providence, our wealth, prosperity and peace depend upon the Navy. It seemed sacrilege to wonder what hands might since have sought to modify that message; and whether those occupying the college today believed it. Whoever these occupants might be, there was no sign of them this fine Sunday summer morning. The clock showed eight minutes to ten at which time, in earlier days, the parade ground would have been the stage for a carefully drilled assembly of 500 uniformed cadets. Led by the guard of honour, accompanied by a band, they would march cere­ monially past their captain, under the critical eyes of their officers and masters and, on special occasions, of admiring Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 parents, to file smartly into the building, along the echoing passages and into the chapel for Divine Service. But now, walking slowly across the empty parade and up the steps, one was entirely alone. In the main doorway on the terrace a man appeared: he wore civilian clothes and was hatless. He might have been the caretaker. He came forward. ‘I am the Commander,’ he smiled. ‘Shall we go in?’ 36 No More Heroes He led the way along familiar corridors and into the chapel. One had a vision of full-throated singing by eager young cadets, of crowded pews, of an atmosphere of gusto and excitement. The reality was almost incredible. In the choir stalls, in place of the once close-packed ranks of cadet choristers, was a motley handful of women. A few men in lounge suits accompanied by their wives and children, were spread untidily and sparsely among the pews. At the back, looking glum, was a small group of uniformed cadets. Were they the duty watch or willing worshippers avoiding attention? The Chaplain conducted the service at breakneck speed, completing the familiar ritual, sermon and all, in fifty min­ utes. No house of God, this; not even, in any vital sense, a shrine of tradition. The white ensigns by the altar, the com­ memorative plaques and other relics, although still scrubbed and polished; the sonorous sailors’ prayer, for the persons of us Thy servants and the Fleet in which we serve; and the rousing hymn, for those in peril on the sea', all the once-meaningful ritual seemed oddly forlorn and pointless. When there are too few customers, why not close the shop? It was a relief to go into the sunlight, before accepting the Commander’s offer of a quick tour of the buildings. But this walk around the galleries of the main assembly hall, still called the quarterdeck, past lecture rooms, through the mess, along corridors flanked by photographs of the earlier genera­ tions of cadets, merely deepened the mood of depression. Occasionally a young man in civilian clothes would pass, smiling a polite ‘Good Morning’: the polished floors gleamed brightly, but few feet trod them. The busts and the portraits looked stale or frozen. A splendid institution, no doubt, but Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 moribund___ But memories can be misleading. Next day, in working hours, the mood and the atmosphere had changed. Perhaps the place did not matter much: what counted was the people. These people, their tasks, their bearing, their sense of pur­ pose: all seemed new, the differences emphasising more elo­ quently than words could the Navy’s post-war revolution, today’s Dartmouth product drawn from many walks of life, You Know What Sailors Are 37 being much older, better educated, more self-reliant, more relaxed. Then, as the day went on, one sensed again the old pride of Service, the tradition of excellence, the fastidious approach to training: in their essentials and presumably in their relevance to modem needs, these seemed unimpaired. Morale was high, but esprit de corps was being achieved, apparently, with less sacrifice of individuality. Not that the Navy has an ample supply of keen-eyed young men impatient to raise themselves above the common rut: on the contrary, much of the material at Dartmouth’s disposal is far from ideal. And Dartmouth has to juggle with an almost intolerable variety of entrants in the form of seven different species of officer candidate, numbering several hundred in all: seamen, engineers, supply officers, pilots, observers, instruc­ tors, marines; of young men varying in age on arrival from seventeen to twenty-six; of graduates, undergraduate cadets, college (pre-university) cadets, supplementary list (short- service) entrants, promotions from the lower deck; of educa­ tional qualifications ranging from four ‘O’ levels through complex permutations of ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels to a university degree. As though this does not play havoc enough with the syllabus, Dartmouth caters also for mixed groups of officer candidates from foreign and Commonwealth countries. Under the pressures of the times, the preference is increas­ ingly for the university product and thus for a rising propor­ tion of older entrants. But the older and the more extensively educated the man, the less is he inclined to succumb to yet another lengthy course. Yet most senior naval officers hold that the Dartmouth syllabus is already dangerously truncated. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 They claim that the sea is a uniquely challenging and fickle element, that the responsibilities of a young naval officer on watch who may at times, early in his career, find himself in sole charge of a major warship, call for sailorly skills and aptitudes, as distinct from ‘management’ techniques, which cannot be imparted overnight or, for that matter, in any land- girt academy alone. Dartmouth’s success in making radical adjustments without 38 No More Heroes loss of nerve is impressive, but can it last? The gulf is not only between present and past regimes at Dartmouth: it is between the Dartmouth way and the contemporary civilian way. The euphoric perfectionism of Dartmouth, its Nelson-loving hero worship, its over-sensitivity to criticism and its kid-glove moulding of able young men’s minds encourage an elitism so far removed from the relatively casual or indifferent attitudes of young Western people in general as possibly to endanger the maintenance of bridges, of mutual sympathy and under­ standing, between the Navy and the community on whose support it rests. The pursuit of excellence is commendable but there could be dangers in becoming too much a sect apart. Sect! The analogy may not be entirely fair but it serves well enough this chapter’s closing theme. So, after touring the Navy’s seminary, visiting its high priest and spending a day afloat with members of the order, these questions arise: out of what stalwart womb have the sturdy brothers sprung; what are they in the modem world to do; and will their cause con­ tinue to be just or convincing enough to satisfy the hard-taxed multitude? The gestation period, for this book’s purposes, begins in 1900. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Chapter Two

The Tumult and the Shouting

For several centuries, the prowess of British arms has rested upon a tradition of dogged perseverance, reflecting the national pugnacity. Certainly, the Royal Navy has never been deficient in fighting spirit; and this asset is much to be prized for, in the end, after the data have been weighed and the plans measured, it is a force’s will to win that tips the scales. The key is a confident corps of officers conditioned to keep their head under fire, not to flinch in adversity, to win the war if not the battle. British officers have usually been of this calibre, the product in the past of the wealthier classes: country-reared, hardened in spartan mansions, toughened in the pursuit of game, imbued with noblesse oblige and a love of conquest; and more recently, of the middle classes: public- schooled, hardened in draughty dormitories, toughened in Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the pursuit of oval balls, imbued with palabra ingles and a love of competition. To many of them war was an extension of the hunting field or the playing field; campaigns in faraway places, against valiant if unsophisticated natives, offered the chance of a bit of sport, in a gladiatorial sense, while cheer­ fully promoting the benefit of British rule and protection. Also, officers and men yearned for combat as a demonstra­ tion, not merely of their skills and valour, but of their 40 No More Heroes manhood; and young officers, in particular, volunteered eagerly for dangerous missions in the earnest hope of being blooded and, thereby, noticed for eventual promotion. The cockiness of the British officer class ought to have taken a jolt in the South African War but it needed more than this to dampen the boyish ardour of that period. ‘We were awfully glad to hear that there is a war . . . It will be beastly if we do not land and get medals’, wrote one eager midship­ man;1 and Wemyss, a future First Sea Lord, referring to a naval brigade action in South Africa, confided in a letter home: ‘Our men suffered most severely, but thank God behaved with the greatest gallantry and have received the Queen’s congratulations. I think I’d do anything in the world for that.’2 Even in the midst of holocaust, naval officers were to be unshakingly true to type. On what proved to be the eve of Jutland, when Jellicoe ordered the Fleet at Scapa to ‘raise steam for full speed with the utmost despatch’, it is recorded that the midshipmen on board the Revenge ‘jumped up and cheered and danced around hugging each other.... We ran ... to help the ship’s company prepare for sea. They were cheering, too.’ And the great Beatty in the aftermath of Jutland made the proud confession: ‘I do not mourn or regret, but rejoice that all my gallant comrades and friends had such a glorious death.’3 Today, no one in his right mind could crave war or savour its delights. The civilised powers have learned that, with modern weapons, the use of force as a means of imposing one nation’s will on another, with all the risks of escalation, is liable to create more problems than it solves and, in the end, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 deny the aggressor the spoils of victory. In the Royal Navy as in other arms the modern officer is broadly educated, articu­ late, conscious of public scepticism; he is no longer of the wealthier classes or, to any significant extent, out of the public school system. From what source therefore, stems his fighting spirit? Without the test of war how can his will to win be measured and, if a potential enemy were to underrate his fighting spirit, might not war ensue? The Tumult and the Shouting 41 Within a sound esprit de corps framework, the drive today is intellectual. An officer reasons that the object of wearing uniform is not so much to fight as to prevent the possibility of fighting: the role is construed normally as being defensive, the proof of its pudding being continuing peace. In that sense, today’s naval vessel is no longer a warship; it is an antiwar- ship. But to be effective a deterrent must be credible, and this requires a premise resting on the clear if reluctant assump­ tion that, in the last resort, the serviceman will fight to the death. All this is a far cry from the Navy’s ready belligerence in its heyday of patriotic fervour. What kind of country did it represent at that period, three-quarters of a century ago? For Britons generally, it was a man’s world; and for those English blades on whom birth or opportunity had conferred the blessing of health and wealth, it seemed the best of worlds. In offices, clubs, factories; at the conference tables and in the embassies; in the great British institutions and, not least in the Navy: wherever momentous affairs were discussed or decisions taken, it was a male preserve. Within this preserve, the tribal customs decreed that the older you were the wiser also. The young deferred to their seniors, the middle-aged to the mandarins. Thus, progress and the pace of life were slow and, too often, unoriginal; initiative tended to be overlaid by reminiscence, foresight by hindsight. A gentleman should refrain from marriage until he was mature and earning enough for the paterfamilias function: in any case it was a bad mark for officers to marry under the age of thirty, even if they could afford it; and for the junior Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 naval officer, in particular, with few opportunities to sleep a night ashore, there seemed no point in it. There was, of course, a gentleman’s wish to reproduce himself and his wife’s duty to aid the process, thereby perpetuating the father’s name, estate or business, while providing new blood for the professions and services at home and overseas but, otherwise, why hurry? In this rather brutish climate the Navy bloomed and 42 No More Heroes flourished. At the turn of the century ‘the country was naval- minded as never before since Trafalgar’. Besides a spate of informed writing on naval topics, the Senior Service was eulogised in a stream of novels, poems, plays, bed-time stories and advertisements. The Navy League, a voluntary pressure group, could claim among its members in 1898 ‘two dukes, a marquess, six earls, two viscounts, and many lesser nobles: six admirals and four generals; imperialists like Rudyard Kipling and Henry Norman; several prominent newspaper men, including the Harmsworths; religious dignitaries; seventeen MP’s and four Lord Mayors.’ There was even a ladies’ branch.4 Under such eager patronage, it was no surprise that the Navy’s traditional ‘do or die’ posture should flower and, at the slightest pretext, be demonstrated. Fortunately, there was ample scope in the far-flung Empire, some of whose colonial citizens, not wholly persuaded that Britannia’s rule was a blessing, tended from time to time to erupt or riot or, heaven forfend, strike a sahib and start an insurrection. And, at the turn of the century, such incidents were providing a crucible of the Navy’s future leadership in the First World War, a cataclysmic event which still lay out of sight beyond the horizon. In 1900, where were they, the naval officers who would later gain the limelight? Fisher, not yet fully in his stride as the Navy’s great prophet and reformer, was already Commander- in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, presiding briskly over the stately apparatus whereby peace in that basin of age-old civilisations was maintained. Beresford, soon to become Fisher’s enemy and angry antagonist: second in command of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the Mediterranean Fleet and, at this stage, working loyally and enthusiastically under his chief in the furtherance of naval prestige and efficiency. Tyrwhitt, to win fame in the First World War as leader of the Harwich naval force: senior lieutenant of a small cruiser, the Indefatigable, showing the flag in the West Indies. Chatfield, a future First Sea Lord: one of the younger officers in Fisher’s fleet, not yet conspicuous. Pound, virtually to die in office as First Sea Lord in the The Tumult and the Shouting 43 Second World War: at Portsmouth on a technical course, qualifying as a ‘torpedo’ lieutenant. Cunningham, due to make history as Britain’s greatest fighting admiral in the Second World War: now only seventeen years of age but already in the thick of it, being blooded in South Africa in the war against the Boers. Mountbatten: even he was around, just; Mountbatten was bom in 1900. And Jellicoe, Beatty, Keyes: where were they? They were among the lucky ones; for these three were out East, beating hell out of the Chinese in the conflict known as the Boxer Rising.5 Let us pause for a moment to see how this trio came to be testing their skills, achieving their early fame, forming their characters, those thousands of miles away from home, at the expense of a yellow race whose own ancient civilisation rested largely on a philosophy holding war and warriors in contempt. At this time China, a cockpit of Western and Japanese imperialism, was riven with discontent. While the older generation of rulers and merchants was making a good thing out of the intruders and, for the most part, was content to let them be, a strong element, led by the Dowager Empress, took a reactionary view, exemplified by the slogan: ‘Chinese methods for the Chinese, and the abolition of all foreign influence.’ At the other extreme, with the young Emperor as its focus, a new generation of politically active Chinese was pressing for wide-spread reforms and, in particular, for a national re­ organisation on Western lines. Into this simmering cauldron, the imperialist powers were cheerfully pouring their explosive mixture. The British, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Russians, Germans, French, Italians, Austrians, Americans and Japanese: all these national groups enjoyed lease-held freedom to lord it over all and sundry within the boundaries of the ‘compounds’ allotted to them under treaty with the Chinese authorities. Each of these city territories was a micro­ cosm of its ruler’s home country; it applied its own laws, ran its own schools, maintained its own armed forces, and ad­ dressed its neighbours with the diplomatic and military 44 No More Heroes protocol reserved usually for relations between fully fledged nations. The Chinese who lived or worked in these compounds were second-class citizens whose livelihood and welfare depended on the whims or needs of the occupying powers. It required complacency or arrogance in high degree for the imperialists to presume that this state of affairs, so convenient to their own comforts and interests, could be continued indefinitely. Needless to say, they were taken by surprise when, quite suddenly, one of the sects sponsored by the Dowager Empress known as the Boxers, having quietly armed and trained them­ selves for combat, sprang into insurrection. The foreign devils, finding themselves at the wrong end of the guns and knives of a horde of fanatical revolutionaries, protested with injured pride while cabling urgently for reinforcements. Here was another setting for British verve and initiative, another incident to test the skill and gallantry of British troops and sailors. But this was to be no easy walk-over. The legations in Peking and the European settlements at Tientsin were soon being besieged, blockaded, starved; and the lives of the occu­ pants were in jeopardy. The forces immediately available to the British Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir Edward Seymour, were far from adequate, and the need to combine with the local armed units of the other occupying nations was quickly evident. But, while this improvised alliance would offer a unique chance for the British to appraise the war-worthiness of the contingents of the other seven nations, the prospect of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 operating with such a diverse concoction on a field of battle was viewed with misgivings if not alarm. For the British were accustomed to coping single-handed with rebellious natives; to be involved against the Boxers and their supporters with one hand tied behind an allied back was another matter. Fortunately, Britain’s fellow imperialists, knowing their place, proved willing, without much persuasion, to form a joint force under British command. Pax Britamica, Bellum The Tumult and the Shouting 45 Britannicum: whatever the problem or the danger, could not the British be relied upon to provide the right chaps and the right answers? And so, at the beginning of June 1900, there gathered at Taku, the port at the mouth of the Pei-ho river, not only the British China Squadron, but a growing miscellany of warships from the allied navies. The British Commander-in-Chief, as Supremo, buckled on his sword and made haste to Tientsin for a personal reconnaissance. There were two ways to Tient­ sin : one by rail and one by the river Pei-ho; but only the rail­ way continued beyond that city to Peking. When Seymour returned to Taku, his first step was to send a small naval brigade to protect the European settlements at Tientsin. This force comprised 150 seamen and marines under the command of a British naval captain; and an up-and- coming young commander, David Beatty, who had already gained a D.S.O. in glorious combat against Arab insurgents on the Nile, was delighted to be appointed second-in- command of the expedition. Meanwhile Seymour, after consulting his allies, decided to mount an expedition and force-march it to Peking in response to urgent appeals for relief from the British Minister there. A bright young naval captain, John Jellicoe, also marked for promotion to the higher ranks, was sent ahead to reconnoitre the route and prepare the infra-structure. Soon, he was able to report that the forced march could best be done by train, and that tugs and fighters were already being assembled to lift the landing party through shallow water to a point near the Taku railway station. Seymour decided personally to lead the expedition, which set out from Taku on 10 June; its Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 strength was 2,000 naval officers and men, of whom just under half were British, with a main armament of seven field guns and ten machine guns. But they were almost too late. By now, the Boxer insur­ gents had multiplied in numbers, growing immeasurably in strength by the adherence of large contingents of regular Chinese troops. Seymour’s brigade was stopped thirty miles beyond Tientsin and, after a vicious battle, found itself cut 46 No More Heroes off on all sides. While this was the kind of blood-and-thunder situation in which the British revelled, some of their allies were less enthusiastic and, for once, it appeared that the insufferable Chinese had gone too far: in short, the defeat of the invaders seemed imminent. Another conspicuously bright young officer, Roger Keyes, flat out to win his spurs, hurried to Tientsin whence, finding a distinctly parlous situation, he returned to Taku to whistle up some reinforcements. But the only way to wring more men from the fleet was by first capturing the Taku forts and, having thereby secured the Western position, withdrawing the local naval garrison for duty up river as a relief force. Keyes promptly set about the task, being instrumental in organising the capture of the forts, while also leading personally a suc­ cessful assault on the naval dockyard and, against odds, on another fort farther up the river. Part of his prize was four Chinese destroyers lying in the dockyard, and an enviable reputation for courage and a cool head in action. Meanwhile, Seymour was doggedly fighting his way back to Tientsin, intending to consolidate there the remnants of his own forces with those now grouping in that city. The retreat was tough going and might well have failed had not the brigade, by chance, come upon and captured a Chinese arsenal from whose stores it was possible to make up losses in guns, food and ammunition. Some of the enemy’s weapons, being familiar, were quickly distributed: Maxim guns for the British sailors, Krupp guns for the Germans. But the allies suffered many casualties in close combat with the fanatical Chinese foe: among the wounded was Jellicoe who, knocked for six by a bullet in the chest, was given up for Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 dead. With difficulty, he wrote out his will on a scrap of paper and, having dismissed his companions, composed himself for death. By chance, a doctor came his way, admin­ istered morphia, and concluded there was just about enough of Jellicoe worth saving. The wounded commander was thereupon carried off the battle field to safety and, to the surprise and pleasure of his friends, made a good recovery, although denied for several months the use of his left arm; The Tumult and the Shouting 41 while the offending bullet remained embedded in his lung throughout his life. At Tientsin during this time Beatty, with dash and gal­ lantry, was doing his bit to save the day. Despite the arrival of a force of 2,000 Russians from Port Arthur, the defenders of Tientsin were hard pressed, the city being surrounded and under constant bombardment. In the course of the fighting, Beatty received two wounds in the left arm and found himself in hospital. But it did not suit him to loll in bed while the guns were busy and, within three days, against the doctors’ orders, he quit the hospital and returned to the battle, in time to take part in fierce street fighting and, in saving a posse of wounded from the jaws of death, cover himself with further glory under enemy fire. On 24 June, a relief force from Tientsin having joined Seymour’s, the withdrawal to that city was made in fair order, despite continuing losses and incessant enemy attacks. More allied soldiers were now turning up in the area, including British troops from Hong Kong and Wei-hai-wei, and some from as far afield as the Boer War. The Terrible arrived, bearing the fiery Captain Percy Scott, one of whose specialities, just proven in South Africa, was to transform naval guns into formidable pieces of shore artillery. But he was a little late on the scene and at first, the Army being in no mood to share any more kudos with the Navy, only one of the four guns which he offered to throw into the battle was accepted. It was not long, however, before the other three were called hurriedly into use, in time to con­ tribute to the allied victory. By now, the Boxers and their supporters were reefing under Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the punishment meted out by the growing numbers of foreign troops and sailors and, soon, they broke up in disorder and retired. By the end of July, the allies were able to mount a combined force of 20,000 men, including fresh reinforcements from India, and, after a final spell of heavy fighting, Peking came under allied military control, peace being restored throughout the area before the autumn. So, as life returned to normal in the compounds and the 48 No More Heroes flags of the imperial powers flew once again over China, the ships withdrew, leaving Taku to lick its wounds. The foreign devils, by their persistence and skill in arms, had gained much face. More remarkable to those behind the scenes, however, was the way dash, initiative, improvisation and luck had, by a bare margin, brought victory out of muddle and confusion. According to an American naval observer, even the Taku base was a shambles, lacking order, control, stores, ammuni­ tion and hospitals. But the British were well satisfied having demonstrated once again, to a multi-national audience, those stoic and heroic qualities which were the Empire’s essence. More laurels had been gained in the great name of Queen Victoria; and more spurs had been won by Her Majesty’s subjects: among them Jellicoe, Beatty, Keyes, all of whom were destined to make their further marks on history.

Meanwhile, the Navy had to endure the upheaval of moder­ nisation, though if France, with its inferior fleet, had con­ tinued to be the most likely enemy, this might have been a fairly straightforward process. For at this time, whenever France or one of its cronies, notably Russia, added a new battleship to its maritime forces, Britain promptly ordered another battleship or two for its own fleet in line with its intention to maintain a navy equal in strength to the com­ bined strength of any two foreign navies. Thus, outside Westminster and Fleet Street, where moves by the newer colonial powers to build up their navies were inducing the near-hysteria on which politicians and journal­

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ists thrive, no one stirred when Clemenceau declared, at the twentieth-century’s dawn, that the main objective of French naval policy must, as ever, be the interruption of British com­ merce; and, in 1901, despite the reverses in South Africa, the Briton remained unshaken, Lord Brassey seeing fit in his influential Naval Annual to scratch a harassed shell-back or two with the smug statement: ‘The great departments of the Admiralty . . . achieve their HelpingChildren Face Tough ChildrenIssuesTough IssuesFace Helping Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

HelpingChildren Helping Face ToughChildren Issues Face Tough Issues HelpingChildren Face Tough Issues Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

HelpingChildren Face Tough IssuesIssues HelpingChildren Face Tough Children Face Tough Issues HelpingChildren Face Tough Issues IssuesHelping Children Face Helping Face Tough Issues ToughToughFace ChildrenIssues Helping HelpingChildren The Tumult and the Shouting 49 enormous task with as large a measure of success as it is reasonable to look for... Certainly no foreign administration does better. Under none is there so little wasteful expenditure. No Service produces a finer body of officers and men; none possesses more powerful ships.’5

Even so, discerning or well-informed people were begin­ ning seriously to keep their weather eye on Germany, following publication of the German Navy Bills of 1898 and 1900, Germany having thereby decided, quite suddenly, to double its fleet in sixteen years. Brassey, presumably, must have heard the pfennig drop when the Kaiser, in a New Year speech to his generals, commanded loftily: ‘Simplicity and modesty in fife and daily sacrifice to the royal service must be your rule’; and, prompted by Tirpitz who, as Navy Minister, sought to switch the military emphasis from land to sea: ‘By our army Germany regained her position in the council of nations___ The navy must be equal to the army. Then I shall be enabled to procure for Germany the place among foreign nations she has not yet obtained.’7 Indeed, in 1900 Brassey, besides a contributed article re­ porting that Germany ‘exhibits a desire and a determination to raise herself from the position of a comparatively weak Sea Power to that of one among the most potent’, had published a detailed appraisal of Germany’s latest Navy Bill, including this pointedly forthright extract: ‘Germany must have a fleet of such strength that, even for the mightiest Naval Power, a war with her would involve such risks as to jeopardise its own supremacy.’ Thus was launched the Tirpitz ‘risk’ theory. By advertising Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 a large, rapid and long-term naval building programme, accompanied by thinly veiled threats to the status quo, Germany hoped to gain diplomatic advantages favourable to its worid-power ambitions, while forcing others to divert more and more resources to their own defence programmes. The new and growing German middle classes demon­ strated their support with an outburst of anglophobia, seeing in their rulers’ policy a splendid way to greater wealth and 50 No More Heroes prestige while cocking a snook at their British peers with whom they were at this time suffering a ‘kind of disappointed infatuation’.8 This fuel, added to the Tirpitz flames, already being fanned by the Kaiser’s vanity, was bound to give rise to the white heat of an all-out armament race and, unless the momentum could be checked by saner counsels, to eventual conflagration. Meanwhile, as any but the Prussian mind might have foreseen, the impossible happened: Britain and France became allies. One of the first to sense the new threat was Fisher, to whose lot it was to fall in the years leading to the First World War to reconstruct and prepare the Royal Navy to meet the German challenge. John Arbuthnot (Jacky) Fisher was already sixty-three years old when, in 1904, he succeeded to the post of First Sea Lord, the one seat of power open to a naval officer from which it was possible, in those days, to alter the course of British strategy. He came to this coveted appoint­ ment with a formidable list of credits and a reputation for exceptional verve, drive and addiction to duty. A restless visionary, fluent and persuasive, with a marked technical bent, Fisher was the focus and pace-setter of those seeking a radical reform of naval gunnery in drill, method and performance. The possibility of engaging an enemy battlefleet at sea at a distance of several miles instead of, virtually, at point-blank range was bound to upset most of the accepted tenets of naval tactics and fleet manoeuvres; but so, for that matter, were the impending development of radio, oil-fired boilers, high-speed turbines and, above (strictly, below) all else, the torpedo-firing submarine. Britain’s vast, world-wide and largely new ironclad Navy, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 so recently and expensively transformed from wood and sail into metal and steam, viewed the prospect of further change with foreboding. Was this great armada now, suddenly, on the verge of obsolescence? Would not the new measures demand of senior officers an ability to calculate, predict and co­ operate that went far beyond their experience and, in many cases, their intellectual capacity? That the fruits of modernisation could ripen only gradu- The Tumult and the Shouting 51 ally, following the enlistment and development of cleverer types of officer and senior rating, had been foreseen by Fisher in 1902 when, as Second Sea Lord, he introduced the Sel- borne reforms.9 These, striking at the social conceits dividing one branch of officer from another, took a bold step towards the single-entry common-trained all-round junior officer, valued as much for his technical as for his leadership ability. And professionalism was to be the keynote, based on a systematic training process of which the new college at Dartmouth would be the prime catalyst. Steps were taken also to improve conditions for both officers and ratings: besides winning the first pay increase for fifty years, Fisher secured better accommodation for sailors afloat and ashore. Morale and efficiency were boosted by his emphatic support of Captain Percy Scott’s ferocious efforts in the cause of competitive gunnery drills afloat which, besides their dramatic effect on the fleet’s fighting prowess, kept the Navy’s achievements in the public eye, the form and identi­ ties of gun crews scoring the best marks in firing contests soon vying for press coverage with the top sporting events of the day.10 Thus, by the time Fisher became First Sea Lord, the Navy was already being shaped and conditioned to his way of thinking. The new pattern lacked only its central feature, the precise instrument by which the Navy was to thwart the German aggression and save the Empire from its enemies. This was Fisher’s piece de resistance: it was called the Dreadnought and in 1906, at one stroke, it rendered obsolete every capital ship afloat. The name given to the instrument was well chosen for, in Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 its prime, this ship was more than a match for any rival. Its design provided for a more powerful concentration of gunfire than was at that time envisaged by the architects of foreign navies; and the platform of those guns, while better protected with heavy armour than in previous warships, was able to steam faster than comparable capital ships elsewhere. Although this design broke new ground, the first ship of its kind was undergoing sea trials only one year after laying 52 No More Heroes down the keel, a feat due largely to Fisher’s single-minded­ ness and not least to the electrifying effect of his occasional swoops into Portsmouth Dockyard where his creation was being built. Strategically, Fisher’s main decision was to concentrate the Navy’s strength in or near home waters, a clear warning to the Germans not to be hasty and, in particular, not to be so rash as to strike pre-emptively at Britain. This move involved the recall of numerous British warships from their imposing flag-waving functions in distant waters on the grounds that, many of them being decrepit, the money saved would be better spent on battleworthy new construction. Despite fears to the contrary, the Navy’s withdrawal from remote colonies had no adverse effect on law and order; the effect on local social life, however, was devastating. Strategy, tactics, materiel, personnel: no comer of naval affairs was to remain unswept by Fisher’s broom. The exceptional energy and dynamism which he brought to his work as First Sea Lord, together with his gift of collecting around him able men with original minds yet willing to do his bidding, would have been remarkable in any man at the height of his natural vigour. Yet Fisher was already, by modem definition, at retiring age when he first assumed this office. A religious man, he would often start his day at 06.00 with prayers in Westminster Abbey, to be followed after an early breakfast by twelve hours at the Admiralty, sometimes with only one short break for lemonade and biscuits. For relaxa­ tion at the end of this stint, he loved best to gird himself in epaulettes, white gloves and gold-lined trousers, hurry to a Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ball and, having marshalled a bevy of young partners with the right blend of gaiety, beauty, stamina and good breeding, dance the whole night through. Girls, responding to his zest and ebullient self-assurance, liked being put on their mettle, not least by his skill and grace as a ballroom dancer; while, in return, their high spirits and evident pleasure in his company served to replenish his own stocks of vitality. These relation­ ships were essentially innocent; it was not until his later years The Tumult and the Shouting 53 that he sought solace on a feminine shoulder other than his wife’s.11 Meanwhile, Fisher’s weakness at work was also his strength: he knew exactly what he wanted and he took the shortest cut to get it, preferring direct personal methods to delegated action or authority. In the process, he trod brutally on many corns but, worse, he laid himself open to the charge that initiative at the lower levels of command was being stifled by his refusal or inability to share the onus of major decisions. In 1908, in a fine gesture of self-denial, Captain Wemyss declined the much-coveted post of Naval Secretary because, according to Wemyss’s widow, Fisher made it clear that ‘absolute subserviency’ to his views was a condition of the appointment; and Wemyss was so shocked by the ‘unscrupulous ambition’ and ‘cynical egotism’ displayed by the head of his revered Service that he could not wait to get away again to sea.12 It was, of course, generally accepted in the Navy of that time that only top admirals could decide, each in his own sphere, each in the light of what he personally could make of the problem. Experience, intuition and idiosyncracy were adequate ingredients, and when the brew emerged its flavour would not be questioned by juniors. Admirals were infallible and their wish was a command, a Victorian attitude to which Nelson, with his ‘band of brothers’ concept, would never have subscribed; and one which Fisher by his own example now, alas, endorsed and perpetuated. Thus, the Navy was to suffer for many years from the lack of an effective staff structure, of enough officers trained and practised in staff functions and, generally, of the disciplined flexibility of mind that comes Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 only from true intellectual give-and-take; and the scars still show today.

If admirals were infallible to those below them they were far from being so among themselves and Beresford, for one, believing that Fisher was dangerously on the wrong tack, felt driven to throw down the gauntlet. Unlike Fisher, who came 54 No More Heroes from middle-class stock, without estates or private income, Charles William de la Poer Beresford was bom into a position of wealth and privilege. Member of a noble Irish family of long lineage, his adult skills and character were shaped at least as much by horses as by school masters. He was a popular leader with a fair tactical mind who managed usually to mask his arrogance and impetuosity with genial bluster. In sustained argument he was quickly out of his depth, and there was truth both in Fisher’s view that Beresford ‘exaggerates so much that his good ideas become deformities’,13 and in Churchill’s that Beresford was one of those orators who ‘before they get up they do not know what they are going to say, when they are speaking they do not know what they are saying, and when they have sat down they do not know what they have said’.14 As a junior officer Beresford’s career had followed a typical pattern, his chance to win his spurs coming in 1882 when, in the fighting at Alexandria, he showed exceptional drive and courage as commanding officer of a sloop under the fire of enemy forts and as provost marshal among the rioters ashore. His path was to cross Fisher’s from time to time: both were present at Alexandria and, as we have seen, they were together in the Mediterranean Fleet at the turn of the century. These two men shared three attributes in common: flam­ boyant personalities, outstanding zeal and initiative in the service of the Crown, and driving personal ambition. With Fisher slightly ahead in age and seniority it seemed likely, as each attained flag rank, that the younger man would even­ tually succeed the older as First Sea Lord. Unfortunately Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 just as there is no room at the head of one business for two dedicated entrepreneurs, so the Navy was soon to prove too small for Fisher and Beresford. To suit his own book Fisher, after becoming First Sea Lord in 1904, engineered two departures from normal prac­ tice With his Sovereign’s approval, he got himself appointed a personal aide-de-camp to Edward VII, thereby securing direct access over all civilian heads to the highest reaches of The Tumult and the Shouting 55 the realm; and through a special promotion to the rank of admiral of the fleet, in which there is no retirement age, he more or less fixed an extended term in the office of First Sea Lord with the effect that, by the time he stood down, Beresford would probably be too near retirement to succeed. These manoeuvres, while allowing Fisher enough time and influence to push through his reforms, were hardly calculated to win Beresford’s favour. In the battle between the two admirals, Fisher, from his loftier naval vantage point, although usually observing the courtesies, could snub or stymie Beresford; while Beresford, with his superior social and political connections, was well placed to wage a bitter behind-the-scenes campaign to ruin Fisher by casting doubt on his judgement and integrity. To their disgrace, and to the Navy’s harm and embarrassment, these puffed-up potentates feuded frequently in public: in Parliament, in the press, in speech and correspondence. Their clashes became world news, a cause celebre bringing comfort to Britain’s enemies and dismay to its friends; while to those at home, from the wiseacres in their West End clubs to the workmen in their tenements, it was a potent if un­ savoury sign of the Navy’s belligerence and its leaders’ fight­ ing spirit. But the duel was partly shadow, the substance being honestly held divergences of opinion on crucial matters in which each protagonist was supported strongly by his own following of senior officers, including most of the Navy’s ablest leaders. The split loyalties, and the waste of time and talents, invoked by the fratricide did serious damage up and down the line at a difficult period of naval evolution, the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 differences being by no means confined to remote questions of high policy. Personnel at several levels felt themselves affected by the arguments about officer selection and training, while officers of middle rank saw their prospects at stake in the conflict of views about the role of staff officers in naval direction and administration. Then, in the larger strategic issues, Beresford was far from alone in fearing that Fisher’s precipitate replacement of the 56 No More Heroes older ironmongery by costly modem warships might lose Britain its existing numerical lead over foreign rivals, who would quickly follow suit with similar new constructions of their own; and in particular, with Britain’s fleet in a weak­ ened state of flux, that the Germans might seize the oppor­ tunity to make a surprise attack. But the arguments proved inseparable from the personal antipathies and, as an illustration both of the questions at issue and of the irresponsible way in which two top comrades in arms chose to wash in public some of the linen of naval policy, the highlights of the Fisher-Beresford fracas bear scrutiny.15 In an atmosphere of rising tempers there had already been some tart exchanges but it was not until 1900 that the first significant firework display took place. The scene was , into whose narrow and tortuous harbour it was Fisher’s habit, as Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean, to lead the fleet and then, landing from his flagship, watch closely from a cliff-side gallery as the other ships picked up their moorings. Beresford was an excellent seaman, but it was not done for an admiral to interfere with the handling of his own flagship, in this case the battleship Ramillies; and, unfortunately, his flag captain made a mess of the manoeuvre, blocking the roadstead. Fisher lost his temper and signalled rudely: ‘Your flagship is to proceed to sea and come in again in a seaman­ like manner.’ It was a tactless reprimand, made publicly, and in a matter of hours all Malta was buzzing with news of the incident, some ‘pro-Jacky’, others *pro-Charlie B’. Beresford, basically a loyal person, was hurt and angered. Up to this time, he had generally supported Fisher’s ways and Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 views and, when the Selborne reforms were later announced, he was still able to write to Fisher, to the latter’s delight: ‘The strongest opponents of the scheme will acknowledge that it is a brilliant and statesmanlike effort to grapple with a problem upon the sound settlement of which the future efficiency of the British navy depends.’ More typical of the evolving relationship, however, was this pointed exchange, a few months after the Malta harbour The Tumult and the Shouting 57 incident. Fisher asked Beresford to explain how the Morning Post could have printed a report which said that ‘the Mediter­ ranean Fleet under the command of Lord Charles Beresford’ had returned from the Adriatic, only to receive this scathing reply: ‘Dear Sir John, From the enclosure you have sent me it appears that the great British Public are accustomed to the name of Lord Charles Beresford, but as yet ignorant of the name of Sir John Fisher. I would suggest that the remedy lies entirely in your own hands.’ The scene changes. Fisher is now First Sea Lord, and Beres­ ford is Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. The Fisher revolution is in full swing. Beresford, exasperated by Fisher’s dictatorial methods, including the decision to con­ front Germany by switching valuable ships from the Medi­ terranean to home waters, has begun to ‘crusade’ publicly against his rival’s policies, the criticisms biting deep enough for Fisher, in April 1906, to write formally to the First Lord: ‘It is with extreme reluctance that I feel compelled, in the interests of the navy, and the maintenance of its hitherto unquestioned discipline and loyalty, to bring before the Board the unprecedented conduct of the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet in publicly reflecting on the conduct of the Admiralty and in discrediting the policy of the Board and inciting those under his command to ridicule the decisions of the Board.’ In 1907, Beresford is appointed in command of Britain’s most powerful naval force, the Channel Fleet, only to find himself,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 once more, the victim of a Fisher-inspired re-shuffle, the effect of which could be, in his view, to render his command too weak for war. After a meeting with Beresford at which, reputedly, differences on this issue are quashed, Fisher records: ‘I had three hours with Beresford yesterday, and all is settled, and the Admiralty don’t give in one inch to his demands, but I had as a preliminary to agree to three things: 58 No More Heroes I Lord C. Beresford is a greater man than Nelson II No one knows anything about the art of Naval war except Lord C. Beresford III The Admiralty haven’t done a single d-d thing right!’ But Beresford wastes little time in again taking up the cudgels. With the ink still wet on an agreement settling the roles of the Channel and Home Fleets, now due to be com­ bined under his command in the event of war, he writes in a memorandum to the Admiralty that ‘the Home Fleet as at present constituted, is a fraud and a danger to the State’, a statement giving the First Lord every right to make the admiral haul down his flag. Yet, only a few weeks before this incident Beresford had written to Fisher: ‘There is not the slightest chance of any friction between me and you, or between me and anyone else. When the friction begins, I am off. If a senior and a junior have a row, the junior is wrong under any conceivable condition, or discipline could not go on. As long as I am here I will do my best to make the Admiralty policy a success.’ The hypocrisy of this was clear for all to see, leading Fisher to conclude that Beresford really must go. Marder wrote of this period that Beresford ‘criticised Admiralty policy, commented on Admiralty orders, and repeatedly addressed the Admiralty on many topics in a decidedly tactless and insubordinate manner quite without parallel in British naval history. His opinions of the Admir­

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 alty and of Fisher (“our dangerous lunatic”) were known to every officer and man in his fleet.’ But the First Lord, Lord Tweedmouth, being too unwell to ‘withstand violent storms of controversy under which his period of appointment was to suffer’, declined to take disciplinary action. Instead he called Beresford to a meeting in the Admiralty at which Beresford, pressed to be more ‘cordial’, asserted: The Tumult and the Shouting 59 ‘You will allow me to smile for at least ten minutes over Question 3. . . . Although my views are very drastic, there is not any question of want of cordial relations with the Admiralty. Not privately or publicly have I ever said any­ thing against the Admiralty.’ On this occasion, Fisher went out of his way to satisfy Beresford, as a record of the discussion bears out: Fisher: ‘We simply want to know what you are driving at, because we seem to give you everything you require Shall you be satisfied if we make your armoured cruisers up to six .. . and give you the whole of the two divisions of destroyers at Portland... ?’ Beresford: ‘I cannot see the thing straight off. I will write to you.’ Fisher: ‘You must have thought about it. You have been writing about it for months ’ Beresford: ‘I never come to a conclusion myself with any­ thing without I think. On principle, being a public man, I never say a thing straight off. Have those ships you are going to give me nucleus crews?’ Fisher: ‘No, they are fully manned. They are complete ’ Beresford: ‘That gives me die force I am halloing for. You may depend on it, the cordiality between us exists. ...’ Even so, this meeting did not clear matters up, and Beresford continued to plague the Admiralty with criticisms of plans

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 and policy. Then, a fresh battle followed rumours that the Admiralty proposed to transfer several of Beresford’s officers, including three of his right-hand men. This led him to write to the Admiralty: ‘It has come to my notice that a feeling has arisen in the Service that it is prejudicial to an officer’s career to be per­ sonally connected with me on Service matters. This may not be a fact, but the impression I know exists The removal of 60 No More Heroes three such important officers from my command . . . has the appearance of a wish to handicap me in carrying out the responsibilities connected with by far the most important appointment within the Empire.’

