Changing Direction: British Military Planning for Post-War Strategic Defence, 1942–1947
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CHANGING DIRECTION British Military Planning for Post-war Strategic Defence, 1942–1947 ‘It is easy to criticise peaceful democracies for their habitual lack of preparedness when a war breaks out, but it is only fair to recognise that the dice are loaded against them. Dictators, bent on aggression, …are masters of their own time-table. They are free to decide when to strike, where to strike, and how to strike, and to arrange their armament programmes accordingly. Their potential victims, the democracies, with their inherent hatred of war, …do not know when or where the blow will fall, or what manner of blow it will be.’ Lord Ismay, Memoirs, p. 81 ii First hypothetical grouping of Soviet cities for an atomic attack, drawn up in April 1946. (See Chapter 5, pp. 228–30, DEFE 2/1252: TWC (46) 14, 13 April 1946) CHANGING DIRECTION British Military Planning for Post- war Strategic Defence, 1942–1947 Second edition Julian Lewis FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR First published by The Sherwood Press, 1988 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” This edition published in 2003 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side, Southgate London N14 5BP and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS, 5824 N.E.Hassalo Street Portland, Oregon, 97213–3644 Website: www.frankcass.com Copyright © 1988, 2003 Julian Lewis British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Lewis, Julian, 1951– Changing direction: British military planning for post-war strategic defence, 1942–1947. –2nd ed. 1. World War, 1939–1945—Equipment and supplies 2. Nuclear weapons—History 3. Great Britain—Military policy I. Title 355′.033541′09044 ISBN 0-203-49588-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-58193-8 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-7146-5399-3 (Print Edition) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lewis, Julian, 1951– Changing direction: British military planning for post-war strategic defence, 1942–1947/ Julian Lewis.—2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7146-5399-3 1. Great Britain—Military policy—History—20th century. 2. Great Britain—Defenses—History—20th century. 3. Great Britain—History, Military—20th century. 4. World War, 1939–1945—Great Britain. 5. World War, 1939–1945– Influence. 1. Title DA69 .L49 2002 355.′033541′09044–dc21 2002041144 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book. To Pamela, Nina, Jenny and Françoise CONTENTS Note on formerly withheld documents viii List of plates and maps ix Foreword by the late Professor R.V.Jones xi Acknowledgements xiv Abbreviations xv Preface to the first edition xvii Introduction to the second edition xix 1 The Foreign Office Origins of Post-war Strategic 1 Planning 1942 2 The Military Sub-Committee 1942–43 17 3 The Post-Hostilities Planning Sub-Committee 1943– 55 44 4 The Post-Hostilities Planning Staff 1944–45 98 5 The Joint Technical Warfare Committee and the 178 Future Nature of Warfare 1945–46 6 The Joint Planning Staff and an Approved Defence 242 Strategy 1945–47 Conclusions 335 Appendix 1 Principal Figures in British Military Planning, 1942– 340 47 Appendix 2 Directives to Specialised Post-war Planning Bodies, 345 1942–44 Appendix 3 C.O.S. Attitudes to the Soviet Union in 1944 349 Appendix 4 Revision of the Tizard Report, January 1946 354 vii Appendix 5 Revision of the Tizard Report, April 1946 357 Appendix 6 Foreign Office Views on the World Situation, 1946 359 Appendix 7 The Overall Strategic Plan, May 1947 371 Appendix 8 Churchill and Biological Warfare, 1944 390 Sources 411 References 416 Index 448 NOTE ON FORMERLY WITHHELD DOCUMENTS Listed below are the principal files in which were contained copies of almost all the previously ‘closed’ or ‘retained’ documents cited in footnotes to Chapters 5 and 6, and in the Appendices of the first edition of Changing Direction. Chapter 5: The Joint Technical Warfare Committee and the Future Nature of Warfare 1945–46 AIR 8/1004 Footnote 64 DEFE 2/1251 Footnotes 9–11, 18, 34, 36–8, 40–2, 49, 51, 62, 76, 79, 80, 84, 86 DEFE 2/1252 Footnotes 63, 77–8, 82, 93–5, 97, 99–101, 103 (also Frontispiece & Map on p. 231), 104, 110, 112, 114 DEFE 2/1348 Footnote 87 Chapter 6: The Joint Planning Staff and an Approved Defence Strategy 1945–47 AIR 8/1446 Footnotes 108, 110, 111 AIR 20/2740 Footnotes 112–5 CAB 21/2086 Footnotes 35, 36, 80, 81, 83, 85 CAB 21/2096 Footnotes 60–2, 147, 149, 150, 155–7, 159 FO 371/57315 Footnote 120 (in folio U2930/2930/70) Appendices CAB 21/2096 Source for Appendix 7 DEFE 2/1252 Source for Appendices 4 & 5 FO 371/57315 Source for Appendix 6 (ii) (in folio U2930/2930/70) LIST OF PLATES Between pp. 206–7 Nigel Ronald [NPG]; Sir Alexander Cadogan [NPG]; Sir Orme Sargent [NPG]; Christopher Warner [GA] Colonel Oliver Stanley [NPG]; Brigadier Guy Stewart [NPG]; H.M. Gladwyn Jebb [Lord Gladwyn]; William Cavendish-Bentinck [Duke of Portland] Members of the War Office General Staff on V.E.