The ‘109 flicked into a starboard bank hoping to entice him into a turning fight and he took the bait because he had enough velocity to stand the Sea Hurricane on a wingtip and turn inside the slower moving German. Now he was practically on top of the enemy aircraft and it seemed to fill the whole windscreen. He pressed the firing button and saw his bullets shred the aircraft’s tail, slam into the fuselage and throw chunks of metal outward. Suddenly smoke was pouring from the engine and he could see the stroboscopic effect as the ‘109s propeller slowed.
He eased the throttle back and pushed the stick over to the left. The Sea Hurricane straightened and he watched the stricken Messerschmitt roll slowly onto its back as fire streamed from its underbelly. He saw it hit the sea, saw pieces of it go spinning in all directions. He felt a sudden heady exultation that overwhelmed him for a moment until it was crowded from his mind by a wave of nausea as the realisation struck him that he had just killed another human being.
He dragged his eyes away from the patch of disturbed water where the ‘109 had gone in and as he climbed he looked around. The air was full of the black smudges of ack-ack and there, about three miles away, was the Graf Zeppelin. She was stopped and settling. Tongues of flame licked upward through her after lift well and smoke poured out of her superstructure. Even as he watched a great column of water rose from her port side as a torpedo found her. She was dying, but her shroud was a sparkling web of tracer and bursting shells setting light to the dark cloudy sky, lacing it with a mesh of fire.
The crew of Courageous were lining the catwalk and cheering as they landed, but the day was far from over. Only eleven aircraft came back; three Albacores, four Sea Hurricanes and four Skuas. They kept two Skuas and two Sea Hurricanes on standing patrol and the rest ready to scramble. They scrambled five times that afternoon. German snoopers came over in ones and twos and then a full size raid of twenty Junkers 88s bombing from altitude, too high for accurate aiming and too quick for the British fighters to catch.
So often did Courageous have to turn into the wind to launch or recover her dwindling air group that she became detached from the rest of the squadron. At 19:00 that evening they received the terrible news that Algerie and Martel had been torpedoed by a submarine and sunk. It fell like a blow, bursting the bubble of elation that had borne them up after the events of the morning.
Two more Sea Hurricanes were lost, one to defensive fire from a German Focke-Wulf 200 patrol aircraft, another because her engine failed as she was launched. Neither pilot was recovered. At 23:15, after patrolling for three hours, Leighton and his wingman bought their fighters back to land for what they thought must be the last time that day. The ship was scurrying for home, but he had not even undone his straps when the order came to scramble again.
It was a Heinkel 111 bomber this time. It broke away almost as soon as the Sea Hurricanes launched, but they gave chase at full power, climbing to an attacking position behind and underneath it. Leighton fired a long burst at six hundred yards and missed. His wingman closed to four hundred yards and also let go a long burst, also to no effect. The Heinkel 111 began to jink and sideslip to throw off their aim, they fired again and again, expending all their ammunition and even saw bullets strike the bomber, but it flew on in spite of them. Disgusted they turned for home and it was only then he realised that he was practically out of fuel.
*
The aircraft is gliding fairly comfortably, though the weight of the now useless engine tends to pull the nose downward and he needs to give it a little stick to keep the port wing up. There is a jagged hole in the dragging wing close in by the root, the ‘111 must have returned fire. He is losing height at four hundred feet per minute, but Courageous’ deck is very close. He looks out over the right side of the cockpit and drops flaps and undercarriage just as he loses sight of the edge of the flight deck beneath his starboard wing. The ship is rushing up at him; he waits a second, then pulls the stick into his stomach to lift the aircraft’s nose. He feels it lurch downwards as he stalls, the Sea Hurricane slams heavily into the flight deck and rolls forward until the force of the wind coming over the bow brings it to a stop nearly level with the island superstructure. As the crew push the aircraft towards the forward lift, be clambers down onto the wing and half falls onto the deck. They help him up with friendly words and slaps on the back, his knees have turned to jelly and the wind is tearing across from the bows sending splinters of spray into his face. He walks to the door into the island, where Lieutenant Commander Higgins is waiting for him, smiling. He says: “Well after that landing I don’t know if I should make you fill out Form A 25 or not.” Leighton is so weary that he can only manage the faintest of grins at this joke. A 25 is the crash form.