In curtly denying Beresford’s latest accusation, the Admiralty now complained officially of his use of language ‘which has no parallel within their experience as coming from a subor­ dinate and addressed to the Board of Admiralty’. But Beres­ ford’s fire, fanned by insults, intrigue and ceaseless publicity, was not to be quenched. In 1908, as it reached its peak, Beresford was referring to Fisher openly as ‘the Mulatto’ and ‘that damned Asiatic’; and The Times at last saw fit to de­ mand that Beresford should either resign or be quiet for ‘so long as he holds his present position he is not free to let it be known, whether by his action or by his demeanour, either to his Fleet or the world at large, that his attitude towards the Board of Admiralty is one of scant respect for its authority and avowed dissent from its policy’. McKenna, a new and stronger First Lord,16 favoured end­ ing Beresford’s appointment but the Cabinet, apprehensive of the admiral’s friends in high places, hesitated. At the end of the year, however, McKenna, Fisher and the Board got their way. The Admiralty announced a new reorganisation of the fleets, coupled with a shortened appointments cycle. Beres­ ford was informed that ‘after much deliberation’ it had been decided ‘that the present commands of the Channel and Home Fleets should be held for a period of two years’; and this meant that his job came to a sudden end, a year sooner than he had expected. Momentarily downcast, Beresford Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 admitted in reply: ‘I feel deeply that my career afloat, which has extended over nearly fifty years, should be so abruptly terminated.’ But he cheered up when his fleet, by the warmth and gusto of its farewell, confirmed his exceptional popularity afloat, and he was not long in returning to the attack. This time, it took the dangerous shape of a letter to the Prime Minister, formally indicting the Admiralty, a step which obliged the The Tumult and the Shouting 61 Prime Minister to act; and a committee of inquiry, compris­ ing members of the Cabinet, was accordingly set up. McKenna conducted the Admiralty’s case, having ex­ tracted from Fisher a promise to remain silent throughout the proceedings unless addressed directly by members of the committee. The inquiry dragged through over a dozen sit­ tings. No detailed record emerged but the committee’s report, published in August 1909, castigated Beresford, and although it did not quieten him it put paid to his future not only in the Navy but as a credible public figure. But its qualification, to the effect that the Admiralty had not confided enough in Beresford and ought now to make haste with the development of a naval war staff, came as a severe blow to Fisher. He felt that, in what was widely regarded as a disciplinary matter, he deserved and the position he held called for the complete support of his political masters; and in playing to the Beresford gallery, the ministers forming this committee undoubtedly weakened the traditional fines of naval authority. Although Fisher put a brave front on it and continued his work with his customary zeal and exuberance, the committee’s findings rankled, erod­ ing his magnanimity; and the first signs of the megalomania, which was increasingly to colour his behaviour, began to show. As Fisher saw it, war was in the offing. Time was running short and so was his patience. He still encouraged and listened to the views of his fellow-professionals but was more and more inclined to limit his consultations to those who were already close to him, less and less to allow their opinion to deflect him from his intended course. With his habit of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 making important decisions alone taking hold, the Navy became practically a one-man band, and the possibility of devolution of authority through the creation of an effective staff receded. Fisher soon found himself carrying a super­ human burden; and as he began to slow down, so was the Navy’s evolution checked. His row with Beresford did great harm to the Navy, not only because it diverted the energies of Fisher and other 62 No More Heroes naval leaders from more constructive tasks, and from joint efforts towards a common end: in dividing the Navy’s higher ranks, the sentiment and tradition of unity was dangerously undermined. Even so, it is due to Fisher’s drive, creative genius and negotiating skill, more than any other factor, that a new and effective Navy was produced in time for the outbreak of the First World War. In its day, this force was the most confident, influential and powerful weapon ever created. It served its country not only in the First World War but, in most of its essentials, it was still Fisher’s Navy which saw Britain into the Second World War. It was to be more than forty years after Fisher’s first tenure of office as First Sea Lord ended in 1910 before the Navy was to be revolutionised again. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Chapter Three

The Giants

Shortly after 18.00 on a calm hazy North Sea summer eve­ ning, a flag signal appeared at the yardarm of the battleship Iron Duke. Ordered by Jellicoe in the cryptic terms, ‘Hoist equal-speed pendants SE by E’, this signal marked the start of the grandiose, long-awaited and most momentous pitched battle on the high seas in modern naval history. The impend­ ing clash between the British and German armadas was the climax of an armaments race into which, over ten years, the advanced nations had been pouring their wealth and exper­ tise; and on it, by common consent, hung the fate of the world. To the British, the Battle of Jutland was in a critical sense a sequel to the Battle of Trafalgar. For more than a century their Navy had remained unvanquished and, in the absence Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 of any serious challenge, the legend of its invincibility had flourished. The outcome of a Jutland was a foregone conclusion: the Germans were brave and efficient, but they were new­ comers to warfare afloat; their fleet was smaller than Britain’s; and, most important, they lacked the tradition of victory at sea. Over the years, therefore, the British naval leadership had seen no reason to discourage the belief, among the people as among its own rank and file, that the great 64 No More Heroes battle, when it came, would mark another glorious page in British history. As the time approached, however, Jellicoe and his White­ hall masters were far from complacent. Everyone in the know recognised that the weight of responsibility on Jellicoe’s shoulders was almost overwhelming, and the admiral had been made only too well aware that the fate of England and the British Empire lay in his hands, that his Fleet could ‘lose the war in an afternoon’. More worryingly, he was aware also that his ships and their ability to fight were not entirely up to scratch. There were weaknesses of armour, some of the heavy gun ammunition was unreliable and the methods of gun control had serious limitations. Then, while the battle between the giants was supposed to be decided by their guns, it could well be lost to torpedoes or mines spawned stealthily by smaller vessels; and, to counteract these sinister under­ water weapons, Jellicoe felt himself short of escorting ships, particularly of destroyers with enough fuel to match his battlefleet’s endurance. The fear of damage by torpedoes and mines had long since taken a grip on Jellicoe’s mind and a definite note of caution underlay his generally offensive intent. But, as Jellicoe worked strenuously and successfully to keep his people on their toes, his doubts did not show; and, in the long arduous months of training, practice, and false alarms, he contrived to maintain both the efficiency and the morale of his battleship crews. Every officer and man in his Fleet was eager to be put to the test. All held their leader in high esteem; he invoked not only their respect but their affection; and they would follow wher­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ever he led. Captain Oram records that,

‘though Admiral Jellicoe had not the presence of Beatty . . . he nevertheless gave an immediate impression of knowledge, judgement and, above all, a human understanding. . . I shall never forget the small figure of the Admiral springing up the accommodation ladder with the agility of a robin to stand, alert and smiling, to acknowledge our salute. . . . A short Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

Safe: Helping Children Face Tough IssuesChildrenHelping Safe: Helping Children Face Tough Issues Safe: Face Tough Issues Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

Safe: HelpingSafe: HelpingChildren Children Face Tough Face Issues Tough Issues Safe: Helping Children Face Tough Issues Safe: Helping Children Face Tough Issues Safe: Helping Children Face Tough Issues Children Face Tough IssuesSafe: Helping The Giants 65 visit, unrehearsed and informal, but it made a striking impact on the ship’s company.’1

Thus, on this evening of 31 May 1916, as the men waited at their guns, expectation was heightened by elation. The early stages, leading to the confrontation of the battlefleets, had been going on most of the afternoon. Beatty who, besides commanding the battlecruisers, was Jellicoe’s second-in- command, had done a brilliant job, with dash and bravery, in luring the enemy northward towards the British battlefleet. Unfortunately, in the process Beatty’s squadron had suffered severe losses, due partly to faulty materiel but mainly to his impetuosity in rushing at the German van without waiting for his own supporting battleships to catch up. The latter, units of the Queen Elizabeth class, were Britain’s newest, greatest and most powerful warships and, as they were to demonstrate later that day, the power and accuracy of their guns were devastating. This squadron, attached tem­ porarily to Beatty’s battlecruisers, might well have turned the scales in the early stages; as it was, in numerical terms, Beatty’s ships took a drubbing. Worse, in the heat of the moment, his own mind concen­ trated on the ferocious duel in which his battlecruisers were engaged, Beatty failed to signal to his chief the information which Jellicoe needed to ensure a viable deployment. Report­ ing the enemy’s composition and movements should have been a primary function of outlying squadrons, however hard-pressed, and Beatty’s lapse was inexcusable. But Jellicoe was also to blame for, while training his admirals and captains repeatedly in the tactics of a close-knit Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 gun battle, the Commander-in-Chief had omitted to empha­ sise his absolute need of enemy intelligence at all key stages of a widespread encounter, an omission that served inadver­ tently to strengthen the assumption that as only top dogs did the barking, they were equipped, presumably, to do the sniffing too. So, Jellicoe’s bark being law, it followed that he was all-wise, all-knowing and all-right; when something needed to be done he would order it; and until he ordered it 66 No More Heroes the squadron admirals and the ships’ captains had best stick to the rules of the game as already detailed. These rules, based on the concept of rigid lines of battle, left too little to chance. Jellicoe ‘strove to think of every eventuality that could possibly happen and then lay down exactly. . . the manoeuvre that would meet it The Battle Orders were a huge and complicated volume of foolscap sheets, not a summary of principles, and admirals and cap­ tains continued to wait for the flagship’s signals’.2 If his rules tended to deny to radio its proper role, the occasional signals which Jellicoe received during the after­ noon through that medium from Beatty, among others, were at least enough to enable him to move his battlefleet at its highest speed in the general direction of the enemy. In the closing stages of his approach, however, they were far from sufficient to allow him to manoeuvre his ships with the certainty and precision which now became essential. At this awful moment, Jellicoe was half-blind. Thus, the intricate calculations of deployment were based only partly on the interpretation of sketchy information, and otherwise on hunch and rule of thumb. His Flag Captain heard ‘the sharp distinctive step of the Commander-in-Chief approaching - he had steel strips on his heels.. . . He looked in silence at the magnetic compass card for about 20 seconds . . . as cool and unmoved as ever. Then he looked up and broke the silence with the order in his crisp, clear-cut voice’.3 A few seconds later that cryptic signal was flying from his flagship’s yardarm, and in response to it, the majestic battle­ ships of Britain’s Grand Fleet swung in divisions to port and Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 then in succession to starboard, their guns ranged in the direction from which the enemy was expected to appear. All eyes now searched the indistinct horizon; a few more mo­ ments of waiting and then, suddenly, battle began. The manoeuvre by which Jellicoe brought his battlefleet into action was faultless and, at that point, Jellicoe more than rose to the tremendous occasion. As the historian, Sir Archi­ bald Hurd, has recorded: The Giants 67 ‘In the course of minutes, indeed seconds, Jellicoe had to decide on the manner of the deployment of his vast armada into line of battle. At that moment the fate of the British Fleet, of the British Empire, of the Allied cause, and of civilisation depended on the clear tactical vision of this one man. . . . His orders for forming his six columns into one single line so as to bring the maximum fire to bear at once on the enemy was the inspiration of genius. In the result the Grand Fleet crossed the “T” of the German battle squadron so effectively that their complete annihilation, even in the failing light... was only averted by retreat.’4

One of the basic assumptions in such circumstances was that, once the goliaths clashed in earnest, the Germans might be expected to stand and fight. This is how it had been in the great pitched battles of the past, whether on land or sea; and the tactics in which Jellicoe had trained his battle- fleet usually assumed ‘a formal, long-range heavy-gun duel on parallel lines in broad daylight’.5 But the German admiral, caught at a disadvantage, decided promptly to retire by means of a rapid manoeuvre, of which the British believed that ‘such a simultaneous turn of all the ships of a fleet was impractic­ able in action - consequently they did not expect it to be used’.6 In the long term, this need not matter too much as Jellicoe was fast putting his fleet between the Germans and their base; in the short term, however, it meant that Jellicoe lost the initiative. To add to his difficulties, patchy mist was wreaking havoc with visibility, in which tricky conditions the enemy quickly played another card which was not at all to Jellicoe’s liking: Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the German destroyers attacked with torpedoes. The correct defence against this form of attack was for the target ships to turn end-on towards the enemy and thus ‘comb’ the approach­ ing torpedo tracks; and, where these tracks were running more or less at right angles to their prey’s line of advance, a choice was offered: the target ships could swing towards the enemy to steam forward between the tracks, or they could veer away, with similar effect, while putting more distance 68 No More Heroes between them and their attackers. According to the doctrine of the time, largely of his own making, Jellicoe chose the latter course and, in doing so, lost touch with his main enemy; and, apart from fringe engagements, including a brief encounter between Beatty’s ships and the enemy, it proved impossible to regain contact before thickening mist and the approach of darkness introduced a new element. The next step for Jellicoe was to concentrate his own ships, and try to avoid further battlefleet actions until daylight. It was his considered view that his larger ships were vulnerable in night actions, being exposed to German torpedoes or mines in the confused situation which would result when numerous ships of different types were engaging one another without being able to see clearly who was who. Besides, Jellicoe felt sure that there would be time enough to smash the Germans the next morning when, with his own fleet reorganised, con­ ditions would once again be in his favour. The main question was where to place his ships towards dawn, ready for battle; and, in the meantime, how to ensure that the enemy could not slip past, and escape through the minefields to his home ports. His deductions encouraged Jellicoe to believe that he had this battle in the bag. Unfortunately, the intelligence available to him was in one or two essentials incomplete or misleading because of a failure by the Admiralty to pass on vital informa­ tion from enemy sources and the omission, once again, by some of the outlying units of his own fleet to keep him informed about German ships’ movements which they could see but, as they must have known, Jellicoe could not. Sporadic local actions continued during the night, the two Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 main fleets being at times only a few miles apart. While each commander-in-chief tried to read his opponent’s mind and reach conclusions advantageous to his own side, the balance of chances was that the British would be well placed to re­ engage the enemy at daylight. But, alas, Jellicoe miscalculated and, when dawn stole over the silent sea, the enemy was nowhere to be seen. For at daylight on 1 June the Germans, far from being to the westward of Jellicoe, as he supposed, The Giants 69 were to the south-east, and already more or less under the protection of minefields guarding the approaches to their bases; and the opposing forces were by now so far apart that, even in good visibility, re-engagement would have been out of the question. According to some observers, action between the battle- fleets could have been resumed in the morning mist only if both commanders-in-chief, finding themselves close enough together, would have been willing to commit their valuable ships to a confused and spasmodic melee at virtually point- blank range. Captain Oram, who was in one of the destroyers present that morning, recalls in Ready for Sea, that ‘the maximum distance at which ships could be sighted was barely two miles and under such conditions the chance of bringing capital ships into general action would have been highly problematical’. Thus ended in dreadful anticlimax the greatest missed opportunity of the war. The outcome of the battle involving over 200 warships, lasting more than twelve hours, covering an area larger than the Irish Sea, dealt a shattering blow to British self-confidence and its Navy’s self-esteem. Who won, or was it just a draw? The welter of books, lectures, broadcasts and war games of which the Battle of Jutland has since been the subject provide no conclusive answer. On the British side, it has been argued that, because Jellicoe’s fleet remained in command of the seas, whereas the Germans seldom ventured out of their ports again, Jutland was strategically a British victory, the British fleet’s continuing presence providing a shield for the blockade of Germany and the gradual demoralisation of its Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 people. But victory is one thing and merely maintaining the inter­ fleet status quo is another; and the fact was that, while the British battle-wagons trundled freely around the grey North Sea, the German U-boats were soon virtually to bar the way to British transatlantic merchant shipping, with dire almost decisive effects on the Allied war effort and the Briton’s neces­ sities of life. Indeed, in that vital facet of the war, with Britain 70 No More Heroes practically on its knees in the face of the U-boats’ onslaught, its resource-hungry battlefleet, with its vulnerability to tor­ pedoes, was less help than hindrance. Then, in tactical terms, the respective losses of ships and men at Jutland have been interpreted differently by different people, largely according to their prejudices. In fact, the heavy ship score was: British, three lost, eight damaged; German, two lost, ten damaged; leaving undamaged British twenty-six, German fifteen. And the human casualties were: British, 6,097 killed, 510 wounded; German, 2,551 killed, 507 wounded.7 Whatever the figures may say, however, the truth is that the British needed and expected a decisive victory; and, in the public’s view, as at Trafalgar, this was a question of adding up the losses of both sides and giving the palm to the one with substantially the fewer. The Germans may have retreated into their harbours after Jutland but, as popular opinion came to see it, the British did not anything like get the best of the battle to deserve the accolade. After his brilliant opening manoeuvre it is, of course, a grievous tragedy that Jellicoe should have been dogged, not only by poor intelligence and variable visibility, but by his own anxious attitude to underwater attack. If, applying the Nelson touch, he had turned towards instead of away from the enemy when the German destroyers launched their tor­ pedoes at his battlefleet, annihilation of the German High Seas Fleet must have ensued; and if the price of this victory, with its world-wide repercussions, had been a few more British ships at the bottom of the sea, it would have been well paid. But Jellicoe’s battle plan ‘lacked flexibility as well as Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 daring’;8 and so during the night and towards dawn, wishing to spare his fleet for more favourable conditions at daylight, daring too little, he lost it all. As Fisher wrote to Lord Rose­ bery: ‘Rashness in war is Prudence! Prudence in war is Imbecility!’9 So, whether or not Jutland was in strategic or tactical terms a British victory, there can be no doubt that in psychological terms it was a British disaster. When the first news of the The Giants 71 battle filtered through, Fisher was far from alone in assuming that what he saw as his own creation, the British battlefleet, led by his own protege, Jellicoe, had been trounced. The morning after the battle, according to J. J. Thomson, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Fisher was ‘pacing up and down the room more dejected than any man I have ever seen. He kept saying time after time “They’ve failed me, they’ve failed me!” ’10 Lord Hankey, who was hardly given to exag­ geration, confided to his diary: ‘This, the first trial of strength between the two fleets, has been the most bitter disappoint­ ment of this terribly disappointing war. ’n We have it from Lady Cynthia Asquith’s diary that her father ‘with very blue face told me that our Fleet had been smashed in the North Sea and that our losses were terribly severe - very much more than the German’.12 Lord Riddell, from his position as deputy chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, in regular touch with war leaders and pressmen, recorded on 2 June 1916: ‘News of great naval battle of Jutland, from which it appears that we have suffered a severe reverse.’13 While the British press, primed by a halting Admiralty communique, hesitated, foreign newspapers, including those in neutral countries, were running banner headlines: ‘British Losses Great!... British Fleet Almost Annihilated!’14 Then in London, taking their cue, the Daily News referred to ‘our great disaster’ and The Times to ‘our heaviest blow at sea’.15 As Lord Beaverbrook records: ‘The despatch flashed like a message of despair. . . . Consternation and alarm . . . spread throughout the nation and to the allied countries.’16 In the absence of clearcut news, aghast at the possibility Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 that the Royal Navy had failed, the British public felt stunned, then indignant and finally, in several instances, angry. The hunt for scapegoats began. As preparations were made gloomily in shipyards to receive a battered British fleet, rumours ran rife; and when Beatty’s surviving ships reached Rosyth, their battle-weary crews were greeted by a jeering crowd of dockyard workers. The idea even got around that Jellicoe steered clear, leaving Beatty to the Germans. As the 72 No More Heroes country seethed with a mixture of fear and fury, the authori­ ties hastened to release news and comment intended to show British achievements at Jutland in a better light. But they were too late. The man in the street, no longer knowing what to believe, stuck grimly to his own half-formed opinion; and so it has remained. Who blundered? While Jellicoe was steaming back to­ wards Scapa, where he arrived in the afternoon of 2 June, he chose to delay his dispatches, the reports from his own fleet being incomplete. Meanwhile, the Germans, in their efficient and professional way, and with their much more sophisticated awareness of public psychology, put their propaganda machine into top gear without awaiting all the detail. Their early announcements claimed a German victory and, failing contradiction from the other side, only one con­ clusion could be drawn. The Chief Naval Censor, who was in the thick of it at the Admiralty, sums up. ‘Our first news that there had been a battle was the German Wireless message that announced to the world that a “a portion” of their High Seas Fleet had met our Grand Fleet in full force and had defeated it.’ Signals from Beatty to Jellicoe about losses of ships were intercepted in London and ‘the damaged ships began to come into East Coast ports with many hospital cases’. The spread of rumour was hastened by survivors ‘wiring to their friends saying they were all right’. While ‘it was known all over the country that there had been a great naval battle’ the Admiralty remained ‘in ignorance of what had actually occurred’. Jellicoe’s first message ‘for publication’, based on available facts, empha­ sised British losses, the enemy’s being at that stage largely Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 unknown to him. This was received at the Admiralty at 15.30 on 2 June and the first press statement, at 19.00 that evening, in similar vein, referred only vaguely and briefly to the enemy’s losses. At 01.15 on 3 June, a further communique from the Admiralty tried to redress the balance, but this was too late, the first statement having already come ‘as a frightful stag­ gerer, especially to friends of this country in neutral States. The Giants 73 ... Some American papers . . . assumed that the Grand Fleet had been defeated’. Alas, the Admiralty was soon bending over too far back­ wards. After hurriedly commissioning Churchill to write his own interpretation of the battle which, unfortunately, was ill- received by the fact-starved British press, ‘all censorship was taken off regarding the battle’, with the result that technical information of value to the enemy ‘got out in letters published by relatives of the men’. The reimposition of censorship that promptly followed added further to the prevailing impression of Admiralty bungling and dispelled what was left of editorial goodwill.17 Here, indeed, was a resounding failure of the know-all naval hierarchy. Besides Jellicoe, upon whose few and tardy words the others hung, ‘Admiral Sir Henry Jackson was First Sea Lord but . . . essentially a scientist, a man of minute accuracy of statement and thought. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Wilson (Jackson’s most senior adviser)... disliked publicity and the Press, and spumed rather than heeded, public opinion. Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Oliver was Chief of the Naval Staff, again thoroughly sound, but possessing no gift of popular appeal. He was most certainly not a publicist.’ What was needed was ‘a powerful statement, backed by details of German losses, to counteract the effect of the German communique’.18 But this was not forthcoming and, whatever the faults and fumbles in Whitehall, the blame lies heavily on Jellicoe. As Grand Fleet supremo, he owed it to his officers and men, to the traditions of his Service, to public goodwill and, for that matter, to himself, to blow loud and clear the trumpet of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 success. But, partly as an over-reaction to the bombast and self­ publicity of the Fisher-Beresford era, Jellicoe had schooled himself in tight-lipped reticence. In his view, no admiral need utter until he had something definite to say and then no doubt the less said the better. When it came to proving the Navy’s worth to the British people, would not the deeds speak louder than the words? Not so, alas, and Jellicoe’s failure to play to 74 No More Heroes the public gallery after Jutland was more his undoing than any lapse in the course of the battle itself.

High priest of the Navy’s tight-lipped school of admirals was the much-revered Wilson, a man of little weight in public affairs whose talents failed to match the influence he wielded within the Admiralty caucus in the aftermath of Fisher and Beresford. Arthur Rnyvet Wilson, known in the Navy as ‘old ’ard ’eart’, a trim, prim, monosyllabic disciplinarian cast in a Victorian mould, had come unwillingly into prominence as the man chosen to occupy the hot seat of First Sea Lord, vacated by Fisher in January 1910. Wilson’s commendable aim in that office was to repair the damage done to the Navy by the Fisher-Beresford fracas and get morale and esprit de corps back on an even keel. This was not a process that could be completed overnight. Naval personnel and the public at large had to be shown that the Senior Service was once again under a united higher command, led by an admiral of un­ blemished character able to attract loyalty and respect for his single-minded devotion to the good of his Service. As a commander-in-chief afloat, Wilson had earlier proved a hard task master with a flair for highly organised drills, tactics and fleet manoeuvres. At sea, ‘praise was superfluous and rarely given’. At his dinner parties for officers, the Navy and naval matters were the correct topics of conversation. ‘He allowed himself no part in frivolity, nor did his interest extend beyond his service of the Navy. He was never observed to enter a theatre or other place of amusement’; and on two Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 occasions he deliberately arranged for his fleet to leave its home ports a few days before Christmas and devote the festive season to work and exercises in remote and desolate places.19 By the time that Wilson came out of retirement into the job of First Sea Lord, his capacity for innovation was more or less extinguished. Thus the Navy’s development programmes and its system of command would continue faithfully along the The Giants 75 tramlines laid by Fisher, many of whose ablest disciples (and, not least, Jellicoe) responded energetically to this new and more predictable leadership.20 Fisher was content, too, seeing that the essentials of his policy were being upheld, and he had the grace to watch quietly from the wings. In particular, he was relieved to note that, on one of the most crucial issues of that period, he and Wilson were still of one mind. In 1909, Fisher had written: ‘Wilson and I have talked a lot about our War Plan for the Navy. You know he told the Defence Committee that only he and I knew of the War Plan, which is quite true. He would sooner die than disclose it. God bless Sir Arthur Wilson.’ To Fisher at about this time a naval war staff was merely ‘an excellent organisation for cutting out and arranging foreign newspaper clippings’. True to the master’s scathing indict­ ment of staff officers, Wilson kept the war plans in his pocket, and, being on leave when the Agadir crisis blew up in 1911, an anxious search for details of these plans in Wilson’s office at the Admiralty proved fruitless.21 But Wilson was by no means without aura and, evidently, had a number of respectful admirers outside the Navy. Among these was Sir Almeric Fitzroy, for a quarter of a century Clerk of the Privy Council, who recorded in his diary towards the end of 1910 this choice piece of hero-worship: ‘Dining last night with Sir H. and Lady Stephenson, we met Sir Arthur Wilson, the greatest figure which the British Navy has produced since Nelson. Of unimpressive appearance at first sight, he soon gives you a sense of power in reserve, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 unquenchable energy, and a directness of purpose which no blandishments could pervert. It was his convinced opinion that no Board of Admiralty, whatever the political complexion of the Government, ever failed to meet the requirements of the nation. Some talked of the great amount they were going to do and did less, others talked of doing less and were con­ strained to do more. Expert advice always in the long run prevailed, and he did not believe that the naval members of 76 No More Heroes any Board would hesitate to resign if an unwise parsimony imperilled the safety of the nation.’22

When he succeeded McKenna as First Lord in October 1912, Churchill23 was somewhat less adulatory, being inclined to share a growing Establishment view that the Admiralty’s refusal to move with the times in creating a modem staff structure was a menace to the nation’s safety. A few weeks before Churchill’s advent, Asquith, as Prime Minister, had convened a meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence to which, in contrast to the fluency of the Army’s representatives in explaining their war plans, Wilson on behalf of the Navy volunteered only the barest outline. Asquith and his political colleagues were now thoroughly alarmed at the Admiralty’s reticence yet, a year or so later, Lord Esher was still recording that the Prime Minister ‘is strenuously in favour of a staff (at the Admiralty) not exactly like the General Staff, but much on those lines. He sees that while Wilson is First Sea Lord such a reform is hopeless.’24 Churchill’s view was that the situation required ‘a brain more comprehensive than that of any single man however gifted’. To Wilson, however, this was not the form at all. He believed that ‘the Service would have the most supreme con­ tempt for any body of officers who professed to be specially trained to think’.25 The fact that his own mental shutters prevented co-ordination of defence policy, even in its most elementary form, and that there was virtually no dialogue between the Admiralty and the War Office, left Wilson cold. The Navy was a law unto itself and, if the War Office wished in the event of war to send troops to France, that was the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 soldiers’ problem. For naval support, they must look else­ where. Clearly, this was an intolerable attitude and one of Churchill’s first actions, as First Lord, was to reorganise the Board of Admiralty and replace Wilson. With the help of the new First Sea Lord, Bridgeman, a small naval war staff was brought into being soon after Wilson’s departure at the end of 1911.26 It was not a moment too soon for, despite the effort The Giants 77 to make good, Churchill was to record about the Navy in 1914: ‘At the outset of the conflict we had more captains of ships than captains of war.’27 Unlike most autocrats, Churchill was a big enough man to enhance his own prowess by giving scope to strong-minded subordinates of the highest merit. No doubt he saw, also, that a naval staff might serve occasionally to check his own impulsiveness and tendency to meddle. Beatty, who became Churchill’s Naval Assistant at this time, was nobody’s yes- man but, because he could be tactful and, while sticking to his principles, liked to play in a team, Beatty worked in harmony with his restless chief, gaining insights which helped his own development. The trouble with Churchill was that, like many well-born British leaders of that time with their rather lofty view of life, war, when they thought about it, was a grandly romantic and imperialistic adventure, its battlefields, on land or sea, as chessboards to be played with. The issues were plain: there was victory or there was defeat, and the grey area in between did not count. So, what mattered was action, the inculcation of a fighting spirit, the clash of forces, the enemy routed, con­ quering heroes, cheering crowds. In particular, as history showed, the great naval decisions would be made that way. Everything else was peripheral or ancillary: strangulation by blockade, submarines, convoys, aeroplanes, mines. And if the measure were merely defensive, the less said of it the better. Most seriously, Churchill and his ilk seemed blind to the fact that, in the strenuous run-up towards war, Britain was in economic and industrial terms biting off a good deal more than it could chew. British manufactures were too Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 heavy-industry based, too dependent on the mechanical engineer, too handicapped by the lethargy or incompetence of many owners, notably the softened sons or grandsons of energetic and inventive founders. The country’s resources were barely adequate for its own defence and sustenance, let alone its vast commitments overseas. It was not enough to hope to maintain present patterns by importing the usual foods, materials and necessities across 78 No More Heroes oceans guarded by the Royal Navy. The new weapons depended increasingly on machine tools, alloy steels and ball­ bearings from abroad, a glaring example of the failure of the British leaders to comprehend and adapt to the vital needs of their economy in troubled times. It was one thing to be ready to start a war; the question was, really, whether the country had the capacity to wage it in adversity. Before and again after the First World War this question was never squarely faced. Meanwhile, potential enemies were forging ahead with fast- growing war-making resources. In inventiveness, organisa­ tion and professionalism, the Germans were way ahead. In the Mediterranean, through which almost half of Britain’s food imports passed, Austria and Italy were in the dread­ nought game, potentially in support of Germany.28 The defence of Britain’s overseas sources and lines of supply depended on the French to help maintain communications through Suez and on the Japanese to help guard British interests in the Orient. In realistic naval terms, Britain alone, in a major conflict, could hardly expect to do more than com­ mand the North Sea, and north Atlantic. Was this enough for a power that still presumed, in the cause of Pax Britannica, to police the world? The individual Briton’s initiative and tenacity, springing from an insular and blinkered conceit, was a plus factor which was to see his country through near-disaster to victory, but even the Briton needed a secure base, food in his belly and the right weapon in his hands. The gusto with which he went to war in 1914 was not well-founded. His surest shield, the Royal Navy, exuding the burly self-assurance typical of that Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 era, looked imposing enough: the preoccupation with battle­ ships saw to that. But, with limited resources, the emphasis on heavy mobile gun platforms meant that the Navy’s cupboard in other ways was rather bare. Not only were some of the newer ways of waging war neglected: even the infra-structure supporting the battlefleets was dangerously inadequate. As Lord Esher observed in 1912, heavy ships alone seemed to be ‘the measure The Giants 79 of naval power’. If he had had his way he would have weighed first in the scales personnel, submarines, destroyers, cruisers.29 The far-seeing Admiral Scott complained moreover that ‘... We had no up-to-date mine layers, nor an efficient mine; no properly fitted mine sweepers; no arrangements for guarding our ships against mines; no efficient method of using our guns at night; no anti-Zeppelin guns; no anti­ submarine precautions; no safe harbour for our Fleet, and only a few ships (eight) were partly fitted with a proper method of firing their guns. Our torpedos were so badly fitted that in the early days of the war they went under the German ships instead of hitting them.’ In the summer of 1914, Scott went so far as to write to The Times pointing out that, as submarines and aircraft had revolutionised warfare, ‘we should stop building battleships and spend the money voted for their construction on the sub­ marines and the aircraft that we urgently needed.’ Even in harbour, according to Scott, battleships ‘would not be immune from attack’.30 Of the weapons that were potentially of critical importance, the aeroplane was at this time the most revolutionary. In his efforts to develop the aeroplane for naval warfare, Churchill, on the eve of the First World War, performed his best service to Britain. In 1911, five British naval officers having been taught to fly bi-planes, the first of these machines took off from water; a year later, but not before the United States Navy had achieved it, a Royal Navy officer flew off a moving warship at sea; and, in the same year (1912), the Admiralty Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 was able to lay down six tasks for naval aircraft: recon­ naissance of enemy ports, location of submarines, detection of mine fields, direction of ships’ gunnery, bombing of enemy ports and scouting for the Fleet. In 1914, the Royal Naval Air Service was formed officially with seven airships, fifty-two seaplanes, thirty-nine land-planes and over 800 officers and men. This was no mean achievement.31 80 No More Heroes During this period Fisher, beckoned by Churchill, continued tactfully to prompt from the wings. Churchill liked and respected Fisher and each was a stimulant to the other. ‘Con­ tact with you is like breathing ozone’, Churchill wrote; and later on he was to recall that, in January 1914, Fisher still struck him as ‘a terrific engine of mental and physical power’.32 It was inevitable that Churchill would be tempted to recall Fisher into harness as soon as this could be contrived. The chance came soon after war broke out. The unfor­ tunate Battenberg who, as First Sea Lord since December 1912, had worked willingly and effectively with Churchill, was now forced out of office by a shrill public opinion which supposed that Battenberg’s German ancestry must bring into question his allegiance to the British cause. This was a cruel slur on a devoted servant of King and country and it is regrettable that Churchill, with half an eye on Fisher, let Battenberg go with little more than a half-hearted protest. On the other hand, it is possible that, due to overwork, Battenberg’s health and energy were falling below par, voices having already been raised in favour of a livelier regime at the Admiralty. Anyhow, in October 1914, Fisher returned eagerly to the post of First Sea Lord, all set to work in harness with Churchill, the most vigorous and enterprising of political masters. He was seventy-four years of age. Support for this new partnership was by no means univer­ sal, the King himself being a Fisher opponent. While his father, Edward VII, had been Fisher’s staunch supporter, to the extent that Fisher was to emphasise after that sovereign’s death, ‘What a splendid and steadfast friend!... I really can’t Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 get over the irreparable loss. I think of nothing elsef 33 George V, when Prince of Wales, had taken a sterner view of Fisher’s tantrums and of his tendency to create a ‘private navy’ at the expense of the unity of the whole; and now, as King, George confided to his diary, tartly, that Fisher ‘was not trusted by the Navy and they had no confidence in him personally. I think it is a great mistake and he is 74. At the end I had to give in with great reluctance.’34 The Giants 81 Beatty, who knew Churchill better than most, was also apprehensive. He went on record about Churchill: ‘If he would either leave matters entirely alone at the Admiralty... or give it his entire and complete attention, we might get forward, but this flying about and putting his fingers into pies which do not concern him is bound to lead to disaster’; and about the Churchill-Fisher team: ‘Two very strong and clever men, one old, wily, and of vast experience, one young, self- assertive, with a great self-satisfaction but unstable. They cannot work together, they cannot both run the show.’ And so it was to be. But Winston Churchill, as First Lord, insisted, believing that the pair of them would make a dynamic war-winning partnership, with Fisher tamed gradually into acquiescence by the younger man’s energy and eloquence; and the public at large, favouring the combination, ‘responded to Fisher’s return as they had done so to Kitchener’s two months earlier, finding reassurance in the figureheads of history and legend’.35 And in the early months the partnership was, indeed, electri- fyingly successful in girding the Navy for war while sweeping the Germans off the oceans: by the autumn of 1914, Jellicoe, who was now in supreme command of the pride of the Royal Navy, the Grand Fleet, had at his disposal twenty-one modem battleships and four battlecruisers; eight older battleships; and twenty-one smaller cruisers and forty-two destroyers. A further fourteen older battleships, supported by cruisers and destroyers, were operating in the Channel or from Harwich. The declared aims were succinct enough: (1) to stop enemy ships entering or leaving through both Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the northern and southern entrances of the North Sea; (2) to prevent invasion; (3) to transport the Army to France; (4) to control the High Seas;36 and, by November, Churchill was able to report to the Com­ mons that the four main perils which faced the Navy when war began were now under control: surprise attack before the 82 No More Heroes Fleets were ready; commerce raiding by surface ships; mines; and submarines. And at the end of 1914, with the Falklands victory confirming the Navy’s reputation for dash and brilliance, it could be fairly claimed that the seas were cleared of the enemy. But as the pace of the war slowed and the Navy, for the most part, settled into a grim monotonous routine of watch- and-wait, the minds of its chief leaders could not rest. Churchill and Fisher were not content, say, to intensify the blockade of Germany and wait for it to bite. There had to be activity. The Navy must be seen to be constantly darting about, being aggressive. The German Fleet could not just be left, bottled up, to rot: it had to be goaded, lured, smashed. And what better way than to trail tantalising coats beyond its usual reach? Out of this reasoning and a wish, using sea power, to open a new front against Germany, bring relief to the Allied armies in France and augment lines of supply to Russia, was born the Dardanelles Campaign. This ill-planned, hesitantly led and exhausting diversion of ships and soldiers came near to success and, perhaps for this reason, has been justified by historians as a worthwhile endeavour. But its slow failure served only to bleed the other more relevant theatres of war and, dividing the nation’s leaders, weaken the fighting men’s morale. Nowhere was this effect more marked than in the Navy’s high command. While Churchill got himself more and more embroiled in the Dardanelles effort, the two admirals who, above all, should have been at his side were pulling in other directions. Fisher wanted and repeatedly called for a major Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 diversion in the Baltic, while Jellicoe wanted and constantly demanded endless reinforcements for his Grand Fleet. This was no way to run a navy. Asquith who, as Prime Minister, should have knocked the admirals’ heads together, was not up to it. The autocrats in their ivory towers at the summits of the fighting Services were too formidable for most ministers and civil servants to cope with; and the public, encouraged to believe in the infallibility of its admirals and The Giants 83 generals, did not know that, while giving the impression of tremendous professional know-how, these men were immune to well-founded guidance or advice and, accordingly, com­ petent only within the limits of their individual abilities and experience. In debate with politicians they were often inco­ herent or, when pressed, tongue-tied; and, to hide this impedi­ ment, extraneous communications were kept to a minimum to the extent that little was exchanged, even on professional matters, between one Service hierarchy and the other. Fisher, skilled veteran of many Whitehall skirmishes, should have known better. But by now he was old, stale, impatient, cranky and increasingly intolerant. Captain Richmond noted in his diary: ‘It is ill to have the destinies of an empire in the hands of a failing old man, anxious for popularity’; while Violet Bonham Carter was to record later how Fisher at this time ‘lived by instincts, hunches, flashes, which he was unable to justify or sustain in argument’.37 Even Jellicoe, the great man’s disciple, was restive, declaring himself ‘fully aware of his (Fisher’s) totally wrong strategical notions’. Jellicoe had ‘no doubt whatever that the Fleet is rapidly losing confidence in the administration’.38 At last Fisher, his designs thwarted, his proper functions eroded by Churchill’s increasing habit of interference in operational matters, walked out. Suddenly, like a grumpy child running away from school, he left London. But this was no infant: this was the professional head of the Royal Navy, one of the top people, and to desert his post in war was inex­ cusable. When he repented and tried to get back into office, his curt demands for quasi-dictatorial powers led even his biographer Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Bacon, to comment: ‘It is not easy to understand how Lord Fisher could have believed that (this) was a proper com­ munication to send to a Prime Minister.’39 But Whitehall had had its fill of the Churchill-Fisher regime. In May 1915, Balfour40 replaced Churchill and Admiral Jackson was appointed First Sea Lord. As a power in the land, Fisher was no more. 84 No More Heroes But this upset was only one symptom of a malaise afflicting the higher commands at this time. Lord Esher referred in his diary to ‘the lack of high vitality’ in the Government’s run­ ning of the war. He observed that about forty of the men occupying the seats of power in England and France were handicapped by ‘long life, sedentary occupations, leisurely habits of mind’. His remark, ‘so different are the qualities required in war from those desirable in peace’, was hardly an exaggeration.41 In particular, the Balfour-Jackson team was soon ‘to bring lethargy to the Admiralty in the place of imagination and drive’.42 It needed the catastrophes of 1916 - Jutland, the start of the U-boat offensive, the murderous reverses on the Western front - to bring new men to the top. ‘In November 1916,’ according to Lord Hankey,

‘there was friction everywhere - in the Cabinet, the War Committee, the Admiralty, the War Office and in Parliament. . . . no panacea had yet been found for dealing with the German U-boats . . . the Admiralty held that convoys were useless unless there was one escort to each vessel.’43

In the following month the long overdue changes were made and, among others, Lloyd George became Prime Minister, Carson First Lord,44 Jellicoe First Sea Lord and Beatty Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet. With the Grand Fleet safely in Beatty’s care, the Admiralty now had every chance and encouragement to get to grips with the U-boat menace. Jellicoe’s early moves as First Sea Lord promised well: a new supporting staff, including officers with recent sea Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 experience, was introduced and, by 1917, the Admiralty’s organisation seemed healthy and effective. Jellicoe now car­ ried the additional title Chief of the Naval Staff, but working with him was a Deputy Chief (Oliver), under whom came Operations, Intelligence, Signals and Mobilisation divisions; and an Assistant Chief (Duff), under whom came Anti­ submarine, Mine-sweeping, Trade and Mercantile Move­ ments divisions. There was a special section dealing with The Giants 85 organisation, underlining the emphasis which this new structure was supposedly to give to the war against U-boats. But old habits die hard. When it came to the point, Jellicoe seemed unable to let go of the reins and his mind, unfor­ tunately, was not moving fast enough with the times. As one of the Admiralty staff members recorded: ‘The intellectual capital of the Navy was entirely absorbed in the gunnery and executive work at sea . . . the Admiralty only dreamed of technical victories.’ While this may have been an exaggera­ tion, there was truth in this officer’s comment that ‘Jellicoe, although a good seaman, had the typical civil service mind’. He was ‘apparently incapable of agreeing to a new strategy’ and ‘adept at finding unanswerable reasons against any change’. In the spring of 1917, the Admiralty was ‘smitten with paralysis’.45 This opinion confirmed Fitzroy’s considered view that, ‘The real fact is that far too large a proportion of the vessels that should be employed in patrolling the narrow seas and rooting out the submarine menace are concentrated in the far North for the protection of the battleship fleet. The exposure of these ships to no risk is indeed the obsession of the Admiralty and the higher command. No one is more imbued with the virus of inaction than Jellicoe himself. Officers of the more forward school are loud in their complaint and warn­ ings, but both pass unheeded, though, to those who under­ stand human nature, it is clear that the urgent cry is for something to break the monotony and exalt the spirit of the men before the mast, or behind the guns.’46

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Admiral Wemyss, who was appointed to the additional post of Deputy First Sea Lord in the autumn of 1917, found a ‘pall of fatalistic gloom’ at the Admiralty. It was impossible, Wemyss, felt, ‘to rouse them to accept new ideas’, and Jellicoe could not be helped to any important extent ‘because he refused to delegate to me any responsibility’.47 Hankey con­ firms Lloyd George’s disquiet ‘about the administration at the Admiralty, which he felt lacked resource and drive. Both 86 No More Heroes the First Lord and the First Sea Lord gave the appearance of suffering from pessimism.’48 With the Admiralty at a loss, the Germans were moving rapidly towards victory through strangulation of Britain’s transatlantic trade and supplies routes. According to Pro­ fessor Marder, the Germans hoped at this time to have squeezed England out of the war before the end of 1917 and, if the Admiralty had delayed introduction of the convoy system much longer, the German aim might well have been achieved. But Lloyd George, now in Britain’s driving seat, was not to be cowed by the top brass. He appreciated that Jellicoe and his team were inching their cautious way towards the adoption of convoys, properly organised and adequately protected, but their pace was much too slow. Lloyd George’s contribution, in the nick of time, was to get them weaving faster.49 Jellicoe’s days were now numbered. According to Frank Owen, a talk with Haig decided Lloyd George finally to appoint a new First Sea Lord. Haig thought Jellicoe ‘much too rigid, narrow and conservative’; and the question was whether, under Jellicoe, the ‘war might be lost at sea before (Haig) had an opportunity of winning it on land’.50 Indeed, in the critical month of April 1917, when losses of merchant shipping from U-boat attack were fast outstripping replacements, and production of U-boats was fast outstrip­ ping losses, the best that Jellicoe could manage was a gloomy memorandum for the Cabinet’s consideration in which it was admitted, ‘We are carrying on this war . . . as if we had the absolute

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 command of the sea. We have . . . so far as surface ships are concerned, but it must be realised . . . that all this is quite useless if the enemy’s submarines paralyse, as they do now, our lines of communication. Our present policy is heading straight for disaster.' Jellicoe could offer no positive suggestions: he asked only for withdrawal and retrenchment and, beyond hinting that con­ voys could be tried when more escort vessels were available, The Giants 87 the gut seemed no longer in him. He thought that future policy could only be reconsidered ‘when the country is in a position to withstand a siege’.51 The American admiral, Sims, after confidential talks with Jellicoe who disclosed that the tons of shipping being lost to U-boats was ‘three and four times as large as those which were then being published in the press’, was ‘fairly astounded’ having ‘never imagined anything so terrible’. At the same time, the American Ambassador in London was reporting secretly to his President that ‘the submarines have become a very grave danger’ and ‘what we are facing is the defeat of Great Britain’.52 Lloyd George’s protracted manoeuvres to overcome oppo­ sition to his plans and get into the Admiralty a war-winning team more to his liking bore fruit in stages. Geddes, a Haig protege, became First Lord in the summer of 1917 and, just before Christmas, Jellicoe was removed from the office of First Sea Lord, to make way for Wemyss. The manner of Jellicoe’s dismissal was not pleasant: Lloyd George’s tool, Geddes, struck swiftly and stealthily just before Christmas, when Parliament and press were at their least vocal; and, by the time they came to, after the season’s carousals, Jellicoe was safely off stage. Within a year of that incident the war was over. Four main factors had steered Britain from the brink of defeat to victory: Lloyd George’s will to win, the naval blockade of Germany, the ultimate defeat of the U-boats and, above all, the U.S.A.’s eleventh-hour intervention on land and sea. Without these, the costly, hard-fought and demoralising struggle of the Anglo-French armies would have been in vain. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