-Day [Brigadier F.C. Curtis]; Colonel Arthur Cornwall-Jones [NPG] Sir Henry Tizard [GA]; Professor Sir George Thomson [GA]; Professor Patrick Blackett [GA]; Professor Desmond Bernal [PL] Major-General Gordon MacMillan [NPG]; Rear-Admiral Robert Oliver [NPG]; Dr Henry Hulme [H.R.Hulme]; Dr Paul Fildes [NPG] Churchill and the Chiefs of Staff in 1945 [IWM]; Admiral Sir John Cunningham [NPG]; Marshal of the R.A.F.Sir Arthur Tedder [NPG] Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery [NPG]; Vice-Admiral Sir Rhoderick McGrigor [NPG]; Air Marshal Sir William Dickson [IWM] Brigadier Charles Richardson [IWM]; Acting Rear-Admiral Charles Lambe [NPG]; Group Captain Edmund Hudleston with Sir Arthur Tedder [IWM] Assistance in picture research and permission to reproduce copyright photographs is gratefully acknowledged in respect of: The Duke of Portland; Lord Gladwyn; General Sir Charles Richardson; Brigadier and Mrs Francis Curtis; Dr H.R.Hulme; Mr Sebastian Best of Godfrey Argent Photographers [GA]; Mr David Chandler of the National Portrait Gallery, London [NPG]; Imperial War Museum [IWM]; Peter Lofts Photography [PL]; and the librarian of the Royal Society. (Note: Military ranks ascribed to serving officers in picture captions are those held at the time of events referred to in the text, and thus do not always exactly correspond to the ranks indicated on the uniforms in individual photographs.) LIST OF MAPS Page First hypothetical grouping of Soviet cities for an atomic frontispi ece attack, drawn up in April 1946 Targets for a hypothetical Soviet atomic attack on the United 23 2 Kingdom, April 1946 Vulnerability of the United Kingdom to air attack, June 1946 280 World map used in strategic planning, 1942–47 between 334 and 335 FOREWORD The late Professor R.V.Jones FRS, Head of Scientific Intelligence, Air Ministry, 1939–1946 The desperate situation of Britain in 1940 demanded every effort, both national and individual, if we were to survive: and those of us who were most involved became conditioned to thinking of almost nothing but the war until it was won. We did not regard too kindly those who were less involved and who turned their energies, prematurely we thought, to post-war planning. ‘Every time the fortunes of war turn in our favour,’ I wrote after Alamein, ‘up springs a crop of post-war planners’, although also suggesting that as soon as we could confidently foresee the defeat of Germany some of the best of our colleagues should be released to think about post-war policy. Dr Lewis has written a scrupulous and lucid account of strategic planning for the defence of British interests at the highest level—that of the Chiefs of Staff. There the same factors were at work as those that I encountered at my lower level, and even earlier: the first proposals for post-war strategic planning came from the Foreign Office, a body less immediately involved than the Chiefs with military operations. We can sympathise with the Chiefs who, while agreeing in principle, stated on 26 February 1942 that ‘such problems must of necessity take a relatively low priority in the work of the Joint Planning Staff’. Since Benghazi had fallen only a month before, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had sailed up the Channel in the past fortnight, and Singapore had surrendered only nine days ago, the Chiefs could hardly be expected to enthuse. Churchill pungently shared their distrust: ‘I hope that these speculative studies will be entrusted mainly to those on whose hands time hangs heavy.’ Although some progress was made in the following months it was difficult for the preoccupied Chiefs to contemplate a world in which they might have to co-operate in a Combined Chiefs organisation including Russia and China, or even a military staff based on a United Nations. As the Chief of the Air Staff, Portal, whimsically commented in February 1944, ‘the sensible thing to do would be to appoint our successors now xii and tell them to go on winning the peace while we go on winning the war’. On the political side the planners had much to argue about; Germany and Japan must be neutralised as military powers, warm and close relations with the United States—essential as these were—should not push us too much into a back seat, the Commonwealth should be safeguarded and developed, a balance in the Middle East struck and Russian expansionism opposed.