He cuts through the almost empty hanger to reach his cabin, his feet like lead on the companionway steps, for some reason he wants to look at his aircraft. It has already been struck down into the hanger and the fitters are beginning to work on her damage, rearm and refuel her. Petty Officer Dent is looking at the hole in her wing root.
“Another job I’m afraid chief.”
“Never mind sir, at least she bought you home.”
“Yes, yes she did.” He pauses thoughtfully for a moment then goes below to his stuffy cabin, he takes off his ‘Mae West’ life jacket and his flying boots, lies down in his clothes and does not wake for eleven hours.
CHAPTER 7: THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1932
From ‘A Concise History of British Politics’ by Tom Shaed, Gloucester University Press, 2007
Perhaps inevitably, it was the issue of economic protection that finished Baldwin’s government. The coalition collapsed in June after a series of by elections bought the tariff issue to the forefront of the public consciousness. It was impelled there by the newspapers. Lord Beaverbrook, the Canadian born owner of the Daily Express and The Evening Standard had cooled towards Baldwin and, despite his misgivings about the Left of the Labour Party, had formed a positive opinion of Mosley. He particularly liked the prime minister’s support of economic ‘insulation’ within the Empire.
Beaverbrook had met Mosley in May and the newspaper tycoon’s reservations about the Labour Party were ameliorated. Like many within the party itself, he realised that Moseley had completely changed its direction. Mosley too had been compelled to change an opinion after the meeting with Beaverbrook. Where before he had regarded the press with suspicion, he now realised that he had prospective allies in Fleet Street. Later in the month he met with Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail. Although the two men didn’t get on well personally, Rothermere found Mosley’s appreciation of the Empire very much in tune with his own and there was a pronounced change in the way the Labour Party was represented in British journalism. [36] Previously it had been seen as a party close to the lunatic fringe, now it was made to look main-stream.
The election campaign of 1932 was brief and rancorous, but it proved decisive; economic protection was its main issue. The two largest parties in the house, Labour and the Conservatives, both understood that an absolute majority was crucial for the survival of any new administration the election might bring about. Baldwin, freed from his coalition with the Liberals, promoted a policy of Imperial Preference, but his previous stance had damaged his reputation in the eyes of the protectionists and none of the factions within his party could be said to trust him.
Mosley relished another campaign. His unremitting vitality exhausted his assistants, and on the hustings he continued to stress the need for a clean break with the past and the revitalisation of the British state. His message resonated with working-class Tories who supported protection; but in the end it was their discord over free trade that propelled the swing away from the Conservatives and Liberals and saw the first majority Labour government take power. Mosley’s rallying cries of patriotism, economic ‘insulation’ and social reform had paid off. The results were as follows:
Labour: 317 (+68)
Conservative: 245 (–44)
Liberal: 22
(–11)
National Liberal: 18 (–17)
Independent Liberal: 1 (–3)
Others: 12 (+7)
*
In its first year in office, the Labour Government increased taxes, set in motion policies that would encourage the City of London’s financiers to invest more in Britain and the Empire, and put in hand a range of public works including modernisation of the UK telephone system, a substantial programme of motorway building and increased expenditure on the Armed Forces. The centre piece of economic policy, however, was signalled by the passage of the Import Duties Bill. This created new tariffs on imports and signalled Britain’s new stance on the protection issue to the Dominions. It was timed to come into law immediately prior to the Empire Economic Conference to be held in Ottawa. [37] The legislation sailed through parliament with little difficulty, impelled both by the general sense of crisis and a large degree of support from the Tory backbenches.