Amidst all the destruction, one great national treasure sur­ vived. When not riding moodily to its anchors at Scapa the British battlefleet, swollen now to over forty modem battle­ ships and battlecruisers, including a small American squadron, thirty light cruisers and 100 destroyers, prowled majestically around the North Sea, seeking its prey. The German fleet 88 No More Heroes was still in being but it lay hidden in its harbours, the crews, riddled with bolshevism and sullen discontent, having no more stomach for the fight. Thus, when the long shabby lines of enemy warships at last came out, it was to be received by the Grand Fleet in formal surrender, a much-photographed event but, alas, for the British officers and men, a hollow victory. In the world’s eyes, however, Beatty’s stately armada was evidence of Britain’s continuing imperial might and grandeur; and, as such, it must at all costs keep its proud flags flying. Any corrosion was not so much of the ships, of course; it was more within the hearts of their personnel and, most agonis­ ingly of all, in the heart of their leader. Beatty, frustrated man of action, denied first the chance to share with Jellicoe a Jutland glory and then, himself, to lead to triumph the most tremendous fleet in history, set his jaw squarely and his cap at its most rakish angle, hoping thus to mask the bitter disap­ pointment that consumed him. The cost of the British fleet’s upkeep and survival had been high in money and resources, in danger and discomfort and, not least, in the broken careers of its three leading architects: Fisher, Churchill, Jellicoe. Of these, in this context, Jellicoe wore the chief mantle of destiny; and, by all the rules or chances of the game, his trim figure should now, on its own high column, like Nelson, but in Jutland Square, hold sway over London. Why was this tough, crisp, resilient, kindly, tenacious man denied his lofty plinth? What held him back on the bridge of his flagship, Iron Duke, that hazy summer’s evening off Jutland? Although the dangers from mines and U-boats had made him prudent, the scale of events before him and all that lay at Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 stake, giving sudden point and focus to all his years of train­ ing and self-discipline, must have brought into instant play his wits and faculties. Like him, the great fighting machine, largely of his creation, now wheeling across the seas to his commands, was spoiling for the fight. And yet, at the moments of crisis and opportunity, following his fine deploy­ ment, this exceptional man’s decision-making tissues seemed to fail him. The Giants 89 Among the many explanations offered in the history books there are two which are little noticed, yet these two could well have been decisive. Jellicoe had for too long carried the lonely burden of the Grand Fleet commander. His vast responsibili­ ties had been endlessly impressed upon him. While outwardly calm, cheerful, ever ready with words of encouragement for others, inwardly the doubts gnawed at him: doubts about his equipment’s efficiency, his ships’ fire power, the security of their base, the efficacy of their escorts. Unlike ministers in cosy Whitehall offices and generals dressing for dinner in chateaux far behind the firing fine, Jellicoe, in the British fighting admirals’ tradition, lived and worked in the confined space of a warship under the close scrutiny throughout their waking hours of the officers and men among whom he might at any moment enter battle. While this contact had advantages in order-giving and morale-building, isolation from the centres of power and direction in Whitehall was a constant cause of frustration and anxiety, leading to excessive squandering of time and nervous energy trying to keep in touch. The to and fro of correspond­ ence on an ever-widening range of topics, laboriously drafted; long waits for replies to urgent questions; the doubts and difficulties of interpretation: these factors added con­ stantly to the strains of responsibility which, because of the hierarchical ways of the Navy and the deliberate aloofness of a senior officer’s below-decks life, could be little shared and never admitted. In fact, Jellicoe usually took his meals in company, presid­ ing over his seven staff officers. He enjoyed tactical discussions but these were talk rather than consultation: all major deci­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 sions were Jellicoe’s and the thought processes that led to them were his own business. For leaders like Jellicoe, respite lay mainly in vigorous exercise. In harbour by day they paced the decks of their , eating up the miles; and in the afternoons they went ashore, not into the arms of their womenfolk, but to stride manfully up the hills and over the moors, hardening their bodies. While periods of celibacy could conceivably have suited 90 No More Heroes Jellicoe’s tastes and character, sexual self-denial must have come harder to Beatty who was markedly attractive to women and enjoyed their company. At Scapa, which was Jellicoe’s base as Grand Fleet Commander-in-Chief, accom­ modation for officers’ wives was virtually non-existent but around Rosyth, where Beatty’s squadron was based, there was ample choice. Despite his wife’s presence there, however, Beatty when in port confined his shore-going to the after­ noons, occupying these mainly with a brisk walk in the country. Both admirals were adamant that their place of duty at night was afloat, in harbour as at sea.53 Thus by self-discipline, besides quenching sexual urges, the admirals freed and cleansed their minds ready for tomorrow’s problems. In particular, as they saw it, physical fitness was the key to mental alertness and it was their absolute duty to ensure that their minds would be in tiptop running order when the great test came. Despite this vigorous health-inducing regime, Jellicoe was showing signs of staleness, with a tendency to minor ailments, in the months before Jutland. In the previous September, for example, Jellicoe was sent ashore under medical supervision for a rest, interrupted by treatment for pyorrhea. Then, shortly after Jutland, having confided that ‘I do feel quite played out. . . . I feel so constantly tired that I am afraid of not doing justice to the Fleet,’ the First Sea Lord persuaded him to go ashore for a fortnight’s holiday.54 There is no doubt, however, that in the opening phases of the great battle, the admiral’s alert mind was working at peak efficiency. Up to the moment when the battlefleets began their engagement, his thought processes could not be faulted. But Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 had he the stamina to keep his brain at full pitch right through the long, confusing and distracting hours of battle and con­ jecture? And this brings us to the second reason. The conditions under which a fleet commander was obliged to make clear- cut decisions, with his own flagship in action, were appalling. In the North Sea, for example, mistakes were liable to be made The Giants 91 ‘by officers standing on bridges, exposed to the icy wind and spray and subjected to the devastating effect not only of the enemy’s fire but of the blast and flash of the forward gun- turrets. There is no more shattering experience than to be near the muzzles of great naval guns, and the interval be­ tween the sounding of the warning “fire” bell and the explosion prohibits constructive thought.’55 The exhaustion resulting from prolonged experiences of this kind may also explain Jellicoe’s failure to make enough, promptly, of his fleet’s achievements in his post-Jutland dis­ patches. He was a reticent man, ill-disposed to publicity, but if he had been less numbed or fatigued in the battle’s after- math he must have used the hours steaming towards Scapa more imaginatively. Although he showed small sign of it, was not his ordeal more than any man should be called upon to bear; and, taking the Jutland saga as a whole, could any man have done much better? Unfortunately, both as Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet and then as First Sea Lord, Jellicoe, although he did not fail, did not succeed enough and, rightly, he was set aside so that others could work more surely and swiftly towards victory. Jellicoe took his disappointments, the manner of his dismissal, the lukewarm commendation of his achievements, with stoic, uncomplaining and good-humoured dignity. He was one of those rare men who ‘best transmuted the English tradition and the English habit into the super-excellentmetal’.56 Whatever his rating as an admiral, his stature as a man could be no higher; and he stands as a fine example of magnanimity in adversity. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Chapter Four

Second to None

With the First World War behind him, the most painful battles of Beatty’s life began. His global reputation as a fighting admiral was safe: the call now was to be on his patience, diplomacy and moral courage. Privately, until her death in 1932, Beatty’s peace of mind was to be under frequent assault by his wife’s illness; while for nearly eight years, from 1919 to 1927, in his public role as First Sea Lord, he was to find himself fighting a ceaseless rearguard action on several fronts for the survival of his Service as a world force. For, on both sides of the Atlantic, and beyond, there now arose new and powerful challengers to the Navy’s supremacy; and prime among these, sadly, were ambitious and anta­ gonistic leaders of that lusty, fast-grown younger sister, the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 United States Navy, campaigning pointedly, with strong backing from American vested interests, for a modem navy ‘second to none’. What had got into the Americans? The answer begins twenty or more years earlier. By the end of the nineteenth century Britain’s erstwhile colony, fast sur­ passing the mother country in industrial power, having long since overtaken it in population, was emerging from the wings to become a leading player on the world stage; and, Second to None 93 accordingly, in the matter of colonisation, was busily moving the boot to the other foot. Two recent events had provided impetus: the Spanish- American War by which, in 1898, the United States gained several territories in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, including Hawaii, the Philippines and Puerto Rico; and the impact of books written by an American naval officer, Cap­ tain (later Admiral) Alfred T. Mahan, the most notable of whose works, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660- 1783, published in 1890, was to win world-wide acclaim, following translation into Japanese as well as several Euro­ pean languages. Mahan’s conclusions, suiting the mood of the times, held that the essence of national strength and vitality was expan­ sion; that expansion depended on wealth; and that wealth was most effectively gained through foreign trade. But the pre­ requisites for winning and exploiting suitable markets abroad were a viable merchant marine and, to provide protection both of these ships and of the nation’s overseas investments, a navy powerful enough to impress world opinion. The sustenance of these sister services, in turn, would feed extra work and profit into home-based but export-minded steel, engineering and armament industries, while creating reserves of seamen to augment the navy’s regular cadres in the event of war. Here, in short, was the road, through colonialism, to influence and wealth; and clearly, in travelling it, the right of way belonged only to the strongest nations. Among those on whom Mahan’s book fell like manna was the Kaiser, who welcomed all the help he could get in driving Germany forward into the comity of leading nations and, to Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 this end, in building a navy commensurate with his ambitions. The Kaiser, conveniently overlooking Mahan’s warning that heavy commitments on land could not leave a nation enough resources for a comparable build-up at sea, confided to a friend:

‘I am now not reading but devouring Captain Mahan’s book, and am trying to learn it by heart.... It is on board 94 No More Heroes all my ships and constantly quoted by my captains and officers.’1 Although less in need of persuasion, being the country that began it all, Britain was not slow to take the new hint. It was not enough that ‘the combined power of fleets and finance enabled British statesmen to wield an influence abroad which approached . . . the dimensions of sovereignty and world order’. It was important to keep ahead and Mahan gave Britain’s naval leaders an extra stick to beat their government with in case dragging ministerial feet chose to obstruct naval development. Thus, while many factors would soon arise to spark the frantic armament race leading to the First World War, none was more potent and more decisive in its time than Mahan’s writing. As the Sprouts sum it up: ‘Mahan’s interpretation of history excited expansionist forces already stirring in Europe, in America, and in the Far East. His strategic ideas . . . were accepted as precepts of universal application and utility, without qualification as to time or place.’2 Meanwhile, one lesson of the Spanish-American War was that fighting could be fun when you won, and that limited wars were winnable quite cheaply with the use of superior naval forces. American public opinion now became alerted, the more so by the further lesson that the U.S. Navy, while more than a match for the Spaniards, was far from efficient and, in size and firepower, shamingly trivial in relation to the United States’ growing strength and aspirations. American Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 chauvinism lagged behind Germany’s, but would express itself eventually with more substantial effect, and with the more penetrating difference that much of its inspiration was mercantile rather than imperialist. In the early years of the twentieth century, an important if transitory influence on United States naval policy was the substitution for a former enmity towards Britain of a desire, if not for close friendship, at least for a guarded pursuit of Second to None 95 common interests. The German mixture of arrogance and blandishment was proving uncongenial to the Americans: Britain, apparently, was more to be trusted, British goodwill being demonstrated by a tendency to withdraw from Carib­ bean politics and an evident wish to maintain open-door trading policies in China following their treaty with Japan in 1902. Another influence, both on the U.S. Navy’s development and on relations with British naval leaders, was William S. Sims, ‘an intensely alert, fearless and critical officer, and probably the most useful man who ever wore the uniform of the United States Navy’.3 While stationed as Naval Attache in Paris, Captain (later Admiral) Sims was impressed by Euro­ pean advances in naval gunnery; and following an encounter soon after with Britain’s Percy Scott, a dialogue ensued between the two navies about their dominant weapon. These exchanges hastened the intensive training methods and firing competitions by which both navies were to wring from their weapons a performance that far exceeded the designers’ expectations. In America, as in Britain, popular magazines followed target practices with avid interest, and, while this may have led to an optimistic view of naval prowess, ‘it would hardly have been possible to exaggerate the degree of im­ provement over the miserable record of former years’.4 U.S. naval development in the early years of the century was assisted also by the enthusiasm of President Theodore Roose­ velt who, as a former Assistant Secretary of his navy, was a well-informed partisan of its claim for a place in the sun. Thus, whereas in 1900 the U.S. Navy had fewer ships than the navies of Britain, France, Russia, Germany or Italy, by Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 1907 only Britain’s navy was superior; and, in 1910, the money available to the U.S. Navy was double that at its disposal ten years before. At this period, American naval growth and method was largely of indigenous origin; in particular, its leadership structure was entirely different from that of the Royal Navy. With policy and management of the latter vested in a Board of Admiralty comprising civilian and naval members taking 96 No More Heroes collective responsibility for their decisions, the U.S. Navy was directed virtually by one civilian politician, the Secretary of the Navy. Under him, the most senior naval officer was allowed responsibility for operational matters only. The nearest equivalent to an admiralty board was an advisory caucus, the General Board of the United States Navy, described by Daniels as ‘composed of officers of mature experience and eminent professional accomplishment, con­ stituting a deliberative body’.5 Its link with the executive was by means of the ex-officio membership of four senior office­ holders, headed by the Chief of Naval Operations; and in contrast with British values, which evidently gave lower ratings to education and amphibia, two of these four top naval Americans were the President of the Naval War College and the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. One other organisation, the Navy League of the United States, wielded a strong influence in naval matters. Like its British counterpart it was an independent body, created mainly as a pressure group and for propaganda purposes. Whilst both versions provided platforms for retired naval officers and other, more articulate, patriots, the civilian elements in America were financiers and industrialists rather than the dukes and baronets preferred in Britain. This was a case not merely of shortage of supply of aristocrats in the New World but of a proper sense of priorities in this thriving dollar-proud country, the power base of which was con­ cerned more with profits and technology than with fox-hunt­ ing and genealogy. Thus, America’s Navy League was quite overtly a vehicle for vested interests which might hope to gain from naval expansion. No doubt, the name of Schwab Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 looked less elegant on the letterhead than that of a British lord but, in American terms, it carried its own kind of weight, Schwab being a top tycoon with fingers in the steel, engineer­ ing and armament pies; and, as a member of his country’s League, he was most certainly among kindred spirits. Despite the wide-ranging talent supporting naval expan­ sion, however, progress was not to everybody’s satisfaction. The U.S. Navy, like others, was becoming top-heavy in Second to None 97 battleships and, while it was well advanced in submarine technology and in armoured protection of large ships, its design standards were far from even. Nevertheless, the rapid creation of a formidable navy by the Americans, in competi­ tion mainly with the British, but without the advantage of tradition and precedent, was a notable feat; and, through its efforts to make up in earnest professionalism what its officer corps lacked in humour and the habit of victory, it was eventually to gain parity with the best in quality as well as quantity. With naval expansion, of course, went the flexing of colonialist muscles, leading to bad-tempered outbursts of gun­ boat diplomacy, less conspicuous but no less wicked than those for which Britain and other European powers were so readily criticised. In 1909, to counter a local threat to American business interests, Nicaragua received a drubbing; and, in the next few years, encouraged by what the ‘big stick’ could achieve, the United States had a go at Mexico, Haiti and some of the other smaller Latin-American and Pacific communities, thereby extending what the Americans now regarded as their legitimate ‘spheres of influence’. While some of this aggression was linked with the creation of a canal across the Panama isthmus, a vital American interest, it could hardly be excused if the comparable machinations of other colonial powers were not excused as well. During the run-up towards the First World War the Americans, besides acquiring their Panama Canal, gained much prestige by means of a world cruise of their new fleet. This powerful force, a vivid advertisement for the growing might of the United States, was a visible omen of impending Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 changes in the balance of power. Covertly, in the meantime, the cruise served another purpose: it revealed to the Ameri­ can naval leadership that, while its ships had much to be said for them, there was a good deal in urgent need of improve­ ment; and, with a fleet now faffing behind in the world armament race, taking third place after Britain and Germany, that only by exceptional effort and determination could America contrive to keep up with the European Joneses. 98 No More Heroes American hopes that the First World War might pass them by proved short-lived. The British were soon to give offence by their measures to tighten the blockade of Germany: as neutrals, the Americans resented British interception of their merchant ships and seizure of enemy-bound cargoes. Later, however, the Germans were to offend even more with the growing ruthlessness of their U-boat warfare. In time, it dawned on the Americans that, to influence the course of the war in both economic and military terms, they had better get into it completely and, having helped to win, take a due share in the spoils of victory. Fortunately, the British cause was favoured as the means more likely to satisfy American aspirations; and, as the British war effort began to flag with the erosion of its capacity to defend its shipping against U-boat attacks, American intervention could no doubt prove decisive. Naturally, this called for the ever-faster expansion and war­ preparedness of the U.S. Navy, a call which, from 1915, the American Navy League echoed with zest and fervour. Its new magazine, ‘forceful, direct, and sometimes even rabid in tone’, struck a strident imperialist note with such statements as, ‘world empire is the only logical and natural aim for a nation that really desires to remain a nation’.6 In the same year, the U.S. Navy’s General Board recommended officially, for the first time, that ‘the Navy of the United States should ultimately be equal to the most powerful maintained by any other nation of the world’,7 a declaration that was soon taken up by the Navy League with its persistent clamour for ‘a navy second to none’. But the U.S. Navy had a long way to go. By 1915 it could Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 boast only seventeen capital ships against Britain’s forty-six and Germany’s twenty-eight. The remedy was drastic. In the following year, authority was sought for an expenditure of $500 million on warship construction over the next three- year period, including provision for a further sixteen capital ships, the best of which were to be substantially more power­ ful than Britain’s, and for large submarine and aviation programmes. Growth of the U-boat threat, however, led to a Second to None 99 change of emphasis, higher priority being quickly given to the construction of anti-U-boat vessels. With the entry of the United States into the war in 1917, Allied victory was ensured. One of America’s first steps was to place a squadron of its battleships in the Grand Fleet under Beatty’s command, though more welcome was the allocation of smaller warships to convoy protection on the Atlantic trade routes. No time was wasted. Within eighteen months, America was able to put naval forces into European waters greater than its entire pre-war strength while, at the same time, providing the material for a mammoth minefield in the North Sea.

Now, with the end of the war in sight, the General Board felt confident enough to call for a policy that would give the United States, by 1925, a Navy at least the equal of any other in the world, in order to ‘render us reasonably secure for the future’.8 To Americans, their country having just saved the world from German aggression, nothing less would do: their navy, surely, must be best as well as biggest. The implication of this stance was, inevitably, a marked tendency to anglo- phobia. A navy ‘second to none’ meant, after all, the capacity, in the last resort, to do battle with the world’s leading naval power and exclusion of this power from a list of possible enemies only weakened the case. This accounts partly for the ‘decidedly anti-British tone of many of the U. S. Navy Leagues’ pronouncements’, as for the fact that ‘the General Board also took a marked anti-British fine in its recommendations’.9 Besides, the British were already in trouble on other Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 grounds. In 1918, Britain had sent to South America a fairly strong naval, military and trade mission, with a view to strengthening its long-established commercial interests in that sub-continent. The United States, which now regarded South America as part of its own back yard, took umbrage, the more so following circulation of rumours about ‘secret’ trade agree­ ments supposedly detrimental to American interests. Then, with American capitalists already resentful about the growing 100 No More Heroes influence of British oil monopolies in the Middle East, it was Britain’s turn to take offence as the tentacles of American commercial interests spread ever more widely through that region. Above all, there was the irritant of Britain’s flourish­ ing treaty with Japan, giving rise to fears in Washington lest these two powers might combine to thwart American ambi­ tions or, possibly, threaten American security in the Pacific. Deteriorating relations between Britain and the United States led to swift, if ineffectual, attempts by some leaders of opinion to stop the flood. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, swimming against the current, went so far as to pat the Royal Navy on the back as ‘probably the most potent instru­ mentality for peace in the world’; and in that case, he sug­ gested, America, instead of trying ‘to build a navy in rivalry to it’, should be content to ‘have the second navy in the world’. Even the Navy League, after sounding its members, admitted ‘that there was very little support for a policy of competitive building against Great Britain whose insular position and scattered empire were able to justify a navy larger than that of the United States’. But the drift to rivalry had gone too far to be halted and, in the summer of 1919, the U.S. Navy’s Secretary came out flatly and uncomprisingly with the demand that, with the League of Nations unproven in its peace-keeping role, the United States must create ‘incom­ parably the biggest navy in the world. There is no middle ground’.10 Into this euphoric stronghold, in October 1921, sailed Beatty. He, Admiral of the Fleet, David, Earl Beatty of the North Sea and of Brooksby, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., D.S.O. D.C.L., LL.D.,11 carried no flag of truce. The Americans may Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 be hard-headed in business and diplomacy but they are a sentimental and, at heart, romantic people. There is no dearth in their country of pedestals for idols to be put on. Beatty was a top person, leader of global status, war hero, the most famous fighting sailor since Nelson. He was an aristocrat, friend of kings, professional head of the most splendid fight­ ing machine on earth; among his many decorations he wore that coveted American award, the Distinguished Service Second to None 101 Medal; and his wife was American, a Field, member of the wealthiest commercial elite. This was a heady mixture, indeed: but could it stem the xenophobic tide? The authorities, the people and, not least, the U.S. Navy did Beatty proud. The admiral’s ship was met at the three- mile limit by an escort of destroyers and, at the approach to New York, by a nineteen-gun salute. Battery Park, where he landed, was packed with spectators; and cheering throngs lined a ceremonial route to City Hall where Beatty received the Freedom of the City. So it went on. Visits to the White House, receptions, formal dinners, speeches, brilliant social occasions; a tour of provincial cities including Chicago, Kansas City, Philadelphia and a visit to the U.S. Navy’s alma mater at Annapolis. Despite dense and eager crowds, Beatty was kept to his busy timetable through the initiative of the detective assigned to him, who quietly passed the word to the various police forces, in advance, that Beatty was OK, for Beatty was an Irishman. Even so, concern for the admiral’s comforts failed at this time of prohibition when the crates of liquor accompanying his party, although guarded by a marine sentry, were spirited away, never to be recovered. For a time, dry or wet, all was good cheer in the Anglo- American world. At a New York gathering, Beatty was applauded vigorously when he declared that he discounted ‘utterly the possibility of serious differences arising between our two countries whose every interest and every instinct binds them together’. The Pilgrims, hosts at a dinner in Beatty’s honour, felt moved enough to cable to George V their ‘tribute of affectionate respect for the sagacious ruler Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 of the mighty British Empire, the most loyal friend of the United States’.12 And then, with a flourish, on 12 November 1921, three weeks after his arrival in the United States, like a star performer confident of further ovations, Beatty took his place as leading naval member of the British Empire’s dele­ gation at that great international assembly, the Washington Conference. Outside, it was a chill November morning with a sharp 102 No More Heroes wintry wind. In the warm and well-appointed hall, the stage had been set with meticulous care by the American hosts. As a State Department instruction emphasised, ‘this conference is dependent upon atmosphere, upon hope, open or warm and friendly disposition, and favourable expectations on the part of the public’.13 Besides the statesmen and their naval retinues, there were places for nearly 1,000 invited guests and newspapermen. The American President’s wife shared a box with his Vice- President, the former ‘erect and watchful’, the latter with his ‘cold blue eyes’ constantly alert. Behind them were the rows of senators, opposite them members of the cabinet and of the diplomatic corps. Prominent in the body of the hall, was the British contingent, headed by Balfour, including the First Lord, Lord Lee of Fareham, dominion representatives and, under Beatty, a talented naval team led by Chatfield. The American delegates were headed by Hughes, the Secretary of State.14 Japan, France and Italy were also strongly repre­ sented. In general, there was a mood of nervous excitement which, as H. G. Wells reported, seemed ‘extraordinarily like a very smart first night in a prominent London theatre’.15 The event was to prove dramatic enough for some of the visitors. The proceedings were opened by President Harding who, following a prayer, gave an address of welcome and a grave plea for concerted efforts by the nations to build a new world order. With old-world courtesy, Balfour then rose to move, on behalf of all the delegations, that Hughes be elected chairman of the conference. Culmination of long, careful and secretive preparations, begun eight months earlier when Harding took office, the intended climax was now at hand. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

In response to the anti-war feelings prevailing at that time, a leading plank of the new President’s platform had been to pledge limitation of armaments by international agreement for, although created largely on his predecessor, Wilson’s, initiative the League of Nations was failing to gain the con­ fidence of Americans as a means to peace. On the other hand Second to None 103 the peoples of Europe, with more reason to be weary of war, were ready to give collective security a try. But the chosen instrument, newly established at Geneva, was crippled, like a child lacking limbs, through the absence from its membership of the U.S.A., U.S.S.R. and Germany. Thus, there were echoes of sympathy in Europe when the Americans proposed that a conference limited to the powers most affected, con­ cerned solely with naval disarmament, might do more good than the windy debates and elaborate manoeuvres associated with some of the earlier peace conferences. Powerful sections in the United States, ranging from relig­ ious to trade union leaders, supported this new approach, while propagandists worked hard to whip up popular fervour. A1 Jolson, the singer, gave voice to public sentiment with an offer to ‘sing Harding’s message into men’s minds’ by means of a maudlin but, presumably, effective song: ‘Take ’way the gun From ev’ry mother’s son, We’re taught by God above To forgive, forget and love. The weary world is waiting for Peace forevermore. So take away the gun From ev’ry mother’s son, And put an end to War.’16 Beneath the idealistic cloak, however, official American opinion was taking implacable shape. Now, a prime under­ lying motive for calling a disarmament conference, spurred on largely by antagonism to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 by fear of Japanese ambitions, was to alter the balance of power, as economically as possible, to the American advant­ age. The Japanese, in guarding Britain’s far eastern flank during the war, had found it convenient to take over Ger­ many’s possessions in China, and were growing markedly in strength and prosperity; and many Americans were inclining to the view that ‘with the other nations close to exhaustion, the next looming confrontation threatened between the 104 No More Heroes strong but reluctant United States and the dynamic-expansive Japanese Empire’. U.S. Navy leaders, taking their cue, warned categorically that ‘if the Anglo-Japanese Alliance is to be continued, the minimum strength that the United States can safely accept for its Navy is equality with that of the two navies combined’.17 But, this being politically impracticable, it soon became clear what was really in the wind: having prised the British away from the Japanese, the United States would press for a scaling down of all naval forces; and in the American view, to be effective, this meant that the precise roles, sizes and strengths of each navy must be examined and then, piece by piece, cut to suit America’s cloth. All this called for a bold American initiative, best expressed by a conference on United States soil, with surprise moves up the American sleeve calculated to put Britain, the leading naval power, at a disadvantage - but without losing its goodwill. Politicians in London, suspicious of American designs, were contemplating a counter-move, a broadly similar con­ ference, albeit with more congenial objectives but, being in the throes of their own Imperial Conference, they dithered too long. So, the Americans got in first when, in July, Hard­ ing issued formal invitations to the Washington Conference; and American single-mindedness was evident from the start with blunt refusal of British requests for prior bilateral talks and of Japanese requests for amendments to the agenda.18

As Hughes rose to make his introductory statement, there was no inkling of what was now to come. It had been a long Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 day and the courteous opening formalities, the consoling platitudes of the early speeches and the general air of well­ being had induced a soporific mood. The delegates were about to adjourn for the weekend and, refreshed by the holiday, it would be time enough next week to get down to work. After a long and rather dull preamble, like a football captain deploying new tactics to snatch victory in the last Second to None 105 moments of extra time, Hughes suddenly jerked his audience into excited attention by insisting that: (i) no new heavy (capital) warships be brought into service by any naval power within ten years; (ii) reduction of existing naval forces be achieved, partly by scrapping some older capital ships, and partly by limiting the total tonnage of those being retained; (iii) as an example to others, the United States was prepared to dispense with thirty of their own capital ships, includ­ ing fifteen now building. This fine, self-denying gesture was greeted with acclamation. What a splendidly radical start to the conference! Well, time was marching on: the welcome break was surely due. But, no. Hughes was still on his feet. Was there really more to come? There was, indeed. With quiet emphasis, almost as an after­ thought, Hughes then went on to make crystal clear to the other assembled powers what cuts would in consequence be expected of them. The British, he insisted, would go without nineteen of their older capital ships and abandon another four that were due to be laid down. And the Japanese: for them, the scale would be ten older and fifteen newer capital ships. And that, gentlemen, was just a start___ Brilliant stage management! While the delegates sat in shocked silence, their shoulders hunched, as the enormity of Hughes’ speech gripped their minds, the great Beatty ‘was seen to come forward in his chair, a “slightly staggered and deeply disturbed expression” on his countenance, reminding one of a “bulldog. . . who has been poked in the stomach’”, while ‘Chatfield “turned red and then white, and sat immov­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 able’”. It was a shattering blow for, in a few minutes, Hughes had effectively sunk ‘more British battleships “than all the admirals of the world had destroyed in a cycle of centuries’”.19 When the delegates reassembled four days later, all eyes were hopefully on Washington. Public commentators and the press of the world having optimistically taken up the bold American refrain, with its straightforward formula for peace, people everywhere expected prompt compliance by all the 106 No More Heroes leading nations. Alas, a long, tedious and finally inconclusive process of bargaining lay ahead. The first achievement was adoption by the three leading naval powers, Britain, America and Japan, of a 5:5:3 ratio in capital ship strength, thereby gaining parity for the United States with Britain, and for Japan 60 per cent of the strength of each of the two leading nations. This looked neat enough, but there were to be many riders and qualifications. What suited the Americans in numbers and types of warship did not entirely suit the British, the latter, in particular, with their far-flung commitments, having need of many more cruisers. There were disagreements also about aircraft carriers and submarines. But most of the arguments concentrated on battleships, these being the accepted symbol of naval power and the most convenient unit by which to measure relative strength. The undue preoccupation at Washington with these cum­ bersome and costly monsters, with little regard to the potential of aircraft and submarines, kept the species pre­ dominantly alive long past its prime. It ensured also that subsequent naval disarmament negotiations, until their abandonment in the 1930s, became increasingly irrelevant to those nations whose ambitions could be satisfied neither by the restrictive ratios demanded by the Americans nor by the moralising clap-trap of the big-power politicians.20 Once the less-favoured nations began to turn aside, re­ armament and, in the absence of effective sanctions to contain it, wars were bound to follow. Failure to read these signs was the fatal blind-spot of American statesmanship during its most insular and narcissistic phase. Here was the time when Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the United States could have had world leadership for the asking but, instead of taking the plunge, it chose to squat fatly on the edge of the pond and squawk peevishly at any sign of ruffled water. This was not good enough. As Mitchell says:

‘Broadly speaking, the defense problem of the United States after World War I was that of either maintaining its army and navy at a level high enough to guarantee success in foreign Second to None 107 war or else joining other powers, in providing effective machinery for collective security. The country actually did neither one. American decline in armaments was accompan­ ied by a refusal to join the League of Nations or to unite in forceful international measures to preserve the peace. Fatally short-sighted, Americans refused to see that naval disarmament made sense only under conditions of inter­ national co-operation, which did not then exist, and for whose creation the United States was unwilling to make the requisite sacrifices.’21

The first to quit the wing-flapping forum was Japan. During the Washington Conference, the Americans had got their way: the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, due for renewal, was abandoned. This was a cruel blow, indeed, to Japanese pride and ambitions. When the announcement was made, the Americans ‘were all smiles, the British looking glum and uncomfortable, the Japanese sitting grim and taut’. As long ago as 1909, Theodore Roosevelt had warned: ‘With so proud and sensitive a people, neither lack of money nor possible future complications will prevent a war if once they get sufficiently hurt and angry.’ But concern with Oriental ‘face’ was evidently not in the American book of rules. Britain’s treaty with Japan had been an important recog­ nition by a Western power that Japan was a welcome member of the world club, marking ‘the attainment of a prolonged effort to win recognition as an equal among the great Powers of the West’. Now the Japanese were cast aside ‘like an old pair of sandals’.22 That Britain should so feebly bow the knee to American fear and ignorance, and allow itself to be tarred Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 with the brush of the anti-Japanese sentiments then pre­ vailing in the United States, including discriminating tariffs and anti-immigration laws, was a sign to the Japanese that British probity was not reliable. Churchill records how this step caused ‘a profound impression in Japan and was viewed as the spurning of an Asiatic Power by the Western World. Many links were sundered which might afterwards have proved of decisive value to peace.’23 Chatfield saw it in even 108 No More Heroes blunter terms: ‘We had turned a proved friend . . . into a potential and powerful foe.’24 The end of this treaty marks the beginning of the end of the British Empire. The imperial flank in the Far East was now exposed and, to cover it, Britain needed more money and resources than it could eventually afford. It needed also freedom from the limitations of the Washington Treaty, which allowed Britain insufficient battleships to provide effective squadrons in European and Far Eastern waters simultaneously. In the Far East, Britain had no base of its own suitable for battleships and, until this could be created, no plan was viable. Who was now the likely enemy? When Britain chose Singapore as the site of a new, strongly defended and exten­ sively equipped naval base, the Japanese began to see the point. To them, a British presence in their region strong enough to block their own aspirations became a provocation and a threat. Friendless, no longer partnered by Britain, cold- shouldered by the Americans, their natural routes of expan­ sion blocked, the Japanese were bound to turn sooner or later to aggression. American caution and aloofness was indeed to reap the whirlwind. Beatty, the only man who might conceivably have stood up to the Americans and consoled the Japanese, had to leave the Washington Conference before critical decisions were made. In war, an admiral on overseas service expects to be buttressed by a secure home front, but politicians in London at this time, far from supporting their absent First Sea Lord, were busy sniping at his Service at home. They did not perceive that the American assault on the Royal Navy’s supremacy Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 was, in effect, an act of ‘war’.

This was the start of an era of economic crises, inconclusive ‘peace’ conferences, faltering governments and growing social unrest. In Britain, the one constant cry was for economies in public expenditure, and there was no juicier or more con­ spicuous target than the Navy. Second to None 109 Not content with reductions in materiel and personnel, the pay and security of those officers and men retained in service was constantly under fire. It did their cause no good that, in the 1920s, successive events ‘such as a change of government or an international conference on the limitation of arma­ ments’ prevented even the maintenance of ‘a small but steady replacement programme for the fleet, such as would keep the essential nucleus of designers and skilled workmen in the shipbuilding and marine engineering industries constantly employed’ ;25 that the Locarno Treaty and the admittance of Germany to the League of Nations (in 1925) was thought to have ushered in a new era of peace; that Churchill, the Navy’s erstwhile champion, proceeded (as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the mid twenties) to play down Japanese threats, postpone work on the Singapore base and, in making self-perpetuating the ten-year rule (by which acquiescing governments assumed immunity from any major war for at least ten years), put a stop to virtually all British warship construction. It was, indeed, a bitter period for the admirals in Whitehall, whose duty it became ‘to reduce the Fleet from a magnificent and incomparable force ..., and concurrently to deprive of their professional livelihood thousands of zealous, highly efficient, and loyal officers and men’,26 notwithstanding, as these admirals well knew, that ‘a great Navy, once let down, cannot be improvised in an emergency. It is not only the ships that take years to build; the training and instinct required to handle that amazing complex of machinery, a modem battleship, need a generation to teach.’27 But the Navy’s most implacable foe in this era was, per­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 haps, the newly formed Royal Air Force, the scars inflicted in a prolonged series of battles between these services having a crippling effect on British naval aviation for many years to come. Unfortunately, Beatty carries a large share of the blame for this schism’s antecedents. In August 1917, to avoid further duplication of supplies for the fast-growing naval and military air arms, a committee under Lloyd George, led by Smuts,28 advocated the formation 110 No More Heroes of one unified air service. The Admiralty, under Jellicoe’s failing direction, was preparing its defences when Beatty, out of the mists of Scapa Flow, dropped his careless bomb­ shell. In his view, he told Their Lordships, there seemed no reason why the proposed new service ‘could not perform the majority of the duties now entrusted to the RNAS’. Churchill then Minister of Munitions, was already in favour of the amalgamation, as were the Prime Minister and other govern­ ment leaders. Against such a barrage of eloquence the First Lord, Geddes, had no chance at all and, in April 1918, some 2,500 aircraft and 55,000 personnel were transferred from the Royal Naval Air Service to the new Royal Air Force.29 This purblind surrender to political and bureaucratic expediency deprived the Royal Navy at a stroke of a weapon in which it had more than an edge over all rivals. The British lead in naval aviation, in size as in method and technique, was acknowledged by the U.S. Navy, the official policy of which, by the end of the First World War, was to take its cue from Britain. At this stage, however, neither navy could offer its aircraft any role more important than that of extended vision for the fleet, by reconnaissance and in aid of gunnery control, aircraft carrying bombs and torpedoes with decisive effect being still only a dream; and when sea trials by the United States authorities later implied the battleship’s vulnerability to aerial bombs the British were inclined, even more than the Americans, to stuff their ears with cotton wool and concen­ trate upon their guns. But the American naval leaders, with their clearer glimpse of the aircraft carrier’s future role, had enough sense and determination to resist the inevitable Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 unification moves and, as a direct result of this policy, the U.S. Navy was soon to take the lead in development of what became, in the Second World War, the primary naval weapon. In Britain, meanwhile, in the aftermath of the First World War, the case for a unified air service was being put with devastating effect by Trenchard, the Royal Air Force’s professional head, ‘the chief and unyielding apostle of the Second to None 111 gospel of the strategic air offensive’, whose concept of the use of air power could not be reconciled ‘with maritime needs and purposes’.30 Among Trenchard’s allies were the members of an Admiralty committee, set up a few months after the end of the First World War to consider future policy and dispositions, who concluded that the main naval actions in the future would continue to be in the form of engagements between heavy-gun battleships. While these gentlemen, five of whose nine officer members were naval gunnery specialists, wanted aircraft carriers, as part of the fleet, to be under Admiralty control, they were content in most other respects with the loss of the Navy’s air arm to the Air Ministry. By 1921, however, Trenchard was not only claiming that his Royal Air Force could defend Britain: he was claiming also that ‘the battleship was obsolete, the cruisers were a waste of time and money’ and that aircraft carriers as envisaged by the Royal Navy at that time were wrongly conceived.31 Beatty’s earlier point of view was soon modified when he became First Sea Lord in 1919. Already, ‘a strong body of naval opinion had become determined to work for reversal’ of the unification decision. But Beatty held his hand, partly because Trenchard asked for ‘fair play’ for his new Service, and partly because the political climate was unfavourable. By late 1921, however, Beatty was ready to come into the open and work for the retrieval of a separate naval air arm. The ensuing battle was to cause serious diversions of effort and much bitterness during the next sixteen years. The open­ ing shots were affected by the fact that ‘Trenchard and Beatty had in common a tremendous patriotism, and they had in Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 some ways personalities curiously sympathetic to one another . . . but there was little love lost between them. Trenchard seems to have had a grudge against the Navy ever since his failure to enter the Britannia in 1884.’32 Then, in 1923, after fruitless attempts at reconciliation, a special sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, chaired by Balfour, confirmed the unification policy, although some concessions were won as a result of urgent talks between 112 No More Heroes Keyes, representing Beatty, and Trenchard. For example, the Admiralty would specify the numbers and performances of naval aircraft, even though these were to be procured on the Navy’s behalf by the Air Ministry; the replacement of air­ men by naval ratings for air duties at sea was agreed; and up to 70 per cent of naval air arm officers, including all obser­ vers, would be naval personnel. In most essentials, however, despite vigorous press campaigns and George V’s personal intervention on the Navy’s side, the Air Force view prevailed.

Trenchard did not have it all his own way. On the whole, in the Whitehall arena, Beatty was a more skilful and more subtle performer. As First Sea Lord, unlike most of his kind, Beatty ‘proved himself to be as effective at the council table as he had been in command of fleets at sea. . . and ministers soon came to learn that they were dealing with a man on their own level, if not above it’. Hankey, who was in the right position to know,33 wrote to Beatty when the latter relin­ quished his post in 1927: ‘You are the only First Sea Lord . .. who could really talk on even terms to the highest Cabinet Ministers and stand up to them in argument’; and, referring to the newly formed Chiefs of Staff Committee, of which Beatty was the first chairman: ‘Without a really first-class Chairman we might have failed, and that would have been disastrous.’34 Beatty showed ‘charm and tremendous drive in Com­ mittee’.35 But, more important, Beatty believed in the value of imaginative and comprehensive staff work. He could afford to delegate, if only because he was certain enough of his own Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 intellectual stature not to fear competition. At meetings in the Admiralty, ‘he was so sure of himself, and such a master of his subject, that the officers present felt complete confidence in his judgement’. Of course, there is no doubt who was the head boy: ‘They were not afraid to speak. They just knew there was nothing more to say.’36 Despite the ceaseless attacks on his Service’s viability, and the toll these took both of his energies and outside interests, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

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Helping ChildrenHelping Face Children Tough Face Tough HelpingHelping ChildrenHelping Children Face Children Tough Face Face Tough Tough Second to None 113 Beatty never flagged; and even towards the end of his time as First Sea Lord, under the increasing burden of his wife’s illness, to the onlooker he seldom seemed cast down. The illness from which his wife suffered during these years was an incurable melancholia. Beatty’s anxiety for her occupied his mind repeatedly, and caused him sleepless nights. In spite of his many preoccupations, including the solace he sometimes sought in other arms, he was always finding time to console his wife or to help manage her affairs, ‘which were complicated only too often by her unpredictable changes of mind’. The family never rested, being moved from one home to another; and between times, while Beatty was fully occupied in London, his wife would be travelling Europe in search of a cure. Temporary peace of mind could be bought only at the cost of time-consuming trips together in their yacht during which Beatty, cut off from his other commit­ ments, was able to devote himself fully to his wife and family. Tragically, at the bottom of his wife’s ailment was a resent­ ment that her husband’s work took him away into a formal world with which she felt less able and less inclined to cope as the years went by. Beatty’s love and devotion were not enough; she needed to possess him. ‘She had helped and inspired him, but in later years came to resent the claim that the Navy made upon him .... She expected always to have her own way and could not bear to be thwarted.’ Thus, ‘in the emotional conflict between his duty to the Navy . . . and his love for his wife’, Beatty’s character was being put constantly to the test. It is a measure of his forbearance and self-control that, despite the endless provocations, he rarely showed impatience; Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 and, when his wife died in 1932, Beatty confided to a friend that it was ‘the worst day of my fife’. A month after her death, Beatty was still recording that he missed her ‘more than I can say’. He seemed to ‘forget all the difficulties and remember only the sweetness of her’; and he was trying to ‘console myself with the thought that she is happy and at peace, and her turbulent soul is at rest’.37 114 No More Heroes In 1927, when Beatty stood down from his work at the Admiralty, he left behind him a navy that, outwardly at least, was in fair shape. Its ships sailed the seven seas, performing their peace-keeping roles, the assured manner of their sailors seemingly unchanged; and the world at large, including the British public, saw the Navy only for what it was still trying hard to be: ruler of the waves, immaculate, unrivalled, supreme. While their bearing on the job was impeccable, it was the way of officers and men off duty to cultivate a laconic posture, as though little mattered except the pleasures or distractions of the moment. This stance has more than once misled the foreigner, friend and foe, who has failed to discern behind the mask a fierce devotion to the cause and, through a sense of personal identity, loyalty to all the others of the cloth, from the King downward. In particular, the brisker gentlemanly virtues of that period were cherished by the officers of Beatty’s navy. In 1925, Captain Ramsay, an admiral-to-be but then captain of a cruiser based on Malta, 42 years of age, bachelor, was counting his blessings: ‘I am content with comfortable quarters, plenty to read, a good commander protem, a good ship’s company, good ponies and a car. A good steward, valet and cook. I now want a charming wife . . . and two good . We’ll see how many of these I get in a year.’ As his biographer observes, Ramsay ‘was already wedded to the Service, yet it is symptomatic that he should have placed the “charming wife” before the two good lieutenants.’ First, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 however, came the ponies and the cook! Ramsay’s order of priorities was by no means untypical.38 Other navies might be edging into the limelight but none could, nor ever would, hold a candle to Britain’s in showman­ ship, panache and hospitality. The U.S. Navy, confined to soft drinks at its social functions, its ships stripped down to grey essentials, its officers over-anxious to please within the tightly drawn limits of their rule books, had small talent for Second to None 115 pageantry. The Japanese, grim, aloof and devious, were evidently not in the game for fun; while the French and the Italians, despite their ebullience, seemed oddly ill-at-ease afloat. When the Royal Navy came to town, even the children were captivated:

‘I lived in Barcelona during the mid-1920s and a visit by the British fleet was the great event of my year. And not only of mine: so far as I could tell, everyone revelled in the occasion. It made me proud to be British and, as I realise now, those smartly conducted ships in the port, the crisp ceremonies, the friendly blue-jackets in the Ramblas, the exuberant parties and excursions, spoke volumes for British prestige in a way that no other nation could begin to match. ‘For me, the highlights were the shipboard parties or visits for children. I recall in the clearest detail a happy afternoon clambering all over the destroyer Walpole, guided by playful sailors; my exhilaration upon learning how to rocket down a steep steel ladder without using the steps; and the mouth­ watering prospect of a spoonful of brown sugar for spelling the ship’s name in morse code. ‘But the most exciting of these, and undoubtedly the best party I ever went to as a child, took place on board the air­ craft carrier Argus. The ship’s hangar, got up like a fun-fair, was ideal for this kind of function. I remember a cable rail­ way and a ghost train, both worked by tireless sailors. On the flight deck, you could sit in a real aeroplane’s cockpit and operate the controls. The supreme joy, however, was the equivalent of a coconut-shy - with a human target. ‘There were two screens behind which the target could Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 shelter: each time he skipped across the gap you hurled a tennis ball. “Aim at his head”, they enjoined. With good reason, for, on meeting your eye, the man could judge better when you were about to throw. Even so, there must have been a fair chance of scoring a hit and, at that range, I dare say a hit on the face might have blinded him or split his cheek-bone. ‘The face of the man was black, with a clown’s red mouth grinning from ear to ear. In those days, I suppose, it was 116 No More Heroes taken for granted that negroes enjoyed being the white man’s butt. To me, as a child, it made no difference: black, white, brown, yellow, I would have thrown just as hard. It was only a game! Needless to say, I missed. I hope the sailor playing the part got away unscathed. He proved to be an important factor in my life, this party, undoubtedly, being one reason why I decided soon afterwards to join the Navy.’39

Under the bright and gleaming surface, however, the rot was setting in. Even among the units of the Mediterranean Fleet, traditional showpiece of Britain’s peacetime Navy, this was true. The ships and their companies looked magnificent but too many of the ships were ageing and too many of the men were worried by the prevailing mood of retrenchment, showing itself in niggling economies and, more personally, in continued threats of cuts in naval strength, human and material, as in the pay of those retained in service. Officers of middle rank, hard hit by recent measures, were in a particu­ larly anxious mood. To them, it was an irksome era: of stag­ nation; of lack of progress and innovation; of a daily routine centred more and more on repetitive drills and exercises; of the narrow, rank-conscious social life of garrison communi­ ties; of blocked promotion and uncertain prospects. The Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean, from 1925 to 1928, was Keyes.40 Active, energetic, a staunch and able supporter of Beatty’s policies at the Admiralty, following a brilliant war record, our hero seems at this juncture, un­ knowingly, to have reached the plateau of his intellectual development. Where bold and imaginative leadership was needed, Keyes too often sought solutions in the pursuit of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 trivia. His obsession with polo became a byword in naval circles, being indulged to such an extent that officers hoping to be noticed for promotion and wives for invitations to the admiral’s table, felt obliged increasingly to adopt the game themselves, as spectators if not as players. Alas, his addiction to polo was to be Keyes’ undoing. One afternoon, in March 1928, as he sat with his entourage by the ground at Marsa, absorbed by the play, a messenger came Second to None 117 hurrying to him with a signal. Keyes took the message and, without reading it, put it in his pocket. Later, when changing for dinner at his residence, he came upon the signal. His fleet, due to sail shortly for important naval man­ oeuvres in the Atlantic, had now to be held in Malta to allow time to convene a special court of enquiry and await its findings. If Keyes had acted promptly on receiving the message, the court could have sat the next morning and the fleet have sailed on time but, as it was, the court could not meet before the afternoon and the fleet’s departure must wait. With journalists assembling to cover the forthcoming exer­ cises, such a dramatic change of programme could hardly be hidden. The fat was squarely in the fire, producing a flame that would set the world alight with shock, dismay and derision. It was, indeed, bad luck, for the spark that led to the con­ flagration arose ‘from incidents so petty in themselves as to be shamingly ridiculous’. Two months earlier, during a dance on board the battleship Royal Oak, the junior admiral whose flagship this was, ‘taking exception to some of the dance tunes played by the Marine Band - who were apparently introduc­ ing some new and discordant dances in very slow time, which, though all the rage in America, had not yet been heard in the Mediterranean’, told off the bandmaster there and then, in the presence of the guests, saying that ‘he had never heard such a bloody noise in his life’ and, allegedly, turning to the ship’s commander, ‘that he wouldn’t have a b r like that in his ship’.41 The offending, and now offended, bandmaster, besides his undoubted virtuosity in the realm of contemporary Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 dance music, had one invaluable asset which, when the news eventually broke, proved almost too good to be true: his name was Barnacle. Yet Barnacle was only a symptom. The real cause of the admiral’s ire was his own failure to achieve a harmonious relationship with his flagship’s captain and commander. It was well known, even to Keyes, that these officers were an ill-assorted trio and when, a few days before the episode of the 118 No More Heroes pocketed message, this admiral noisily lost his temper on the Royal Oak's quarterdeck, because of a delay in lowering a ladder giving access to his barge, the tension could be con­ tained no longer. The commander forthwith penned a letter protesting that the admiral’s behaviour was undermining morale and discipline, and the captain promptly forwarded this to Keyes’ deputy in part-support of his own formal list of complaints. When the court of inquiry found all three officers at fault, Keyes acted swiftly, and, as it proved, rashly. On his own initiative, he relieved them of their appointments, ordered them home and found temporary replacements for the captain and commander. The Royal Oak, no longer a flagship, set sail with the rest of the fleet; an explanatory signal to the Admiralty was followed by a written report dispatched over­ land by special messenger; and the Atlantic manoeuvres took place as planned. With three angry senior officers at large, the cat was soon out of the bag. Their Lordships, with clumsy reticence, returning a stony silence to the first efforts by Parliament and press to seek an explanation, succeeded only in feeding rumour. Inevitably, the murmur of impropriety became the shout of scandal. Popular newspapers carried headlines referring to naval ‘mutiny’ and ‘revolt’. And by the time the court martial demanded by the aggrieved officers began its five-day public stint, interest in the proceedings was avid, merciless and global. The outcome did nobody any good. The offending admiral was retired, the captain and the commander were severely reprimanded and the Navy in general, although praised for Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 putting its own house in order, had been made to seem ridi­ culous. Keyes, at first commended by Their Lordships for his actions, was soon made the scapegoat for a seven-day blunder which, in its later stages, was largely of the Admiralty’s own making. So, preferred by Beatty and long tipped for the prized job of First Sea Lord, Keyes never made it. Even George V for once put his foot down, insisting that he could not approve Second to None 119 Keyes’ appointment; and in surmising that Keyes lacked the judgement, mental capacity and political flair for this post, the King was by no means alone. By this time Beatty, who might have saved Keyes’ bacon, was himself on the sidelines. Unlike most men of eminence, the makers of history, Beatty knew when to stop; and, having stepped down as First Sea Lord the previous year, after his long tenure of the Navy’s top post, he did not hesitate to turn aside into comparative obscurity. High or lucrative office in other spheres did not lure him. It suited him to con­ centrate on his own affairs while remaining quietly on hand to support his successors with the occasional speech, visit or consultation. Exhilarated as ever by break-neck adventure, he had time to pursue some of his favourite recreations, afloat and on the hunting field; and, being in ceaseless demand by society hostesses, he could pick and choose both his parties and his friends. But his great and now, as a widower, truest love remained the Service to which, for half a century, in war and peace, he had belonged. For him, no delight could match that of personal contact with former ships or shipmates. His percep­ tive devotion to the Navy and his integrity; his courage, charisma, tact and versatility as a leader; his professionalism and his constant eagerness, illuminated his life to the end. No admiral in modern history was held in higher esteem. But the one extra attribute to cap the others, to put him at the very top with Nelson, eluded him. Beatty was close enough to life to be felt, visible enough to be admired, yet behind his thin protective veil of aloofness, he remained always just too distant to be loved. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

By 1931, after more than a decade of assault and attrition, the Navy’s morale was in poor shape. Its leadership was hesitant, wary, harassed and perplexed. Any First Sea Lord might seem pale by comparison with Beatty, and it would be easy to dismiss his immediate successors, Madden and Field,42 as insignificant, but these men in their relations with 120 No More Heroes government were now, unavoidably, on the defensive; and if Beatty could get away with roars of protest, his milder- mannered and less-well-known successors certainly could not. The worst elements in the falling morale were the fear of insecurity among middle-rank officers, following the cuts and dismissals of previous years; and the fear of poverty among the lower ratings whose pay, already pared in many cases to the point where ends could hardly be met, was still at risk in the political melting pot. In January, the underlying unrest expressed itself in the form of a small mutiny on board H.M.S. Lucia, a naval depot ship at Devonport. While the ringleaders were duly punished, the Admiralty was thought by loyal naval personnel to have been too lenient with the other mutineers; and when Their Lordships, ignoring their own responsibility, sought to make scapegoats of the officers most closely concerned, morale took a severe jolt. Then, in July, a particularly nasty nigger appeared in the naval woodpile in the shape of a report by the insensitive May Committee in which a cut in pay averaging about 15 per cent, applicable to 72 per cent of naval personnel, was advo­ cated. Due to various accidents of history, the Navy seemed to have been singled out for punishment, the equivalent cuts being aimed at only 31 per cent of Army, 40 per cent of R.A.F. and 20 per cent or less of certain civilian personnel, notably civil servants, police, teachers and the unemployed.43 In view of earlier undertakings to the Navy, the Admiralty protested that the May proposals would be construed as a breach of faith, but its fine words were soon lost in the clatter Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 of the moment. In August the Labour Government resigned, to be re­ placed by a National Government, and a new First Lord, Austen Chamberlain, was appointed. When the Treasury called for the Navy’s considered comments, it was found that most of the Admiralty’s leading fights were sick, on leave, about to go on leave, or just back from leave. In other circumstances, it might be hoped that Their Lordships Second to None 121 would have fired a broadside loud enough to halt the enemy, if not to rout him, but this lot, alas, were not up to much. Lord Stanhope, Chamberlain’s new junior minister, wrote: ‘You know what this Board is. I think it is far the worst I have ever served with. 1st and 4th S.L.s and D.C.N.S. have been and I believe still are on leave .... Meanwhile pay and allowances for the fleet are perhaps being settled for this generation and heavy cuts are due. Yet the Sea Lords responsible are away!’44 Early in September, as the Admiralty moved to signal the fleets about the impending cuts, the economic crisis worsened. The unemployed, of whom there were now over 2\ million, an increase of more than 100 per cent since the previous year, demonstrated at Westminster. The Admiralty’s signal sought to placate naval opinion by stressing that the proposed measures ‘will involve sacrifices for all classes of the commun­ ity and reductions in pay for public services’, implying that the Navy’s contribution would not be unduly severe. At the same time, Their Lordships warned the Government that there might be trouble if, in the event, other classes were seen to be let off more lightly than the fighting Services, and that enough advance notice of the Government’s final intentions must be given to allow time for these to be passed down the line to all lower decks before the details could appear in the press. But the Government, incredibly, decided to leave the Admiralty in the dark until the eleventh hour, insisting, furthermore, that the eagerly awaited information be with­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 held from the fleets until the Chancellor of the Exchequer had completed his statement in Parliament. This statement, made on 10 September, despite the contrary assurances, contained the pernicious announcement that whereas the expected cuts in servicemen’s pay were to be upheld, those mooted for certain civilian personnel were now, after all, to be substan­ tially reduced. That same evening, in haste, the Admiralty issued a letter which, to say the least, was unfortunate in its 122 No More Heroes wording for, after glossing over the last-minute sop to civilian personnel, it sought to excuse the way some of the cuts might seem to bear hardest on the lower ranks with the strange argument that the pay of admirals and others at the top of the pile had hardly, all this time, been ‘too much’ while those at the bottom had really been getting away with it, their pay having generally been ‘too high’. But by far the biggest and least forgivable blunder lay in the method of distribution of this crucial message, which ‘has certain affinities with naval farce as presented by the British cinema’45 and of the official order to which the letter was meant to be an explanatory preface. Whereas the letter went by signal to recipients overseas, the slower surface route was used for its dispatch to the home-based ships of the Atlantic Fleet. Rightly, the chain of command being sacrosanct, onward transmission of the letter’s contents to squadrons and flotillas had to be with their commanding admirals’ authority and to each ship’s company with the endorsement of its commanding officer. This needed time, the more so when delicate and complicated matters affecting the well-being of personnel were involved. But the letter did not leave London until the Thursday evening; with most of his ships at sea, the Atlantic Fleet’s supremo, Admiral Hodges, lay ill in hospital near Portsmouth; and the weekend lull was imminent. The letter duly arrived in the fleet flagship, berthed at Portsmouth, to await its ailing commander-in-chiefs pleas­ ure, and was pigeon-holed; and no copy got through to the office of his temporary substitute, Admiral Tomkinson, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 afloat at Invergordon, until the Sunday afternoon. Mean­ while, on the Saturday afternoon, the official order, in its usual unexciting envelope, had reached Tomkinson’s office, where it sat waiting its turn in a pending tray. But the news was already out. For those who cared to listen, the BBC had conveyed it while most units of the Atlantic Fleet were still at sea, en route for Invergordon; and now, on arrival at that port, it was in the newspapers, copies Second to None 123 being read by ships’ companies before either the explanatory letter or the official order were in their officers’ hands. Naturally, the absence of guidance or elucidation from the officers was construed as a lack of concern: it did not at first occur to ratings schooled in the infallibility of naval efficiency that their officers, as anxious as their men about what lay in store, were themselves still officially in the dark. While disturbances that weekend in the men’s canteen ashore caused concern, no one imagined them to be the prelude to mutiny. This was far from the first time that con­ gregations of ratings had let off steam over a few pints of beer but vigilant senior officers on the spot, if properly led or informed by their masters in Whitehall, might have read the signs more clearly. The actual effect of the cuts on some of the lowest-paid ratings was a loss of 25 per cent of their basic pay, literally of one shilling in a daily rate of four and, with their obligations to hire purchase companies, these men and their wives simply could not manage. The apparent ignorance or indifference of the powers-that-be to this desperate situation at the bread-and-margarine level of life caused a resentment which, fanned by comment in the popular press and by the accusations of communist agitators in naval uniform, could only lead to trouble. On Tuesday 15 September, when the assembly was due to go to sea for exercises, several of the crews refused to work their ships. The organisation was clandestine, competent and well-controlled. At the evening meetings in the canteen, it had been agreed that essential shipboard services would be main­ tained; that there would be no violence to officers or petty Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 officers; that each ship’s company would nominate a repre­ sentative to an overseeing sailors’ ‘soviet’; and that solidarity would be confirmed across the intervening waters by re­ peated bursts of cheering from ship to ship. Thus the first sign of any unusual occurrence on that fateful Tuesday morning was the sound of cheers around the Invergordon anchorage. There was little to be cheerful about. On the previous day 124 No More Heroes Admiral Tomkinson, as temporary fleet supremo, had warned the Admiralty by signal of ‘unrest’ among ratings in the naval canteen ashore and, at the same time, he dispatched two messengers to report personally on his behalf to Their Lordships. Meanwhile, the captains of individual ships, being at last officially in the know, were in a position to convey to their respective companies the purport of the Admiralty’s announcements. But it was too late. The excited meetings in the canteen and the sullen mood pervading the Fleet presaged storms ahead. Yet even now no guidance came, either from the Admiralty to Tomkinson or from Tomkinson to his captains; and when the refusals of duty occurred, no remedial doctrine had been established. It is fortunate, indeed, that no senior officer at Invergordon over-reacted or that the ringleaders did not incite the men to hasty or violent measures. Although the officers and petty officers, behaving correctly, did what they could to uphold authority, it was soon clear that they were in no way a target of the lower deck’s grievances: in a sense, presumably, all were in the same boat. The ratings felt no strong animosity towards anyone. Their feeling was much more one of dis­ appointment that the Admiralty had failed to protect them from the politicians. Although the telephone had long been invented, exchanges between London and Invergordon throughout this emergency took place impersonally through the Navy’s signalling sys­ tem and by overnight messenger. Conversation between Tomkinson and one or other of his superiors in Whitehall might not have prevented the mutiny but might well have Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 mitigated its impact; and, in particular, it could have pre­ vented the Admiralty from issuing a characteristically tight-lipped statement on the Tuesday evening which although meant to minimise, served only to maximise an event about which, at that point, the more said might have been the better. The effect on world opinion, as on British opinion, of this incident, exaggerated by facts-starved newspapers, was shattering. For the Royal Navy was a symbol of strength and Second to None 125 stability to all peoples, and it was beyond belief that its ships could be immobilised by mutiny. Under the spotlight of world comment, the admirals worked fast to put their house in order. On the Wednesday, following approval by the British Government, orders were given for the ships at Invergordon to disperse to their home ports. A promise having been made that grievances would be investigated, the mutiny collapsed and the ships left Inver­ gordon that evening. On the following day, led by questions in the House of Commons, public opinion and discussion continued unabated. The world’s money markets, which had just perked up in the light of renewed confidence in London, took fright; there was an immediate run on gold and the exchange value of Sterling fell by four shillings in the pound; and, at the end of that week, Britain was forced off the gold standard. To put it in perspective, ‘The pound sterling broke because of a long history of international failure, of European crisis piled on crisis, of declining markets and decaying currencies, but the factor that broke it finally . . . was that the world believed, after 16 September, that it was no longer possible to rely on Britannia and her trident.’46 Meanwhile, much chastened, the ships from Invergordon had crept sheepishly into their home ports. The post-mortem was about to begin, not that anything would now eradicate the sense of shock which the Duke of Windsor has since summed up: ‘Nothing that had ever happened before in my lifetime was

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 more wounding to the British pride .... for a dreadful moment one had the feeling that the foundations of British power were being swept away.’47 There has been no shortage of explanations. David Divine blames a lack of understanding between Their Lordships and the men afloat: no effort had been made by the Board ‘to secure the views of the fleet as to the effects of heavy cuts in naval pay’, and there had been no attempt ‘to discover the 126 No More Heroes real condition of the married men in relation to the proposals’ or ‘to ascertain the views of the officers who had to deal with them’.48 Commander Edwards, writing sooner after the event, asserts that ‘the blame really lay with some of the permanent civilian officials at the Admiralty . . . who had no knowledge of the conditions of life of the men of the Royal Navy, and with the naval members of the Board of Admiralty who were sufficiently out of touch with the men of the Fleet to imagine that such reductions would be acceptable’.49 On the other hand, Admiral Dreyer, a central figure in the Admiralty’s actions and decisions at the time, believed that the Navy was let down by the Government which, ignoring Their Lord­ ships’ advice, left the hapless admirals ‘to bear the brunt’ while their political leaders ‘boomed along with their sails well filled’.50 There is no doubt that the Government’s policy was heart­ less, hasty and, in its implementation, crudely discriminatory. It took unfair advantage of the naval rating’s inbred loyalty and, at a time of rising unemployment, his need of security. It showed no awareness of the difficulties that low-income families were having in making ends meet; of their commit­ ments to hire purchase companies; of the fact that default in the payment of instalments could lead to removal from their homes of furniture and other necessities. A Board of Admir­ alty that could acquiesce in this policy and, in acting as the Cabinet’s letter-box, bungle even the postman’s job, bringing shame on the Service entrusted to its care and renewed depression to its struggling country, had small right to the Navy’s confidence; and, in retrospect, it seems that the naval officers most concerned - Field, Fuller, Dreyer - instead of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 hoping to ride it out and then, desperately, trying to shift the blame to Tomkinson, might have salved their honour better through resignation. As it turned out, the careers of the three admirals did take a knock but, having first praised him, they saw to it that Tomkinson’s career and those of various other senior officers suffered injury, too.51 Many ratings, on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence, were discharged from the Navy or, Second to None 127 on one pretext or another, punished; and, although com­ mittees were set up in the Atlantic Fleet’s home ports to investigate grievances and cases of hardship, the sense of urgency attending their appointment soon fizzled out. Why? Because the Government, caving in, decided after all to reduce the severity of the cuts! Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Chapter Five

Renaissance

In the Navy’s view, the Invergordon disease called for a tough doctor to administer strong medicine and Sir John Kelly, specially appointed commander-in-chief of the offending fleet, lost no time in applying the time-honoured remedy. The Kelly cure was his own brand of intensified discipline: strenuous programmes of training, housekeeping and com­ petitive sport; exercises and manoeuvres at sea, drills and regattas in harbour, splicing, marching about, deck-scrubb­ ing, polishing; one chore following another in ceaseless procession. Old ’ard ’eart Wilson would have stiffened approvingly in his grave. Off duty, officers kept their usual distance, maintaining their privileged life-style, but on duty they played their due part with the men in all the furious activity, demonstrating Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 their own stamina and mettle. Relations between officers and ratings remained correct: saltily good humoured, friendly but not familiar, considerate without being soft-hearted. Every­ one understood that the good of the Service had to be para­ mount; and, in the oft-spoken naval platitude, a happy ship could not be other than a clean and efficient ship. In the Navy generally, as an antidote to strong pulls towards conformity in the training of officers, initiative and, Children Face ToughIssues Children Face ToughChildren ChildrenChildren ChildrenChildren ChildrenChildren Children

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Children Face Tough IssuesChildren FaceChildren Tough Face Issues Tough Issues ChildrenFace Tough Issues Renaissance 129 in small but telling ways, idiosyncrasies, eccentricities and quirks of temperament were encouraged. This was traditional, the mixture of stick and carrot showing itself most vividly in the treatment of midshipmen afloat. Most of the time, however, the herd rather than the individual was the norm. Like the sailors, the midshipmen rose early and went to drill, having slept cheek by jowl in hammocks; but in their mess in the evening they wore stiff shirts, ate dinner at a polished table, were waited on by stewards and on gala nights, having toasted the King in port, enjoyed a good rampage. In some ships their more muscular frolics, at which senior eyes were winked, ranged from violent raids on neighbouring gunrooms, through de-bagging their own com­ mander on his quarter deck to ejection of the junior midship­ men out of the portholes into the sea. Injuries were minor, calling at worst for a few stitches: what mattered was reporting for duty the morning after on time, in good order and with normal deference to authority. By day, in any case, midshipmen would be chased, harried, bellowed at; yet when they buckled on a dirk and went smartly away in charge of a ship’s boat, on watch or on parade, ratings leapt willingly to their commands. This process of strafe and denigration was fundamental: it was accepted that, although officers-in-being, midshipmen were excrescences and underdogs and, as such, must expect to be nagged even more relentlessly than any ordinary seaman would stand for; and the lower deck, through fellow feeling and a fascination in the moulding process taking place before their eyes, having enjoyed the Roman holiday, were well Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 satisfied with such a ‘democratic’ officer-making ritual. More important, they were able to be their own judges, through close observation, of the calibre and staying power of the toughened young ‘warts’ whose orders they would have increasingly to obey and who, later on, might lead them into battle. At the bottom of the officer pile, undergoing his own special ordeal of discipline and training, was the cadet. In an austere 130 No More Heroes college atmosphere ashore, segregated from sea and sailors, his lot was less happy. At Dartmouth in the early 1930s discipline was being carried to extremes of pettiness; and while the Invergordon Mutiny was not the cause, it certainly did nothing to lighten the authorities’ hand. The fault was largely that the means and, to some extent, the ends of the officers and the civilian teachers were incom­ patible : that the officers, despite their ultimate responsibility for the cadets’ professional development, came and went too frequently to see their charges through the process; with their breezy and often patronising manner they cowed the masters; and in their natural wish to emphasise training, discipline, physical fitness and esprit de corps as officer-making ingredi­ ents, at the expense of academic subjects, they were too dominant. Moreover, the officers at this time, demoralised by the cuts and uncertainties of the previous decade, aware that their promotion depended upon good marks at sea, gained little by a spell on the staff at Dartmouth. Their best hope, before resuming their proper career afloat, was to be noticed for unremitting zeal and energy; and the most emphatic way to be noticed at Dartmouth was to turn out a body of cadets even better scrubbed, better drilled and better brain-washed than the next man’s. All through the working day cadets, identically uniformed from peaked cap to laced-up boots, were being watched, taught, chivied. When not seated to receive food or instruc­ tion they were always rushing. As though morning and after­ noon parades were not enough, it was impossible to proceed from one classroom to the next or into the dining hall at meal­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 times without first being fallen in, inspected, reported to a supervising authority and then doubled in tightly disciplined ranks to their destination. Comfort or solitude spelling decadence, there were no studies, dens or cubicles; and the seating in dining and recreation rooms was bare backless wooden benches. After evening prep, at the end of his arduous day, the cadet went thankfully to the warmth and security of ids bed. But first: Renaissance 131 ‘Before lights out the duty officer carried out his inspection of the dormitories. By now, the cadet had folded and laid out his clothes to a precise pattern, the lid of his sea-chest being open to the officer’s gaze. The windows of the dormitory were all lowered to the same extent, depending on the weather, the top of each lined up with the tops of the others. In each bed, only the cadet’s face was visible: the rest of him, motionless, lay stiffly at attention. Below his chin, four inches of white sheet, then four inches of folded-over counterpane; and across his feet a blue rug in the required shape, with his sewn-in initials correctly centred.’1 Did the Dartmouth of that era do a good job? For the most part what emerged was a definite breed of fit, tough, daring, highly trained but sketchily educated professionals, ready for instant duty, for parades or tea parties, for catas­ trophes, for peace or war; confident leaders, alert seamen, fair administrators, poor delegators; officers of wide interests and narrow vision, strong on tactics, weak on strategy; an able, active, cheerful, monosyllabic elite. But, while most thrived on the Dartmouth diet, not every cadet was satisfied: ‘I was one of several hundred carefully-groomed applicants who set out to tackle the three-day medical, oral and written examinations in London, entry to Dartmouth being much sought after. The forty-four of us who were successful were not quite fourteen years old when we joined. Nearly four years later, at least a dozen members of my group were pretty cynical, bored or bloody-minded; and if contracts with parents had permitted, some would probably have quit.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ‘Instead, we all went off to sea for a six-month stint in the training cruiser. Here we were joined by the coinciding batch of seventeen-year-old entrants, direct from their public schools. These boys, with their more liberal education, should have had a civilizing effect on the Dartmouth product. But knowing nothing of the ropes, and being fewer in number, they were caught at a disadvantage; and the Dartmouth contingent soon put its raucous stamp upon them.’2 132 No More Heroes The Dartmouth system may have done no one any lasting harm, but even to those for whom it did good it could have done better: ‘The failure was partly of method, partly of communication. A group of cadets, all of the same age, being forbidden to have contact with older or younger cadets, grew up within the confines of its own small horizons. And many of us were deprived of positive guidance: during my long years at Dartmouth no one in authority, not even a cadet captain, volunteered the slightest spark of interest in me, except when I incurred displeasure.’3 With the more recent rise of the age of entry into the late teens for some Dartmouth classes, and even higher for others, many of the old faults have been eradicated. Today’s officers- in-charge, hand-picked for the job, work closely with the civilian lecturers in trying to develop the full range of each cadet’s faculties. The emphasis may still tend to be overmuch on practical attributes, on the visible horizon and the capacity to give orders, and too little on intellectual development, on inquiring minds and the capacity to give advice. But the previous tendency to believe that problems could often be solved merely by shouting at people or by punishing them has been much lessened. Subtler qualifications are now called for in personal relationships, both within the Service and in dealings with the bureaucrats of Whitehall as with the civilian employees in dockyards and stone frigates. For earlier generations of officer it took many years to be certain that carefully induced beliefs in the infallibility of the Service were far from absolute; and, if these beliefs linger at all in the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 minds of those who head today’s Navy, at least the disease is likely to be a good deal less contagious than it used to be. But the real proof of the 1930s Dartmouth pudding is the Royal Navy of today, no less, for the best and healthiest survivors of that hard-pressed generation of cadets, having borne the brunt of war in junior ranks, often in command of small warships, and having come conscientiously to terms with the changing post-war years, emerged in the 1960s into Renaissance 133 the topmost jobs of their much-diminished, modernised and still proud Service; and the Navy of today, for good or ill, is largely their handiwork.

In 1932, the year following Invergordon, while continuing optimistically in a peace-seeking orbit, the world began its gradual turn towards renewed disaster. The first of the defiantly overt aggressions of the 1930s, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, occurred in the teeth of protests which, while too feeble to deter, were abrasive enough to irritate. At last Japan, having long wished ‘to remain a member of the Western system of society’ took the hint: when its invasion was discussed disapprovingly by the League at Geneva Japan lost face and, when face was at stake, the ‘moral disapproval policy’ initiated by America could only do harm.4 So, the Japanese ‘army and navy leaders seized and held the power... embarking on a “positive program” of continental expan­ sion’. From now on, and not only in the Far East, ‘treaties were broken right and left’.5 Britain, disabled by economic and political cross-winds, while struggling to keep up appearances as the prime imperial power, drifted anxiously in the doldrums. At Geneva, another long-drawn-out conference in the disarmament series served only to gain time for Germany, now bent on rearming, while Britain and France sat heavily on their hands, hoping still for easy ways out through talk and collective security. With the threat of bolshevism implicit in the growing industrial unrest, and with the remorseless spread of unem­ ployment, the politicians were not alone in being at sixes and Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 sevens. This was one of the times when British ‘businessmen clung to the familiar hallowed methods’, lacking the ‘inner restlessness of American and German businessmen and the pleasure of these nations in efficiency and growth’.6 Where bold new measures were called for, ‘on both sides of (British) industry there was a conservative temper’.7 With the first official twitches of anxiety in the wake of the new danger signals from Japan and Germany the British 134 No More Heroes Service heads seized their chance, pressing successfully for an end of the ten-year rule, acceleration of work on the Singa­ pore base and improvement of anti-aircraft defences at home. The ten-year rule, a penny-pinching political formula which assumed that Britain could rely on ten years’ notice of involvement in any major war, had had a crippling effect on the maintenance of the armed forces, let alone their modern­ isation or development; and its suicidal fatuity was to be well demonstrated in 1942, ten years after its abandonment, when Britain and its empire were being badly mauled by Germany and Japan, war with the former being then in its third year. A new innovating mood was now permeating Britain’s crack Mediterranean Fleet under Admiral Chatfield’s vigorous command and, from the autumn, the even livelier command of Admiral Sir William (W.W.) Fisher. In terms of morale and sense of purpose, the Navy’s renaissance was at hand. It was to be a long haul and, but for an exceptionally skilled and resolute hand on the tiller, the voyage would have had a sadder and, perhaps, fatal ending. The hand that came to the Navy’s tiller, in the post of First Sea Lord, at the start of 1933 was that of Alfred Ernie Montacute Chatfield: like many of his ilk before and since, a gunnery specialist; flag captain to Beatty throughout the First World War; key figure at the Washington Conference in 1921 and in various posts at the Admiralty after that; and commander-in-chief successively of Britain’s two top fleets, Atlantic and Mediterranean. For once, the system could not be faulted, for as time was to show, Chatfield was the right man in the right job; and no one else could have matched him. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 As a naval officer, with the proviso that he was re-con- structor rather than creator, Chatfield was unusually versa­ tile: as competent ashore as afloat; consistently successful as staff officer, ship’s captain, organiser, fleet supremo and sea lord; cheerful, patient, persistent, predictable. The true professional, ‘he could very quickly master the contents of a docket or disentangle a problem and make his decision .... He never wasted time on unimportant matters He was the Renaissance 135 best all-rounder of his day and age. With his quiet manner, his charm and friendliness, he won the hearts of all who had the good fortune to be on his staff.8 Undoubtedly, Chatfield sought and achieved warm ties with those whose duties necessarily touched his but he had no use for speculative relationships, off-stage intrigue or the advancement of his designs through social contacts. Being half deaf, like many naval gunnery officers, he could not always keep up with the quips and asides of witty conversa­ tion; and his failure to get on to terms with Churchill, which was to be his undoing, may be attributed partly to his inability to tune in to the Churchillian sallies and harangues. This defect, accentuating Chatfield’s reluctance to get too close to a controversial campaigner who, at this time, was far from being persona grata with the British defence establish­ ment, hardly helped to gain the confidence of the great war leader-to-be, into whose eager hands were soon to fall the naval tools of which Chatfield was the tireless and, in the end, unthanked provider. From the outset, Chatfield set himself three main tasks: re-creation of the battlefleet, heart of the British maritime defence system; build-up of cruiser strength, sinew of imperial defence; and retrieval of the Fleet Air Arm from the Royal Air Force. Chatfield has since been accused of infatua­ tion with battleships, but the battleship was the unit of naval power best understood by the politicians; and navies poten­ tially hostile to Britain’s were still building battleships against which at that time the Royal Navy had no convincing alternative defence or weapon of destruction.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ‘Without radar, aircraft could not find their quarry by night or in poor visibility.. . . It was the fitting of radar to carriers and to carrier-borne aircraft which... allowed them to provide both for their own protection and for attacks on the enemy, by night and by day. But this could not have been foreseen in 1936. Indeed, in the first years of the war, the carriers could not face, at night, ships like the Bismarck, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau.... Modern fast battleships were needed.. . . 136 No More Heroes Perhaps five was too many. But they filled a gap, and still, in 1945, in the Pacific were ‘a useful adjunct to the carrier’.9

Even so, when the carrier and its aircraft came into their own in the middle years of the Second World War, Britain had not nearly enough of them, and the leeway was never made up. The shortage of air escorts for convoys, for example, was to cause unnecessary losses at the hands of enemy air­ craft and submarines; and, in some theatres, the constant risk of attack by enemy battleships and battlecruisers, which could often roam at will, tied up scarce surface ship resources in defensive roles, which would have been better and more economically performed by aircraft. But Britain’s costly battleships were seldom on hand on these occasions, as they could not be risked in really dangerous waters without air cover! Unfortunately, in the arguments for and against battle­ ships in the 1930s, some of the issues had become ‘danger­ ously over-simplified with a question of “bombs versus battleships’”, although, in truth, ‘the respective value of battleships and aircraft was not basically a technological issue, but more in the nature of a spiritual issue’. The admir­ als ‘cherished the battlefleet with a religious fervour, as an article of belief, defying all scientific examination ’ Indeed, ‘a battleship had long been to an admiral as a cathedral is to a bishop’.10 At the same time, in its attitude to underwater weaponry, the Royal Navy was tending to place too much confidence in the ability of the new-fangled asdic (later, sonar) to locate submerged submarines, while the ‘private navy’ inclinations Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 of its own rather smug submarine service were so successful in achieving a separatism from the mainstream of naval development that even the ablest senior submarine officers tended to be too specialised to merit their ‘fair’ share of the topmost jobs; and so, lacking friends at court, Britain’s submarine service remained too long the Navy’s Cinderella. Clearly, however, it was going to need more than a few articulate aviators or submariners to change deeply embedded Renaissance 137 habits of thought for, as late as the last weeks of 1935 the great oracle, Beatty, was still pronouncing: ‘A Navy comprises three elements; the battle fleet, the cruiser squadron, and the small-craft flotilla. Our battle fleet consists of 12 battle-ships and three battle-cruisers, to which, of course, will be added in the event of war such smaller cruisers, flotilla elements and aircraft carriers as may be necessary.... First of all the battle fleet needs to be strength­ ened, for it is the foundation of the whole structure of naval strategy.’ So much for air and submarine power.11 A few days after Beatty’s statement the Government at last took the plunge, recommending a bold programme of new construction, to be completed within seven years, which included seven battleships, four aircraft carriers and fifteen cruisers, all these being additional to the recent commitment to modernise thoroughly four of the Navy’s existing battle­ ships.12 In the face of the prevailing pressures and assump­ tions, quite apart from the natural tendency to take refuge in familiar ways of making war, and in view of the actual or mooted battleship strength of other navies, Chatfield was no doubt right to go mainly for the kind of ships and weapons which he could least controversially achieve and which, any­ way, he believed to be at least as good an insurance of his country’s security as any other. His fault was in failing to prepare imaginatively and convincingly for the potential roles of aircraft and submarines in future naval wars: when at last it regained control of its air arm, the Admiralty seemed almost taken by surprise. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 But Britain’s defence situation in Chatfield’s early days as First Sea Lord was desperate beyond measure. He could not do everything at once. ‘The fact is that over a period of years all the fighting services have been starved. They can stage Tattoos and Air Displays and Navy Weeks but they cannot sustain a major war. We have but a facade of Imperial Defence.’13 Nor would the leeway be made up in time for, discounting vessels in hand for modernisation or repair, and 138 No More Heroes new ones on the stocks, Britain’s effective battleship-cum- battlecruiser strength, from 1935 to 1939, was only twelve, nearly all of First World War vintage, a pitifully inadequate force in face of the growing power of Germany, Italy and Japan, and the more so bearing in mind acute shortages of other British warship types and the retarded condition of British naval aviation. Chatfield’s anxieties were heightened by his suspicions of the motives of foreign governments, allied and hostile. Thus he felt bound to base many of his calculations on the assump­ tion that, if it came to war, Britain might have to fight alone, a point of view that was not widely shared at a time when politicians were still toying hopefully with collective security. The Americans, among others, were not to be trusted, their disarmament demands having done the Royal Navy great harm. So, Chatfield did not want to be tied to the United States ‘because she is unreliable’. But neither did he want ‘to propitiate Japan at the expense of a hostile and jealous U.S.’, his dilemma being expressed in a letter to W. W. Fisher in mid-1934: ‘The most we can hope for in the East is to have sufficient Navy that it can go there in an emergency.’14 By 1935, with Japan still the greatest menace in the world at large, Germany, having claimed air parity with Britain, was looming once more as the chief threat to European peace. France, main ally of Britain against the old enemy across the Rhine, dithering under a succession of irresolute govern­ ments, continued to pay lip service to Anglo-French solid­ arity, while quietly flirting with Mussolini’s Italy in the hope of securing the French Mediterranean flank. Chatfield’s doubts about the Americans were soon to be Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 nothing to his lack of trust in the French. After high hopes of the Stresa formula in the spring of 1935, which brought Britain, France and Italy into line with their declaration, aimed at Germany, that they would oppose ‘any unilateral repudiation of treaties which may endanger the peace of Europe’, two unheralded events quickly brought disillusion­ ment: the Franco-Soviet Pact and the Anglo-German Naval Treaty. To the French, grimacing in their glasshouse, the Renaissance 139 latter, by which the Germans agreed to limit the size of their navy to 35 per cent that of Britain’s, with a rather higher proportion in the case of submarines, was true English perfidy. In Chatfield’s mind, however, it was a practical holding operation, as useful to the French as to the British, by which German naval rearmament would be contained within limits relative to Britain’s naval strength. Unfortunately this treaty, which breached other inter­ national agreements to which Britain was a party, seemed to many observers to be a surrender to Hitler’s ambitions and a sign to the world of British weakness. Corelli Barnett calls it ‘an abject surrender’, encouraging the Germans to reoccupy the Rhineland the following year and, generally, to speed up their rearmament. Hitler was elated, concluding that Britain now lacked the will-power and material resources to block his ambitions. But he still coveted British respect and goodwill, and quite likely meant it when he said: ‘Germany has not the intention or the necessity or the means to participate in any new naval rivalry. . . . The German Government have the straight-forward intention to find and maintain a relationship with the British people and State which will prevent for all time a repetition of the only struggle there has been between the nations hitherto . ’15 Maybe; but as Churchill lamented in the House of Commons: ‘What a windfall this has been for Japan! . . . The British Fleet, when this programme is completed, will be largely anchored to the North Sea.’16 To Chatfield, however, any treaty with Germany at this juncture was better than none. His view, in which he was far Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 from alone, held that, if any foreigner’s word could be trusted, it was conceivably the German’s; and as late as 1938, during the Munich crisis, he was still urging that ‘we should accept the new spirit which the German people and their leader have offered us with both hands. We should . . . pro­ claim from the housetops that we trust the German people’.17 Alas, as events were to show, Germany was not inclined to play Britain’s game for long. The temptations exposed by 140 No More Heroes Mussolini’s adventures in Ethiopia, and by the democracies’ failure to prevent them, soon proved too great. By the end of 1935, Germany was definitely preparing for war; and the naval rearmament race was on.