Mosley knew that the changes set out in the bill were not as far-reaching as his party desired and he stayed in London to oversee the formation of the new government while the Chancellor, Hugh Dalton, travelled to Ottawa in August.
The negotiations were reasonably successful. Mosley visited the conference briefly a few days after its start and made a significant impact with the other Commonwealth leaders. The contrast with his predecessor was stark – and refreshing – but the dour Dalton certainly drove a harder bargain than they were expecting. Overall the result was fair and foreshadowed the much tighter trading bloc the Sterling area evolved into in the different circumstances of 1941 to 1945.
The tariff established at Ottawa protected British farmers from Dominion as well as foreign competition and Britain made roughly equal trade concessions to the Dominions compared to those she received in return. For the British this safeguarded the value of exports to the Dominions (including Canada, which received the benefit of empire status without being a member of the Sterling bloc). These remained at roughly their 1925-29 level until 1939. In the same period, net imports as a whole fell sharply, while net imports from the Dominions rose slightly. Trade with India and the crown colonies experienced a similar trend. Exports from Britain to the Dominions rose by about 10%, whereas the concessions she made may have added 7% to her imports from the Dominions. Britain’s balance of trade deficit with her empire widened slightly. The downside was that the UK had to give up some of the benefits of trade with other countries in the Sterling area that were not within the empire such as Argentina, Estonia and Denmark. Although the Imperial Free Trade Area desired by the British proved unattainable, the British negotiators made a deal that could be seen as a success for the Imperial ideal. [38]
From ‘The The British Empire from 1914 to 1948’ by Ian Shaw, Longacre 2005
The Labour government elected in 1932 enjoyed a remarkably smooth run in its first months in office. The one hiccup in this period was the cancellation of the D’Arcy Concession by the government of Iran. This was announced by the Shah of Iran on 27th November 1932 and caused dismay in both the Foreign Office and the offices of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Because of the recession, royalties paid by Anglo-Iranian to the Iranian Government had been falling and this bought to a head several matters that caused Iranian pride some offence. Too few Iranians were employed by the company in senior positions; oil was sold to the British Admiralty at a discounted rate; the Iranian Government were kept ignorant of the Company’s accounts making their true profits unknowable. This last issue meant that the Iranian Government could neither confirm nor dismiss its suspicions concerning the methods by which profits and royalties were calculated. In short, Reza Shah believed that he was getting a raw deal.
The D’Arcy Oil Concession agreement stated clearly that Anglo-Iranian were supposed to pay Iran an annual royalty of 16% of the company’s net profits. However, they did not include profits made by subsidiary companies owned by Anglo-Iranian, profits that the Shah believed he was entitled to a share of. Furthermore it was known that they paid almost twice as much to the British government in taxes.
None of this mattered to Britain’s new Prime Minister, who saw the dispute not in terms of commerce, but as an opportunity to assert Britain’s moral right on the world stage, announce his arrival in international diplomacy and bring a recalcitrant British puppet into line. Reza Shah had revoked Imperial Airways concession to fly in Persian airspace the previous year, giving it instead to Lufthansa. If one of Britain’s client states could simply renege on its agreements with British companies, it was clearly damaging to British prestige and others might be tempted to follow suit. He was also livid at the ingratitude displayed by Reza Shah who had been installed on his throne by the British only 11 years previously. Unsurprisingly, he sent a gunboat. In fact he sent two; the cruiser HMS Devonshire and an aircraft carrier, HMS Furious.
The cruiser moored at the tiny British colony of Bushire which was the location of the British Persian Gulf Residency, an outpost of the Indian Raj that looked after British interests in the region. Meanwhile the carrier continued on up the Persian Gulf so that its aircraft could demonstrate British resolve by overflying the oil refinery at Abadan on 20th December. The following day, a flight of six Blackburn Ripon aircraft overflew Tehran dropping leaflets and flying low over the Shah’s palace, a round trip of 850 miles that took eight hours. The implications were unmistakable.