In 1935, with the opening by the Italians of their vainglorious campaign in Ethiopia, the delicate fabric of collective security was to be rent and before long, despite anxious efforts to make a stormproof cloak of the tattered cloth, discarded. Italy, latecomer in the scramble for colonies, still smarting under the defeat sustained by its armies during an abortive attempt to subjugate Ethiopia in 1896, would bide its time no longer. For several years, the possibility of a new invasion of Ethiopia was seldom out of Mussolini’s mind. ‘Not only would it [Ethiopia] provide Italy with a new outlet for her shrinking export trade and a partial solution of her critical unemployment problem . . . but it would also furnish the Duce with what he wanted - war.’18 War was needed ‘to justify fascism by success and prove in battle the boasted virility of his regime and people’.19 Another factor was Mussolini’s ‘personal ambition to revive the Roman Empire’ spurred on by the ‘Fascist ideology which held the civilising of backward people to be part of the sacred mission of the white race’.20 And then there was Hitler, whom Mussolini hoped to impress with his ‘journalistic determination to fight at all costs as a demonstration of force’, unaware that Hitler, more prudently, ‘never wasted superfluous force upon the acquisi­ tion of power’.21 Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Mussolini realised, however, that his designs on Ethiopia called first for adjustments to the international diplomatic scene. In January 1935, an important step was taken with the signature of an agreement with France settling differences in North Africa; and after Stresa in April, bearing in mind the agreed clause referring to peace in Europe, Mussolini had some ground for hoping that Britain might wink an eye at his African adventures. As an extra insurance, he invited the Renaissance 141 British to bilateral talks but Eden, Minister for League Affairs, visiting Rome in June, although ready to offer Mussolini one or two spare chunks of East Africa, did not hit it off with the dictator. By this time, owing to French dismay in the wake of the Anglo-Germany Naval Treaty and the reluctance of other countries, particularly America, to stand up and be counted, Britain’s foreign policy, lacking adherents, was in a tentative phase. The best that Britain could hope for, while making clear its dislike of Mussolini’s military ambitions in Ethiopia, was a peaceful solution, without recourse to sanctions, by means of direct negotiation with Italy, solidarity with France and League of Nations pressure. But these hopes were short-lived. At first, Mussolini was perplexed by British disapproval which, supposing it to be a matter of posture more than principle, could probably be borne. Then, lurching to the other extreme, he began to imagine Britain as a larger menace than, in reality, it had the means or the stomach to be. By August, the Italian dictator was fuming and ranting in the nazi-fascist manner, encourag­ ing the Italian press to drum up fury and protest against England, with his venom focused increasingly on Britain’s Mediterranean Fleet for parading itself around Italy’s mare nostrum as though it owned the place. England, 'questa nazione che domina il mondo', he thundered: by what right dared England say No to Italy’s ‘just’ ambitions?22 In London, where the fear grew that Mussolini might embark upon a ‘mad-dog’ act against Malta or the British Fleet, defensive moves were now urgently in hand. Dining July, the Mediterranean had been virtually denuded of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 British naval power for the greater glory of George V’s Jubilee Review at Spithead; in August, not only were the ships of the Mediterranean Fleet returned post-haste to their station, but they were being augmented by heavy units from the Home Fleet and by various other types from as far afield as China and West Indies stations. Army and Air Force reinforcements were also rushed out to stiffen British defences, particularly those at the extremities of the Mediterranean 142 No More Heroes including, at Alexandria, the important naval contribution of three aircraft carriers working together as one force. And now in England ‘a sudden and unexpected crystalliza­ tion of public opinion, which was to force the British Govern­ ment to take actions which it knew to be highly dangerous.. . transformed the Italo-Ethiopian conflict from an obscure colonial war . . . to the greatest and most dangerous crisis since 1914’.23 Churchill confirms, about a British appeal to the League of Nations for solidarity against aggression and the dispatch of British naval reinforcements to Gibraltar, that the Govemments’s ‘policy and action gained immediate and overwhelming support at home’.24 ‘I remember well the feeling of excitement in England that summer. In August while my ship, H.M.S. Barham, was in Devonport dockyard making hurried preparations to sail for the Mediterranean, some of the midshipmen indulged in every moment of their spare time what my engagement diary termed a “pre-war binge”. We were definitely expecting a fight and the “departing hero” fine impressed the girls and was good for a free drink here and there. ‘When the Barham sailed on 3 September 1935, it steamed at high speed, alone, shaking down its new crew, and exercising its armaments as it went; and on 15 September, after calls of a day or so at Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria, to fuel or take in stores and ammunition, we reached Port Said. This was a fast passage for a battleship, involving long spells at speeds up to twenty knots. Our station at Port Said was athwart the Suez Canal entrance, and from now on every Ethiopia-bound

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Italian troopship had to pass close under our fifteen-inch guns.’25 By this time Mussolini, heartened partly by his own bluster and bravado, and partly by encouraging reports from his intelligence services, was becoming less impressed by Britain and readier to call its bluff. The arrival of more British capital ships at Gibraltar lost some of its effect when he was told that they were short of ammunition; and for several days he toyed Renaissance 143 with the idea of surprise aircraft and submarine attacks. And talk at Geneva, led by Britain, about sanctions against Italy merely caused the dictator to scoff that England was too enfeebled ‘to sacrifice one soldier for Ethiopia’.26 Despite shortages of aircraft, ammunition and secure bases, however, the Royal Navy was a formidable adversary; and Mussolini well knew that, if he pushed his luck too far and forced Britain into a Mediterranean naval war, Italy’s fleet, and his own regime, might well go under. With removal of their fighting ships from their customary but now vulnerable base at Malta to a rapidly improvised base at Alexandria, the British position looked much healthier. Even so, and notwithstanding Hoare’s ringing speech at Geneva on 9 September,27 declaring Britain’s belief in col­ lective resistance to acts of unprovoked aggression, W. W. Fisher’s readiness to commit his fleet to battle and the aroused public opinion at home, British diplomacy developed hesi­ tantly. In truth, there were plenty of cold feet in London: ‘Our main defence was in worse plight than the public dreamed or the politicians admitted. The battleships, by agreement with the United States, were all old, and the Fascists knew it. Worse than age was the hidden fact that we had only anti-aircraft ammunition enough to fire at full speed for less than half an hour.’28 While advising that the Navy could no doubt deal with Italy, the Chiefs of Staff warned the British Government that the price of naval victory in the Mediterranean might be four capital ships, with the consequence that Britain would be Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 critically weakened in the event of trouble with Japan or Germany. The man on the spot, however, seemed less worried; indeed, W. W. Fisher regarded his masters’ appraisal of the Mediterranean Fleet’s capacity to deal with the Italians to be ‘very pessimistic, not to say defeatist’; and, referring to what the Admiralty conveyed to him of the Chiefs’ of Staff essay: ‘I disagree with every word of this pusillanimous document’.29 Hoare acknowledged that ‘Sir 144 No More Heroes William Fisher, the Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean was rightly confident that he could drive the Italian fleet from the seas. But what he did not realise was our fixed resolve to avoid unilateral action against a potential ally in a war with Germany. The Naval Staff, considering the crisis from a wider angle, could not have been more insistent with their warnings against dissipating our limited strength.’30 That was fair enough though Churchill has insisted that ‘a bold decision would have cut the Italian communications with Ethiopia’, the armies there becoming ‘famished for supplies and ammunition. Germany could as yet give no effective help. If ever there was an opportunity of striking a decisive blow in a generous cause with the minimum of risk, it was here and now.... Mussolini’s bluff succeeded, and... Hitler... now formed a view of British degeneracy which was only to be changed too late for peace.’31 On the other hand, when he supposed that Britain might move to close the Suez Canal, Mussolini made plain his intention, in such an event, to turn his armies north from Ethiopia and strike at the Sudan, while directing his troops in North Africa and the Dodecanese to threaten Egypt, knowing well that Britain had only token forces in these territories. But none of this was to be put to the test. On 4 October, the rainy season ended, Mussolini’s armies struck at Ethiopia, and the war began. From now on Britain’s provocative and unconvincing performance as leading player on the European diplomatic stage, far from bringing peace or common purpose, served only to widen the gulf between the dictator- led regimes and the League-inclined democracies. At Geneva the British, mistaking goodwill for loyalty, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 were far from sitting pretty; and their stipulation that, ‘if risks for peace are to be run, they must be run by all’ was crying for the moon. The tendency of some press comment in Germany to be anti-Italian32 would also prove misleading, as would sporadic outbursts of public opinion, such as the pro­ cession by 2,000 Japanese students with their placards, ‘Down with Italy’.33 From Britain’s point of view, however, French prevarication was the most unsatisfactory let-down of the Renaissance 145 crisis. In September, France had promised instant support in the event of an attack on Britain but, by October, had made no preparations to this effect; and then, when invited to show its hand in war plans for the Mediterranean, France, for fear of provoking the Italians, flatly declined the offer of naval collaboration. The British Chiefs’ of Staff cautious refrain gave the politicians no scope but, at least, it was consistent; and if the help the forces could offer seemed inadequate, the politicians had only themselves to blame. On 10 October the Service heads reaffirmed: ‘Our problem in the Far East is now further complicated by the apparent possibility of our becoming involved in addi­ tional commitments in support of the League of Nations, and the prospect of being faced with a war in the Far East at a time when complications in Europe necessitated the retention of part or the whole of our Fleet, is one of the gravest significance.’34 There could have been no more definite warning. Yet, on 18 November, after repeated prodding by Britain, a limited range of sanctions against Italy was endorsed by the League, although it must have been obvious to many observers that these half-hearted measures would serve only to be ‘a godsend to Mussolini’. Thereafter ‘a common indignation welded the [Italian] nation together. The will to resist the League and win Abyssinia showed itself as never before.’35 The Chiefs of Staff now warned that the next logical move against Italy, the application of oil sanctions, would be effective only with a full blockade. This warning, fortunately, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 was heeded and British statesmen, recklessly exposed on this issue, climbed down. For the adoption of oil sanctions, properly enforced, would give Italy only two choices: war, in defence of its very existence, or surrender. At this juncture, however, the Italian dictator was too far committed and far too ebullient to succumb: for him, now, there could be no surrender, except through decisive naval or military defeat; and to proud Italians, about to inherit the 146 No More Heroes earth, defeat was obviously unthinkable. Thus, in practice, Mussolini could return only one answer to blockade: all-out war. And if that meant a duel against Britain with the rest of Europe excitedly holding the ring, it was far from certain that the odds would favour Britain. The fact was that the British fleet could not mount a blockade without the use of French-controlled Mediterranean ports, and this was not forthcoming; failing an oil-tight blockade, the Italians could carry on the fight; and with the Americans, who were not bound by League measures, already taking commercial advantage of the crisis by increas­ ing their own supplies of oil to Italy, what could Britain do? It seemed to have only one option: a knock-out blow at sea. But, if the Italian fleet declined to come out or, coming out, inflicted damage while avoiding defeat, what then? With Japan and Germany waiting quietly in the wings, could Britain afford another Jutland? So, the oil sanctions move petered out, upon which British diplomacy over-reacted, attracting further ignominy. In December, without forewarning, Britain and France pro­ duced the Hoare-Laval Pact, by which Mussolini was politely offered on a plate some of the territory that he was now in process of conquering! This was too much: the British people, being much less inclined to give in to the dictators than some public opinion polls had implied, Hoare’s initiat­ ive, intended as a popular move, swiftly rebounded. To the man in the street, his volte-face was not merely poor diplo­ matic ethics: it went beyond the pale of treachery and national dishonour. Repercussions were swift and emphatic: the Hoare-Laval Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Pact was ditched, and so was Hoare. For Hitler, this was manna: ‘From the moment of the failure of the Hoare-Laval Plan Ethiopia became a trump card for Hitler because it had split the Stresa front and freed him from “encirclement”.’ A German advance into the Rhineland was now inevitable.36 At the Admiralty, however, the sighs of relief were almost audible. Time had been gained. Fearful that extreme measures would precipitate war before Britain was ready, Chatfield Renaissance 147 went so far as to hope that ‘the Geneva Pacifists will fail to get unanimity and the League will break up’.37 In fact, this was already happening and, in consequence, Britain went out on a limb. As Reader writes: ‘After the final breakdown of the League of Nations in 1935, the British Government was isolated as, perhaps, few threatened powers have ever been isolated before No one seriously thought any reliance could be placed on (the French) . . . Great Britain had no friends on the Continent who were in any way fit to stand up to Germany. In the world at large, America seemed likely to be, at best, a not very benevolent neutral.’38 As a peace-keeping force the League was finished. After this, it would be every state for itself. The British Government ‘had led fifty nations forward with much brave language’ but ‘confronted with brute force [they] had recoiled. . . . By estranging Italy they had upset the whole balance of Europe and gained nothing for Abyssinia. They had led the League of Nations into utter fiasco.’39 In Britain, the events served admirably ‘to open the eyes of the Government to our appalling Service deficiencies - far more than fifty reports by the C.O.S. (Chiefs of Staff Com­ mittee)’.40 The effect on Britain’s naval estimates was to be dramatic, the figure for 1936 (about £80 million), up by nearly one third on 1935, itself proving to be little more than half the figure that would emerge for 1939. Meanwhile, in 1936, Anglo-French relations reached their lowest ebb. ‘The feeling in this country grows steadily more anti-French’, wrote Chatfield.41 As Germany moved into the Rhineland, the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 last round of disarmament talks broke up with the withdrawal of Japan; and any hope that the Americans might do some­ thing positive for peace was now dashed by their Neutrality Act under which the supply of arms, even to League of Nations members defending themselves against aggression, was formally precluded. For Hitler, pausing at the crossroads of his ambitions, it looked like green lights all the way. 148 No More Heroes With the end of naval war readiness in the Mediterranean and despite new preoccupations, of which the Spanish Civil War was not the least, Chatfield turned urgently to his next major battle, rescue of the Fleet Air Arm from the clutches of the Royal Air Force. The brash young flying service had some formidable patrons and was not going to be walked over. Its main strategic case was that bombing raids on enemy territory, independent of other operations on land or sea, could be a decisive factor in future wars; and, having thus established that the air was divisible, it was not too difficult to argue that other forms of aerial warfare, even those related closely to naval or military activity, belonged logically within the planning, procurement and operating apparatus which was needed, anyway, to serve the prime strategic function. But logic is one thing and tradition another: and more important than either, in the Navy’s view, was the question of operational efficiency over that distinctive element, the sea. To sailors, it was asking too much of an essentially land- orientated air command to recognise and, out of scarce resources, cope adequately with the fleet’s problems. The admirals had good reason to be worried. The Royal Air Force ‘paid very little attention to the needs of the Navy. Fleet attacks were not practised, dive-bombing was ignored and torpedo attacks were dismissed in favour of high-level bombing’. Thus, when the Admiralty finally ‘resumed control of the F.A.A. its aircraft were a bad third in any production plan. We accordingly entered the war with inadequate numbers of obsolete aircraft and with little knowledge how Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 to use them.’ After years in the air-war wilderness, it was not altogether surprising that Their Lordships’ views on the role of aircraft at sea were relatively ‘less advanced than those common to Beatty and his colleagues’ in the 1920s.42 And with limited career prospects in naval aviation the consequent dearth of air-minded naval officers was to prove a serious handicap in the evolution of British naval air power during and after the Second World War. Renaissance 149 ‘When I underwent a flying training course in the aircraft carrier Courageous in the mid-1930s I was struck by the incongruity of naval planes piloted by RAF officers; and senior naval officers at this time invariably sought to dissuade their brightest juniors from volunteering for the “dead end” of flying.’43

For Britain, as a maritime power, the issue was crucial. In the Second World War the United States, without the benefit of a separate flying service, while demonstrating an overland bombing prowess and capacity no less than those of the Royal Air Force, was to disclose a much greater and more sophisticated capacity to operate carrier-borne aircraft as decisive weapons in major battles at sea; and it was to develop its aircraft carrier strength to 111, compared with Britain’s 63. Likewise the Japanese, spuming the tri-service concept, were no laggards in air warfare afloat. On the other side of the coin, however, Germany and Italy, each with its separate air force, apart from the effective use of land-based short-range German dive-bombers against ships and harbours, had very little to show in the air war at sea. That Britain would have a great deal to be proud of was due in the first instance to Chatfield’s hard-won success in regaining for the Navy, in the nick of time, effective control of ship-borne aircraft, from procurement to operation; and later to the skill and bravery with which naval air crews were to fight their aeroplanes, ill-assorted job lot that many of these machines were, particularly in the early years of the war: among the latter being, notably, the Skua, handicapped in its fighter role by being slower, even in level flight, than Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 some of the German bombers with which it had to do battle; and the famous all-purpose biplane, the Swordfish, usually known as the ‘string-bag’, destined to give yeoman service and still be operational at the end of the war. Meanwhile, after Trenchard, the most obdurate champion of the Royal Air Force and one of the Navy’s most redoubt­ able antagonists had been Lord Weir: engineer, tycoon, civilian adviser to governments, eminence grise par excellence. 150 No More Heroes Weir’s good reputation with British ministers had rested largely on his ability to get industry quietly to do his bidding in the provision of resources for the manufacture of arms and ammunition, and his network of adaptable ‘shadow’ factories, with their prepared nucleus of special plant and skilled personnel, undoubtedly made a vital contribution to Britain’s war-making capacity from 1939. This was a notable achievement at a time when much of British industry, worn down by slump and unemployment, was in an ostrich-like stance apparently lacking the energy or vision to defend, let alone demonstrate, its own private- enterprise philosophy. As Corelli Barnett has asked about that period: ‘What did you do when private enterprise simply refused to display enterprise?’ Business leaders seemed to be inviting trouble, bearing in mind how ‘wartime experi­ ence had shown that there was no reason . . . why the State should not successfully compel that modernisation and re­ construction which industry lacked the will to carry out for itself. But it was also a question of educational neglect, ‘the root cause of that scarcity of highly trained personnel and skilled labour which was to throttle back British rearmament in the late 1930s’ lying ‘in the continuing deficiencies of the British system of education’. Whatever the cause, this failure of industrial dynamism seemed to take a grip ‘passively watched by government and nation, while at the same period the German state was co­ operating with its industrialists in colossal reorganisations and re-equipment of German industry, and in research and development’. On these grounds, in February 1938, the Chiefs of Staff were urgently calling the government’s atten­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 tion to the fact ‘ “that our approved rearmament programme is falling behind and that in our opinion it will fail to give us security in time” \ 44 Clearly, Weir had an uphill task and needed all the influ­ ence which a grateful government seemed glad to give him. In careful touch with the committees that mattered, express­ ing himself largely by means of ‘well-documented, closely- reasoned reports’, Weir, surprisingly, received no pay from Renaissance 151 government, required no office in Whitehall, used no civil service staff: he operated from his own private office in the Adelphi, his brother being his sole confidant and aide. His personal power base was: wealth, an independent mind, ownership of a respected business, a broad view of industry, shrewd political sense, high-level connections and (eventually) a peerage. In 1935, by invitation, Weir had joined the top men of government and the fighting services on a key defence com­ mittee, concerned with all aspects of strategy, rearmament and re-equipment,45 while continuing in a former capacity as a special adviser to the Royal Air Force to which, on his own admission, he had long given his main loyalty. On previous occasions, notably during Beatty’s tenure of office as First Sea Lord, Weir had fought to the benefit of the airmen against political and naval leaders about the future of the Navy’s erstwhile air arm; as recently as 1935, he had extracted from Baldwin the promise that ‘if the general question of the Fleet Air Arm was again brought forward by the Admiralty you would decline to have it reopened’; and again, in 1936, with consummate arrogance, Weir had warned Baldwin: ‘If the Fleet Air Arm general question be reopened, I would have no hesitation but to disassociate myself from helping the Air Ministry and leave myself free to deal with this issue.’ Thus, in 1937, when Baldwin, bowing to various pressures, not least those of Chatfield and of his then First Lord, Hoare, plucked up the courage to reopen the naval air arm question by means of an inquiry under Sir Thomas Inskip, newly appointed Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, and Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 having failed to keep Weir in the dark about his volte-face, found himself threatened with this dogged adviser’s resigna­ tion, a row was inevitable. A leak in the press gave Keyes the chance to open a campaign in the House of Lords where, in a widely reported speech, he declaimed against Weir as an ‘evil genius . . . responsible for so disastrously hampering the development of naval aviation’; and Churchill, in another place, to snort that he did ‘not understand how a man who 152 No More Heroes had no official position... had anything in particular to resign*. Another Member of Parliament, Lt-Commander R. T. Fletcher (Labour), ‘did not understand why the Government were so afraid of what Lord Weir might say’. Then, after due deliberation, the Inskip inquiry proceeded to reverse the earlier decisions. Lord Weir and his friends were now in full retreat and, in July 1937, the Fleet Air Arm returned to the Navy.46

By now, with Chamberlain in Baldwin’s place as Prime Minister, events were moving rapidly to their climax. In the autumn of 1937, Japan invaded China; in the following spring, Germany invaded Austria, and a year later, despite the Munich agreements, it invaded Czechoslovakia, upon which Italy invaded Albania. In September 1939, in a flurry of new bilateral alignments, notwithstanding Chamberlain’s last-minute attempts to save the peace, Germany invaded Poland; and the Second World War began. On the naval scene, Chatfield finished his time as First Sea Lord in the autumn of 1938, nearly a month before the Munich crisis, to be succeeded by Backhouse; while the latter, falling ill, was in turn replaced the following summer by Pound. These changes in the Navy’s top leadership at a difficult time were the more anxious for involving second- choice candidates in Chatfield’s place, the admirals’ most- favoured contender for this post, W. W. Fisher, having died unexpectedly before his time was ripe.47 The Navy at large, although over-stretched, was now in fine fettle. Its confidence, well displayed in the royal reviews at Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Spithead in 1935 and 1937, and the calm efficiency of its actions in connection with the Italo-Ethiopian and the Spanish Civil wars, had won widespread public approval; and to the officers and men the pace of events, the responses and initiatives of government and the flow of war-conscious decisions from the Admiralty, added to the sense of excite­ ment. Rearmament, expansion, modernisation, improvisa­ tion: for the Royal Navy, after all the years of economy, it Renaissance 153 was a dynamic and expansive phase. Britannia still ruled the waves: how could anyone have doubted it? ‘When I was posted to a destroyer on the China station in the autumn of 1937,1 had no qualms or regrets although, by the prevailing rules, I was faced with an absence from home of two and a half years in what was fast becoming a rather lively war zone. ‘It needed two porters at the station to handle my baggage. I had with me the standard outfit for a British sub-lieutenant going overseas, packed in a hefty wooden chest, a trunk, a large metal case, a couple of suitcases, a helmet box and a golf-bag full of clubs, sword and walking sticks. The gear included epaulettes, frock-coat, sword-belt and gold-striped trousers for ceremonial occasions; blue uniform suits for cool weather and white ones for hot; shoulder-strapped shirts and white shorts for day wear in the tropics; short uniform jackets, blue and white, for evening wear on duty; a tail suit, a dinner jacket and a white tuxedo for smart civilian evenings; stiff and soft white shirts, butterfly collars, black and white bow ties; plain clothes and sports attire for all weathers; a cocked hat, uniform caps, civilian hats and the blessed helmet; an accompanying variety of footwear; books, underwear, pyjamas, a first-aid kit and a telescope. ‘The survival of the Empire was at stake, no less. Also at stake, no doubt, were the profits of the highly versatile and progressive outfitters, Gieves Limited, to whom I remitted faithfully a due proportion of my pay which, at that time, amounted to a little less than £3.10s a week gross.’48 Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 As crisis followed crisis the resources of the Royal Navy, still the only world-wide force with a policing capability, became more and more thinly spread although, on the face of it, so far as the general public could see, it looked much like business as usual. On 13 September 1938, for example, just a week after Chatfield gave up the First Sea Lord post, the British naval dispositions told a typically confident story. At Invergordon, no longer a haunt of bad memories, lay 154 No More Heroes three battleships, one aircraft carrier, two cruisers and a flotilla of destroyers, about to sail for exercises in other Scottish waters; at Portland, one battleship and a large assortment of destroyers, minesweepers and submarines, also preparing to proceed for exercises; in the home ports of Sheerness, Chatham, Portsmouth, Devonport and Rosyth, likewise getting ready for sea, two battleships, three aircraft carriers, half a dozen cruisers and a host of smaller warships. Off , on passage, one cruiser; in Greek waters, show­ ing the flag, one battleship and five cruisers; at Malta, on active service, one battleship, one aircraft carrier, one cruiser and numerous destroyers, submarines and miscellaneous support vessels, including one hospital ship; at Gibraltar, one battlecruiser, supported by destroyers and submarines; at Haifa, one battleship; at Palma, one cruiser; at Marseille and Tangier, a destroyer each; in the Suez Canal, Red Sea and Persian Gulf, four sloops; and at Colombo, one cruiser. At San Francisco, one cruiser; at Antigua, one cruiser; at Montevideo, two cruisers; at Simonstown, two cruisers; at Hong Kong, two cruisers and various smaller warships; at Shanghai, one cruiser; at Wei Hai Wei, two cruisers; at various other Chinese ports, three destroyers, two sloops and a dozen gunboats; and, approaching Singapore, one aircraft carrier, one cruiser and several destroyers and submarines. Commonwealth warships on service, flying the white ensign, included three cruisers in Australian waters, two cruisers at Auckland and various smaller warships in Canadian and Indian ports. Refitting or in reserve, mostly in British ports; three battleships, two battlecruisers, two air­ craft carriers, a couple of dozen cruisers and galaxies of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 destroyers, sloops, minesweepers, submarines, support ships and minor war vessels. The sun never sets . . . !49 From February 1939, Chatfield was on stage once more, but now as Minister for Co-ordination of Defence in Inskip’s place, a political post to which, alas, after a promising start, he was not to prove well suited. Whether as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee or as First Sea Lord, Chatfield was used to fighting political battles single-mindedly, from a Renaissance 155 secure position, with the relatively simple, albeit arduous, aim of procuring enough armed force to translate political theory into strategic practice; and within the given limits, as professional head of the Navy, he was very much master in his own house. As a cabinet minister, however, Chatfield found the rules of the game less tidily laid down; and the balancing act of keep­ ing one foot either side of a fence, which had hitherto been a convenient barrier separating ‘them’ from ‘us’, was not much to his liking. At first, in the remaining pre-war period, work­ ing methodically on tasks and among people he was used to, he was successful, but in the changed circumstances of war, particularly with the need for the Prime Minister increasingly to take over the defence reins, with the advent of a command­ ing and impatient First Lord in the shape of Churchill and with promotion of the three defence ministers into the Cabi­ net, Chatfield found himself pushed further and further into the sidelines. Out of loyalty to Chamberlain, Chatfield hung on too long, falling undeserved victim in March 1940 to Churchill’s resolve, as the war hotted up, to be rid of what looked to him like Chamberlain-tainted deadwood. Chatfield’s resignation marked the tragic end to a public career which, at its peak, served Britain more than well. For nearly six crucial years, as First Sea Lord and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, Chatfield had held the centre of Britain’s defence stage. Only Hankey had held a post of comparable significance, these two men, between them, providing the one constantly stoic factor in a period of acute danger to British interests. ‘If ever the test should come, the successful defence of the British Empire would be largely due Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 to the work of these two men.’50 During his tenure of the two offices, with responsibilities over the whole sphere of defence, Chatfield served a total of three Prime Ministers and three First Lords of the Admiralty. There were, besides, two changes of Foreign Secretary and one of Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, on the Chiefs of Staff Committee, the professional heads of the Army and the Royal Air Force changed twice and three times respectively.51 156 No More Heroes The Chiefs of Staff worked well together, sinking most of their differences, but Chatfield was the dominant member both by virtue of his office as chairman and of the fact that his uniformed colleagues tended to fall short of him in stature, tenacity and foresight. Thus, on Chatfield’s shoulders, to an exceptional extent, rested the burden of Britain’s security and if, sometimes, to the impatient onlooker, he seemed to err on the side of caution, it must be remembered that to Chatfield, bearing the actual responsibility, pipe dreams and brave intentions were far from enough. He could rely only on what he had or what, conceivably, he could expect to get. That Chatfield played for time does not make him an appeaser. An appeaser hopes to avoid war by striking bargains which tend to meet most of his potential enemy’s demands, whereas Chatfield’s concern was to be ready for the war which, he sensed, was bound to come. To accuse him of appeasement is to mis-read the character of a man whose naval career reveals a consistently distinguished mix of physical and moral courage. The fact that British defences, particularly the Navy, were just able to take the strain when war broke out in Europe in 1939, was due undoubtedly to Chatfield’s vision, skill and persistence, more than to anybody else. ‘It is upon the Navy that, under the good providence of God, the wealth, safety, and strength of the Kingdom chiefly depend.’52 Heroic words; and in the brave days of 1939, when no other arm of Britain’s defences was ready for the German aggression, they seemed true enough. Looking back, one can but hope it was all worthwhile. Lord Gladwyn suggests ‘it is Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 only those who have ceased to believe in themselves who can reproach their fathers for standing up in 1939 . . . The tragedy is that we may have preserved freedom for so many who cannot appreciate it any more’.53 Amen. Chapter Six

The Young Professionals

In 1939, when war broke out in Europe, the primary element of British naval power was still the battlefleet; and the fifteen battleships and battlecruisers forming it, all but two of them of First World War vintage, although largely modernised, were in essence what Fisher and Jellicoe had introduced, proved and refined during the early years of the century. Thus, the decisive naval weapon remained the mighty turreted centre-line gun. As before, guns apart, the chief threat to the Navy’s capital ships was from torpedoes though now, potentially, of the air­ borne variety, the asdic (sonar) having been developed in combination with improved hunting tactics and better-aimed depth charges into what was believed, optimistically, to be an effective answer to the U-boat. The newest danger, however, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 was bombs dropped in patterns from formations of slow- moving aircraft in level flight or in series from waves of dive-bombers but, although the bomb’s potential as an anti­ warship weapon was not scorned, it was thought likely that the barrage of anti-aircraft fire of which most British warships were now capable could be relied upon, at least, to put enemy aviators off their aim. Britain’s aircraft carrier strength stood at six, only one of 158 No More Heroes which was new and purpose-built. Although a further six were on the stocks, the aircraft carriers’ function was not yet central to naval strategy; and, in the Royal Navy, evolution of the aircraft as a decisive weapon was being hampered not only by lack of doctrine but by a dearth of trained men and efficient machines following naval aviation’s long spell under Royal Air Force control.1 On the face of it, then, Britain’s was a somewhat antediluvian navy with which to go to war. Nevertheless the creature, extinct or not, was eager; and, despite ordeals and reverses, it would soon adapt, multiply, survive and triumph. The story would have been sadder, how­ ever, if the fleet had not been prepared for war in 1935 when a fight with Italy seemed likely. As already noted, an aug­ mented Mediterranean Fleet was at that time kept on a semi­ war footing for several months, achieving under W. W. Fisher’s energetic leadership a higher state of training and readiness than could have been possible in normal peace-time conditions. Although the situation eased in 1936, sections of the Navy were kept hard at it providing guardships and off-shore patrols during the Spanish Civil War and, from 1937, trying to contain the Japanese aggression in China. If it is stretching it to say that the Navy was more or less continuously at war from 1935, one might, perhaps, go along with Martin Brice’s statement that ‘the Second World War began in the Far East on the night of July 7th/8th, 1937’, when some Japanese soldiers outside Peking were fired on, supposedly by Chinese police.2 These rehearsals for the larger drama to come and the sense of urgency they induced in Whitehall were invaluable, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the Navy’s ability to stand the tremendous strain imposed upon it from September 1939 right through to August 1945 being crucial from the very start of hostilities. In home waters, indeed, enemy action began at once. On the other hand,

‘when war with Germany broke out that September, I was in Singapore, serving in H.M.S. Westcott, a destroyer of First World War vintage, having been already two years on the The Young Professionals 159 China Station, and there the transition was more laconic. Minesweepers held in reserve came quietly into service, manned partly by local volunteers; weapons were brought to the ready; and officers wore uniform on leave. ‘In the change-around I found myself raised two notches to second-in-command of my ship, our first task under a new very young captain being to carry out anti-U-boat patrols in the Singapore approaches. Needless to say, no quarry was found although we were encouraged to believe that anything could and, with luck, would happen. ‘Alas, our glamorous easy-going life, patrolling serenely under tropical skies one night and living it up in brightly-lit Singaporean clubs the next, was not to last. Some six months later my ship was in action off Narvik; and within two years after that, Singapore would fall ignominiously to the Japan­ ese.’3 The canvas of the war at sea from 1939 to 1945, while lacking the dominant highlights of a Jutland, presents a wider, livelier and more crowded picture than that of naval activity between 1914 and 1918. It depicts operations of significance, involving forces and situations of great variety, in almost every quarter of the globe, from the Arctic to the South Atlantic, from the Mediterranean through the Indian Ocean to the far Pacific. It shows the noble battleship fighting gamely to the end of its days; and it shows the ungainly air­ craft carrier taking its place as the new naval capital ship. It shows land-based as well as naval aircraft, in collaboration with warships, as a decisive factor in the war at sea, and not Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 least against U-boats. It shows new dimensions and new successes in the Navy’s army-support role. It shows also more sophisticated administration, staff work, communications, particularly in the evolution of inter-service and international teamwork in large-scale amphibious war­ fare, culminating in the mammoth Normandy invasions of 1944. It shows the considerable impact of science and technology, most conspicuously in the development of radar, 160 No More Heroes less dramatically in the use of enlightened methods of personnel management. And, in what it tells generally of the Royal Navy’s exploits, it shows professionalism and endur­ ance in high degree: perhaps in the highest degree ever attained and in war, over a long period, sustained by any major fast-expanded fighting service in history.

At the outset, once again, there was one enemy: Germany. Its navy, smaller than Britain’s, had more limited commit­ ments; but it was powerful and versatile enough, if concen­ trated, to need matching forces, the provision of which imposed immediate strains on British resources. With Italy’s entry into the war and the fall of France these strains became for a while well-nigh intolerable. A strategic assumption on which Britain had gone so precariously to war was that, while a mainly French army would hold the Germans at the Maginot Line, the French navy, with token British support, could take care of the Mediterranean. Within a year, however, the enemy, established in the French Channel and the Atlantic ports, was preparing to invade Britain and, from shortened range, maraud British supply ships in the North Atlantic, adding new burdens to the Navy’s work; while in the Mediterranean, neither the French fleet nor its bases in French North Africa remained available to guard Britain’s imperial route to Malta, Suez, the Persian Gulf, India and the lands beyond. Meanwhile, after gaining experience with the evacuation of smaller numbers from the Navy, by means of a series of risky operations from Dunkirk to Bordeaux, with the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 willing help of a largely improvised assembly of civilian vessels, including fishing boats and yachts, had lifted from France to England well over half a million defeated troops. These forays, sustained by a handful of destroyers, some with old-fashioned equipment, others overdue for rest and refit, were extra to the Navy’s already stretched but ever-multiply­ ing duties. And of these, none was more demanding and urgent than protection of the convoys which now, besides The Young Professionals 161 bringing food and war supplies to Britain, were ferrying thousands of reinforcements from Empire countries to the homeland and thousands more, in the reverse direction, from Britain to its growing army in Egypt. At this time, four factors combined to save Britain from defeat: Winston Churchill; the Royal Air Force’s stirring defence of England against the German bomber; the German failure to throw into battle the two or three dozen more U-boats which, in 1940-41, might alone have brought Britain to its knees; and Whitehall’s long-laid, world-wide plans and preparations for the organisation, operation and defence of convoys. Of these, by far the most potent was Churchill; and every­ thing else, without him, would have been in vain. In his ceaseless drive to put ever more pace and spine into the British war effort, he could still, as in the First World War, be impetuous, petulant, ruthless. He made mistakes and, in public life, enemies. But Churchill had learned well enough the lessons of a quarter-century and most Britons who were involved actively in the Second World War remember him with great admira­ tion and affection; and to them the attempts of some latter- day pygmies, with hindsight and malice, to nibble at the giant’s reputation as a war leader are contemptible. His hard- driving yet curiously benign leadership reached into every corner of the national effort yet scope remained for initiative and enterprise, with the rewards going first to those who succeeded best having dared the most. While he seemed omnipresent and, in his buoyancy and tirelessness, superhuman, he was neither god-like nor remote; Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 and behind the bulldog posture was an appealing vulnerabil­ ity and, at times, a wayward mischief, with which all could relate. As Ismay says, Churchill was ‘a child of nature . . . [who] venerated tradition but ridiculed convention . . . an apostle of the offensive’ whose grasp of ‘the broad sweep of strategy was unrivalled’.4 In particular, the Navy was fortunate in a Prime Minister who, unlike Asquith and Lloyd George in the First World 162 No More Heroes War, had a feel for and, from personal experience as a first lord, understood the spirit and capacity of the British senior service. Indeed, Churchill ‘had more influence on the con­ dition of the Royal Navy in two world wars than any other civilian’.5 And it was lucky also, for similar reasons, in having F. D. Roosevelt as President of the United States, this great man’s appreciation of the naval task, combined with Churchill’s, ensuring exploitation of the natural advantage which, in the long run, the Allies had at sea against a contin­ ental army-minded enemy. Of the Battle of Britain, by which a handful of fighter pilots put paid to Hitler’s hopes that Britain might be hammered by invasion after being stunned by aerial bombardment, much has been written; and here, beyond paying tribute, no more need be said. The failure of the U-boats to exploit an inviting situation was due to various German miscalculations. Despite constant pressure on Hitler by his naval leaders, not all of whom were impressed by their Fuehrer’s promise in July 1939 that no war with Britain was imminent, the build-up of Germany’s navy to its intended strength was not due for completion until 1948; and although the declared strategic intention was destruction of Britain’s merchant fleet, and notwithstanding the relative ease and economy with which U-boats could be produced compared with the larger types of surface warship, the priorities and resources in the early months of the war were such that even in 1941, after more than a year of wartime teething troubles, including repeated torpedo failures, the Germans could seldom manage to operate more than half a dozen U-boats in the North Atlantic at any one Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 time.6 As far back as 1937, on the other hand, in anticipation of German attack, practical steps were already being taken by the British authorities to establish a world-wide convoy administration. With the appointment of nucleus staffs to the principal ports overseas engaged in trade with Britain, the various types of merchant ships susceptible to being sailed in convoy, their size and performance, their whereabouts, The Young Professionals 163 customary routes and cargoes, could be carefully docu­ mented. On this basis, and with the ready co-operation of British ship owners, plans were prepared which upon the outbreak of war enabled the Admiralty to take prompt control of the movements of 3,000 British merchant vessels, representing one third of Britain’s merchant navy strength at that time, and, for a start, initiate a programme of convoys in both the western approaches to Britain and the North Sea. For a country with a reputation for being ill-prepared, this was a remarkable feat of foresight and organisation.

Among the naval operations in the second year of war were three British victories, remarkable for the clear sign each gave of the decisive role about to be played by aircraft in naval warfare. In November 1940, a small force of Swordfish aircraft from the carrier Illustrious carried out a torpedo attack on ships of the Italian fleet lying in Taranto harbour, sinking one battleship, damaging two battleships and one cruiser, for the loss of only two aircraft. This action was a forerunner, if not the inspiration, of Japan’s devastating assault on the American fleet in Pearl Harbor just over a year later. In March 1941, in a night action off Matapan, three cruisers and two destroyers of the Italian Navy were sunk by British battleships after damage to the enemy, affecting the speed and cohesion of its units, by aircraft from the carrier Formidable. Although the one Italian battleship present managed to escape, this British victory, won with the dash Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 and economy of effort typical of Admiral Cunningham’s leadership, was enough to deter the Italian fleet from further ventures in the eastern Mediterranean.7 In May 1941, after a seven-day chase which has become famous in naval history, following damage to its propellers by a torpedo dropped from a Swordfish aircraft from Ark Royal, the German battleship Bismarck was sunk on the last lap of its long haul towards the sanctuary of Saint Nazaire. 164 No More Heroes The use of aircraft in this operation, as in the action off Matapan, would later be emulated and perfected on a grand and decisive scale by the U.S. Navy in its operations in the Pacific against the Japanese. But the Bismarck saga was remarkable also for the astute way in which the Admiralty, plotting and projecting the enemy ship’s courses having monitored its radio signals, directed supporting warships to the scene, thereby achieving a concentration with the Home Fleet which was striving to avenge its loss earlier in the action of the prized battlecruiser Hood. It says much also for the toughness and tenacity of the Bismarck and its crew that, but for the one hit by an air­ craft’s torpedo, they would likely have survived the deter­ mined efforts of eight battleships, two aircraft carriers, eleven cruisers, twenty-one destroyers, six submarines and over 100 aircraft to put them under.8 For Britain the successful outcome of the Bismarck chase, being a blow against Germany, the more dreaded enemy, was badly needed at a time of mounting losses and reverses, largely at the hands of German aircraft, during the British retreat from Greece and Crete: easy victories against Italian forces were not enough. The British plight in the Mediterran­ ean was becoming desperate. By the end of a year of costly naval activity, mostly in support of British army operations, including the sustenance of Malta from which naval units were preying successfully on ships supplying the enemy forces in North Africa, Cunningham’s active fleet was reduced, by damage and destruction, to only four cruisers and a few destroyers, a situation so parlous that the Admiralty had to consider seriously a complete naval withdrawal from Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the Mediterranean basin. Much worse was to come in 1942, the year which, in Kemp’s term, brought Britain to ‘the edge of disaster’ and its Navy ‘almost to the verge of defeat’.9 The Americans were now in the fight but, with the Japanese on the rampage, had their own urgent preoccupations. In most of its war theatres, as it reached the nadir of its fortunes, Britain was still virtually alone. The Young Professionals 165 This applied as much in the Far East, where the Japanese were sweeping south-east towards Singapore and the East Indies, as in the older-established struggle against Germany and Italy. The loss off Malaya in the closing days of 1941 of the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse was a savage blow, these great ships, core of Britain’s naval defence against Japan, falling victim to enemy aircraft, being themselves without air cover. As events were to show, however, this disaster was soon to seem hardly more than an incident in the long catalogue of British defeats at the hands of the new aggressor. Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, the Dutch East Indies: by the summer of 1942, all had succumbed; and even India and Australia were now at risk. Meanwhile in the west, as Germany’s armies advanced on Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad, its navy brought ignominy on the British foe by passing its battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, almost unscathed, up the English Channel to Germany. In the Mediterranean, the siege of Malta was approaching crisis; while in Egypt, the German armies threatened Cairo. Worst of all, however, were the crippling losses suffered by British and Allied shipping in the Atlantic and the Arctic. In the first six months of 1942, U-boats operating in the Atlantic disposed of nearly 600 merchant ships, representing more than 3 million tons of shipping or one-fifth of the total war­ time losses of Allied and neutral ships to U-boats, three- quarters of the losses being British;10 while in the Arctic the struggle to succour Russia by the northern route suffered a demoralising setback with the loss of twenty-three ships out Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 of thirty-four, following the Admiralty’s mistaken decision to disperse convoy PQ 17 in the face of sorties by German air and naval forces based in Norway.

In the second half of the year, however, the tide was slowly turning. By its naval victory at Midway and its advance into the Solomon Islands, the United States, checking the 166 No More Heroes Japanese advance, sowed the first seeds of Allied victory in that region. In Burma British forces were at last thwarting the Japanese eastward progress. The threat to Australia was being held. In Russia, the German advance was halted and, by the Soviet victory at Stalingrad, reversed. The British success at El Alamein marked the beginning of Germany’s retreat from North Africa, soon to be hastened by landings in Morocco and Algeria, the first of an energetic series of Anglo-American amphibious operations in the Mediterranean theatre. And the relief of Malta was achieved by the triumphant arrival there of the tanker Ohio, survivor of a four-day assault by enemy air and naval forces against the strongly guarded but badly mauled Pedestal convoy.11 In the Atlantic, with a strengthening of convoy-defence forces, including the introduction of new anti-U-boat tactics and, at last, of escorting aircraft carriers, the losses of Allied shipping were being reduced to manageable proportions, as the losses of U-boats increased. Finally, on the last day of the year, in the Barents Sea off the North Cape of Norway, a small force of British destroyers guarding a Russia-bound convoy, with the aid of two light cruisers, inflicted a defeat on a superior German naval squadron which was to have far- reaching effects on Germany’s war effort at sea. While the scale of this battle, was not among the largest, the action is of interest in the present context on several grounds. It is a rare example of the second phase of the three-phase naval strategy which was applied in the Arctic during most of the three years or so when convoys were being operated to north Russia. Although the safe arrival of each convoy was Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the primary object, the convoy was also a bait to attract and bring to battle the German heavy units based in the Nor­ wegian fiords. The bait was enticing because, due to a general shortage of escorts, these convoys were often rather lightly protected and, before 1943, would sail much of their route without air protection.12 In the offing of most Russia-bound convoys, however, there was a supporting force, basically of cruisers, but in The Young Professionals 167 view of the need to keep radio silence until an action with the enemy began, neither the convoy escort nor the covering force knew the other’s exact position; and in order that the one should not be spotted by enemy aircraft or U-boats trailing the other, the distance separating the two elements often added up to several hours’ steaming. Even farther away from the convoy, units of the British battlefleet waited quietly, hoping that a German marauder, lured by the convoy, then detained or damaged by the supporting cruisers, could be brought to action by the heavy units before regaining the safety of the fiords. It was to be a long-drawn-out tussle, resolved partly at the end of 1943 with the destruction at sea of Germany’s last fully active capital ship, Scharnhorst, this being the only occasion when the third phase of the strategy would be realised, and finally with the sinking of the half-crippled Tirpitz in Tromso harbour to­ wards the end of 1944. Meanwhile, on the last day of 1942, convoy JW 5IB was to prove a juicy enough bait to attract the attentions of the German battleship Lutzow, the heavy cruiser Hipper and six destroyers. In the grey dawn of the few hours of half-light which passed for day-time in those latitudes in mid-winter, hampered by ice, intermittent snow squalls and half frozen fighting equipment, lacking air cover or reliable intelligence, the convoy escort came unexpectedly under fire from a barely glimpsed enemy. ‘Having been warned that Russian destroyers might be joining us that morning, our first reaction to a glimpse of dim warship shapes in the offing was one of relief. But my ship,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the destroyer Obdurate, detached to make contact, at once came under fire. Taken by surprise, it needed a moment or two to realise that the graceful fountains of water hovering in the sea beside us were hardly there for our pleasure. They were shell splashes, and much too close for comfort.’13 In the traditional British spirit, the four available destroyers moved at once to place themselves between the enemy and his prey while the hostile ships, despite their overwhelming 168 No More Heroes superiority, with equally traditional German hesitation, turned away. In the breathing space so gained the convoy itself was manoeuvred away from the direction of the enemy, to be partly hidden by smoke made for its protection by the fifth escorting destroyer, while the other four began a series of feints towards the Germans. In response to each British advance, fearing an attack by the destroyers’ torpedoes, the enemy would turn away and, because of low visibility, break off its engagement with the British who, thus, would be spared momentarily the threat of destruction at virtually point-blank range by the enemy’s heavy guns. This nerve-racking game of bluff was kept up by the British destroyers for over two hours. So long as they retained their torpedoes they held the card feared most by the over­ cautious German commander. Their puny guns were no match for the enemy’s, not even for those of the more powerfully armed German destroyers. ‘Being stationed (as I was) at the after end of a destroyer manoeuvring at speed, remote from the bridge, is like riding back to front on a galloping horse. You don’t quite know what is happening and it has often happened before you realise how and why. Consequently, from my point of view, the ensuing action was a patchwork of fleeting ships, gun flashes, shells, smoke and ice-cold spray, denied a logical sequence.... ‘I remember seeing the (destroyer) Achates steaming along half-hidden by shell splashes. There was a sheet of flame when

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 she was hit, and then it was our turn. Our ship recoiled and shivered as we fired our first salvo of the day and the men, sweating in that Arctic cold, grinned with satisfaction. Away in the distance shell splashes crept up towards the dark shape, a German cruiser, which was our adversary.. . . ‘Four orange circles glowed for a moment, rippling down the side of our foe. Then another ripple, and we knew that a second enemy salvo was seeking us out. The air was filled The Young Professionals 169 with the sound of tearing cloth, magnified a thousandfold. Great spouts of water rose up beside us and we were drenched with their spray. Wild streaks of noise screeched briefly in the air. And then, silence. We had been near-missed by an 8-inch salvo.’ Before the two hours had passed one British destroyer had been sunk, one had retired heavily damaged and a third had withdrawn temporarily to carry out repairs. This left only two defending destroyers. ‘Through the smoke appeared the (destroyer) Onslow. She had been hit. Two fires were burning but her guns still pointed towards the enemy. Her lamps winked instructions as she passed down the fine . . . We were enveloped in a snowstorm and enjoyed a few moments’ breathing space. When the snow cleared, the enemy was still there, slinking cautiously along at a prudent distance___ ‘We were under fire again. A salvo of 8-inch shells descended and we were neatly and completely encased by their splashes. The ship heaved and quaked with the explosions, the air screaming with the deadly flight of metal In the lull which followed I walked forward. There were splinter holes in the upper works, an aerial shot away, a hole or two in the funnel. But the bridge was riddled, putting electrical and mechanical gear out of action. Repair and medical parties were already at work and, miraculously, only one man had been wounded.’ As the Germans moved in, at last, for the kill the two supporting British cruisers arrived, unheralded, homing on

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 the enemy’s radio signals and, in the closing stages, along their own radar beams. ‘Everyone was asking, most unreasonably: “Where are the cruisers?” Then we emerged through the smoke and there they were! They had flung themselves upon the enemy, on his disengaged side, and caught him unawares. With rapt admiration we watched the contestants lobbying shells at one another. A rhythmic movement of tracer to and from like 170 No More Heroes the pendulum of a clock. Even with the advent of the two cruisers our force remained absurdly out-numbered and out-gunned. But, in our minds, the issue now was not in doubt.’14

It did not last long. Within an hour, after severely damaging the Hipper and sinking a German destroyer, the cruisers had put the enemy to flight. Two days later the convoy reached Murmansk with all its supply ships intact, thereby fulfilling its primary purpose. The secondary aim had also been achieved but only up to phase two of the plan, the British battleships being too far away to catch the retreating enemy. This action, little publicised at the time for fear that the enemy might learn too much about British strategy in the Arctic and the slender resources pursuing it, was notable for the prompt award of a Victoria Cross, by radio, to the senior officer of the British escort force, Captain R. St V. Sherbrooke, who lost an eye during the battle; and for the fact that, by skilful and determined use of traditional destroyer tactics, what should have resulted in annihilation of the convoy and its defenders was turned into the ignominious defeat of a vastly superior enemy. ‘When Hitler learnt how five British destroyers supported by two 6-inch cruisers had held off a pocket-battleship, an 8-inch cruiser and six far more powerful destroyers for four hours, and had finally forced them to withdraw he flew into an ungovernable rage.’15 The direct results of the Fuehrer’s fury, although not fully appreciated by the Allies until the war ended, were sensational. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Raeder, the German naval supremo, resigned, Hitler thus being deprived of the services of the ‘one man who might conceivably have won him the war’.16 Doenitz, hitherto the overall U-boat commander, took over. More important, Hitler ordered all German heavy warships into reserve, so removing for a while his chief menace to the convoys supply­ ing Russia from the north, quite apart from the threat which these ships could make in other theatres if they chose to risk The Young Professionals 171 a Bismarck fate.17 From now on, German naval strategy depended increasingly on the U-boat, but the fortunes even of these would soon be on the wane.