Britain’s ambassador in Tehran, Sir Reginald Hoare, acting on Mosley’s instructions, went to see Shah Reza the following day. He gave the Shah to understand that while the British would consider a re-negotiation of the Concession it had to be realised that Anglo-Iranian invested millions of pounds in expanding its operation in Iran. Furthermore, even larger sums were spent in developing new sources of supply in Iran and in constructing pipelines, tankers, refineries and storage facilities throughout the world to market, process and distribute Iranian oil. In addition to this, Iranian security was guaranteed by the British presence in the Gulf and in India. In short, Reza Shah was getting a bargain and had better conform to British expectations or face the consequences.
Suitably cowed, the Shah agreed and the concession was renegotiated the following year with terms slightly more favourable to Anglo-Iranian than before. The upturn in the world economy ensured that more oil was purchased and the revenues of the Iranian Government from oil were buoyed. The British hoped this might ameliorate any lingering annoyance from this rough treatment; however, unbeknown to the British, the Shah harboured significant resentments and began incremental improvements to Iran’s ramshackle armed forces. [39]
This minor international crisis gave way to one of much greater significance in the spring of 1933. The newly elected National-Socialist government in Germany wrecked the Geneva disarmament conference with its assertion that it had decided to enlarge its military unless other countries were disarmed to the level set for Germany in the Treaty of Versailles. This was completely unacceptable to the French but the British saw it as an opportunity to press for general disarmament and consequently endorsed the German proposal. [40] This annoyed the French and was not the outcome the Germans were looking for. They pulled out of the talks in June and declined invitations to return.
From ‘A Concise History of British Politics’ by Tom Shaed, Gloucester University Press, 2007
It was realised immediately in Britain that the German attitude to disarmament, as demonstrated at the Geneva conference, signalled a more aggressive approach to foreign relations from Berlin. There was also concern in Britain at the Mosley government’s apparent weakness in the face of this more robust German policy. The Prime Minister was forced to realise that a political strategy that pursued disarmament would not work. It was not merely Germany that troubled him, both Japan and the Soviet Union were aggressive, acquisitive states whose territories were adjacent to those of the British Empire. From this flowed the conclusion that the British armed forces, which had declined in strength and effectiveness since the Great War, must
now be built up again. This certainly went well with the programme of public works the government was pursuing. Increased spending on the military must inevitably lead to more employment, but the reaction of the pacifist element in the Labour Party was wholly negative. The new policy bought into sharp focus the fact that Mosley had radically changed the Party’s direction.
The Labour left had always been fractious and cherished their image as being political outsiders and guardians of the Party’s soul. They were as likely to attack the Labour leadership as they were to attack the Tories. They tried to trap Mosley with the disarmament issue, but the press and public were becoming progressively more alarmed by both the belligerent character of the new regime in Berlin and reports of Japanese aggression in the Far East.
Mosley met with Mussolini during the Austrian emergency of 1934 and helped draft the Three Power Statement of 17th February 1934 where France, Britain and Italy avowed their shared view that Austria should remain independent. This was directed at Germany and constituted a warning to Hitler not to interfere in the affairs of Austria.
From ‘The Rule of the Waves’ by Michael Fanshaw, Twelvemonth 1963
The Austrian emergency was over by the beginning of March 1934, but in April a new crisis arose when the London Naval Disarmament Conference collapsed. This had been talks designed to extend the limits on naval expansion set by the Washington Treaty of 1922. They had convened at the height of the commotion in naval circles caused by the reconstruction of the Russian battleship Frunze (See Appendices) and her subsequent reclassification as a battle cruiser. In addition to this, there was the announcement of the construction of two new capital ships in Japan (one of which was subsequently cancelled) and the plans announced in Germany for the construction of a second ‘Panzerschiff’ (armoured ship), much larger than the first. Plans for the new construction of capital ships were also well in hand in France, Italy and (it was believed) the Soviet Union.
The Peace of Amiens Page 7