Although much fighting lay ahead, with more reverses and more losses of ships and personnel, the period from 1943 to the end of the war was, for the Navy, comparatively all downhill. Its preoccupations, apart from the Pacific, where the Americans held sway, were virtually world-wide and, to a large extent, followed a familiar pattern, but the growing and ultimately greatest commitment which now increasingly taxed its ingenuity and resources was the proliferation of combined or amphibious operations. In South-East Asia, Allied troops in concert with their comrades’ slow advance through Burma against the Japanese were being lifted across intervening waters by naval units, taking the fight into Malaya and beyond. In the Mediterran­ ean, the Allied armies, with naval support on their flanks and making possible the leap-frogging advances of its assault troops from one beach-head to another, were fighting their way up Italy and, ultimately, across the sea into southern France. Meanwhile, in Britain, long-drawn-out preparations for operation Overlord, the onslaught on northern Europe, were in hand, little being left to chance in the plans and rehearsals for this gigantic enterprise that could be anticipated and help reduce casualties. Early in 1943, more than a year before the Overlord D-Day, the Admiralty, among many other considerations, realised that special steps must soon be taken if there were to be Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 enough naval officers to man the host of escort ships and landing craft due to take part in the Normandy invasions. By now, with resources stretched or committed to the limit, the British manpower cupboard was virtually bare and, if the Navy was to produce more officers, it could find them only by licking its own platter cleaner. Could the present system of officer selection be made to yield more candidates without loss of quality, or were radical changes called for? 172 No More Heroes In response to this limited short-term need there emerged new and, for the Navy, revolutionary concepts and methods of officer selection and training; and these, although quickly fashioned under the pressures of war, survive in essence to this day. In thus giving the chance of promotion to candidates who, under earlier systems, would not have been considered officer-class material, these measures may be regarded as a spearhead of the social revolution the accommodation of which has proved to be one of the Navy’s great post-war strengths. Using techniques borrowed to some extent from American and German practices, military and civilian, but mainly from procedures newly inaugurated by the British Army the Admiralty, after a short period of experiment, was able to introduce a system based on intelligence and aptitude tests, group performance and new interview techniques, by which the bulk of hostilities-only recruits would be screened on entry, with every man who might conceivably make the officer grade being further vetted and sifted during a series of special dovetailed training syllabi at the end of which, only eight months after entry, the survivors would receive their first appointments, for the most part afloat, as junior officers. The naval scheme had advantages over the Army’s in integrating the selection with the training process, so that candidates could be observed systematically over a longer period by more officers, and in the decision to employ indus­ trial psychologists, with their feet closer to the workaday ground, rather than psychiatrists as expert advisers on selec­ tion, including the new-fangled intelligence and personality assessments. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 With the scrapping of the old-fashioned interview boards, with their tendency to follow tactfully the admiral-chairman’s line of questioning and their undue preoccupation with old- school ties and cricket, a new style of officer arose from the ranks both of recruits and of more seasoned ratings already on active service at sea, including among the latter too many who had failed earlier attempts to be accepted for officer training. And more important, so far as the war was con- The Young Professionals 173 cerned, the Navy got the officers it needed for Overlord, as also for the other tasks that would befall it before victory could finally be won.18

In the Pacific, meanwhile, the Americans were making pro­ gress. At first, after their disastrous reverse at Pearl Harbor, their enemy, ebullient with victory, had seemed to be having it all his way, the Americans being too short of heavy ships, including aircraft carriers, to retaliate. But the turning point had come only six months later, in June 1942, at the battle of Midway, in the course of which five Japanese aircraft carriers were lost to American naval aircraft at the cost of a single U.S. Navy carrier. This notable victory, an augury of the resilience and power of recovery of the American forces in the Pacific theatre, stopped the Japanese in their tracks. Even so, the Americans were still desperately short of carriers, their loss at Midway being more critical than their enemy could have imagined. In the long run, however, as the American war machine moved into top gear, the Japanese, with few indigenous resources and the import of vital materials handicapped by long lines of communications, were doomed. The American naval and military leaders were quick to evolve strategies and tactics to meet the Pacific occasion. With emphasis on mobility and flexibility, including afloat- support of their advanced forces, thus obviating the need for fixed bases near the battle areas, the Americans pursued a relentless and hard-hitting series of bounds from one captured island over intervening Japanese-held territory to Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 another, a type of advance facilitated by naval aviation’s ability not merely to provide local cover and support but usually to hold off and, in the process, play havoc with the enemy fleet. In what was essentially a maritime war, but with command of the sea and command of the air interdependent, the aircraft carrier now came fully into its own, assuming from the battleship the capital role. The days of the long-lived Dreadnought family were numbered at last. 174 No More Heroes The other main contribution by naval forces in the Pacific was in lifting troops from one assault to the next, supplying them, guarding their flanks and holding the adjacent seas. The going against fanatical Japanese defenders was hard and it needed more than superior material power to thrust forward to the edge of the Japanese homeland: it needed tenacious fighting qualities, good organisation, sound leadership.19 The man who, under Roosevelt, led and directed the operations of the U.S. Navy, while playing his due part as a member both of the Anglo-American combined chiefs of staff and of his own country’s joint chiefs of staff, was Admiral Ernest J. King, an American sailor ‘tough as nails... blunt and stand-offish, almost to the point of rudeness’.20 At first, King was neither a convinced anglophile nor, indeed, much interested in the war in Europe. With him, only the war with Japan counted. It took time to persuade him that the British, after all, were fighting the same war, a global war, against the same enemies; and that the agreed strategy, which was to give priority to the defeat of Germany, needed his wholehearted support. Before long, however, King unbent and, to a sufficient extent, fell under the spell of the Churchill- Roosevelt relationship. The combination of these two exceptional statesmen at the summit was a priceless asset. ‘Both of them had the spirit of eternal youth... both had superlative courage.’ The cordiality and the degree of mutual trust were unprecedented. When Roosevelt was temporarily absent during one of Churchill’s visits to Washington for urgent discussions, he bade his guest to ‘treat the White House as your home . . . and do not hesitate to summon any of my advisors... It was like a family Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 gathering and every sort of problem was discussed with complete frankness.’21 Until he became ill in the autumn of 1943 and had to resign, to die shortly after, the wartime professional head of the Royal Navy was Alfred Dudley Pickman Rogers Pound, a former torpedo specialist and a disciple of W. W. Fisher whom he followed in command of the Mediterranean Fleet after the Ethiopian War crisis. Pound succeeded to the post of The Young Professionals 175 First Sea Lord in 1939 because the incumbent, Backhouse, fell sick and had to be relieved. Pound had none of the flamboyancy which characterised many of Britain’s admirals at that period. He was fastidious, painstaking, a glutton for work. During his tenure as First Sea Lord, after a short night’s sleep in Admiralty House, having read a newspaper or two whilst shaving, he would take no breakfast and, apart from an after-lunch catnap, would work a seventeen-hour day right through from 09.30. Like his master, Churchill, ‘Pound would never give up, never admit defeat’.22 Although fussy about detail, Pound had in fair measure the gift of delegation and, as head of a large, talented and generally efficient Admiralty staff, he gave the Navy the steady leadership it needed in turbulent times. He managed also with equanimity to protect it from most of the excesses of enthusiasm of his hard-driving yet, where Pound was concerned, ever-considerate political chief. He was not without his critics, even so. In comparing him with Chatfield, Liddell Hart refers to Pound as ‘even deafer as well as stupid’.23 He had a reputation for overwork to the point of staleness, Chatfield having warned him in July 1937: ‘You cannot burn both ends of the candle and while you are holding responsible positions. . . you cannot at the same time lead an abnormal life of physical energy.’24 Earlier still, whilst on the senior staff at the Admiralty, slow to realise the potential of the air weapon and to support anti-U-boat measures, including the convoy concept, Pound had not been regarded as one of the more forward-looking officers. In the event, however, Pound redeemed himself, guiding the Navy through the hard and sometimes desperate war Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 years, while fashioning it for the tasks by which it would make its contribution to the Allied victories. And, the man destined to lead the Navy in these final stages was, inevitably, Andrew Browne Cunningham who, in October 1943, became First Sea Lord.25 It might be said that Cunningham, the Navy’s greatest sea commander in the Second World War, a self-reliant and decisive leader in the tradition of Nelson, yet resilient enough 176 No More Heroes to work under and with American officers in an Allied high command team, came to his final post at the Admiralty in good time to enjoy the fruits of his predecessor’s labour. True, the organisation and tradition of achievement were already well established, but much remained to be done. Cunningham was not a desk man, however, and like others before him was unable, as First Sea Lord, to add much to the high reputation already gained in more active spheres. Nevertheless, no other admiral would have been more acceptable at this time, to the Navy or to the Allied leaders, as First Sea Lord; and in the fairly short period remaining before the war’s end no one else, with one possible exception, would have had the drive or capacity to make a greater mark. The exception was Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, a versatile leader of great intelligence, organis­ ing ability and technical competence. Although still basically only a naval captain and much younger than all the other top warriors, Mountbatten, after commanding destroyers and building up Britain’s amphibious warfare enterprises, became from 1943, with the acting rank of admiral, Supreme Allied Commander in South-East Asia, a post in which he managed doggedly, with slender resources but brilliant effect, gradually to turn defeat at the Japanese hands into victory. After the war Mountbatten’s true ambition, which was to advance his naval career, suffered the further interruption of a period as the last Viceroy and first Governor-General of India; and it was not until 1948, reduced now to his correct rank of , that he was able to resume his life afloat and, in the next decade, rise through the coveted post of Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean to the supreme position Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 of First Sea Lord. Earl Mountbatten of Burma, in his own right (since 1956) an admiral of the fleet, a man of original mind, political sensitivity and vision was one of those dashing larger-than- life top naval commanders, a species now virtually extinct; but also, more quietly, he was one of the nation’s first archi­ tects of tri-Service unity. The form and, perhaps, the existence of today’s Ministry of Defence is owed largely to The Young Professionals 111 Mountbatten’s inspiration and example in the post-war years, including a creative period as Chief of Defence Staff from 1959, following his stint as First Sea Lord; and it is the Mountbatten spirit, as much as any other, which is still today that organisation’s life force.

In assessing the Royal Navy’s achievements in the Second World War it is no reflection on the fighting quality of its personnel, including the 50,000 naval casualties, to choose professionalism, a relatively dull-sounding word, as its most enduring accomplishment. Credit for the methods and the thorough training which are the foundation of professional­ ism in any undertaking goes first to the direction and senior management but in the Navy, in what was perhaps its greatest period of trial and success, efficiency and efficacy, as well as spirit, rested largely upon those few officers on whom fell the burden and, as they would say, the privilege of commanding His Majesty’s ships at sea. These officers, supposedly the end-all of the entire naval enterprise, were, in the main, young men: the captains of destroyers, submarines, convoy escorts, landing craft, torpedo boats and gunboats; and increasingly, as the war went on, they were reservists or conscripts, civilians in uniform, enjoy­ ing a kind of holiday from their normal daily round. But as these ‘civilians’ would be the first to admit, credit for their own proficiency belonged to the regulars, the cadre of career officers, with whom they worked, under whom they trained and from whom they took their cue. Thus, one of the Navy’s outstanding successes, expression Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 and justification of its pre-war ways of officer training and indoctrination, was its ability to assimilate outsiders and expand at a phenomenal rate while fully engaged in war. In 1939, serving personnel amounted to 120,000 officers and men; five years later, at its peak, this figure had grown to nearly 900,000, including over 70,000 Wrens. ‘It was the comparatively small body of regulars and the original re­ serves who held the ring while expansion was in progress, and 178 No More Heroes simultaneously undertook the training of the vast influx of men from civilian life.’26 Besides improved selection methods, as already mentioned, more enlightened training techniques played a key part. Square-bashing survived as one of the short cuts to physical fitness and mental alertness, besides inculcating the habit of instant response to orders, and there could not be much escape from familiar forms of drill, demonstration and schoolwork. By the use of new instructor training courses, however, those who taught were themselves taught better how to teach, a bold step spelling the eventual doom of shout­ ing petty officers drumming information into reluctant heads by monotonous parrot-like repetition. At higher levels, a process was evolved for the rapid distilla­ tion and circulation of up-to-date war experience, enabling senior officers and ships’ captains on active service to learn vicariously, through interpreters, from those of their peers who had most recently been in battle. Realistic mock-ups of warship bridges, with simulated action effects, were used for quasi-real life training ashore before command teams went to their stations afloat. Large-scale tactical war games, in which one command team could pit its wits against another, with authentic limitations built in, including those of visibility and of the types of weapon or equipment in use, were played out in synthetic schemes ashore between spells of duty at sea. Management techniques were introduced, starting with the application of work study to the manning of guns and the drilling of their crews; and the use of film as a medium of tuition was widely extended. All this effort was applied under war conditions, and Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 constantly adjusted, at a time of rapid technological change. Of all the innovations, covering a vast range of activity, from the development of flashless cordite to that of breathing tubes for submerged submarines, the most far-reaching was, no doubt, that of radar, a device in the use of which the British were, fortunately, a long step ahead of their enemies. Radar gave to the war at sea a new dimension, both by augmenting eyesight and, later, as a means of directing or The Young Professionals 179 locking weapons to their targets. In the battle against the U-boats, in combination with sonar, airborne as well as seaborne, and with new anti-submarine weapons, it became virtually decisive; and in its anti-aircraft function it gave back to the surface vessel, and not least to the aircraft carrier, much of the tactical advantage gained by aeroplanes at the expense of warships in the early stages of the war. In the sphere of administration, the Navy made up in the Second World War what it failed to achieve in the First. Most admirals, understanding now what staff officers were for, used them well, creating a healthier balance between centralised control and developed decision-making, a process aided by the introduction of faster and more sophisticated communication systems. Despite the growth and proliferation of offices and staffs, headquarters, operational, local; allied, tri-Service, naval; multi-purpose, technical, specialised: the worst pitfalls inherent in size and bureaucracy were miracu­ lously, if not by design, avoided. In short, the human factor prevailed. And of this, one example suffices: mail. In defiance of the mobility of warships, the wide spread of naval operations and the delays involved in security and censorship, the first item to come on board a warship on reaching an anchorage, strange or familiar, was more often than not a sack of letters for the crew. The success of this one among a myriad of administrative chores was an indication of the way the whole naval war machine worked or, at least, tried to; and if the cogs, taking it for granted, seldom added mail to their daily tension-releasing agenda of gripes and grumbles, this was accolade enough. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

In August 1945, suddenly, following the drop of atom bombs on Japan, it was all over. For Britain and its Navy, what price had been paid, and was this price worthwhile? In gladiatorial terms, clearly, Germany, Italy and Japan were the losers while Britain, the original challenger, saved from defeat by the energy of Winston Churchill and brought 180 No More Heroes to victory by the power of the United States, ranked high among the gold medallists. In the eyes of those who admired the arts of war the Allies’ combat had, indeed, been glorious, with Britain’s heroic stand in 1940-2 deserving special plaudits. Optime! Esto perpetual In total war and its aftermath, however, other values count at least as much; and in the long view of history it must be said that, aside from the arithmetic of bravery and honour, the British success has proved to be without much profit. In real terms, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged from the war greatly strengthened, the former to become enormously richer, more ambitious, and the latter implacably despotic giant enough to hold the world in fear; while the Germans and the Japanese, as well as their victims, notably the French, eschewing frivolity and envy-based panaceas, were to forge ahead to new heights of wealth, enterprise and weight in world affairs. And Britain? Its imperial bluff called, its will to achieve eroded, its passion spent, Britain has slithered gradually to the edge of bankruptcy. And there the great lion rests, sunning itself, its roar stilled, and in its place only the plaintive dirge of a Beatle’s love song .. ,27 Or so it sometimes seems. But one bright jewel, at least, survives in Britain’s crown: the verve and quality of its war effort, civilian as well as military; and, above all, the high regard still held at large for the professionalism, camaraderie and magnanimity of the British armed services throughout those long hard-fought years of war. For the Navy, in particular, in the thick of the fighting from the very outset, it was a time of triumph, unequalled since the heady days of Trafalgar, but the more Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 impressive as a success resting on steady and determined achievement rather than on isolated moments of dazzling splendour. When the war ended, the Navy’s affinity with the British people was closer than ever before. Could it ever be the same again? Chapter Seven

No More Heroes

It is tempting, and it would be convenient, to conclude that a country gets the fighting services it deserves; and, in the special case of Britain, the once-supreme maritime power, that the Royal Navy has long been and remains the true mirror of the nation. But, while there was undoubtedly a close affinity between Britons and their navy during the first half of the present century, this can hardly be the case today. Indeed, the differences seem more marked at present than the similarities; and for the Navy’s sake, in most respects, one is inclined to say: Vive la difference. Among some obvious distinctions are these. The Navy is buoyant and full of good cheer. It arrives on time. It believes in success. Its personnel look spruce and confident. By any management criteria its officers are self-critical, result- Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 oriented, professional. The ratings for the most part feel themselves to be associated in a worthwhile public service, sharing their officers’ loyalties and sense of purpose. Pride of calling and satisfaction in joint achievement strengthen unity as also, in time of danger, for those afloat does the fact of being, literally, all in the same boat. An unusual factor is the Navy’s easy rapport with royalty. There is no public service with which Edward VII, George V, 182 No More Heroes George VI, Edward VIII, Prince Philip and Prince Charles have had closer ties than the Navy. Cheerful family style relationships are masked, however, by traditional formalities which have long been reported in rather absurdly ornate nineteenth-century language, of which this is a typical sample: ‘Court Circular. H.M. YACHT BRITANNIA, July 31: The Queen, as Lord High Admiral, took the Lord High Admiral’s Divisions at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, this morning. ‘Her Majesty, attended by Admiral Sir Horace Law (First and Principal Naval Aide-de-camp to the Queen), arrived at Dartmouth Harbour in the Royal Yacht, escorted by H.M.S. Keppel (Lieutenant-Commander R. W. Carpendale, R.N.) and H.M.S. Caprice (Lieutenant-Commander J. C. E. Lloyd, R.N.) and, on disembarking at Dartmouth Railway Pontoon, was received by Her Majesty’s Lieutenant for the County of Devon (the Lord Roborough) and the Mayor of Dartmouth (Councillor F. C. Mullett). ‘The Parade, under the command of the Commander of the College (Commander M. E. Barrow, R.N.), received Her Majesty with a Royal Salute and The Queen inspected the Parade and presented The Queen’s Sword and telescopes. ‘Her Majesty honoured the Commander of the College and Officers with Her presence at luncheon in the Gunroom Mess. ‘Her Majesty later embarked in the Royal Barge and wit­ nessed the Royal Dart Yacht Club Junior Sailing Week at

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Waddeton Beach, subsequently returning on board the Royal Yacht. ‘The Queen this evening held a Reception on board H.M. Yacht Britannia and later, escorted by H.M.S. Keppel, sailed for the Isle of Man’1 Such quirks apart, after allowing for due deference to tradition and ceremony, the Navy’s idiom is more often than not strikingly modem. Officers recognise that the main key to No More Heroes 183 naval efficiency and success lies nowadays in the enlightened use of management skills and techniques, suitably adapted. Even so, leadership remains a potent factor, but with the important difference that it no longer expresses the self- assurance of an elite ‘born’ to command. It is more tentative, less physical. When the author, after twenty-five years away from the naval atmosphere, attended an officers’ formal guest night, he was struck at first how little the chat and the trapp­ ings had changed. The accents, however, were different: the confident public school twang was virtually no more. And the officers’ bearing was different; they looked plumper, less heroic, not so much men of muscle as bank managers on a spree. Only the guest of honour, a rear admiral, seemed out of the earlier mould. His rather splendid figure strode manfully into the anteroom, like the star of an operetta making his entrance: stiff shirt, butterfly collar, long tail coat, medals, gold-striped trousers. He circulated indefatigably, exuding vigour and bonhomie. It was a lovely performance. In the mess-room, where every inch of space was occupied, the tables and the silver gleamed, the whole lit by candles. A chaplain thanked God for what was to come, and a Royal Marine orchestra began whetting the appetite with works by popular composers. The Wrens and male attendants were supplemented for the occasion by young sailors under train­ ing; and these lads, for whom waiting at table and the sight of their officers in full pageantry was a novelty, seemed to enjoy the event almost as much as those whom they served. After iced soup, less damaging to officers’ necks than hot if acci­ dentally sloshed, there was barbecued leg of lamb with two Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 treatments of potato and two vegetables, followed by trifle and the time-honoured savoury, devils on horseback; and all the while, the four glasses to each place were being charged, in succession, with sherry, white wine, red wine and water. The tables cleared of Utter, decanters of port and a fresh set of glasses were distributed and, the Queen toasted, the admiral rose to speak. It was a serious discourse, related to the everyday work of his audience, hardly designed to 184 No More Heroes encourage hilarity, but it had some nice traditional flourishes. Referring to the training programme, ‘the impression you personally make on your men has more impact than what you actually teach. Demonstrate self-assurance. Do not worry too much about technique. We are not in industry: the prime object of the Navy is not the making of a profit. And when one of your flock exercises his right to quit, waste no tears on him. Tell him straight: too bad, you weren’t really up to scratch, too bad the Navy proved too good for you.’ Hoary stuff, but not misplaced. Junior officers, being barely a cut above their men socially, often feel shy or hesitant in their welfare officer role: class differences and a paternal­ istic view of the sailors’ problems gave their forbears an air of authority that compensated for their unworldliness. Without the old mystique, acting uncle to articulate and educated men as well versed as he in the rules of the welfare game, the young ‘divisional’ officer today may well tend to diffidence. In a training establishment his standing has been further eroded by the increasing power acquired by non-executive specialists. In particular, the instructor (formerly, school­ master) branch has largely seized control of recruit selection and assessment. The eye-catching charts and graphic displays developed by the ‘schoolies’ depict in expert statistical terms the progress and disposal of trainees, pseudo-scientific jargon adding mystery to procedures which, although imaginative, are quite easy to apply. In recent years, the engineers and the supply or ‘pusser’ (formerly paymaster) officers have also been poaching cheer­ fully in the executive domain, following the post-war decision to remove from these officers’ uniforms the former marks of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 their branches and to open up to them some of the senior command and staff posts occupied by the executives. Thus a bespectacled engineer captain may today find himself sud­ denly in the bright spotlight of a training establishment command, or a portly ‘pusser’ rear admiral in the even more celebrated glory of an area or base command. Alas, these distinctive types seldom look the part in what are traditionally ‘leadership’ roles. No More Heroes 185 Nevertheless, several perks-heavy naval shore commands survive, each held for two or three years by a succession of admirals or captains, depending on the post’s status. The incumbent finds himself living like a potentate in a large mansion, a car with chauffeur and, maybe, a launch with crew his at the shrill of a pipe. His personal staff may include also junior officers, Wren clerks, communicators, stewards, cook, gardener; and while most of his life will be devoted to meetings, paperwork and telephoning, some time must be found for inspections, the receipt of salutes and the pursuit of a programme of ‘official’ social events, including dinners, lunches or receptions to minor authorities, fellow officers, wives and other local ornaments. Small wonder if the naval executive (more correctly if misleadingly, ‘seaman’) officer, struggling to master his ever- brighter subordinates, yielding to the predations of brother- specialists, cajoled by remote perfectionists, lacks some of the self-assurance and lustre demanded by our guest-night hero; and that, in his duties as a training officer, striving within the experts’ guidelines to make the best of the human material in his care, he shows signs of anxiety. How is the process of emasculation to be halted? In the view of some naval officers, the time is ripe for the re-creating of a distinctive executive officer class, a commanding elite, the captains and the kings, comparable in status to the ‘salt horse’ of a generation or two ago. The ‘salt horse’, now extinct, was an executive officer, adept at seamanship and ship handling, who was too busy afloat, working up towards a destroyer command, to become a weapons or other executive-type specialist. To be a ‘salt Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 horse’ officer serving in a destroyer was to be a member of the Navy’s top club; while to be that destroyer’s captain was, in the eyes of most officers of middle or junior rank, to be among the gods. One difference, however, between the old ‘salt horse’ and today’s equivalent of a naval high-flyer would be in intellectual capacity: much to the latter’s advantage, no doubt. Today’s key post afloat, less flamboyant but a natural 186 No More Heroes prerequisite to command, is that of Principal Warfare Officer (P.W.O.), the man who, under his captain’s broad direction, co-ordinates and controls the ship’s fighting apparatus. The natural home of the P.W.O. is H.M.S. Dryad, the naval school the functions of which include training of warship command teams in simulated ships’ operations rooms. With the forthcoming merger of the two principal weapons schools, H.M.S. Excellent and H.M.S. Vernon, it is then but one more step towards the establishment of one central ‘fighting’ school; and the natural home for that will be Dryad, too. Here, therefore, comes a mould out of which the Navy’s new super-executive officer could well take shape. Clearly, too, this is one way to attract more high-flyers into the Navy. Another way, paradoxically, is to allow freedom to quit at short notice at almost any time: while this may lead to a fairly high wastage rate among the younger officers, by getting the half-hearted out of the way it will clear the ladder at the earliest possible stage for those officers genuinely seek­ ing a naval career. And selective promotion: can the system not allow for recognition of exceptional merit at, say, yearly intervals? The Navy is not such a closed society as to be unaware that bright young men in business and industry sometimes become managing directors in their early thirties.

A further way to boost recruiting and, one hopes, add to the spice of fife would be to open all ranks to women. No sugges­ tion alarms the admirals more than this; and when the author, in an interview with the Second Sea Lord, floated the idea, this officer seemed far from pleased. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 But times change. Uniformed women, as Wrens, serve and mess already in British naval establishments ashore, and many would gladly do their bit at sea. The wives and girl friends of male personnel afloat may object at first, imagining orgies of illicit love on the fo’c’sle, but infidelities can occur as easily, perhaps more easily, in unsupervised private corners of a naval barracks as on board a man-of-war; and no doubt do. Nevertheless, prolonged periods at sea or overseas within No More Heroes 187 the confines of a ship could create propinquities potentially more intense than in a ‘stone frigate’, with its gates opened each evening to the outside world. It would be quite simple, however, to organise ship-board messes so that female ratings were segregated from male for sleeping and ablution purposes; and with the constant reduction in the lengths of time spent abroad and the tendency to rotate crews in whole or in part at ever-shorter intervals, the girls would be unlikely, in a disci­ plined environment, particularly if they formed a minority, to have the chance to wreak much havoc. There are various arguments in support of the concept. Few jobs survive on board ship which require male muscle-power; and many of the control and maintenance tasks, involving work with delicate instruments, are at least as well suited to female aptitudes as to male. Then, women generally are smaller than men: they occupy less space, they eat less and they wear a lesser weight of clothing. In a given cubic area, ten women can exist where only nine men may at present. One alternative to mixed crews might be crews which were either all-male or all-female. Due to the relatively long periods which they spend at sea, without the chance of shore- leave, nuclear-powered submarines have two crews: at any one time, one crew is afloat, working the submarine, the other ashore, resting and training. Why should not each alternate ship of the same class, submarine or not, have an all-female crew? Yes: in such cases, the captains also would be female! And so, logically, in the interests of justice and sound incentive, there would soon have to be women admirals, too. No wonder the Second Sea Lord blenched, his own job, with its high personnel-management content, being heaven­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 sent for a woman. A Second Sea Lady, indeed. As it would need several years for any new-style female entrants to work their way up to the senior ranks, why not take the first steps now?

Meanwhile, important problems of command and organisa­ tion invite attention. At the top, where solutions must begin, some of these problems are far from being unique to the Navy. 188 No More Heroes In large-scale industry the chief executive can be seldom seen on the shop floor, being absorbed ‘behind the scenes’ with senior colleagues, visitors, officials and customers in strategy and plans, primarily technical and economic. He projects his personality, such as it may be, to the world at large and only incidentally to his own employees, relying for internal executive thrust on his organisation’s chain of command at subordinate levels. This method, administrative rather than executive, is hardly the stuff of ‘leadership’ but it can be successful in morale terms so long as communications are sound, decisions seem just and, with the right mix of favourable factors in balance, a sense of dynamic purpose pervades the enterprise. But the Navy’s headquarters has long differed from those of most other large organisations, including its sister services, in not confining itself to strategy, planning and administra­ tion. In this century the Admiralty, with its own radio station, has often interfered in the course and heat of battle, supplementing and sometimes overriding the local com­ mander’s judgement, to the extent of issuing tactical orders direct to individual ships. In the Second World War, two conspicuous examples of Admiralty intervention, one good and one bad, were its part in the concentration of forces in the North Atlantic, leading to the Bismarck's destruction, and its fatal order to the Russia-bound convoy, code-named PQ 17, to scatter. This all-wise Mogul role would be more logical and con­ vincing if the First Sea Lord, besides his existing function as Chief of Naval Staff, were designated also Commander-in- Chief of all naval forces. But, even with today’s relatively Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 small navy, this is not so: the Navy’s only operational supremo of real substance, the Commander-in-Chief Fleet, is a separate entity, with his own headquarters and chain of command. If the two posts of First Sea Lord and Commander-in- Chief Fleet are not to be merged an alternative, restoring something like the previous balance of power, would be To multiply the chief naval commands by upgrading the more No More Heroes 189 junior flag officers now in charge of Air and Submarines. Thus, in place of the earlier geographical structure, compris­ ing Home, Mediterranean, Far East and so on, there would emerge a four-headed functional structure comprising Fleet, Air, Submarines and, in recognition of the growing contribu­ tion of logistics, training and administration, the fairly new Home Command, with its responsibilities for most of the Navy’s shore bases and establishments. This arrangement would serve also to broaden and make more competitive the field of selection of immediate first sea lord candidates. In the days of large multi-purpose fleets, first sea lord candidates were able and expected to show their paces as commanders-in-chief afloat, but the robustly decisive qualities, flamboyance and love of detail which brought success in the latter posts were not usually much guarantee of the intellectual resilience called for by the former; and with few exceptions, notably Beatty and Chatfield, no one in the first half of this century showed equal mettle and distinction, with unqualified benefit to the Navy, as both a fleet com- mander-in-chief and a first sea lord. The aptitude of a modem commander-in-chief is, of course, considerably nearer the first sea lord mark, but the more well-tested aspirants for the Navy’s top job the better. Another outcome of the old system, reflecting and perpetu­ ating the Navy’s preoccupation with guns as its chief naval weapon, was an inclination, following in the Fisher footsteps, to favour gunnery specialists in the promotion stakes. More than one in three first sea lords since 1900 have been of this ilk; and among the remainder were only one former sub­ mariner and one former naval aviator. While the gunnery Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 genre has generally served the Navy well, its semi-monopoly power in high places has sometimes been a brake on develop­ ment, not least of the aircraft carrier a generation ago. It is time to loosen the gunnery officers’ grip on the Navy’s high command and dampen any fingering tendency at that level to shout the odds while holding all the cards. With the growth of administration and the trend towards delegation of the decision-forming processes, but without 190 No More Heroes prejudice to the case, already argued, for the evolution of a new super-executive type, it may be time also for full absorp­ tion of the pusser (supply) into the executive (seaman) branch. The pusser role, akin to those in industry of company secretary, cost accountant, legal adviser, auditor and personal assistant to the chairman, would then take its place alongside the existing executive specialisms: weapons, communications, navigation, aviation, submarine and anti-submarine warfare; and a due proportion of executive officers, after common initial training and sea experience, having qualified as lieutenants in pussering, would thus expect to follow their specialised bent for a few years before being steered back, upon promotion, into the executive mainstream. Thus would the Navy’s officers divide into two broadly dominant career branches: executive and engineering, the power-users and the power-suppliers; with instructors, doctors and dentists in their proper place as shorter-term servitors; and the Royal Marines, as hitherto, in their essential semi-independent amphibious niche. But two snags remain. The more hidden and chair-borne the head men, the greater the call for leadership flair further down the line: what is to be the highest rank at which author­ ity will be visible to the sailor? And the more amorphous and departmentalised the executive branch the greater the need to identify early and develop the embryo super-executives, principal warfare officers or not, and the ultimate high-flyers: when and how are the captains, senior staff officers, flag officers and sea lords of the future to be chosen and prepared?

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 These questions, lying at the core of its efficacy and mystique, are inseparable from consideration of the Navy’s character and prospects; and one starting point, an important contri­ buting factor, as noted at the outset of this chapter, is its lack of identification with certain public attitudes and values. What post-war influences have caused the Navy’s present isolation? The Allied victories in 1945 brought to Britons, hard-driven No More Heroes 191 for six arduous years of war, both a sense of release and scope, at last, for pent-up reformist zeal and idealism. An unusual degree of national unity found expression in the belief that, by joint endeavour, a new and better Britain could now and should be built. Further, the war against tyranny won, Britain’s standing was high, offering the chance in concert with the wartime Allies, through the newly formed United Nations, to help set the world to rights. Alas, these euphoric beliefs were to be eroded by the gradual discovery that the price of victory for the British was industrial obsolescence and economic impoverishment, to the point of crisis; by the grip of the new cold war; and by the humbling fact that even the reassuringly familiar Empire was falling apart at the seams. But the hopes and enthusiasm of Britons in 1945, demonstrated politically by the massive vote for a radical-socialist government, might have overridden or circumvented these obstacles, if the people’s verve and resilience had not been held back. In the event, as the 1940s drew to a close, altruism and brotherhood were already yielding to avarice and class feeling, the post-war government having failed to exploit positively enough the urge for social justice; release the creative im­ pulses of entrepreneurs, managers and workers; and lift the burden of bureaucratic controls and rationing. While other countries pressed ahead, Britain remained docile and uncertain and, by the time the Conservatives replaced Labour in 1951, the damage to the national spirit was done. Unfortunately the succeeding Tory governments, despite their bid to set the people ‘free’, failed to rally the nation; and so, between 1957 and 1963, with the Harold Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Macmillan administration’s overt appeal to self-interest and easy-going affluence, the slide through ‘swinging’ permissive­ ness to decadence began. During this period the fighting forces, although much reduced from their swollen wartime strength and far from immune to the continuing post-war economies, remained largely untainted by the decline in civilian virtues. The glories of victory fade slowly and, while planning optimistically for 192 No More Heroes an uncertain future, it is the habit of admirals and generals in the aftermath of war to re-fight past battles and of their personnel, between bouts of training and ceremonial, to enjoy the fruits of a peace-time life, enlivened by the occa­ sional scare or skirmish. It would need a decade or two, a new generation of brass hats and fairly blatant signs of obsoles­ cence before, tradition having been sufficiently permeated by innovation, radical changes in the methods and composition of the armed services could work their way through the political system and change the face of war. For the admirals, the process of imperial disintegration was posing special and unfamiliar problems. Quite suddenly, the Navy found itself deprived of its time-honoured role of policing the world’s oceans in the course of defending an empire’s far-flung lines of communication; and this jolt to its raison d’etre, combined with the stab to its amour propre represented by relegation to third place in the league of world navies, not unnaturally caused Britain’s sailors to turn in on themselves while seeking both a new shape and identity. By the 1960s, the ‘silent’ Service was once again living up to its name. Thus, the Navy’s adjustment to the nuclear age, the NATO shared-defence concept, tighter purse-strings, personnel shortages in an era of affluence and full employment, and in due course its first hesitant moves towards renewal and re­ form, occurred largely in isolation from the mainstream of national life. The public, by now not much interested in defence, took its forces for granted anyway: everyone knew that the Navy had done well in the Second World War, had managed its demobilisation efficiently and had kept the flag Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 flying off Palestine, in Korea and down the Yangste with the dashing Amethyst; and that was enough to be going on with. To the admirals, with the entire British defence system on the brink of ferment, with political attitudes fickle and uncertain, it seemed the right time to lie low. The noisy intrigues of a Fisher, the roars of protest of a Beatty, even the quiet unyielding obduracy of a Chatfield, would no longer be No More Heroes 193 tolerated; and with the intellectuals mouthing their abhorr­ ence of war and warriors, not to mention their antipathy to officers and gentlemen, discretion in a homburg was the better part of kiss-me-Hardy valour. Then there was the prevailing sentiment which favoured unification of Britain’s three fighting services, with the aim of greater efficiency through the avoidance of overlap and inter­ service friction. During the between-wars period of stringent economy and of antagonisms caused by the emergence of the Royal Air Force, inter-service rivalries had inhibited a balanced approach to rearmament; and in the early years of the Second World War effective collaboration, particularly between the Navy and the Air Force in the U-boat campaign, was still not achieved. Later in the war, however, large-scale inter-service co-operation, national and allied, exemplified by the close teamwork of joint and combined staffs, notably of those engaged on the series of amphibious operations cul­ minating in the invasion of France in 1944, reached a quite remarkable pitch; and all this provided lessons which could hardly be ignored in the post-war period. Finally, despite its isolation, the Navy could not remain wholly immune to the great social and educational changes occurring in the nation at large. Although class feelings per­ sisted, Britain was, nevertheless, becoming to an increasing extent a ‘popular democracy’, in which the old upper- and middle-class privileges and postures were an anachronism and ultimately, under the new economic, social and generation- gap pressures, doomed. As industrial workers, women, immigrants, students, all the previous underdogs, sniffing the prospect of power or freedom, began to bark and show their Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 teeth, Britain’s institutions and traditional forms of behaviour came generally under attack. The officer class had to bend to these changes even though, at the place of duty, in seeking to retain the goodwill of sub­ ordinates, it would remain safe from direct political, trade union and ‘confrontation’ pressures. Besides, die Navy’s new methods and equipment were calling for better education and training among both officers and men, which meant tapping 194 No More Heroes unfamiliar reservoirs of more sophisticated civilian talent, and adjusting to it. The days of the dashing, patrician, sword- rattling hero were definitely done.

While the cult of inter-service separateness may be condoned at middle and junior levels where many problems remain divisible and a competitive spirit helps morale, it is less excusable among the higher ranks. Too many brass hats still tend to discourage tri-service thinking. The admirals today are not all that better than their forbears at building bridges of understanding between one service and the next or towards other elements of British society. The old-fashioned high- ranking naval officer, given to salty bouts of explosive incoherence, may have seemed remote from everyday life but he was at least visible and distinctive, and allowances could be made for him His successor, articulate and attentive in a carefully measured way, yet self-effacing, looks and acts more like the civil servants with whom, for a growing amount of his service time, he shares the daily Whitehall round. An ‘organisation’ man, he may be lured too easily into the quieter corners of bureaucracy, safe from the rough edges of everyday life, even from regular contact with his own service’s rank and file. Civil servant colleagues in Whitehall can do little to lighten his darkness, having themselves come straight from university and tried since to keep at arm’s length most of the world beyond the Reform Club, the morning train from South Kensington or Sevenoaks and a bit of golf or beach life on the Algarve. But the civil servant and his wife, in their home Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 environment at least, are of the world at large, grappling politely and doggedly with mundane civilian problems, whereas the naval officer, following a roving existence in his younger years, with separations, changes of residence, periods at sea or in barracks, foreign appointments and spells in married quarters, will have had less chance to grow roots and more temptation to succumb to the more monastic ways of his calling. The cloistered nature of shipboard life, compared No More Heroes 195 with the comparatively open existence of a typical Army or Air Force posting, exacerbates the naval officer’s problem; and as captain of his ship, messed separately and alone, his off-duty aloofness is for hours at a stretch absolute. As he pauses on the threshold of the topmost ranks, how­ ever, the naval officer may enjoy the relatively eye-opening process of a year’s course at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London. This institution, established in 1927 under its original name, Imperial Defence College, ‘to train a body of officers and civilian officials in the broadest aspects of Imperial strategy’, has become the convivial meeting place of a choice selection of top British people. Here British and allied officers listen to government ministers, civil servants, industrialists, bankers, trade union leaders, experts and educationists, not to mention sages of their own cloth, in wide-ranging discussions with the object, while stretching their minds, of providing a context and perspective within which to study the evolution of defence strategy. Besides lectures and seminars, organised visits are paid to defence and civilian institutions abroad, and to a selection of venues at home representative of the national life, including factories, research centres, town halls and colleges. Each officer has to select a subject on some matter of public interest outside the scope of his usual duties and, after a programme of intensive research, combining reading with personal visits, write a thesis which will bear scrutiny by a recognised authority in the chosen field. Yet this course, despite its efforts to bring the outside world into the services’ camp, succeeds mainly in re-setting the beneficiaries’ blinkers having re-inforced their euphoria. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Its jovial Y.I.P. atmosphere feeds mutual esteem. The field visits are wrinkle-free public relations exercises by the host organisations, the hard edges overlaid with soft soap, rather than frank exposures to eager and critical minds, with every­ body on his best behaviour, parading his accomplishments, hiding his uncertainties. In terms of political power, it is presumably in the national interest to woo fighting service chiefs in this way: identified so cosily with the ruling 196 No More Heroes establishment, British admirals ought to be in no hurry to form a revolutionary government!

With the emphasis at brass-hat level more on administration and less on command, the common ground between industry and the services grows. Methods of communication; the use of computers; procurement of materials; storage and accounting systems; job evaluation; ergonomics; personnel records: these are among the areas in which each may learn from the other. In the sphere, notably, of officer development the Navy has much to teach industry. A naval officer’s career, unlike that of most industrial managers, is subject to frequent revitalising changes, upwards in rank or responsibility, side­ ways to broaden experience; and this process is checked at intervals by secondment to professional courses, and by pro­ gress reports using standardised assessment formulae. Thus, promising officers with the right aptitudes may find themselves by the age of thirty or so at Greenwich for the naval staff course, established in 1919 with the stated object ‘to make officers think’. Later, a place may be offered at the Joint Services Staff College at Chesham, where selected naval, army and air force officers of middle rank study problems of command and organisation; or again, at Greenwich, on the senior officers’ war course. Besides these, at certain stages, technical courses, basic and refresher, are provided by the specialist naval schools, while various other courses jointly with the sister services or, under NATO auspices, with allied officers are also available. And then, finally, for the Lords’ chosen, there is the accolade of the Royal College of Defence Studies. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 One important need is the introduction of selection norms related to long-term opportunities. Today’s young officers will not attain high rank until the 1990s: what then will be the shape of their Service and what new tasks will face its leaders? When the Admiralty Interview Board vets officer candi­ dates, the author was told, its members look no further ahead than what Dartmouth is likely to find acceptable; and at Dartmouth, in the case of the executive product, it is thought No More Heroes 197 more realistic to turn out potentially sound officers of the watch than to worry too much whether the output includes material of admiral calibre. A generation ago, the naval equivalent to the baton in the knapsack was a seagoing command: these were numerous and their natures, by modern standards uncomplicated, were unlikely to change very fast. Sights can no longer be set so simply. It should be possible, however, having assessed the intelli­ gence and educational minima for efficient future perform­ ance in the rank of commander, say, to require the selectors to earmark enough junior officers with the intellectual poten­ tial for that rank; and, having tested the procedure for one rank, preparation of equivalent specifications for the others could soon ensue. Thus, with follow-up checks against regularly up-dated specifications, selection criteria would be constantly improved, thereby reducing wastage, to the benefit of both of the Navy and of those who aspire to a naval officer’s career. But, with pressure on the three services to draw closer together, selection criteria applied to officer entrants ought to be taking account of the needs not of just one service but of all three. An early step should be the establishment of single selection boards, each with tri-service representation, at officer entry stage and, later on, for the vetting of those aspir­ ing to the most senior posts; and common initial training for newly joined officers, all of whom would thus spend the early months of their service lives together, before being accepted into the force of their choice. Each could then remain with his chosen service until ready for promotion to, say, vice- admiral or the equivalent in the other services, or until retire­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ment if not chosen for advancement to the highest ranks. At the top, under this scheme, there would be common titles and uniforms for all active officers above the ranks of rear-admiral, major-general, and air vice-marshal. The First Sea Lord, among others, would thus no longer be an ‘admiral’: he would be an officer of the new centralised cadre with the equivalent rank, to give it a name, of defence commandant. No doubt he would have spent most of his career, since entry 198 No More Heroes and tri-service indoctrination, on naval service but those of his Admiralty colleagues and subordinates, concerned with matters not exclusively naval, could have come up the Army or Air Force ladder. Similarly, senior commands of a mainly operational nature, notably in the Navy’s case Fleet, Air and Submarines, would be headed by defence commandants whose early careers would have been mainly with the most relevant service. On the other hand, senior field commands of a mainly administrative nature would no longer be held by officers who were formerly of one service rather than another. So, Com- mander-in-Chief Naval Home, would be replaced by, say, Defence Commandant South; and this officer, of naval origin or not, with a staff from the three services, would have jurisdiction over all non-operational defence forces and establishments in the designated area. After being divided geographically all commands of like character, hitherto naval, army or air force, would be merged in the same way. And the fighting? Someone still has to do the fighting: led by their own officers, from the rank of rear-admiral and equivalents downward, with their various traditions, tactics, uniforms and idiosyncrasies intact, this would continue to be the prerogative and the privilege, in their respective spheres, of the three existing and distinctive services.

In the Ministry of Defence, further moves towards unification would, of course, be easier if there were two services to con­ tend with instead of three. As a maritime power the security of which still depends on the defence of shipping, naval force Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 remains essential; and Britain’s defence commitments in continental Europe, besides the customary military tasks at home, and not least the facility to mount extra expeditionary forces in times of crisis, call for the retention also of a viable and versatile army. If any of the three services is expendable, this must be the Royal Air Force, whose justification in the early days of manned aircraft assumed that the air, strategically and No More Heroes 199 tactically, was divisible; and so long as it seemed that the deployment of strategic bomber forces could prove decisive in war and that specially organised squadrons of fighter air­ craft were essential for defence against enemy bombers, it was prudent to create a separate command with the will and resources to meet the challenge. The admirals and generals, with other and in their view more urgent preoccupations, and a tendency to regard the air weapon as little more than an extension of existing ship-borne or land-based artillery, were not to be trusted; or so the air lobby held. With war experience, a marked increase in the range and fire power of aircraft and greatly improved control and inter­ ception systems, these tidy concepts were to change. In the Second World War’s most deadly campaign at sea, the battle against the U-boats, it was soon found that, for ships and aircraft to work efficiently together to protect the convoys, new measures and equipment were required. More important, tactical and weapon control above, on and below the surface of the sea by the service most familiar with this element proved essential: and if the Navy had been able to exercise this control from the beginning, defeat of the U-boat would have come a good deal sooner. In fleet actions, the development of the aeroplane as a major weapon promoted the aircraft carrier in place of the battleship as the primary warship. But this brave new weapon- platform was itself virtually impotent as a fighting unit, its attack aircraft often fighting their battles far out of sight beyond the horizon. Nevertheless, although the carrier was merely a combat-shy floating base, it was a highly prized target; and, as the naval operations in the Pacific showed, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 victory in a war relying on sea communications would go to the side with the greater carrier-borne power. When the Royal Air Force was created none of these developments was envisaged, and even less could the planners foresee the post-war development of multi-role aircraft or remote-controlled highly destructive and instantly deployed rockets and missiles, with or without nuclear warheads, which could home unerringly on to unseen targets at unimagined 200 No More Heroes ranges. And now, except in limited conventional war or local operations, the manned aircraft (and for that matter, the aircraft carrier) is almost extinct as a war-winning factor. In its few remaining roles, such as anti-submarine warfare, air transport, local fighter cover, hedge-hopping strikes and short-range reconnaissance, the aircraft might just as well be under the control of the Navy or the Army, depending on which service is the main user or has the chief responsibility for defence in the given sector. Abolition of the Royal Air Force would strike a hard blow at sentiment, although less so than abolition of either of the other longer-established services. But decisions of this importance should be made on their merits, not on grounds of sentiment, and two important factors in this case are money and organisation. Two services as components of the Ministry of Defence instead of three would facilitate the centralisation of func­ tions, reduce the costs inherent in triplication and minimise continuing inter-service competition for scarce resources. The professional hierarchy at the Ministry today comprises the Chief of the Defence Staff presiding over three service chiefs of staff; and, in the event of differences of opinion at that level, this arrangement lends itself to deadlock, one pair against the other, or to old-fashioned horse-trading in pursuit of majority decisions. With a chairman and only two service heads, the chairman’s casting vote would assume a new significance and decision-making become generally quicker and simpler, while the unification process would gain by closer collaboration where it matters most but is sometimes still lacking: at the top. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

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Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 CO CO » 0 O U. C9 CO U_ OS Ul Ul w CJ LU < c I— Q- CO UJ «C ^ lIj O DC z OS CO *— »—•z CD CO CO w CD f - u. u ^ Z O < ^ »- L L i ^ £ § < > U- > D_ O CO OS O s OS _g J I— < U- O w < —I CO — CO U- Z < — CO — CD < J IU 2 U I LL DC oB LU o O —OS 32 CD dc < c co - £ I— co x x cu > «C W UJZ -J ”co sCJ c < »- — LU OS > DC UJ >- I— U. ^ 2 IS X > ff ° 5 5 S S OL < L— co u . z u . os •— co _—< z •— Ul lu UJ 3 Z OS CO •— Ul < O- <3 CJ <9 Ul to X X »- O UJ < c O X < o i- co or ^ g sc5- oU- DC^ 202 No More Heroes to political cheese-paring and public apathy exist no longer. In this century there was Germany twice, in combination first with Fisher’s drive and later with Chatfield’s tenacity. Today the grim Soviet threat should be enough but with British defence ministers and admirals no longer in the van of public life, who is there to sound the trumpet? At present, as a result of decisions made a decade and more ago, Britain maintains a modest but modern ‘balanced’ navy, a mixture of weapon carriers of different types: cruisers, destroyers, frigates; submarines; special ships and craft for amphibious warfare; minesweepers; support ships; survey ships; aircraft and hovercraft. The available weapons include long-range missiles carried by the four Polaris submarines, each of these nuclear-powered vessels having almost un­ limited under-water endurance and a fire power greater than all the bombs dropped during the Second World War; guided or homing surface-to-air, surface-to-surface, air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles; homing torpedoes; guns of six-inch calibre downward; bombs and mortars. The ‘balanced fleet’ and ‘fleet in being’ concepts are expensive and complicated, the unit cost in a multi-purpose fleet being higher than it would be in a specialised fleet comprising more vessels in each of fewer classes; and these concepts incur the risk that a Navy consisting only of a few units of several different classes may be overwhelmed in any one Of these departments through lack of numbers. The theory, now of long standing, is that a country with a small but concentrated navy operating close to its bases, by tying down the forces of a superior and more widely com­ mitted naval power, can deny to the latter much of the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 advantage of his greater strength. The smaller navy’s task, having thus divided the enemy’s forces, is to draw into battle on ground of its own choosing hostile elements of inferior strength; and, between whiles, to avoid situations in which the enemy can bring his potentially superior forces to bear. To be credible, however, the smaller navy must be prepared to match, if only in microcosm, its enemy’s punch, sophistica­ tion and versatility. No More Heroes 203 On other grounds also, given time and enough potential resources, the multi-prototype idea has much to commend it: if the basic models exist, copies can be manufactured fairly readily in an emergency. And a navy without a variety of surface ships has little to show for the taxpayer’s money: lacking glamour and conviction, morale and recruitment suffer. The determining factors are numerous. Without much regard to strategic imperatives, the British political mind tended for years to close at any price above £30 million for a single unit, yet one through-deck cruiser costs twice that amount, its complement of aircraft the same again. More economies could be made, however, without changing the composition of the fleet, through standardisation and simpli­ fication of method and materiel, budgets based on a ship’s life rather than its building costs, purchase in quantity in the cheapest reliable market and planned secondment on occasion from a mercantile to a naval role. Meanwhile, with stagnation, inflation and the ever­ growing cost of ever-more-sophisticated equipment, the price of the unit increases at a rate faster than die rise in the gross national product (G.N.P.). Worse, it has lately been the custom in Britain for the amount of money available to the fighting forces to be a fixed percentage of the G.N.P. rather than an expression of the country’s true defence needs. In Britain this percentage is currently around five, compared with the U.S.A.’s and U.S.S.R.’s more than seven per cent each, and the four per cent or less of most other West European nations. The British combination of a relatively slow-moving economy with fast-rising costs has tended to put Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 its forces increasingly at a disadvantage compared with those of more dynamic countries, allied or enemy; and before long, given rigid adherence to the percentage-of-G.N.P. formula, Britain will find itself demoted, without conscious intention, from a first-class to a second-class naval power. Moreover, in martial terms the available money, amount­ ing at present to some £3,000 million, of which the Navy gets a quarter, is being spent to less and less effect. This money, 204 No More Heroes half of which goes already to personnel costs, must cover also not only fighting units but a supporting, largely civilian infra­ structure that always expands; and civilians in Britain’s defence forces are now almost as numerous as the uniformed personnel.2 Then, the modem sailor, naturally, in present circum­ stances, expects more creature comforts at sea than his for­ bears. But more comforts mean more amenities, and where are these to go while warships exist to fight battles or, at least, pose a threat and not just to convey human beings? If the crew’s perks take up too much space or, carried to excess, induce a lackadaisical demeanour, where will the weapons go and will they be well fought? Maybe it is time to abandon the pretence that a modem warship can any longer provide a convincing home-from- home for its crew. If ship-board amenities were confined to the basic off-duty needs of food and sleep, with a single galley for all, working largely with freeze-dried victuals, there could be more space for fighting equipment and machinery; and officers and men could presumably be persuaded to accept these spartan conditions, and spells of really intensive work at sea, in return for higher pay whilst afloat, inviting and con­ veniently located accommodation in harbour and more shore-time between voyages. One day perhaps, and better still, automation will finally solve all manning problems with development of warships into crew-less weapon-carriers controlled remotely from a headquarters, fixed or mobile, of Hilton-standard luxury; and with going to war no more arduous than going to business, the era of recruit scarcity in Britain’s all-volunteer navy Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 should, at last, be over.3

Meanwhile, hard decisions have to be made about the design and manning of warships, knowing that many of these will not bear fruit until the 1990s. With the eve of the twenty-first century in view, are British warships to be versatile, capable of various operations anywhere in the world? No More Heroes 205 A growing lobby of ‘realists’, opposed to the ‘balanced’ navy policy, holds that, while a navy consisting merely of two or three dozen submarines and a bevy of small fast missile patrol boats may at first sight look unimpressive, yet with modem weapons it can pack enough punch for most purposes short of all-out war. In any event, for what periods at given speeds and in diverse circumstances must warships be able to keep the seas? Should they be built to last or to be scrapped at the first signs of obsolescence? With the demise of most of the former chain of garrisoned bases on colonial territory, what is to be the Navy’s logistic framework overseas? In foreign waters, the U.S. Navy has long preferred mobile or expendable facilities: can Britain afford the equivalent support forces? Or is the Royal Navy to cease operating beyond the range of available NATO bases? Might not each country within the alliance contribute only a limited range of warship types, leaving it to others to make up the rest of an agreed armoury? Cannot ancillary and support ships, including those carrying personnel, stores and equipment in amphibious operations, be simplified, derived from civilian models and bulk-purchased? To take one example, there are constructional affinities between an amphibious support or headquarters ship and certain types of trading vessel; and not so long ago, when the Admiralty thought of acquiring such a ship, the quoted price one-off from a British yard, using a man-of-war specification, was £35 million, or, if based on a modified civilian structure, £30 million. It happened that a British shipping company was concurrently inviting tenders for three comparable vessels, an extra copy of which, adapted to minimum naval require­ Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ments, might have been bought from a Dutch yard for only £25 million, or from a Japanese yard for a mere £15 million! But no order ensued: the British yard’s price was too high, and the politicians would not countenance the purchase abroad of a British ‘warship’. In general, the British naval dilemma is that, on the one hand, it has to work with other countries within the NATO framework and, on the other, have a capability to stand and 206 No More Heroes fight alone. The assumed potential enemy, in either event, has long been Russia; and to Britain, not forgetting the new and growing danger from air-to-surface missiles, the chief poten­ tial threat at sea, as ever, is from submarines. If the reader remains unconvinced about the Soviet naval threat, he should ask himself these questions: Why have the Russians in recent years expanded their navy from a small home-waters defence force into a near-global instrument of power and influence? Given the world’s most powerful fleet of cruisers, assault ships, missile boats and submarines, including enough nuclear-powered missile submarines to threaten, at long range, the whole of North America and Western Europe, why do the Russians still continue to expand their navy at a rate faster than that of any other nation? The Soviet fishing fleet, already the largest afloat, and the fast- growing Soviet merchant fleet may have a right to protection by their own national forces, but why would a country wealthier in natural resources than the U.S.A., with few essential import or export needs, make this vast maritime effort except as a means of getting its way, the communist- imperialist way, at will, in the world at large? Captain Mahan knew well the answers but he was not to know that, in this nuclear age, with the greater powers’ land and air weapons in deadlocked confrontation, the oceans, free of obvious national boundaries and of destructible cities and civilian populations, yet essential highways for commerce and themselves a growing source of wealth, would become the only arena in which the colossi could duel to the death without necessarily bringing the whole world down in ruins. The ships and the weapons change but not the saga! Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 In these grim circumstances, to what extent can NATO be relied upon to defend Britain? The collective will of NATO is no stronger than the wills of its member governments acting in combination. How stands that will power today? If Russian submarines started inexplicably to attack British tankers and oil installations in the North Sea and, upon protest, declined to desist, would the NATO countries go to war? Or is it too much to expect, except perhaps with total No More Heroes 207 war on the cards, that countries as far apart in geography and self-interest as, say, the United States, Canada, West Ger­ many, Italy and Greece, would fight unhesitatingly to defend England? For that matter, if similar attacks occurred off Italy, would Britain fight? If the answers are in the negative, this is by no means an argument for the abandonment of NATO, but it is an argument for Britain in the interests of its own defence, apart from its NATO commitments, to possess and maintain a credible naval deterrent. And from Britain’s point of view, is NATO strategy well- conceived? Under the supreme command of a succession of American generals, faced just beyond the Iron Curtain with a formidable array of Communist troops and armour, the possibility and menace of direct military confrontation on the central plains of Europe has long obsessed NATO minds at the expense of plans and forces to counter a serious flanking movement, whether from the Arctic or along the North Africa littoral. Even the rapid build-up of Russian naval units in both northern waters and the Mediterranean in recent years has failed to persuade the NATO high command that a marked increase in mobile naval and amphibious strength could be cheaper at the price, and more convincingly a deterrent, than any likely alternative on land; and with the gradual with­ drawal of American troops from Europe, and the greater, increasingly dangerous reliance that a weakened army must place on the use of its nuclear weapons, the argument gains in strength and urgency.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 The reader may well ask: If all this really is so important, why are the Navy, its friends in high places and the media not saying so, louder and clearer? And what, concisely, is the message? The Royal Navy, in short, is one of Britain’s prime assets; and every citizen who pays taxes helps to support it. Besides its intrinsic worth, the Navy is a hardy and vivid fibre in the cloth of the nation’s history and traditions. For centuries, no 208 No More Heroes other entity has expressed more eloquently the Briton’s pride and character, his periodic yearning for adventure and romance; no other body of men and equipment can beat it for verve and reliability; and, as an art form, no other tribal war dance can touch it. ‘The Navy is a part of us all, and only bigotry or ignorance would deny the relationship.’4 For proof, watch the eyes and posture of any mature stroller on Ports­ mouth’s ramparts caught unawares by a British warship’s passing. The Navy has not happened just by accident: if in a fit of national absentmindedness it were suddenly discarded, several generations would be needed to recreate a substitute of com­ parable quality. Only constant vigilance will ensure its con­ tinuity, for the Briton will take it for granted in peace-time, as he takes other cherished institutions for granted. Yet at the first hint of war, make no mistake, he will expect it to be there, on the job, as it always was before. As in the past, Britain’s standing in the world and its capacity for self-defence depend more on the Navy than on any other arm. British overseas investments are greater than those of any other country in proportion to the national wealth. Its merchant fleet is the second largest in the world. On any day, 1,700 Western-world vessels are at sea in the North Atlantic; 120 of these dock in Western Europe, over half of them in British ports, not forgetting a dozen or more oil tankers among the latter. British ships, besides carrying the bulk of the nation’s own imports and exports, earn £500 million foreign exchange carrying cargoes for other countries. All this may need protection and, with the continuing fast expansion of Soviet maritime power, the task becomes Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 potentially tougher every year. The Navy cannot cope alone but with no navy and only a small army the country would be at the mercy of any aggres­ sor. Then, without the Royal Navy’s leading contribution, the other European members of NATO, with their relatively ineffectual fleets, would be powerless against attacks on their shipping and against any flanking moves by Soviet forces. And it would not be a question, merely, of guarding a few No More Heroes 209 deep-water convoys against marauding submarines. The Russian fleet is highly sophisticated, mobile, strong and versatile; there are vital off-shore oil installations to defend, for example, besides shipping, fisheries and coast lines; and real defence in modem naval warfare must start with the capacity to attack and neutralise an enemy where it suits him least, preferably before he can venture off his own doorstep. Thus Britain’s highly efficient and versatile anti-submarine forces, including increasingly submarines of great power and complexity, must be prepared, among other tasks, to carry the war to Russia’s northern coast and, there, blockade its navy’s exits. This kind of capability is not created overnight. The Navy’s reputation for excellence is part of the nation’s asset, and much of it is tangible. It is as good for trade as it is for prestige that the Royal Navy is generally considered to be superior in professionalism to any other navy as also, par­ ticularly, in tactics, fleet and ship handling, anti-submarine warfare, the development of through-deck cruisers operating vertical-take-off aircraft, and the use of gas turbines for propulsion. Thus, the Navy’s substance and variety are still enough to demonstrate British skills over a very wide range of warship, weapon and control equipment design and manufacture. And the more various the proven models, naturally, the greater the spin-off in related civilian research and technology, machine tools, productive capacity and employment, not to mention directly spawned British arms exports currently worth several hundred million pounds a year; while the greater all this activity, the stronger the follow-up demands for technical assistance, training facilities, spare parts and Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 associated supplies and services. If any of these facts comes as a surprise to the reader, the Navy has obviously been failing with its public relations. It is not enough nowadays to issue statistics, background notes, news bulletins. People want to hear not merely that a good thing exists but why, how and to whom credit is due. Without indulging in personality cults, some of the Navy’s leaders deserve to be better known; so do their achievements; and, in 210 No More Heroes this respect, it is at least as important to impress the opinion- formers as the public at large. The Navy’s public relations officers do a sound if rather wooden job with routine news coverage, press handouts and the mounting of set-pieces to impress journalists; in particu­ lar, by laying on appropriate facilities, they have fathered some brilliantly informative TV and film documentaries. But behind this protective screen of mainly stereotyped publicity the admirals and other top people remain too quietly in­ conspicuous. The Navy has much to teach, and to learn, for example about management problems, but its professional heads are seldom to be seen on the platforms or in the seminars of management institutes and learned societies. Congregations gather under the auspices of bodies such as the British Institute of Management to hear sermons by university professors who know little of industry, foreign experts ill- informed about British conditions and trade union leaders with axes to grind. Why are serving admirals (and generals) seldom, if ever, invited to contribute? The appearance on a senior management platform of, say, the Navy’s Director- General Ships or Director-General Manpower, with their wide-ranging knowledge of buying, ship-building, technical co-ordination, manpower planning, administration and training, would be public relations at its most astute. Of course, the noise of trumpets off-stage sometimes sounds sweeter than a frontal blast. By this token, besides what the admirals and their publicity machinery can do officially and directly, peripheral pressure groups, notably the Navy League, given more adventurous direction, could be much Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 more active in the Navy’s cause. The Navy League, at present side-tracked into the back­ waters of Sea Cadet training, should be busier than it is in the educational arena. Occasional visits to schools by retired officers of modest rank or over-organised visits by groups of schoolmasters to Dartmouth cut too little ice; and, although the Navy’s press advertising aimed at potential recruits is cleverly done, the fact that it is commercial advertising No More Heroes 211 creates its resistance among some of those it is meant to woo. Many headmasters are prejudiced, taking the line that anything will do for the Forces, and send forward as candi­ dates for entry boys who have small hope of admission. Besides wasting time and effort, this does harm to lads, particularly those intended for entry as officers, who are thus led unfairly to expect an elevation in life beyond their true capacity; and headmasters with the welfare of young people at heart ought to be helped to take more care. Ignorance about conditions and prospects is not confined to headmasters. Many parents, fed by facetious press stories and TV comedies, recalling their own fathers’ yams about the ‘bad’ old days, tend instinctively to discourage their sons from joining up. The Navy League could assist the naval image with encouragement or sponsorship of extra publicity material and events, and with remedial follow-up action when blatantly trivial or misleading interpretations came to notice. At the same time, the Navy’s own publicity output needs augmenting to make clearer the idea that, as well as being a privilege, a spell of service in the Navy has other advantages besides instant leadership, a healthy life and learning a trade which might later have civilian value. For officer recruits, there could be more appeal to those seeking a diverse intellec­ tual challenge within particular concepts of advanced technology; the attainment of professionalism; and experi­ ence of selecting and organising programmes for the achieve­ ment of defined objectives. Alert officers below middle-age with that kind of background are readily transferable into industrial management, but are employers aware enough of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 their existence? The benefits of an environment in which integrity and altruism are cultivated should need no emphasis, but many civilians still suppose that the price of such attributes is an attitude or personality akin to some imagined or, perhaps, remembered heel-clicking, forelock-tugging dim-wit. And to anyone contemplating a naval career, much more emphasis might be placed on the chance of fulfilment in an organisation 212 No More Heroes which believes in trying to bring out the best of all its mem­ bers. Then, the Navy needs all the help it can get from its friends outside in pressing for amenities which may help to mitigate the sorrow of parting, notably in increasing the stock of housing for dislodged or transient families. The Navy, with its unique mobility, has a special case. Why not, indeed, married quarters, perhaps in adapted passenger vessels, for the wives or girl-friends of sailors while their ship is cruising? Solution of family welfare problems is sometimes as much a question of imagination, organisation, improvisation, as of money: and the same applies in public relations. With the Navy less visible than it once was, more effort and enterprise is needed in promoting public interest. There are fewer ships and men to make an impact; sailors on leave no longer wear uniform; service families live increasingly in segregated housing estates; and so on. The annual Navy Days, social visits by warships to British ports, the naval contribution to the Royal Tournament and the new ‘Know Your Navy’ touring unit are all popular but, besides these well-drilled and well-scrubbed events, there should be facilities for the public to see more of the ordinary daily work and life of their Navy and its institutions. Much that is novel could be done in concert with the tourist industry and, here again, the Navy League could take initiatives. For example, round-Britain cruises with a naval theme, in commercial passenger ships of moderate size, might prove popular and, to the tour operator, profitable, given organised visits, hosted or guided by naval personnel, to historic ports and anchorages such as Harwich, the Firth of Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Forth, Scapa Flow, the Clyde, Londonderry, Liverpool, Milford Haven, Plymouth, Portsmouth, the Medway and the Thames. Tourism would benefit and so would the Navy, and out of the revenue the Navy League, for its pains, might take a cut. For the League, to be more active, needs money. How much do companies enriched by Admiralty contracts contribute? And might not many retired naval officers be willing to remit, No More Heroes 213 say, one per cent of their pensions for the betterment of the Service which brought lustre to their youthful years?

Finally, while the letter of what is done matters, the spirit matters more. And the spirit of the whole reflecting the spirit at the top, the Navy can still count itself fortunate in the character, energy and dedication of its admirals; above all, of its first sea lords. But the latter, in deliberately adopting a more modest stance than some of their forbears, may have tended lately to lie even lower than is called for by political prudence or is good for the Service they revere. It must be tempting but could never be enough, if that is what it came to, for a first sea lord to sidle demurely into office, make a few quiet adjustments and tamely quit, content to hand the Navy over more or less intact, without funda­ mental change, to the next incumbent. In any organisation bright sparks, even periodic balls of fire, are needed to keep alive the flame of dynamism; and the Navy would now benefit from a succession of first sea lords determined, more than usual, to brush away cobwebs of bureaucratic inertia; to reduce over-lavish sectors of the Navy’s shore installations, including some largely decorative admirals and their retinues; show even more positive attitudes than hitherto to tri-service unification, viable staff structures and the further employment of women; and, generally, to demonstrate that while the spirit of Fisher lives on, the legacy of Edwardian-age attitudes, of aloofness, and of the secret- society habits that ensued, have finally been ditched. The spirit is there, as it always was, and it is unique; but it Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 needs constant revival. There is no need to hide it. Let it be shared, for the British people today could do with more of it. Notes

( The published sources listed in these notes are given more fully in the Bibliography.)

Chapter One

1 Padfield: Aim Straight. 2 Yexley: The Inner Life of the Navy. 3 The facts about this review were culled from two articles by Captain A. W. Clarke, R.N. in the Hampshire Telegraph, May 1971. The first Lord, a cabinet minister, was the political head of the Navy and very much a power in the land. The First Sea Lord (as now) was the professional head of the Navy; the other Lords being part naval, part civilian. For a comparable review today 100 warships, including minesweepers and lesser craft, under the flags of four or five com­ manding admirals, could possibly be got together but the effective fire power of this fleet, although comprising smaller ships as well as fewer, would be greater than that of the 1914 armada. Of Admiral Fisher as First Sea Lord, more later. 4 The reader can see all this for himself; in the summer months, pleasure boats, with guides, ply much the same route as that followed by the tender. H.M.S. Victory, however, is open to visitors all the year round. 5 These famous lines are taken from the song Ship Ahoy by A. J. Mills, Bennett Scott and Fred Godfrey. It was first published in 1909 and became an immediate hit. 6 From notes prepared specially for the author by his friend, Captain Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 H. K. Oram, R.N. Oram served at sea in the First World War, being present at Jutland, and in a key staff appointment at the Admiralty in the Second World War. Between times he rose to senior rank in the submarine service. 7 Lord Esher was a member of the Committee of Imperial Defence from 1905. But his considerable influence lay in his role as a confidant of the King and other top leaders of the Establishment, to many of whom he was prolific with advice and guidance. He declined several honours and political appointments, preferring his independence. Notes 215 8 Professor Arthur Marder, University of California. Marder’s five- volume series, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, established him as the leading historian of the Royal Navy in its post-Victorian heyday. 9 Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, a vociferous critic of Fisher’s regime at the Admiralty. Beresford’s last active appointment was that of Commander-in-Chief, Channel Fleet (1907-9). 10 Esher: Journals and Letters, Vol. II. 11 W. T. Stead achieved fame as Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. The quotations are taken from Bacon’s The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilver- stone, Vol. II. 12 Bacon, op. cit.

Chapter Two

1 Padfield: Aim Straight. 2 Wemyss: Life and Letters of Lord Wester Wemyss. 3 Bush: Bless Our Ship. 4 Marder: The Anatomy of British Sea Power. 5 By the end of the First World War, these men had become: Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., Admiral Lord Beresford of Metemmeh and Curraghmore, G.C.B., G.C.V.O., Rear-Admiral Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, K.C.B., D.S.O., Captain Ernie Chatfield, C.B., C.M.G., C.V.O., R.N., Captain , R.N., Commander Andrew Cunningham, D.S.O., R.N., Sub Lieutenant Lord Louis Mountbatten, R.N., Admiral Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, G.C.B., O.M. G.C.V.O., Admiral Sir David Beatty, G.C.B., G.C.V.O., D.S.O., Vice Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., C.M.G., D.S.O. (Source: Navy List, January 1919.) Pound, Cunningham, Mountbatten and Keyes were to hold active naval appointments in the Second World War. 6 Brassey’s Naval Annual, 1901. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 7 Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was Germany’s Navy Minister 1897-1916. 8 Steinberg: Yesterday*s Deterrent: Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battle Fleet. 9 After Lord Selborne, the First Lord at that time. 10 The tradition survives. In the early 1970s, the Daily Telegraph was still printing the daily results of the Royal Navy Field Gun competi­ tion at the Royal Tournament, London. 216 No More Heroes 11 The shoulder belonged to the Duchess of Hamilton, Fisher’s junior by thirty-seven years. Fisher hurt his wife deeply by spending most of his last years with the Hamiltons; he remained genuinely fond of his wife, however, and was with her when she died. 12 Weymss, op. cit. 13 Jameson: The Fleet that Jack Built. 14 Bacon: Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, Vol. II. 15 The following account of the Fisher-Beresford exchanges is based largely on Bacon op. cit.; Bennett’s Charlie B; Hough’s First Sea Lord; and Marder’s Fear God and Dread Nought: Vol. I. 16 Reginald McKenna, First Lord 1908-11, replaced the ailing Lord Tweedmouth.

Chapter Three

1 Oram: Ready for Sea. 2 Barnett: The Swordbearers. 3 Dreyer: The Sea Heritage. Most accounts of Jutland give the impression that apart from his Flag Captain, Dreyer, Jellicoe was virtually alone on the Iron Duke's bridge at this time. In fact, various aides were at hand, notably his Chief of Staff, friend and brother-in- law, Madden, a future first sea lord. But, apart from contributing fragments of information, these officers were there at his beck and call rather than as members of a team contributing positively to their leader’s conduct of the battle. 4 Gibson and Harper: The Riddle of Jutland. Sir Archibald Hurd contributed the foreword. 5 Marder: From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Vol. III. 6 Frotheringham: A True Account of the Battle of Jutland.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 I Patterson: Jellicoe, a Biography. 8 Marder, op. cit. 9 Marder: Fear God and Dread Nought, Vol. II. 10 Thomson: Recollections and Reflections. II Hankey: The Supreme Command: 1914-1918. Maurice Hankey, Secretary of the Cabinet 1916-38, was also during the greater part of his career the main continuing factor and inspiration of the Com­ mittee of Imperial Defence and its associated organs. Notes 217 12 Asquith: Diaries, 1915-1918. 13 Riddell: LordRiddelVs War Diaries, 1914-1918. 14 Gibson and Harper, op. cit. 15 Naval Review (London, April 1972). This quarterly, founded in 1912, provides ‘a vehicle for the expression of personal opinions on matters of naval interest . . . among naval officers’ and is circulated only to subscribing members. 16 Beaverbrook: Men and Power, 1917-1918. 17 Brownrigg: Indiscretions of the Naval Censor. 18 Gibson and Harper, op. cit. 19 Jameson: The Fleet that Jack Built. 20 At this time, Jellicoe held senior appointments at the Admiralty: 1908-10, as Controller; 1912-14, as Second Sea Lord. Between whiles, he served as a flag officer afloat in the Atlantic and Home Fleets. 21 Eade: Churchill, by his Contemporaries. 22 Fitzroy: Memoirs, Vol. II. 23 Winston Churchill’s offices were to include First Lord 1912-15, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1924-9, First Lord again 1939-40, Prime Minister 1940-5 and 1951-5. 24 Esher: Journals and Letters, Vol. III. 25 Jameson, op. cit. 26 Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman was First Sea Lord 1911-12. Wilson, returning quietly into retirement, was to be recalled to the Admiralty by Fisher, with Churchill’s blessing, serving as an unob­ trusive member of the Navy’s higher command from 1914 to 1918. 27 Gretton: Former Naval Person. 28 Halpern: The Mediterranean Naval Situation, 1908-1914. 29 Esher, op. cit. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 30 Scott: Fifty Years in the Royal Navy. 31 Titford: Aircraft and the Aircraft Carrier. 32 Gilbert: Winston S. Churchill. Vol. III. 33 Hough: First Sea Lord. 34 Nicolson: King George V. 35 Gilbert, op. cit. Field Marshal Lord Kitchener was Secretary of State for War 1914-16. 218 No More Heroes 36 Gretton, op. cit. 37 Gilbert, op. cit. 38 Patterson, op. cit. 39 Bacon: Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, Vol. II. 40 A. J. Balfour was First Lord 1915-16. 41 Esher, op. cit. 42 Gretton, op. cit. 43 Hankey, op. cit. 44 Sir Edward Carson was replaced later in the year by Sir Eric Geddes. 45 Kenworthy: Sailors, Statesmen - and Others. 46 Fitzroy, op. cit. 47 Wemyss: Life and Letters of Lord Wester Wemyss. 48 Hankey, op. cit. 49 From notes of a talk between Professor Arthur Marder and A. J. P. Taylor, BBC Radio 3,17 September 1971. 50 Owen: Tempestuous Journey: Lloyd George, His Life and Times. 51 Patterson, op. cit. 52 Sims: The Victory at Sea, and Beaverbrook, op. cit. 53 Jellicoe and Beatty were married in 1903 and 1901 respectively and had issue: Jellicoe (one son, five daughters), Beatty (two sons). 54 Patterson, op. cit. 55 Gretton, op. cit. 56 From an address by the First Lord, Sir Samuel Hoare, at the dedication of Jellicoe’s tomb in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. The Times, 24 November 1936. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

Chapter Four

1 Mitchell: History of the Modern American Navy. 2 Sprout: Toward a New Order of Sea Power. 3 Mitchell, op. cit. Notes 219 4 Ibid. 5 Roskill: Naval Policy between the Wars, Vol. I. Josephus Daniels was Secretary of the U.S. Navy from 1913 to 1921. 6 Mitchell, op. cit. 7 Roskill, op. cit. 8 Sprout, op. cit. 9 Roskill, op cit. 10 Sprout, op. cit. 11 This was far from all! Additionally, he bore the weight of these honours: Grand Officer of the Military Order of Savoy; Japanese Order of the Rising Sun; Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold; French Croix de Guerre (Bronze Palm); Grand Cross of Star of Rumania; Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour; Greek Order of the Redeemer Grand Cross; Chinese Order of the Excellent Crop 1st Class; Gold Medal of ‘La Solidarad’ (Panama). Source: Chalmers: The Life and Letters of David, Earl Beatty. 12 The Times, London, 29 October 1921. 13 Russell: President Harding, His Life and Times. 14 Charles Evans Hughes. 15 Sprout, op. cit. 16 Russell, op. cit. 17 Ibid. 18 The five Powers to be concerned throughout with naval disarma­ ment were the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan. When Far Eastern problems were to be discussed, these were to be joined by the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and China. Russian wishes to be included were ignored. 19 Sprout, op. cit.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 20 The main conferences subsequent to Washington in 1921 were those in Rome (1924), Geneva (1927) and London (1931, 1936). 21 Mitchell, op. cit. 22 Kennedy: The Estrangement of Great Britain and Japan 1917-35. To Britain’s dismay, the American point of view was supported strongly by Canada. 23 Ibid., quoting from Churchill’s The Second World War, Vol. I. 24 Ibid., quoting from Chatfield’s It Might Happen Again, Vol. II. 220 No More Heroes 25 Roskill, op. cit. 26 Beatty, in a speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet on 9 November 1925. Quoted by Chalmers, op. cit. 27 Roskill, op cit., quoting Lord Lee of Fareham. 28 General Jan Smuts was appointed to the War Cabinet in 1917. He was later Prime Minister of South Africa, 1919-24 and 1939-48. 29 Roskill, op. cit. The overall strength of the naval air arm at this time was 126 air stations, 9 carriers, nearly 3,000 aircraft and over 100 airships. 30 Ibid. Air Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard was Chief of Air Staff, 1918-29. 31 Davidson: Memoirs of a Conservative. 32 Ibid. 33 Hankey: The Supreme Command: 1914-1918. 34 Chalmers, op. cit. This committee, on which sat the professional heads of Britain’s three armed forces, was to become an increasingly effective instrument of inter-service co-operation on plans and operations and of joint advice and action on policy and strategy. 35 Davidson, op. cit. 36 Chalmers, op. cit. 37 The references to Lady Beatty’s illness are taken from Chalmers, op. cit. 38 Chalmers: Full Cycle. 39 From the author’s notes and recollections. 40 Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. 41 Aspinall-Oglander: Roger Keyes. 42 Of Field, more later. Madden had served in the war with quiet

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 distinction as Jellicoe’s chief of staff and then as Beatty’s second-in- command, and was highly regarded. As First Sea Lord after Beatty, he was meant to hold the fort until Keyes would become available, having first completed his time as commander-in-chief in the Mediter­ ranean. But when Keyes fell out of the running, Madden’s term was extended until, almost inevitably, it was Field’s turn next. 43 The purpose of the committee, under the chairmanship of Sir George May, was to make recommendations to the Government for ‘effecting forthwith all practicable and legitimate reductions in the national expenditure’. Its report proposed, amongst other cuts, that Notes 221 pay of the fighting services should be reduced to 1925 rates, themselves less than the rates fixed in 1919; pay of police by \2 \ per cent; teachers’ salaries by 20 per cent; and unemployment benefit from 30/- to 24/- a week. Servicemen who had joined up after 1925, being already on the new lower rate, were not affected by the recommenda­ tions, and nor were the large numbers of short-term personnel which were a feature of the strengths of the Army and R.A.F. The hardest hit, therefore, were the longest-serving personnel and, in the Navy, these happened to form the majority. 44 1st and 4th S.L.s is an abbreviation for First and Fourth Sea Lords and D.C.N.S. for Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, at this time Admirals Field, Backhouse and Dreyer respectively. Admiral Fuller was Second Sea Lord, with responsibility for personnel. Lord Stanhope was Parliamentary and Financial Secretary of the Admiralty. 45 Divine: Mutiny at Invergordon. 46 Ibid. 47 Windsor: A King's Story. 48 Divine, op. cit. 49 Edwards: The Mutiny at Invergordon. 50 Dreyer: The Sea Heritage. Other useful sources include the series of six articles, Mutiny at Invergordon, by Tim Carew (Sunday Express, London, 10 September to 15 October 1961); and Skidelsky’s Politi­ cians and the Slump. 51 Field was later put on the shelf, having been given the rank of Admiral of the Fleet; Fuller retired into obscurity; and Dreyer, who had been promised command of the Atlantic Fleet, was given the less important post of Commander-in-Chief, China Station. Tomkinson, having been censured by Their Lordships, was promoted one rank (to vice-admiral), relieved of his command and placed on the retired list. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016

Chapter Five

1 From the author’s notes and recollections. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Pratt: War and Politics in China. 222 No More Heroes 5 Mitchell: History of the Modern American Navy. 6 Barnett: The Collapse of British Power. 7 Reader: Architect of Air Power. 8 James, Admiral Sir William: Letter in The Times, London, 20 November 1967, quoted by Marder in American Historical Review. 9 Gretton: Former Naval Person. The ships named were powerful new German battleships or battlecruisers. The ‘five’ refers to the British battleships of the King George V class which came into service between 1940 and 1942. 10 Hart: Memoirs. 11 Beatty, Admiral of the Fleet, Earl: ‘What the Navy Needs’ (Evening Standard, London, 8 November 1935). The italics are the present author’s. 12 This programme, in modified form, was not implemented until 1937. The key Committee of Imperial Defence memorandum on re­ armament, including this vital facet, is contained in Cabinet Paper 16/182 of 29 April 1937. 13 Pownall: Diaries, 1933-40. 14 Chatfield Papers. 15 Hitler: Speeches 1922-1939. 16 Churchill: The Second World War, Vol. I. 17 From a speech in the House of Lords, reported in Hansard, London, 3 October 1938. 18 Boca: The Ethiopian War 1935-1941. 19 Ibid., quoting Denis Mack Smith. 20 Martelli: Italy against the World. 21 Wiskemann: The Rome-Berlin Axis. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 22 Pini and Sushel: Mussolini, TUomo e TOpera. 23 Edwards: The Grey Diplomatists. 24 Churchill, op. cit. 25 From the author’s notes and recollections. 26 Pini, op. cit. 27 This was the speech acknowledged by Churchill, vide note 24 above. Notes 223 28 Vansittart: The Mist Procession. 29 Cunningham: A Sailor’s Odyssey. 30 Templewood: Nine Troubled Years. 31 Churchill, op. cit. 32 For example: Frankfurter Zeitung, 4 October 1935: ‘We must take every possible step to localise this colonial war and to prevent it from leading to a flare-up in Europe Signor Mussolini bears an exceed­ ingly grave responsibility on his shoulders’; Deutsche Shule, official magazine for Third Reich educators, quoted in the Morning Post, London, 16 October 1935: ‘The Italian people are consumed by a sickly striving to pass for a nation that is great and important.’ 33 From a news item in The Times, London, 20 September 1935. 34 Marder, Arthur: ‘The Royal Navy and the Ethiopian Crisis of 1935-36’, quoting Chiefs of Staffs Report, 10 October 1935 (American Historical Review, June 1970). 35 Martelli, op. cit. 36 Wiskemann, op. cit. The Germans took the Rhineland in March 1936. 37 Marder, op. cit. 38 Reader, op. cit. 39 Churchill, op. cit. 40 Pownall, op. cit. 41 Chatfield, It Might Happen Again, Vol. II. 42 Davidson: Memoirs of a Conservative. 43 From the author’s notes and recollections. 44 Barnett, op. cit. 45 This was the Defence Policy and Requirements Sub-Committee

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 of the Committee of Imperial Defence and its members were the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord President of the Council, the Foreign Secretary, the three Service Ministers, the President of the Board of Trade - and Weir. The sub-committee was set up in July 1935. 46 The quotations concerning Lord Weir were taken from Reader, op. cit. 47 The Chatfield Papers, particularly a letter of 24 May 1937 from Chatfield to his First Lord, Hoare, recommending W. W. Fisher as 224 No More Heroes the next First Sea Lord. Hoare is on record three days later, however, as preferring Backhouse, the man ‘most likely to maintain continuity of the present programme’. 48 From the author’s notes and recollections. 49 These dispositions are extracted from the Pink Lists, available for scrutiny at the Admiralty Library, London. 50 Simon: Retrospect. Hankey was Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence. 51 The office-holders at this time were: prime ministers: Macdonald, Baldwin, Chamberlain; foreign secretaries: Simon, Hoare, Eden; chancellors of the exchequer: Chamberlain, Simon; first lords of the Admiralty: Eyres Monsell, Hoare, Duff Cooper; chiefs of the imperial general staff: Montgomery-Massingberd, Deverell, Gort; and chiefs of the air staff: J. Salmond, G. Salmond, Ellington, Newall. Baldwin became Prime Minister in June 1935, being replaced by Macdonald as Lord President of the Council. In December 1935, after only six months in the post, Hoare was followed as Foreign Secretary by Eden, formerly Minister for League of Nations Affairs. Hoare became First Lord in June 1936, making way for Duff Cooper in May 1937, the month in which Chamberlain, after wielding much influence at the Exchequer, succeeded Baldwin as Prime Minister. 52 From the Preamble to the Articles of War. 53 Gladwyn: Memoirs.

Chapter Six

1 The strength of the Royal Navy in the autumn of 1939 was 15 battleships and battlecruisers, with 4 building; 6 aircraft carriers, with 6 building; 63 cruisers, with 19 building; 168 destroyers, 53 sloops and 69 submarines. The first batches of the new escort (Hunt class) destroyers and corvettes were building. There were 4 naval air stations

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 ashore and some 230 operational aircraft in the Navy’s air arm. Naval personnel numbered about 120,000 officers and men, with a further 80,000 on the reserve lists. Principal source: Roskill: The Navy at War 1939-1945. At the same time, the German fleet comprised 7 battle­ ships and battlecruisers (most of them new), with 2 building; 6 cruisers, with 4 building; 17 destroyers and 57 submarines. One air­ craft carrier was building. Principal source: Naval Review, July 1973. 2 Brice: The Royal Navy and the Sino-Japanese Incident, 1937-41. 3 From the author’s notes and recollections. Notes 225 4 Ismay: Memoirs. 5 Gretton: Former Naval Person. 6 Doenitz: Memoirs. 7 Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham was Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean 1939-42 and First Sea Lord 1943-6, serving between these appointments under General Eisenhower’s supreme command as Naval Commander-in-Chief of the Allied expeditionary forces in the North African and Mediterranean theatres. 8 Bekker: Swastika at Sea. 9 Kemp: Victory at Sea 1939-45. 10 U-boat losses in all, out of almost 1,200 commissioned, were to be over 900 (including 150 captured), more than half of these falling victim to British forces, the battle honours in the open sea being divided about equally between ships and aircraft. The losses of ships sailed in escorted Atlantic convoys to and from Britain were, how­ ever, less than 1 per cent. Source: Roskill, op. cit. 11 For a concise account of this historic operation, one of the hardest-fought convoy battles of the war, see the author’s The Maltese Islands. 12 Even so, 5,000 tanks and 7,000 aircraft were among the £300 million-worth of war supplies sent by the Northern Route to Russia. But, if judged solely as a means of supplying Russia, this was a costly way of going about it, the losses of ships in escorted Arctic convoys being more than 7 per cent, not to mention the diversion of effort. And more than three-quarters of British and American deliveries to their allies went by other routes, mainly through the Persian Gulf. Sources: Roskill, op. cit., and Schofield: The Russian Convoys. 13 From the author’s notes and recollections. 14 The three foregoing quotations are from the script of a radio talk which the author, then First Lieutenant of the Obdurate, wrote soon after the action for transmission by the BBC Overseas Service. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 15 Roskill, op. cit. 16 Kemp, op. cit. 17 Bekker, op. cit. and Porten: The German Navy in World War II. Later, however, Doenitz wrung from Hitler a half-hearted reprieve for three of the sentenced capital ships, Tirpitz, Lutzow and Scharhhorst, which, operating once more from Norway, were to become a renewed thorn in the British flesh. After damage by midget submarine and then by repeated aerial bombing attacks the Tirpitz was sunk at her 226 No More Heroes moorings in November 1944, the Lutzow being by this time immo­ bilised in Germany with engine failure, while the Scharnhorst9 as already noted, was sunk at sea by the British fleet in December 1943. 18 During research for this book the author, who in 1943-4 was a member of the Admiralty’s team responsible for introducing the Navy’s new officer selection and training scheme, was impressed to find how little the system used today for vetting most categories of officer entrants has been changed in over thirty years. 19 It was not until the summer of 1945, with the war in Europe won, that Britain was able to make any major contribution to the American campaign in the Pacific. By August 1945, when Japan surrendered, the British naval force in that theatre had grown to 1 battleship, 4 air­ craft carriers, 5 cruisers, a dozen destroyers, over 200 fighting aircraft and a miscellany of supporting supply ships. 20 Ismay, op. cit. 21 Ibid. 22 Edwards: Men of Action. 23 Hart: Memoirs. 24 The Chatfield Papers. 25 See note 7 of this chapter. 26 Roskill, op. cit. 27 One assessment of Britain’s sacrifice and decline is given by Corelli Barnett who, in his book The Collapse of British Power, claims that Britain was effectively bankrupt by 1941, British war power henceforward being in essence American war power. By 1944, with 55 per cent of its manpower on war duty or war work, against the U.S.A.’s 40 per cent, British exports were running at only 31 per cent of the 1938 figure; and its industry, by and large, was in no fit state to re-enter the peacetime arena. To take one measure: Britain Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 lost to enemy submarines alone over half its merchant shipping tonnage.

Chapter Seven

1 The quoted text, slightly abbreviated, looks timeless but is from the Court Circular column of The Times of 1 August 1972. Notes 227 2 In all, Britain’s forces give direct employment to some J million individuals, including about 20,000 in the Ministry of Defence of whom over 4,000 are uniformed. 3 Apart from Canada, and more recently the United States, Britain is the only NATO country to get by with all-volunteer forces. 4 Morris, James: ‘A View of the Royal Navy’ (Encounter, London, March 1973). Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Appendix A The British Ministry of Defence

Since 1964, the defence roles of the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry have been merged in a unified Ministry of Defence with a central staff which, besides formulating defence policy, is the instrument whereby Britain’s armed forces are meant to be con­ trolled and managed. The Ministry is staffed partly by civil servants and partly by serving officers. Within this unified structure, the three Services retain many inward and visible signs of their former separate identities; for example, each has its own staff, to propose and interpret overall policy and strategy, while distinctive ranks and uniforms are maintained. The Secretary of State for Defence, a member of the Cabinet, is supported politically by four junior ministers, including one for each of the three Services, and professionally by the Chief of Defence Staff, who chairs a committee of chiefs of staff, namely the First Sea Lord (an admiral), the Chief of the General Staff (a general) and the Chief of the Air Staff (an air chief marshal). The Chief of Defence Staff is a senior officer selected in turn from each Service. The Royal Navy, within this new framework, continues to be directed and administered by an Admiralty Board, the leading members of which are, politically, the Navy’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and, professionally, the First Sea Lord. The Sovereign continues to be the titular head of the Navy, as also of each of the other two Services; and the First Sea Lord, for the time being, retains the right of direct access to the Prime Minister. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Appendix B First Sea Lords since 1900

14 August 1899 Vice Adm. Lord Walter Kerr 20 October 1904 Adm. Sir John Fisher 25 January 1910 Adm. Fit. Sir Arthur Wilson 5 December 1911 Adm. Sir Francis Bridgeman 9 December 1912 Adm. H. S. H. Prince Louis of Battenberg 30 October 1914 Adm. Fit. Lord Fisher of Kilverstone 27 May 1915 Adm. Sir Henry Jackson 4 December 1916 Adm. Sir John Jellicoe 10 January 1918 Act. Adm. Sir Rosslyn Wemyss 1 November 1919 Adm. Fit. Earl Beatty 30 July 1927 Adm. Fit. Sir Charles Madden 30 July 1930 Adm. Sir Frederick Field 21 January 1933 Adm. Sir A. Ernie Chatfield 7 September 1938 Adm. Sir 12 June 1939 Adm. Sir A. Dudley Pound 15 October 1943 Adm. Fit. Sir Andrew Cunningham 10 June 1946 Adm. Sir John Cunningham 6 September 1948 Adm. Lord Fraser of North Cape 20 December 1951 Adm. Sir Rhoderick McGrigor 18 April 1955 Adm. Earl Mountbatten of Burma 1 May 1959 Adm. Sir 23 May 1960 Adm. Sir 7 August 1963 Adm. Sir J. 28 February 1966 Adm. Sir Varyl Begg 13 August 1968 Adm. Sir Michael Le Fanu 3 July 1970 Adm. Sir Peter Hill-Norton 12 March 1971 Adm. Sir Michael P. Pollock

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 1 March 1974 Adm. Sir The dates are those on which the appointments were taken up and the ranks are those applicable on the given dates. Appendix C A Note on NATO

NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) came into being in 1949 as a defensive alliance. Its member countries today are: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States. For the time being France has opted out of certain NATO obligations. NATO makes major decisions only with the unanimous agree­ ment of the member countries. Its own top Cabinet is the North Atlantic Council which, normally, consists of a permanent repre­ sentative of ambassador’s rank from each member country; but this Council sometimes meets at other levels: for example, prime ministerial or foreign ministerial. Its Chairman is the NATO Secretary General. The next most important body is the Military Committee, com­ prising uniformed representatives from each member country, under a rotating Chairman. This Committee determines defence policy and strategy, these being carried into effect on its behalf by the three major NATO Commanders: 1. SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe). This post, held by an American General, is located at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) in Belgium. SACEUR’s responsibilities include overall command of NATO’s Continental land and air forces. 2. SACLANT (Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic). This post, held by an American Admiral, is based at Norfolk, Virginia. SACLANT is responsible for operations on, under and over the Atlantic Ocean, other than the approaches to the Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 British Isles. 3. CINCHAN (Commander in Chief Channel). This post, held by a British Admiral, is located at Northwood, London. CINCHAN is responsible for operations in the North Sea and English Channel maritime areas. Under these three top Commanders, each served by multi­ national staffs, there are several subordinate commands. The military sub-commands (under SACEUR) are in Norway, Holland, Germany, Italy and, of the supporting air forces, 232 No More Heroes England. The Atlantic sub-commands (under SACLANT) include a small striking force of surface ships and submarines permanently on their war stations, with responsibility for certain operations in the Eastern Atlantic sector being delegated to the same British Admiral who occupies the (more senior) post of CINCHAN. The maritime sub-commands under CINCHAN are located at Plymouth, Rosyth, in Holland and, for air cover pur­ poses, at Northwood. Forces operating under NATO Commanders retain their national identities, being effectively ‘on loan’ from the member countries. At the main Brussels headquarters, however, an inter­ national staff under the NATO Secretary General contains a per­ manent ‘civil service’ element. From the outset, NATO’s assumed enemy has been the U.S.S.R. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Appendix D The Dreadnought Revolution, 1906—1916

Up to 1910 the revolutionary British battleship Dreadnought (launched and completed in 1906) acquired six close relations: Bellerophon, Temeraire, Superb, St Vincent, Collingwood, Van­ guard. The comparable battlecruisers, completed between 1908 and 1913, were Invincible, Indomitable, Inflexible, Indefatigable, New Zealand, Australia. The battleship Dreadnought's vital statistics were: displace­ ment, 17,900 tons; length, 490 feet; propulsion, coal-fired boilers (convertible to oil) linked to turbine engines; horsepower, 27,500; main armament, ten 12-inch guns in five turrets, various smaller guns and five torpedo tubes; armour up to eleven inches thick; speed, 21.85 knots; cost, £1,813,100; complement, 770; launched and completed in 1906. The battlecruiser version had much the same displacement but was longer (530 feet) and faster (26 knots); it had two fewer heavy guns and armour not more than seven inches thick. Battleship technology evolved rapidly, more powerful and more sophisticated successors to the original Dreadnoughts being intro­ duced in the ten years leading up to Jutland, including the famous Iron Duke (ten 13.5-inch guns) and Queen Elizabeth (eight 15-inch guns) classes. In all, within the period 1906-1916, Britain brought into active service no less than forty battleships and battle­ cruisers, at a total cost of more than £70 million. Meanwhile, foreign powers were far from idle. Before the end of 1906, the U.S.A. had laid down its own first Dreadnought- type battleship. In the summer of 1907, Germany followed suit. By 1916, the world score of modem capital ships in service or

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 building was: Britain 45, Germany 26, U.S.A. 17, France 16, Russia 11, Japan 7, Italy 6, Austria-Hungary 4, Spain 3, Argen­ tine 2, Brazil 2, Turkey 1; total 140. (Principal source: Brassey’s Naval Annual, 1915.) Appendix E The Royal Navy Today

With some 200 warships the Royal Navy is today the world’s third largest and the NATO Alliance’s second largest navy. In 1974, the main types of vessel building or in service were: Submarines, nuclear powered Polaris force. 7,000 tons, crew 145. Missiles 16 each, range 2,500 miles. 4 Submarines, nuclear powered fleet hunter-killers. 3,500 tons, crew 100. Armament includes anti-submarine torpedoes. 9 Submarines, diesel powered patrol vessels. 2,400 tons, crew 70. Main armanent, homing torpedoes. 21 Cruisers, Tiger class. 12,500 tons, crew 900, operation command facilities. 2 Destroyers, County class. 5,000 tons, crew 480. Arma­ ment includes long-range missiles. 8 Destroyers, other types. One 6,000, remainder 3,500 tons, crew 450 and 270 6 Frigates, various types. 2,500-1,200 tons, crew up to 260. 66 Commando, assault and landing ships, for amphibious warfare: 28,000-4,500 tons, crew (excluding assault personnel), up to 1,000. Larger types have command facilities. 12 Minelayers, minesweepers and patrol boats. 48 Survey and ice patrol ships. 14 Aircraft. Every surface warship of frigate size and larger carries at least one helicopter, the primary role in most cases being anti­ submarine. Besides its various types of helicopter, the Navy operates fixed-wing strike, fighter and reconnaissance aircraft, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 including the Phantom turbo-jet with its speed above mach 2. The surviving aircraft carrier, Ark Royal (43,000 tons, crew 2,600) is on its way out. The proposed new through-deck cruisers, with their complement of helicopters and/or Harrier jump-jet aircraft, are meant to fill the gap. The Navy’s fighting units are supported by numerous vessels sailing under the blue flag of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, including: Repair, depot, maintenance and hospital ships. 5 Tankers, store, armament supply and other support ships. 25 Appendixes 235 (For the time being, the Navy’s hospital ship does duty as the Royal yacht.) Uniformed personnel serving in the Royal Navy number approximately 85,000. By comparison, the U.S. Navy has half a million individuals manning about 600 war vessels, including 150 submarines of which a third are nuclear powered; while the Soviet Navy possesses some 1,000 broadly comparable warships, including over 400 sub­ marines of which approaching a quarter are nuclear powered, with additionally nearly 500 small missile and torpedo boats. Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Bibliography

a . Books on mainly naval topics Aspinall-Oglander, Cecil: Roger Keyes, Being the Biography of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Keyes of Zeebrugge and Dover, G.C.B. K.C.V.O., C.M.G., D.S.O. (Hogarth, London, 1951). Bacon, Admiral Sir Reginald, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., D.S.O.: The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone Admiral of the Fleet, Q.M. G.C.B., G.C.V.O., Vol. II (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1929). The Life of John Rushworth Earl Jellicoe (Cassell, London, 1936). Barnett, Corelli: The Swordbearers; Studies in Supreme Command in the First World War (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1963). Bekker, C. D .: Swastika at Sea, the Struggle and Destruction of the German Navy 1939-45 (William Kimber, London, 1953). Bell-Davies, Vice Admiral Richard, V.C., C.B., D.S.O., A.F.C.: Sailor in the Air. Memoirs (Peter Davies, London, 1967). Bennett, Geoffrey: Charlie B: A Biography of Admiral Lord Beresford (Dawnay, London, 1968). Bradford, Admiral Sir Edward E., K.C.B., C.V.O.: Life of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson Bt„ V.C., G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O. (John Murray, London, 1923). Brice, Martin, H.: The Royal Navy and the Sino-Japanese Incident, 1937-41 (Ian Allan, London, 1973). Brogadin, Commander Marc Antonio, Italian Navy: The Italian Navy in World War II (United States Naval Institute, Annapolis, 1957). Brookes, Ewart: The Gates of Hell (Jarrolds, London, 1960). Brownrigg, Rear Admiral Sir Douglas, Bt.: Indiscretions of the Naval Censor (Cassell, London, 1920). Bush, Captain Eric Wheler, D.S.O., D.S.C., R.N.: Bless Our Ship (Allen & Unwin, London, 1958),

Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Cable, James: Gunboat Diplomacy: Political Applications of Limited Naval Force (Chatto & Windus, London, 1971). de Chair, Admiral Sir Dudley, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., M.V.O.: The Sea is Strong (Harrap, London, 1961). Chalmers, Rear-Admiral W. S., C.B.E., D.S.C.: The Life and Letters of David, Earl Beatty (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1951). Max Horton and the Western Approaches (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1954). Full Cycle: The Biography of Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, K.C.B., K.B.E., M.V.O. (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1959). Bibliography 237 Chatfield, Admiral of the Fleet Lord, P.C., G.C.B., O.M.: It Might Happen Again, Vol. II: The Navy & Defence (Heinemann, London, 1947). Cunningham of Hyndhope, Admiral of the Fleet Viscount, K.T., G.C.B., O.M., D.S.O.: A Sailor*s Odyssey (Hutchinson, London, 1951). Divine, David: Mutiny at Invergordon (Macdonald, London, 1970). Doenitz, Admiral: Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1959). Dreyer, Admiral Sir Frederic C., G.B.E., K.C.B., C.B.: The Sea Heritage: A Study of Maritime Warfare (Museum Press, London, 1955). Edwards, Lt-Commander Kenneth, R.N. Retired: The Grey Diplo­ matists (Rich & Cowan, London, 1938). The Mutiny at Invergordon (Putnam, London, 1937). Fairhall, David: Russia Looks to the Sea: A Study of the Expansion of Soviet Maritime Power (Andre Deutsch, London, 1971). Frotheringham, T. G .: A True Account of the Battle of Jutland (Harvard University Press, U.S.A., 1920). Gardiner, Leslie: The Royal Oak Courts Martial (Wm. Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1965). Gibson, Langhorne and Harper, Vice-Admiral J. E. T.: The Riddle of Jutland (Cassell, London, 1934). Graham, Gerald, S.: The Politics of Naval Supremacy: Studies in British Maritime Ascendancy (Cambridge University Press, 1965). Gretton, Vice Admiral Sir Peter, K.C.B., D.S.O., O.B.E., D.S.C.: Former Naval Person: Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy (Cassell, London, 1968). Halpem, Paul, G.: The Mediterranean Naval Situation, 1908-1914 (Harvard University Press, U.S.A., 1941). Hatch, Alden: The Mountbattens (W. H. Allen, London, 1966). Hezlet, Vice Admiral Sir Arthur, K.B.E., C.B., D.S.O., D.S.C.: Aircraft and Sea Power (Peter Davies, London, 1970). Hough, Richard: First Sea Lord, An Authorised Biography of Admiral Lord Fisher (Allen & Unwin, London, 1969). James, Admiral Sir William: Admiral Sir William Fisher (Macmillan, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 London, 1943). A Great Seaman: The Life of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry F. Oliver, G.C.B., K.C.M.G., M.V.O., L.L.D. (Witherby, London, 1956). The Portsmouth Letters (Macmillan, London, 1946). Jameson, Rear Admiral Sir William, K.B.E., C.B.: The Fleet that Jack Built (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1962). Jellicoe, Admiral Viscount, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O.: The Grand Fleet 1914-1916: Its Creation, Development and Work (Cassell, London, 1919). 238 No More Heroes Kemp, Lt. Commander P.K., F.R., Hist. S., F.S.A., R.N. (Rtd.): Victory at Sea 1939-45 (Muller, London, 1957). (ed.) The Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher (Navy Records Society: Vol I., 1960, Vol. II, 1964). The Social History of the Lower Deck (Dent, London, 1970). Kenworthy, Lt. Commander the Hon. J. M., R.N.: Sailors, Statesmen - and Others: An Autobiography (Rich & Cowan, London, 1933). King, Earnest J. and Whitehall, Walter Muir: Fleet Admiral King, A Naval Record (W. W. Norton, U.S.A., 1952). Laffin, John: Jack Tar The Story of the British Sailor (Cassell, London, 1969). Legg, Stuart: Jutland, An Eye Witness Account of a Great Battle (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1966). Lowis, Commander Geoffrey L.: Fabulous Admirals, and Some Naval Fragments (Putnam, London, 1957). MacIntyre, Captain Donald: The Thunder of the Guns (Frederick Muller, London, 1959). The Battle of the Atlantic (Batsford, London, 1961). The Battle for the Mediterranean (Batsford, London, 1964). Aircraft Carrier, the Majestic Weapon (Macdonald, London, 1968). Marder, Arthur J.: Fear God and Dread Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone Vol. I (Jona­ than Cape, London, 1952), Vol. II (Jonathan Cape, London, 1956). Portrait of an Admiral. The Life and Papers of Sir Herbert Rich­ mond (Jonathan Cape, London, 1952). From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow; The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919. Vol. Ill: Jutland and After (May 1916-December 1916) Oxford University Press, 1966). Vol. IV: 1917: Year of Crisis (Oxford University Press, 1969). Vol. V: Victory and Aftermath (January 1918-June 1919) Oxford University Press, 1970). The Anatomy of British Sea Power (Frank Cass, London, 1964). Martienssen, Anthony: Hitler and His Admirals (Seeker & Warburg, London, 1948). Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Martin, L. W.: The Sea in Modern Strategy (Chatto & Windus, London, 1967). McLachlan, Donald: Room 39 - Naval Intelligence in Action 1939-45 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1972). Mitchell, Donald W.: History of the Modern American Navy: From 1883 through Pearl Harbor (John Murray, London, 1947). Oram, H. P. K .: Ready for Sea (Seeley Service, London, 1974). Padfield, Peter: Aim Straight - A Biography of Admiral Sir Percy Scott (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1966). The Battleship Era (Military Book Society, London, 1972). Bibliography 239 Patterson, A Temple (ed.): The Jellicoe Papers (Navy Records Society: Vol. 1 1966, Vol. I I 1968). Jellicoe (Macmillan, London, 1969). Tyrwhitt of the Harwich Force, The Life of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt (Macdonald, London, 1973). Pope, Dudley: 73 North: The Battle of the Barents Sea (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1958). Porten, Edward P. Von der: The German Navy in World War II (Arthur Barker, London, 1970). Raeder, Grand Admiral: Struggle for the Sea (William Kimber, London, 1959). Richmond, Admiral Sir Herbert, K.C.B.: Sea Power in the Modern World (Bell, London, 1934). Rohwer, J. and Hummelchen, G.: Chronology of the War at Sea 1939-1945, Vol. I: 1939-1942 (Ian Allan, London, 1972), Vol. II: 1943-1945 (Ian Allan, London, 1974). Roskill, Captain S. W., D.S.C., R.N. Rtd: The Navy at War 1939- 1945 (Collins, London, 1960). The Strategy of Sea Power (Collins, London, 1962). Naval Policy Between the Wars Vol. I: The Period of Anglo- American Antagonism 1919-1929 (Collins, London, 1968). Schofield, B. B.: The Russian Convoys (Batsford, London, 1964). British Sea Power (Batsford, London, 1967). Scott, Admiral Sir Percy, Bt., K.C.B., K.C.V.O., Hon. LL.D. Cam: Fifty Years in the Royal Navy (John Murray, London, 1919). Shankland, Peter and Hunter, Anthony: Malta Convoy (Collins, London, 1961). Sims, Rear Admiral William Sowden, U.S. Navy: The Victory at Sea (John Murray, London, 1920). Sprout, Harold and Margaret: Toward a New Order of Sea Power: American Naval Policy and the World Scene, 1918-1922 (Princeton University Press, U.S.A., 1946). Steinberg, Jonathan: Yesterday’s Deterrent: Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battle Fleet (Macdonald, London, 1965). Von Tirpitz, Grand Admiral: My Memoirs (Hurst & Blackett, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 London, 1919). Warner, Oliver: Cunningham of Hyndhope, Admiral of the Fleet (John Murray, London, 1967). Great Seamen (Bell, London, 1961). Wemyss, Lady Wester: Life and Letters of Lord Wester Wemyss, Admiral of the Fleet (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1935). Yexley, Lionel: The Inner Life of the Navy (Sir Isaac Pitman, London, 1908). 240 No More Heroes

b . Books of general or background interest

Allen, Wing Commander H. R., D.F.C.: The Legacy of Lord Trench­ ard (Cassell, London, 1972). Asquith, Lady Cynthia: Diaries, 1915-1918 (Hutchinson, London, 1968). Aston, Brigadier General G. G., C.B.: Letters on Amphibious Wars (John Murray, London, 1911). Balfour, Michael: The Kaiser and His Times (Cresset Press, London, 1964). Barck, Oscar Theodore and Blake, Nelson Manfred: Since 1900 A History of the United States in Our Time (Macmillan, U.S.A., 1947). Barnett, Corelli: The Collapse of British Power (Eyre Methuen, London, 1972). Baynes, Lt. Colonel J. C. M.: The Soldier in Modern Society (Eyre Methuen, London, 1972). Beaver brook, Lord: Men and Power, 1917-1918 (Collins, London, 1956). Boca, Angelo Del: The Ethiopian War 1935-1941 (University of Chicago Press, U.S.A., 1969). Boyle, Andrew: Montagu Norman (Cassell, London, 1967). Trenchard (Collins, London, 1962). Bryant, Arthur: The Turn of the Tide 1939-1943 (Collins, London, 1957). Carr, Edward Hallett: The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939 (Mac­ millan, London, 1946). Churchill, Winston S.: The Second World War: Vol. I: The Gathering Storm (Cassell, London, 1948). Vol. II: Their Finest Hour (Cassell, London, 1949). Vol. Ill: The Grand Alliance (Cassell, London, 1950). Vol. IV: The Hinge of Fate (Cassell, London, 1951). Vol. V: Closing the Ring (Cassell, London, 1952). Vol. VI: Triumph and Tragedy (Cassell, London, 1954). Cooper, Duff: Old Men Forget: the Autobiography of Duff Cooper Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1953). Davidson, J. C. C.: Memoirs of a Conservative: J. C. C. Davidson's Memoirs and Papers, 1910-37, (ed.) James, Robert Rhodes (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1969). Eade, Charles (ed.): Churchill by his Contemporaries (Hutchinson, London, 1953). Edwards, Commander Kenneth, R.N.: Men of Action (Collins, London, 1943). Esher, Viscount Reginald: Journals and Letters, Vol. II: 1903-1910, (ed.) Brett, Maurice V. (Ivor Nicholson & Watson, London, 1934), Bibliography 241 Vol. Ill: 1910-1913 (ed.) Esher, Viscount Oliver (Ivor Nicholson & Watson, London, 1938). Fitzroy, Almeric: Memoirs, Vol. II (George H. Doran, U.S.A., 1934). Gilbert, Martin: Winston S. Churchill, Vol. Ill, 1914-1916 (Heine- mann, London, 1971). Gilbert, Martin and Gott, Richard: The Appeasers (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1963). Gladwyn, Lord: Memoirs (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1972). Hankey, Lord: The Supreme Command: 1914-1918, Vols. I and II (Allen & Unwin, London, 1961). Hart, Captain Liddell: The Memoirs of Captain Liddell Hart, Vols. I and II (Cassell, London, 1965). Harvey, Oliver: The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey 1937-1940, (ed.) Harvey, J. (Collins, London, 1970). Hitler, Adolf: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler April 1922-August 1939 (ed.) Baynes, Norman (Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1942). Ismay, General the Lord, K.G., P.C., G.C.B., C.H., D.S.O.: Memoirs (Heinemann, London, 1960). Jenkins, Roy: Asquith (Collins, London, 1964). Kennedy, Captain Malcolm D., O.B.E.: The Estrangement of Great Britain and Japan 1917-35 (Manchester University Press, 1969). Magnus, Philip: King Edward the Seventh (John Murray, London, 1964). Martelli, George: Italy Against the World (Chatto & Windus, London, 1937). Middlemas, Keith: Diplomacy of Illusion: The British Government and Germany, 1937-39 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1972). Moorehead, Alan: Gallipoli(Hamish Hamilton, London, 1956). Montgomery (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1946). Morris, James: Pax Britannica: The Climax of an Empire (Faber & Faber, London, 1968). Nicolson, Harold: King George the Fifth, His Life and Reign (Con­ stable, London, 1952). Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Northedge, F. S.: The Troubled Giant - Britain Among the Great Powers 1916-1939 (London School of Economics with Bell, London, 1966). Owen, Charles: The Maltese Islands (David & Charles, London, 1969). Owen, David: The Politics of Defence (Jonathan Cape, London, 1972) Owen, Frank: Tempestuous Journey: Lloyd George, His Life and Times (Hutchinson, London, 1954). Pini, Giorgio and Susmel, Duilio: Mussolini, VUomo e VOpera (Florence, Italy, 1955). 242 No More Heroes Pownall, Lt. General Sir Henry: Diaries, 1933-40, (ed.) Brian Bond (Leo Cooper, London, 1972). Pratt, Sir John T., K.B.E.: War and Politics in China (Jonathan Cape, London, 1943). Reader, W. J.: Architect of Air Power, The Life of the First Viscount Weir of Eastwood, 1877-1959 (Collins, London, 1968). Reed, Bruce and Williams, Geoffrey: Denis Healey, and the Politics of Power (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1971). Riddell, Lord: Lord Riddell’s War Diaries, 1914-1918 (Ivor Nicholson & Watson, London, 1933). Roskill, Stephen: Hankey: Man of Secrets (Collins, London, 1970). Rowse, A. L.: All Souls and Appeasement (Macmillan, London, 1961). Russell, Francis: President Harding, His Life and Times 1865-1923 (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1969). Simon, The Rt. Hon. Viscount: Retrospect (Hutchinson, London, 1952). Skidelsky, Robert: Politicians and the Slump: The Labour Government o f1929-1931 (Macmillan, London, 1967). Sommer, Dudley: Haldane of Cloan: His Life and Times 1856-1928 (Allen & Unwin, London, 1960). Taylor, A. J. P.: English History 1914-1945 (Oxford University Press, 1965). The Origins of the Second World War (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1961). Templewood, Viscount: Nine Troubled Years (Collins, London, 1954). Thompson, Neville: The Anti-Appeasers: Conservative Opposition to Appeasement in the 1930’s (Oxford University Press, 1971). Thomson, Sir J. J.: Recollections and Reflections (Bell, London, 1938). Vansittart, Lord: The Mist Procession (Hutchinson, London, 1958). Whyte, Frederic: The Life of W. T. Stead, Vol. II (Jonathan Cape, London, 1925). Windsor, H.R.H. the Duke of: A King’s Story; Memoirs of H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor, K.G. (Cassell, London, 1951). Wiskemann, Elizabeth: The Rome-Berlin Axis (Collins, London, 1966). Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Young, Kenneth: Arthur James Balfour (Bell, London, 1963).

c. Periodicals and unpublished material

American Historical Review (U.S.A., June 1970): ‘The Royal Navy and the Ethiopian Crisis of 1935-36’ by Arthur Marder. Brassey’s (Naval) Annual (London, 1901, 1915. Annually from 1882), by William Clowes, London. Bibliography 243 British Broadcasting Corporation (Radio 3, London, 17 September 1971): talk between Professor Arthur Marder and A. J. P. Taylor. Cabinet Papers (London, 29 April 1937). Chatfield Papers: By arrangement with Professor A. Temple Patter­ son and Southampton University Library, with Lord Chatfield’s kind permission. Encounter (London, March 1973): ‘A View of the Royal Navy’ by James Morris. Evening Standard (London, 8 November 1935): ‘What the Navy Needs’ by Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty. Frankfurter Zeitung (Germany, 4 October 1935), editorial. Hampshire Telegraph (Portsmouth, May 1971), articles by Captain A. W. Clarke, R.N. Hansard (London, 3 October 1938). Morning Post (London, 19 October 1935), news item. Naval Review (London, quarterly since 1912, for eligible subscribers only). Navy List (London, frequently, an official publication by the Ministry of Defence, Navy). Pacific Historical Review (U.S.A., November 1972): ‘The Influence of History on Sea Power: The Royal Navy and the Lessons of 1914- 1918’ by Arthur Marder. Pink List (London, frequently, an Admiralty record of H.M. ships’ dispositions). Royal College of Defence Studies Course Handbook (1971). Sunday Express (London, 10 September to 15 October 1961), series of articles: ‘Mutiny at Invergordon’ by Tim Carew. Times (London, 29 October 1921, 20 September 1935, 24 November 1936, 20 November 1967,1 August 1972), news and other items. Titford, Commander D. G., R.N.: Aircraft and the Aircraft Carrier (an unpublished paper). Author’s Notes and Recollections: These are based on private letters, press cuttings and souvenirs since 1925; on his journal, part of a ’s daily task, 1933-35; on three volumes of his private diaries, 1937-39; on the drafts of unpublished articles, records and reports, compiled on naval service, 1940-47; and on his records Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 of interviews and visits while writing this book. Index

(Ranks given below are usually the highest reached by the individuals named).

Achates, H.M.S. 168 1914-19 64, 84, 88, 90, 99, Admiralty Interview Board 172, 110,134; including Jutland 40, 196 65, 66, 68, 71, 72; in retirement Agadir crisis 75 137; retrospect 119 Albania, Italian invasion of 152 Beatty, Lady 92, 113 Alexandria 54, 142, 143 Bellerophon, H.M.S. 233 Amethyst, H.M.S. 192 Beresford, Charles, Admiral Anglo-German Naval Treaty Lord, dispute with Fisher 31, 138, 141 42, 53-61, 73, 74 Anglo-Japanese Treaty 100, 103, Bismarck, German warship 135, 104, 107 163, 164, 171, 188 Argus, H.M.S. 115 Boxer Rising 43-8 Ark Royal, H.M.S. 163, 234 Bridgeman, Admiral Sir Francis, Army 32, 47, 76, 81, 120, 141, First Sea Lord 16 155, 172, 195, 198, 200 Britannia, H.M. Yacht 182 Asquith 76, 82, 161 Atlantic Fleet 122, 127, 134 Caprice, H.M.S. 182 Australia, H.M.S. 233 Carson, First Lord 84 Austria, German invasion of 152 Chamberlain, Austen, First Lord 120, 121 Backhouse, Admiral Sir Roger, Chamberlain, Neville 152, 155 First Sea Lord 152, 175 Channel Fleet 57, 58, 60, 81 Baldwin, Stanley 151, 152 Chatfield, Alfred, Admiral of the Balfour, First Lord 83, 84, 102, Fleet Lord, First Sea Lord 30, 111 42, 134, 135, 137-9, 146-52, Barents Sea, Battle of 166-70 153, 154, 175, 189; at Wash­ Barham, H.M.S. 142 ington Conference 102, 105, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Barnacle, Bandmaster 117 107; Government Minister Battenberg, Admiral Prince 154-5; retrospect and attri­ Louis, First Sea Lord 24, 80 butes 134-5, 155-6, 192, 202 Battle of Britain 161, 162 Chesham, Joint Services Staff Beatty, David, Admiral of the College 196 Fleet Lord, First Sea Lord Chief Naval Censor 72 30, 92, 100-19, 120, 148, 151, Chiefs of Staff Committee 112, 189, 192; at Boxer Rising 43, 143,145,147,150,154,155,156 45, 47, 48; as Churchill’s China, Japanese invasion of 152, Naval Assistant 77, 81; afloat 158 Index 245 Churchill: on Beresford 54; Doenitz, Admiral, German Navy during First World War 73; 170 as First Lord 1912-15 24,76-7, Dolphin, H.M.S. 25 79-83, 88; and as Minister of Dowager Empress of China 43,44 Munitions 110; inter-war years Dreadnought, H.M.S. 31, 51, 173, 107, 109, 135, 139, 142, 144, 233 (Appendix D) 151; as First Lord again, 1939- Dreyer, Admiral 126 40 155, 175; as Prime Minister Dryad, H.M.S. 186 161-2, 174, 179 Duff, Assistant to Jellicoe 84 Clemenceau, French statesman Dunkirk 160 48 Collingwood, H.M.S. 233 Eden, Anthony 141 Commander-in-Chief Fleet 26, Edward VII 30, 54, 80, 181 32, 33, 188 Edward VIII 182 convoys, organisation of, First El Alamein, Battle of 166 World War 84, 85; Second Esher, Lord 31, 32, 76, 78, 84 World War 161, 162-3, 166, Ethiopia, war with Italy 140-7, 199 152, 174 County Class Destroyer, day at Excellent, H.M.S. 25, 186 sea in 15-23 Courageous, H.M.S. 149 Falklands, Battle of 82 Crete, retreat from 164 Field, Admiral Sir Frederick, Cunningham, Andrew, Admiral First Sea Lord 119-20, 126 of the Fleet Lord, First Sea First Sea Lord, interview with Lord 30,175-6; early years 43; 27-35 Commander-in-Chief Mediter­ First Sea Lords since 1900, list ranean 163,164 of 230 (Appendix B) Czechoslovakia, German in­ Fisher, Admiral Sir William vasion of 152 (W. W.) 134, 138, 143, 144, 152, 158, 174 Daniels, J, Secretary U.S. Navy Fisher, John (Jacky), Admiral of 96, 100 the Fleet Lord, First Sea Lord Dardanelles campaign 82 24, 30-2, 50-62, 80-3, 88,157, Dartmouth, Britannia R.N. 189; early career 42, 51, 56; College 35-8, 51, 111, 130-2, dispute with Beresford 53-61, 182, 196, 210 73, 74; reaction to Jutland 70, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Defence Committees 75, 76, 111, 71; attributes 31-2, 50, 62, 75, 151 192, 202, 213 Defence, Ministry of 176, 198, Fleet Air Arm 135, 148,151, 152; 200, 201, 229 (Appendix A) formerly R.N.A.S. 79, 110 Defence, Secretary of State for Fletcher, Lt-Com. R. T., M.P. 32, 229 152 Defence Staff, Chief of 32, 177, Formidable, H.M.S. 163 200, 229 Franco-Soviet Pact 138 Defence Studies, Royal College Fuller, Admiral, Second Sea of 195, 196 Lord 126 246 Index Geddes, First Lord 87, 110 Invergordon Mutiny 121-7, 128, General Board, U.S. Navy 96, 130, 133 98, 99 Invincible, H.M.S. 233 George V 24, 80, 101, 112, 118, Iron Duke, H.M.S. 63, 88, 233 141, 181 George VI 182 Jackson, Admiral Sir Henry, Gieves Ltd, naval outfitters 26, First Sea Lord 73, 83, 84 153 Jellicoe, John, Admiral of the Gneisenau, German warship Fleet Lord, First Sea Lord 30, 135, 165 84-7, 110, 157; at Boxer Grand Fleet 66, 67, 72, 73, 81, Rising 43, 45, 46, 48; ashore 82, 84, 88, 89, 90, 91, 99 and afloat to 1916 31, 40, 75, Greece, retreat from 164 81, 82, 83; including Jutland Greenwich, R.N. College 196 63-73; retrospect 88-91 Jolson, A1103 Haig, Field-Marshal Earl 86, 87 Jutland, Battle of 40, 63-74, 84, Hankey, Lord 71, 84, 85, 112, 88-91, 146, 159, 233 155 JW 51B convoy 167 Harding, U.S. President 102,103, 104 Kaiser, the 49, 50, 93 Harmsworths, newspaper pro­ Kelly, Admiral Sir John 128 prietors 42 Keppel, H.M.S. 182 Harwich 42, 81, 212 Keyes, Roger, Admiral of the High Seas Fleet, German 70, Fleet Lord: at Boxer Rising 72 43, 46, 48; Commander-in- Hipper, German warship 167,170 Chief Mediterranean 116-19; Hitler 139, 140, 144, 146, 147, other tasks 112, 151 162, 170 King, E. J., Fleet Admiral U.S. Hoare, Foreign Secretary 143, Navy 174 146; First Lord 151 Kipling, Rudyard 42 Hodges, Admiral 122 Kitchener 81 Home Command 189 192 Home Fleet 31, 58, 60, 141, 164, 189 Laval, French Foreign Minister Hood, H.M.S. 164 146 House of Commons 125, 139 League of Nations 100,102, 107, Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 House of Lords 151 109, 133, 141, 142, 144, 145, Hughes, U.S. Secretary of State 146, 147 102, 104, 105 Lee, First Lord 102 Lloyd George 84, 85, 86, 87, 109, Illustrious, H.M.S. 163 161 Indefatigable, H.M.S. 42, 233 Locarno Treaty 109 Indomitable, H.M.S. 233 Lucia, H.M.S. 120 Inflexible, H.M.S. 233 Lutzow, German warship 167 Inskip, Government Minister 151, 152, 154 Macmillan, Harold 191 Index 247 Madden, Admiral of the Fleet Palestine campaign 192 Sir Charles, First Sea Lord Pax Britannica 27, 44, 78 119-20 Pearl Harbor 163, 173 Maginot Line 160 Pedestal convoy 166 Mahan, Admiral Alfred T., U.S. Peking 44, 45, 47, 158 Navy 93, 94, 206 Poland, German invasion of 152 Malta 56,114,117,141,142,143, Polaris submarine 202, 234 154,160; siege 164,165,166 Portland 19, 20, 59, 154 Management, British Institute of Portsmouth 15, 26, 43, 52, 122, 210 154, 208, 212 Manchuria, Japanese invasion of Pound, Admiral of the Fleet 133 Sir Dudley, First Sea Lord Matapan, Battle of 163, 164 30, 42, 152, 174-5 May Committee 120 Prince Charles 182 McKenna, First Lord 30, 60, 61, Prince of Wales, H.M.S. 165 76 Prince Philip 182 Mediterranean Fleet 42, 54, 56, Principal Warfare Officer 186, 57, 116, 134, 141, 143, 158 190 Midway, Battle of 165, 173 PQ 17 convoy 165, 188 Mountbatten, Louis, Admiral of the Fleet Earl, First Sea Lord Queen Elizabeth, H.M.S. 65, 233 30, 43, 176-7 Queen, H.M. the 182 Munich crisis 139, 152 Queen Victoria 48 Mussolini 138; designs on radar, development of 135, 159, Ethiopia 140-6 178-9 Raeder, Admiral, German Navy NATO 20, 33-4, 192, 196, 205-7, 170 208, 231-2 (Appendix C), 234 Ramillies, H.M.S. 56 Naval Staff, Chief of 73, 84, 188 Ramsay, Admiral 114 Navy League 42, 210, 211, 212; Repulse, H.M.S. 165 of U.S. 96, 98, 99, 100 Revenge, H.M.S. 40 Navy Weeks 137; Days 212 Rhineland, German reoccupa­ Nelson 23, 31, 38, 53, 58, 70, 75, tion of 139, 146-7 88, 100, 119, 175 Roosevelt, F. D. 162, 174 Neutrality Act (U.S.) 147 Roosevelt, Theodore 95,100,107 New Zealand, H.M.S. 233 Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Rosyth 71, 90, 154 Norman, Henry 42 Royal Air Force 32, 120, 141, Normandy invasions 159, 171 155,161, 193, 195, 198; forma­ Northwood 33, 34, 231, 232 tion 109—10; rivalry with Norway, evacuation from 160 Royal Navy over naval avia­ tion 110-12,135,148-9,151-2, Obdurate, H.M.S. 167 158, 193; expendability 198— Ohio, tanker 166 200 Oliver, Admiral Sir Henry 73, 84 Royal Marines 190 Onslow, H.M.S. 169 Royal Naval Air Service 79, 110 Overlord 171, 173 Royal Oak, H.M.S. 117-18 248 Index Royal reviews 24, 141, 152 Tirpitz, German Navy Minister Russian Navy, expansion of 206, 49-50 208 Tirpitz, German warship 167 Tomkinson, Admiral 122, 124, Scapa 40, 72, 87, 90, 91,110, 212 126 Scharnhorst, German warship Trafalgar, Battle of 23, 30, 42, 135, 165, 167 63, 70, 180 Schwab, U.S. industrialist 96 Trenchard 110, 111, 112, 149 Scott, Admiral Sir Percy 47, 51, Tweedmouth, First Lord 30, 58 79, 95 Tyrwhitt, Admiral of the Fleet Second Sea Lord 51, 186, 187 Sir Reginald 42 Selborne, First Lord 30, 51, 56 Seymour, Admiral Sir Edward U-boats, First World War 69, 44-7 70, 84, 85, 86, 87, 98, 99; Sherbrooke, Rupert, Rear- Second World War 157, 159, Admiral 170 161, 162, 165, 166, 167, 170, Sims, William, Admiral U.S. 171, 179, 193, 199 Navy 87, 95 United Nations 191 Singapore 108, 109, 134, 154, United States Navy 79, 92-101, 158, 159, 165 104, 110, 114, 164, 205, 235 Skua naval aircraft 149 Smuts, General 109 Vanguard, H.M.S. 233 South African War 40, 43, 47, Vernon, H.M.S. 25, 186 48 Victory, H.M.S. 15, 25 Spanish-American War 93, 94 Spanish Civil War 148, 152, 158 Walpole, H.M.S. 115 Spithead 23, 24, 141, 152 Washington Conference 101-8, Stalingrad, Battle of 165, 166 134 Stanhope, Lord 121 Weir, Lord, government adviser Stresa agreement 138, 140, 146 149-52 St Vincent, H.M.S. 233 Wemyss, Wester, Admiral of the Suez Canal 78, 142, 144, 154, Fleet Lord, First Sea Lord 160 40, 53, 85, 87 Superb, H.M.S. 233 Westcott, H.M.S. 158 Swordfish, naval aircraft 149,163 Wilson, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur, First Sea Lord Downloaded by [New York University] at 04:26 01 October 2016 Taranto, Battle of 163 73, 74-6, 128 Temeraire, H.M.S. 233 Wilson, Woodrow 102 Terrible, H.M.S. 47 Wrens 177, 183, 185, 186-7